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"The Basketball Game" is a graphic novel adaptation of the award-winning National Film Board of Canada animated short of the same name – intended for audiences aged 12 years and up. It's a poignant tale of the power of community as a means to rise above hatred and bigotry. In the end, as is recognized by the kids playing the basketball game, we're all in this together.

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Tag: Hannah Everett

Be in on the joke in AI

Be in on the joke in AI

Hannah Everett, left, and Drew Carlson co-star in Artisanal Intelligence, at the Havana Theatre Jan. 14-18. (photo from Spec Theatre)

Drew Carlson and Jewish community member Hannah Everett are reprising their roles in Artisanal Intelligence, which again plays at the Havana Theatre, Jan. 14-18.

Written by Jewish community member Ira Cooper, the show had a limited two-show run this past July at the Havana; both of those performances sold out. It also traveled to a few Fringe festivals, garnering positive reviews.

Carlson plays Barry, a hipster customer-service robot who is filled with esoteric knowledge and mad skills. Everett plays Jane, the entrepreneur who created Barry.

“The content will be the same, aside from a few tweaks and tightens,” Cooper told the Independent about how the January production differs from the summer show. “One of the songs, ‘No Off-Switch for Love,’ will be fully orchestrated, as opposed to the passable version of it that I created on GarageBand with digital instrumentation, so that is exciting and new. I am hoping it will fill out the song more, give it its deserved panache, and get people dancing in and out of their seats. It’s a Boney M.-inspired funk track, so I am really happy that it will finally be given the backtrack it has always longed for.”

photo - Ira Cooper’s Artisanal Intelligence is at the Havana Theatre Jan. 14-18
Ira Cooper (photo from Spec Theatre)

The idea for Artisanal Intelligence took a couple of years to develop.

“In 2017, I went to live in China for a year to teach at a Canadian high school abroad,” said Cooper, who teaches the younger grades English and drama at King David High School. “My partner stayed in Canada and so I was there, in a new city, in a massive apartment, concocting, creating and percolating thoughts, ideas, words and scribbles to fill a void. Artisanal Intelligence was my attempt to write an accessible Fringe show…. Hipsterism just has so much great material to rib and, being that I would self-identify as a ‘hipster,’ I needn’t go too far to do my research. And robots. And AI. All are distinct and widely known, relevant, partaken in and discussed topics, so it seemed like an easy fit with my own personal playwriting aspirations this time around.

“I do not remember much about the writing process for the initial drafts. Knowing myself, it was probably over a three- or four-week period. Then drafts. Collaboration is integral to everything I and Spec Theatre do, so, early on in the process, I had people reading the script and giving me notes. Then it was sitting down with the director, Bronwen Marsden, for more edits. Then with the actors. Then with my partner, who is also the artistic designer for Spec, Ruby Arnold. The more feedback the better. The end result is a deeply heart-filled joint-effort, which we are all proud of and which we all had a part in molding, from the very words on the page outwards.”

Cooper said Artisanal Intelligence lampoons and lambasts hipster culture, as opposed to critiquing it.

“The show uses a lot of recognizable hipster motifs, tropes and allusions, but the audience is consistently in on the joke,” he said. “The show is a discussion on identity, self-perseverance, self-reliance and the impending (or not) robot apocalypse, but in a soft and humorous way.

“I think the show actually exemplifies why culture can be important, how it can bind us to something bigger than ourselves. We are constantly looking for the ‘bigger than ourselves’ entities. And so, with the culture references, the clearly identifiable razzing and fun that takes place in the 55 minutes of Artisanal Intelligence, the audience, who get what the show is alluding to, are part of each joke’s equation – that knowledge links culture, the audience and the performers.”

The performances at the Havana in January will be relaxed, said Cooper, which means “the houselights will never fully dim and people are free, if they need or want, to get up, stretch, move, go for a walk, etc. We want theatre to be accessible to everyone and we respect, acknowledge and cherish the diversity of our audiences. Also, if you’re an artist of any kind, Spec Theatre is always looking to collaborate, to make unique, experimental, new things. Reach out!”

