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Guest Blog: Thinking of Yu: What does the translator do?

2012-01-20T12:00:00.000-07:00

Today's Guest Blogger: John Murrell, translator of Thinking of Yu

What does the translator do?

I try to reproduce exactly the same music that the original author wrote, but on a different instrument.

I try to make an English trombone sing like a French violin.

This is intricate, painstaking work, one word, one punctuation mark at a time.

And, when translating theatre, the work is even more intricate – because I must reproduce not only the voice of the original author, but the several different voices of the several different characters. In the case of Thinking of Yu, I had to find the appropriate tough but disappointed, caring yet hurt, English poetry of the character Maggie – who was called Madeleine in French, a language in which toughness and disappoinment, care and hurt, flow more smoothly and reach greater heights without the need for so much climbing equipment as they require in the more literal and sometimes plodding English language. I don’t know if that’s clear, but that’s how it felt.

Then I had to find a different voice, a different music, for Jerry, Maggie’s “accidental friend”. In French, he’s called Jérémie, and his use of French makes it immediately clear what social stratum he comes from, where and how much he’s been educated, and what his work life would be like. Our use of English, at least in western Canada, does not immediately reveal so much about us; our language is a great leveler in many ways. This is a good thing, I think. But it means that I sometimes had to add a line, or at least a few words, to Jerry’s speeches, to catch the beautiful revelatory subtlety of Carole Fréchette’s Jérémie in a down-to-earth Jerry, who also cares and hurt, but keeps his care and hurt hidden in a way that would be impossible for him to do in French.

The third character in this inspiring play – Lin – has the same name in English as in French. But that was the only thing which was easy about translating her. Lin is a recent Chinese immigrant to Canada. In Carole’s original, she is learning French from Madeleine; in my translation, she has to be learning English from Maggie. In the original, there are lots of references to French grammar and syntax, to French verb tenses, which are part of the play’s charm and humour and poetry. None of this could work in an English version, because we neither have the same names for our verb tenses and grammar, nor the same education in the mechanics of our language, that French-speakers have. So, again, I had to try to be that trombone, aching to sound like the violin – keeping true to Carole’s intentions, her profound compassion for the human beings about whom she writes, the clarity of her revelations, while speaking with a different voice and to different ears and sensibilities.

It’s an honour to do this kind of work, but it is labour-intensive, and can turn one into a nit-picking neurotic if one is not careful.

Because I’ve spent most of my 40-year career in theatre writing plays of my own, in my own language, I am able to appreciate the beautiful humanity and exquisite precision with which Carole Fréchette composes her plays. I’ve translated eight of them now – or eight-and-a-half, if I count the short play Entrefilet (News Item, in my translation), which is a sort of “Making of Thinking of Yu” piece. I love bringing my knowledge and experience of theatre to the table, in order to help introduce English-speaking and English-hearing audiences to the work of this superb playwright from Québec, without whose poetry and compassion we would all be the poorer.

John Murrell, translator and playwright

January 2012

In Memoriam: A tribute to Lucille Wagner

2012-01-11T10:29:00.002-07:00

It is with sadness, that I am writing to let all the friends of ATP, and of theatre in Calgary and Canada, know that on January 2, 2012, Lucille Wagner passed away in Guelph, Ontario. A celebration of her life was held in Guelph recently.

With Douglas Riske and Paddy Campbell, Lucille Wagner founded ATP in 1972 as a theatre for children devoted to telling Canadian stories. 40 years later we're still going strong. Our first home was the Canmore Opera House in Heritage Park. Though ATP's programming mandate changed several years later to include work for adults and non-Canadian material, Lucille & Doug's daring vision for a bold, frankly Canadian contemporary theatre in Calgary inspires us still.

Please find an obituary for Lucille Wagner attached. I hope you will help distribute this news widely so all who knew Lucille and all who continue to enjoy the fruits of her vision and contribution will know of her passing.

On Friday March 2, 2012, we will dedicate the performance of Thinking of Yu by Carole Frechette, translated by John Murrell, to Lucille's memory. Former board president and long-time donor and supporter Jock Osler has written a short reminiscence about Lucille that will appear in our playbill for the Enbridge playRites Festival.

Please raise a glass to Lucille Wagner, and pioneers like her. We all stand on their shoulders.

All the best,

Vanessa

Artistic Director ATP

Co-founder of ATP, Lucille Wagner, passed away on January 2, 2012

Former board president, honourary director, and ATP donor and supporter Jock Osler remembers:

In the early 1970s, I met two delightful, committed people who had created a new theatre for young audiences, presenting original Canadian historical plays, in Calgary at the old Canmore Opera house at Heritage Park.

One was Douglas Riske, the brilliant young director who now is executive director of the Manitoba Arts Council in Winnipeg.

The other was the incomparable Lucille Wagner, producer and just about everything else.

They were aided and abetted from the start by the playwright Paddy Campbell.

And the theatre was Alberta Theatre Projects, 40 years old this year and still going strong in the Martha Cohen Theatre at the Epcor Centre for the Performing Arts in downtown Calgary.

Lucille died on January 2 in Guelph, Ontario, where she had moved some time ago to be close to family. Canada’s performing community has lost a true pioneer and builder and ATP has lost a dear friend.

She did all kinds of other things in her career besides dedicating 10 or more years of her life to ATP– commercial theatre in London, fund raising and audience development and much more -- but fondest of all for me were her ATP years.

All those decades ago, I was smitten by what Doug and Lucille were doing. I had access to the donations budget of my then-employer and I was able to send some funds ATP’s way.

In view of my evident interest in ATP (and perhaps the dollars!), Lucille early on invited me to attend a board meeting. I left the meeting as president of that board! If that was a kangaroo court, I was one happy marsupial.

At first, student audiences came by bus to the theatre, thanks to support from Calgary schools and the federal government. After three or four years, ATP began producing for adult audiences, still respecting its mandate for original Canadian works.

My recollection is that we were perpetually broke. I’m sure there were times when Doug and Lucille were not paid. But “no” and “can’t” weren’t in her lexicon and she became adept at staring down creditors and bankers and equally, romancing politicians.

I was a willing acolyte. I learned so much about theatre from Lucille that my developing appreciation became a passion, a true avocation. I moved on from the board to become and honorary director. So my devotion to ATP is undiminished . I call it my spiritual home.

My dear Lucille, I will always cherish your great gift to me.

Break a leg, dear friend.

- Jock Osler.

Chatting with ATP's Event Manager Molly Jacob

2012-01-06T12:00:00.004-07:00

Earlier this year, I compiled a list of events Alberta Theatre Projects produces in a single season, exclusive of stage performances. I was surprised to learn that in one season, we organize approximately 140 events ranging from small backstage tours, to lively opening night celebrations and large-scale fundraisers! As ATP’s Event Manager, I work on about half of the events we do and two of my favourites are coming up this month. Let me explain what’s cool about each:

The playRites Salon: An exclusive peek behind the curtain of the Enbridge playRites Festival

Wednesday, January 18 at 5:30pm, Martha Cohen Theatre

Admission: Free

The playRites Salon features excerpts from four new works, including a song from hip-hop musical Ash Rizin. When an event takes place onstage there are unique technical considerations. Think about it: What would you consider if you’re staging a song? Most of us think if we choose a song and performer, we’re set. Our artistic and production staff immediately thinks about the state of the stage, since the Salon will take place during the festival’s lighting hang. At that time, the stage is a construction zone of sorts as the lighting grid gets transformed. Our technicians are busy and not all of the stage equipment is accessible, affecting the selection and presentation of the song. When else does a lighting hang become a pertinent factor to the organization of an event!?

Flavours of BC’s Naramata Bench Wine Festival

Thursday, January 26 at 7:00pm, Willow Park Wines & Spirits

This is my second year working on this fundraiser and I’m proud of it, not only for its support of ATP, but because it makes a difference in Canada’s wine industry. In 2012, it is Alberta’s only tasting exclusive to Naramata’s boutique wineries, which produce such premium wines that I’m convinced upon introduction to the Alberta market, they’ll become permanent fixtures. Following last year's event, it was rewarding to see a noticeable increase of Naramata wines at local restaurants and liquor stores.

This year, eight of the ten participating wineries are sending their winemaker or other representative from the region so that guests can learn about the wines from a firsthand source.

I hope to see you at one of our upcoming events!

Molly

What is the best play you have ever seen? Why?

2011-12-23T12:00:00.000-07:00

Think about it for a moment. I know I had to, and not just because I see a lot of plays.

What this question did was ask me to really consider what I like, what I value when I watch something. And it asks me to make a choice.

This is one of many questions at the core of Best Play/Worst Play; a new project by Vancouver’s The Chop Theatre. Collaborators Emelia Symington Fedy and Anita Rochon are asking people around the world to answer this question and more in the form of a survey and, in some cases, an interview. They are going to take the information they acquire and create a new play with it.

It is the unusual juxtaposition of the subjectivity of personal preferences and art with the specificity of surveys and statistics that makes the project so fascinating to me. Does asking a sample of people what they like and don’t like when they see a play teach us anything? Will the results surprise us? And once we know the results, what can we possibly do with them?

In the Enbridge playRites Festival of New Canadian Plays we host a conversation about new work around our four world premieres. That conversation can be deeper than “Did you like that one?” This project, this survey asks us to stop and think about things we may take for granted (like a sound design or the qualities of a protagonist.) And it asks us not just what we like and don’t like, but why. I am looking forward to hearing what people have to say and what two inventive artists like Emelia and Anita will create.

Have your say and take the survey

And join us to see a Work in Progress showing of The Chop’s Best Play/Worst Play on Saturday February 25 at 4:30 p.m. in the Big Secret Theatre.

Vicki Stroich, Artistic Associate Festival

Guest Blog: Performing the music that people know so well

2011-12-09T12:00:00.001-07:00

Today's Guest Blogger: Joe Slabe, Musical Director of The Wizard of Oz, The Musical

“This isn’t really a musical. It’s a play with music,” said our director, Glynis Leyshon at one point early in rehearsals and I agree that The Wizard of Oz doesn’t function like a traditional musical.

As the musical director, it’s my job to be the advocate for the score and bring this glorious music to life. Everyone can sing at least one song from the show and I was well aware of the responsibility I had to the legendary songwriting team of Harold Arlen and Yip Harburg.

And yet, there are really only eight tunes in The Wizard of Oz and, a third of the way into the second act, the show pretty much forgets about being a musical at all. But, our two-person orchestra is kept busy playing almost constantly thanks to the third musical genius behind The Wizard of Oz, Herbert Stothart.

Stothart wrote the underscoring, musical stings and wove together the tunes to create a continuous score that I admire every time I play a performance. Emotions are heightened, entrances and exits are announced, scene changes are made seamless and every character has a melodic motif that changes with them on their musical journey.

This sort of extensive underscoring is very common in movies but much less so in contemporary theatre. In fact, one of my challenges was to encourage the cast to leave room for the music to punctuate the action onstage.

That might be because The Wizard of Oz owes a huge debt to a theatrical style that is very out of fashion now – the melodrama. With oversized characters and emotions, a life-and-death plot and almost continuous music, the show certainly fits the bill.

And, now that the cast have nailed it, it’s exciting to watch audiences embrace this wonderfully old-fashioned show at every performance.

The Wizard of Oz, The Musical runs at Alberta Theatre Projects until December 31st. For tickets and information, visit ATPlive.com or call 403-294-7402

Guest Blog: The Journey of The Wizard of Oz

2011-11-25T12:00:00.000-07:00

Today's Guest Blogger: Glynis Leyshon, Director of The Wizard of Oz, The Musical

As a blog virgin, I am not exactly sure of the rules of engagement in this exercise. But I have spent most of my adult life as an ardent diarist...so that is the mode that I feel most comfortable pursuing for this Wizard of Oz blog.

As I write this posting, we are in the final stages of developing our production for its Friday opening. We have just navigated the always tricky and exhausting tech week – where all the elements of production (lights, costumes, sound, physical set, video) are introduced to the production and we are now performing nightly for sold out (and so far very enthusiastic) preview audiences. It is a crazy time, as the work we have created with the acting ensemble during our three weeks of rehearsal in the hall suddenly needs to support giant scenic and costume elements. You feel like a some sort of crazy Cirque du Soleil juggler... trying to balance everything in a way that best tells the amazing story of Dorothy’s adventures in Oz.

It seems like a million years ago – in a galaxy far far away –when Designer John Pennoyer and I first sat down to talk through what the physical design of this Wizard of Oz was going to look like. Actually, we have been working on this production since last spring... wrestling with the challenges of bringing an iconic film to the relatively intimate ATP stage. We all know and love the classic MGM musical... but it was a massive production, even by Hollywood standards. The Martha Cohen is NOT a huge sound stage – and theatre is a very different beast from film. So our first, and ultimately most important decision was to honour the film while at the same time never trying to replicate its physical look. Instead our Kansas would be a stylized prairie horizon instead of a farmyard complete with chickens! Oz would be suggested by animated projections painted by John and brought to ‘life’ by the super talented young Designer Corwin Ferguson rather than massive sets and spectacle. I have never mixed projections with conventional theatre elements (very high meets low tech) in quite this way before. And that has been one of the most difficult and at the same time most rewarding parts of this process.

In bringing The Wizard of Oz to the stage, ultimately our goal was to tell the story of Dorothy and her friends with integrity and heart. And I believe that no amount of technical ingenuity is more important in making a show fly than bringing together a talented company of actors. In this, we have been singularly blessed.... this Calgary ensemble of actors is truly amazing. Even when exhausted, they give selflessly to the show and to their audiences.

Last night, almost at the end of the story, we watched the scene where Dorothy has to say good bye to her friends - the Scarecrow, the Tin Man and the Lion. Ksenia, our Dorothy, plays this scene with such quiet heart that it never fails to move me. And last night was no exception except that she mistakenly referred to the Lion as the Tin Man. Normally, this kind of simple line error would be passed over but such is the level of trust that the company shares that the Lion quietly (and plaintively) corrected Dorothy, saying “But I am Lion”. And Dorothy responded with a lovely smile saying “Of course you are... forgive me but it’s been a long journey”. Audiences loved this small improvised moment.... the laughter was generous and absolutely in the spirit of this retelling of The Wizard of Oz. The journey has indeed been long... but the rewards have been great.

The Wizard of Oz, The Musical runs at Alberta Theatre Projects until December 31st. For tickets and information, visit ATPlive.com or call 403-294-7402

Guest Blog: Act 1 - Enter Laurel

2011-11-11T12:00:00.058-07:00

Today's Guest Blogger: Alberta Theatre Projects' Assistant Dramaturg, Laurel Green shares her thoughts on her recent arrival to the Calgary theatre scene

Laurel Green

It has been just over a month now since I arrived from “out East”. I had heard rumblings about Calgary’s theatre community, talk about creative opportunities and support, so after almost a decade spent going to school and working in Toronto, I packed up my hatchback and hit the Trans-Canada. I have joined the artistic team here at Alberta Theatre Projects as their new Assistant Dramaturg – and what a month it has been.

I got here just in time to see True Love Lies, and attend the opening night of Penny Plain. I have been to shows at Theatre Junction, Theatre Calgary, Downstage, Lunchbox, Ghost River/Pumphouse, and on location with Swallow-A-Bicycle. I found an apartment, bartended a poetry reading, co-hosted a pre-show chat, drank at the Auburn, partied with the Green Fools for Halloween, attended a playwriting conference, drove to Banff, and starred in an indie music video dressed as a gigantic seashell. And that’s only what happened after 5pm each day…

Laurel Green...in Calgary!

As I write this, the office is abuzz with celebrating Vicki Stroich (my commander-in-chief)’s 10th Anniversary with the company. I have long been a proponent of her work, and I am thrilled to have her as a mentor and friend – never mind getting to share an office with her. I am always amazed when a theatre artist is able to find longevity in a creative home, as this is not something we can take for granted in our industry. Vicki’s well-deserved tenure makes me optimistic – I have joined a company that welcomes and encourages growth.

Click on the image to learn more about playRites

My next few months will be consumed with rehearsals and planning for the 26th Annual Enbridge playRites Festival of New Canadian Plays and I am thrilled to be backstage helping these pieces to production. As the dramaturg for Ash Rizin’ I’m going to explore the wild world of Vancouver gang violence through a wicked hip-hop score, and as the coordinator for this year’s Emerging Artists Assembly, I’m hard at work programming a jam-packed weekend for students, emerging and early career artists. It’s going to be really, really fun.

So…I’ve been warned about winter, told to relish the forthcoming Chinooks and to dress in layers, but if you have any Calgary Survival Tips for me, or would like to invite me to a play, or have a script for me to read, you can reach me at lgreen@ATPlive.com. I’d love to hear from you.

Thank you for the warmest welcome.

Cheers,

Laurel

Guest Blog: Reviewing for Theatre

2011-10-28T12:00:00.005-06:00

Today’s Guest Blogger: Louis B. Hobson, entertainment columnist for the Calgary Sun

Louis B. Hobson

I've been reviewing theatre in Calgary for almost four decades.

And yes, it really doesn't seem all that long ago that Ruth Ann McKinnon asked me to review community theatre for the Albertan.

At the time I was teaching English and drama at Central Memorial High School and directing plays for Workshop

Theatre and Calgary Theatre Singers.

The first professional production I reviewed was Alberta Theatre Projects' school production of W.O. Mitchell's The Devil's Instrument out at the old Canmore Opera House in Heritage Park.

I had taken a creative writing course from W.O. at the University of Alberta so this was simultaneously an exciting and intimidating assignment.

I was here for the birth of ATP, Theatre Calgary and Lunchbox Theatre.

I knew Michael Green when he was a high school student with a dream that would become One Yellow Rabbit.

I had drinks with Georgie Collins listening to her plans to create a mystery theatre company at the Pleiades Theatre and then watch it blossom into Vertigo Theatre.

I was around for the glory days of the University of Calgary when Victor Mitchell and Joyce Doolittle produced theatre that rivaled what I was seeing in London and New York and watched those same great theatre artists turn the old pumphouse into The Pumphouse Theatre and nurture StoryBook Theatre.

I heard the rumblings that gave birth to Theatre Junction, Ghost River Theatre, Sage Theatre, Downstage Theatre, Ground Zero, Hit & Myth, Urban Curvz, The Shakespeare Company and the dozens of community theatre companies that have thrived and those that had their moments in the sun and disappeared.

I was at Stage West for the grand opening that saw Gail Gordon, the lovable Mr. Mooney, star in Norman, Is That You? and usher in a parade of TV and film stars over the past 40 years.

In all these years I have never stopped being amazed and gratified by the enthusiasm, talent and dedication of the producers, directors, artists, designers and board members who all share one goal and that is to make Calgary a cultural oasis.

I have loved theatre since those early days in Blairmore when I sat in a make shift dressing room watching my father put on his make-up and costumes.

Seeing my love for theatre, my parents drove me to Lethbridge and Calgary to see plays and then drove themselves to Edmonton and Calgary to see plays I was in or I had written or directed.

My love affair with theatre has never been stronger so, like thousands of other Calgarians, I can hardly wait for the rest of the 2011/2012 theatre season.

