<div dir="ltr"><p style="margin:0cm 0cm 12pt;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;font-size:10pt;font-family:Times"><strong><span style="font-size:12pt;color:rgb(28,28,28);letter-spacing:0.35pt;font-weight:normal">Hello dear
fellow CANDRAMA members, </span></strong></p>

<p style="margin:0cm 0cm 12pt;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;font-size:10pt;font-family:Times"><strong><span style="font-size:12pt;color:rgb(28,28,28);letter-spacing:0.35pt;font-weight:normal">I am writing
to share the stage reading video of my newest play, <i>Wine and Halva</i>, which is released through the #ArtApart funds of
National Theatre School of Canada. It is a play about institutional racism and
solidarity. </span></strong></p>

<p style="margin:0cm 0cm 12pt;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;font-size:10pt;font-family:Times"><strong><span style="font-size:12pt;color:rgb(28,28,28);letter-spacing:0.35pt;font-weight:normal">Link to the
video: <a href="https://ent-nts.ca/en/art-apart-wine-halva" style="color:blue">https://ent-nts.ca/en/art-apart-wine-halva</a></span></strong></p>

<p style="margin:0cm 0cm 12pt;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;font-size:10pt;font-family:Times"><strong><span style="font-size:12pt;color:rgb(28,28,28);letter-spacing:0.35pt;font-weight:normal">I hope you
enjoy it. Please do not hesitate to reach out to me for any feedback.</span></strong></p>

<div style="border-top:none;border-right:none;border-left:none;border-bottom:3pt dotted windowtext;padding:0cm 0cm 1pt;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial">

<p style="margin:0cm 0cm 12pt;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;border:none;padding:0cm;font-size:10pt;font-family:Times"><strong><span style="font-size:12pt;color:rgb(28,28,28);letter-spacing:0.35pt;font-weight:normal">Deniz Ba</span></strong><strong><span lang="TR" style="font-size:12pt;color:rgb(28,28,28);letter-spacing:0.35pt;font-weight:normal">şar</span></strong></p>

<p style="margin:0cm 0cm 12pt;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;border:none;padding:0cm;font-size:10pt;font-family:Times"><strong><span lang="TR" style="font-size:12pt;color:rgb(28,28,28);letter-spacing:0.35pt;font-weight:normal"> </span></strong></p>

</div>

<p style="margin:0cm 0cm 12pt;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;font-size:10pt;font-family:Times"><strong><span style="font-size:12pt;color:rgb(28,28,28);letter-spacing:0.35pt">About the play</span></strong><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman";color:rgb(28,28,28);letter-spacing:0.35pt"></span></p>

<p style="margin:0cm 0cm 12pt;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;font-size:10pt;font-family:Times"><em><span style="font-size:12pt;color:rgb(28,28,28);letter-spacing:0.35pt">Wine&Halva</span></em><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman";color:rgb(28,28,28);letter-spacing:0.35pt"> is a play
about the unconventional friendship between Farias, a white (or white passing)
gay man from a fictional Anglophone Canadian city called ''New Stockholm,''
and Derya, a Turkish woman who immigrated to that fictional city and needs to
deal with many invisible cases of institutional discrimination alone. <em style="box-sizing:border-box">Wine&Halva</em> is
an open and playful text, with three narrators getting in and out of these two
characters throughout the play to underline the fluid nature of identity in
different contexts. The story focuses on how these two people from very
different histories and struggles learn (and perhaps invent) ways to support
and love each other. <em style="box-sizing:border-box">Wine&Halva</em> is
a play that challenges multiple widely accepted Canadian assumptions about
immigration, and represents the nature of institutional discrimination along
with its possible impact on the human psyche, especially under conditions of
extreme precarity, such as the one we are going through right now.  </span></p>

<p style="margin:0cm 0cm 12pt;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;font-size:10pt;font-family:Times"><strong><span style="font-size:12pt;color:rgb(28,28,28);letter-spacing:0.35pt">About the journey of the play</span></strong><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman";color:rgb(28,28,28);letter-spacing:0.35pt"></span></p>

<p style="margin:0cm 0cm 12pt;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;font-size:10pt;font-family:Times"><em><span style="font-size:12pt;color:rgb(28,28,28);letter-spacing:0.35pt">Wine&Halva</span></em><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman";color:rgb(28,28,28);letter-spacing:0.35pt"> had its
initial development through Playwrights Workshop Montreal’s (PWM) Young
Creators Unit 2018-2019, and has been selected by the Artistic and Executive
Director of PWM, <strong style="box-sizing:border-box">Emma
Tibaldo</strong>, for further dramaturgical development.</span></p>

