About the Founder

After attending the University of Alberta where he attained his Bachelor of Arts (major in Drama; minor in English), Ian Kent wrote and produced two children’s plays for the Edmonton International Fringe Festival. Then, he traveled overseas where he worked in India teaching and directing Tibetan artists in exile Shakespearean acting techniques. During that time Ian was also the editor of Contact magazine. It was an immersive cultural exchange with the traditions of western theatre blending with the traditions of Tibetan opera.

Ian Kent is also a published poet and author. His poems have appeared in Quills Canadian Poetry Magazine, The Prairie Journal, Rhubarb, Scrivener Creative Review and Contemporary Verse 2. His fiction has appeared in The Prairie Journal and Montréal Writes. His non-fiction has appeared in Rhubarb.

From his own travels and unexpected encounters with differing artistic traditions, Ian Kent desired to start a theatre company that expressed those deep encounters, those diverse connections.

About or; theatre

or; theatre strives for the union of the Catholic religious tradition with the freedom and secret wonder of the imagination. At the heart of the union is love and God is love and love must be freely chosen. Grace is the heart.

or; theatre will return theatre to its imminent soulfulness. And it is to that soul that the audience will experience and come alive to its newness, to its invigorating ancientness. Challenging the community to renew itself, it will renew the theatrical form.

or; theatre produced its first show “Abattoir Morning” in the fall of 2015. The company is currently exploring options for its next production.

As Defined by the Catholic Church, a sacrament is an outward sign of an inward grace. In the sacramental imagination this grace is received as gift or, as Flannery O’Connor said, often refused. The sacramental imagination is the foundation for or; theatre. Put in the form of story, it offers a stark choice within the nuanced struggle toward or away from the surrender of Character to the Image—the icon of the Living God, Jesus Christ. Through Religious Imagism brought to the stage through the Character of Image, the sacramental imagination proclaims as beautiful, true, and good, the seven sacraments of the Catholic Church passionately crowned by the sacrament of sacraments, the Eucharist.

Like Mother Church, or; theatre is a receptive company. We receive the grace of God, most especially through a relationship with Jesus Christ who came to earth so people could “have life and have it abundantly,” and with the Holy Spirit share it, and him, with the world. or; theatre points toward the sacraments of the catholic church hopefully becoming through its productions an artistic rendering of a sacrament; the grace of God expressed on the stage: either received or refused.

or; theatre presents the depth of freedom in all its simplicity, in all its unity, in all its sacramental wonder.