A new festival promises to make the waterfront a dramatic place this August.
This summer the Superior Theatre Festival will launch an integrative arts festival to showcase professional, emerging and youth artists in the community.
The festival’s director, Donna Marie Baratta, said the event will feature a main theatrical performance of Night Wings by Eleanor Albanese, which will take the stage six times throughout the weekend of Aug. 5 through Aug. 7.
“It’s a beautiful story about a family,” Baratta said. “It’s centred around a 12-year-old girl named Molly who has had vision loss, her brother Juri, and her grandfather Ukki.”
The family is under stress as Juri must take care of both his sister and grandfather while his father works away from home in a timber camps.
Baratta added that the audience will have the opportunity to watch as Molly finds her independence through an imaginary world of her own making.
“It was really important for me to have a Thunder Bay playwright to start off this festival and to always remain grounded to those roots,” Baratta said.
The festival will also feature three full shows and a number of different performances including a Thunder Bay singer, a poet, a one-man play and a short play presentation created by youth during a summer theatre program.
The program is a free weeklong program for youth where they learn voice work, puppetry, movement and how to create a performance.
“I think drama is an art that facilitates collaboration really well,” Baratta said.
“I think you learn communication skills, you learn to work with people and I think those are skills that are used in any other job.”
She added that it’s important for her to create opportunity and inspire youth to continue to think of this as a career.
“I really value the voice of the youth and I think they are incredible so it would be nice to empower them to come out,” Baratta said.
“This is a building year for us so it’s important to get their voices heard.”
Baratta hopes to make the three-day festival an annual event that features a number of programs with theatrical opportunities from local and national companies.
