Some thoughts on shopping for Boxing Day

Jim and Dee in Jesus Chrysler

Watch the YouTube Trailer for Jesus Chrysler

by Michael Wheeler

As the artistic leaders of The Worker’s Theatre movement in Canada during The Great Depression, Dorothy Livesay (Dee) and Eugenia Watts (Jim), upon whom Tara Beagan’s new play Jesus Chrysler is based, grew up as good friends and were some of Toronto’s original radical organizers. Based out of U of T’s Hart House Theatre, the two were part of a group that staged agitprop plays that traveled throughout South-Western Ontario in Jim’s car, which they called The Jesus Chrysler.

Members of The Progressive Arts Club including Jim Watts top left. Click to enlarge.

These performances were sometimes done for a handful of interested onlookers and sometimes performed for thousands: When they performed in solidarity with mostly immigrant women cannery workers on strike in St. Catharines they were run out of town by the police. When they performed during the Stratford furniture strike at The Brooks Steam Motor plant they did so for an audience of 3,500, or twice the number that would pack a sold-out Stratford Festival Theatre today.

Eventually these artists went on to stage Eight Men Speak, widely viewed by cultural historians as a key event that motivated the release of Communist leader Tim Buck and his colleagues from the Kingston Penitentiary and signalled the end of the use of the draconian law Section 98, which could be used to jail anyone the state deemed “seditious”. Later in the 1930s, they became inspired by NYC’s Group Theatre and the works of Clifford Odets. Founding a new theatre group called Theatre of Action, they presented the Canadian premiere of Waiting for Lefty and a number of anti-fascist works.

By 1937, Jim had left for Spain where a civil war raged and she hosted a radio show, wrote articles for a progressive newspaper and drove an ambulance. Dee went on to become a major poet after the war, winning two Governor General awards and eventually becoming an officer of The Order of Canada.

Jesus Chrysler explores the complex relationship between these women and focuses on an imagined episode in and around the founding of the Theatre of Action.

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Click here to go to the Facebook event page

Book Review: Committing Theatre

Click to enlarge

by Michael Wheeler

Alan Filewod’s Committing Theatre begins with a single event from June 1919. Unable to get a response from his government about how the upkeep of city properties are impacting his private garden, a man goes to City Hall and presents the Mayor of Vancouver’s secretary with a bouquet of flowers picked from properties that adjoin his. The bouquet is covered with caterpillars.

This is an important refrain throughout the book. Filewod starts before the 1920s radio sermons of Social Credit founder and eventual Alberta Premier William Aberhart, and takes us all the way to the current Toronto-based practices of Mammalian Diving Reflex’s Darren O’Donnell. Throughout, Filewod keeps returning to the caterpillar episode he considers an example of what Bertolt Brecht would later call gest, “a theatricalised action that embodies, enacts and watches a social critique.”

Reading much this expansive history of Canadian political theatre sitting in and around Occupy Wall Street in Zuccotti Park in NYC, I couldn’t help but speculate that these occupations of public spaces have something in common with the man who walked into Vancouver City Hall a century ago. Both are frustrated with a perceived injustice their government will not listen to, and both are determined to express this frustration through a non-violent gesture that exists physically in the real world. Both the Occupy protests and the man with a bouquet of caterpillars commit a consciously theatrical act.

Click below to read the rest of the review on Rabble.ca

Should artists be grateful for a 5% cut from Harper?

by Michael Wheeler

This week, more than a hundred members of the Canadian Arts Coalition met on Parliament Hill for meetings with more than a hundred MPs and Senators.

A hectic day of meetings for this group was capped off with a reception in the Speaker’s Lounge where the Minister of Heritage, James Moore, addressed an “electric” closing reception. From his speech to the arts advocates around the country:

“The tone of the coalition, and the way you are all coming together, in a very positive leading way, a forward leading way, this is what we aspire to, this is what we hope that we can do in terms of public policy achievements, and reaching out and talking to us. And it’s so important that that be the process, and it not be adversarial.

This is a majority Parliament and it’s not going anywhere for four years. The mix of MPs that you saw in the House, that you saw today, will be the fact of the Federal Parliament for the next four years. So we have to work together, we all will work together to keep that professional effect.”

