Joe Szekeres

Joe Szekeres

April 19, 2022

Welcome to ‘Our Theatre Voice’.

First off, an enormous thank you to Grade 12 Co-operative Education student, Elodie Hraynyk. I wouldn’t have had a clue on how to format and to set up this website without her assistance and knowledge in knowing which buttons to push, where to click or whom to contact. Elodie’s continued interest in helping me to build this website and for keeping me calm and rational when I got confused kept me laughing and from wanting to pull out what little hair I have left on my head.

Well, I never thought I would have my own theatre website, but here it is.

A memorable and personal experiential journey now begins.

First, a huge thank you to two individuals who have encouraged me in pursuing this task - Will McGuirk from Durham Region’s Slowcity and Chris Peterson from On Stage Blog. Thank you both for the encouragement, the opportunity to write, the opportunity to make many mistakes and learn from them and, most importantly, TO KEEP GOING in writing reviews and commentaries.

The next thank you goes to critic Lynn Slotkin. I’ve read many of her reviews over the years and have always respected her well-regarded look on all things theatre-related. I’ve taken two review writing workshops with Lynn through the now-defunct Theatre Ontario. She has been my go-to when I’ve had inquiries and questions about the professional live theatre scene in Toronto and beyond. Lynn, thank you for the continued and valued feedback.

I also wish to thank Aisling Murphy from Intermission Magazine for the productive and encouraging feedback.

When I say the journey has been memorable, that it has truly been. We all have our stories with Covid. I wish to thank those professional theatre artists who agreed to share some of their life stories in their profiles through OnStage Blog. I also wish to thank those artists who endorsed my work on said Profiles. One of my plans for this site is to continue highlighting the professional artist here in ‘Our Theatre Voice’.

Finally, as we slowly emerge from this pandemic with potential future waves, it is so vitally important that we continue to support professional and local live theatre within our cities and communities. David Rabjohn and I here in Ontario will keep you posted on the dramatic scene while East Coast blogger and reviewer, Aaron Kropf, will showcase the work of artists out there.

Wishing everyone all good things theatre-wise as we move forward.

Joe
Founder, Editor and Publisher of ‘Our Theatre Voice’