Posted in , May 31st, 2013 by Fred Addis

READING, WRITING & RELATING

For Elementary Students Gr. 5 & 6

with educator and mentor

ERIN PRICE

Two Day Camps
July 2-5 or August 6-9
Monday – Friday: 9:00am – Noon

Cost: $25 per student

Get More From Your Reading Experience

LOOKING FOR EAGER YOUNG WRITERS!

Veteran educator Erin Price will lead this one-week program designed to help your child get more out of their reading experience, to improve their ability to communicate positively through writing and to assist them in understanding themselves and how they relate to the world around them.

 This five-day, morning program gives your aspiring young writers a chance to create new and exciting work, shoulder-to-shoulder with an experienced writer and creative writing teacher.

Space is limited to 15 students so please call or email us with your student names as soon as possible to confirm your their interest.

The Leacock Summer Academy is pledged to promoting the advantages of reading and writing as sources of enjoyment and enrichment for everyone, but especially for young people.

Location: Leacock Museum National Historic Site

Cost: $25 per student for 4 day camp – Mornings Only

To Register online: www.orillia.ca    Enter Code 31685 or 31686

Information: 705-329-1908

or email: admin@leacockmuseum.com

Presented with the generous support of

The Leacock Associates             TD Bank Financial Services

CITY OF ORILLIA – PARKS, RECREATION & CULTURE DEPARTMENT

Posted in , May 30th, 2013 by Fred Addis

Leacock Summer Academy: CREATIVE WRITING

For Aspiring High School Writers
with guest author / novelist

CORDELIA STRUBE

July 15-19, 2013
Monday – Friday: 1:00pm – 4:00pm

$35 per Student

ATTENTION HIGH SCHOOL ENGLISH TEACHERS

Looking for Eager Young Writers !

ATTENTION TEACHERS – The Leacock Museum is asking Orillia high school English teachers to select and invite their most eager writing students to a challenging one-week Creative Writing workshop with acclaimed  writer  and novelist Cordelia Strube.

This five-day, afternoon program gives your aspiring young writers a chance to create new and exciting work, shoulder-to-shoulder with an experienced writer and creative writing teacher.

Selected students will be invited to read from their work on Tuesday , July 23 at the official opening of the Leacock Summer Festival.
Space is limited to 15 students so please call or email us with your student names as soon as possible to confirm your their interest.

What The Leacock Summer Academy Creataive Writing Workshop is about:

To write is to learn.  My intent with the workshop is to galvanize young people wishing to enhance the free flow of thought from mind to page.  Through creative writing  exercises and discussion the group explores how to improve narrative drive, strengthen structure, deepen characterization and intensify the clarity and force of each sentence.  Experimenting with self-expression, the students learn that employing specific detail to illustrate themes and concepts brings them to life.  And that “writing it down” is good for the soul.

My goal is to encourage young people to grab a pen and take a chance.  Over the past two summers I have watched these children born into a culture heavily weighted with technology, become rejuvenated by the stillness of writing.  Relieved of cell phones, they wander in the Leacock house or grounds and allow their imaginations to play. Giving them time for reflection in a setting so out of step with our hurried times, enables them to discover a fictional impulse, sparking the creation of original and often very personal prose.

In the 21st Century we live in increasingly challenging, complicated and confusing times.  The act of putting pen to paper in a safe and tranquil environment provides these young people with a tool for psychological and emotional survival.  Coming from a variety of backgrounds, they become unified through the process of creative writing.  Freed from the social and emotional barriers of home and school, they are encouraged to swim against the current, to express themselves as they never have before.

MEET OUR INSTRUCTOR:

CORDELIA STRUBE began her writing career as a playwright for stage and radio.  She turned to writing prose because she wanted unobstructed access to her audience’s imagination.  She has published nine funny, powerful, sparse, cathartic and critically acclaimed novels, among them ALEX&ZEE, TEACHING PIGS TO SING, THE BARKING DOG, LEMON and, most recently, MILOSZ.   Winner of the CBC Literary Competition and the Toronto Arts Foundation Protégé Award, she has been long-listed for the Scotia Bank/ Giller Prize, nominated for the Prix Italia, the Books in Canada First Novel, The ReLit, the Trillium and Governor General’s Awards.

