BRUSH STROKES (Nov 2005)

The book launch of 'Brush Strokes' in November of 2005 marked the 20th anniversary of Sheatre. The launch included the performance of poetic sketches of Tom Thomson and our contemporary world, featuring readings by select experienced and new authors, including Liz Zetlin, Daniel Kolos and Anne Wellwood, Dianne Joyce, Joan Chandler, Lynn Wyville, and Ezra Braves, with special musical guest David Sereda.

BRUSH STROKES is an offshoot off “Brush”, a theatrical work-in-progress, a production of Sheatre. The book combines poems selected from a poetry contest that Sheatre held this year, along with writings about and from the community arts project.

The winners of the contest were Liz Zetlin (first prize winner adult), Sophia Werden Abrams (first prize winner children), Alyson Mulvaney-Courtois (first prize winner youth) and Alex Marotta (honourable mention youth). The work of thirty other poets, most of them from across the Grey-Bruce region, appears in this volume.

For almost 90 years, Tom Thomson has been inspiring artists to express this land. Gritty, gutsy, giving, dogged and moody, his spirit matched the unpredictable world he portrayed. Now these poets, young and old, step through Tom’s doorway and discover a sensual and gripping world of their own.

In its 20 years of professional theatre, Sheatre continues to be dedicated to creating and presenting new work, has produced and co-facilitated over 65 community created plays and theatre forum presentations, and hundreds of workshops, attracting over 42,000 people in Canada, the US and Europe. Its works include The Ballad of Kennedy’s, Stay on Your Feet seniors falls prevention series, Pterodactyl Delight, the Womenfolk Festival and Brush. BRUSH STROKES is the first book publication.