News

Dillon Orr (recipient of the Ontario Arts Council's Pauline McGibbon Award in 2021) directs Le Club des éphémères (The Shadflies Club) by Alain Doom developed during a writing residency at TfT.

" Don't step out of the dressing room leading with your right foot? Never peek at the audience from behind the curtain. Put on make-up with a rabbit's foot. Don't knit backstage.In theatre, we are extremely superstitious. These are important relics of the rich history accompanying the performing arts, reminding us that creating for the stage is also participating in one of the oldest human traditions.The embargo on whistling in the theatre began when stagehand positions were filled by moonlighting sailors who used coded whistles to communicate, and thus an untimely whistle could result in a piece of scenery crashing down on your head. Real plants are forbidden on stage, real jewelry interferes with the lighting design, not to mention green costumes, which are absolutely forbidden.Perhaps theatre also shares its strangeness and mystery with the occult to remind us that it is, indeed, a form of witchcraft.Let's face it. The line between theatre and magic is blurry.The instruction manual, The Discouerie of witchcraft, wherein the lewde dealing of witches and witchmongers is notablie detected, in sixteen books by Reginald Scotus (1584), rightly points out that in theatre, actresses and illusionists are performers, and not witches.Although, part of a witch's arsenal is obviously her ability to create good theatre...If the stage is a mirror held up to society and mirrors are the most magical of objects, perhaps we should consider listening to witches and believing in superstitions, which adhere to the smallest of veils between the world of the surreal: the stage curtain.Do you know The Malleus Maleficarum_? No? How strange. It is a religious treatise published in Strasbourg in 1486 or 1487._ The Malleus Malficarum even accuses witches of having the power to steal the male organ from his body. It goes on to give accounts of witches commenting on these crimes. Now, you didn’t hear this from me...Welcome to The Shadflies Club**"**

Dillon Orr, Director

About Dillon:

Originally from the Detroit River Region, Dillon Orr is a Franco-Ontarian stage director. He is a graduate of the Department of Theatre from the University of Ottawa, and the Artistic Residency program at the National Theatre School of Canada. Strongly interested in the development and production of new dramaturgies, Dillon is the recipient of the Paulette-Gagnon (2016) and National Excellence RBC (2019) awards, awarded by the Foundation for the Advancement of Francophone Theater in Canada, as well as the Pauline McGibbon Award (2021) from the Ontario Arts Council. His work and theatrical point of view, characterized by its passion fueled approach to cringe, are exciting new forms of popular entertainment. Anchored in humour and accessibility, Dillon’s unique approach to live art is representative of an intrinsically Franco-Ontarian theatre aesthetic. His many creations include Le club des éphémères (Théâtre du Nouvel-Ontario, Théâtre français de Toronto), Ceci n’est pas une lettre d’adieu… (Théâtre Catapulte), Toutou (Vox Théâtre), Jeff Koons (Théâtre du Trillium, Center Phi) and Vaches, The Musical (Creations In Vivo).