URBAN CURVZ is always interested in working with like-minded organizations!

Last season, we had the chance to present a Women in Improv Showcase alongside an international comedy festival AND to celebrate the 80th anniversary of the “Persons Case” with the Famous 5 Foundation! See below for more information about both of these events and check back often to see what we’re up to next.

We really dig having the chance to lend our skills to good causes, so if you see a way for your organization to work with us, please contact us!

10-Minute Play Festival
January 2010
Presented by The High Performance Rodeo and Ground Zero Theatre

Our Playwright:  Meg Braem
Our Actors: Aaron Edelstein, Cheryl Hutton, Karen Johnson-Diamond & Ayla Stephen

The festival includes 10-minute entries from:
Ground Zero Theatre
Downstage
Urban Curvz Theatre
Obscene but not Heard
Swallow-A-Bicycle
Ellipsis Tree Collective
Two Sheds Theatre

This is not the first year Urban Curvz has been a part of the 10-minute play festival! Click HERE to see the process and the final product of our 2009 entry!

For more information: Visit the High Performance Rodeo’s website!

Women in Improv
September 2009
With the Calgary Improv Festival

URBAN CURVZ THEATRE and THE IMPROV GUILD present a world premiere event:

WOMEN IN IMPROV – Quotable Women
Because history is her-story too…
The Engineered Air Theatre (205 – 8th Ave SE)

Curated and directed by Patti Stiles, Artistic Director of Impro Melbourne (Australia), featuring Kari Coleman (USA), Edi Patterson (USA), Michele Spears (USA) Laura Hildebrandt (Calgary), Anne McMaster (Calgary) and more!
Around the world improvisation companies tend to be comprised of mostly male performers and this, of course, influences the types of stories told. Quotable Women was not created to exclude men but instead to celebrate funny women from all over the world and provide the opportunity for women’s stories to be on the improvisational stage. Using quotes from notable women throughout history as inspiration, an all-female cast will take you on a journey from concubine to feminist, from damsel in distress to power suit career women.
Patti Stiles is the Artistic Director of Impro Melbourne (AU), and past Artistic Director of Rapid Fire Theatre (Edmonton CA), Dream Kitchen Theatre (Toronto CA). Patti is sought-after worldwide for her work as an improvisation performer and teacher and has had the pleasure of working in Canada, the USA, England, Holland, Switzerland, Norway, Germany, Belgium, Sweden, France, New Zealand, Thailand and Australia.

The 80th Anniversary of the Person’s Case
October 2009
With the Famous 5 Foundation

The Famous 5 Foundation approached the 80th anniversary with a two-event strategy, and asked for URBAN CURVZ to help out with both of them!

First up, we gathered a dedicated cast of five local women actors to portray the famous law-changers before a crowd of 200+ school children on Olympic Plaza. The Foundation has worked hard to get the Famous 5 and their lessons of citizenship and empowerment into the social studies curriculum in Canada, and it was a real treat to ask “Who here knows what the Person’s Case is?” and get deafening applause in response!

The cast of the short performance:
Julie Mortensen , Henrietta Muir Edwards, Aislin Winsor, Louise McKinney, Angela Valiant, Emily Murphy, Lesley Galbecka, Nellie McClung, Jenny Kost, Irene Parlby

And then for the grown-up’s, URBAN CURVZ was proud to participate in the “Person-A-La-Tea” fundraiser at the Palliser Hotel. A group of highly accomplished local artists performed an excerpt from Caroline Russell King’s original play High and Splendid Braveries and a rousing rendition of Sheri-D Wilson’s spoken word piece Five Old Biddies on a Fifty.

The readings featured Valerie Ann Pearson, Clarice Evans, Heather Lea MacCallum, Chantal Perron, and Sheri-D Wilson.

Thanks to all of the performers who made CURVZ’ participation such a great success!