The Steel diaries
Prologue
By Michael Wheeler
Okay so Praxis is remounting Steel. It’s a one-man show that connects a Haida teenager, a failed poet and a racecar enthusiast through the Canadian railroad. We first mounted it two years ago and it did phenomenally well. It was Runner-Up for Best Text at the Montreal Fringe and then won the Producer’s Pick and Best Independent Production at the London, ON Fringe. Eventually we brought it to the t. dot for a weekend and rigged up a workshop production we presented on the back patio of Ted’s Collision. Remember, that was a workshop production; ’cause the version we’re doing now is the, wait for it, Toronto Premiere (thank you Chris Reynolds).
The original version was also performed by the playwright, the multi-talented Andrew Zadel. Andrew, selfish bastard that he is, seems to think that his work as a human rights monitor for the U.N. in the Congo should take precedence over Canadian independent theatre projects these days. Thus, the role has been recast with the Robert Downey Jr-esque James Murray (hey that’s not me, it’s eye magazine). I will be directing it again and Simon Rice joins the production as Assistant Director.
So, we are at the early stages of figuring out how this will work. We know we want to put it on in March. We know we don’t need a large venue, maybe 40 seats. We have looked at a bunch of spaces, but none of the good ones have returned our phone calls. I am looking at a new space on Ossington tomorrow, with our lighting designer, Paul Hardy. I’m hoping it will do the trick. Anyone reading this with suggestions in this regard, feel free to leave us a post.
We’re going to continue with these blogs as the production progresses. This is the boring one that you need to read to get the background and everything. Let’s call it a prologue. Catch further entries that are sure to be full of bon mots about funny things that happened in rehearsal and arguments about what the poster should look like and all the other mundane things that go into a show that I hope to rehabilitate with my propensity for witty prose. I am purposefully throwing humility to the wind here in an effort to get someone ANYONE to start leaving posts about this thing, even if it’s just to chop my ego down to size. More to follow. Stay tuned.
I suggest that there be more use of the word “inaugural”. We were all hooked the first time it was used. Oh wait- I mean it’s inaugural use.
Meredith
Then maybe this blog entry could be the inaugural prologue to Toronto’s inaugural premier of Steel. I think we’ve got something here.
I believe this post is going to lead Mark to give Mike an iaugeration on correct semi-colon usage.
the funny part is that one of my many rent jobs these days is teaching other people how to use semicolons; am i doing something wrong?
The Penguin Guide to Punctuation says:
The semi-colon (;) has only one major use. It is used to join two complete sentences into a single written sentence when all of the following conditions are met:
1. The two sentences are felt to be too closely related to be separated by a full stop;
2. There is no connecting word which would require a comma, such as ‘and’ or ‘but’;
3. The special conditions requiring a colon are absent.
Here is a famous example:
‘It was the best of times; it was the worst of times.’
A semi colon can always, in principle, be replaced by either a full stop (yielding two seprate sentences) or by the word ‘and’.”
—
Thanks Penguin. There is also a semi-colon usage for lists, which is also happens to be demonstrated above.
I thought a semicolon was part of the digestive system. E
ohhhh, eva lays it down! take that literati.