The Chop Theatre
How to Disappear Completely
by Itai Erdal
May 8 – 13, 2012
Mainspace Theatre
A deeply personal and extraordinary theatrical experience.
In September of 2000, infamous lighting designer Itai Erdal received a phone call telling him his mother was diagnosed with lung cancer and had nine months to live. Itai, a recent film-school graduate promptly moved back to Israel to spend every moment he could with his dying mother. During that time he shot hours of film and hundreds of pictures, documenting the final months of her life. In a starkly simple yet deeply profound new work, Erdal invites us into the surprising circumstances surrounding his mother’s passing. At the heart of this story is Mery Erdal’s vibrant personality, the strong bond she had with her son and the personal yet universal story of how she bravely lived her life and faced her imminent death.
The show premiered to great success at the Chutzpah! Festival in February 2011. It will re-mount in 2012 at The Shadbolt Centre for the Performing Arts in Burnaby and Factory Theatre in Toronto.
About Itai Erdal
Lighting designer Itai Erdal has designed over 170 shows for theatre and dance companies in Vancouver, Toronto, Montreal, Tel Aviv, Berlin, London and New York. Some of the companies he worked with include: Stratford Festival, Vancouver Playhouse, Arts Club, Bard on the Beach, National Arts Centre, Citadel, Theatre for the New City, Volcano, Factory Theatre, Passe Muraille, Nightswimming, Actor's Repertory Company, Neworld, Electric Company, Theatre Replacement, Leaky Heaven Circus, Rumble, Modern Baroque Opera, The Jerusalem Lab, Haifa Theatre and Teatro Villa Velha in Salvador, Brazil.
Itai has won the ADC's Jack King award in '05, a Dora Mavor Moore award in '07, the best design award in the Dublin Fringe in '08, Victoria's Critics' Choice Spotlight Award in 2011 and Jessie Richardson awards in 2003, 2009 & 2011. He is the Artistic Director of the Elbow Theatre in Vancouver.
About The Chop Theatre
The Chop Theatre is a Vancouver-based company known for its innovative approach to works that explore an intimate, live and direct connection with the audience. Since 2005, The Chop has developed and produced ten new pieces of theatre including 2 Truths + 1 Lie = Proof, Townsville, the award-winning Patti Fedy trilogy, and KISMET one to one hundred, which continues to tour nationally.
Masterclass with Lighting Designer Itai Erdal
Experience an in-depth look into the unique artistic process of renowned lighting designer Itai Erdal!
Visiting Toronto with How to Disappear Completely at Factory Theatre (May 8-13), Erdal will give a masterclass on May 12, including a live demonstration and discussion of his lighting techniques. The Vancouver-based designer has garnered critical acclaim, working on productions in North America, Europe, and Israel.
"Lighting designer Itai Erdal does more with light and fog than most designers do with an entire set; indeed, his evocative and magical lighting will undoubtedly be one of the aspects of this production that lives on in the audience's memories."
- John Threlfall, Monday Magazine
“The professional insights of Erdal, who at times operates the lighting from the stage, are used to great effect to illuminate his story, becoming a metaphor for his experiences and for life’s big questions … he uses the medium he knows so intimately to transcend the private, and present theatre with universal resonance…"
- The Globe and Mail
Date: Saturday, May 12, 2012
Time: 2:00PM – 5:00PM
Location: Factory Theatre (125 Bathurst Street)
Admission: $25
or $45 package with a ticket to How To Disappear (May 8-13, 2013)
Please call the Factory Box Office at 416-504-9971 or visit in person to reserve your tickets.
“Through these charged memories we get the sense of being truly alive, of living life to its fullest. What could have been a dark show is driven in fact by light.”
- Marsha Ledererman, Globe and Mail
“This is intimate theatre that’s astonishingly brave and completely entertaining...”
- Vancouver Courier
Written & Performed by
Itai Erdal
Directed by
James Long
Dramaturge
Anita Rochon
Projection Designer
Jamie Nesbitt
Sound Designer
Emilia Symington Fedy
credit:
Mery Erdal & Itai Erdal.
photo: Emily Cooper