Read Louis’ preview for Penny Plain here: http://www.calgarysun.com/2011/10/19/puppeteer-pulls-some-strings-for-new-show

Guest Blog: The Two Ronnie Burketts

2011-10-14T00:00:00.015-06:00

Today's Guest Blogger: Dianne Goodman, Artistic Associate LEGACY, Alberta Theatre Projects

I know 2 Ronnie Burkett’s.

You know one of them; the one who is the remarkably brilliant puppeteer genius who has won more awards than you can shake a stick at. The one who has entertained, provoked, challenged and moved audiences around the world. The one who has singlehandedly revolutionized how we all think of “puppet shows”. The one who is the subject of countless articles, academic papers and theses. The creator, writer, designer and performer of Ronnie Burkett Theatre of Marionettes, now in its 25th year. Its first production, Fool’s Edge, was produced at ATP in 1986, and this month his newest show, Penny Plain, graces our stage.

Allow me to tell you about “my” Ronnie.

I first met Ronnie in Edmonton in the spring of 1983. I was venue coordinator of a theatre in which Ronnie was presenting his show, “The Plight of Polly Pureheart”, for a producers’ showcase. What I saw at the rehearsal was a pair of legs and, from the knees up, a cleverly fashioned puppet theatre of a curtain hung from a hoop, attached to a backpack. A sweet, witty, hysterically funny melodrama ensued, with the puppet characters popping up above the curtain. Never saw the dude’s face. What I felt was that I was witnessing a singular talent, someone whose gifts were unique and very, very special. The next day I approached Ronnie, situated behind his promo table, introduced myself, told him emphatically that I thought he was BRILLIANT and invited him to lunch. Fortunately it didn’t seem to occur to him that I might be a crazed stalker fan, and off we went to lunch and the start of a meaningful and treasured friendship.

That fall, I moved to Calgary to begin a new job at ATP, and Ronnie was one of the very few people I knew in the city. In the following years through life and loves we partied, laughed, cried and commiserated together. He was always prettier, smarter and funnier than me but I didn’t mind. Just being in his presence gave me joy.

He made me birthday dinners (a mean pork tenderloin), introduced me to his fantastic parents, Ray and Eileen, who were his greatest supporters and non-paid employees of his shows in the very early days. A fiercely loyal, true and protective friend, he was always ready to ask the new boyfriend of one his gal pals if his intentions were” honourable”, the one with a shoulder to cry on whilst handing you the most exquisite martini, the one with the honest answer to “do I look fat in this?”, the one whose house you could show up to at 1am, because you were spooked to be in your house alone. The one who would show up unannounced with that great turkey sandwich and a video of Mel Brooks’ The Producers to cheer you up and make you feel better when you were feeling down, or under the weather, or both. And, as the years of our friendship progressed, the joyful and wise father, uncle, and now grandfather, the son who spoke so eloquently in tribute at his parents’ memorial services and who keeps their family traditions sacred. The one who does not allow distance to fade his friendship, nor fails to return a call from a lonely girl in a far off city.

The one who keeps my secrets, and not for a million dollars could you make me tell you his.

I know 2 Ronnies, and I love them both.

Photo: Ian Jackson

Penny Plain marks the twelfth production from Ronnie Burkett Theatre of Marionettes, currently celebrating its 25th year. It opens next week at Alberta Theatre Projects and runs until November 6, 2011. Check out videos, pictures and more info here.

Guest Blog: This ain't no Cat in the Hat

2011-09-30T12:00:00.009-06:00

Today's Guest Blogger: Dave Kelly, actor, True Love Lies

Ok, before I start, let me just say that smoking kills. Smoking causes cancer. The Surgeon General hates it, my Mom hates it, and I’m not a fan. It smells bad. It wrecks your teeth and your skin. But ... right there on page 6 of True Love Lies, it says, “Kane lights a cigarette”.

I play Kane.

So what’s a guy to do?

In scene 5, in the middle of an argument with my daughter Madison, she yells at me: “Then why are you smoking?!”

What’s a Dad to do?

When I started this project, I decided the only way to do this show was to jump in with both feet. To play a complicated man with a past that he has lied about, with a family that he risks losing... this ain’t no Cat in the Hat. So if I’m going to do it, I have to do it as completely as I can. So I worked hard on the part, becoming Kane, becoming the Dad in our ensemble of actors.

Which means I had to learn to smoke. And it had to look real.

Ever try to light a cigarette? How about with 400 people watching you? While walking? In the dark?

Heather, our assistant stage manager, lined me up with some herbal cigarettes, and I rehearsed. I had to rehearse smoking. I had to get permission from The Epcor Centre to stand on the balcony and rehearse. How to light a cigarette, how to hold it, how to inhale it. (I used clove cigarettes - no nicotine or tobacco - not sure what difference it made...) All the other smokers standing outside were ruining their lungs. Not me. I was playing a part.

In scene 5, I have about 8 seconds to get into place. My cue is when Rejean who plays David, says, “I’ll email you.” Then I walk on with a cigarette in my mouth, light it, inhale it, then blow the smoke out like a seasoned smoker.

It’s a small part of a great show - but it’s a part that I wanted to be like every other part. To be real.

Hopefully, you buy into the show. Hopefully you care for these people who are trying to find their way in the middle of a family crisis. Hopefully you are moved by the decisions and directions they make.

And hopefully you believe that Kane is a real smoker.

- Dave Kelly

True Love Lies runs from September 20 - October 8, 2011

Guest Blog: Brad Fraser returns to Calgary!

2011-09-16T12:00:00.006-06:00

Today’s Guest Blogger: Brad Fraser, playwright, True Love Lies

I first moved to Calgary in 1987. It was a much different city then. Still Alberta’s most metropolitan but it was the years after the first big oil bust and unfinished buildings stood around the empty downtown area like ruins. The cost of real estate was jaw-droppingly low.

I rented a cheap house with a couple of friends and got a waitering job at Chianti on 17th Ave, then one of the busiest restaurants in the city.

We ate at places like Fourth Street Rose, Divino and A Touch of Ginger, drank at bars and clubs like The Bank, Dicks and Propaganda, watching skeptically as the city hummed and bustled preparing for the 1988 winter Olympics. The Centre for the Performing Arts was a new building then. ATP and Theatre Calgary were adjusting to their new digs and the One Yellow Rabbit Group offered brilliance in the secret theatre.

There was a special vitality about Calgary at this time. A sense that some very dark years were coming to a close and that the city was on the precipice of some sort of momentous change. There was a hunger, a need to be acknowledged as a viable, successful city that still had a golden future ahead. The arts scene which for many years had seemed moribund was starting to come to life. There was a hum under the streets and sidewalks, a non-stop buzz that was the sound of an entire city prepping itself for a momentous event.

The next year, when those much anticipated Olympics finally happened, the world arrived and was impressed. Thanks to ATP’s playRites Festival of New Canadian Plays, which was one of the countries most exciting theatre events at the time, the influx into the city wasn’t just sports minded folks but also many of the country’s most well-known entertainers and artists. Calgarians and their guests partied for 24 hours a day for 10 days. Mornings were filled with reports of the previous days sporting events, afternoons were spent negotiating the throngs of tourists mobbing Stephen Avenue and the city centre and the nights were filled with parties, dancing, music and fireworks. As almost anyone who was here at the time will attest, it was magical.

Afterwards it was like most hideous, three month hangover the city had ever endured.

All that preparation and anticipation, the amazing success and the accolades heard around the world dried up completely. It was almost as if a sad, torpor had fallen over each of us. The light seemed dimmer. The streets felt quieter.

But gradually things returned to normal. The growth the city had seen for the Olympics continued and within a few years Calgary was once again the gleaming, modern jewel of the prairies.

Photo: Trudie Lee

The next year, as part of the playRites Festival of New Canadian Plays, I opened a show called Unidentified Human Remains and the True Nature of Love. Just like Calgary the year before, the play was an amazing success and launched me into a much larger world. A year later I left Calgary and continued my lifelong establishing of homes in other cities and sometimes other countries. They have each been unique and amazing in their own way but few of them have been as memorable and exciting as the three short years I spent in Calgary.

I’m really looking forward to coming back again.

-Brad Fraser

Visit Brad's website at http://www.bradfraser.net/
True Love Lies runs at Alberta Theatre Projects from September 20 - October 8, 2011
Visit our website for more info.

We're Back!

2011-09-02T12:00:00.014-06:00

After a summer of preparations, at last we're doing plays again. Hurray!

Tuesday August 30th, 2011.

ATP assembles for the first reading of True Love Lies by Brad Fraser.

Meanwhile, down in the office, it's Monster Clean.

Once a year, we pull all our stuff out of the drawers. We look at it, and either toss it, or wipe it down with some non-toxic cleaner and put it back more neatly. For two days, shouts of "Does anyone still use this old coil-binding machine?" echo through the office.

This cupboard could use an edit.

That's more like it.

I love how indignant we all get at the pointless junk that's accumulated. "Who was the crazy person who decided to keep all this?!" we say. But the thing is, we do Monster Clean every year. So those mad hoarders who couldn't throw out even the meanest styrofoam cup? They're us.

LEGACY coordinator Katt Boulet, headed down to the green room with her supplies.

Some things uncovered so far:

- A shelf-ful of unopened computer supplies. "Bet we can use those," says canny Managing Director David Shefsiek, who's always thinking about how to make things better around here, while 'Finding capacity within our fiscal and human resources' (ie, not wasting a thing.)

- An old copy of Windows 95. "I think that's what I've got on my computer," says one office smart aleck. It's true, our software could really use an upgrade.

- A nest of over 30 sets of tongs. Administrator Angela Hendry says, "The caterers keep bringing them, even when I tell them not to." BAM! Into the junk pile! GONZO!!

- And one real treasure: a speech by Executive Director Emeritus Michael Dobbin, delivered in 1986, at the end of ATP's first season in the Martha Cohen Theatre. This one goes into our file of 'ATP History - Important Documents.'

Before archiving it, I read through Michael's remarks on that long ago day. There are many reverberations. John Murrell's work was in that season. We're premiering his translation of Carole Frechette's Thinking of Yu in this one. Michael mentions an upcoming summer production, Fool's Edge by Ronnie Burkett.This year, Penny Plain marks The Ronnie Burkett Theatre of Marionnettes' 25th season. Michael explains that "We will continue to program in a diverse fashion so as to satisfy the needs and desires of our audience, while at the same time leading, coaxing "new ways of seeing", and introducing art of different strokes which keep a balance." This is still a good description of what we do at ATP.

And then, near the end of the document, he starts dropping hints about a 'major new initiative...' You turn the yellowing page, and there it is, expressed in classic Michael style, using all capital letters and double-underlining: A pilot project, "an ANNUAL FESTIVAL OF NEW PLAYS." It's the moment our Festival was born, right here in my dust-covered hands.

"There are those in the field," he declares, "who feel that we are going about this whole thing backwards... However, we think we know what we are doing!"

Oh Michael. I bet you knew both more and less than you thought you knew. Like all of us, at any moment. Regardless, your Festival goes into its 26th edition this year, and your vision for ATP lives on. Be proud. We are.

Now, back to dusting. See you at the theatre!

Bettys Wins!

2011-08-12T12:00:00.020-06:00

It was a ball and it was a blast! The 14th Annual Betty Mitchell Awards for achievement in theatre took place on Monday, August 8th.

Some of our ATP folks were in attendance:

(l to r) Aldona Barutowicz - Publicist, Vanessa Porteous - Artistic Director,
Susan Lam - Resource Development Manager. Photo: Brent Calis

Alberta Theatre Projects was nominated for 12 awards, and took home two:

Outstanding Performance by An Actress In A Supporting Role
Jamie Konchak - The Penelopiad

Julie Orton accepting on behalf of Jamie Konchak.
Photo: Brent Calis

Outstanding New Play

Mieko Ouchi - Nisei Blue

Mieko Ouchi. Photo: Brent Calis

Congratulations to all nominees and recipients! The full list of nominees and winners can be found on the Betty Mitchell Awards website. Here's to another great year of theatre.

12 Betty Mitchell Nominations for ATP!

2011-07-01T12:00:00.002-06:00

photo: Brent Calis

Congratulations to all the 2011 Betty Mitchell Award nominees! Alberta Theatre Projects received 12 nominations, with The Penelopiad leading the way with 9.

Kudos to Penelopiad nominees Terry Gunvordahl and Deitra Kalyn for racking up a total of 4 nominations each, as well as Jamie Konchak and Allison Lynch, who each received 3!

From our Enbridge playRites Festival, Nisei Blue received 2 nominations, and our Stage 2 presentation of 300 TAPES received a nomination for Sound Design/Composition.

A summary of our nominations:

Outstanding Performance by An Actress In A Supporting Role

Jamie Konchak - The Penelopiad

Jamie Konchak with Meg Roe

Outstanding Lighting Design

Terry Gunvordahl - The Penelopiad

Terry Gunvordahl

Outstanding Set Design

Terry Gunvordahl - The Penelopiad

Outstanding Performance By An Actor In a Supporting Role
Grant Linneberg - Nisei Blue

Duval Lang & Grant Linneberg

Outstanding Costume Design
Deitra Kalyn - The Penelopiad

Deitra Kalyn

Outstanding Sound Design Or Composition

Anna Friz - 300 TAPES

Outstanding Sound Design Or Composition
Allison Lynch - The Penelopiad

Allison Lynch

Outstanding Choreography Or Fight Direction
Denise Clarke - The Penelopiad

Denise Clarke

Outstanding Musical Direction
Allison Lynch - The Penelopiad

Outstanding New Play
Mieko Ouchi - Nisei Blue

Mieko Ouchi

Outstanding Direction
Vanessa Porteous - The Penelopiad

Vanessa Porteous

Outstanding Production Of A Play
The Penelopiad

A complete listing of the nominations can be found here.

The Betty Mitchell Awards will take place August 8th at Stage West. To purchase tickets, more info here.

Thanks for coming!

2011-06-20T12:00:00.003-06:00

It was a blast! A million thanks for those who came out to our 2011-2012 Season Sneak-a-Peek on Monday and made it a success. We hope you enjoyed the exclusive announcements, the social media frenzy, and the food and drinks!

ATP artistic director Vanessa Porteous unveils next season’s lineup.
Photograph by: Leah Hennel, Calgary Herald

Amongst our special guests and announcements:

Kate Newby talks about directing Brad Fraser's True Love Lies, and announcing Dave Kelly as Kane and Roger Schultz as production designer.
A 25-year retrospective of Ronnie Burkett Theatre of Marionettes, leading up to Penny Plain.

Ksenia Thurgood and Joe Slabe performing "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" from The Wizard of Oz, The Musical. Glynis Leyshon, director of last year's smash hit Seussical™ The Musical will also be returning to direct.
Vicki Stroich announcing playRites personnel: One Yellow Rabbit's Blake Brooker directing Drama, Alan Dilworth directing Thinking of Yu, Green Thumb Theatre's Patrick McDonald directing Ash Rizin'. Confirmed cast & crew will include Allan Morgan, Daniela Vlaskalic, Lindsay Burns, Scott Reid and David Fraser.
Downstage's Simon Mallett and Ellen Close on researching rural Alberta for their examination of the energy industry in Good Fences.
Stephen Massicotte, talking about writing Mary's Wedding ten years ago.
Kirstie McLellan Day discussing the adaptation of Playing With Fire: The Theo Fleury Story into a world-premiere one-man play.

Full house! 9 plays, 9 guests on the Martha Cohen Stage

We also showcased two new behind-the-scenes videos, which you can check out here.

Canadian hip-hop icon Kyprios creates a song from scratch for Ash Rizin':

And a trailer on bringing Playing With Fire: The Theo Fleury Story to the stage:

Avenue Magazine also provided a play-by-play online here if you need more juicy gossip.

See you next season!

-ATP Insider

Sneak-a-Peekin'

2011-06-10T15:13:00.001-06:00

Just a quick note this week. And a question:
What are you doing after work on Monday, June 13th?
The reason we ask: we want you to drop by the Martha Cohen Theatre!

Our 2011-2012 Season Sneak-a-Peek starts at 5:30pm, free to the public, and with an assortment of fun and festivities.

It's been a crazy week here in the ATP offices. Lining up our special guests (hush hush!). Putting together some exclusive videos. Prettying up our Martha Cohen lobby. Compiling a music playlist. Brainstorming trivia cards for a little contest...

All this and more, to give you a glimpse of the 9 shows we've got in the works. We'd love to see you there.

If you wish to come, please send a quick note to rsvpevents@atplive.com and let us know who you are and how many people you are bringing. That helps us plan for food and drinks.
Oh yes, there will be food.

See you soon,
- ATP Insider.

A few of my favourite things

2011-06-03T12:00:00.059-06:00

At last. The veggies are seeded in the garden, the fruit trees are in flower, and the final show of our season has closed. Here at ATP, we're hiring the approximately 90 artists whose work you'll see next season; following up with our subscribers and reaching out to new ones; securing contributions from donors and sponsors; and gearing up for Sneak-a-Peek, a free event on June 13, at 5:30 pm in the Martha Cohen Theatre, where you can get a taste of next season and meet some of the artists involved. Come one come all!

The artistic team is even spending some time planning further ahead, for the 12/13 season and beyond.

We retreat to the Banff Playwrights Colony for a half-day of Important Strategic Planning, followed by some Important Soaking in the Spa.

But before the summer swooshes us away, Here's a non-exhaustive list of a few of my favourite moments from this past year.

There was the time our spirits lifted, when, in the middle of an arduous rehearsal for The Penelopiad, Meg Roe would say cheerfully, "Ok, my ladybirds, are you ready? Let's do it again!" to the 10 actresses playing maids, as they practiced and practiced and practiced the weaving sequence. Imagine eleven people, singing 3 part harmony in a 4 part canon, while rotating, circling and handing off rope to each other to weave an enormous shroud. It took some doing. But in the end, it was one of my favourite parts of the show.

Kathi Kerbes, Esther Purvis Smith, Vanessa Sabourin, Jamie Konchak, Elinor Holt, Meg Roe, Adrienne Smook, Janelle Cooper, Lindsay Mullen, Alison Lynch, Denise Clark, photo courtesy Trudie Lee

Another favourite moment: the hush that fell every night during The Last Dog of War, when Linda Griffiths, in the time-roughened voice of her father, would start to sing:

"...Time, like an ever rolling stream,

Bears all its sons away...

They fly, forgotten, as a dream

Dies at the opening day."

On a break during technical rehearsals for Seussical™ The Musical, I spotted the young performer Marcus Trummer when he thought no one was watching. He was standing on stage, stretching his arms out to the theatre, rocking on his heels with pure happiness. I'm pretty sure I caught Dave Kelly once, doing the same thing. What a pair those two made: peas in a pod.

Dave Kelly & Marcus Trummer, photo credit Trudie Lee.

The Enbridge playRites Festival was a three month blur of moments. There was that awesome catered lunch in the ATP office, prepared and served by Festival actor Lindsay Burns. Thank you Lindsay!

Lance Olson and company actor Lindsay Burns

Then there was that time, on first preview of The Romeo Initiative, when the revolving set rolled past its spike, and then lurched back into position, surprising everyone. As the actors tried to keep pretending they were on a first date at a restaurant, Christian Goutsis improvised a line to Kira Bradley: "I love this place," he said.

