Introducing one half of our mainstage comedy double-bill – Influentia!

Influentia – Written by Erin Russell and Directed by Jake Martin
Fed up with her lack of social media followers and at odds with her chaotic mind, Darah, a struggling ceramicist, turns to magic to bring her art and herself instant fame. Armed with a spell she found on TikTok, and the help of the shy boy from her therapy group who only speaks Latin, Darah manages to summon an ancient entity with a familiar face. But as the bargain she makes with this creature begins to transform her whole life, Darah starts to wonder if the price of this influence is more than she’s willing to pay.

Show includes strong themes of mental health struggles including eating disorders, panic attacks, depression, anxiety and mentions of self-harm.

Influentia (75 minutes) will be performed as a double-bill with Snakes Are Cool (40 minutes), Thursday, July 25 through Saturday, July 27, 7:30 PM nightly, at Memorial Hall, UNB. Post-show reception to follow opening night performance on July 25 at The Grad House, 676 Windsor Street.

Tickets: $20 General; $15 Students/Seniors/Underemployed, available at the door.

Crafting a Character: A Free Playwriting Workshop with NotaBle Acts Playwright/Dramaturge in Residence, Jena McLean

Tuesday, July 23, 7:00-9:00 PM

Carleton Hall, UNB, Room 304

To register: email jemclean@mta.ca

This workshop will provide writers (of any medium) the opportunity to hone their character creation skills. Come for discussions on vital elements to consider when developing a dramatic character; stay for the free-writing and creative exercises to help you build a brand-new protagonist from the ground up. Bring your curiosity and something to write with!

About Jena:

Jena McLean (she/they) is a playwright and dramaturg with roots in New Brunswick and Alberta. She is a graduate of the National Theatre School of Canada’s playwriting program and holds a Bachelor’s Degree in English and Drama studies from Mount Allison University.

As a playwright, their recent work includes Like Confetti, How to Give Yourself a [Redacted], and MFG (Magical Fat Girl). Her play Bonus Points if You Have Air Conditioning was directed by Andrew Kushnir in 2021 as part of NTS’s New Words Festival and later developed as part of TNB’s Fall Festival of New Plays, with direction and dramaturgy by Kat McCormack. Jena’s play An Ocean of Evergreens was directed by Yvette Nolan during Theatre New Brunswick’s 2020 Fall Festival of New Plays and was later submitted for the Susan Smith Blackburn Prize. As a dramaturg, their credits include Hilary Wheeler’s The List, Jessie Walker’s Horse Girls, Noah Deas’s Mr. Information, Mara Teare’s Sad Girls Watch the Princess Bride,, as well as the collective creations Mythes Analogues and To Those Who Wait in Fear (dir. ahdri zhina mandiela, NTS, 2021).

Jena is driven to create work that is rich with complex roles for queer folks and young women alike. Her plays explore life’s grey areas, personalize the political, and aim to empower people to feel seen in theatre. She is a queer, fat Sagittarius who successfully kept a fiddle leaf fig alive for 16 months.