Red Deer College student Andrew McKechnie is planning to screen his short film Ex-Lovers at The Matchbox in Red Deer along with two original one-act plays on Saturday, Jan. 8.
That shooting hadn’t even started on the short film by the first week of December didn’t overly bother him. “I think dangerously high sometimes,” said McKechnie, with a self-deprecating chuckle.
Shooting of the 15-minute film, about what happens when former lovers accidentally run into each other at a party, was slated to begin mid-month.
McKechnie, a second-year theatre studies student and founder of a new local theatre company, Love and Time Machines, wrote the screenplay and also one of the one-act plays, In Our Bedroom After the War.
His company’s evening of live and filmed entertainment, called New Art Night, will also feature the one-act play Sea of Green, by former Red Deer College student Andrew Garland.
McKechnie said both plays coincidentally touch on revolutionary themes. Sea of Green, which is expected to be performed as a staged reading (which means actors will be reading from scripts while moving about the stage) is about people who rise up after an unfair election, and the consequences of their struggle.
In Our Bedroom After the War, which was inspired by an album of the same name by Canadian indie pop band Stars, weaves between two plot lines. One concerns the choices made by two young revolutionaries who discuss personal safety versus “charging in wild,” said McKechnie.
The second story line is about a man living post-revolution, who is trying to come to terms with drastic changes in his country, some better, some worse.
McKechnie was inspired by a Stars tune called Your Ex-Lover is Dead to write the screenplay for his film, Ex-Lovers, which will deal with the power of memory and the realization “you can’t always go back to the way things were.”
His company, Love and Time Machines, also plans to develop an original musical and a new touring production — both of which would go before audiences this summer.
McKechnie said he aims to stage original works that deal with emotional or intellectual themes. “And I hope people leave with a greater appreciation of live theatre, film and acting.”
One of the company’s policies will be not charging a specific admission fee, but asking audience members to pay what they think the evening’s entertainment is worth, on the way out.
New Art Night starts at 7:30 p.m.
lmichelin@www.reddeeradvocate.com