DATE: ongoing
In 2007, DaPoPo theatre launched what was to become an annual skill-sharing, professional development festival. For a whole month, some of DaPoPo’s core members virtually lived in Theatre Nova Scotia’s Living Room space: rehearsing, reading new scripts, offering workshops, panel discussions, and hosting social events.
Over the years, some of the artists who attended the Live-In Festival (LIFe) from across Canada included Guillermo Verdecchia, Sky Gilbert, Sharon Pollock, Jay Whitehead, Haley McGee, Erin Brubacher, and [the elephants collective].
Some of the core and associate DaPoPo artists involved with administrating the Festival included Kristi Anderson, Eric Benson, Bonnie Archibald-Awalt, Steph Berntson, Steven Bourque, Andrew Chandler, Sher Clain, Zach Faye, Keelin Jack, Kim Parkhill, Quincy Russell, and Garry Williams.
2009 Live-In/When Did You Last See My Mother?
2010 Live-In at the Living Room
2011 Live-In Festival
2012 Telling Our Stories
2013 The Personal Is Political
2014 Looking Behind the Curtain
2015 Further to the Left
2016 Working Together
2017 Crossing the Lines
2018 Collision Is Inevitable
2019 LIFe 4the WKND
2020 LIFe 4EVR
New plays and musical read, developed, or workshopped at the Live-In Festival include KAMP by Garry Williams and Jamie Bradley, Treegirl by Megan Hubley, Chasing Champions by Jacob Sampson, The Vanishing Woman by Trevor Poole, Doctor Potato Chips by Steph Berntson, as well as DaPoPo shows The Halifax Hearings, The Drinking Game, The Poor House, Making It, and the FEAR Project.
As stated in a media release in 2019: “In response to both the desire for more LIFe programming all year round and the loss of our former home at The TNS Living Room, we’ve been prompted to re-think our traditional month-long festival. Fortunately, this re-thinking has been an opportunity to both expand our favourite, and most successful, project’s programming, as well as to work in a more sustainable way, so we can have more fun.”
Since then, DaPoPo has tried to offer LIFe-style programming throughout the year, but significantly fewer in number, and spread out over the course of the year, or concentrated
over a weekend. Currently, DaPoPo is offering select programming, including the annual fundraising event Not Quite Burns Night and the ongoing workshop Even the Muse Requires Consent.
2013 Live-In poster designed by Trevor Poole.