For tickets to Artisanal Intelligence, go to spectheatre.com.

Format ImagePosted on December 20, 2019December 18, 2019Author Cynthia RamsayCategories Performing ArtsTags artificial intelligence, artisanal, Hannah Everett, Havana Theatre, Ira Cooper, theatre
Meet Barry at Havana

Meet Barry at Havana

Did you know without goats, the coffee bean may have never been discovered? Are you able to recognize if the vinyl you hear coming from your neighbor’s apartment is a 78, 45 or 33? Do you type your university essays out on a typewriter? Barry knows, Barry can, Barry does, Barry will and Barry did. Introducing the next wave in AI customer service. Barry is the perfect fit for all your too-cool-for-school business needs.

In Jewish community member Ira Cooper’s Artisanal Intelligence, fellow community member Hannah Everett plays Jane, the entrepreneur and creative genius responsible for developing Barry, a fast-learning, curious and fashion-wise artificial intelligence customer service robot, played by Drew Carlson. Cooper describes his play as “not simply a form of absurdist, comedic, low-brow escapism as it may come across. It’s a conversation about identity, as most things are, and its tumultuous relationship with self versus societal box-fitting…. There are other dialogues, too; questions raised about creation versus intent versus audience response and who gets to create meaning. It’s also an affirmation of what love can be.” Artisanal Intelligence is at Havana Theatre July 5 and 7, 9:30 p.m. Tickets ($15) can be purchased at showpass.com.

Mature content (14+)

Format ImagePosted on June 28, 2019June 26, 2019Author Spec TheatreCategories Performing ArtsTags AI, artificial intelligence, Hannah Everett, Ira Cooper, technology, theatre
Using absurdity to illuminate

Using absurdity to illuminate

Left to right are GOLDRAUSCH actors Tebo Nzeku, Gray Clark, Karthik Kadam, Matthew Rhodes and Hannah Everett. (photo by Javier Sotres)

GOLDRAUSCH is described as “a comedy with music that journeys through film director Oskar’s efforts to make a film about the man who started the Gold Rush Fever of 1848: the ‘Emperor of California.’ Mixed with classic country and Mexican banda songs, GOLDRAUSCH is the story of rampant jealousy, greed and ambition run amok, as dueling actors fight for their close-ups in Oskar’s magnum opus.”

The University of British Columbia’s theatre and film department presents GOLDRAUSCH at Frederic Wood Theatre March 14-30.

“GOLDRAUSCH follows the story of director Oskar, creating a film on Johann Augustus Sutter, based on the book Gold by Blaise Cendrars,” explained Hannah Everett, who plays the role of Marlene in the UBC production. “Sutter was a German-born colonizer who came to America, set up a farm for himself and became rich – until the gold rush of the 1850s, which destroyed the land he had taken.

“The playwright, Guillermo Calderón, is commenting on how Blaise Cendrar’s Gold is an exaggerated and fictionalized version of Sutter’s life that glosses over his problematic character, and the history surrounding the land and people during this time,” she said. “The play begins months into the shoot when Oskar realizes his film has become boring, and lacking ‘soul.’ He decides to bring in two new actors and shoot a porn scene, much to the other actors’ surprise.”

Marlene is one of the new actors.

“Marlene has been hired by Oskar to perform a porn scene and body double the leading lady, Greta, on set,” said Everett. “Marlene represents Oskar’s ‘fresh start’ to the film, in order to make it more interesting. Throughout the play, we learn she contracted hepatitis from the porn industry and is incredibly poor. She needs this job to make money and survive, which sends Greta into a panic as she learns Marlene is her replacement.”

Appropriately for a play about a film, GOLDRAUSCH is a multimedia work.