ATP sound technician Sam Hindle and Festival set designer Scott Reid

There was that magic moment in the green room on opening of Nisei Blue. We were gathered for the traditional toast to the playwright, our champagne glasses at the ready. Director Ron Jenkins strode in, moved and passionate. "...you're all, so, so great," he said, among other eloquent things, "...and here, Momoka," he concluded, shoving a twenty dollar bill into the eight-year-old performer's hand, "just, take it, it's for the swear jar - for all those times - it's your college fund by now - I owe you big time."

After the dress rehearsal of 300 TAPES, I remember peering at those crazy rolling shelves on the set, amazed at all the personal recollections that were carefully recorded, stored and labelled, each on its own little cassette.

This next thing wasn't exactly a wonderful moment, but in retrospect at least, it does have an upside. It was 7:28 pm, on the opening night of Heartbreaker by Morwyn Brebner, directed by yours truly. I was standing stiffly in the lobby by the main entrance to the auditorium, clutching my purse between my sweating fingers. While various patrons came up to visit, blissfully unaware there was anything awry, I knew that just behind the doors, a team of ATP technicians and hastily summoned experts were desperately trying to figure out why, between the afternoon rehearsal and the end of dinner break, the projector had ceased to function.

Maybe you're wondering what the upside to that awful half hour could possibly be. Well, everyone pulled together, both on stage and behind the scenes; no one screamed; no one panicked; we stayed cool and did what we could. In the end, we performed the opening without projections. The actors told the story beautifully. A spell was cast. Ultimately, it's about the words, the actors, and the audience. Everything else is extra.

This is what the projections looked like. Beautiful, right?
Kira Bradley, set and projections by Scott Reid, photo: Trudie Lee

Then, during rehearsals for Don Juan, there was that day when a young high-school student walked in for his 'job shadowing' opportunity, just at the exact moment we were experimenting with some fairly over-the-top ideas for the, you know, climactic moment in the sequence with the dogs. Life-long learning, indeed.

Anne Lalancette, Don Brinstead, and I, exploring tantric staging options

On the opening night of Mump & Smoot CRACKED, I was watching the show from standing room on Tier 2. Mump and Smoot were saying farewell. I became aware of a well-dressed gentleman seated in the row in front of me. He was wiping the tears from his face with one hand while trying to keep his glasses on with the other, so he wouldn't miss a minute of the action. I too was rubbing my opening night mascara into two dark splodges as I tried to control my weeping. When the lights came up, I saw that it was David Shefsiek, our new Managing Director, who had been so moved by the show.

Have a great summer, drop us a line, and when the tomatoes ripen and the leaves start to turn, we'll see you back at the theatre!

- Vanessa

Guest Blog: 5 Films About Theatre

2011-05-20T12:00:00.026-06:00

Today’s Guest Blogger: Richard Lam, Marketing & Communications Coordinator, Alberta Theatre Projects

It would be a lie for me to pretend to be expert on theatre. I didn't grow up around it. I don’t have a degree in it, like half of the ridiculously smart people that work here. In fact, my first real exposure to the local theatre scene was just a little over a year ago. At the 2010 High Performance Rodeo. But I got it. I caught the bug in a pretty big way. And working here has only added to my appreciation of all the work that goes into creating theatre. But if I were to honestly classify myself, it would still be in the ‘enthusiastic patron’ category.

On the other hand, something I do know, and have for a long time, is movies. My first love, my medium of choice, my comfort zone in geekdom. As such, to tie it all back, here are five Movies About Theatre. Not movies about Hollywood. Not musicals. Not movies based on plays. There's plenty enough of those.

But there are only a tiny handful of films that try to capture that illustrious, evasive, exciting and singular world of playwrights, actors, choreographers, and everyone in between. I couldn't compile even ten of them, so we're keeping the list to five for now. Know any more? Please share.

#5 - Waiting for Guffman (1996, Christopher Guest)

Ah, small-town community theatre. Prime grounds for a comedy. Or, in this case, a Christopher Guest mockumentary. In it, the residents of a small town are trying crafting an original play to impress bigwig broadway producer Mort Guffman, who they hear MIGHT come to see the show. The subsequent scramble is among the best and most hilarious examples of ensemble improvisation.

It’s been said that the closer you are to the industry Guest pokes fun at with his films (This is Spinal Tap: music, Best in Show: dog trainers), the more depressing it really is. Perhaps some of it just hits too close to home, or we start to recognize these ridiculous characters as all-too-real. There’s the disproportionately inflated ego of director Corky St. Claire, the ever-shafted opinions of the genuinely talented musical director, and plenty more colourful creations from Fred Willard, Parker Posey and Eugene Levy. An endlessly quotable and charmingly chaotic look at good-spirited-but-incompetent people trying to make a musical.

Theatre Geek Bonus: Either the My Dinner with Andre action figures (restaurant set included!) or Backdraft: The Stage Production.

#4 – All About Eve (Joseph L. Mankiewicz, 1950)

This one speaks for itself. If you haven’t seen this, you really probably should reconsider what you’ve been doing with your life. That’s a joke. Sort of. The story of the devoted fan of a stage actress, and how she infiltrates her way into the social circle of the theatre world, at any cost necessary. A flawless script, enviable dialogue, and perfect casting. And just about the coolest and most iconic-sounding character names ever conceived (Margo Channing! Addison DeWitt! Eve Harrington!). A classic that classics look up to.

Theatre Geek Bonus: The dialogue exchange on the stairs of Margo’s party:

Bill: Theatre is nine-tenths hard work. Work done the hard way - by sweat, application and craftsmanship…To be a good actor or actress or anything else in the theatre means wanting to be that more than anything else in the world. It means concentration of desire or ambition, and sacrifice such as no other profession demands. And I'll agree that the man or woman who accepts those terms can't be ordinary, can't be - just someone. To give so much for almost always so little…

Eve: So little. So little, did you say? Why, if there's nothing else, there's applause. I've listened backstage to people applaud. It's like, like waves of love coming over the footlights and wrapping you up. Imagine. To know, every night, that different hundreds of people love you. They smile, and their eyes shine. You've pleased them. They want you. You belong. Just that alone is worth anything.

#3 – All That Jazz (1979, Bob Fosse)

No, not Chicago. Put that out of your mind. All That Jazz is barely even a musical. Rather, this is Bob Fosse’s dazzlingly mad interpretation of his own life. A world where Hell is envisioned as the dressing room of a dingy burlesque club. A place where womanizing and drugs are an essential ingredient in the creative process. Far and away the acting peak for Roy Scheider, his portrayal of Fosse is unapologetic and yet utterly charming. To keep up with Fosse’s frazzled mental state, the editing and sound design is radical, revolutionary stuff that filmmakers today still haven’t been able to replicate. Brilliantly conceived and stunningly realized. From the brutal, sweaty scenes of never-ending rehearsals to the final bombastic and ironic musical numbers, a life in the theatre has never looked so exciting.

Theatre Geek Bonus: A tiny scene where the accountant breaks down every line item and cost of Fosse’s extravagant production, all the way to the grand total. Eye-opening.

#2 - Synecdoche, New York (Charlie Kaufman, 2008)

Caden Cotard is an aging and depressed stage director, constantly falling ill and convinced that he’s dying. As such, he wants to make one final work, the ultimate statement in his search for meaning. But how do you truly capture the complexities and nuances of life, on a stage?

He rents a warehouse in downtown New York. He gives each of his cast members (starting at a mere 30) a personal tragedy to act out. He then casts actors to portray those actors. And new actors are hired to play those actors. He casts doubles of himself and his assistants. Arguments he has at home show up in the script the following morning. He builds a set of his apartment, his neighbourhood, incorporating more and more people and moments of his life. Eventually (just go with it..), he has constructed a life-size replica of New York inside the warehouse, each building inhabited with people casted and instructed by Cotard. And they start to ask, “When are we going to get an audience in here, Caden? It’s been 17 years…”

Like the most challenging and experimental of theatre, this film has its share of passionate detractors. It’s weird, it’s uneven, it has no seemingly clear destination. The film is relentlessly dark, depressive, defeated and despairing. But peppered throughout are brief moments of hope, glimpses of beauty and fleeting seconds of absolute clarity. And isn't that what makes life worth living?

Theatre Geek Bonus: The unshakable feeling that you'd actually consider participating in a project of that sort, if only for sheer concept. And because it just sounds absurdly fun.

#1 - Opening Night (1977, John Cassavetes)

Cassavetes has a tendency of letting the camera run. This isn’t an insult. Whereas any other director would cut the scene, Cassavetes lingers just a few extra moments in these characters’ lives, making them all the more real. We see them in their off-moments, their downtime backstage. It’s when people are doing absolutely nothing that you learn the most about them.

A movie actress (Gena Rowlands) starts work on a stage play, when she witnesses the accidental death of one of her fans. She becomes emotionally unhinged, and the entire production begins to spiral downward. There are incidents here that would give any stage manager nightmares. There’s a rehearsal scene of the actress getting slapped, over and over, but it goes on for so long it starts to feel abusive and voyeuristic. There’s the constant, tenuous tug-of-war between playwright, actor, and director. There’s a squirm-inducing preview where the actors are left hanging as Rowlands walks off-stage without warning, leaving them without dialogue, direction, or a clue. And then there’s the all-too-familiar reserved acceptance on opening night, when you just have to let the damn thing happen, no matter what shape it’s in.

It’s witnessing the purest, rawest, most desperate sense of trying to keep a production afloat. Forget Black Swan. This is the definitive film about a performer in freefall.

Theatre Geek Bonus: That sense of being in-the-know throughout every backstage scene. The thrill of seeing portions of the ‘play’ performed and improvised in front of a live audience, with no extras. All 144 minutes of the film, really.

Honorable mentions:
Barton Fink (1991, Joel & Ethan Coen)
Bullets Over Broadway (1994, Woody Allen)
A Prairie Home Companion (2006, Robert Altman)

Agree? Disagree? Know of any others? Please add to the comments below.

A Beautiful View

2011-05-13T12:00:00.013-06:00

As I write this I can see the sun is going down over Sulphur Mountain in Banff. I am listening to Fleet Foxes and thinking about the panel discussion I just attended called Writing About War with playwrights Jonathan Garfinkel, Carole Fréchette, Celia McBride and Matthew MacKenzie, moderated by Maureen Labonte. I am half way through my first week of four at the Banff Playwrights Colony and I have a beautiful view.

The Banff Playwrights Colony is a playwright residency program hosted by The Banff Centre. Over the course of the next month about 15 playwrights from across Canada will come here for two to three weeks each to get away from their daily lives and focus on one thing: their play. A partnership between The Banff Centre, Canada Council for the Arts and Alberta Theatre Projects, the Colony is 38 years old and is absolutely unique.

It is rare to have a national residency that brings playwrights from all different stages together in a retreat setting to focus on a piece of writing and drive their own process. There is a small company of actors here to read the work when the playwright feels like hearing it and there are dramaturgs on staff (like me) for them to talk to when they need an ear to listen. They don't have to cook for themselves, they don't have to make their beds. They are given the most unusual and valuable gift a playwright can be given: focused time to write.

And they are given another valuable gift, the gift of fellowship. Writing can feel like a solitary pursuit, even playwriting, and so the opportunity to meet other writers from elsewhere in the country is often one of the most rewarding part of the experience. The exchange of ideas, the supportive commiseration, experiencing other people's writing, sharing dinner and a laugh with one another, poker games at night to blow off some steam, hikes together to clear the head; all of these experiences create a temporary community where a group of Canada's most vibrant voices come together to create. And connections made here often continue for years to come.

Every time I come to the Playwrights Colony (and I have been here every year since 2003) I have walked away from the experience seeing Canadian theatre with fresh eyes. Being here allows me to see the great work we are developing in this country and meet the sharp minds and warm hearts that are creating it. Whether I am looking out at a mountain, at a group of actors reading a script or at a panel and audience full of passionate theatre artists discussing the immediacy of stories about war and its legacy, I have a beautiful view.

If you want to get a glimpse into The Banff Playwrights Colony you can on Saturday May 14 at 8:00 p.m. at the Playwrights Speakeasy. The Speakeasy is a pay-what-you-can-event where playwrights will be reading from the work at The Club at The Banff Centre. I hope to see you there!

-Vicki

Guest Blog: The Clown's Thai Massage

2011-05-06T12:00:00.005-06:00

Today's Guest Blogger: John Turner (aka Smoot in our current production of Mump & Smoot CRACKED)

Jessica Barrera – Thai Yoga Massage
(403) 891-9842 jbarrera@live.ca

I was at the end of a long summer of teaching on The Clown Farm last year and my psychic and physical body was ripe for some serious massage and, while I’m a sucker for a good shiatsu, which I try to do regularly, I had experienced a wonderful Thai massage from my friend Bruce Horak. I thought I would go for Thai again and Bruce wasn’t around. As luck would have it though I had another dear friend Jessica Barrera nearby. Jessica is a delightful blend of Franco Ontarian/Colombian ancestry with a heart the size that Hanuman would envy. She was previously an aerialist with Cirque de Soleil with a wack of clown experience and was teaching ballroom dance, pilates and yoga, and most significantly at the time… a registered Thai massage therapist. Wahoooiiieeee!!!!

I had an appointment with her in September, was asleep in about 30 seconds and woke up only periodically to the sensation that I was twisted impossibly in the hands of a gentle 8-limbed Shiva floating without a sense of direction or gravity through some time/space continuum of compassion and healing. She gave no indication of awareness of what in my worst fears may actually have been 90 minutes of lugging around an unconscious ball of ancient muscular anxiety resulting in a farting burping drooling mess of a middle aged clown. I was high for hours after.

So three weeks ago I arrived in Calgary after driving for 5 days from Manitoulin Island, quite stiff and creaky but excited about the run of CRACKED at Alberta Theatre Projects. I immediately learned that Jessica had in fact relocated to Calgary the day before I arrived. Wahoooiiieeee!!!! I took this as a sign and promptly signed up. While I didn’t actually lose consciousness as much or for as long I did find myself emerging periodically from a sea of dream memories from rugby games in my youth, to previous life battlefields in Scotland, to watching the dolphins from the prow of Viking ships, to jungle picnics near waterfalls. I would suddenly awake with a kick and wonder how I had not sent her flying across the room.

John Turner (left) knows how to unwind from all that clowning stress

Jessica is a deeply intuitive and skillful practitioner of the art of Thai Massage, bringing to her work an unparalleled understanding of the body and an individual’s strengths and limitations. I highly recommend it and while you may not emerge with anything near my hallucinogenic experience, the relaxing, enriching, renewing effect will be there. Namaste.

- John Turner

*Note: Contact Jessica and mention that you heard from the ATP blog for a 10% discount on your first visit!

Nathan and Airi – Ganbare!

2011-04-29T12:00:00.052-06:00

This is Nathan Iles and Airi Hayashi’s last week at ATP. Nathan and Airi are our Junior Apprentices.

After graduating from high school, the JAs, as we call them, spend a year with us, taking part in all aspects of the theatre company. They assist our stage managers in rehearsal, help backstage, work in fundraising, marketing, and admin, speak to students and other community groups about what we do, get a taste of dramaturgy – the list is endless. This year, they even carved prop hands out of styrofoam with Steve Benson, our head of props.

It is just so great to have JAs. For one thing, like any other arts group, we need all the help we can get. But more importantly, we probably learn as much from them as they learn from us, and the energy they bring is infectious. They are part of what makes ATP a great place to work. Nathan, a Bowness High School grad, describes:

"A sense of purpose. Waking up in the morning, knowing I’m going to work at a place surrounded by pros who are passionate about what they do. It’s a workplace atmosphere you can’t really replicate."

A lot of JAs arrive with a love of theatre, but they don’t really know what to expect.

"Everything is a surprise when you’re a newbie," says Airi, a graduate of Western Canada High School, "It’s a big misunderstanding: when you see theatre, you don’t actually think of all the other people - the artistic team, the resource development side. I feel like I learned a lot."

The program is a combination of learning by doing and great gobs of mentorship and knowledge acquisition. It’s a rich year of self-discovery. Airi says,
"The first preview of Nisei Blue was very nerve-wracking. I had to be on stage moving props in front of the audience. The only thing on my mind was I don’t want to mess up. I thought, I hope this ends fast. But it was very rewarding at the end. Being in rehearsal from day one, now I kind of understand what the actors feel like. It’s a good feeling."

Nathan says, "When I told the actors in Seussical I needed to sing in my audition for Mount Royal University’s acting program, they invited me to do the daily warm up with them, so I did. I used the warm-up to prepare for my audition. Plus, two actors in the show were Mount Royal grads, so they told me what to expect and gave me all kinds of advice about their lives since graduation."

Those warm-ups paid off: Nathan is going to MRU next year.

Since the JA program began in 1985, we’ve had 52 JAs and counting, according to Dianne Goodman, Artistic Associate LEGACY. When asked to describe some crazy things JAs have done over the years, Di recalls the time one JA had to be the bride of Frankenstein, “all wrapped up in bandages and lying on a slab on stage.”

Lots of JAs do go into showbiz. Former JA Mitchell Craib tours Canada and Europe as the stage manager for The Old Trout Puppet Workshop. Former JA Nick Blais discovered theatrical design while he was at ATP. This year he is graduating with his BFA in design from the University of Alberta.

Though most start their year planning to be actors or technicians, some JAs discover unexpected careers in the arts. After loving her time on ATP’s marketing team, for example, Alex Kingcott is now a professional arts marketer, and a board member at Ground Zero Theatre.

Some JAs discover that theatre will not be their career of choice. That’s great too: they can go on to conquer the world in other ways. One of these days, I fully expect a former JA to show up as Prime Minister.

The vast majority of our former JAs stay connected to the live arts, as board members and volunteers (our former Board chair, J’Val Shuster, was once a JA), or as committed members of the audience.

It’s a grand program, and I often wish I could be a JA myself. I’d love to make a prop hand. Steve B, how about it?

I do wonder, though, why they’re called junior apprentices. Is there a team of senior apprentices hidden somewhere at ATP that I don’t know about? Maybe they have desks in the sub-basement, near wig storage, and they’re just waiting down there, ready and willing to lick envelopes, run last minute errands, compile research and do data entry, count swear words in the season’s scripts, wrangle the child performers, trouble-shoot, lend a helping hand. Calling all senior apprentices! Come on out!

Oh, right. I get it. In our biz, no matter how old or experienced you get, you never stop learning. You try new things, jump in, help out, and do whatever it takes to get the shows to the peeps.

Those ‘Senior Apprentices’? They’re us.

Airi and Nathan have some advice for next year’s JAs:
“Patience,” says Airi.
“Ask questions,” says Nathan.

Thank you, Nathan and Airi. For all you’ve accomplished, contributed, and taught us. I will do my best to take your advice.

We’ll miss you! Don’t be strangers! See you at the theatre!

Love, Vanessa.

Guest Blog: The Publicist in Me

2011-04-21T12:00:00.002-06:00

Today's guest blogger: Aldona Barutowicz, Alberta Theatre Projects Publicist

What first comes to mind when you think of live theatre? A stage? Actors? Lighting? Shakespeare, perhaps?

Well, there’s much more to theatre than the joy of watching the action on stage. Our office is also full of magic and much activity. Each department is responsible for their own slice of goodness, and the Marketing team specifically gets the marvelous task of informing all of you what it is that we do on our theatre stage.

