Over the past few months I have worked with Theatre Smith-Gilmour to create a new portal that much like our site here at Praxis, runs a blog and social media tools off the home page, while also acting as the main website for the company. This project will be generating a lot of content leading up to Theatre Smith-Gilmour’s presentation of the first ever sino-Canadian co-production LU XUN blossoms at Luminato in June 2010.
If I imagine this site as more journalism, with less of a focus on theatre, I guess it would look something like this. With a staff of writers and editors from across Canada, it looks alike a national online conversation on the confluence of culture and politics is in he mix. From a design standpoint it is impressive how clean and simple it is too.
Andrew Zadel has written three and performed in two Praxis Theatre productions over the years. Recently he returned to Canada after working with Solidarites International abroad and re-established his Montreal-based company Chesterfield Productions, which he runs with this sister actress Lydia Zadel. With a new production planned for fall/winter 2011, this is the company’s new site.
This is a personal blogspot blog run by Marie Beath (pronounced Mary Beth), a theatre artist living in Toronto who uses her site to communicate, “a collection of lovely, quirky, spicy intersections”. She was likely unaware of our unofficial policy that anyone who posts grade five diary entries about the Toronto Blue Jays is welcome to free promotion on this site. (P.S. Mary Beath – Brett is his last name: You were most likely writing about George Brett.)
*Interesting sidenote: In his final at bat, George Brett hit a single of long-time Blue Jay closer Tom Henke. (What? Sue me. I have like 4 boxes of this stuff from back then.)
Laura Nordin has been involved in a lot of projects with Praxis Theatre over the years with roles in The Master and Margarita, Dyad, and Stranger, as well as assistant director of all our various performances that have resulted in Jesus Chrysler.
Not content with just creating independent artist driven theatre, she is also a core member of this independent film coop which is shooting scenes from a television show she is considering creating. Additionally – today is her birthday.
This is an animated news story that relies heavily on metaphor about a live performance based on an animated character who was appeared first as a series of static images.
They were both human beings that shared their name coincidentally with that of the production . (They both had two “t”s in their name and the show only has one “t”, but whatever.)
Inspired by this bold choice to gain insight into and communicate the merit of the performing arts, Praxis Theatre announces that effective immediately, we will be abandoning our no-review policy for the website if any of the following people can be found to review the following shows:
An Anne Frank to review The Diary of Anne Frank.
Drew Barrymore to review Barrymore.
A busload of 12-year-old males from Newark to review Jersey Boys.
Spiderman to review Spiderman.
Kim, Kourtney and Khloe Kardashian to review Three Sisters.
Nikki Yanofsky to review Torch Song Trilogy.
Jesus Christ to review Jesus Chrysler.
Pushing the envelope, but worth considering:
Tony Nardi to review The Misanthrope.
Prince William for Kiss Me, Kate.
Sirhan Sirhan to review Assassins.
Kevin Bacon to review Six Degrees of Separation.
Please get in touch through the info@ address above if you are interested in writing a review for our website and you are one of the people listed above.
If you have any similarly themes suggestions please feel free to leave them in the comments!
Reilly Dow will illustrate the The Digital You – creating a visual representation of our discussion through graphic recording.
If you are an Equity member attending CAEA’s AGM in Toronto tonight – this year there is something a little different.
From 8pm to 9:30pm I will be moderating a discussion on the way social media tools like blogs, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube have been rapidly transforming the theatrical landscape in a panel called: “The Digital You.”
The panelists for this discussion are: Ross Manson, Maev Beaty, Marjorie Chan and John Karastamatis. These artists and arts professionals represent a broad range of social media use in conjunction with performance. I think it will be a lively discussion and I am excited to see what it looks like at the end as a graphic recording.
Hopefully we will be able to digitize and share this recording!
Graphic recording is a powerful tool for synthesizing conversations, dialogues, meetings and events. The recorder creates large-format visuals in real time, tapping into the collective intelligence and wisdom of a group and bringing it to life with graphics. These “murals” act as a public memory, and help participants in any meeting or conversation share complex ideas easily.
“You Should have Stayed Home” the documentary airs tonight on CBC. The play gets workshopped this spring and presented soon after.
by Michael Wheeler
How I Got Arrested and Abused at the G20 in Toronto, is one of the first Facebook notes I can think of that practically everyone I knew had read or had at least heard about. Says a little about the circles I move in, but whatever. I had never met its author, Tommy Taylor, but I knew he was in theatre, and I remember taking a little pride in the fact that the person who had responded most scathingly and appropriately through social media to the G20 debacle was one of us.
So when Tommy contacted me to see if Praxis Theatre would like to collaborate with his company The Original Norwegian to adapt his facebook note for the stage, it only took one beer with him and collaborator Julian DeZotti to ensure we would get along, to jump at the opportunity. As a company dedicated to new works by local artists, many of which have been adaptations, this project made a lot of sense for Praxis Theatre in terms of taking what we do, and pushing it one step further by adapting a html social media document. Throw in that we have heavily leveraged our political and online engagement as a company, and it does seem like an awfully good fit.
