ABOVE: Carolyn Yu

All The World's A Stage: Collaborative Project Asks People to Share

March 2012 - Greg Armstrong-Morris wrote an story about the All the World's a Stage workshop's original creation Chasing Home. A creation piece that explores the theme of ‘home’ from the viewpoint of cultural outsiders, immigrants, refugees and others who have been forced to flee and create a new life for themselves in Vancouver co-created and designed by the participants of All The World's A Stage, Screaming Weenie's community-building program.

Article: If for some Kafka-cum-Pinteresque reason your understanding of metropolitan Vancouver’s population were based solely on what the larger theatres are showing, you might conclude that we’re a city of nothing but British ex-pats and the children of American draft-dodgers. (read the rest at Xtra.ca HERE )

Sexual Abuse - a special post-show talk

November, 2011 - Members of the community came out for Falling In Time: Special Post-Show Talk with Don Wright, Executive Director of the BC Society for Male Survivors of Sexual Abuse and Seán Cummings, Director of our current production - Falling In Time. Thursday, November 10th, 10:30 pm - Performance Works, Granville Island, Vancouver. Topics explored included portrayal of victims and abusers in theatre and media, what is abuse and how male victims assimilate their experiences, and how male and female absuers are perceived by the victims and society.

ABOVE: Nina Lee Aquino

Starting From Scratch - a conversation with Nina Lee Aquino

November, 2011 - Are you a self-starting, multi-tasking, highly motivated theatre artist? Toronto-based theatre artist Nina Lee Aquino--Artistic Director of Cahoots Theatre Company, Artistic Associate of the Factory Theatre and Founder and former Artistic Director of fu-GEN Asian Canadian Theatre Company--will share her thoughts on starting and building your own theatre company, producing new work and self-producing, anchored by her own recounting of her experience founding fu-GEN at a time when there was no other company quite like it in Canada.

Moderated by Adrienne Wong, Co-Artistic Producer of Neworld Theatre. Note: The Rhizome Cafe is fully licensed, and the kitchen is open before, during and after the event. A special FREE pre-conference event on the eve of the 2011 Making A Scene Conference

Thursday, November 3, 2011 - The Rhizome Cafe (317 East Broadway, off Kingsway)
Sponsored by the GVPTA and Screaming Weenie Productions - Free Admission

ABOVE: Dr. Steven Lee

The Forgotten War: Dr Steven Lee Talks About the Korean War

October, 2011 - Dr Steven Lee, Professor of History at UBC, will talk about the Korean War, which lasted from 1950 to 1953, and was fought between North Korea and South Korea and, by extension, between the mid-twentieth century's great superpowers: the Soviet Union and the United States. With 4 million military and civilian casualties, the Korean War was one of the bloodiest armed conflicts in history, and yet it is a war that most of the general public has forgotten. Dr Lee will talk about why this is.

Steven Lee is an Associate Professor of History at UBC. He completed his doctoral degree at the University of Oxord in 1991 and joined the UBC Department of History in 1993. He works on international relations, particularly the history of the Cold War and US-Korea relations. He published Outposts of Empire (McGill-Queens) in 1996, The Korean War (Longman) in 2001, and co-edited Transformations in Twentieth Century Korea (Routledge, 2006), with Chang Yunshik. He teaches courses on Twentieth Century Global History, Twentieth Century Korea, and the International Relations of the Great Powers. He is currently writing a book on twentieth century global history for Blackwell publishers.

Wednesday, October 26, 2011- 7 pm
Vancouver Public Library Central Branch (Alma Van Dusen Room) FREE ADMISSION! Value-added event of Falling In Time
*made possible by the generous assistance of the City of Vancouver's 125 Anniversary Grants Program and the participation of the Government of Canada.

The Korean War & Its Aftermath:
A Roundtable Discussion with Don Baker, Judy Han, Steven Lee and Alexa Kim

October, 2011 - This event will feature a roundtable discussion involving four distinguished panelists: Donald Baker, Professor of Asian Studies; Judy Han, Post-Doctoral Fellow in the Department of Geography; Alexa Kim, formerly International Liaison for the Korean Truth and Reconciliation Commission; and Steven Lee, Professor of History at UBC. The discussion will talk about the long-term consequences of the Korean War on Korean culture and the Korean diaspora. The panelists will then open the discussion up to the audience.

Sunday, November 6, 2011- 6:30 to 8 pm - The Rhizome Cafe (317 East Broadway, off Kingsway)
FREE ADMISSION*made possible by the generous assistance of the City of Vancouver's 125 Anniversary Grants Program and the participation of the Government of Canada.

ABOVE: Screaming Weenie's Chris Gatchalian is appearing at the Word on the Street Festival

C.E. Gatchalian reading

September, 2011 - Screaming Weenie Associate Artistic Director Chris Gatchalian is appearing at the Word on the Street festival this month.

C. E. Gatchalian is the author of three books of drama and one book of poetry. His plays have appeared on stages nationally and internationally, as well as on radio and television. His most recent undertaking, Crossing and Other Plays contains three plays: Crossing, Diamond and Ticks, that explore themes of sexuality and human behaviour.

ABOVE: Kate Reid from It Gets Better Vancouver

In November/December 2010, Artistic Managing Director Seán Cummings interviewed a handful of Queers from the arts world to give their take on growing up different, bullying, coping, and coming out.

Based on the Trevor Project's It Gets Better campaign, the results are deeply personal stories of growing up in a homophobic world and coping with bullies and hatred.

Go to our It Gets Better page here.

ABOVE: Screaming Weenie's Seán Cummings strikes a silly pose for Xtra photographer Chris Howey.

September, 2010 - What I would do is I would open a studio theatre in the gay village. It could be something along the lines of Havana’s, something where there’s always live theatre on, there’s always queer art in a small visual arts space outside the theatre.

For me, culture is an invaluable part of life, and I think that’s what the queer culture in the Village is missing. Theatre. Dance. Music. Visual Art.

Queer culture more than drag, more than a leather show. There’s a whole spectrum of the arts. And the arts bring in tourists, theatres bring a sense of beauty, bring a sense of excitement.

Read the full story (with edited comments) by Natasha Barsotti at Xtra Vancouver here.

Finding Your Queer Voice

Screaming Weenie's Artistic Direction team took part in the 2010 Word On The Street Festival

WORD ON THE STREET FESTIVAL, Sunday, 26 September, 2010
Library Square and CBC Plaza, Hamilton Street, Vancouver

The Word Under The Street — 3:00pm

Finding Your Queer Voice Discover how to find your voice and get others to listen to and read what you have to say. Come listen to, and ask questions of, four local writers from the Vancouver Queer Community who have accomplished that task. Amber Dawn is a writer, filmmaker and performance artist, and is currently the director of programming for the Vancouver Queer Film Festival. Billeh Nickerson is a writer, editor, performer, and producer, and teaches Creative Writing at Kwantlen Polytechnic University. C. E. Gatchalian is a playwright, fiction writer, poet, editor, and teacher, and currently a resident playwright at the Vancouver Playhouse. Jen Currin, an acclaimed poet, currently teaches creative writing at the Vancouver Film School and Langara Collegeís Continuing Education program. Moderated by Seán Cummings, an actor and director, currently the artistic director of Screaming Weenie Productions. >>visit the WOTA site