As the Publicist for Alberta Theatre Projects, I have the incredible and enjoyable fortune of working with Calgary’s media and helping to spread the word about the work that we put on in each exciting season.

Aldona hard at work in the 'MAC Corner'

After completing journalism school in 2005, I had absolutely no idea where my future would take me. I had aspirations of becoming a reporter and running after ambulances. I decided that bulking up my writing and photography portfolio would be the best way to get rolling, and that’s when I officially began my freelancing career. I wrote about music, engineering and snapped photographs of everything under the sun.

Three years after graduation, I found myself returning back to Calgary in the search for full time work. Freelancing is a great joy for me, and I continue my work as a freelance photographer and writer, but I was beginning to feel the need not only for change, but also for a new challenge.

When I stumbled upon the job posting for ATP, I felt like a ray of sunshine broke through a cloudy day. I decided to take my chances, and applied immediately.

Aldona Barutowicz, ATP Publicist,
sharing a laugh outside of the Martha Cohen Theatre.

So now, and for the past two seasons, I’ve sat in the lovely area that we call the MAC Corner (Marketing and Communications), where I write press releases, put together media information packages and set up interviews with our creative teams. I pitch story ideas and host media calls. No day is like the one before it, and I’m never quite sure what each week will bring. This makes me quite the happy little camper, as I thrive under pressure and the more sporadic, the better.

The more that I publicize, the more I realize that this is exactly where I want to be. This really is my dream job, as I talk and bask in the loveliness of live theatre. I feel like I’ve been given the incredible gift of being able to support the arts, and not only support, but do so for a living. So the next time you see an article about Alberta Theatre Projects, or a clip on television, you’ll know that I and our cozy MAC corner had a little something to do with that. Glorious!

See you at the theatre!

- Aldona

Guest Blog: Family

2011-04-15T12:00:00.005-06:00

Today's Guest Blogger: Katt Boulet, LEGACY & Volunteer Coordinator

Recently I wrote a piece for Alberta Theatre Projects on community. And this got me thinking about the little society we have here at ATP. The community we have in our office is a tight-knit group of individuals - a family if you will. And what does every family have? A kitchen table to solve the world’s problems over.

That table in our office is called 'centre table'. I'm not even sure how the layout of the center table came about (that's not important). The point is that it's there.

The table symbolizes something more then just a place to go when you want to get away from your desk. It's a place to go when we need support, ("Can anyone help me stuff these Lotto brochures"). It's a place to share great memories (like that time we had a glass of cheer for Susan's Champagne Birthday and we forgot to chill the bubbly!) And it's a place to connect with our fellow coworkers over the morning paper. ("Did you see the latest article in Fast Forward?")

At center table we tell jokes, have heated discussions, talk about the weather, organize files, see the latest merchandise for Just The Ticket and colour student matinee maps. Yes anything and everything can happen at centre table!

We even share meals, and not just brown bag lunches. During the Enbridge playRites Festival, our fabulous Lindsay Burns treated the office staff to a much deserved healthy lunch (instead of a fast and easy slice of 'Pizza Night with Vee' leftovers). When our stress was high and our gas tanks were low, one of our family members came through for us.

Not that it's all fun and games, we do have meetings and do work. We hold our office staff meetings there and these meetings are about a month apart. So when we all come together it feels a bit like Sunday dinner. You know you are going to learn a few things, hear a few stories and have a chance to let everyone know what you've been up to for the last little while.

But center table isn't just a location. It’s a frame of mind. When you sit at center table you feel like you belong. I won't lie; it's taken a while for me to feel comfortable enough to eat my lunch there. I'm not sure why; I suppose I felt I had to pay my dues in order to deserve a spot at the table. And as the season's end fast approaches, I now feel that I can claim a seat, that I belong.

But the truth is no matter when you join our family here at Alberta Theatre Projects, whether you're a single ticket holder, a long time volunteer or a season subscriber, every one of you is a part of the group.

So I extend an invitation to you, to join the family; to participate in the discussion, the laughter and the festivities, because you deserve a spot at the table.

Let the conversations begin.

Together

2011-04-08T12:00:00.009-06:00

I just started a book last night that I have been meaning to read for quite some time. The book is Toward a Dramaturgical Sensibility: Landscape and Journey by Geoffrey S. Proehl with DD Kugler, Mark Lamos and Michael Lupu.

For the past couple of years in my free time I have only been reading books about surfing (that’s a whole other blog post) and as I sat there in my home last night cuddling up to a cup of tea and a book about dramaturgy I paused for a moment to ask myself the question, why are you so excited to be reading a book about what you do for a living? Then I started to read the book and it quickly reminded me of something vital: dramaturgy is not just what I do for a living, it is part of who I am. It is a sensibility, a desire to question, to know more and confront the impossibility of knowing all and the desire to engage in conversation with all the challenges and pleasures that real conversation brings. I recognized myself in the pages of this book immediately and felt part of a larger conversation, a larger community as a read it even though I was alone in my home and had only just scratched the surface of what Proehl and his contributors are exploring.

I know there will be a great many things in this book that will thrill me and challenge me but it was the experience of recognizing myself as part of a sensibility that is shared by people who love and need to explore what makes a drama (not just those that have the title “dramaturg”) that feels most powerful for me today. The experience filled me with such gratitude for the people that I share my office and rehearsal halls with, that I sit in audiences with and that I have the opportunity to be in conversation with whether it is every single day or once every year. I have a tribe of people with different backgrounds and from different places that share a common passion and even when I feel I am alone, I am constantly reminded that I am not.

Some of my favourite people discuss the topic of Joy.

The reminder of this has made me look at this week with fresh eyes. I am excited about the lunch I have booked on Monday with an invested patron who sent me very thoughtful and detailed e-mail responses to each of the plays in the Enbridge playRites Festival. I am absolutely delighted by the playful and genius idea our Marketing Coordinator Richard Lam had to set up a gory omelette contest for our upcoming show Mump & Smoot CRACKED. I am now anxiously awaiting the upcoming Literary Managers and Dramaturgs of the Americas (LMDA) conference in Denver, CO I registered for this week. And I am experiencing the bittersweet contemplation of a big transition on my own team as a member of my closest tribe, Assistant Dramaturg Amy Lynn Strilchuk, leaves us today to pursue an exciting future and we start to think about who we will welcome to our tribe here at Alberta Theatre Projects next.

Thank you to all of you who I get to share this conversation, these experiences and this sensibility with. I have a feeling you know who you are.

Adaptation

2011-04-01T12:30:00.001-06:00

I recently had a nasty slip & fall accident on a patch of ice; breaking both my tibia & fibula. Everyone endures bumps & bruises (whether it’s to your body or ego), but you haven’t felt the earth unzip & time shift until you’re laid out on a frozen sidewalk, certain that you have just severely snapped a limb. Until you instinctively cry with every ounce of vulnerability. Until you act on pure instinct, in order to get yourself to safety. Until you accept what is happening to you & you adapt, accordingly.

But how we adapt … yes, that’s the thing.

Safely in bed with my first partial cast: 5 pounds of plaster & tensor bandage can't weigh ME down!

There are those that draw a crowd around the minutia of what they’re enduring; sucking others’ energies in an attempt to refuel their own courage. There are those that burrow away into a quiet despair; returning only once they see a way out of their own sorrow (if they, indeed, resurface at all). And there are those that accept what is happening; embracing the new attitudes and energies that will be required of them to adapt.
Change isn’t always hand-delivered, without our consent, either. Sometimes change comes because you’ve called on it. This comes with a whole other set of responses because you are the one that created it so when the shift starts happening, it’s easy to panic, second guess yourself &/or retract the decision you’ve made. Sometimes making change is braver than just looking it in the face when it arrives.

I have been in an intense starting match with change for quite some time. Before my accident, I decided to leave Alberta Theatre Projects to pursue other interests & during my accident I decided to move from my house. When I share my decisions with others, the common question is: “what’s next?” and for quite awhile I have learned to be content with my response: “I don’t know”.

Not knowing what change will bring is terrifying but it’s soothed by our own ability to welcome it & sit with it. And that’s exactly what I’ve had to do for the past couple of weeks, while on bed rest to heal my leg. I literally had to sit still and hang out with myself, to discover what I want to do, once I’m healed & ready to take my next step. Have I cried over missing out on yoga, walking & hopping into a morning shower? Absolutely. But I am also thankful for this massive opportunity to just be still and ask myself what I want.

Now it’s time for me to run towards it.

Staying balanced with a new purple cast

xo Amy Lynn

Working with The Old Trout Puppet Workshop

2011-03-25T12:00:00.002-06:00

Though I'd seen all of their shows as an audience member, my working relationship with The Old Trout Puppet Workshop dates back to the night I saw their production of Beowulf, in 2002. The show was very mysterious. The set was a giant gaping mouth; snow fell in the moonlight; and at one point a beautiful wooden stag was wheeled out, to mystical effect. I loved it, called them, and our first face-to-face meeting, at Ming Bar in Calgary, led eventually to the world premiere of Pinocchio at Alberta Theatre Projects in 2004. A gorgeous giant swan marionette flew in from the sky; little wooden Pinocchio was very, very bad, and actually killed the cricket with a big mallet, as in the original story (though the cricket made a return appearance in act two with a halo and a little set of wings); and at the climax, the whole set became the ribs of the whale, and breathed. Heaven.

The Erotic Anguish of Don Juan is the fruit of our second collaboration. The work began, as it always seems to, at big gab-fests around various kitchen tables in the neighbourhood of Inglewood in Calgary. During an artistic residency in Guanajuato, Mexico in the summer of 2008, the Trouts were inspired by the fanciful curlicues and luscious statuary of Baroque Mexican cathedrals. What acts of illicit passion might take place under those watchful cupids and saints? In the plazas of Mexico, dogs romped, roosters crowed, and people gathered in the bullrings. We wanted all of that in our show, but how?

The Trouts had rented a rambling old plaster walled house overlooking the valley of Guanajuato. Each Trout had their own area of the house - each with its own stone patio carved into the cliff. In the evenings, we would sit under the stars on Pityu's little terrace under the stars and watch movies on his laptop, wrapped in the ponchos we'd bought at the market.

We'd meet on the main patio every day for several hours to discuss story, character, and design. We'd break for a big lunch, then get back at it. We were trying to figure out what setting our story should take place in - a city on a hill? A church? Or what? One afternoon, we noticed an old wooden wardrobe in the corner of the dining room. What if it opened to reveal a puppet-y world within? An adulterous hideaway, perhaps, or a newlyweds’ bedroom, or a niche for holy worship… We stared at that wardrobe for hours, musing. Cimmeron Meyer got her measuring tape out. That was one of the main inspirations for the set.

Several years earlier, the Trouts had heard, and loved, a piece of music by Calgary composer George Fenwick. So he was enlisted to create original music for the piece, including underscoring, big musical sequences like the bullfight, and several beautiful arias for the puppet characters to 'sing.'

The show premiered at ATP in the 2008/2009 Season. There were cupids, angels, giant wardrobes that opened to reveal worlds, a bullfight, even some dogs. Love (or is it lust?) in all its solemn, silly aspects unfurled on the stage.

But we have a saying here at ATP: “New plays are never finished; they just open.” And indeed, during the highly acclaimed two-year national tour that followed, the Old Trouts continued to refine the show. That's what they always do. Judd Palmer took up the full directing duties for the second year of the tour. Calgary actor Duval Lang was cast in the lead. Over the two years, the story underwent significant rewrites. I think it's probably 2/3 different by now, and it has changed more since we started rehearsal. The most recent script changes were discussed over Skype just a few weeks ago.

It's fascinating, and tremendously satisfying, to have the chance to dive into the show again, after it has encountered dozens of audiences, with all their slightly different responses. You get to a moment in a scene, and you can say 'This never really worked. Is there something better we could do here?' And you can actually, usually, come up with something. It's all too rare, in the live theatre, to have the chance to really refine something. Especially with new work, where it seems you're always racing to opening with no time to really reflect. Plus, in Canada at least, the show can often run once, for 3 weeks only, and then never see the light of day again. Good theatre, and good productions, need time to percolate, adjust, and settle. To be polished.

This version of Don Juan is almost an entirely new production - but one that bears a strong family resemblance to the original. If you saw it the first time, and you're able to come see this version, I think you’ll be as intrigued as I am by how the piece has changed. If you’re new to The Erotic Anguish of Don Juan, or to the Old Trout Puppet Workshop, I hope you get to see this - I think you'll mightily enjoy your first plunge into their highly original, magical, mysterious world.

Amor!

What now?

2011-03-18T12:00:00.000-06:00

One of my favourite questions to answer during and immediately after the Enbridge playRites Festival is “I guess you get some time off now, eh?” That is the assumption most people have after the rewarding, challenging and draining ride that is the Festival. And while I will take some time later this month the reality is that there is much to do as we emerge from our the flurry of activity during playRites.

The first thing I needed to do was answer some e-mails that should’ve been answered a looooong time ago. Then we announced our 2011/12 Season just as Vanessa headed into rehearsal for The Old Trout Puppet Workshop’s The Erotic Anguish of Don Juan this week so I had the pleasure of talking about the Season to the local press on the CBC Homestretch

We are also busy prepping for general auditions in April.

And then there is this:

We get a lot of scripts, clearly. We don’t do much reading at all while we work on the Festival which, at three months of intense activity, makes up a quarter of our year. So the scripts pile up over the course of time and each spring we take a look at where we’re at, we make some decisions about priorities and take stock of the projects we have to consider looking ahead. Programming is a year round activity. The programming for 2012-2013 started awhile ago and picks up steam now. These are piles of projects to consider over the spring, summer and fall that I made today on our couch. There are some more in my e-mail inbox that I haven’t printed out yet.

Most theatre companies all have piles similar to this. They may differ in size but to compare the size of one’s pile feels a bit adolescent. One way or another there is something both overwhelming and thrilling about looking at these piles of scripts. There is a lot to be discovered there in that couch full of paper and there is a lot of time that needs to be carved out to discover it. I also get to look ahead and think about all the time I have to see shows now, meet with new artists and travel to meet with artists elsewhere. Most of the work we do at Alberta Theatre Projects is a result of those relationships that are built, even more so than the reading.

There is a lot of potential in spring and, as tired as I am, I can’t help but also get very excited about what lies ahead.

Vicki

Warning: Language May Be Used in this Blog Entry

2011-03-11T10:14:00.002-07:00

We're currently proofing the season brochure. (We announce next year's line-up on Monday March 14! Check it out on the website!) Every year at about this time, we get into big debates about what, if any, 'audience advisories' we should include in our publicity materials. These are the little sentences we put next to some of the plays in our season, alerting the audience to the fact that the show might have nudity, coarse language, and so on. Seems easy enough to figure out, you'd think. After all, swearing is swearing, right? Well...

It's hard to write these little sentences. Quite honestly, you lose perspective. After you've heard a play a couple of times, you stop hearing the swears.

Plus, our sensitivities may have been dulled, because the truth is, our working environment isn't exactly the court of Queen Victoria. In rehearsal, it's almost a badge of honour to swear as much as possible. There's something delicious about letting loose a stream of blue. It seems to make everyone happier, more daring: "Look at us! We're such CRAZY artists! We're a FIERCE GANG of OUTLAWS! Nothing can hold us back!" A little harmless self-delusion keeps everyone inspired.

Do we even need audience advisories? The history of drama is basically nothing but 'mature content' all the way back to the Greeks. Sex, adultery, murder, rape, incest, child abuse, and great raging gobs of off-colour, ear-splitting, world-changing language: what else have the fans ever come to us for?

Plus, the language and content that some of our patrons find offensive, can be experienced any day of the week on television, in movies, in songs on the radio. More people get slaughtered, often in more un-tasteful states of undress, in 43 minutes of an episode of CSI, than you'll ever see in the hushed confines of a theatre...

Still, maybe stuff feels more shocking on stage than on the screen. Maybe it's more visceral to be there in the flesh, while a live person shouts out a stream of expletives, or sprawls half-naked and bleeding on the stage. Perhaps that's why films blast the sound so loud, and whoosh the camera around so violently: they are trying to break out of the two dimensions of their medium and grab you by your senses. In the theatre, if it's done well, it just feels more real. Maybe that makes it more difficult to take.

I even have a theory that at ATP, we get more complaints when our characters swear, screw, or beat on each other downstage centre on the thrust, than when they do exactly the same things, further upstage behind the proscenium arch. I really think it's true.

That is why, when we're preparing shocking moments like these in a production, we think a lot about theatrical decorum, a tool of our art that we don't discuss very often, but it is key.

When we were staging the rape of the maids in The Penelopiad, for example, it was on our minds a lot. Movement designer Denise Clarke and I kept saying to each other, 'We want it to be really shocking and terrible, right?'. We both agreed we had to honour the actual circumstances: if you back away, you aren't being honest. On the other hand, how do you get that truthful shock, while making sure your audience isn't so appalled that they pull out of the story and stop caring? Often, the solution is to somehow combine violent movement with a certain discretion, so something is left to the imagination. That way, the audience participates in creating the sense of horror, and the illusion is maintained.

But back to audience advisories. I still remember the day, about 5 years ago, when we realized we were trying to craft mealy-mouthed little warnings for practically every show in the season. Even the Family Holiday Presentation seemed to 'contain some brief instances of violence." Those pirates didn't just sit around and braid each other's beards!

Then suddenly the whole thing seemed absurd. "We're a contemporary theatre company!" one of us declared, "Every show we do has mature content! Let's stop apologizing, and show a little more respect for our patrons!" And so, our audience advisory guidelines were born.

We invented a system: we'd tell the audience if there was coarse language, occasional coarse language, and nudity. That's it, that's all. We wrote out some definitions, with examples of the offending language and ideas. And every year we make some poor junior apprentice read all the shows in the season, count up the swear words, and distribute a chart. (Mentorship is a core value here at ATP.) If there were over a certain number of nasty words, the play would get an advisory. For a couple of seasons, we even sent an explanation of our system out to subscribers. All sorted.

However. This morning as I walked into work, I realized that sure, there's a virtue in consistency. It's great to have a system. But what's more important is helping the audience prepare for what they're coming to see. After all, at ATP we do a huge range of material, from Seussical to 300 Tapes. It's one of our great strengths. We aim to paint as broad a theatrical canvas as possible, in order to reflect the vast scope of contemporary life. But that means all kinds of people with all kinds of sensibilities are invited, and it's only fair to help them navigate their experience with us. There's no perfect system. We're just going to try to be up front and clear.

So be warned. I hope, I pray, I urgently desire, that lots of tasty wonderful language will be used in next year's season - some of it harsh and terrifying, some of it soft and magical, and even more of it somewhere in between. I also promise and believe that lots of content will appear on our stage: events and occurrences of great import and significance; and silly reversals and funny turns of fortune's wheel; horrible catastrophes and disasters; and adventures, triumphs and transformations.

Buckle up. Here comes 2011/2012.

Green Thumb Theatre in the Hizz-ouse

2011-03-04T14:55:00.000-07:00

Kyp teaching the cast " Rizin' "

This week’s Work in Progress is Ash Rizin’ – a new hip hop musical being created in association with Green Thumb Theatre; written by Michael P. Northey & David “Kyprios” Coles.

