MAP Presentation Series Winter 2023: Professor Wes Pearce

Fri., Jan. 20, 2023 3:30 p.m. - Fri., Jan. 20, 2023 4:30 p.m.

Location: ED 113 or Zoom: https://uregina-ca.zoom.us/j/96878482256

Public Shakespeare: Imagination, Space, and Good Deeds

Professor Wes Pearce - Department of Theatre

Wes Pearce (he /his) is privileged to live, work and create upon Treaty 4 territory. These contested lands are the lands of ever-changing skies holding within them landscapes of dynamic wonder that continue to astonish, inform and inspire.

He has been in the Theatre Department at the U of R longer than some of his students have been alive which should give us all pause. His published work covers a wide range of topics in a variety of anthologies and includes work on Sharon Pollock, Daniel MacIvor, prairie gothic and visual dramaturgy (although not in the same essay). Current research interests include how the use of technologies in musical theatre allows for radical new ways of storytelling, Come From Away as a musical that is both radically innovative and deeply problematic but his primary focus is the relationship between summer Shakespeare festivals and notions of the public good.

As a scenographer he has designed elements for over 100 productions across Western Canada and currently is working on Orlando for the Theatre Department and The Birds and the Bees which is a co-production between Saskatoon’s Persephone Theatre and the Globe. Keenly aware the working within this broken model of theatre production is problematic, he has presented at the Saskatchewan Theatre Design Festival and the World Stage Design conference on the necessity of de-centralizing scenography.

This research was made possible through funds obtained from the President’s Research Seed Grant and SSHRC Explore Grant program which funded the project “Shakespeare on the Saskatchewan, Meewasin Valley Authority and the Public Good”.

Admission is free. The presentation can be viewed in-person in Education Building ED 113 or over Zoom at https://uregina-ca.zoom.us/j/96878482256.