Western Edge Theatre’s New Artistic Director Unveils Spring Season
By Whitley Dunn
November 20, 2023
Western Edge Theatre is kicking off its 2023-24th season with Canadian Dan Bay’s play Knight of The Bat, a riff on the beloved Batman story with a Shakespearean twist. It follows London’s favourite playwright/playboy, William Shakespeare, as he becomes the caped crusader, Sir Bat. Sir Bat must fight the Jester before he wreaks havoc on an apocalyptic scale.
Western Edge’s new artistic director is Jonathan Greenway. He grew up in the theatre community so his takeover from the previous co-artistic directors Dan Puglas and Brianna Hamilton went smoothly.
“When I moved back here, I had a Master’s in Drama Therapy and worked with Theatre One as the general manager for two years, but I wanted to get back to the artistic side of things…doing theatre that was meaningful and cutting edge,” Greenway says, “I wanted to choose something fun and silly. Knight of The Bat plays on the fact that people who go to theatre usually love Shakespeare, and people right now love comic books and the superhero movie franchises that are rolling through cinemas.”
Greenway adds, “It combines two worlds well and will excite people. I knew I really wanted to dive into this season with something that made people come to see the show, especially [with] people just starting to make their way back into theatres and using that as a form of entertainment as opposed to staying at home watching TikTok or Netflix.”
Greenway says one of his inspirations was VIU’s production of She Kills Monsters. He says, “It was packed full. People were standing in their seats…. It was a play that had silly humour, was fun, and was about Dungeons and Dragons.”
Clayton Orlando, who plays the Jester and a few other characters, says,“It’s a Batman comedy, a silly, whacky, ridiculous show. If you’re a Batman lover, you’ll know a lot of the references, and there are so many lines throughout the play [from the] movies. It’s more of a Batman show than a Shakespeare one.”
Mary Littlejohn, who plays Robin Goodfellow, says, “It’s like controlled chaos. We are constantly moving all the time and doing something, costume changes, set moving, catching people when they fall. It’s so fun.”
The show features many puppets as well as human actors. “I only have my puppet in one scene, while Brandon [Caul] is the puppet master and does a lot with them. Honestly, mine is so creepy. It’s the dead stare and I can’t look her in the eyes.”
Knight of The Bat opened on November 17th, with their first two shows nearly sold out. It will return on Nov. 23-25th with shows at 7:30 p.m. and a matinee on November 26th at 2 pm. The show will be at the OV Arts Centre on Victoria Road.
Dan Puglas is a Western Edge board member, previous artistic director of Western Edge, and now president of Reconciliation Theatre. He says, “I feel like this season is pretty diverse. It has a little bit of everything. Jon curated the list all by himself, so it’s been kind of eye-opening seeing the different flavours of shows we picked. The contrast between the opening shows from this season and the last is night and day. Last season, we had This Is How We Got Here, which was depressing, and then we have Knight of The Bat, which is bat shit crazy.”
In February, the headlining show for Western Edge will be Sky Gilbert’s Drag Queens on Trial and will be accompanied by the New Waves festival. The New Waves festival is still in the works, but will focus on celebrating new queer playwrights in the community. In April, Joan MacLeod’s The Valley will end the season.
Western Edge offers subscriptions and flex-passes on its website, along with details about tickets and showtimes.