It’s the coolest thing I’ve ever worked on in my life. No exaggeration.

I LOVE me some hip hop & Kyp’s music & lyrics are super sick & slick. The opening number feels a little like K-OS, with hints of Western pop-twang; which immediately infuses Ash with a lone-soldier/cowboy vibe. Clean’s song “Stereotypical” is GORGEOUS – full of Faith Evans soul, depth & positivity. The darker, kickier number “Who’s Who?” (which has fantastic owl-like echoes churning throughout it) has the middle-class suburban character, Dosha, sounding oh-so Li’l Kim. And the play’s most emotional number, the full-cast gospel song, “Rizin’”, starts Act 2 with a big, pumping heart. The range of Kyp’s songs in the play are so exciting & dramatic – I can’t wait for audiences to hear what he’s created.

Mikey and Patty Mac keepin' it real in the hall.

Now comes the fun part: marrying the songs with the scenes. Up till this point, Michael & Kyp have been talking about the overall shape of the play; each writing scenes (Michael) & songs (Kyprios) that will shape the play. So the amazing “plus” right now is that Kyp has brought in professionally recorded tracks of the songs within the script. You’re going to hear our acting company read a scene, then Kyp will play the song that follows the scene. *With the exception of the group-number, which you’ll very likely hear on Saturday.

This process is serving the writing team well; being able to really hear when a song’s lyrics are already echoing the material in the scene, so we can start figuring out what to trim & shape so that songs & scenes totally meld.

Oh, & Justin Ellington is here today. He’s going to help us out by weighing in on the musical aspect of the play.

For now, I am here to chirp in Patrick’s ear, chime in where necessary & joke with the boys (who are the most hilarious guys I’ve met).

Pat Mac has had NO fun bustin out rhymes. No fun at all.

Dramaturging a new musical is a LONG process & is different than developing traditional text. Songs need to elevate the spirit of a scene, feel true to the moment & actively move us forward in the story.

No small task.

But this is a healthy, hilarious hip hop trio (Mikey, Kyp, Patrick) that are really onto something.

Ash Rizin' will be given a free public reading in the Big Secret Theatre at 4:30pm.

*Come early. It’s Blitz Weekend & the house will be packed. You don’t want to miss this.

“Ain’t no one mutha f*&#in illa than that mutha f*&#in Strilla” – Northey.

… I’m having that made into a bumper sticker.

xo Amy Lynn

The Anxiety of the Lanyard

2011-02-25T12:00:00.001-07:00

This week I have been in workshop with one of our Playwrights in Residence, Karen Hines, on her new piece entitled, Drama. There are a great many things in the play that speak to me but there is one idea, one turn of phrase, that has stuck with me in a funny way because of the events of the 25th Annual Enbridge playRites Festival swirling around us here at Alberta Theatre Projects. The idea, which Karen says was coined by director Blake Brooker (who is directing the workshop,) is simply "the anxiety of the lanyard." That giddy excitement and, for some, mania that comes from having a name tag swinging from your neck.

In Karen's play it is a young writer (or Content Provider) at the Banff International Television Festival that suffers from a rather extreme case of this anxiety. But most of us have experienced it to some degree or other at various meetings, networking events, conferences or festivals in whatever field we may study or are employed in. To have that name tag hanging around your neck is to feel many things: a sense of belonging at one moment, a sense of solitude in another moment, a sense of importance and individuality or a sense of powerlessness and facelessness. Some people feel a need to relentlessly work their agenda with a lanyard on, some people suddenly get tongue tied and shy. Some people use the opportunity to flirt with other lanyards, some people use it to sit alone in their room and raid the mini-bar. One way or the other, with a lanyard comes a sort of expectation. If you have one on, it means that for that hour, that day, that weekend you are a part of something and something is expected of you. You have been chosen, there is a reason you are here: the lanyard is proof.

At Alberta Theatre Projects, particularly during the Enbridge playRites Festival, we talk a lot about lanyards. We have quite a few events where we need a lot of them. I just hung up my lanyard from our inaugural Emerging Artist Assembly (a great time!) and I will put another lanyard on next week as we welcome theatre industry guests to the Homecoming edition of our Blitz Weekend.

My own experience of the anxiety of the lanyard tends more to the giddy excitement side of the spectrum. I love having a name tag hanging around my neck. I love to feel like a part of the action, even if it means that I may get into a few frustrating conversations or I put my foot in my mouth late at night over a beer with my lanyard still around my neck. It is thrilling to be a part of a community and a conversation. That's why I keep all my lanyards. I just don't want to let go of that thrill.

The Work in Progress reading of Drama by Karen Hines takes place Saturday February 26 at 4:30 p.m. in the Big Secret Theatre. It is free! Feel free to wear a lanyard.

Vicki

Openings - The Turtle and the Bear

2011-02-18T12:00:00.000-07:00

Tonight, after a week of openings, we launch the last of the world premieres in our Enbridge playRites Festival: 300 TAPES by Public Recordings. The Festival plays till March 6, 2011. Come see!

The opening of a play is a big day for us in the theatre, and we mark the occasion by giving each other cards, flowers, chocolate, bottles of Scotch, mementoes. Though we are consummate professionals, who know exactly what we're doing, what you see in the movies is more or less true: We weep and hug and get hyper and there are sometimes great backstage feats of derring-do. No matter how experienced you are, openings are very nerve-wracking. There's nothing to be done about it. You just put on some lipstick, and deal.

For the director, the day after opening is disorienting. For so long, you've pretended that you're a functional human being, but really all you've thought about is the play the play the play. Now you have to buckle down and do the laundry and whatnot. This leaves you feeling vaguely empty and bereft.

Then after the gloominess comes a weird, deep satisfaction. Oddly, you tend to get this feeling no matter what the reviews say or the applause felt like. Even your own harsh self-criticism usually doesn't destroy it. Of course, if the play goes over gangbusters it's easy to be very happy, and if opening is a schmozzle, it takes a while to start perking up. It hurts more, for longer. But eventually, a strange pure calm usually does come. "We jumped our fences," you mutter, quoting Virginia Woolf, who used to say this when she finished a novel, "At least we jumped our fences."

When I'm feeling that quiet buzz, I often end up buying things. I buy a piece of art, new clothes, meals in restaurants, knick knacks, extra-fancy groceries. It's like I'm rejoining the living. The day after the opening of The Penelopiad I bought the wooden bear you see pictured above. Dianne gave me the turtle to celebrate the opening of Heartbreaker. "Heartbreaker" is carved into its belly.

So anyway, I was going to use the bear and the turtle as metaphors. I planned to write a superbly insightful blog entry describing how opening makes you afraid (like being stared at by a bear) but how you have to have a hard shell and a soft underside (like the turtle). Or, how it's a beautiful balancing act between fierceness and stubbornness - between planning and passion. Or, maybe the audience is the bear, staring at you as you cower in your shell. Or are they the patient, hopeful turtle, emboldened by theatre to gaze into the eyes of their personal bears? Or is it that the play feels carved in your belly? Or, maybe the critics are the bear - you know, and so forth. Brilliant stuff!

However. Let it be.

We jumped our fences. Now it's time to move on.

See you at the theatre,

Vanessa

Dear playRites...

2011-02-11T12:00:00.002-07:00

Dear playRites,

Thank you for Bob White, who was always good at cutting to the quick of what my dramaturgy needed (“cut 25 minutes off that F*#&ing play, Amy Lynn!”). It was only yesterday, walking home from rehearsal, that I realized how much more precise my work is, because of him. Thank you for Dianne Goodman, whose attention to detail is unparalleled – she’s always thinking 3 steps ahead & keeps the entire company on track. For Vanessa Porteous’ heart of gold, wild imagination & distaste for niceties in rehearsal – bring your insights & big ideas, but make sure they’re all useful to the process. Thank you for Vicki Stroich, for her rigour and for giving me the opportunity to grow alongside her. Thank you for The Good Egg, because that is when I found my dramaturgical voice. Thank you for Michael MacLennan, that beautiful chihuahua of a man. Thanks for my firsts, Janet Munsil & Linda Moore, who let me experiment with giving notes live, messy & in person. Thank you for one of your brightest treasures, Gina Wilkinson, who fueled the artistic process with her magnificent life-force. Thanks for Glenda Stirling’s complete set of life-experience luggage, which she perfectly unpacks in a rehearsal process. Merci for translators like Maureen Labonte & Chantal Bilodeau who taught me that every word in a script is a very sharp tool.

Thank you so much for the playRites actors who embrace the demands of an ever-changing text while maintaining their individual processes. Thank you for sharing Larry Tremblay’s absurdly-presented insights, Joan MacLeod’s evocative writing, Linda Griffiths’ rich & complex characters, Stephen Massicotte’s philosophical heart, Ron Chambers’ sense of humour & for the phenomenal examples of dramatic structure from masters like Colleen Murphy & Trina Davies. I can never repay you for giving us David van Belle, Eric Rose & Kendra Fanconi, who keep reminding me to be bold and be brave. I’m not sure what to make of Greg MacArthur’s mind, but thank you for the bizarre worlds that tend to come out of it.

Thank you so much, for these playRites artists, who are relentless in their pursuit of artistic perfection.
Because they are the best, I have become better.

My love, respect & gratitude.

Happy 25th.
Amy Lynn

Carpenturgy: A new frontier

2011-02-04T12:00:00.001-07:00

I recently came up with a new term, carpenturgy, to describe the collaborative and supportive relationship that has developed between Alberta Theatre Projects awesome Shop Carpenter Riley Miljan and the equally awesome relational art duo Eric Moschopedis and Mia Rushton, whose new project Each Other we are premiering at the 25^th Annual Enbridge playRites Festival.

Eric Moschopedis and Riley Miljan show off the cart in the shop.

As their dramaturg, I have been in conversation with them about the relational parts of the project that invite the public to create and use unique handmade objects designed get people engaging with the city they way they would engage with a library book. But when it came to creating the mobile environment that would house the project as it moved from place to place, I was out of my league. That’s where Riley stepped in and worked closely with Eric and Mia to help them create an amazing little trailer that is as unique and surprising as the project itself. I asked the gang a few questions about how they worked together. Here is what they had to say.

Vicki: Why did you want to work closely with our shop carp Riley on the Each Other cart?

Eric & Mia: We began to get to know Riley during our workshop edition of Each Other last year and we quickly realized that in addition to his skills as a carpenter, that he was a really nice guy. This is how many of our collaborations begin, simply based on our personal relationships with people--the realization that, "hey, this is a person we could spend time with. We trust this person and want to develop a relationship with them". We knew that Riley was really talented and is an artist in his own right and we began to think what might be possible if we started putting our different ideas, perspectives, and skills together to collaboratively develop the infrastructure of the Each Other cart.

We also wanted to work with Riley because, as mentioned above, we really saw him as an artists. We weren't interested in simply dropping a model on his desk and saying, "now build this." Instead, we--and I think Riley too--saw a really excellent opportunity to for the three of us, as equal partners, to do what each of us couldn't do without the other.

Vicki: What did you learn about your project or process as a result of this interaction?

Eric & Mia: We are so used to working twelve or thirteen hour days, so it was a real shock to us when we knew that the time to actually build the cart was limited by the hours Riley was able to work according to union rules! This is a structure that ideologically and ethically we adore, but it is also one that we as individual artists do not have. So perhaps, in pragmatic terms we have started to see how we can apply the same standards (of value) to our own work. What is our time worth when we spend 40 hours cutting out signs? And strangely, how do you overcome this thinking simultaneously when you are making objects designed to have a different value, the value of social capital (as Pierre Bourdieu would have it). It has indicated how we really are straddling two worlds, the capital and the social-social (a term we just made up to explain our leftist notions of the social). So perhaps all of this has continued our deep thinking about social relationships. We really like how Slavo Zizek talks about social relations and democracy (two of the three cornerstones of Each Other). Zizek suggests (as best we understand him) that democracy is tied to production. In our current culture democracy is twinned with capitalism and to alter democracy you need to alter not only the mode of production, but the social relationships generated through production. This is all to say, that seeing how labour is both protected from exploitation and how we consider our time more in terms of generating social relationships than typical capital terms has been really valuable and strangely disorienting.

Vicki: How would you describe your role in helping Eric and Mia with their project? Is it different than what you normally do? In what way?

Riley: My role with Eric and Mia was to help them come up with a project that was interesting and practical for their needs and something they could move around and manage. Also figuring out wood and steel and hardware possibilities, letting them know what I can build for them in the time frame. It is a lot different with this project because I feel part of it more because of the amount of work I am doing with them. It almost seems collaborative and makes me want to make the best thing for them because I am very excited about the project too. Usually, on other projects, I get drawings and a design and I just build it without really having much say on the function and the design choices. Eric and Mia have been so inspirational to me and they have been so lovely to work with. As I work on this project I think to myself “this is why I love my job, when I have talented, happy, creative people willing to hear what some old carpenter thinks.” So that’s nice.

For the record, I would hardly characterize Riley as “some old carpenter.”

Check out Each Other by coming to a workshop at select Calgary Public Library branches and on Feb 19, 20, 26, 27 at 12:30 p.m. in

Centre Court

at The EPCOR Centre. See their complete dates and times here.

Technical rehearsals - Enbridge playRites Festival 2011

2011-01-28T12:00:00.001-07:00

We're teching our new plays, here at the Enbridge playRites Festival. 'Teching' is the part in the process when we start working with the technical elements: the set, props, lights, sound, projections, video, and costumes. Every element is imagined by a designer, built by our crew, and operated during the show by a technician, sometimes several. The stage manager runs everything, by calling 'cues' - letting everyone know exactly which bit we're working on, and when each technical cue should occur. We add the tech in stages, over several days. If we did it all at once it would be mayhem!

Our first day on stage for Heartbreaker by Morwyn Brebner, set design by Scott Reid. You'll notice we haven't unwrapped the little tables yet - they are still wearing their brown paper. We're trying to keep them perfect till you come and see the show!

Visitors to a technical rehearsal are often surprised at how much time we spend on the details. We might rehearse a twenty second sequence for 30 minutes, if it involves several technical elements at once. These days, plays seem to call for more and more of these sequences, or transitions, and this year's selection of plays in the Festival seems to have a bumper crop of them.

You might think we're being too fussy, working transitions over and over. But it's amazing how a badly structured or messy transition can muddy the story and confuse the audience. The whole point is to make it all feel seamless, so you can stay buried in your experience of the play.

During the hours we spend in the darkened theatre, we develop a kind of short-hand; we get tense and hungry; we crack jokes and eat cookies; we wrap scarves around ourselves; we tuck our pants into our socks, our scripts into our waistbands, and our pencils in our hair; we sprawl and climb among the seats; we roll around on the set, and we laugh.

At certain moments, you find yourself saying very esoteric things, like 'I think this sound cue basically expresses what's going on deep in her memory, so can we make it sound more like it comes from long ago?' At other moments, we dissolve into hysterical giggles, and it's hard to express a simple idea like 'I think you should be further to the left.'

As you can probably tell, I like tech. I love how we make daring fun of the play and the sorry plight of the characters. It's like teasing a slightly problematic friend, so they'll be gentle and good and do what we want them to. I might say something like: "Hey, you know that bit where you go 'rubbish, rubbish, rubbish' or whatever your line is, and then you turn to face her? Could you turn a little earlier and then go off stage faster?" "Sure," the actor will say, "I'll just turn down the suck, and then f**k off the stage, how bout." And we feel like we're all in a conspiracy.

I love how the actors sit bathed in a lighting cue that's paused for a moment, and gossip in hushed tones, while the rest of us sort out some technical thing. I love how they quietly work through some bit of staging that has always hung them up, just privately, just for their own benefit. I love how I get to stand on the arms of the seats in Premiere Circle, balancing myself with one hand on the balcony rail, so I can see how the lights read on the floor of the deck. I love lolling and climbing like a monkey, on the exact spot where, a week from now, some good-hearted patron will seat themselves in their opening night frock, and prepare to hear the story we've been cooking up together.

There's never quite enough time, it feels. And certain bits seem like they'll never be solved. And you get hungry and shivery and desperate and wound up and hopeful and despairing all at once. Yet you always do get it done.

And when you leave the theatre at the end of the night, the shadows of the tree branches look like gobos, cutting through some subtle, deeply saturated arrangement of gel colours. They read like perfectly focused lighting instruments, making a gorgeous pattern on the snowy pavement. Like someone planned it.

Architecting an Assembly

2011-01-22T23:29:00.001-07:00

This is what the front of the t-shirt looks like

The Emerging Artists Assembly was created out of Vanessa’s vision to host a conversation among young artists & the opportunity to hold that conversation during the Enbridge playRites Festival.

I have been excited & challenged by the task of creating & leading the event itself – having spent many many days envisioning what philosophy it should be rooted it.

Here’s what I’ve learned after a handful of years working with theatre students & emerging artists: they want direction. They want to be hired, they want to build a life in the theatre but they often haven’t yet defined, for themselves, what the theatre means to them or what business they have being in the business, in the first place.

I think the day you ask yourself these hard questions & come out, alive, with answers, is the day you move forward as an artist.

Cause here’s the thing: in high school & university you are given ample space to safely experiment & begin articulating your affection for the practice. This is fantastic. We need this. This is what we will grow from, as artists. But how often do we young artists give ourselves the time & space to have a creative “think-retreat” where we can dive into the meat of the matter? How often do we get together to articulate our passion, drive & plans for the future? How often do we really ask ourselves what kind of processes we love & practitioners we love working with? How often do we really define our strengths & identify our weaknesses (both as individuals & as theatre-makers as a whole)?

This is what the Assembly is for.

Over the course of the Assembly weekend (February 18 – 20), I’m going to try my best to host a variety of these conversations. I’ll be facilitating a group workshop on Saturday morning that will get all Assembly participants engaged in conversation with one another. Like an hour-long speed-dating session among all the Assembly artists, it’ll be a great icebreaker to start the weekend. Questions already on my mind are: What kind of artist are you? Who do you want to work with, next? Why? What opportunities are you currently fleshing out, if the opportunity you’re looking for doesn’t already exist? What was you most recent failure & what did you learn from it? What was your most recent success & what did you learn from it?

Sunday morning’s panel discussion, entitled “Raucous Caucus” will also be another engaging conversation, hosted by Eric Rose (Co-Artistic Director of Ghost River Theatre & director of The Highest Step in the World – playRites 2010). Panelists include: Ravi Jain (Why Not Theatre, Toronto), Jacob Zimmer (Small Wooden Shoe, Toronto), Vincent Forcier (Surreal SoReal Theatre, Edmonton), Jacob Richmond (Atomic Vaudeville, Victoria), Simon Mallet (Downstage Theatre, Calgary), Simone Saunders (Ellipsis Tree Collective, Calgary), Christopher Duthie (Performer, Calgary) & Meg Bream (Playwright in Residence, Alberta Theatre Projects). Together, they’ll tackle the big questions: What are the rules to making good theatre? Are there any?

And, of course, Assembly participants will be registered to see all four shows in the Festival.

Cost of registration: $60

There’s also a t-shirt. You should buy the t-shirt. It’s $10.

