Welcome to our fundraising page, and thank you for supporting the McGill Classics Play! You can donate here.
The McGill Classics Play is a non-profit venture committed to giving Montreal university students a unique educational experience, while fostering cultural exchanges with our Montreal community around ancient texts. We offer free shows and free performance and translation workshops open to the community, and we bring in guest speakers for public lectures on Classical drama and performance. Any support you can give in helping us continue this kind of programming is so appreciated. You can donate directly to the McGill Classics Play here, and you will automatically receive a tax receipt for your donation. Thank you for supporting the McGill Classics Play!
FACTS
- The McGill Classics Play is a member of the Quebec Drama Federation, and its community partner, Oimoi Productions, is a member of the Freestanding Creative Collective.
- Each year, the Classics Play produces an all-new English translation of a Classical play, often with original music, in an off-campus venue. Past venues have included the Sala Rossa, the Montréal arts interculturels space, the Mainline Theatre, and the Theatre Ste Catherine.
- We have also performed free, community-based shows, such as at Westmount's Victoria Hall, and at the Hellenic Community Centre of Greater Montréal.
- Since 2011, the McGill Classics Play has produced Aeschylus' Agamemnon, Euripides' Hippolytos, and Sophocles' Philoktetes, Aristophanes' Lysistrata, Seneca's Thyestes, and Plato's Symposium.
- In the last eleven years, over 300 students have gained valuable experience participating in the McGill Classics Play (translating, directing, acting, writing music, playing music, designing and making costumes, doing make-up, designing lighting, tech directing, stage managing, managing publicity and marketing, and keeping the books). These students are undergraduates and graduates, and have come from faculties across McGill- we have also had students from UdeM and Concordia participate.
- Any university student who wants to participate can; anyone who auditions is cast.
- The McGill Classics Play hires local artists to participate in and enhance our shows- we believe that we can learn from each other through engaging ancient texts. Past artistic collaborations have been with musicians, composers, comedians, mask actors and local dance troupes.
- In 2011, the Arts Undergraduate Society awarded the McGill Classics Play "Best New Activity".
- In 2012, student director Carina de Klerk adapted her Classics Play production of Hippolytos into an award-nominated Montreal Fringe Festival production, giving several students their first professional experience in the theatre.
- In 2012, the McGill Classics Play began a continuing partnership with local professional theatre company Scapegoat Carnivale, and became a member of the Quebec Drama Federation.
- Over the past eleven years, the McGill Classics Play has sold over 4000 tickets, a slight majority of which were discounted tickets for students from local universities, high schools, and CEGEPs, seniors, and local artists.
- Every year, the McGill Classics Play sponsors the Annual McGill Classics Play Lecture, which is free and open to the public on the topic of performance and ancient texts, as well as programming additional free, public, activities and talks throughout the year.
- The McGill Classics Play has appeared in press features in McGill, Concordia, and Dawson student papers, as well as in the National Theatre blog, the Charlebois Post, and in notes for the Quebec Drama Federation.