Since 2000 she has conducted writing workshops at Ryerson University.

Cost: $35 per Student

To Register online: www.orillia.ca    Enter Code 31486

Information: 705-329-1908

or email: admin@leacockmuseum.com

Presented with the generous support of

The Leacock Associates             TD Bank Financial Services

CITY OF ORILLIA – PARKS, RECREATION & CULTURE DEPARTMENT

Posted in , May 30th, 2013 by Fred Addis

PAGE to STAGE

A Practical Guide to Theatre Scene-Writing

with award-winning playwright and author

DAN NEEDLES

4 Consecutive Thursday Nights July 4, 11, 18 & 25

7:00 – 10:00 PM

Cost: $125. per person

CALLING ALL BUDDING PLAYWRIGHTS

If you have a penchant to put words in other peoples mouths, or have been longing to pen a theatrical scene based on your own experience, real or imagined, here’s an opportunity you won’t want to miss.  Why not take a break from your regular summer routine and enrol in an evening course on scene-writing with award-winning playwright and author Dan Needles.

The Leacock Summer Academy is pleased to announce an exciting new opportunity for budding playwrights in our community. We are offering a ‘Page to Stage’ Scene-Writing Workshop on four consecutive Thursdays in July that will give participants the opportunity to work in a small group setting and individually with a talented professional theatre scene-writer.

Participants will each work on their own dramatic scene using examples of good scene writing from modern drama. The group will move through four evening sessions of three hours each.

The first session will address principles of stagecraft, character development, narrative and dialogue. The following sessions will be used to develop outlines and first drafts. When the four sessions are complete, our instructor will select four scenes for  development and presentation at a future Leacock Museum event, using volunteer actors.

Scene writing starts with a single vision, the germ of an idea in the mind of the playwright.  But once that vision has made its way onto the page, it is then crafted for the hands of actors and technicians. Immediately, other visions come into play and the process becomes collaborative.

So, even if your own scene isn’t selected for the second phase you will still get the opportunity to watch and contribute your own ideas as new work is moved from the page to the stage.

MEET OUR INSTRUCTOR:

DAN NEEDLES is best known as the creator of the Wingfield Farm stage plays featuring  Walt Wingfield and all the two and four-footed characters of Persephone Township. His plays have appeared in virtually every English language theatre in Canada. His newest, Ed’s Garage opened earlier this year at the Manitoba Theatre Centre. Dan is also affectionately known as the Mayor of Mariposa.  He won the Stephen Leacock Medal for Humour in 2003 for his book With Axe and Flask: The History of Persephone Township from Pre-Cambrian Times to the Present Day.

Location: Leacock Museum, 50 Museum Dr., Orillia
Course Fee: $125. per person for all 4 sessions

To Register online: www.orillia.ca    Enter Code 31701

Information: 705-329-1908

or email: admin@leacockmuseum.com

Presented with the generous support of

The Leacock Associates             TD Bank Financial Services

CITY OF ORILLIA – PARKS, RECREATION & CULTURE DEPARTMENT

Posted in , May 30th, 2013 by Fred Addis

Leacock Summer Academy: STORYTELLING

Arcadian Adventuring: Stories on the Front Porch

with Susan Charters & Bob Graham

4 Sunday Workshops & Storytelling Sessions

June 16, July 14, 21 & August 18

BE A PART OF A GROWING EVOLUTION THAT’S

Bringing Back The Art of Storytelling

Anyone interested in learning the ancient art of storytelling is invited to join us for a 4-sessionstorytelling workshop offered this summer at theLeacock Museum, home of one of our nation’s greatest storytellers, Stephen Leacock.

Storytelling allows you to relax and let your mind wander to unexpected places, sometimes taking your heart along for the ride. Whether around the camp fire under the moon and stars or around the kitchen table, grandparents, parents, children, neighbours, and friends all need stories.

Veteran storytellers Susan Charters and Bob Graham, both members of Storytellers of Canada-Conteurs du Canada, will lead you through the ins and outs of storytelling, giving you ways to make people listen and want to listen. Find your voice and shape a story, and you will be amazed at the excitement you create and the gratitude you feel just watching the expressions on the faces of your audience.

