HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Citizen-Blyth Festival 2000, 2000-06-21, Page 45BLYTH FESTIVAL SALUTE, WEDNESDAY, JUNE 21, 2000. PAGE 21.
Shawn Kerwin has husy season with 2 shows to design
By Mark Nonkes
Freelance Writer
Designer Shawn Kerwin says
people have to bring their
imagination to the theatre.
“As we get more and more
surrounded by virtual TV and virtual
reality, to be able to have
experiences that are live and in front
of you and use your imagination are
very important.’’
Kerwin is the set and costume
designer for Anne and The Drawer
Boy. She said the designs are simple
but she hopes they will be effective.
As a teenager Kerwin sewed her
own clothes in high school and
designed costumes for school plays.
“I wanted to do costume design
because I thought it would be a good
way to learn about history because I
think I thought everybody would be
dressed up as Greeks,’’ she smiled.
In the early days of The Factory
Theatre in Toronto, Kerwin designed
costumes. She then went to England
and studied design.
Kerwin came back to Canada in
1977 and came to the Blyth Festival
that summer.
“I thought it was the end of the
world at first,’’ she laughed.
When she came to Blyth, the
festival had no dressing rooms and
the sets were built on the stage.
Kerwin recalls opening a wardrobe
in the upstairs of the building where
the municipal office is located.
“When I came it was a room that
hadn’t been opened up since the end
of the war.”
Kerwin spent three days cleaning
up the dust and mess of the room.
“There wasn't much compared to
what there is now,” she said,
marvelling at the festival's large,
well equipped shops of today.
Kerwin is an honorary artist at
the festival but never assumes she
will be asked back.
“I keep coming back because I
get asked back . . . when you get
asked you go, ‘sure, thank-you'. . .
It’s very nice to be asked back.”
For Kerwin the thing she enjoys
the most about designing is creating
worlds from scratch and bringing
them to the stage.
“I think it’s a secret god
complex,” she smiled.
Over the winter Kerwin designed
an opera in Victoria, B.C., The
Przybylski, Manson have a record
of working well together on shows
Teresa Przybylski
Designer Teresa Przybylski is no
stranger to the work of the Corker
director. Przybylski and director
Ross Manson have worked together
on several shows before.
Przybylski was nominated for a
Dora award, the Toronto theatre
awards, for outstanding set design on
Building Jerusalem which Manson
directed this winter.
“We both know how we work. . .
we like and respect each other,” she
said.
Przybylski is the set and costume
designer for Corker, a story set in
Nova Scotia. Przybylski said the set
for Corker is not quite realistic.
-“It’s a room that fits in a very
open landscape with the sense of the
sea and the forces of nature.”
Przybylski said she likes to work
on new Canadian works and loves
the entire process of designing.
Working on a project usually
takes Przybylski three to six months,
but not full time.
“I like the moment in the theatre
after all the hard work is done...and
the audience is engaged.”
This is Przybylski’s second
season with the Blyth Festival. Last
year she designed the set and
costumes for Big Box.
Przybylski grew up in Poland and
studied architecture in university.
After graduating she studied theatre
design.
She moved to Canada 17 years
ago but for the first five years she
worked as an architect.
“I needed time to understand the
people and the country.”
Over the last 12 years Przybylski
has worked exclusively as a set and
costume designer.
She has worked in most Toronto
theatres and been awarded three
Dora awards for best set design. —
MN
Glace Bay Miners Museum at
Factory Theatre and Heaven at
Shawn Kerwin
Canadian Stage both in Toronto.
She also teaches design at York
University. ’
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Moving ‘Reaper’ to main stage a challenge
Designer Deeter Schurig is
looking forward to having When the
Reaper Calls playing on the festival
main stage.
Schurig said he is honoured to be
in the same company of
experienced designers, as Anne and
The Drawer Boy designer Shawn
Kerwin and Corker designer Teresa
Przybylski, who have worked on the
same stage.
“To work in the same venue and
space as them, that’s just exciting.”
When the Reaper Calls is one of
the first shows Schurig has worked
on as designer.
“It’s definitely exciting my show
is getting remounted,” he said in a
phone interview.
Schurig said it will be more
difficult to get the eerie feeling of a
cabin in a West Coast rain forest on
the main stage than it was in The
Garage.
“It may be much more contained
... the haunting feeling of the West
Coast with the fog and the rain forest
and the moss.”
Last year Schurig said he was
happy to make his first appearance
in Blyth with Eric Coates’ directing
debut.
“Blyth is fabulous, it’s a great
place to work,” he said
enthusiastically.
Schurig grew up in Calgary and
moved to Toronto in 1992 to study
acting at York University. He soon
realized he wanted to become a
designer and when he graduated in
1996 he went on a “working
holiday” to London, England.
In London, he was the assistant
designer on an Andrew Lloyd Weber
musical. After two years in England
he moved back to Canada.
Since then he has worked as an
assistant designer for the Stratford
Festival, Soulpepper and a New York
musical.
“You never have a boring day,”
he laughed.
Currently he is working as an
assistant designer for two shows at
The Shaw Festival. — MN
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