Realwheels Theatre

Real People, Real Stories, Wheel Voices

  • Facebook
  • Flickr
  • Instagram
  • RSS
  • Twitter
  • YouTube
  • Realwheels
    • Our Mission and History
    • Community Resources
      • Increasing Accessibility of Vancouver Theatre Venues
      • Disability Links
      • Arts Links
      • Words Matter
    • Media
    • Awards
    • Contact Us
  • What’s Happening
  • Community
    • Playwright-in-Residence
    • Wheel Voices
      • Wheel Voices TuNeIn!
      • BE HEARD!
      • Wheel Voices Power Play
      • Comedy on Wheels
        • Comedy on Wheels Playbill
      • SexyVoices – A Burlesque Theatre Cabaret
      • Super Voices
      • Wheel Voices to the Max!
      • Wheel Voices Live!
    • Playwriting Circle
    • How You Can Get Involved
  • Folks & Spokes
    • Our Staff
    • Our Board
    • Volunteer
  • Shows
    • Current Shows
    • Shows in Development
      • Disability Tour Bus
    • Past Shows
      • Act of Faith
      • Sequence
        • SEQUENCE Playbill
      • Creeps
        • CREEPS Playbill
      • Re-calculating
      • Whose Life is it Anyway?
      • Spine
      • Skydive
    • Shows for Touring
  • Your Support
    • How to Donate
    • Our Sponsors
  • Newsletter
    • 2019-20
    • 2018-19
    • 2017-18
    • 2016-17
    • 2015-16
    • 2014-15
    • 2013-14
You are here: Home / Archives for disability community

Realwheels presents CREEPS and announces new Wheel Voices project!

October 11, 2016 by Realwheels Leave a Comment

creeps-facebook-banner

Join us for an evening of savage wit and uncompromising truth-telling!

CREEPS is an award-winning dark comedy by David E. Freeman that rocked the North American theatre world and changed Canadian theatre forever.

Four men work in a sheltered workshop doing mundane work. The toilet is their safe place, their escape from their institutionalized environment as well as the charities that support it.

“You will then be brought to our attention either by relatives who have no room for you in the attic, or by neighbours who are distressed to see you out in the street,
clashing with the landscape.”

Historic Theatre at The Cultch
1895 Venables Street, Vancouver, BC
December 1 – 10, 2016
Tickets: $18 – $40

CLICK HERE TO PURCHASE TICKETS


comedy-on-wheels-2

Wheel Voices is returning with a great new theme!

Join us for Comedy on Wheels!

This workshop-to-performance community collaboration is a response to community interest to strengthen and capitalize on one of our greatest assets – the ability to use humour and storytelling to cope with life’s challenges.

As a participant, you’ll receive coaching and training in comedy, storytelling, and other theatre-based disciplines from various guest artists, led by the collaborative team of International Comedy Expert David Granirer and Realwheels’ own Rena Cohen. As with all Wheel Voices projects, we’re excited to nurture and develop emerging talent in the disability community.

All training is offered free of charge.

The project will culminate in a celebration of everyone’s stories in a fully-staged theatrical production in May 2017!

NO EXPERIENCE NECESSARY!!!

Two roundtable discussions will take place in January 2017.  These conversations will kickstart the creative process, serving to share information, get community feedback and perspective, and offer up some exercises to get your comedic wheels turning.

Comedy on Wheels workshops will then officially launch February 04, 2017.

Contact info@realwheels.ca if you’re interested in participating or have any questions!

Filed Under: The Spin Tagged With: clowning, Comedy on Wheels, community, community project, Creeps, David E. Freeman, disability, disability community, production, professional, storytelling, The Cultch, theatre, theatre-based, Wheel Voices

Performance Skills Workshops

October 10, 2014 by Lindsey Adams Leave a Comment

An open call for performers with disabilities, and/or those who aspire to perform!
We invite you to register in our exciting, skill-building, performing arts workshops. All workshops are fully subsidized.

Past participants of our workshops!

Past participants of our workshops!

