Once Upon a Kingdom Theatre is Ottawa theatre for the young audience that was founded by Ekaterina Shestakova in 2008. The theatre opened its doors for the first time on January 17th, 2009 with the production of the play by Eugene Shwartz The Two Maple Trees, directed by Ekaterina Shestakova.
An Artistic Director of Once Upon a Kingdom Theatre, Ekaterina Shestakova, received a BA degree with Specialization in Theatre from the University of Ottawa and currently is an MFA candidate of the Directing Program at the University of Ottawa. Ekaterina started practicing theatre from the young age, studying acting in different theatre studios in Saint-Petersburg, Russia, amongst which the most important was the studio of the professional theatre Over the Black River. She took a course of Art Administration in the St. Petersburg State Theatre Arts Academy. At the same time she was a Director of the theatre studio, working with children in the local school. After her arrival to Canada she was working in The Curtain Club Theatre (Lighting operator) in Richmond Hill, and Shakespeare for Kids Summer Camp (Assistant Director) in Toronto. Some of her credits in Ottawa include Assistant Directing for Tartuffe (Third Wall Theatre, 2008), acting in Don’t Blame the Bedouins (Drama Guild and Magnetic North Theatre Festival 2009), and starring at Life As We Know It (Youth Infringement 2010).
The theatre became home for young professional artists (actors, choreographers, designers, composers) who work on either of tree languages, English, French or Russian, as well as many volunteers who enjoy theatre experience and wish to help in various areas of production.
Once Upon a Kingdom Theatre unites people of different cultural backgrounds to produce an unique work that merges artistic experiences of diverse cultures. Our main purpose is to create work for the young audiences that reflects children’s vision of the world and can find a strong emotional response from the modern young spectators. OUK Theatre produces work that attracts a wide range of young audiences as well as adults, as we believe in creating productions that are equally interesting and artistically satisfying on different levels to children and adults. OUK Theatre produces plays and offers programs for children and adults that are built on the best European and Canadian traditions of the theatre.
Our theatre is offering the studio for children and adults. The program of classes includes acting, scenic movement/dance, scenic speech/vocal, scenic fight, basic of set, lighting, sound, costume and make-up design. Our teachers are professional artists who have rich working experience in Canada, Europe, and Russia.
We invite the young audience and adults to our plays and classes. Also we will be glad to see in our theatre those who want to participate in creation of the productions and work in the studio. We will be happy to accept in our team actors (audition is required), designers, and instructors. Any participation is very welcome!
Explore theatre with us!