For the full schedule of events & registration form, visit our website at: http://www.atplive.com/playRites/Emerging_artists.html

See you in the theatre!

xoAmy Lynn

The Mix Tape for the Canadian Theatre

2011-01-14T12:00:00.012-07:00

In November 2010 on this blog I asked artists and audiences to submit a song suggestion or two to help me build a mix tape for the Canadian theatre. It was based on the question: what song expresses something about Canadian theatre?

I got about 50 song, album or artist suggestions from across the country and I made a mix. There were many, many more great songs than I could possibly include on one mix. If your song didn’t make it, don’t take it personally. I probably loved it. And there were some songs I had difficulty finding a recording of that I could download easily and legally (that’s right, I did it legit.) Some people e-mailed me secret suggestions that didn’t end up on the public blog. I discovered some great music I didn’t know before and was reminded of a few favorites. I could’ve made a few volumes of this mix, and maybe I still will.

This is the list of the songs that make up the mix tape I have sequenced from all the great suggestions I received. This mix will be running in the lobby of the Martha Cohen Theatre during the 25^th Annual Enbridge playRites Festival.

1) Le but by Loco Locass

2) 21^st Century Living by Matthew Good

3) Actor Out of Work by St. Vincent

4) Boots of Danger (Wait Up) by Tokyo Police Club

5) The End of Poverty by Tomboyfriend

6) Unless It’s Kicks by Okkervil River

7) Stage Fright by The Band

8) Hang on to Your Ego by The Beach Boys

9) Sold by Dan Mangan

10) Middle Cyclone by Neko Case

11) Someday You Will Be Loved by Death Cab for Cutie

12) Backstage in St. Petersburg by Kris Demeanor

13) Too Young to Burn by Sonny and the Sunsets

14) Ahead by a Century by The Tragically Hip

15) Crawfish by Elvis Presley

16) Eli by Arthur Russell

17) That Feel by Tom Waits

18) Your Ex-Lover is Dead by Stars

19) A Kiss to Build a Dream On by Louis Armstrong

20) Comme des Enfants by Couer de Pirate

21) Sweet Disposition by The Temper Trap

22) One Love/People Get Ready by Bob Marley

This mix is sometimes sassy and sometimes sweet. A lot like the artists and fans who contributed to it.

I want to thank everyone who made suggestions:

From Vancouver: Heidi Taylor (Playwrights Theatre Centre,) Craig Hall (Rumble Theatre,) Anita Rochon (The Chop,) Stacey Matson (theatre fan,) Amiel Gladstone (Director & Playwright.)

From Calgary: Col Cseke, Simon Mallett, Ellen Close (Downstage Theatre,) Eric Rose (Ghost River Theatre,) Amy Lynn Strilchuk, Vanessa Porteous, Richard Lam (Alberta Theatre Projects,) Janelle Cooper (ETC Theatre,) Bob White (Director,) Rylan Wilkie (Actor,) Bobbi Goddard (Actor,) Christian Goutsis (Actor & Composer,) Salimah Kassam (Director.)

From Toronto: Geoff Pounsett, Brendan Gall (The Room,) Katherine Sanders (Harbourfront Centre,) Erika Hennebury (Buddies in Bad Times Theatre,) Jacob Zimmer (Small Wooden Shoe,) Maev Beaty (Actor,) Ravi Jain (Why Not Theatre,) Michael Wheeler (Praxis Theatre) Bobby Theodore (Playwright & Translator,) Erin Brandenburg (Kitchenband Theatre,) Sean Dixon (Playwright.)

From Montreal: Greg MacArthur (Playwright.)

From Halifax: Alex MacLean (Zuppa Theatre Co.)

I look forward to watching our audience bobbing their head to this mix in our lobby. See you there I hope.

Vicki

My new favourite song I discovered making this mix tape:

Too Young to Burn by Sonny and the Sunsets (thanks Christian.)

Stop All The Clocks: Gina Wilkinson (1960- 2010)

2011-01-07T12:00:00.002-07:00

Gina had skin that sparkled and glowed. It's true. It was as if, instead of freckles, she had golden flecks of light. She strode across the rehearsal hall like it was a mountain landscape and the air made a whooshing sound as she passed. She wore anarchy boots and army pants, a plunging top in a vivid colour, a nubby sweater with some history, and a zippered satchel that was one part pencil case, one part art object. Her clothing fitted her compact body like the clothes of a super-heroine, outlining her plunge through the world in thick strong energy lines.

Gina's chestnut hair would wave and curl around her face. Sometimes, when she was working hard, she would tie it into two skinny little braids. It was always surprising how skimpy those braids were. How did someone as substantial in character as Gina, someone so omni-dimensional, someone as potent and dense as a star on the verge of explosion, manage to end up with such tiny little braids?

I guess I'm running over all these details about Gina in my mind, so I don't have to think about her being gone. Let me continue.

Gina's voice was deep and husky. It wasn't the voice you'd expect her to have, but on the other hand, it was the perfect voice. Sometimes her mouth made a sort of trumpet shape - rather, a shape like she was playing the trumpet. Her grin was huge. Sometimes she'd jut out her jaw and narrow her eyes and say 'mmm...', ending in a sort of squeak or crackle, and you knew something big was coming.

Gina had a very particular way of articulating - almost an English way - and this over-articulation made her funnier, without any extra effort on her part. A divine unfairness, for an actress.

Once, when she was directing, I saw her stride over to an actor and trumpet huskily: "...so, I think THAT is your character's AMBITION in this SCENE." It was a revelation to me: that characters could launch themselves through scenes, not trailing after some bloodless 'objective' or bland 'want' or 'need' but rather chivvied and hustled along by the clarion call of deep, unstoppable ambition. Imagine how exciting and dangerous and funny all scenes could be!

Another time, when Gina was acting at Alberta Theatre Projects and she was in Calgary over New Year's, she commandeered the kitchen of the local theatre bar, the Auburn Saloon, to cook boeuf bourguignon for everyone. Everyone in town. She spent the day back there, stirring up heroic quantities. That night, the entire theatre community trouped past the orbiting skaters on Olympic Plaza, into the candle lit bar. We tucked in heartily. Rosy golden sparkling Gina flitted and perched, her hair in little braids, her own special bottle of red wine open and decanted, waiting for her, just behind the bar.

No, no. Such a person can't be gone so soon.

Vanessa

After a brief battle with cervical cancer, actress, director and playwright Gina Wilkinson died on December 30, 2010 at the age of 50. Gina appeared in the Enbridge playRites Festival at Alberta Theatre Projects in Hunter of Peace by Sharon Stearns, Tuck Tuck by Brian Drader, Saint Frances of Hollywood by Sally Clark, Kawartha by Dave Carley, Appetite by Eugene Stickland, and Motherlode by Deirdre Dore, and directed the world premieres of Mary's Wedding by Stephen Massicotte, Mick Unplugged by Greg Nelson, and The Good Egg, by Michael Lewis MacLennan.

Meet Meg

2010-12-24T12:00:00.003-07:00

Hey readers, meet Meg Braem: one of our playwrights in residence at Alberta Theatre Projects.

Meg has lived in Calgary for a few years now, having relocated from Victoria when she was accepted into U of C’s MFA Playwriting program. Since graduating last spring, she has been an active member in the professional theatre community. She premiered her U of C thesis play, Blood: A Scientific Romance at Sage Theatre, re-visited her play Potentilla through Downstage Theatre’s Uprising Festival, brought us a revamped version of The Josephine Knot to Sage’s IGNITE! Festival (the original having premiered in Victoria) & created a first draft of Sugar Mama Cube (with co-creator Beth Scozzafava) for IGNITE!’s reading series. She also just bought a house, adopted a cat & started teaching at the Calgary Arts Academy, as well as Rosebud School of the Arts. So Meg’s been busy. Very busy.

And after getting to know Meg’s work, we invited her to be a playwright in residence this fall - joining Karen Hines, who has been working on her piece, Drama.

She’s currently working on her new piece, The Cut Grass Carnival – a piece that follows a literal freak show troupe, set in the depression-ridden Prairies. In our dramaturgical meeting last night, we took the setting & characters we know Meg’s working with & started getting specific about those characters’ actions/stakes/motivations for their choices. I’ve been close to this play since the summer, when Meg & I began chatting about the script in detail - when one glass of wine leads to two and one question about the plot leads to a full-on dramaturgical session.

Script, notes and coffee: brewing big ideas with Miss Meg.

So we’re still working on the details & I can’t fully express what the play is or will be about, since we want to give Meg plenty of room to play, explore & change her mind. That’s what this early phase of the process is all about. But in a sentence, Cut Grass explores the question: “what does hunger do to people?” Ambition, starvation – no matter what you call it or how you package the metaphor, hunger drives us to stay alive. And I’m looking forward to seeing what unfolds in Meg’s next draft and seeing what, exactly, these characters are willing to do to one another in order to stay afloat.

The Heart

2010-12-17T12:00:00.003-07:00

In work, and in life, I have been contemplating the heart a lot this week.

As we continue to explore and stage three new plays by Mieko Ouchi, Trina Davies and Morwyn Brebner in our rehearsals for the 25th Annual Enbridge playRites Festival I have witnessed the incredible generosity of spirit and the great passion that collaborators are capable of as new work is created. Yes, the brains around the rehearsal hall have been working hard this week as well. But I have been reminded as I watch the great care at the heart of these rehearsal processes that the act of creation and collaboration cannot exist solely as an intellectual activity. What the creators, the playwrights, offer us a vision that comes not only from their minds but from their hearts. And as interpreters we must use that most powerful emotional and intuitive muscle in our work of sharing that vision with an audience.

The heart is most certainly powerful but it is a muscle, not a machine. It needs to be exercised, it needs to be nurtured and it cannot be taken for granted. It is one of the most valuable tools we have as we create and as we move through the world; if we can learn to use it well. I, myself, am still learning but the lessons of this week have had a huge impact.

First week of rehearsals...

2010-12-10T15:13:00.002-07:00

It's the first week of rehearsals of the 25th Edition of the Enbridge playRites Festival.

On Tuesday we did the first read of Heartbreaker by Morwyn Brebner. We shared the design with the cast and company. The play will take place on a representation of the meniscus - the thin skin of a body of water that curves to meet the edge of a container, whether it's the shore of a lake or a glass of milk. A fitting design - it's a play about depths, plunging, immersion, being washed through, and the mirror world beneath the surface. The furniture will be 5 transparent plexi-glass 'ghost chairs,' to reinforce ideas of layers, illusion, the translucency of experience, the fragile fabric of reality. And water.

Set design by Scott Reid. It'll be blue.

Since then we've had meetings with Morwyn, who is here till next Wednesday, followed by work around the rehearsal table with the actors, as well as a reading of The Romeo Initiative by Trina Davies too. A great week.

Here is something Morwyn Brebner said in a speech she gave about courage in playwriting, and in theatre. Courage to try new things, to push ourselves, to argue with the world - eloquently, wittily, mightily. Apt words for this first week of our new play festival.

I'm working on a comedy right now. it's not directly about global warming or set in Iraq or about a family losing its house in the mortgage crisis, but I hope that it will feel like a play that could only be written in a time when these things are true. And I hope it will speak to this time in a way that says more than just "I'm lost, help me."

I hope it will be an argument for something, not just against something... Audiences are hungry to be confronted with truth about the world. Playwrights are crazy not to want some of that action. ... [The theatre] is a receptive space that is inherently set up for dialogue, for argument. A novelist has many readers in separate rooms; a playwright engages the collective. Our engagement with this collective audience can be incredibly deep. We don't just have to offer pleasure in return for applause... So let's fight with the audience more. Why not? It'll be fun.
Let's argue with other playwrights too. Let's have crazy rivalries. Let's encourage artistic directors to program plays that make them nervous. But most of all, let's write plays that make us nervous ourselves. To quote Shaw quoting Ibsen, we must question "the old beauty that is no longer beautiful and the new beauty that is no longer true." We must find new, unbeautiful truths. And even if everyone disagrees with us, we must put them on stage.
- Morwyn Brebner

It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas…

2010-12-03T12:00:00.004-07:00

I come from a long line of WASPy Christmas-centric females. Ditch images of women wearing nasty Christmas sweaters & earring that resemble kittens tangled in tinsel. I’m talking about rich, red velvet skirts, perfectly curled hair & matching Laura Ashley Christmas dresses. I’m also quite certain I was given piano lessons exclusively to host caroling sessions with our neighbours. The fireplace would be lit (so would the parents) & the kids would munch all the holiday chocolates we could get our hands on. Oh, and I would pound out “Oh Come All Ye Faithful” on my first keyboard, belting songs from a mouthful of braces.

And here I am, December 3, 2010, already hustled for the perfect gifts, dreaming up the creative holiday cards I’ll send off to relatives &, oh yeah: totally pumped for holiday decorating.

I already warmed-up my decorating skills with the Alberta Theatre Projects gang a couple weeks ago, when we got together to hang garland, spruce some trees & lay out some solid snow.

And this is where the WASPy lineage comes in. I, Martha Strilchuk, admit to being a bit of a Christmas Perfectionist. But I can’t help it. It’s in my blood. Ever have one of those moments in life where you do something & you say to yourself, “Oh GOD! I am exactly like my MOTHER!” Well, that was me, in the Martha Cohen Theatre lobby, hoarding red Christmas balls, fluffing & straightening trees, & stooped over the faux snow, quietly re-arranging the window display that our Publicist, Aldona, had already set up (Sorry Donze!). In that moment, I was my mother. I recalled the days we would set up the tree & the hour(s) it would take before we could actually touch the darn thing. First, my mom had to fluff it, hang the lights “just so” & perfectly twist the thick, ribbon garland. Then, & only then, could the children ascend from the basement & begin to hang our decorations. And that’s just the “family tree” – the artsy/craftsy one in the family room. Don’t even get me started on what the LIVING ROOM tree looked like. Perfectly positioned in the central window that faced the sidewalk, this tree was our family’s equivalent of a Holt Renfrew window display. It was breathtaking and the talk of the block. But boy did my mother give her blood, sweat & style to make it happen!

So, this Christmas, I think about what traditions are & why we need them. They are patterns that we relish; they are touchstones of human experiences. I mean, why else would we wrap gifts while blasting ABBA’s “I Wanna Wish You a Merry Christmas”, grinning ear to ear? Or jam 4 kids, their gifts, the relatives’ gifts and a DOG in an SVU for a 2hr drive to Grandma and Grandpas? Or scrap over the last coconut soap at The Body Shop on December 24? Cause it’s just what you DO. And as much as I try to make Christmas look like a Ralph Lauren ad, it’s actually the maddening, weird things we do over the holidays that bring us so much joy. That and Burberry scarves (Santa, are you listening?)

xo xo and ho ho ho,

Amy Lynn

A mixtape for the Canadian Theatre

2010-11-26T12:00:00.002-07:00

I am currently in Toronto working on 300 Tapes by Public Recordings, a show that Alberta Theatre Projects is co-premiering with The Theatre Centre as part of the 25th Annual Enbridge playRites Festival. In the show, stories from the lives of three performers recorded on little analog micro-cassettes form the source material for a unique exploration of storytelling and memory that challenges us to lean in and listen closely.

Frank Cox-O'Connell in 300 TAPES by Public Recordings. Photo by Bobby Theodore.

As I go to and from rehearsal every day I listen to music on my iPod and I think about those tapes and how I associate with my own memories, my own stories. The music, the tapes and the experience of recalling a vivid memory came together for me the other day when I thought about some of my favourite memories and how attached they are to music. And that lead me to a practice that I took very seriously as a way of marking an occasion and communicating in high school and university: making mix tapes. I still do it, except now the process has been streamlined by technology to a few clicks and drags and a quick burn onto a disc. I like to think the same care is put into every selection and that a story is still told with every playlist but the physical act of making the mix is much less consuming now.

As I think about marking an occasion, I think about the 25th Enbridge playRites Festival. And that makes me think about the theatre that has been created in Canada and what we are yet to do. It makes me think of the people I meet across the country. It makes me want to make a mix tape; a mixtape for the Canadian Theatre. Anyone who has ever made a mixtape knows how carefully one needs to think about messaging and tone. There should be a balance of heartfelt earnestness and a sense of humour; a little bit of light and a little bit of dark. Unless it is a break-up mix; then you can just go straight into the dark and really sit there for 90 minutes.

So I have a proposition to the folks reading this blog post: let’s make a mixtape for the Canadian Theatre. I’ll start us off and you let me know what song you’d want add to the mix. Heck, if this ends up being a good mix, maybe I’ll make a few copies.

This is my proposal for an opener: "Hang On To Your Ego" by The Beach Boys from Pet Sounds. This is the original version of the song. It ended up much changed on the album under the title "I Know There’s An Answer". I like this original version much better. If you listen to the lyrics in full I hope you’ll get the spirit with which it is offered: as a playful challenge that extends to me, too.

A Day in the Life of Lyndee Hansen

2010-11-19T12:00:00.003-07:00

Today is Lyndee Hansen's last day at Alberta Theatre Projects. Lyndee is our business manager. After almost 6 years with us, she is off to Geordie Productions in Montreal, www.geordie.ca, to be their General Manager. It's a great step for Lyndee. With Geordie's Artistic Director, Dean Patrick Fleming, she'll be running the whole show.

Lyndee in her natural habitat - sometimes she even wears a tie.

Lyndee is one of those exotic creatures who has chosen to spend her life fostering Canadian theatre by managing budgets, securing revenues for capital projects and year-over-year operations, controlling expenses towards a bottom line while making sure most of the money goes to the art, negotiating contracts with the best artists she can secure, planning major initiatives and executing them too, and ensuring projects have the scope and scale they deserve. Plus, she leads staffs of theatre people like the rest of us, who are just as passionate as Lyndee, but sometimes, let's be honest, a bit more wooly-headed and impractical than she is. Wow.

Lyndee's contributions aren't seen on stage, like those of an actor, a designer or a director. But still, imagine you're watching a play about Lyndee at work. Let's call it:

A Day in the Life of Lyndee Hansen.

Still life of Lyndee's office.

At lights up, Lyndee is discovered in her tiny, over-papered office, generating a report on where we're at with expenses this month, while simultaneously pulling your personnel file out to answer your urgent HR question.

You: Thanks Lyndee! That helps a lot.

Lyndee: Door's always open.

Next scene: Lyndee negotiates the 10 year lease on the venue - there are just a couple more details to nail down with the lawyer.

Lawyer: What the?!...

Lyndee: Don't worry. Everything's going to be fine.

An interlude: over a sandwich, Lyndee shares her thoughts on the show in rehearsal with the Artistic Director.

Lyndee: (murmurs brilliant insights not audible to the audience into the ear of the Artistic Director.)

AD: Thanks Lyndee! That helps a lot.

Act Two: After lunch. We are in the set shop. Lyndee in hard hat, holding clip-board. She is guiding the Occupational Health and Safety Committee through a site inspection, while simultaneously fielding texts about the strategic plan.

Text to Lyndee (projected): Hav u seen strat-plan doc?! I gotta board mtg in 10. Plus my car broke dn!

Text from Lyndee (projected): In my office. Top drawer. PS Take taxi. Keep receipt.

Climactic scene: it is late afternoon, and some horrible crisis is occurring. All the major characters are gathered in the Artistic Director's office, talking all at once, bemoaning their fate, desperate for an answer. The emergency scotch has been cracked. Kleenex is available for those who weep when stressed out.