TEAM BUILDING SKILLS
DATE: Sunday, October 26, 2014
TIME: Noon to 5 pm
LOCATION: GF Strong Rehab Centre* (gymnasium), 4255 Laurel Street, Vancouver BC (one block east of Oak St. one block south of West King Edward Ave.)
FACILITATOR: Jason Donaldson (assisted by Jeffrey Renn, David Roche)

This Team Building workshop will develop skills essential to acting in ensemble. Jason Donaldson is a theatre teacher at Gulf Islands Secondary School and Gulf Islands School of Performing Arts, a three time nationally competitive coach in the Canadian Improv Games with extensive background in playbuilding, devising and collective creation. Jason’s practice is deeply rooted in improvisation, composition and impulse awareness while cultivating a group mind and sense of super-power ensemble. In this workshop, what you have to offer is exactly what we need.

Cat Main

Cat Main

CLOWNING SKILLS
DATE: Saturday, November 29, 2014
TIME: Noon to 5 pm
LOCATION: GF Strong Rehab Centre* (gymnasium), 4255 Laurel Street, Vancouver BC (one block east of Oak St. one block south of West King Edward Ave.)
FACILITATOR: Cat Main (assisted by Jeffrey Renn, David Roche)

This workshop will add a strong dose of expressiveness and physical presence to the stage presence of participants. Cat Main believes that being creative comes along with being human. She knows how enriching, expanding and transformative making art can be. And she’s excited to play with you on November 29th!

Cat has performed professionally as a stage and voice actor, theatre creator and clown. She has also worked extensively as an instructor, currently teaching movement at the Vancouver Film. Cat last collaborated with Realwheels in 2012 on Wheel Voices Live with her sister Kirsteen Main and she’s excited to be back!

Cat first got a taste of clown in theatre school at Studio 58 and knew she’d found something magical. She followed her nose and continued learning from local clown David MacMurray Smith (Fantastic Space Enterprises) and John Turner (Mump and Smoot). When asked what it takes to be a clown she likes to quote David, “You simply need to be willing to give yourself permission to be seen by the world as nothing other than your present self in the moment; unmasked, simple, and honest.” No experience is necessary for the clown workshop. Curiosity is an asset. So is a good sense of humour!

NOTES TO PARTICIPANTS:
You do not have to have prior performing experience. We do ask you to bring your creativity, desire and focus (and to be on time and ready to work!).

If you are interested, send the following to: info@realwheels.ca
• your full name
• mailing address
• email
• phone number (s)
• any accommodations needed
• what workshops you are committing to

We will confirm your space in the workshop; if the workshop gets full we will let you know you’re on the waiting list.

*FOOD: We will have some light snacks but are not taking a lunch break.

*PARKING: Parking for people with disabilities is available and clearly marked outside the main entrance. There is a small free visitor parking lot north of the main building. Additional pay parking is available at Children’s Hospital; the entrance to the parking lot is on West 28th Avenue.

*PUBLIC TRANSPORTATION: Buses 17 and 25 stop on Oak Street, close to GF Strong. TransLink provides information on transit routes and schedules. TransLink can also tell you which buses take wheelchairs.

Filed Under: The Spin Tagged With: Cat Main, clowning, David Roche, disability, disability community, emerging artist, Jason Donaldson, Jeffrey Renn, performing arts, Realwheels, skill-building, team building, theatre, workshops

Whose Life Is It Anyway? Opens in Vancouver at The Cultch

March 11, 2014 by Realwheels 1 Comment

Prepare to laugh and cry at a play that explores how we define compassion. ‘Whose Life Is It Anyway?’ will be playing at The Cultch starting this Tuesday March 11th, running until Saturday March 22nd.

Whose Life Is It Anyway? will leave you wondering if someone be allowed the right to choose whether to live or die?

Whose Life Is It Anyway? may leave you examining your own perspective on the right-to-die issue, currently under public scrutiny.

Written by award winning playwright Brian Clark, the play is set in a hospital room with the action revolving around main character Ken Harrison. Ken, a brilliant sculptor was in a car accident and is now paralyzed from the neck down. Determined to be allowed to die, Ken’s will comes up against an equally strong medical establishment determined to do its job by keeping him alive.