Intrepid arts advocate and blogger Shannon Litzenberger live-blogged the meetings she went to including meetings with highly placed officials from Finance and the Minister himself. From each of these meetings, the message seemed to be the same: The arts will receive a 5% cut  and it would really be in the interest of artists to not speak out against this government.

In fact, Conservative officials and MPs seemed to quite appreciate the efforts of the coalition to normalize relations between artists and the Harper Government, which have never been great, and have been terrible since the PM’s “Ordinary Canadians don’t care about the arts” statement in the 2008 election and the funding cuts to touring grants that preceded it.

Nevertheless, it was hard not to see the stick they were wielding to enforce this normalization of relations, when it was explained that some areas would be deemed “priority areas” with less cuts, which means of course that some areas, deemed not a priority, would be cut more.

Of course this is exactly the sort of thing that drives me nuts, and led me to leave a lengthy comment on Shannon’s blog, which you can read in its entirety here. Below is a portion of that response:

I found the comments from Finance’s Andrew Rankin….shall I say unnecessarily prescriptive? They can be translated as “Stop complaining and start celebrating our initiatives”. The problem is, their initiatives are worth frank discussion. Cutting SummerWorks, shifting Heritage funding to celebrate acts of war, cutting touring programs, funding totally BS festivals like the Walk of Fame Festival (Has ANYONE ever heard of this festival before?). It all adds up to bumbling, ideologically driven, poor public policy.

I also had a question about independent art and artists and the degree to which their needs are on the radar of this government. We have ushered in a new era where funding goes to major institutions who agree to “play ball” and thus can be controlled through access to this funding. Meanwhile the core generators of the cultural ecosystem, independent voices that are more difficult to be silenced, will continue to be starved of access to funding. Then later they will say, “But we increased arts funding!”, when in actuality they have just increased funding to organizations who will agree to be a sympathetic mouthpiece, or at least an uncritical one.

Canada's purchase of new fighter jets is projected to cost $30 Billion, or 192 times the amount distributed annually by The Canada Council.

In the twelve hours since I left that comment, it seems the government has also found a new way to cut money from arts funding and other social programs that improve quality of life for Canadians.

The Globe and Mail reports a significant plan to change charitable giving “in which businesses and citizens shoulder more of the cost of giving.” This comes on top of plans to spend billions on jails, fighter jets, and oh – this just in – nuclear submarines. Is it just me or are some departments being asked to shoulder the burden of balancing the budget more than others?

The Minister of Heritage concluded his speech to MPs and arts advocates with the statement:

“I know that there are those of you that support all sort of political parties and that’s fine….It doesn’t matter. I almost think that supporting culture isn’t a left-wing issue or a right-wing issue, it’s the right thing to do.”

If nothing else, let’s agree to reject this statement as duplicitous, dangerous and insulting. This is a right-wing government that has decided to spend billions of dollars on militarization and corporate tax cuts, while shrinking the money available to all sorts of the social programs that have defined what is great about Canada, including a 5% cut to culture.

Lets not kid ourselves, even if we are stuck with a government the majority of Canadians did not vote for over the next four years, practically any other government would do better.

Malcolm X on Hamlet

Malcolm X presents his closing remarks in a debate at Oxford Union, a special all university organization as part of Oxford University billed as “the world’s most famous debating society” on December 3, 1964.

Peggy Pickit Sees The Face Of God: Probably the best play I’ve worked on so far

Peggy Pickit Sees the Face of God - Tony Nappo, Kristen Thomson, Tom Barnett and Maev Beaty. Photo by John Lauener

by Michael Wheeler

I realize it is a little strange as the Co-Artistic Director of Praxis Theatre and Editor of praxistheatre.com to publish a blog post about the best play I’ve worked on so far and for it not to be a Praxis Theatre show – but there’s PR and then there’s an attempt at truth. Hopefully people read this thing because we appreciate the latter over the former in this space.

Shine Your Eye - Dienye Waboso. Photo by John Lauener

Over the past three years, with the generous support of two grants from Theatre Ontario, I have been a participant in Volcano Theatre‘s  The Africa Trilogy – which premiered last year at Luminato and became Another Africa this year at Canadian Stage.

This participation has taken number of forms; first as Artistic Producer Trainee with artistic and producing duties on all three productions, which I blogged about extensively on praxistheatre.com in a seven part series, and then as the creator and curator of The Africa Trilogy Blog.