Or, come just to listen. Stories on the Front Porch is free and open to everyone. Our public program begins at 2:00pm. We promise storytelling adventures from the comfort of a shady chair.

Participants who attend all 4 workshops will be able to share their story with the Sunday afternoon audience. If you have never told a story or want to hone your storytelling skills, we promise a comfortable, supportive venue for your storytelling presentation, and look forward to coaching you through this adventure.

Storytelling Workshop Sessions: 1:00 – 2:00 p.m
Workshop Fee: $25 per person covers all 4 sessions

Stories on the Front Porch: 2:00 – 4:00 p.m.
Admission is Free. Complimentary Tea and Cake Arcadian Adventuring

MEET OUR WORKSHOP LEADERS:

BOB GRAHAM has been telling stories around campfires, at schools, libraries, resorts, retirement homes and corporate settings for 30+ years. As a young boy he met an amazing First Nations man named Cecil who lived by himself in a small cabin near the Graham family cottage on Sparrow Lake.  Cecil would visit, always with a tale or two about his way of life and his friends the animals. He gave young Bob a vision of life that he has lived by and now passes on to others with this Cecil Stories.

SUSAN CHARTERS carries a full sack of stories, from around the corner and around the world, and is always ready to pull them out and share them, along with tips on how to tell a good story. She is an editor and retired teacher, and designs the Storytellers of Canada newsletter, Le Raconteur. She has facilitated storytelling workshops for adults and young people at schools, festivals, camps and conferences, and has more fun doing this than anything else.

To Register online: www.orillia.ca    Enter Code 31702

Information: 705-329-1908

or email: admin@leacockmuseum.com

Presented with the generous support of

The Leacock Associates             TD Bank Financial Services

CITY OF ORILLIA – PARKS, RECREATION & CULTURE DEPARTMENT

Posted in , March 14th, 2012 by Fred Addis

The Leacock Museum’s annual salute to contemporary Canadian literature features a broad spectrum of contemporary creative writing.

Tickets on Sale June 15

–SCHEDULE–

July 23 – Tuesday: 8:00pm

OPENING NIGHT

Mark Kingwell – Unruly Voices: Essays on Democracy, Civility

                            and Human Imagination

Jowita Bydlowska – Drunk Mom

Steven Heighton – The Dead Are More Visible (Stories)

July 24 – Wednesday: 8:00pm

CARTOON CULTURE

Isaac Bickerstaff (aka Don Evans)

Mike Eddenden

July 25 – Thursday: 8:00pm

POETRY

Ian Williams – Personals (2013 Griffin Poetry Prize – Canadian shortlist)

Jan Zwicky – Forge (2012 Griffin Poetry Prize – Canadian shortlist)

Marty Gervais – Poet Laureate of Windsor

July 26 – Friday: 11:00am – 2:00pm

CHILDREN’S DAY – NEVERLAND

Our annual festival Children’s Day has as its theme this year, J.M. Barrie’s NEVERLAND.  Enjoy stories, face-painting and dressing-up. Perfect for kids of all ages.

Complimentary Hot Dogs, Lemonade and Cake for Everyone.

Admission by Donation

July 26 – Friday: 8:00pm

FRIDAY NIGHT HUMOUR SHOWCASE

HOST: Terry Fallis – Up and Down

Lorne Elliot - Beach Reading

Andrew Kaufman – Born Weird

Jan Zwicky - The Book of Frog

July 27 – Saturday: 2:00pm

ME, MYSELF & I: Memoirists

Roger Bell:             Real Lives

                              When the Devil Calls

Sherry Lawson:    I’ve Been Shot At: What’s Your Excuse?

                              Don’t Get Too Close: You Might Get Some On You…

Charlie Wilkins:     Little Ship of Fools

                              Walk to New York

                              In the Land of the Long Fingernails….

July 27 – Saturday: 8:00pm

FANTASY SHOWCASE

Julie Czerneda – A Turn of Light

Ed Greenwood – Forgotten Realms (Dungeons and Dragons)

Lesley Livingston – Starling

– CHECK THIS PAGE REGULARLY FOR MORE INFORMATION AND DETAILS  –