Beauty Will Save the World
Beauty Will Save the World is an original work developed by 9th Hour Theatre Company. It is a spiritual allegory for our time suitable for the whole family, a seafaring adventure packed with satire, music, action, laughter, and tears, reminding us about the sacred things in life that make life worth living. The story is a thought-provoking cautionary tale about the importance of passing on beauty to the younger generation. Relationships once lost are found again as mothers, fathers, lovers, loners, sons, and daughters are tested to choose what they stand for and who they will stand with.
In the wake of a long since passed “Great Danger”, a mother and her teenage son and a father and his child seek to discover what it means to really live again. In a world of fantasy in which all things beautiful are forbidden by the always-watching entity “Control”, they must join a group of other citizens stuck in a repeating cycle to journey to a new promised land. Some eagerly and others reluctantly board the great ship “Pulchritudo” to begin their voyage together.
Each day the weary travellers are presented with more and more ever-changing absurdist rules to follow in order to prevent beauty. While passengers sleep, nightmares of control surface and dreams of beauty erupt with forbidden breakouts of singing, dancing, and laughing. Tensions rise and chaos ensues on the high seas as competing values clash while passengers grapple with the consequences of their beliefs and actions. The story climaxes with one man's ultimate confrontation with “Control” that brings on a raging storm of beauty battling fear, culminating in a devastating shipwreck in which beauty appears to have been lost forever. Will they ever get to their promised destination? Will they end up repeating the same cycle again? Or will they choose to embrace beauty and be free from “Control” once and for all?
THE 2022 ARTISTIC TEAM
RUTH ALLISON (Costume Designer) | CARE BALDWIN (Properties Designer) | SHARON DICKSON (Assistant Director) | GEORGE DUTCH (Dramaturge) | GABRIELLA GADSBY (Director) | JONATHAN HARRIS (Producing Artistic Director) | SKYE MACDIARMID (Music Director) | BILL SANGALLI (Sound Designer)
THE 2022 PRODUCTION TEAM
SHAUNA AKKERMANS (Assistant Stage Manager) | FRED BARBER (Technical Director) | LAURA BARKLEY (Second Assistant Stage Manager) | ASHLEY DAWN (Publicity Manager) | JOHN COOK (Associate Producer) | SHARON DICKSON (Stage Manager) | JONATHAN HARRIS (Producing Artistic Director) | SUSAN MARRINER (Graphics Designer) | ESTHER SANGALLI (Managing Director) | TINA SEGRETO (Production Manager)
THE 2022 ENSEMBLE CAST
JOHANNE BOISVENU-HENRY | CASEY CALLAHAN | GEORGE DUTCH | CHARLEY BOUCHARD | ANDREW KENNEDY | ARYA LANDERS | JAY LANDREVILLE | SKYE MACDIARMID | MEGAN MCLEOD | ERICA O'REILLY | RANJEET SINGH | COLIN SWEENEY | GREG THURLOW
Beauty Will Save the World was workshopped and further developed in 2021 by 9th Hour Theatre Company in Ottawa, Canada, with contributing artists GEORGE DUTCH, GABRIELLA GADSBY, SHARON DICKSON, JOHANNE BOISVENU-HENRY, MICHAEL KOSOWAN, PETER GRAVES, PAUL WASHER, ARYA LANDERS, and JONATHAN HARRIS, with music by MARTAIN PEARSON, and costumes by RUTH ALLISON. The development work raised over $1,000 for the charity Restoring Hope with a mission “to love and serve the youth and young adults in the Ottawa area who are experiencing homelessness, are marginalized and/or are exploited”.