To celebrate this new collaboration and I interviewed Tommy on GChat earlier this week.
9:10 PM
me: So what made you choose, “You Should Have Stayed Home” as the name of the piece you have chosen to make about your experience at G20 in Toronto?
9:18 PM
Tommy: The documentary on tonight’s The Fifth Estate on CBC, which I appear in, is also called “You Should Have Stayed Home.” (So now people have commented online that the CBC is being callous, rude or that they are “a government pawn”.) So, I rung in with: “I called it that because that is what most people said to me afterward.”
The documentary explores what is wrong with that statement–it attempts to see past the sensationalizing of broken windows and burning cars to show the truth of what happened that weekend. “You Should Have Stayed Home” is not the literal or glib title you might think. I was held in detention for 24 hours and it was horrible, but what I found to be more horrifying was the way average Canadians reacted with apathy and indifference… thus “You Should Have Stayed Home”.
9:19 PM
me: When you say commented online – do you mean on your Facebook page or other places?
9:21 PM
Tommy: Oh, the Facebook. That’s where a lot of G20 talk happens. Different groups, my page, other activists’ pages, Dalton McGunity’s page…
Tommy: Facebook is how everyone heard about it. Since I published it on Tues. June 29 I have received about 5,000 messages from about 21 countries and it’s been translated into 7 languages by various people. I went from around 300 ‘friends’ to around 1,300.
9:26 PM
me: How long after G20 did you write it and why did you decide to?
9:27 PM
(i also love that we have to qualify statements to clarify that actions were taken by people not computers)
G20 Detention Centre
9:37 PM
Tommy: Well, after I got out of the detention centre on Sunday night around 10pm, I hadn’t slept for 40 hours, was cold, starving, dehydrated, no means to get home, no idea where my girlfriend was and running the whole thing through my mind so I wouldn’t forget. And it was raining (our apartment flooded while we were caged up – amazing end to a wonderful weekend in T.O.). Having made it home, I made phone calls to loved ones, changed my wet socks, made notes on badge numbers, names and times, and I still couldn’t sleep.
I got on the computer very early Monday morning and started typing until I was finished Tuesday morning at 11:07am. And why Facebook? I was never a huge fan of Facebook outside of using it for marketing/promotion theatre-wise, but I just wanted to get this out there as fast as possible and to as many people as possible. I also wanted it to get to people who knew me and would take the time to read it. I was afraid that everyone was just seeing the Yonge street mess and missing the important stories from G20.
9:38 PM
me: Kerouack would like this creative process.
9:40 PM
Tommy: Toronto earthquake to signal the start of G20, a flood to end it. Eat that pathetic fallacy King Lear.
me: So, now you have decided to get your theatre company The Last Norweigan, together with Praxis Theatre to make a play based on your note? Why make a play?
Tommy with wristband and evidence bag wearing a T shirt fraught with irony
Tommy:The Original Norwegian….
Awkward.
kidding
9:41 PM
me: I wonder if i will leave that in or not…
9:42 PM
Tommy: Sounds like a Scandinavian take on the Last of the Mohicans
9:43 PM
me: I would rather it was a Scandinavian take on The Last Starfighter
Tommy: Or a Scandavian take on The Last Unicorn.
9:44 PM
That brings us back to the play I think.
9:58 PM
Tommy and Kate went to get slushies and got home a little later than they anticipated.
Tommy: It’s going to be a funny show. After I got out I was angry. Very angry. I did the classic movie angry-guy-punching-a-wall, I was a wee bit broken coming out of there. Then I began to write, began to react in a way that I know how: creating and using humour – that’s how I work through things. Which sounds like lame artsy talk I know, but too bad because it’s true.
Creating a show about the experience was rattling in my head as well, but I needed to write about it first. At the time I wrote that note my friend and theatre cohort Julian DeZotti was away at 1,000 Islands Playhouse. When he finally read about it he got an email to me stating “We’re going to turn this into show! This is outrageous!” and other words of encouragement. Other people said similar things to me about “you gotta make this a play” and in my mind I was saying “I know! I will!”
Then came activism and educating myself on what made G20 possible. There is such a never-ending stream of important causes and information that I got very swept up. It took me about 6 months to react to this as an artist. Which for me, is nuts. I always have my artist hat on for every experience, it’s all fuel for creation – but this got to me on a whole new level. I want to share the insanity of that weekend, why it’s changed me and all the insanity that’s come afterward. A lot of it still makes me laugh. And cry. Laugh-Cry.
me: And so now there is this CBC doc coming out about G20 that you appear prominently in and is named after the piece of theatre you have chosen to make about it. This is pretty good press for a show that hasn’t been made yet when and where can people check it out?
10:17 PM
Tommy: The CBC doc is Fri. Feb 25th at 9pm. The Facebook note went viral and my story appeared a lot of places (online, print, TV). I wound up speaking at a number of rallies (in fact, I got engaged to my beautiful girlfriend and fellow detainee Kate on the Canada Day Rally the week after G20) and I kind of became popular in the world of G20 Toronto.
