Young Burnaby residents are part of the fun when Arts Umbrella’s Expressions Theatre Festival hits the stage in Vancouver.
The festival is onstage May 17 to 26 at the Waterfront Theatre on Granville Island.
It features young talent from Arts Umbrella’s intensive, pre-professional and theatre conservatory programs in a range of plays that run the gamut from whimsical family fun to a modern take on a classic Greek tragedy.
Sewit Haile, 14, is one of the Burnaby talents in the festival, featured as Violet Beauregarde in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Eighteen-year-old Ace Crowchild is featured in the classic Rodgers and Hammerstein musical Oklahoma! as Ali Hakim and Slim. Ace also plays Hansel in Missing, Charles Way’s modern interpretation of the classic fairy tale Hansel and Gretel.
“The young and exceptionally talented assemblage of Expressions Theatre Festival students never fail to inspire with their courage, passion and devotion to their craft,” says Paul Moniz de Sá, artistic director of the theatre and music program at Arts Umbrella. “Their dauntless enthusiasm is contagious.”
The festival lineup also includes a modern take on Euripides’ classic Greek tragedy The Phoenician Women and Outside In, a work created and performed by Arts Umbrella’s Laboratory Theatre Troupe, plus a theatre and music showcase by students.
Tickets for the productions start at $15. Check out artsumbrella.com/expressionstheatre.
