Shakespeare in the Ruff is thrilled to welcome renowned actor and teacher Irene Poole to the Playground. In this three-day intensive, participants will explore ways of making Shakespeare’s language and poetic images personal and playable. By using a variety of techniques to find meaning, clarity of thought, and the emotional journey, participants will strive to get to that magic place where poetic image is married to situational truth.
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One of the defining pillars of Ruff is that we get to call the beautiful Withrow Park home. We are fortunate to have a rich, vibrant and natural stage from which we perform our work and build our community.
For this year’s fundraiser, we invite our friends, family and community to connect with the more-than-human world of Withrow Park by forest bathing in Withrow Park.
Your guide to forest bathing will be Melanie Hazell – an ANFT certified Forest Therapist and long-time friend of Ruff. Melanie’s story can be found here.
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A month-long fundraising celebration of the wild and beautiful intersections of the Ruffians.
Overview:
Friday, October 14th – Restorative Meditation and Creative Writing with PJ Prudat
Sunday, October 16th – 1:1 Coaching Sessions with Christine Horne
Saturday, October 22nd – Introduction to Kung Fu in Withrow Park with Jeff Yung
Saturday, October 29th – Non- Dancer Music Video Choreography with Patricia Allison
For Forest Bathing on Sunday, October 16th CLICK HERE
When we were brainstorming our first season at Ruff, and the new initiatives we wanted to launch, I was super excited about two things: Ruff Reads (our monthly book club), and Rufflings Story Time, which I imagined as a weekly gathering in the park, adjacent to rehearsals, where members of the mainstage company and the Young Ruffian Apprenticeship Program could gather park kids and read them stories, play games, etc.
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Listen here:
What happens when Shakespeare’s Othello is transposed to a suburban Washington middle school in the 1970s? Let’s find out.
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A Ruff Reads Special Event on the 25th Anniversary of the premiere of Harlem Duet
Supported by Toronto Fringe.
There have been many theatrical adaptations, reinterpretations, and explorations of Othello over the years, including this legendary Canadian play which premiered 25 years ago.
Listen here:
Our vision for Shakespeare in the Ruff begins with our collective leadership model: five artists from different intersections bringing different perspectives to Shakespeare’s plays, and the great big question of why we (and so many others) keep doing them.
“I started rehearsing Prince Hamlet when my daughter was 7 weeks old” has become something of a badge of honour for me. Pregnant artists ask me about it. New parents marvel at it. I look back at it from where I am now and it seems impossible. But that’s because now things are way harder.
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A small but important thing on our New Leadership To-Do List was to rename Ruff’s levels of giving. The original names, which had been around since the company was founded, had an implicit hierarchy that we wanted to move away from. We’re grateful for any donations, of any size – it’s all equally valuable to us – and we wanted the new names to reflect that. We also wanted to move a little farther away from the Shakespeare part of our name, and a little closer to the Ruff.
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