Support new Canadian theatre with "This Feels Like The End"!

Theatre Aurinko is a new collective in Toronto, producing Bonnie Duff’s play, This Feels Like The End at the 2024 Next Stage Festival at Buddies in Bad Times Theatre!

What is Next Stage?

Run by the Toronto Fringe, Next stage is a “boutique, curated performance festival that allows for elevation and creative risk-taking by six talented companies who are poised and ready for their next stage”. Read more about it here .

What’s this show about?

One morning, all over the world, the sun doesn’t rise. Or the next morning. Or the next. Between Toronto and Finland’s far North, the lives of five individuals collide in a journey of faith, folklore, and conspiracy.

This Feels Like The End explores the lives of normal people in extraordinary circumstances. Tying together religion, Finnish folklore, and how we model hope to young people coming of age in the climate crisis, this play examines what comes after what feels like the end.

This play was first developed through Playwright Theatre Centre’s Block A program in 2022, completed through the grant support of the Ontario Arts Council, and was curated as part of the 2024 rEvolver Festival in Vancouver and was presented as a staged reading. This is its fully staged premiere.

What do we need?

We were lucky enough to receive grant funding to support this project from the Canada Council for the Arts. This grant is immeasurably useful in supporting all the artists we are hiring at industry-standard wages to work on this project! However, this grant does not fully fund this project. Through a combination of the support of the Canada Council, ticket sales, Bonnie’s personal financial investment, and the support of people like you, this show will be able to come to fruition in a fully produced way- paying industry standard wages to everyone involved (and, you know, paying for rehearsal space and set materials and costumes and all the other things!). More than ever, creating theatre at this level as an emerging artist in this city is financially prohibitive, if you want to pay your rent while doing it! Any support you can offer helps us reach our goal of a polished, professional piece of theatre ready to hit the stage at Buddies in Bad Times this October. We are aiming high with a lofty crowd-funding goal of $2500, which would mean that we are fully funded. This would go towards covering artist wages, scenic design materials, rehearsal space rentals, and boring things like HST that sure add up!

A note from Bonnie Duff (playwright/project lead):

As a playwright, this is the most professional presentation of my work so far. I feel so lucky to be creating this show alongside the talents of our cast and creative team- some of whom are emerging artists, some of whom are familiar Toronto favorites! Your support means the world to me and I can’t thank you enough for believing in this project.

Who is involved?

A cast of actors, including Dora-award winners and familiar faces from major toronto stages, that we are soon to announce! Look back here, or on instagram @theatreaurinko for updates.

Production and Design Team:

Michelle Blight - Director/Co-Producer

Michelle Blight is an “all-around theatre artist,” Clown, and goofball currently based in Toronto. Her creative work is driven by a desire to build and maintain communities of all shapes and sizes. She is a firm believer in the power of jokes and lives for small, intimate moments onstage and off. Michelle is one half of CAMP MENSES and one cup of PEEP SHOW - both projects have been supported through the OAC. She likely has a million other things on the go, or nothing at all. Michelle holds an Honours BFA in Acting from the University of Windsor.

Sabrina Weinstein - Stage Manager/Co-Producer

Sabrina is a stage manager, producer, and multidisciplinary theatre artist. Recent stage management credits include Bad Roads (Apprentice Stage Manager, Crow’s Theatre) Earworm (Stage Manager, Crow’s Theatre), Maanomaa; My Brother (Assistant Stage Manager, Canadian Stage / Bluebird Theatre Collective), The Gray: A Wilde Musical In Concert (Hart House Theatre), and Gulp(Toronto Fringe 2024)

Bonnie Duff- Playwright/Producer

Bonnie Duff is Finnish-Canadian theatre artist, who works as a performer, playwright, producer, and arts administrator. Bonnie holds a BFA in Acting from the University of British Columbia, where she was the recipient of the Joy Coghill Award in Acting, and attended the Preliminary Acting Course at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London, England. She has worked as an actor, director, educator and more with organizations such as Bard on the Beach Shakespeare Festival, UpintheAir Theatre, Carousel Theatre for Young People, Shifting Ground Collective, KidSafe Productions, Shakespeare in Action, and many, many Fringe festivals over the years. As an arts administrator, she has worked with Crow’s Theatre, Guild Festival Theatre, Arts Umbrella, Bravo Academy, and others. Her playwriting has been supported with grants from the Ontario Arts Council and Canada Council for the Arts. In her artistry, Bonnie aims to facilitate the experiences of boundless curiosity for audiences and creatives.

Mathilda Kane- Lighting Design

Mathilda (She/They) is a Tkaronto based Lighting Designer, Theatre Maker, and Canadian Green Alliance 2024 Green Mentorship Recipient. She is a Queer second generation Canadian of Scottish, Indian, German, and Guyanese descent. She attended Toronto Metropolitan University for Performance Production and Design. Within their practice they are focused on exploring the boundaries of ‘designable space’ in theatre, they take a collaborative approach to creation and care greatly for fostering long term creative relationships. Select credits Include: Cymatix (Citadel + Compagnie), UNCOVERED (Musical Stage Company), Killing Time: A Game Show Musical (Mixtape Projects), ECHO (a front company), A Perfect Bowl of Pho (Send Noods Productions). More at: mathildakane.com

Jake Schindler- Sound Design/Compositions

Jake Schindler is a Toronto based composer, music director, and orchestrator. From large commercial theatre to Fringe shows, Jake works on projects that are music-forward and use music to tell stories in new and interesting ways. Recently, he has worked on two Dora-nominated shows (Mirvish, Mixtape Productions), three TO Fringe Patron’s Pick musicals, is completing a cast recording of his show "Ursa, A Folk Musical", was the 2023 Associate Keyboard Programmer at the Stratford and Shaw Festivals, and is a music director at The Second City (Toronto) and Comedy Bar Danforth. Check out more of his work: jakeschindler.com.

Meredith Wolting- Production/Scenic Design

A scenic artist, set and props designer, and children’s book illustrator, Meredith Wolting’s artistic style ripples with notes of fairy-tale magic and bold colours. Her work in brand and graphic design ranges from logo creation to album art and merchandise, including a postcard for the Toronto Hilton Hotel and a limited-edition T-shirt for the Toronto Maple Leafs. She is the illustrator of The A-G Piano Book Series as well as Opera Atelier's series of student resource comic books. Meredith strives to empower the next generation of artists and is pursuing her passion for arts education as a teaching artist in design at Bravo Academy and at the Canadian Opera Company.