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Jack and the End of the World 
A Dancing Sky Theatre Collective Creation

 

The Characters

Crispi Lord as Jack Spriggins and many others

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James O'Shea as The Widow Spriggins and many others

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Jenna Berenbaum as Evelina and many others

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Blaine Hart as Monty St Orange and many others

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Bongani Musa as The Giant,  Soothsayer and many others

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Photo By Britainy Zapshalla

Dancing Sky Theatre is proud and honored to be making art on the great plains of North
America, also called Turtle Island and many other names. We strive to reflect rural realities in an urban-centric culture. We recognize that we share this landscape with various indigenous peoples (many signees to Treaty #6), members of The Metis Nation, several generations of settlers, as well as new immigrants to these lands. We also seek to share the space with the more than human world, both indigenous and immigrant. We aim to respect, and work in harmony and balance with all the diversity of life that surrounds us.

Jack and the End of the World 
PROGRAM NOTE

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Welcome back to the Prairie Panto at Dancing Sky Theatre!

 

I grew up in the UK where Christmas Pantomime is a deep tradition. The first time I ever set foot in a theatre was to go to the “panto” with my Gran at the age of about 6. I was swept up to the magic and energy of the performance. I loved it.

 

Years later when I was living in rural Saskatchewan and creating theatre for a living, I was missing the Christmas theatrical tradition. It didn’t feel right to just import a tradition from the UK so I set about making a new version – a truly “prairie panto.” I borrowed some of the elements of the original form, such as cross-gender casting, audience participation, roots in fairy tales and the aim to create a truly cross-generational, family event, but I added a very small town prairie feel. All of our pantos have been set in a mythic small Saskatchewan town populated by characters loosely based on the people I lived with every day. Our first ‘prairie panto’ was Farmer Joe and the Money Trees created 17 years ago. I had a basic story written then I found an amazing team of collaborators and we created every element of the production together in about three weeks. It was an amazing experience and the audience loved it.

 

It is an absolute joy to be working with two of those original collaborators, James O’Shea and Crispi Lord, all these years later. Over those 17 years, and 10 original creations later, our pantos have become a tradition of their own. Both Jenna Berenbaum and Blaine Hart have created pantos with us before and it’s exciting to have them back – and to keep things fresh and moving we always include a new artist. This year we are welcoming the wonderful Bongani Musa.  It is also great to have the rock that is Katie Blackburn-Dust back on board.

 

As always it has been challenging, rewarding and exhausting to create something from nothing in such a short time, but it always feels wonderful to share our new creation with an audience and feel the magic happen.

 

Thanks so much for coming and we hope that you have a wonderful time.



Angus Ferguson

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There will be a 15 minute intermission
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DST would like to thank:
  • Louisa Ferguson for the postcard and poster design

  • Jensine Emeline for all the help with lighting, props and costumes

  • Carla Orosz for all the borrowed tech

  • Ed Mendez of GTNT for support and helping us out

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50/50 Draw

December 18,2022

The Winning Ticket #
3774152

Lottery Licence #SR22-3079

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