All: (rhubarb frantically.)

Sudden spotlight on Lyndee. Everyone freezes. Lyndee leans forward. She summarizes the issue in a couple of well-chosen sentences, and then proposes a solution.

Lyndee: ...so, that would be my suggestion.

Deus ex machina. Balloons descend from ceiling, up-beat tune plays in background. Go mirror-ball.

Lyndee's dog Milo.

All: (rhubarb happily.)

Lyndee: Don't worry. Everything's going to be fine.

Denouement: Later that night. A local establishment. A drink after the show. Performers, crew, staff, supporters, fans, and Lyndee. A toast.

All: To great theatre! And to those who make it possible!

As lights fade, Lyndee heads home to her dog Milo.

Curtain.

We'll miss you Lyndee. I hope Montreal is ready for you.
Love, Vanessa.

Epilogue:

Lyndee shows our new business manager Cecilia Eriksson the ropes.

Program Jam

2010-11-12T12:00:00.017-07:00

This is the time in the season where the richer, deeper conversations around programming start to happen because now we’re starting to shape the “short list” for what will very likely be brought to our stage next season. So after all the script-searching, agent & playwright calling, e-mailing, reading, re-reading and, ultimately – list-making – we are narrowing the number of plays that we may be programming next season.

Now we just have to pick them!

What’s Now: my Moleskine dayplanner.
What’s New: my coloured folders keeping all programming ideas, plans, etc. in order.
What’s Next: that script stack on the left is my “to read by December 1” pile. Vicki’s reading stack looms in the distance...

The decision for which plays we do ultimately comes from V but it’s hugely informed by the on-going program jam sessions among the artistic team. (I hear some people refer to these things as “meetings”).

Well, some of my favourite “meetings” with V are when she jump-barrel-rolls onto the couch in our office (no, seriously – she did it on Monday afternoon & it was awesome) & throws a few ideas my way. Things she’s been thinking about, her thoughts on the Canadian theatre scene & what’s either angering or enthralling her these days – just being open about what direction she wants to take our programming.

The short list of scripts we’re for reals about programming.

V and I are quite different but we both speak from our hearts & typically present any potentially good idea with the disclaimer that it may be a potentially bad idea. Monday was full of great bad ideas from me (do we theme the season next year? – she says in a “Leave it To Beaver”, bright-eyed tone of voice) & chalk-full of great good ideas from our team today.

We don’t know exactly what we’re going to program, just yet, but we’re getting closer. I can feel it. And I can’t wait till spring when it’s no longer a secret.

The house where the short list lives. aka: my filing cabinet.

Savour

2010-11-05T12:00:00.011-06:00

In my job as Artistic Associate – Festival here at Alberta Theatre Projects I have the great fortune of being a part of many events that are meant to encourage us to savour the pairing of wine, food and theatre. There is something deliciously social about going to the theatre that is akin to sharing a great meal or a great bottle of wine; both are experiences that, at their best, offer much to talk about.

One event that I love is available as an auction package as part of our Lawson Lundell Celebrity Hors d’ Oeuvres fundraising event during the Enbridge playRites Festival of New Canadian Plays; it is called wineRites. At wineRites a small group of people are hosted by our great friends and supporters at Willow Park Wines and Spirits for a wine tasting. But the BEST part is that the wines are paired to each of the four plays we are premiering at the Enbridge playRites Festival that season. We talk about the play, read a scene from it and taste the wine paired with it.

This season, I worked with Willow Park Sommelier François Gaulin to match some amazing wines to the four plays premiering in our 25th Annual Enbridge playRites Festival. Sommeliers are used to pairing wine with food so it is a great challenge for me to describe the character of these plays in a way that suggests a taste or a character that could be found in a wine. And the sommeliers always take on the challenge of matching the wines to the plays with great curiosity and creativity. I am always thrilled to taste these plays in a glass. And I wanted to give all of you, our loyal blog readers, that same opportunity.

Here are the wines that Gaulin matched to the plays premiering at the 25th Annual Enbridge playRites Festival.

The Romeo Initiative by Trina Davies: for this play set in Cold War Germany exploring love in the Cold War with all its illusions and deceptions, Gaulin chose Markus Molitor Zeltliner Schlossberg Riesling Trocken. This surprising and truly multifaceted white wine from Germany.

Heartbreaker by Morwyn Brebner: for Brebner’s richly textured piece about the roiling and mysterious forces that lie beneath the surface of our sanity, Gaulin chose a new world pinot noir by WindRacer. The pinot noir grape is a heartbreaker, a delicate and sensitive grape with a taste that is elusive but very satisfying.

Nisei Blue by Mieko Ouchi: with racially charged jazz age Vancouver and film noir as major influences in this intriguing and mysterious love story, Gaulin chose The Chocolate Block for this play; a red wine from another racially charged part of the world, South Africa. With its dark and smoky look and taste, the wine brings to mind the characteristics of film noir and the rich voices of jazz.
300 Tapes by Public Recordings: this uniquely contemporary exploration of storytelling inspired Gaulin to choose a contemporary new world Cabernet Sauvignon from the Napa Valley winery Etudé (French for “study.”) The new world wineries tend to explore the limits of what is possible with wine in the same way this ensemble explored what was possible with the 300 analog tapes of source material they had recorded.

I encourage you gather some friends together to come savour these plays at the Festival in February and then uncork these bottles to savour the experience all over again.

Etudé Cabernet Sauvignon paired by Sommelier François Gaulin
with 300 Tapes was probably my favourite.

(image available here)

Guest Post: Karen Hines, Playwright in Residence

2010-10-29T12:00:00.001-06:00

Our playwright in residence, Karen Hines, is in Munich with her solo show, Pochsy. She sent us an update:

...Week three of the Pochsy run in Munchen is about to commence.

The view from here:

It has been interesting to say the least. The theatre is deep down in an actual retro-fitted bomb shelter that now houses an arts complex (jazz club, rep cinema, art gallery). It is stylish but there are mice and everyone shares the same bathrooms and if there's ever a fire they lock you in and pump air to you because, as the stage manager told me on the first day "zere iss no goot vay outt." Yeah. The lobby is super-cool though, and they serve great wine, and everyone has the best shoes I've ever seen on any audience as a whole.

Window shopping:

I am attaching a few iPhone shots and a write-up. It is in German, I have no idea what it means. I don't think it's an actual review - apparently the German critic who came didn't speak enough English to properly review it ... though he liked the part where Pochsy throws a telephone, and also where she dies ...

Maybe it says GO HOOOOME!!!:

Despite the fact that most of the audience also speak rather little English – and especially for a show that runs on irony – Pochsy has been very kindly received by these dark Germans. They give many curtain calls here. For almost everything. If you get less than three it means they think you suck. So far, more than three. Trying not to get used to it.

Fellow Canadian theatre artists Ross Manson, David Jansen, Julie Fox and Graeme Somerville have just arrived to begin rehearsing the next show in the theatre's season: Betrayal. A photo below of where we all ate Bavarian pig and duck and dumplings last night. Pinter may be easier for the Munichians to understand, as there is a plot and (some) action ... however there is that 'the story moves backwards in time' thing...

Canadian artists preparing to eat pig and duck:

I am intensely craving a big un-breaded steak and a garlicky Caesar salad at Saltlik. Maybe some B.C. wine...

I hope all is well there. I have been hearing great things about the first two productions from afar - I'm very sad not to see them, but am sending good wishes across the Atlantic. I have to confess - on one of my homesick days I watched the ATP video ... again...

Karen Hines
Playwright In Residence

Come hear Karen Hines' play in progress, Drama, here at Alberta Theatre Projects, at the Enbridge playRites Festival 2011, on Saturday March 5, 2010. It's free! Check Enbridge playRites schedule for details.

ATP Insider places 3rd!

2010-10-27T10:27:00.001-06:00

The results are in, and ATP Insider has placed 3rd for Best Culture and Literature Blog in Canada, after Brain Droppings and Praxis Theatre!

A hearty congratulations to our writers, and a thank you to everyone who voted for us in the last few weeks.

For a complete list of results, visit:
http://cdnba.wordpress.com/2010/10/26/and-the-winners-are/

Thanks again and keep reading!

-ATP Insider
Admin

Right Here, Right Now

2010-10-22T12:00:00.024-06:00

I’m intrigued by our ability to be present in the moment. This preoccupation isn’t directly related to the business of theatre but it definitely fuels a great piece of theatre. We all have to be present in the theatre to connect across the stage (performers/audience, performer/performer) and you’ll see this is especially true for one-person shows like The Last Dog of War.

But being Present isn’t easy because we constantly have two forces pulling us in opposite directions: Past and Future.

Past’s cousin, Nostalgia, can be cozy, warm & familiar. She tells us who we used to be. Like returning to the family home over the holidays, Nostalgia reminds us of our place in the world. Past, when it’s not ours, can also make us jealous. This past tends to be called History: significant moments in time from our collective Past. Miss a Historical moment? You missed a great party. I feel this way about Trudeaumania &Linda Griffiths performing Maggie & Pierre in 1981. Both were phenomenal experiences. Or, at least that’s what I’ve heard. I couldn’t tell you. I wasn’t there. (See: jealous).

We frequently long for the Past but this isn’t ANYTHING compared to our lust for the Future. Future is sexy; smoldering with raw potential. But Future’s devilish sister, Projection, takes your hope and makes it hers. Whispering hot promises in your naïve ear and leaving you disappointed with the realization that she doesn’t control the Universe.

Then I found Present, who seems to soften Projection with her most beautiful feature: Anticipation.

Not too long ago, I was at a play with a friend. As the houselights went down and the show was about to start, she squealed, “this is my favorite part!” She identified the invisible in that moment: Anticipation. Anticipation takes a risk on something and is excited for the events to unfold.

Which is why Anticipation scares people. She makes no guarantees and asks for your irrefutable focus. “Hold my hand,” she says, “let’s see what happens next”. We are spooked by her because we’ve all had experiences that prove exactly how Anticipation went awry. But don’t blame Anticipation. Her job isn’t to predict outcomes; only to make you incredibly present as the events unfold. And when you latch on to Anticipation, she takes you for a once in a lifetime ride.

- Amy Lynn Strilchuk, Assistant Dramaturg

Linda Griffiths as Pierre Trudeau

Linda Griffiths with Pierre Trudeau

All photos are credited to: www.lindagriffiths.ca

Canadian Blog Awards - FINAL ROUND!

2010-10-19T11:33:00.001-06:00

ATP Insider has made it to the Final Round for Best Culture and Literature blog in Canada!

Thanks to all of you who voted for us in the first round. We are now down to 5 blogs, so take a look through all the lovely blogs, and cast your vote below.

For more info, visit the Canadian Blog Awards 2010 website. Votes can be submitted once per day.

-ATP Insider Admin

Past, Present, and Future

2010-10-15T12:00:00.001-06:00

This season marks the 25^th Enbridge playRites Festival of New Canadian Plays. With a milestone like that coming up there are impulses that need to be juggled. One of those impulses is most certainly nostalgia.

One of my favourite recent memories of the Enbridge playRites Festival: Actor Allan Morgan and I get in the spirit before rehearsal of Abraham Lincoln Goes to the Theatre. The photo was titled New Plays Under Construction and was taken by Dianne Goodman.)

I’ve been at Alberta Theatre Projects for nine years now (with my season as an intern thrown in there it is actually a longer association with the company…but that’s a whole other posting.) One thing I’ve learned in my time at Alberta Theatre Projects is that nostalgia is not really something we like to indulge in around here. It is simply out of character for us. We have a lot to celebrate and a great legacy to share, especially with the Enbridge playRites Festival, but as a contemporary theatre company that has a deep relationship to new work we find ourselves constantly in the moment or looking ahead. We’ve even adopted what’s now, what new, what’s next as our touchstone. Another thing about Alberta Theatre Projects: we like to engage in conversation. We could put together a souvenir program (and maybe we will) but we have a need to engage in a dialogue about our work. It feeds us.

So when a company like us comes up to a milestone like this we don’t just drag out the photo albums; we look back at the past, celebrate the present and imagine the future. And we ask our audience and the artists who have worked with us to do that with us.

That’s why, in advance of our 25^th Edition, we are looking to hear from you; we are asking you to reflect on the past and imagine the future of the Enbridge playRites Festival.

We will collect these stories and ideas to share with our audience and the world during the 25^th Annual Enbridge playRites Festival this February.

If one (or all) of the following questions inspires you, please post a response here on the blog or send your answer to

Vicki Stroich, Artistic Associate – Festival at vstroich@atplive.com

What is your favourite memory of the Enbridge playRites Festival?

What is the most important contribution the Enbridge playRites Festival makes to the community?

What would you like to see happen in the next 25 years of the Enbridge playRites Festival?

The answers can be as long or as concise as you would like to make them. And please keep in mind that we may be sharing part or all of your statement with audience, media and our stakeholders so by sending a little note our way, you give us permission to quote you.

Thanks for starting this celebration with us! And don’t forget to come early to our lobby during the Festival to read what others had to say.

I have already been receiving some great responses from playwrights who have worked with us, including this one en français from Quebec playwright Larry Tremblay whose play Abraham Lincoln Goes to the Theatre premiered in English here in 2010. I leave you with his words:

What would you like to see happen in the next 25 years of the Enbridge playRites Festival?

“De l'audace, de l'intelligence, de la réflexion, du plaisir, de l'échange.”

Nominated for a Canadian Blog Award

2010-10-12T14:29:00.003-06:00

Some good news to start the week: ATP Insider has been nominated for the 2010 Canadian Blog Awards, in the Best Culture & Literature Blog category!

First, a congratulations and thanks to everyone and their awesome support that made this possible. To win, however, we need your votes.

We are up against some worthy competition, so spread the word and vote often!
The link to the poll is here:
http://polldaddy.com/poll/3900721/

Round 1 ends on Saturday Oct 17th at noon, and the top 5 from each category goes on to Round 2.
For additional information and the full list of nominees, go to:
http://cdnba.wordpress.com/

High fives across the board,
-ATP Insider

Admin

Theatrons and the Immediacy of Theatre

2010-10-08T12:00:00.002-06:00

Linda Griffiths started rehearsal this week for her solo show The Last Dog of War, running at Alberta Theatre Projects October 19 - November 9, 2010. Her director and dramaturg Daniel MacIvor is here too. On the first day they hosted a fascinating conversation about immediacy in the theatre, a conversation that spilled into the office afterwards.

It's a weird thing about live theatre. We work so hard to make sure everything is smooth and perfect by the time the audience gets to see it. The costumes are sneakily built, with hidden zippers and pockets that are exactly the right size for the action. We make stage couches less cushy than normal couches so they don't swallow the actors while they try to project. We test every sound cue so it is heard on exactly the right syllable, and every lighting shift so it illuminates exactly the right number of square inches on stage with exactly the right shade (or 'colour temperature'). We often congratulate ourselves when all the elements finally come together: "Tonight, it was like a well-oiled machine" we say to each other in note sessions after a good run of the play.

And yet - ultimately, what we're really seeking, is a sense of spontaneity, of aliveness. You know those moments when suddenly it feels like we're all in the same room, together, actors and audience, even though, at the same time, a story is being spun into the air? That's the treasure of live theatre, really. That's the gold.

We use a lot of different words for that indefinable something. Presence. Immediacy. Listening. 'Playing dangerously'. Edge. Truth. Everyone has a different code word for it. But we all seem to agree: that's what we really want to produce.

Linda Griffiths has such a hunger for it, that, before she wrote a word of the play down, she improvised the whole of The Last Dog of War spontaneously for a live audience, two days after she finished the experience that the show describes. On the first day of rehearsal here at ATP, she described her desire to go back to her improvisatory roots, to 'put herself in a really scary place' so she could tap the incredible creative energy that comes from spontaneity. And though she's refined and performed the piece many times since then, she and Daniel are using her rehearsal time here to reinvestigate that quality of immediacy. She's actually trying to practice the habit of spontaneity, to build a structure that permits her to be free as she performs the show. In a way, she's taking us back to the roots of theatre: just telling a story. That's it. No bells. No whistles.

So when you come see her in the show, you'll hear a terrific, entertaining, and moving story, about big themes like war, and fathers and daughters, told by one of Canada's most consummate and charismatic performers. You'll also witness someone exploring the boundaries of what the live theatre is - working on the balancing point between careful, artful preparation, and a radical investigation into the power of immediacy.

My code word for that awesome burst of energy that comes when a performer really connects with an audience, is 'theatrons' - units of theatrical energy. There are already a ton of theatrons zipping around upstairs in the rehearsal hall. I'm looking forward to seeing them unleashed in the Martha Cohen Theatre on October 19.

Breathing Life into the Draft

2010-10-01T12:00:00.001-06:00

This Monday & Tuesday we held our Fall Workshops. It’s a time when we come together to have one last kick at the playRites scripts before heading into rehearsals in December.

So who’s “we”? Who develops the scripts & who’s in on the process?

Artistic Associate Festival, Vicki Stroich, welcomes everyone to the Fall Workshops.

L to R - Actors: Kira Bradley, Trevor Leigh, Jamie Konchak; Vicki Stroich, Scott Reid (set design), Marcie Januska (stage management), Trina Davies (playwright), Vanessa Porteous (Artistic Director & director of Heartbreaker). Back row R: Jen Darbellay (costume design).

The actors
Usually we have the actors who will be performing in the shows read the parts in our workshops. It allows the actors to keep getting acquainted with the characters they’re going to be playing in a few months & it’s also valuable for the playwrights to start hearing the actors’ interpretations of their text.

The playwrights
They (typically) travel from across the country to be in the rehearsal hall & hear the plays read aloud. (This year, our playwrights are based out of Vancouver [Trina Davies], Edmonton [Mieko Ouchi] and Toronto [Morwyn Brebner]). This gives them a chance to hear the most recent draft & listen for any changes they want to make as their rehearsal drafts are due in early November. This gives them almost 2 months to continue to make changes in between this workshop reading & the first day of playRites.

The designers
Also travel from near & far to join us. They listen to the readings & afterwards, get together with the playwright & director to start jamming about some initial ideas that they have. Their deadlines are also later in the fall so this is the perfect time to meet & get on the same page about the look & feel of the show.

The directors
At this stage in the game, they are the ultimate binding agent between the play & the design team. The directors already have a strong working relationship to the playwright & the play (as the biggest workshop moment of all typically happens in June at the Banff Playwrights Colony) – so the director now starts morphing possibilities into actual choices. Questions like, “What period are we in? What’s the look, feel, tone of the play? What are the sticky transitions we should start flagging?” are all tackled. Just like the questions you ask on a new play, design questions start macro & then get micro. We don’t have to decide what colour the prop phone should be, but we should definitely agree what time period we’re working in & whether or not we’re going to use a revolve (right Scott?).

The dramaturgs
Vicki & I have been with the plays for about 8 months or so, at this point, & continue to be present at design meetings & run our dramaturgical meetings. We continue to ask questions or make suggestions that may guide the text into its next phase of development and, maybe most importantly of all, at this stage: we’re ATP ambassadors – bringing copies of the production schedule, starting to remind everyone when things are due, when the playwright may want to come back into the rehearsal process, etc. It’s not just about developing the draft anymore; it’s about moving us into production.