<p style="margin:0cm 0cm 12pt;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;box-sizing:border-box;font-size:1rem;font-family:Times"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman";color:rgb(28,28,28);letter-spacing:0.35pt">First public showcase of the play was on April 26, 2019,
with the sponsorship of Mainline Theatre (Montreal). Additionally, <em style="box-sizing:border-box">Wine&Halva</em> was
awarded with two Play Development Residencies, and the first one took place
between 27th of February and 12th of March 2020, at the Theatre Department of
Faculty of Media, Art and Performance in University of Regina, Saskatchewan.
The second week-long residency will take place during the summer of 2020 at
PWM, and again end with a workshop production. Sort-of-Productions, a
Montreal-based theatre collective, has selected <em style="box-sizing:border-box">Wine&Halva</em> for the full
production in their 2020-2021 season.</span></p>

<p style="margin:0cm 0cm 12pt;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;box-sizing:border-box;font-size:1rem;font-family:Times"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman";color:rgb(28,28,28);letter-spacing:0.35pt">The Play Development Residency for <em style="box-sizing:border-box">Wine&Halva</em> in
the Theatre Department of the Faculty of Media, Art and Performance in
University of Regina was a specially successful interprovincial collaboration
between Quebec and Saskatchewan. The University of Regina and Concordia
University (Montreal) co-funded the residency. It allowed for the play to grow
and develop through the collaboration of a very diverse group of theatre
students at the UofR: particularly, those enrolled in “THAC360 Scene Study” and
“THST465 Advanced Studies in Dramaturgy: Postmodern, Intercultural, and
Multilingual Theatre” classes. Two student dramaturges, <strong style="box-sizing:border-box">Hussain
Zaidi</strong> and <strong style="box-sizing:border-box">Valentin
Camus</strong> worked on <em style="box-sizing:border-box">Wine&Halva</em> to help develop
the play through the course of these two weeks.</span></p>

<p style="margin:0cm 0cm 12pt;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;box-sizing:border-box;font-size:1rem;font-family:Times"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman";color:rgb(28,28,28);letter-spacing:0.35pt">A staged reading of <em style="box-sizing:border-box">Wine&Halva</em>, followed by a
talkback session took place on March 12, 2020, Thursday, between 4:30-7 pm, at
Shu-Box Theatre, Riddell Centre in University of Regina. Now looking back, it
seems miraculous that this staged reading happened on the last day of our
pre-COVID-19 days, on the last day before the quarantine started. Student
actors, <strong style="box-sizing:border-box">Michaelson
Musa, Bhavana Kishore-Hariram, Jasey Jacobs</strong> and <strong style="box-sizing:border-box">Kevin
McLaurin</strong> volunteered to perform in the staged reading, which was
directed by <strong style="box-sizing:border-box">Art
Babayants</strong> (Toronto Laboratory Theatre). The result was a very
enjoyable semiprofessional production that received an exited and deeply
engaged response from the audience. The staged reading showcased students who
are non-native English speakers, immigrants and people of color, who are often
marginalized by the mainstream Canadian theatre; a reality that was
particularly visible in the theatre microcosm of Regina, Saskatchewan. <strong style="box-sizing:border-box">William
Hales</strong>, the department head of Theatre in University of Regina,
professionally recorded the production.</span></p>

<p style="margin:0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;box-sizing:border-box;font-size:1rem;font-family:Times"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman";color:rgb(28,28,28);letter-spacing:0.35pt">Lastly, special thanks to <strong style="box-sizing:border-box">Sue E</strong> from
Sort-of-Productions for their amazing work in editing the video.</span></p>

<p style="margin:0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;font-size:10pt;font-family:Times"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman";color:rgb(28,28,28);letter-spacing:0.35pt"> </span></p>

<p style="margin:0cm 0cm 12pt;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;font-size:10pt;font-family:Times"><strong><span style="font-size:12pt;color:rgb(28,28,28);letter-spacing:0.35pt">About #Art Apart</span></strong></p>

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;font-size:12pt;font-family:Cambria"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman";color:rgb(28,28,28);letter-spacing:0.35pt;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial">Art Apart is an initiative by the National Theatre
School of Canada (NTS) that provides support to emerging theatre artists,
professional artists, and the community during the coronavirus crisis. It’s a
way to help minimize the impact of this crisis in the arts community, to
provide much-needed assistance to artists by rapidly injecting funds into the
arts sector, and to continue sharing knowledge and having a dialogue among
artists across Canada.</span></p></div>