Lets get engaged!
(Quick note – the CBC website for the doc already has 23 comments and it hasn’t even aired. Here’s a user comment: “as of now it is well established beyond any doubt that all those so called protesters were ‘Bandits In Disguise’ out to achieve their sole objective of creating mayhem and spreading chaos”)
10:19 PM
me: Oh yeah – you and your fiancee Kate got engaged right after this all went down. So really this both is a comedy and a love story then.
10:21 PM
Tommy: Aren’t all love stories comedies, Michael?
me: Fair. Would you take a pic of yourself with your computer for the top of the post?
This spring we will be holding a 3-day workshop of You Should Have Stayed Home, culminating in a public reading of some sort on the final evening. Stay tuned to this website and here for more details.
We hope to see you there and get feedback on what the heck should and should not be in this piece of theatre. We are going to move fast on this one as a three-year workshop process isn’t going to be useful to anyone.
Many theatre artists would like to eat all parts of this hamburger over the course of a given year. Right now its made with mystery meat, but CAEA wants to hear your thoughts on a new recipe.
by Michael Wheeler
If you are a member of CAEA and want to have a say in how you create your own work, the most important email you will ever receive on this topic will arrive in your mailbox starting on Wednesday February 23rd, 2011.
From the “Equiflash” message sent to members last week:
“Members with an active email address on file with the office will receive notification and instructions, directly from Leger Marketing, beginning on February 23. In order to speed processing and enable the kind of analysis that will be needed on the results, this survey will only be conducted electronically.”
“The results of this survey will have a direct impact on policies that will determine Equity’s level of support for small-scale and independent theatre, and this could have a significant impact on your career. We hope you’ll take the time to share your thoughts with us.”
In recent years there has been a nation-wide groundswell of discontent with CAEA’s policies regarding independent artists and their collaborators seeking to make their own work and take control of their careers.
Some examples of this discontent include the formation of The Indie Caucus (2007) which has held four separate public consultations on the topic at various Toronto theatres, Consecutive 96-1 and 42-4 votes at national AGMs (2008-2009) to address the situation, a special packed-house Regional AGM held specifically to discuss the issue (2010), and finally the creation of the Independent Theatre Review Committee (2010) to study the issue and make recommendations.
Eight months after being formed, this committee has taken a single public step: To send you the email you will receive on Wednesday. The answers from the poll linked in the email will form the basis for the values the committee determines should inform their recommendations.
Translation: Four years after this movement started, this is your biggest chance to impact how independently created work is encouraged and made. Do you think Canadian Theatre is going awesome? Do you think we may have to reshape and rethink the way work is created and contracted in the 21st Century? Or is the current model working well?
Normally this is the stuff artists philosophize about in the green room or over beers or whatever. This survey is your biggest shot at having your thoughts impact the way Canadian Theatre is made, encouraged and how you will participate in that ecosystem. Keep your eyes on your inbox and participate in determining the future practices of your industry.
Two things to note:
1 Is your email updated with Equity? If they don’t have your latest you won’t receive the survey.
2 Check your junk mail. The email is coming from Leger Marketing, which also did a recent member survey on insurance. Some members found this survey in their junk mail presumably because it came as a mass-mailing from an unknown sender.
* The Indie Caucus takes no responsibility for members who don’t fill out the survey, are unhappy with their options as artists in five years time, complain about this fact, and are smitten instantly by a thunderbolt.
Mother Russia and the Socialist Fatherland: Women and the Communist Party of Canada, 1932-1941. By Nancy Butler
With specific reference to the activism of Dorothy Livesay and Jim Watts.
by Michael Wheeler
Because Praxis Theatre has been researching 1930s Toronto artist/activists off and on for the past year-and-a-half, I assumed I was already aware of the content of a link sent to the creative team by Jesus Chrysler performer Christine Horne in an email she sent titled: “giant essay on jim and dee”.
The link to the Next Year Country blog led to the document above: a 467-page Queens University PhD History thesis Nancy Butler posted for all to read via embed-able free online publishing software. (As the director of an earlier iteration of this project that included significant access to our content and process, I appreciate the availability of this work online.) The focus of Butler’s thesis are the two protagonists of the Rhubarb stage of our show Jesus Chrysler going on this week at The Rhubarb Festival: Director Jim Watts and poet Dorothy Livesay.
So if you would like a little light reading on an academic perspective of what we have been working on lately, here’s a summary of what the thesis investigates:
Through a close examination of the cultural work of two prominent middle-class female members, Dorothy Livesay, poet, journalist and sometime organizer, and Eugenia (‘Jean’ or ‘Jim’) Watts, reporter, founder of the Theatre of Action, and patron of the Popular Front magazine New Frontier, this thesis utilizes the insights of queer theory, notably those of Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick and Judith Butler, not only to reconstruct both the background and consequences of the CPC’s construction of ‘woman’ in the 1930s, but also to explore the significance of the CPC’s strategic deployment of heteronormative ideas and ideals for these two prominent members of the Party.
“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.”
Two things to note:
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