Barn Visit

A Show by The Drama Ladies Arts Collective

Writer/Director: Carmen Korpi Set/Prop Design: Cailie MacLeod Costume/Makeup Design: Alice Newman-Gougeon Set Builders: Sam Broadbent & Aidan Griffiths Cast: Sarah Ivanco & Jesse Nasmith

Night after night, Grace visits Adrian in the old barn at the back of the field.

Genesis of the Show:

This piece is an expansion on a slice of a gothic horror novel that I have been working on for the better part of the last year. Through it I wanted to question how we (as a culture, as wider society, and as individuals) normalize the suffering of others and how we comfort ourselves even when we are confronted with the knowledge of our own complicity in that suffering. How do you let yourself off the hook? How do you square that or make it okay? Should you? Oftentimes the answer to these kinds of questions comes out through what isn’t done or isn’t said. While we can be well intentioned, we cope by avoiding, by looking away, pretending its not as bad as it actually is, and generally prioritizing our own convenience. With Barn Visit I wanted to sit in that discomfort and explore it without rushing to resolve anything.

I thought theatre was a stronger medium than prose to execute this, since this creates an opportunity to experience, very viscerally, exactly that uncomfortable inaction that the piece is about. Spend enough time literally sitting there in this barn with Adrian while he’s stuck like that and eventually the novelty that would have spurred action will fade. What is happening to him is fairly blunt and violent. However, it really is no different than say, the damsel locked in the tower, a trope this work inverts and interrogates along gendered lines. Much like the damsel (and by extension women, queer folks, and anyone who is placed in a systemically feminized or subjugated position); Adrian’s pain comes to be expected over time. Because of that it becomes banal and unspectacular.

About the Artists

Carmen Korpi

Carmen Korpi (Writer/Director) is thrilled to be at Fresh Meat this year! Carmen is a multidisciplinary artist based in Ottawa, Ontario. She is a co-founder of The Drama Ladies Arts Collective alongside collaborators Alice Newman-Gougeon and Cailie MacLeod. Recent credits include Prop Design for Odyssey Theatre’s Mirandolina and The Girl With No Hands; Background Design for Odyssey’s World of Theatre Masks; and assisting with costumes for TotoToo’s The Spongebob Musical. Outside of theatre, she has Stage Managed, Assistant Directed, and created props, costumes, and lighting for the uOttawa Opera’s productions of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, Cendrillion, Hansel & Gretel, The Orpheus Project, and Venus & Adonis. Carmen is also an avid writer who has created many short stories and long form prose projects. Barn Visit emerged from one of these and is her first outing as a director. Enjoy the show!

Instagram: @carmen.korpi | @the.drama.ladies

Sarah Ivanco (Grace)

Sarah Ivanco (she/they) is an award-winning, queer, multidisciplinary artist creating on unceded and unsurrendered Algonquin Anishinaabe territory. They are the Co-Artistic Director of The Lighter Touch Art Collective and a Producer/Performer with Trip the Light Theatre Collective. She has performed and/or collaborated on shows such as: Nuit, CTRL, Polygraph, Disco Snails, What The World Needs Now, When Fern Flowers Bloom, A Sexy Pigeon Show, and Gander Euphoria. They believe that their art is at its best when collaborating and creating with others. She is incredibly excited to be taking part in her first Fresh Meat Festival and is equally excited to be exploring a genre so near to their heart: horror.

Jesse Nasmith (Adrian)

Jesse Nasmith is an Ottawa based actor and vocalist with an interdisciplinary resume that leans heavily toward horror. He was last seen on stage as Anthony in Paper Moon Theatre’s production of Sweeney Todd at the NAC. Other theatre credits include Jekyll and Hyde, The Virgin and the Horn, and Chicago. On film he has appeared in Saturday Bite Fever, Deinfluencer 2, Games Children Play, and most recently The Mouse Trap, where he had the honour of being killed off by Mickey Mouse. Jesse is very excited to be part of the Fresh Meat Festival for the first time and is looking forward to seeing what kind of wonderfully chaotic theatre comes of it. 

Premiering October 28-31, 2026.