And I know I speak for everyone when I say that the Fall Workshops make antsy to just get into rehearsal for these shows!!

And to assist the ants in our pants, I promised Trina Davies I will make her a “playRites Advent Calendar” to help us countdown to December rehearsals. I should probably get on that …

xoAmy

It’s Alive!

2010-09-24T12:43:00.002-06:00

My weekend is going to be great. I already know this. It will include my two favourite things: great live music and great theatre.

One of the many stunning moments of harmony from The Penelopiad cast
Photo by Trudie Lee

It starts tonight, the opening of The Penelopiad by Margaret Atwood here at Alberta Theatre Projects. The show combines both of my favourite things: epic and inventive theatrical storytelling with 11 powerful performers whose voices are often weaved together in beautiful songs composed by Allison Lynch, who also appears in the show. There are lots of great moments in the show, but there is one moment in particular that always overwhelms me and moves me. It is at the end of act one, the whole cast in onstage, several of these talented women are playing instruments and they are singing a rousing céilí. The power of those voices and the song washes over me and I find myself affected in every way. It is the power of watching something live — that exchange of energy between performer and audience that I find to be such an addictive high.

It is this unique energy that ensures that theatre will always be a vital part of our culture. Even while we worry that theatre is losing its audience to other media, we must remember the intriguing and original power that live performance has to transport us.

Joey Burns of Calexico. I was in the front row for all of their workshops at the Calgary Folk Music Festival in 2008

My weekend will end on Sunday night when I see Arcade Fire and, one of my favourite bands, Calexico play at the Stampede Corral a few blocks away from my home. I go see a lot of live music because it too has the ability to transport me and to overtake my senses in a way that reminds me I am alive. That may sound like overstatement but there is no other way to describe those feelings. The first time I saw Calexico play years ago I forgot where I was and felt exhilarated afterwards. I will be chasing those kinds of experiences for the rest of my life. I can think of the top ten best concerts I have ever seen and they have each transported me in some way, they have left me energized and more aware. Good theatre does that too.

I Heart The Electric Company

2010-09-17T12:00:00.008-06:00

Last night, Vancouver’s Arts Club Theatre presented the world premiere of The Electric Company’s latest show, Tear the Curtain, and I was able to get away from Calgary to be there for opening night.

Outside the Stanley Theatre. "Morning- after" shot.
I won't tell you what time I left the theatre the next morning...

Seeing shows is part of my job and knowing what’s happening in the Canadian theatre scene helps me better know where ATP fits into the mix. I love my job, I’m loyal to my company … but I have a confession:

If The Electric Company were a man, I’d want to have its baby.

And since this is a blog and not an academic journal, what better place to tell you why The Electric Company is like the man of my dreams:

1) They’re sexy
A huge part of their appeal is their *ahem* physical world. If you remember Studies in Motion, which we brought to you in the spring of 2009, you know that this is a smokin’ hot show. Crystal Pite’s choreography? HOT. Robert Gardiner’s projection work? HOT. Kim Collier’s direction? HOT. Head to toe, limb to limb, that show was HOT. Tear the Curtain was just as sexy but rocked a different vibe. Blending theatre and film, projections served as close-ups on particular moments of stage business or to relay an entirely new location to us. They deepened our connection to the live action and expanded the possibilities for how far the story could physically go. Add in the art-existential crisis of the protagonist, Alex Braithwaite and you have a physically stunning show with intellectual intensity. HOT!

2) They have a good sense of humour
The moment in Studies in Motion when a potato fell from the Blacksmith’s loincloth. Enough said.

3) They’re the kind of company you can see yourself falling for
Their shows hit you and hit you hard. I will never forget the piece of choreography in Studies when Larkyns was shot by Muybridge. The effect was something in between dominoes and a strobe light – the precision of it, the inventiveness of the movement … and so deceptively simple! I knew I was digging that show from the moment I laid eyes on its opening sequence (first impressions ARE everything, after all) but moment after stunning moment, I was falling for this beautiful piece of theatre.

4) They keep the spark alive
I’m just going to say it: sometimes theatre bores me. When we fall into the traps of our own tricks and stop pushing ourselves to see things in new ways, we get dull. It’s hard for an audience to stay attracted to something that’s become predictable. And I am consistently drawn to The Electrics. Their tagline, “Everything you wanted, nothing you expect” pretty much sums it up (and, again, gets points for sexiness with its alluring “you know you want me” vibe). And you know what? Tear the Curtain WAS everything I wanted and nothing I expected (which makes me want to write “Point 4B – It’s like they KNOW you!”) I wanted projections. I wanted a well-calculated, sharp script. I wanted to be swept away in the 1930s through strong stylistic choices. I did not expect to be so dazzled by their "smoke and mirrors" effects that allowed for characters to pop in and out like magic. I started to lose my grip on what, exactly, WAS happening - which is the exact sensation Alex Braithwaite has, as the story progresses. I never expected to be pulled so strongly into the protagonist's mindset and the way The Electrics achieved this was brilliant. They are consistent in their inventiveness and persistent in their curiosity – making for loyal, adoring audiences.

5) They’re both the life of the party and capable of intimacy
Don’t let shows like Studies, No Exit or Tear the Curtain fool you; The Electrics can captivate a huge room but they’re capable of intimacy as well. Perfect example: The Flannigan Affair, which played at Vancouver’s HIVE Festival in June 2008 (during the Magnetic North Theatre Festival). About 15 audience members tucked into a teeny performance space to see them play with video projection and forced perspective. They’re always authentic, no matter what room they’re in. And nothing is more attractive than that.

xo Amy

Prepping The Penelopiad...

2010-09-10T12:00:00.003-06:00

It's week two of rehearsals for The Penelopiad by Margaret Atwood. People often wonder exactly what we do when we rehearse. So here's a typical day: today. Several cast members showed up at 9:30, before the official start, to do a yoga warm-up graciously led by Denise Clarke (thank you Denise!). From 10 am till 11 am, the actresses stood at the piano and learned two of the songs from the show. They both include harmony lines, and one of them is also sung as a canon, or round, so it takes tricky fiddling. It's a treat that everyone in the cast is musical, so they pick songs up very fast.

From 11 to 1:30, and then, after a lunch break, from 2:30 to 6pm, we continued 'blocking.' We're figuring out how to tell this epic tale most clearly using words, movement, positions on stage, and acting choices. Theatre director Peter Brook says, 'makes the visible invisible' - and that's really the whole point of rehearsing. Discovering what's important in the text, story and relationships of the play, suggested but not necessarily 'visible' if you were just to read it superficially - and making both the simple story and all those levels and subtleties perceivable by an audience.

Here's an example of some questions we tried to answer today. What will we do to show the audience that Penelope and her maids weaved a shroud, and then un-wove it every night, and that this experience was the basis of their emotional bond? What will we do to suggest the growing tensions in Penelope's palace, as her suitors become demanding and aggressive? How do we show that Penelope's relationship with her maids is changing thanks to this tension?

So, all day, everyone stands and moves around on the outline of the set, which at this point is represented by tape on the floor. Carrying our scripts, we discuss options, try things out, scribble notes down in pencil to remind themselves of what we decided. We act out a page or two of the play, feeling our way through it physically. Then we stop, go back, make decisions, try other options, and run it again. We do that a few times depending on how challenging the section is. Then we do the next bit. It's fairly slow work with a play this dense and complex, and with so many people in it. But today, we blocked 15 pages - a good chunk.

We have some of the props (objects handled by actors in a show) that we'll be using in the finished production, up in the rehearsal hall (like mugs and baskets for example). Others are still being built or purchased by ATP's crew. Some props and most costumes will only be available to us when we move to the theatre next week. So in the meantime, we use stand-ins to give us the feel. Right now, all the actresses playing maids all wear lab-coats in rehearsal to give them the feel of what their costumes will be like. Eventually, of course, they'll be in maid dresses. For now though, it's kind of fun to see them all get into their lab-coats at the beginning of rehearsal, like we're about to perform some crazy science experiment together.

Cheerio for now,

See you at the theatre.

Vanessa.

This is a photo of my sweet peas.

There is a lot to celebrate and be thankful for…

2010-09-03T12:30:00.000-06:00

Okay, so this has been a big week so this is going to be a big blog post.

The week started with Calgary’s annual theatre awards, The Betty Mitchell Awards (aka The Bettys). Our community awards ceremony always happens as we are all starting rehearsals for the first shows of our seasons. It is a way to celebrate the work the season before and have a huge party to kick off the work that is to come. And there was a lot of wonderful work to celebrate in Calgary last season. The range and quality of the work recognized at the Bettys always fills me with pride as I am reminded how inventive and ambitious my peers here in Calgary are.

I was also reminded how proud and thankful I am to work at Alberta Theatre Projects. The work in our 2009/2010 season was honoured with 8 Betty Mitchell Awards including an Outstanding Production Award for Eric Rose and David van Belle’s The Highest Step in the World which we produced with Ghost River Theatre. The award was shared with Vertigo Theatre’s production of Evelyn Strange. With all due respect and affection to everyone nominated, I have to admit to being especially chuffed about The Highest Step receiving this recognition. After three years of being involved with it from idea to production, I am so proud of Eric, David and the great team of artists they assembled to do something so big, bold and beautiful.

The morning after The Bettys I sat in our rehearsal hall marveling at another big, bold and beautiful project; our season opening production of Margaret Atwood’s The Penelopiad. I am lucky enough to be production dramaturge on the project. The powerful weaving of the voices of 11 actresses from our community, the striking design and the feeling that we were embarking on a great theatrical adventure was exhilarating to experience. And that was just the first day; I can’t wait for the rush of opening night.

I often feel like I receive a gift everyday that I get to do what I love; working with theatre makers. But this week I received a beautiful and completely overwhelming gift from my peers, from my community; a Betty Mitchell Outstanding Achievement Award for my work as a dramaturg and advocate for new work. It is a humbling honour.

I wrote a little speech for the occasion and many people have said very nice things about it. They have asked me to share it. I am actually pretty shy normally about this kind of from-the-heart stuff. Don’t get me wrong, I dig public speaking but when the focus shifts to me I have a tendency to downplay or do a little self deprecation and try to turn the topic around to someone else. The experience of speaking these words and tear up in front of all my peers on Monday night was vulnerable enough. But I greatly appreciate that my words meant something to those folks and that others who were not there to hear those words have asked to see them. And the thanks that I express in the speech go beyond the people who were in that room Monday night. The words in the speech also happen to be from the heart and I mean them. If what I appreciate in other people is bold and beautiful risks, then I should learn to appreciate them in myself.

So, please find below the text from my acceptance speech. The speech is an expression of thanks not only to my community for the Outstanding Achievement Award but also for the gift of being able to follow my passion in the theatre. Thank you to everyone who has had a hand in that.

- Vicki Stroich

I have a lot of people to thank because any contribution I have made has come with the support, guidance, encouragement and inspiration of the people around me.

First, thank you to the Betty Mitchell Awards Steering Committee and especially Adrienne Smook for this surprising and humbling honour.

I have to thank my teachers, my friends and my family. My parents (who are here tonight) for showing me the value of hard work and for supporting my choice to live a life less ordinary.

I need to thank all the collaborators and co conspirators I’ve worked with, all the playwrights, directors, actors, designers, stage managers and crew for the amazing and unique experience of creating new things together year after year, with all the challenges and triumphs that process brings.

I want to thank my fellow dramaturges, the ones in this room and the ones across Canada, across the border and in other parts of the world for reminding me what a vital role we have.

I thank the Canadian theatre community and most especially I have to thank this community of artists here. I grew up here in Calgary both as a person and an artist and every year I am reminded that this is a community of artists who make things happen. There is ambition and heart and an ingenuity here that is constantly inspiring. No matter how big and bold the idea, I know we will find a way to make it happen. And that’s rare. And I treasure it.

And I must thank Alberta Theatre Projects and the people who have raised me up in the theatre, who supported me, gave me not only the encouragement but the resources to foster the work and make things happen and who have done so with a great deal of love and a massive amount of good humour; Bob White, Dianne Goodman, Vanessa Porteous, Lyndee Hansen and all the great people I have worked with.

I can appreciate what goes into supporting someone or something. It’s what I have chosen to do. And as someone who has chosen to support and advocate for the vision and work of other people, it seems strange to be up here at the mic alone accepting an award for something that is meant to be behind the scenes.

But when people ask me what it is I do, exactly, I use that word “support” a lot. I also use words like listen and witness. On the surface these words might seem passive, but I have learned not to think of them that way. It has been my experience from working with artists that the act of listening, the act of witnessing is a powerful and rare contribution to someone’s work. I used to take it for granted. I don’t anymore.

The other part of that “support” is more vocal; I ask questions and advocate. I use my voice to help people understand their work better (at least that’s the goal) and if I can, I help them gather the resources and team together to make their project everything it deserves to be. I used to take that for granted, too; my voice. I don’t as much anymore.

I chose to support people because I wanted to make some contribution to the world they wanted to create, to the voice they wanted to express, to a vision they wanted to share. The unique quality of theatre to create an exchange of ideas and emotions and most of all, energy, captivates me. I didn’t think about what the result of 9 years of listening and witnessing and questioning and advocating day to day would contribute. I choose to do it everyday because, like you, I love the theatre. Because I wanted to contribute to it. Because it means something.

That I am standing here being given an award for the sum of those contributions (so far) is truly humbling. I will not take it for granted. It inspires me to contribute my eyes and my ears and my voice and my heart tomorrow and the next day and the next day and on and on.

Listening and witnessing and questioning and advocating is something we can all do. These are contributions that we can all make to our community, to our culture and to this art form that we all love. Please don’t take your own individual contributions day to day for granted. They mean something.

Suuumertiiiiime, & the readin’ is eaaaaaasyyyyyy.

2010-08-27T13:00:00.000-06:00

While the theatre’s been dark all summer, I’ve turned the rooftop patio into my private reading retreat.

That’s a good portion of my job description: finding & reading the hottest new plays that are out on Canadian & International stages right now. I’ll read about 80 plays a year (with the total number of plays Vicki, Vanessa & I read, combined, usually being double that number) and most of them get read in the summer and early fall. So while we’re kick-starting our 2010-2011 season, we’re already making big plans for what to bring you in 2011-2012 and beyond.

So how do I know when I’ve read a play that feels like it’s a match for ATP?

I just know. It “clicks”. I can feel the writer trying to tell me something special.

Full disclosure: I am really into playwrights. I love that they have chosen to gather us all in the theatre to share their unique perspective on the world. When I hit it off with a play, I’m still thinking about it long after I’m finished reading it & I frequently find myself quoting new favourite lines or mulling over particular moments on stage.

But I have to be very careful when my personal taste doesn’t override my professional role at ATP. Thankfully, almost always, the two are one & the same because I’m an ATP kinda-gal.

I like plays that are working to connect with an audience. Plays that are screaming to say something that matters. Plays that aren’t just an intellectual exercise but an emotional experience. To quote Vanessa, “plays that are about what it means to be alive right now”.

As a theatre history nerd, I still LOVE guys like Ibsen Beckett & Brecht because of their unique, creative responses to the times in which they lived.

But nothing beats a contemporary playwright. They are the ones stewing on city sidewalks about what is going on in our world; typing away on their laptops to turn those current obsessions into pulsating contemporary plays.

And I’m so jazzed that I’m apart of a team that brings those stories here, to meet all of you.

- Amy Lynn

Season Kick Off!

2010-08-20T13:00:00.000-06:00

Hi all,

Welcome to my very first blog post!

There sure is a lot going on here at Alberta Theatre Projects, as the skies in Calgary start turning that deep late summer blue, and we head into the start of our new season. it's staggering how much everyone is doing right now: revamping the web site, selling tickets to the shows (have you bought a flex-pass yet? $140 for 4 tickets to use however you want! Not that I'm trying to sell you anything...); welcoming 2 Junior apprentices who are joining us for a 'gap year' after high school; setting up workshops for the world premieres of the Enbridge playRites Festival plays; making sure we reconnect with our donors and supporters; getting the Martha Cohen Theatre shipshape for another year of shows - and the list goes on.

This week was 'monster clean-up day,' That's the day when everyone stops doing everything and we clean and tidy the whole place top to bottom. As Queen Elizabeth I used to say about taking a bath, "we do it once a year, whether we need it or not."

The big news around the office is that it's only 6 more weeks until our new Managing Director arrives. David Shefsiek is his name and he's coming to us from Pacific Opera Victoria. At a theatre company, the Managing Director is the secret weapon, the engine, the glue. He and I lead the company together. We share a vision for the future and we bring our different strengths to the grand task of doing theatre about what's now, what's new and what's next. David is mighty smart, energetic and imaginative - and he talks even faster than I do, so look out world.

My major thing these past couple of months has been preparing to direct The Penelopiad by Margaret Atwood, the first show of our season (September 21 - October 9). It stars Meg Roe as Penelope (whom you may remember from The Syringa Tree) and 10 amazing Calgary actresses. A hugely ambitious and exciting show, for cast size alone - and a terrific challenge for me!

The script is a beautiful puzzle of potent images, lively adventures, comic moments, poetic sequences, and devastating, heartrending scenes too.

With the design team of Terry Gunvordahl (sets & lights), Deitra Kalyn (costumes), Allison Lynch (composition and live music, plus she's in the show as a maid), and Denise Clarke (movement design - plus she's playing a maid and Helen of Troy) we're well into planning. We have a set of deep Aegean blue and ropes; a wonderful range of contemporary/timeless clothing, tea-dyed, ombre'd, deeply hued, eclectic; a musical soundscape created live that will include violin, vocal harmonies and percussion, and movement that's all about images of birds, waves, cleaning, water, dancing and hanging.

Now that the major design ideas are underway, and I've done some research and some thinking about theme, character, style, and story, I'm into the nitty-gritty. I spend all my spare moments working through my already dog-eared script, using many blank sheets that have the ground plan of the set photocopied on to them, and wielding a pencil, an eraser, and a pitcher full of lemonade. I'm pre-planning all the major moves and positions for every moment of the show - 'blocking' or 'staging'. With a cast this large you've got to do that ahead of time so you can use precious rehearsal hours for deeper and more creative work rather than traffic patterns.

Strangely though, I find that the intense practicality of blocking on paper always unlocks all kinds of deeper insights, feelings and questions about the play. It's one of the best ways to get into it. Isn't it weird how doing very concrete stuff leads so easily to dreaming and imagining? So I sit there and stare into space, pondering. then I write something cryptic down in my notebook in my purple pen. Then I turn my attention back to the diagrammatic squiggles on my page. And then I repeat.

I have to tell you, it's awesome.

That's about all for this week, see you at the theatre,

Cheerio,

Vanessa

PS You can follow me on Twitter here @ATPvporteous

ATP Insider Launch Date!

2010-08-18T11:09:00.000-06:00

We are very excited about the launch of Alberta Theatre Projects' new blog ATP Insider. We are going to be putting up the first post on Friday August 20, 2010 at 12 noon for the world to see. This will be in combination with the Alberta Theatre Projects website re-vamp launch and the start of single ticket sales for the 2010-2011 Season.

Friday is going to be a big day! Make sure you check back on Friday to see Artistic Director Vanessa Porteous' first post and many more to come after that!

-ATP Insider
Admin.