WHO WE ARE AND WHAT WE DO
Lyndesfarne Theatre Projects is an incorporated non-profit organization that believes in connecting community through the acts of creating live theatre and diverse theatrical opportunities. We do this by:
- Producing affordable live stage productions of challenging artistic merit
- Creating specially designed workshops for charitable organizations and the residents of St. Catharines and the Niagara Region
- Offering educational programming and professional development opportunities for emerging and professional artists
Kelly Daniels
Ric Reid
- Founder
- Resident Artist
Background
Kelly Daniels and Ric Reid met while acting in Tennessee Williams’ classic, A Streetcar Named Desire, produced at the Manitoba Theatre Centre, Canada’s largest regional theatre. Ric Reid is one of Canada’s most highly respected and acclaimed actors whose thirty year career has taken him from coast to coast across Canada and the United States. As a Shaw Festival ensemble member in his fifth year, he recently opened The Little Foxes. Kelly Daniels is a professional director, actor, educator, and the artistic director of Lyndesfarne Theatre Projects. Shortly after completing her internship with the Shaw Festival’s prestigious Director’s Project, Kelly approached Ric with a vision to make theatre a community experience that engages professionals, students, and the community at large, and thus Lyndesfarne was born.
Now a fully incorporated, not-for-profit, registered charity, Lyndesfarne Theatre Projects is setting the stage for its third season. We begin with our second annual five-day festival of theatre ~ the Downtown Reading Festival ~ with readings and performances by some of Canada’s finest professional actors. We open our main stage season this fall with one of Canada’s most highly acclaimed and award-winning playwrights, Michel Tremblay, and his extraordinary story of one woman’s fight to make peace with herself in Albertine in Five Times. We close our season with an American classic by one of its finest, David Mamet, and his edgy and gritty American Buffalo. Over the past few years, we have produced highly acclaimed productions of Eugene O’Neill’s Hughie, Edward Albee’s Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, A.R. Gurney’s Love Letters, and Canadian master playwright, George F. Walker’s Problem Child.
What makes this company different is its inclusion of community and the passionate belief that theatre can do much more than entertain, and so was created a ‘triumvirate’ approach to building a theatre company whose community outreach and educational programming is as equally important as live theatre. Programs such as the nationally acclaimed seniors program, Grey Matters, and our upcoming project for youth-at-risk, “This is my story…” are leading the way in community building.
On the educational front, Lyndesfarne engages university students in professional theatrical training and learning experiences for university course credit, one of the only professional learning opportunities for undergraduates in this country. Lyndesfarne also provides professional experience and training that assists emerging artists to enter the professional arena via Equity apprenticeships. We lead the professional theatre community in fostering artistic and creative professional development for youth and adults through our registered classes, workshops, teaching opportunities, and our Summer Intensive with the internationally acclaimed SITI Company of New York.
Theatre is more than just putting on a show, and Lyndesfarne is raising the curtain on a new kind of professional theatre company. Please join us in the creative process and be a part of building a professional theatre company that will take St. Catharines to new cultural and artistic heights. Your community will thank you!