{"id":31845,"date":"2022-09-01T18:31:59","date_gmt":"2022-09-01T22:31:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=31845"},"modified":"2022-09-01T18:32:03","modified_gmt":"2022-09-01T22:32:03","slug":"theatre-aurora-tackles-potent-subjects-in-new-season-on-the-mighty-heroine","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/theatre-aurora-tackles-potent-subjects-in-new-season-on-the-mighty-heroine\/","title":{"rendered":"Theatre Aurora tackles potent subjects in new season on the \u201cMighty Heroine\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

When Theatre Aurora chose to include the dramatic adaptation of The Diary of Anne Frank as a cornerstone of their new season based around the theme of \u201cThe Mighty Heroine,\u201d they knew even before the pandemic they had potent material to work with.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But time has only made the influential book more relevant.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Anne Frank\u2019s pivotal account of the Holocaust recently came under review by a Texas schoolboard, considering whether it was appropriate to be in a school library. The move, which ultimately saw the book returned to circulation, sparked renewed interest in Frank\u2019s indelible story and emphasized its continued relevance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe thought it would be a good time to resurrect these conversations and an interesting idea to revisit some of the ideas and learn from the mistakes in our past \u2013 and try to prevent horrific things from happening in the future,\u201d says Sergio Calderon, Artistic Director at Theatre Aurora.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The source material of \u201cA Diary of a Young Girl\u201d is connected to Theatre Aurora\u2019s other offerings this season in that it looks at the idea of a female heroine through a younger lens.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cTypically when you see a strong female-led work, whether it is in film, television, or theatre, you\u2019re always considering someone who is middle-aged or has a long resume in their lives,\u201d says Calderon. \u201cBut what\u2019s interesting about The Diary of Anne Frank, the [musical] Fun Home and Mother of the Maid (which is a dramatic re-telling of the life of Joan of Arc\u2019s mother) is we\u2019re looking at younger female characters and how they\u2019re developing and becoming these icons that we know and think of them today.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt also gave us the opportunity to look at a cross-section of not just time and circumstance but also of age when exploring their impact.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Theatre Aurora\u2019s production of The Diary of Anne Frank runs from March 2 through March 11.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The age pendulum swings in the opposite direction to close out the season with the play Glorious! The True Story of Florence Foster Jenkins, the Worst Singer in the World.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Based on the life of Florence Foster Jenkins who, later in life, pursued a career in music despite not being able to carry a tune. But, what she lacked in talent, she made up with passion and enthusiasm \u2013 traits brought to life recently on the big screen by Meryl Streep in the film \u201cFlorence Foster Jenkins.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe\u2019re finishing our season with what we hope is an uproarious comedy!\u201d says Calderon. \u201cEveryone is familiar more recently thanks to the film of Florence Foster Jenkins and it was one of those lovely gems finding a comedy piece about a true to life historical figure that we can again take a look at. It encompasses a lot of passion, confidence and dreaming which, of course, all the characters possess throughout this season. From a standpoint that not everything has to be dark and fraught with angst, there is a lot of joy and exploring that side of being a human being existing among us. It was such a pleasure to find that script and really bring it to the table and have everyone agree that this is a perfect way to end a season where we\u2019re just celebrating women.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bringing these very different lives together, lives which are united by their fair share of common threads, is something Theatre Aurora takes pride in. Calderon counts theatre as \u201cone of the great initiators of discussion\u201d and he hopes that each of this season\u2019s selections will spark dialogue on female heroes, particularly in an age where so many offerings on film and television are male-driven.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cMy approach in creating a season is a wholesome journey from beginning to end of five shows for someone to see. While anyone is welcome to come and watch one singular show for enjoyment, I always urge anyone to get a subscription to a season that is based on a theme because I think at the end of the day then you really have an understanding, an exploration of that one particular topic from many different points of view, which I think enrichen the experience overall. Each singular piece will be lovely, enjoyable and very entertaining and will likely initiate some discussion but, as a whole at the end of the year, wouldn\u2019t it be nice to feel seen? I think that is an important thing: to be seen, to be heard, to be a part of the landscape when sometimes it is not available in all forms of media.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Theatre Aurora opens its current season on October 20 with Mother of the Maid, which runs through October 29. The season continues with A Nice Family Christmas from November 24 to December 3, Fun Home from January 26 to February 4, The Diary of Anne Frank from March 2 \u2013 March 11, and Glorious! from April 20 to April 29.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By Brock Weir
Editor
Local Journalism Initiative Reporter<\/strong><\/p>\n\r\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When Theatre Aurora chose to include the dramatic adaptation of The Diary of Anne Frank as a cornerstone of their new season based around the theme of \u201cThe Mighty Heroine,\u201d they knew even before the pandemic they had potent material to work with. But time has only made the influential book more relevant. Anne Frank\u2019s […]<\/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-31845","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\/p3D2k4-8hD","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-14 17:29:08","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\/31845","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=31845"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31845\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31845"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31845"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31845"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}