Shane Koyczan – spoken word poet, opera librettist and TED talk speaker – will be performing at the Heritage Playhouse on the Sunshine Coast on Feb. 18. But such is his popularity that tickets have sold out already.
A Vancouver documentary film team of Melanie Wood (Carbon Hunters, The Difference Makers TV series) and Stuart Gillies (Heaven or Whatever: Shane Koyczan promo) are shooting a doc for Knowledge Network and were interested in having additional footage for the project. Koyczan’s manager, Christi Thompson, suggested a live performance in Gibsons.
“Gibsons has such an incredible art focused community,” she said. “I felt it would be a good event to have Shane to the Coast. Sunshine Coast has so many incredible artists and writers and has a successful Writers Fest.”
Koyczan was reached by Coast Reporter as he was about to fly to Toronto to do a special performance for Trinity College students. He couldn’t comment on the subject of the documentary – which is tentatively titled Shut Up and Say Something, after one of his poems – but said the performance had a lot to do with his life. In fact much of his heartfelt poetry is about his life, particularly about being bullied as a chubby schoolboy and how he had to learn to stand up for himself.
“Our problems are not going to be solved in one lifetime,” he said. “We are still carrying them. I use them for inspiration.”
His work Stickboy is essentially an opera that includes animation and live performance with music composed by Neil Weisensel and the libretto by Koyczan, based on his book of the same name. After collaborating with Vancouver Opera, the production has been brought to life on many stages, including a performance at Chatelech Secondary last year.
The poet typically sells out venues the size of the Vogue in Vancouver, so it was no surprise that before the management company had even printed the event posters, the show was sold out in less than 48 hours, all through Koyczan’s social media fans.
“We’ll look to bring him back again to a larger venue, perhaps in the summer,” Thompson promised.
