We are SO damn pleased to announce that Crush Improv is pairing up with The Gladstone Theatre’s 2012/2013 Season!
For every show in the Gladstone lineup, Crush Improv will be performing their hit show Spotlight On… featuring that show’s director.
Spotlight On… began as a show at the 2011 Ottawa Fringe Festival and won Crush the Best Ensemble award! The show features a new guest monologist (someone who tells monologues) every night and that person, inspired by a suggestion from the audience, tells short stories from their real life. Crush then improvises scenes based on those true-life tales, and once the scenes wander a little too far from the original story, the focus goes back to our guest and we hear another anecdote which inspires more scenes.
This Month’s guest is TERI LORETTO VALENTIK
As a busy producer, director, performer, teacher, part-time weather personality and full-time Mom, Teri has very little time to sit down, let alone tell stories. That’s why we’re very excited she has agreed to join us as our guest monologist for the next installment of Spotlight On…at the Gladstone Theatre on Feb.11th.
Teri Loretto-Valentik is a co-founder of Plosive Productions, the resident company in the Gladstone Theatre and this month she’s also the director of their latest production, “Billy Bishop Goes to War”, running Feb.8th – 23rd.
Teri is well known in the Ottawa community as an actor, teacher, and as the stand in weather person for CBC News: Ottawa and Radio One. She has been twice nominated for a Prix Rideau Award for Best Performance – Female for “Shirley Valentine” and for Mary in “How the Other Half Loves” (Gladstone Theatre). She has worked with a number of companies in town, including TotoToo Theatre, a Company of Fools and as a member of the Absinthe Collective. She is an instructor for Orleans Young Players and teaches in the Theatre program at Algonquin College; she is also completing her Masters degree at the University of Ottawa and has worked for a number of years as a volunteer steering committee and board member for the Prix Rideau Awards – PHEW!
With so many balls in the air, we’re sure Teri has more than a few stories to tell, and Crush will use those stories as the inspiration for their scenes. And all of this will happen on the set of “Billy Bishop” at the beautiful Gladstone Theatre.
This season’s remaining guests (and Gladstone Directors) will include:
- March: John P. Kelly
(Director of Stones in His Pockets, November, and Absurd Person Singular) - April: Eleanor Crowder
(Director of The Taming of the Shrew)
If you missed this show at the Ottawa Fringe, be sure to catch it at the Gladstone this season, and also get to know some of the Theatre makers of Ottawa!