{"id":16200,"date":"2017-01-04T12:08:46","date_gmt":"2017-01-04T17:08:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=16200"},"modified":"2017-03-29T16:43:45","modified_gmt":"2017-03-29T20:43:45","slug":"local-theatre-charts-path-forward-ahead-of-60th-anniversary","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/local-theatre-charts-path-forward-ahead-of-60th-anniversary\/","title":{"rendered":"Local theatre charts path forward ahead of 60th anniversary"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Brock Weir<\/strong><\/p>\n

As a child, Sergio Calderon spent nearly the first decade of his life in densely-populated Mexico City before his family moved to Aurora.
\nOnce here, he was surprised to find his new home backed onto a forest, which provided a borderless horizon to fuel his creative imagination. As he grew older and entered his teen years, his interest in the dramatic arts continued to grow and outside of Cardinal Carter Catholic High School, his only creative outlet was Theatre Aurora.
\nNow artistic director of Theatre Aurora, he and the Theatre\u2019s crew are looking to usher in a new age for the stalwart Henderson Drive theatre as it approaches its 60th anniversary in 2018.
\n\u201cThe effort to go to the theatre is something people need to consider nowadays,\u201d says Mr. Calderon. \u201cThere has been a conversation amongst theatre artists about the fact theatre as we know it is going to be extinct. That is not that theatre is going to be extinct, but theatre as we know it \u2013 the way it is consumed, approached and produced is going to change and go through an evolution. But, as we know it, it is kind of on its last legs.\u201d
\nTo that end, Mr. Calderon says he was excited to approach the 2016 \u2013 2017 Theatre Aurora season, which launched in September with Love Letters, kick-starting a seven production season rather than the standard five. It\u2019s exciting, he says, but also a lot of work in both putting on the shows and getting people in the audience.
\n\u201cWe don\u2019t have a theatre-going community,\u201d he says. \u201cFor people to buy into five is sometimes a challenge and if you\u2019re proposing seven, I think that is a pretty considerable risk, considering that each production will stand alone and will have a compelling experience every single night, all of our seasons in the last couple of years have been constructed with the idea it is an entire journey from beginning to end. We select the shows and we put them in the order that we do them in, with the thought the person who subscribes will enjoy day one all the way to day five \u2013 or in this year day seven \u2013 of their theatre going experience.
\nLast fall, The Auroran highlighted the first half of the 2016 \u2013 2017 season, concluding with the December closer A Christmas Story and now the season picks up again on January 19 with a new spin on the Shakespearian classic Much Ado About Nothing which director Shawn Rocheleau has set in post-World War One Canada.
\n\u201cIt is very exciting because in this area, certainly north of Toronto, I don\u2019t think Shakespeare has been done at the community level for quite some time,\u201d says Mr. Calderon. \u201cBesides being bold in the material we have chosen, we have been presented with some pretty fantastic opportunities, which we really had to take.
\nThe Australian drama, Speaking in Tongues, carries the action through March. Described as a thriller mystery, it takes place in a hotel where two couples are having an affair with each other\u2019s partners without knowing they are there.
\nThe season of \u201cBorderless Love\u201d closes in April, aptly, with Old Love, by popular Canadian playwright Norm Foster.
\nFrom ending its season with Old Love, plans are already underway for next year\u2019s theme which is the next logical step: \u201cIn Memoriam.\u201d
\n\u201cSince I have been the artistic director, the seasons we have constructed thematically have been making decisions, creating connections, borderless love, In Memoriam next season and then the 60th season will be theatrical resurrection, magic,\u201d says Mr. Calderon. \u201cI still need to find the two word catch phrase.
\n\u201cIt\u2019s the 60th Season. We have gone through the whole idea of reaching out and connecting with somebody, celebrating love, and then examining death. Coming from that, we want to celebrate everything that is theatre, everything that is art, everything that is culture. We want the shows to be about theatre.\u201d<\/p>\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As a child, Sergio Calderon spent nearly the first decade of his life in densely-populated Mexico City before his family moved to Aurora.
\nOnce here, he was surprised to find his new home backed onto a forest, which provided a borderless horizon to fuel his creative imagination. As…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[26],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-16200","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-archive"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-4di","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-01 12:37:18","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16200","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16200"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16200\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16200"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16200"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16200"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}