Both of these experiences were immensely rewarding. In terms of gaining an intimate detailed understanding of how an ambitious international collaboration goes from idea to reality (praxis) they were invaluable.

There could be no better education in creating original plays than the opportunity to experience directors Ross Manson and Josette Bushell-Mingo, cast, dramaturge, choroegraph and stage new works by new voices in theatre.

In particular, seeing Shine Your Eye, the first dramatic work by Binyavanga Wainana, (just pronounced this week by Forbes magazine as one the 40 most powerful celebrities in Africa) come to life as a thoroughly contemporary African perspective on Africa, expanded my understanding of theatrical potential.

The majority of my work over three years and seven (yes seven!) rehearsal processes was as Assistant Director working alongside director Liesl Tommy and choreographer Heidi Strauss on Roland Schimmelpfennig’s Peggy Pickit Sees The Face of God.

Peggy Pickit Sees the Face of God - Maev Beaty, Kristen Thomson. Photo by John Lauener

Developing a World Premiere of a Schimmelpfennig text over 2008-2011 has inspired two extremely vibrant emotions in me:

1 – Pure inspiration: I remember walking home from a read-through of the play sometime in the second workshop in 2009 with a deep suspicion that, assuming we are still here on earth, this text will be performed in fifty years by Norweigan high schoolers, community players in Austin Texas, and subject to a number of revivals.

There’s nothing quite like being sure what you are doing is important and may possibly outlast you.

2 – Absolute dread: As an artist literally in training to have responsibilities connected to the success of this a once-in-a-lifetime text was intimdating to say the least. When I found myself rehearsal director of a workshop to review blocking and camerawork from Luminato with new Canadian Stage cast members Tom Barnett and Kristen Thomson in April, it was frankly the most pressure I have put on myself.

I watch enough sports to know sometimes guys make The Stanley Cup in their rookie year and that’s the only shot they ever get.

Peggy Pickit Sees the Face of God - Maev Beaty, Tony Nappo, Kristen Thomson, Tom Barnett. Photo by John Lauener

If you can’t tell, I am immensely proud of this play and there is a week-and-a-half left to catch it. You can get some seriously cheap tickets: Under 30: $12.50, PWYC Mondays, and $22 Arts Worker opportunities are all in play.

Click here for full details on cheap tickets, and click here for the Another Africa show page.

If you enjoy new performance that pushes the potential and form of live storytelling I hope you will come. Don’t make it one of those shows you meant to see but things were crazy in the fall, yadda, yadda, yadda. If you come this Friday October 14, Volcano Theatre General Manager Meredith Potter will be talking in more detail about creating the production in the second floor lobby at 7:15pm before the 8pm curtain.

That’s it. That’s my pitch. Thanks to Volcano Theatre for the unprecedented trust and opportunity and to director Liesl Tommy for giving her assistant director real things to do. Hope you can make it.

Declaration of the Occupation of New York City

Statement from Occupy Wall Street – this statement was voted on and approved by the general assembly of protesters at Liberty Square:

As we gather together in solidarity to express a feeling of mass injustice, we must not lose sight of what brought us together. We write so that all people who feel wronged by the corporate forces of the world can know that we are your allies.

As one people, united, we acknowledge the reality: that the future of the human race requires the cooperation of its members; that our system must protect our rights, and upon corruption of that system, it is up to the individuals to protect their own rights, and those of their neighbors; that a democratic government derives its just power from the people, but corporations do not seek consent to extract wealth from the people and the Earth; and that no true democracy is attainable when the process is determined by economic power. We come to you at a time when corporations, which place profit over people, self-interest over justice, and oppression over equality, run our governments. We have peaceably assembled here, as is our right, to let these facts be known.