“GOLDRAUSCH features real cameras and sound equipment that will project film scenes onto the stage,” said Everett. “We are calling it a ‘meta-theatrical comedy with music’ and, in a way that is somewhat Brechtian, the play often breaks into song and dance, with karaoke tracks projected onto screens. In a final scene, where Oskar and the four actors interview about their film, it becomes clear that these songs are included in the film soundtrack. The multimedia layers to this piece create an effect that continues to take the audiences out of these different worlds of the past and the present, and remind them that they are watching a performance – and that not everything is always as it seems.”

Calderón, a Chilean playwright, wrote GOLDRAUSCH in 2017, “in a continuing time of political upheaval and uncertainty, particularly in United States,” said Everett. “Johannes Augustus Sutter came to America in the 1800s, stole land and enslaved indigenous peoples. His story, Calderón highlights, is unfortunately still incredibly relevant.

“Calderón asks us to think about land ownership, freedom and immigration. He shows us how history repeats itself,” she said. “The play satirizes Cendrar’s book, Gold, demonstrating how we become numb and alienate ourselves from people and politics that attempt to take away basic human rights. This is seen in Oskar’s film, and the ego and greed between the four actors, all struggling for the spotlight…. Calderón has decided to illuminate these issues in a way that is absurd and entertaining, as a way to get audiences to think more actively than perhaps watching or reading a news story.”

photo - Hannah Everett plays the role of the model, Marlene, in UBC Theatre’s production of GOLDRAUSCH
Hannah Everett plays the role of the model, Marlene, in UBC Theatre’s production of GOLDRAUSCH. (photo from UBC)

Born in White Rock, Everett grew up in Tsawwassen. She got into acting through various avenues, including Gateway Theatre and high school productions. During a three-year internship with the Riotous Youth program at Bard on the Beach, she helped create A Shakesperience and Shakespeare Unhinged. She also participated in the InTune Young Company Intensive with Touchstone Theatre and with the Stratford Theatre Performance Intensive.

In the course of her university studies, Everett has performed in many theatre and some film productions at UBC, as well as in other theatre productions. In her fourth and final year of UBC’s bachelor of fine arts acting program, Everett graduates in May.

“I’m hoping to get a film agent and, ideally, work in both film and theatre,” she said of what comes next. “I am keen to explore more devised performance, Shakespeare and the contemporary Canadian theatre scene. What I love about this line of work is that it scares me and challenges me to always keep learning, whatever the future may hold.”

Everett’s love of theatre came from her maternal grandmother, Irene N. Watts, who most recently has published Seeking Refuge (2016), a graphic novel, with Kathryn E. Shoemaker, which is a sequel to the graphic novel version of Goodbye Marianne. (See jewishindependent.ca/meet-award-winning-artists.)

“Her most well-known trilogy includes the novel (adapted from the play) Goodbye Marianne, which draws from her experience as a child Holocaust survivor, arriving in England via the Kindertransport from Germany,” said Everett of her grandmother. “In England, she became a teacher and worked in drama education before coming over to Canada in 1968, where she continued working in children’s theatre, acting and directing.

“Her love for theatre trickled down to me, and I was incredibly fortunate to be taken to numerous productions over the years, and given seemingly endless supplies of plays and books. Our shared passion has created such a cherished and close relationship and, as Judaism has had such a deep effect on her life and storytelling, I am always eager to share and learn her stories. Coming from both Jewish and non-Jewish heritage on my father’s side, I have learned to appreciate and be open to different views of the world, especially when it comes to making art.”

Tickets for GOLDRAUSCH – which contains adult themes and language – can be purchased from ubctheatretickets.com or 604-822-2678.

Format ImagePosted on March 8, 2019March 6, 2019Author Cynthia RamsayCategories Performing ArtsTags Blaise Cendrars, cultural commentary, GOLDRAUSCH, Guillermo Calderón, Hannah Everett, history, music, theatre, UBC
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