James Sanders, founder of Realwheels, was first inspired by the play as a young 21 year old with quadriplegia, new to the world of disability.  Although it might seem counter-intuitive, this play was a gift that inspired him to carry on.  “Today this play highlights for me the reality of everyone’s future.” For James, the play isn’t about the value of a life lived with disability, but rather, he emphasizes, about “an individual’s right to choose.”

Rena Cohen, Managing Director explains, “James Sanders possesses a vision for the company that sets Realwheels apart.  We occupy a truly unique niche engaged with both the professional theatre community, and the disability community.” With Whose Life is it Anyway?, we’re providing a theatrical platform for discussion around right-to-die issues. The play brings wit, intelligence, and compassion to the discussion, and it’s also tremendously entertaining!”

Rena is proud to be associated with the value that Realwheels expresses through production activity, “I see the impact that we have on audiences and I also see the impact that we have on the community of people with disabilities. In addition to professional productions such as Whose Life is it Anyway?, Realwheels also provides experiences in the performing arts to the disability community, a community typically underserved when it comes to theatre. Our work fills me with tremendous pride and love and makes me feel very privileged to be with this company.”

To learn more about the thoughts of this writer on the play and sitting in during the rehearsals of Whose Life Is It Anyway?, click here to read a post written on Being Emme, a site known for rave theatrical reviews.

James Sanders (left), Noelle Sediego (right) - Assistant to Pam Johnson, Set & Props Design - 500

James Sanders and Noelle Sediego (Assistant to Pam Johnson, Set & Prop Design) sit through a table read at rehearsals, as photographed by Rena Cohen.

Whose Life Is It Anyway? will be playing at The Cultch from March 11th to 22nd, nightly at 8pm.  Purchase your tickets for March 13th or 18th and enjoy a lively post show Q & A session. Realwheels is offering Sign Language Interpretation provided by A.S.L. Interpreting Inc., and a Described Performance by VocalEye for those with vision loss offered at the matinee on Sunday, March 16th at 2pm.  Tickets are available now from The Cultch starting at $18 or call 604-251-1363.

Connect with Realwheels on Facebook and Twitter to get involved in the conversation around #WhoseLife and be sure to leave your comments on the show.

Enjoy the Performance!  We look forward to your thoughts on it!

Filed Under: Centre Stage, The Spin, Wheely Good Tagged With: Brian Clark, disability community, James Sanders, living with disability, quadriplegia, Realwheels, Rena Cohen, right to choose, right to die, The Cultch, Vancouver Theatre, Whose Life Is It Anyway?

Real People, Real Stories, Wheel Voices!

 

Creating innovative productions within the disability arts culture! Learn More…

Recent Posts

  • Playwriting Circle Public Reading
  • Realwheels presents SEQUENCE, by Arun Lakra
  • Exciting New Works!
  • Matching Fund Campaign a SUCCESS!
  • Realwheels Leads Small Theatre Category with THREE Awards!

Donate to Realwheels now through Canada Helps

Sign up for our Newsletter!

Receive invites to our productions, hear the latest news, discover opportunities to volunteer with us, and learn how you can partake in future community productions!
* = required field

Welcome to Realwheels Theatre!

We inspire audiences to embrace inclusion of disability onstage, and, even more importantly, offstage in the real world.

We’re also creating opportunities for a new generation of people with disabilities to participate in the arts.

Donate to Realwheels now through Canada Helps

Wheel Voices Participants

We welcome your interest in Realwheels!

Join our talented community of artists by connecting with us on our Social Media Feeds. Share your inspiration and creative process!

Connect With Us!

  • Facebook
  • Flickr
  • Instagram
  • RSS
  • Twitter
  • YouTube

There are many opportunities to get involved, including as Performers, Volunteers, and Individual and Corporate Sponsors.

Please contact us by email at info[at]realwheels.ca or phone at (604) 322-REAL (7325).

Copyright © 2019 · Outreach Pro on Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in