Humber theatre students production prepares for opening night

Apr 7, 2016 | Arts, Life

Humber College's theatre graduates are performing at The Theatre Centre this weekend with their original performance: Delete After Death (Photo: Facebook-Delete After Death).

Humber College’s theatre graduates are performing at The Theatre Centre this weekend with their original performance: Delete After Death (Photo: Facebook-Delete After Death).

Krysten McCumber

A group of 26 Humber College theatre students have put together what they describe as an “interactive, amazing” performance – without a director.

Delete After Death is featured downtown at The Theatre Centre this weekend. The performance is about how death is handled in the digital age.

“It goes through our relationship with death in this digital age, where people grieve so publicly; when grieving was private, now we grieve publicly through Facebook,” co-creator and actor for the production, Vivian Or, told Humber News.

Getting to Thursday night’s premiere hasn’t been an easy process, especially with creating a collaborative team featuring no director for the production.

“I’m always excited to see the audience respond and follow this amazing journey with us.” -Vivian Or, co-creator and actor

The group of students call themselves TALKALOT Collective, since talking is what’s gotten them to this point.

“This means there’s a lot of discussion, a lot of offers and trying it, and then talking about why it didn’t work, how we can move on,” Or said. “A lot of time in our process is talking, maybe that’s why we’re called TALKALOT.”

Costume designer Lisa Van Oorschot agrees communication has allowed them to share ideas and develop the final story.

“We would bring forward ideas that we thought would work with certain themes and in the opposite way, things we brought in as costume pieces ended up influencing some of the development of the piece as well,” she said.

Or describes the performance this weekend as a journey.

“With the work being put into Delete After Death the experience will be ‘amazing,'” she told Humber News.

“I’m always excited to see the audience respond and follow this amazing journey with us. The beginning and end is so different and it’s amazing to go through that journey,” Or said.

Van Oorschot echoes Or’s excitement, looking forward to the audience’s reaction.

“We’re just really excited to have people experience this piece then to get their feedback,” Van Oorschot told Humber News.

Delete After Death premieres Thursday at The Theatre Centre, 1115 Queen St. W. Performances continue daily until Sunday afternoon. Tickets are on sale at $20 for the public, $15 for Humber Alumni and $10 for students and seniors.

The show’s schedule for the weekend is listed below:

Thursday, April 7 @ 7:30 p.m.

 

Friday, April 8 @ 7:30 p.m.

 

Saturday, April 9 @ 3:00 p.m. and 7:30 p.m.

 

Sunday, April 10 @ 3:00 p.m.