Intrepid Theatre

LESS + MORE is a performance that uses past audience feedback collected over the last decade of Secret Theatre to create a new performance. Dustin has been thinking about his life, about all the audiences he has stood in front of, danced with, looked into the eyes of and walked through the city streets. He has written the audience a letter, part love-letter part breakup note. Over an hour or so, he will read and reread this letter over and over again. Each time, his performance will be transformed by following the advice of his former audience members. The performance will contain less eyes closed parts, less clothes, and less endings. There will be more beer, more dancing, more confetti. If that sounds like a mashup, that’s because it is. It is also an attempt at the impossible, at achieving perfection, or at least a shared moment of grace together.

Dramaturg’s Statement: As long as I have known him, Dustin’s work has had a kind of fearlessness to it. Unafraid to be different, to take risks, to be nakedly sentimental, defiantly hopeful, to exist literally and figuratively at the very edge of Canada’s theatre establishment. Less + More is all those things. It is a show that only Dustin could have made – courageously honest, wildly innovative, sad and silly and beautiful all at the same time. It is an attempt to consider the biggest possible questions about our lives and how we choose to live them in a way so charming and playful it could be the set-up for a party game, rather than the premise for an hour of theatre.

Accessibility

Sensory Warnings: Audience interaction/participation

Content warnings: May contain partial nudity (underwear)

Please indicate any accessibility needs, including wheelchair accessible seating or if you require seating with no stairs, in the provided field. We will do our best to assign seating that works for you and get in touch if we have any questions.

Credits

Created by Dustin Harvey (Dartmouth, NS)

Dramaturgy by Andy Field (London, UK)

Project Mentor: Dr. Tom Payne, Doppelgangster (Sheffield, UK)

Residency Support: Iceland Academy for the Arts in Reykjavik

Funded by ArtsNS, The City of Halifax, Canada Council For The Arts

About the Artists

SECRET THEATRE

Established in 2003 as a vehicle for the interdisciplinary projects of Nova Scotia-based actor/writer/tinkerer Dustin Harvey, Secret Theatre has grown to encompass a myriad of people and places that have come, gone, and soon to be. Through exploring site and exploiting media art, Secret Theatre creates meaningful moments that offer new ways of being together while shedding crooked light on how we’ve grown apart.

Moving between diverse contexts like dance, live art, public art, and theatre, XOSECRET projects have been presented in the Netherlands, USA, Wales, Denmark, Ireland, Northern Ireland, Iceland, Scotland, and Canada.

Dustin Harvey

As an artist, I aim to create projects that convey the beauty of theatre as a shared experience. I have worked hard over the years to achieve this, inviting people to engage in activities such as slow dancing with strangers in abandoned storefronts, wandering through public parks with an audio companion, confessing secrets to someone miles away through text messages, and immersing themselves in public locations and busy city streets – from Aarhus, Denmark to Whitehorse, Yukon.

I trained as an actor at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art in England and have a BA in Theatre Studies from Acadia University. In 2016, I wrote a chapter entitled ‘Make What You Need’ for the book ‘In Defence Of Theatre: Aesthetic Practices and Social Interventions,’ published by Toronto University Press.’ My work often blurs the line between performers and audience, attempting to share ownership of the experience and repurpose it as a metaphor for co-creating the world we want to live in.

I was part of the inaugural UK-Canada Immersive Exchange, a talent development and co-production program for future leaders of immersive storytelling co-produced by CFC and Storyfutures UK.

Pay-What-You-Ten Tickets: 10% of tickets are available for $10, in an effort to make theatre more accessible to equity-seeking groups, newcomers, artists & arts workers, and anyone for whom cost is a barrier. We believe the arts have something to offer everyone and we want to reduce financial barriers to our programming. No registration, forms to fill out, or questions asked. Just select the PWY10 ticket when booking online.

Arrival at the venue: The doors will open 30 minutes ahead of showtime. Masks are strongly encouraged inside the theatre.

Refunds: If you are not feeling well or have any symptoms, please stay home to help keep everyone safe. We are able to discuss refunds on a case by case basis due to health reasons before the performance. Please contact tickets@intrepidtheatre.com. We are unable to arrange refunds after a performance has occurred.