From there it went on to play performing arts centres, schools and mining communities. The show opened in the mining community, next door to the courthouse where mine managers were concurrently on trial for their role in the disaster. The resulting production was the company's most extensive tour, in part supported by the United Steelworkers of America. ![]() Schwartz and O'Neill soon purchased the rights to journalist Dean Jobb's book which gave them access to hours of tapes of interviews with mine managers, miners, draegermen and mine families. People from across the province and the country were caught up in the struggle to rescue and then recover the miners and the subsequent political scandal. When Schwartz and O'Neill resettled in Nova Scotia, there was major news of a coal mining disaster at the Westray Mine in Pictou County, NS. Schwartz and O'Neill continued to work toward developing new productions and in 1993 created The Butterbox Babies, based on the best-selling book by Bette Cahill. The company continued to develop its touring activity with other Nova Scotian premieres such as Linda Griffiths The Darling Family which was their first tour outside of NS, to Charlottetown PEI. It began at the Atlantic Fringe Festival then toured to Wolfville. The first production was a Nova Scotian premiere of Daniel MacIvor's See Bob Run, a one-woman show starring O'Neill and directed by Schwartz. ![]() Schwartz and O'Neill were particularly interested in using Nova Scotian history and events to create new drama, "a theatre rooted in emotional realism and community experience". Two Planks and a Passion Theatre was initially founded and dedicated to touring new Canadian Plays with strong roles for women throughout Nova Scotia and Canada with a focus on rural communities. Using the Sheffield Mills community hall for their rehearsal base, Schwartz and O'Neill incorporated Two Planks and a Passion Theatre Association as a non-profit within the province of Nova Scotia. In 1992 they returned to Nova Scotia after a five-year absence and settled in Sheffield Mills, a hamlet close to Wolfville, surrounded by fields and farms. It too had a largely rural population with one large city and he chose to work with companies which were creating their own text-based work, often borne of important events in their history and touring it, because of his and his partner's vision for a new theatre in Nova Scotia. The choice of Ireland was deliberate because of its similarity to Nova Scotia. He watched directors like Paul Mercier, who wrote and directed the Passion Machine's Studs, Charabanc Theatre's Bondagers and was an intern under playwright and director Frank McGuinness for the Druid Company's production of Carthaginians about Bloody Sunday in Derry, which was hailed by critics and which toured to Derry. Schwartz began acting in High School, from which he took a short leave in his senior year to be on the professional stage at Neptune Theatre in a production of Tartuffe directed by Richard Ouzounian.Īfter graduation from the National Theatre School, he and his wife spent a year interning with theatre companies in both Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. ![]() ![]() They settled in the Annapolis Valley and have three children. After an internship year in Ireland and Northern Ireland, he returned to NS to start Two Planks and a Passion Theatre with his wife, Chris O'Neill. He was accepted to the acting, technical theatre and directing sections of the conservatory, graduating from Technical Production in 1990 and from the Directing Section in 1992. Schwartz was born and raised in Halifax, Nova Scotia, graduating from the Halifax Grammar School in 1987, then moving to Montreal to study at the National Theatre School in 1987.
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