Rob Kempson is the Artistic Producer of the Paprika Festival and on November 28th, the Festival is celebrating its 10th birthday. For the second year now Rob somehow manages to pull together an amazing Festival of new work by young artists. Sure he has help from a stellar executive team, but the guy doesn’t even drink coffee… what gives? Now that’s hot.
Paprika Does Double Digits: November 28th
A collection of work from the past ten years, performed by current participants, artists, alumni and friends of the Festival
Reception at 7pm, performance at 8pm
Tarragon Theatre Mainspace
Limited tickets available, call the Tarragon Box Office at 416.531.1827
I want you to vote. You have until 8pm tonight to get to your polling stations and participate in the democratic process. If you live in Toronto, this is what you need to know:
Click here to find your ward, and here for a list of councillors running in your ward.
Click here for your polling station. Once you’ve submitted your address you can scroll down to the bottom of the page and even get a sneak peak at the ballot you’ll be voting on. Here‘s an example.
Click here to find out what identification you’ll need to bring. When I voted last weekend, I didn’t have a driver’s licence, so I brought my passport and a credit card statement. There are all kinds of acceptable combinations. I didn’t have a voter card and wasn’t on the voter list either… so don’t let that stop you.
Thanks to you and your votes, praxistheatre.com has advanced to the final round of voting in the Canadian Blog Awards. What is especially exciting, is that in the first round we came out at the top of the polls in the Best Blog and Best Blog Post categories, and in 2nd for the Best Culture & Literature Blog.
What does this all mean? Well, we still need your help. Voting for the 2nd and final round is on, and you can vote for us EVERY DAY, and on your smart phones too! We’ve got some stiff competition in that Culture & Literature category, as the defending champions we are trailing currently and could really use your vote(s).
You can find all three polls below. Would you consider making this post your homepage for the duration of this round, which ends on October 26th at noon? That would be the easiest way to remember to vote each day.
But let’s not forget: one of the reasons they have this competition is to bring new readers to new blogs, so you can find the complete list of finalists here.
You can read more about the Canadian Blog Awards and the other categories here, and refresh your memory on our popular piece “Why Stephen Harper Will Continue to Attack the Arts”, which has been nominated for Best Blog Post here.
There are two rounds of voting, and the top 5 blogs in each category will advance to the second round. Round one ends at noon on October 17th, so get voting!
On Monday, August 16th, City Council’s Executive Committee will be meeting to decide on a long-term plan to increase funding to the arts, with new money made available from the recently implemented billboard tax. Join BeautifulCity.ca in Committee Room 1 at 10am to show your support.
Background information on the 10-year battle of public space advocates to create a Billboard Tax for Art in Toronto can be found here, here and here on the Praxis website, and here on BeautifulCity.ca.
Beatriz Pizano is feeling good about the status of women in Canadian theatre. “It’s very exciting for me. I see a lot of women emerging as writers and directors. When there are obstacles there is a greater opportunity for another kind of art to emerge. You either forget about doing anything or you do something about it.”
For Pizano, though, being a woman wasn’t the issue – being a culturally diverse artist was. When she came to Toronto in 1991-92 it was really hard for her to find work and make it as an actor. The desire to create her own work came from the lack of opportunities for her to tell the stories she wanted in the ways she wanted. “I think it’s very important to support women doing their own work. If you wait for someone to offer you a job – I’m not interested in that.”
Pizano is a playwright, a director, an actor, and the Artistic Director of Aluna Theatre, a Colombian-Canadian Toronto-based theatre company. She travels regularly to international theatre festivals and is heading to Bogota, Colombia in November to attend a women’s festival. “I’m very happy with what I’m doing. I collaborate with some amazing women, specifically in Colombia, who have taught me a lot about women who fight for other women – women who have death threats because a certain group considers it feminist. They continue to do theatre because they believe in what they’re doing.”
However, it is not about politics for Pizano, or trying to push a political view, it is about telling the story and giving a voice to those who can’t be heard. “When I write I don’t think I’m writing for women. That gives me a lot of freedom. I’m looking for an individual and a story… they are women’s voices because I am a woman. But they are voices regardless. I want this story to be heard. Maybe one person who sees that has the power to do something. Or we become more aware of what is happening in the world.”
The most important thing for Pizano is to have conviction in what you say you believe in and respect the art and theatre. “I’m in a place in my life where I know I’m changing things with what I’m doing. If I can change one thing then I’ve done a good job,” she says. As one of two recipients of the 2010 John Hirsch Prizes, from the Canada Council – a prize awarded every second year to emerging professional theatre directors – Pizano is being recognized for the changes she is speaking about. The jury spoke of Pizano as “one of the most important directorial innovators in a landscape of new developing artists in Canada. We recognize her ability to galvanize her community with a proactive commitment to process and production.”
This proactive commitment also includes working with younger women. “I love mentoring young women because I learn a lot from them. They experience a world that I no longer experience. I learn a lot from them about how they see the world nowadays. I find young women now are at a much better place than I was at that age. It took me a whole lifetime to figure out what I wanted and women in their twenties are running programs and coming up with so many ideas.”
Kelly Straughan
Kelly Straughan
For Kelly Straughan, it always starts from the art. “Loving the way women write, women’s stories, working with women. If it doesn’t start from the art then I think it’s really hard to keep it going,” she says. “It’s too difficult to do what we do and not really feel moved by the content.”
