Highway 63: The Fort Mac Show

SHOW: Highway 63: The Fort Mac Show by Architect Theatre

PRODUCER: Architect Theatre

VENUE: The Cultch Historic Theatre

DATES & TIMES (View Full Schedule)

  • July 28 and July 30 @ 7:00 pm
  • July 31 @ 4:00 pm
  • Aug 1st @ 7:00 pm

Every Canadian experiences the benefits of oil, but many know very little about life at its source. Behind every barrel, every economic projection or environmental scandal, there are people. Who are the people at the northern tip of Alberta's Highway 63?  At the heart of the world’s largest energy project, theatre creators from across Canada use a blend of verbatim and improvisation to bring the front lines of the oil sands to Vancouver.

  • "Highway 63 has the guts and wit and chops to talk about the Oil Sands in a way where people from both sides of the issue can sit and have a conversation about it." - Calgary Herald
  • "A tightly-choreographed affair from start to finish, weaving between monologues, dialogue and even song and interpretive dance sequences with great ease." - The Charlatan - Carleton University Newspaper
  • "One of the most relevant, flat-out best shows to hit Edmonton’s stages this year."  - VUE Weekly

History of the Work

Architect Theatre

Founded by Jonathan Seinen and Georgina Beaty, Architect Theatre is an ad-hoc company propelled by stories untold, by rocks unturned, and by relationships unexposed. We refuse pre-fabricated housing. We build theatre pieces that respond to the dynamic lives they express and constantly seek to subvert and re-invent our methodology so that we, and our audiences, honestly hear each story we tell.

Charlotte Corbeil Coleman, Creator, Director, and Stage Manager

Charlotte Corbeil Coleman grew up in the theatre, playing on sets and sleeping in greenrooms. She graduated from the National Theatre School of Canada (2008) in the Playwriting program. She finished the year by writing two companion plays for her graduating class:  John…Sudden Death, about the last night of hockey goon John Kordic, andCindy…A Perfect Circle about his Fiancée, a stripper working in a fetish fairytale club in downtown Montreal. During the three-year program Charlotte wrote My Fish Stick Play,Purple, Which Bed Do You Want?, an adaptation of Raymond Carver’s short story, Cathedral, and a one woman play entitled, The Holey Chicken Bone. Other writing credits include a CBC radio play, The Summer of February. The End of Pretending won the 2002 SummerWorks Eye Audience Choice Award, and went on to do a run at the Regent Theatre in Picton, Ontario.Scratch, which won The Herman Voaden Award in 2007, opened Factory’s 2008/2009 season. The King’s Conscience will be doing a run with Theatre Kingston in the fall of ’09. Charlotte currently lives in Toronto where she is the Playwright-In-Residence at Factory Theatre and is developing a screenplay, Falling From Grace and working on a collection of short stories, entitled: I’ve slept in every room but the Kitchen...

Layne Coleman, Creator & Director

Layne Coleman just returned from Rwanda, Africa, where he performed in a play called Goodness for Volcano Theatre. Goodness went to Rwanda after a run in Toronto and tours to Winnipeg in January. Layne is a former Artistic Director of Theatre Passe Muraille and has been involved in the development of new Canadian plays for a long time. He findsHighway 63 to be an original, timely and inspiring look through the eyes of the twenty-something generation. Mr. Coleman left his farm near Kingston, Ontario, to live in an unfurnished condo in Fort McMurray with the younger members of this collective and found the experience to be renewing and transformative. After spending most of this year on the road from Nanaimo, Vancouver, Fort McMurray, Edmonton, Kamloops, Saskatoon, North Battleford, Calgary, Ottawa, Montreal and Toronto, he has a better understanding of his country.

Georgina Beaty, Performer & Co-Creator

Georgina is an actor, creator and co-founder of Architect Theatre. Acting credits include: Sissy in Unity (1918) (Alberta Theatre Projects – Betty Mitchell nomination), Suspended (Boca del Lupo), Pig (High Performance Rodeo, Canoe Festival), Queen Lear (Urban Curvz), Bone Cage (Downstage), Easter and Ah, Wilderness! (Chemainus), and the collective creation, Sister Show (Exitleft). Playwriting: Squeeze Machine (runner-up Uprising National Playwriting Competition), and Fire Ally (Ignite! Sage theatre/ Studio 58). Georgina is a graduate of the University of Alberta and the acting program at Studio 58.

Greg Gale, Performer & Co-Creator

Greg is a native of Corner Brook, Newfoundland, and in 2007 graduated from the National Theatre School of Canada's Acting program. While there, he received the Hnatyshyn Foundation's Emerging Artist Grant given annually to one young artist in Canada who shows special promise and talent in their area of study. While at school, Greg performed the roles of Yasha in The Cherry Orchard, the King of France in All's Well that Ends Well and Aleksander Petrovitch in the Russian farce The Suicide, among others. Since graduating, Greg has worked in theatres from Newfoundland to Alberta. Highlights include Saltwater Moon with Rising Tide Theatre in Trinity, Speakeasy, an original play by the young Montreal company SaBooge, Dance of the Red Skirts, a collaborative creation produced by Toronto's clown based company Theatre Columbus and Woody, a solo show about Pinocchio that was produced by western Newfoundland's Free Radicals Theatre. Greg spent the summer working with the Gros Morne Summer Music Festival in Newfoundland organizing musical events, playing the guitar and trying to get people to smile.

Jonathan Seinen, Performer, Creator & Co-Producer

Jonathan Seinenis an actor, director, and playwright, Artistic Associate with lemonTree theatre creations, and Co-Artistic Producer of Architect Theatre. Recent acting credits: As You Like It (Banff/Citadel Professional Theatre Program), The Nick Drake Project (SummerWorks), Much Ado About Nothing and Romeo & Juliet (Theatre Prospero, Edmonton). Directing credits include: A new collective creation, Still Life (lemonTree), Deathwatch (lemonTree/Pride Toronto), Christmas Ham(let) (Swallow-a-Bicycle Performance Co-op, Calgary), The Red Devil (lemonTree/SummerWorks, Outstanding Direction - NOW Magazine) and university productions of The Visit and 4.48 Psychosis. Selected Playwriting credits: Unknown Pleasures (Sage Theatre, Calgary), and [ice land] (Walterdale Theatre, Edmonton, published in Hot Thespian Action! (Athabasca UP)). Jonathan is a graduate of the University of Alberta and the National Theatre School. Upcoming: Highway 63: The Fort Mac Show at Theatre Passe Muraille in February 2011.