{"id":22697,"date":"2019-01-17T11:59:37","date_gmt":"2019-01-17T16:59:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=22697"},"modified":"2019-01-17T11:59:37","modified_gmt":"2019-01-17T16:59:37","slug":"whodunnit-overs-intrigue-laughs-and-a-bit-of-stage-fright-at-theatre-aurora","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/whodunnit-overs-intrigue-laughs-and-a-bit-of-stage-fright-at-theatre-aurora\/","title":{"rendered":"Whodunnit overs intrigue, laughs and a bit of stage fright at Theatre Aurora"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

\u201cChallenge accepted.\u201d
\nThat\u2019s what Linda Stott says went through her mind when she read a review calling Bettine Manktelow\u2019s play Proscenophobia as \u201ca nice piece of fluff.\u201d
\nMs. Stott says she saw something much different, and the first-time director is determined to bring this deceptively multifaceted play to life next week at Theatre Aurora as part of its 60th anniversary season.
\nTheatre Aurora\u2019s milestone season is built around the theme \u201cthe life of a theatre\u201d and Proscenophobia fits the bill like a glove, being directly translated to mean \u201cstage fright,\u201d an essential, if unwanted, part of any actor\u2019s journey.
\nThe play is described as a \u201cclever whodunnit\u201d all taking place in the dressing room of a community theatre during the production of a thriller.
\nThe play within the play stars Addie, a fading star who is attempting a comeback. Here, she is understudied by her best friend Millie, but the two women share more than just a love for the theatre; they were both married to the same theatrical empresario who left one woman for the other.
\n\u201cAddie and Millie are both aging and are fighting the sexism that happens in some acting worlds,\u201d explains Ms. Stott. \u201cAddie is desperately trying to get that one last hurrah, that one big comeback. It took years for Addie and Millie\u2019s friendship to come back together and when we join them their friendship is going from strength to strength. At the last minute, Millie needs to fill in for Addie and instead of the gun that was part of the play shooting a blank, a real bullet goes off and Millie is killed.\u201d
\n\u201cThat\u2019s all in the first half of the play!\u201d adds Ms. Stott with a laugh, noting the second act looks at the ins and outs of how all this unfolded.
\nWas it an accident?
\nWas it a suicide?
\nWas this Millie\u2019s way out?
\nWas it her grand finale as an actress?
\nOr, was it murder?
\n\u201cI read this play for the first time as an actor and thought it was clever,\u201d says Ms. Stott. \u201cThen, I read it again and thought it would be cool to direct. I started reading it over and over again and moving pieces were appearing in my head. I realised I was developing a vision for a play. I wrote down my vision and submitted it to Theatre Aurora.\u201d
\nMs. Stott comes to Theatre Aurora with a major in Theatre Studies, but, in the years since earning her degree, there was a time when she shied away from the performing arts. Her ambition at the outset was to be a teacher, but she quickly found out that teaching a group of kids wasn\u2019t the best fit.
\n\u201cI was very introverted and shy as a child, painfully so,\u201d she says, \u201cwith a lot of self-esteem issues. I was in a French immersion program and we had to do these little skits, and one I played a clown and all of a sudden the room started to laugh, and there was that high! The audience was laughing at what I just did and I realised I could present myself as somebody else and be really comfortable with it and get that feedback from the audience, which I think draws many of us to the art form.
\n\u201cI loved examining plays and taking them apart. That\u2019s how my professors prepared for a play and I missed that kind of analysis as it was something I really, really loved and craved. Here, with Proscenophobia, we dedicated our first five rehearsals to table work, which is a significant amount of time for a play that is 90 minutes. We spent our first rehearsals developing the timelines of all the characters and how they interact, the history of each one, what their true feelings are. It was amazing because on that sixth rehearsal we started blocking and the actors got up and it felt easy. All of a sudden, we had these wonderful, amazing choices being made by the actors because they are so intimate with their characters.\u201d
\nAlthough Proscenophobia is a bona fide whodunnit, Ms. Stott says it is a whodunnit that comes with a real lesson upon the big reveal. That lesson intrigued her, and she says she is sure it will intrigue the people who come out to see the show this coming Thursday, January 24.
\n\u201cThe way the ending is written and presented, you can\u2019t help but keep thinking about it and forcing the audience to think and escape. I lived with this play for seven months and I am still laughing. It\u2019s a very enjoyable night out and it is going to leave you with a thinker at the end. It just so happens to be a really poignant message and one I think we can all apply in different parts of our own lives.\u201d<\/p>\n

Proscenophobia opens at Theatre Aurora next Thursday, January 24, at 8 p.m., running on select dates and times through Saturday, February 2. For tickets and further information, visit www.theatreaurora.com or call 905-727-3669.<\/p>\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cChallenge accepted.\u201d
\nThat\u2019s what Linda Stott says went through her mind when she read a review calling Bettine Manktelow\u2019s play Proscenophobia as \u201ca nice piece of fluff.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_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},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[27,4,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-22697","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-arts-and-culture","category-general_news","category-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-5U5","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-06 14:01:44","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\/22697","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=22697"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22697\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22697"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22697"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22697"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}