The Overhear Project
In 2016, I was part of the very first Overhear Project, produced by It’s Not a Box Theatre. It’s incredible what we have accomplished in a few short years. We started with a show that toured the Broadway area of Saskatoon. Audience members ventured one at a time, watching live performances in the streets, while listening to accompanying audio tracks of the performers over an audio track on an iPod. This was the first show to feature my own writing. You can hear some of it and catch a few glimpses of me in the below trailer. The explanation from Torien Cafferata is from 2017.
Overhear 2017 Trailer
Overhear Paris
Following Overhear Saskatoon, I moved to Paris before we re-mounted the show in January of 2017. My piece, which was written about an intimate true story from my life, was performed by someone else. Due to the success of the first production, the project expanded. Not long after I moved, I was asked to produce a new version of Overhear- in Paris.
Overhear Paris was my first experience producing overseas. Living in Paris helped a great deal, but being Canadian representing a Canadian company presented many obstacles. We successfully mounted our production from November 1st to 6th 2017. We had wonderful feedback from our audience and enjoyed our exploration of the 20e arrondissement of Paris as part of the production.
Begun in 2016 with the goal of telling true stories through separated audio and live performance, a new layer has been added for 2017 and beyond: our very own smartphone application.
In my capacity as the Paris producer, I assembled a team of international artists to create our show. I was working with a team of other producers in Canada to ensure the success of the whole project as well. We were very fortunate to have received a grant from The Saskatchewan Arts Board that supported the 2017/18 productions in Saskatoon, Paris, and Toronto. Following the success of these productions, The Overhear Project won the SATA Juror’s Award for Innovation.
The Overhear Paris team appears in the below trailer, filmed and edited by Stephanie Merulla, who was associate producer for Overhear Paris. (Vimeo password is braintrust)
Overhear Prague
In 2019, Overhear reached another level: we got accepted into the Prague Quadrennial Festival in the Emerging category. We were the only Canadian show presenting at this incredible international festival. I was fortunate to be an associate producer on this round of the project. Thanks to the Saskatchewan Arts Board and the Canada Council for the Arts, we were able to further refine our app and test out new ways of storytelling in a story and languages that were completely foreign to us, as well as experiencing theatre from all over the world. Below is a gallery of just some of the Overhear experiences.