Straughan is a director, former Assistant Artistic Director at Tarragon, and current Artistic Director of Seventh Stage Productions, a Toronto theatre company that focuses on telling stories about women, by women, and for everyone. Their most recent production, 9 Parts of Desire, showcased the lives of a cross-section of Iraqi women. Seventh Stage Productions started as a collaboration between Melissa-Jane Shaw and Rosa Laborde, bringing Straughan on board after she completed her Masters in Vancouver. “It came out of discussions [Shaw and Laborde] were having and things they were noticing in theatre. They were seeing so many talented women not working enough and finding it difficult to find female leaders.”
Straughan’s training and education were in a very male environment. She had some wonderful mentors, but they were always men and the content that they gave her to work with was very male in its influence and dynamic. Although she learned a lot, she says it was really Shaw and Laborde that made her start to realize that things could be different. “It took me a while to ask – is there a different way? How are women writing? Is there a difference here?”
Her experiences with Seventh Stage Productions have made her look at how content can be influenced by gender.
“It’s not an overt problem anymore. For many years it was an overt problem. Women were actively on the sidelines. Now it’s beneath the surface. We have to look at the fabric of how plays are chosen. What is the nature of art? How do theatres program a season? What are audiences used to seeing? That’s the hardest to actively combat against,” Straughan says. “I don’t ever feel oppressed by men… but the problem is you pick art based on what speaks to you. You can’t help be moved by something that’s in your life experience… as a director you have to be able to get to the heart of the material. So if it truly does not speak to you then it’s really hard to direct it. I do not blame male artistic directors for picking material that speaks to them or excites them.”
This is where women can help each other out. Straughan suggests that being strong together and supportive for other women is really important in order to produce work in Toronto. “I really feel that in my age range, we are really trying to help each other succeed in whatever way we can.” Seventh Stage Productions is in connection with other feminist theatres in places like New York, and Nightwood Theatre in Toronto. “We’re only stronger together,” Straughan says. “We’re always actively trying to take the pool of women who are concerned about this and make sure that we are unified, so we’re never acting against them.”
The Conclusions
Looking at the personal stories and opinions of women working in theatre provides important context when studying the PACT statistics on the lack of women in artistic leadership positions. Although these statistics are at first shocking, there is a thriving independent theatre community with women creating their own work. Women working as directors, artistic directors and playwrights in the larger PACT theatres going forward will be vital in ensuring women’s voices are heard by a wide range of theatre-goers. However, the definition of success or failure is no longer dependent on these theatres alone.
Donna-Michelle St. Bernard, Erin Shields, Beatriz Pizano and Kelly Straughan, are all examples of women who have created careers in theatre by creating opportunities for themselves. Whatever the motivation – be it giving voice to those who don’t have a voice, story-telling, making art, or writing plays to create more opportunities for women – these four artists are among many women who create theatre in this country so they can delve into the issues that are important to them.
When interviewed, Donna-Michelle St. Bernard said “it’s the responsibility not only for the theatre community to value women in the arts, but for the arts to value women in the community.” This is why giving greater voice and creative control to female artists can make theatre better. It’s a way to tell stories and represent women from a female perspective, leading to a greater diversity of authentic voices on our stages, and this diversity can only help us build better plays, and stronger audiences.
Lindsay Schwietz is a freelance writer in Toronto and a semi-regular contributor to praxistheatre.com.
The Thief and the Cobbler was conceived by Canadian animator Richard Williams, who worked 26 years on the project.
“[Williams is] an incredible animator, though. Incredible. One of the biggest problems we had was trying our desperate best, where we had brand new footage, to come up to the level of quality that he had set.”
—Fred Calvert
The first time that the Miramax version of the film appeared on DVD, was in Canada in 2001 as a giveaway promotion in packages of Kellogg’s Froot Loops cereal.
Amy Zuch is the solo performer and writer behind “Key to Key.” A regular improviser at the Bad Dog Theatre, Amy has also appeared on stand up comedy stages across the city, in musical theatre productions, and in the Toronto Sketch Comedy Festival.
Amy Zuch’s Key to Key, the true story of an animator pulled from fantasy and dropped into the real world, opens at the Toronto Fringe Festival on July 2nd at the air conditioned Royal St. George Auditorium, 120 Howland Avenue (North of Bloor). More information available here on Facebook, and buy advance tickets here.
inFORMING CONTENT Workshop Leader Deborah Pearson leads a workshop exploring immersive theatre and its relationship to ethics.
FREE EVENT June 19: 10am – 1pm
A series of brief “ethics talks” on a range of topics from post-graduate ethicists from the University of Toronto. current . urgent . compelling.
FREE EVENT June 20: 7pm – 9pm
Workshop participants will respond to the “ethics talks” by creating site-specific theatre. immediate . experimental . intimate .
Performances will be directed by Team Leaders Claire Calnan, Susanna Hood, Ravi Jain, Michael Rubenfeld, Mumbi Tindyebwa.
More information available here and here on the Africa Trilogy Blog, and here on Facebook.
Deborah Pearson is co-director of the artist-led experimental Edinburgh Fringe venue Forest Fringe. In January she and her co-director Andy Field were named in the Stage List of the 100 most influential figures in UK Theatre.
“After the years and years of weaker and waterier imitations, we now find ourselves rejecting the very notion of a holy stage. It is not the fault of the holy that it has become a middle-class weapon to keep the children good.”
Rob Kempson is the Artistic Producer of the Paprika Festival and on November 28th, the Festival is celebrating its 10th birthday. For the second year now Rob somehow manages to pull together an amazing Festival of new work by young artists. Sure he has help from a stellar executive team, but the guy doesn’t even drink coffee… what gives? Now that’s hot.
What does this all mean? Well, we still need your help. Voting for the 2nd and final round is on, and you can vote for us EVERY DAY, and on your smart phones too! We’ve got some stiff competition in that Culture & Literature category, as the defending champions we are trailing currently and could really use your vote(s).
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