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Artscene Two artists featured at exhibit Celebrating courage of artists living with mental illness Two Oakville artists are part of the Toronto art exhibit called Touched By Fire, which showcases works by people living with mental illnesses. The show is tomorrow (Thursday) and features works by individuals with such medical conditions as depression, anxiety, bipolar disorder and more. The local artists are R. David Foster and Mark Belvedere, chosen from a field of nearly 500 submissions. The event aims to celebrate and support each artist. The artists will keep all proceeds from the sale of their work. "Touched By Fire celebrates the resilience, creativity and tremendous courage of artists living with a mental illness," said Colleen Cowman, executive director at Mood Disorders Association of Ontario, which is the event organizer. "We're so pleased that artists from across Ontario are such a big part of the exhibition this year." The exhibit will also feature prizes for top artists. The show will take place at Coopers Fine Art Gallery, 111 Bathurst St. in downtown Toronto. The show runs from 5-9 p.m. Admission costs $10. Tickets are available at www. mooddisorders.ca. 23 · Wednesday, December 7, 2011 OAKVILLE BEAVER · www.insideHALTON.com SUBMITTED PHOTO WAR-TORN: Oakville's Mark Correia along with castmates Katie Frances Cohen and Elliot Larson portray orphans in Nazi-occupied Warsaw, Poland in a production of The Children's Republic at Tarragon Theatre in Toronto. The play run ends on Friday, Dec. 16. Young actor portrays boy in war-torn ghetto By Dominik Kurek OAVILLE BEAVER STAFF Though he's only 16-years-old, Mark Correia is not new to professional acting, having appeared in film, television and magic shows over the last decade. However, his performing career has taken the lifelong Oakville resident to a new challenge: stage acting. "It's quite a different world," he said. "It's more difficult on stage because you don't just do it once. We have to do the same thing every night, but you have to keep it fresh." The Grade 11 Etobicoke School for the Arts student is performing as one of the lead characters in a production of The Children's Republic in Toronto. The show is put on by Tarragon Theatre and the Harold Green Jewish Theatre Company. The play run ends on Dec. 18. The Children's Republic was written by Tarragon Theatre playwright Hannah Moscovitch. It's about children and staff members of an orphanage inside a ghetto of Nazioccupied Warsaw, Poland. The play is inspired by the life of Dr. Janusz Korczak (played by stage veteran Peter Hutt) who ran the real-life orphanage during the war years and was a child protector at the time. The events in the play are fictitious, but much of the inspiration is real. "This is an interesting story because it's war seen through the eyes of innocents," said Correia. "It's a story about this guy who kept 200 orphans alive for quite some time before he walked to Treblinka (extermination camp) with them." As war rages, there is a transition. The orphanage begins outside the ghetto before it is consumed by the ghetto. If that conflict is not enough, enter Correia's character, Israel. "I'm the problem the orphanage foresees in the beginning," the young actor said. "When Korczak first meets me, I'm a con artist on the streets. I'm pretending to cry and taking people's money." Korczak, however, is not fooled by the trick, but gives the boy some money anyway and invites him over to the orphanage. He doesn't talk much, he avoids contact and gets into fights constantly with the other students and the orphanage staff. "I'm an all-around bad guy," Correia said of his character. "I don't talk much or let people See Playing page 24