Erin Meagan Schwartz describes both her and Angelica Schwartz - no relation - as creative people who do a lot of interdisciplinary art work, but mostly performance based art.

Angelica Schwartz is an emerging director and creator. She, alongside Erin Schwartz and Gislina Patterson, have recently created Happy/Accidents theatre company. Angelica Schwartz describes Happy/Accidents as an “interdisciplinary production company that has focused on amplifying unheard voices and telling stories that aren’t often told.”

“This year we did two shows already, and we have some new plans for the new year,” Angelica Schwartz says.

The company’s first show, Inertia, was performed at the Winnipeg Fringe Festival (WFF) and was about predatory behaviour at the WFF.

The second show was a revisitation of a show from a former WFF. Heavenly Bodies, an experimental one-woman show that explored the reliability of young women’s stories, took a second run this past November at the Prairie Theatre Exchange.

Erin Schwartz, a fan of astrology, says both she and Angelica Schwartz are Cancers – hence, the cozy and community-oriented feel of their home.

Named Plants

EMS: “I’ve had Abigail the longest. Abigail and Danielle I got at the same time. They all have names on them.”

Travelling Dildo

EMS: “There’s a lot of fun stuff on here, like the bedazzled dildo, for the sisterhood of the travelling dildo art project. (Some friends and I) just wrote about sex and love and relationships in a notebook and passed it around ... And now I have it.”

Zac Efron blanket

EMS: “This is my favourite. I love him. I sleep with Zac Efron every night. Whether my partner is here or not, we sleep with Zac. I love him. He’s back in musicals now.”

Tom Hanks earrings

 “I have these Tom Hanks earrings. I think they’re wonderful. I never wear them, because they’re a lot.”

Inertia poster

“This was Happy/Accidents’ first production. This one was of my favourite shows I’ve ever worked on. All of us really connected on an intimate level. We all created it together.”

Projectors

AS: “I have various projectors. I have this overhead. I’ve also got a slide projector. I do a lot of overhead projector stuff, I’ve been wanting to do more this year. It’s a lot of fun to have.”

Broadway photo

AS: “Erin and I travelled all the way to Minneapolis to see this Broadway star (Gavin Creel), and a week before our trip, we found out he was rerouted to London to do the London Book of Mormon Show and was replaced a week before our trip. My sister and I took a spontaneous trip a few months later to England for a fun time. And we were like ‘wait a second, he got rerouted to England.’ So when I was in London, I finally got to see him. And he took that photo. He took my phone and was like ‘let’s do a selfie.’”

Published in Volume 72, Number 15 of The Uniter (January 25, 2018)