• They have taken our houses through an illegal foreclosure process, despite not having the original mortgage.
• They have taken bailouts from taxpayers with impunity, and continue to give Executives exorbitant bonuses.
• They have perpetuated inequality and discrimination in the workplace based on age, the color of one’s skin, sex, gender identity and sexual orientation.
• They have poisoned the food supply through negligence, and undermined the farming system through monopolization.
• They have profited off of the torture, confinement, and cruel treatment of countless nonhuman animals, and actively hide these practices.
• They have continuously sought to strip employees of the right to negotiate for better pay and safer working conditions.
• They have held students hostage with tens of thousands of dollars of debt on education, which is itself a human right.
• They have consistently outsourced labor and used that outsourcing as leverage to cut workers’ healthcare and pay.
• They have influenced the courts to achieve the same rights as people, with none of the culpability or responsibility.
• They have spent millions of dollars on legal teams that look for ways to get them out of contracts in regards to health insurance.
• They have sold our privacy as a commodity.
• They have used the military and police force to prevent freedom of the press.
• They have deliberately declined to recall faulty products endangering lives in pursuit of profit.
• They determine economic policy, despite the catastrophic failures their policies have produced and continue to produce.
• They have donated large sums of money to politicians supposed to be regulating them.
• They continue to block alternate forms of energy to keep us dependent on oil.
• They continue to block generic forms of medicine that could save people’s lives in order to protect investments that have already turned a substantive profit.
• They have purposely covered up oil spills, accidents, faulty bookkeeping, and inactive ingredients in pursuit of profit.
• They purposefully keep people misinformed and fearful through their control of the media.
• They have accepted private contracts to murder prisoners even when presented with serious doubts about their guilt.
• They have perpetuated colonialism at home and abroad.
• They have participated in the torture and murder of innocent civilians overseas.
• They continue to create weapons of mass destruction in order to receive government contracts.*

To the people of the world,

We, the New York City General Assembly occupying Wall Street in Liberty Square, urge you to assert your power.

Exercise your right to peaceably assemble; occupy public space; create a process to address the problems we face, and generate solutions accessible to everyone.

To all communities that take action and form groups in the spirit of direct democracy, we offer support, documentation, and all of the resources at our disposal.

Join us and make your voices heard!

*These grievances are not all-inclusive.

www.occupyto.ca

*Eds note – The Globe and Mail reports Canadian occupations are being planned in most major Canadian cities through a website called Occupy Together. The Toronto occupation is being planned by Occupy Toronto Market Exchange beginning on October 15th.

From the Facebook Page:

“NON-VIOLENTLY sending a message to the financial sector worldwide. Canada too is under the same bind of freedom because of monetary policy. Show your support for Occupy Wall Street. Occupy Toronto Market Exchange”

You can find the Occupy Together Facebook Page here, Twitter Feed here, and Occupy TO Facebook Page here.

The dominant Twitter hashtag seems to have settled as #OccupyWallSt. Is #OccupyBaySt about to start trending?

Live Tweeting City Hall Deputations

Praxis Theatre Artistic Producer Aislinn Rose will be Live Tweeting community deputations at City Hall today. Join in the conversation whether you are there too, or following along from home or work.

Click here to go to the Praxis Theatre Twitter account.

You Should Have Stayed Home on Rabble.ca

by Michael Wheeler

“The rich people have their lobbyists and the poor people have their feet.”

Nathalie Des Rosiers, General Counsel of Canadian Civil Liberties Association speaking at a post-show panel at after You Should Have Stayed Home at The 2011 SummerWorks Festival.

This summer I directed You Should Have Stayed Home, a play about theatre artist Tommy Taylor’s experience over 48 hours of the G20 weekend in Toronto presented at the 2011 SummerWorks Festival. While trying to return home from his first ever protest as a law-abiding citizen at the “Free Speech Zone” at Queen’s Park, Taylor was swept up in a mass arrest, caged with 40 other people in a 10ft by 20ft cage and denied drinking water until he passed out from dehydration.

Taylor contacted me in February to talk about collaborating on a piece of theatre adapted from his Facebook note, How I Got Arrested and Abused at G20 in Toronto. Having read the post, I knew the story presented an excellent opportunity to dramatize and address the deterioration of civil rights in Canada.

Click the logo to read the rest of the article on Rabble.ca

There’s something oddly familiar about this plan to jumpstart urban development

From today’s Toronto Star: Doug Ford’s dream waterfront? Ferris wheel, monorail and a boat-in hotel:

“What we’d like to do is have a monorail system that’s running right from the Pan Am Games (site) right along the lakefront and stops at Union Station and Ontario Place and right across the front of the lake,” Ford said.

“And then it would hang a quick little right, right down Cherry St., and as it goes down Cherry St. the first stop would be right at the end of the pier.”