Technicians in their native habitat, a small local bar. They are not impressed by your questions.
by Pip Bradford
Why hello, readers! Pip here, starting my new column on these pages: Dispatches From The Booth.
Over the past ten years, I have worked tirelessly to assimilate myself into that most elusive and mysterious of groups: theatre technicians. During that time I have developed an understanding of the workings of both technicians themselves and the artists that surround them.
For my first column, I thought I would begin with a spot of advice on that most awkward and difficult time: when technicians are encountered by just about anybody else. They are often approached with a smile, and a series of what might be considered thoughtful questions about their job. After all, who knows what technicians really do? Oh, we’ve all seen them, lurking around in the back of the theatre, a disembodied head floating in the booth, a gruff presence sweeping the floor before the show. But “being generally dodgy” cannot be the entirety of their job descriptions, can it?
Now, if you’re not a technician, and your “well-intentioned” questions are met with an eye roll and a shrug, it may be that the technician you’re talking to is just maintaining their misanthropic air of mystery. Or they may be drunk (technicians are often drunk). But it may also be that you have asked them one of the following questions*, all of which are guaranteed to earn you a scornful glance, at the very least.
*As a disclaimer, allow me to state that I have been asked all of these questions at least once, and by people working professionally in the arts.
Here they are: Five Questions You Should Never Ask A Theatre Technician:
1. What are you going to do when you stop being a technician?
Probably die.
2. Why don’t you work for Cirque du Soleil or Mirvish?
Can’t stand musicals, and I’m afraid of clowns.
3. Did you have to go to school for that?
No, I was born with an inherent grasp of photometrics, physics, engineering, mechanics, and sass.
4. How bad is the show/my performance/any other element thereof?
I don’t actually know, because I’ve never watched you perform. I’m too busy operating lighting cues, making sure the right sound cue is playing, checking that your mic is turned on, and criticizing your ability to find your light.
5. Why aren’t you an actor?
I don’t know. Why aren’t you a zookeeper?
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Pip Bradford is the Mainspace Technician at Tarragon Theatre, an intern for the Toronto Fringe Festival, and is the founder of Art Is Hard, a grassroots arts philanthropy project. In her spare time, she is a gadabout and girl-around-town. She also blogs (infrequently) at The Christopher Pike Project.
Tahirah Stanley is an actor/activist in Toronto. She is also the Founder/Project Coordinator for a project called Theatre for Peace. Theatre for Peace is a project that seeks to empower youth, ages 14-18, through the performing arts (acting, singing, dancing, spoken word etc). Over the course of the past 3 months the youth worked with professional artists to develop monologues, dances, songs etc. All of the pieces were then compiled and put together to make a show; OUR STORY.
OUR STORY is a play that is written and performed by the Theatre for Peace participants. It is about their experiences with love, defeat, violence, friendship, and discovery, among many other things. Through OUR STORY you will get a glimpse into the lives of these young people through the dramatic retelling of the issues they face and the joys they find being a young person in today’s society.
Our Story will be taking place today @ 2:30pm @ 60 Rowena Drive. Check out the poster for more information.
Small Theatre Administrative Facility is giving away a FREE Kobo to indie theatre artists. Click the pic to fill out a short survey about indie theatre to be entered in the draw.
Here’s a round up of some interesting thoughts and ideas from the local theatrosphere:
Previous Praxis Theatre contributor LindsaySchweitz has been writing one blog post a day for an entire year. Each month has been devoted to a different topic dedicated to challenging the way Lindsay thinks about and lives her life, with her readers picking the final month’s topic. Check out what they picked.
Crow’s Theatre has published a provocative blog by playwright/performer Sean Dixon that asks some interesting questions relating to existentialism and what we require people to do to become Canadian citizens.
Ben Lewis appears in Other People, the story of three ambitious young New Yorkers who struggle with sex, desire and their art over Christmas in NYC’s East Village.
Toronto City Councillor Josh Colle became a culture hero this week when he surprised the media, Mayor Rob Ford, and pretty much anyone else who was paying attention. Two hours into what was supposed to be three days of intense budget debate he moved a set of proposals that essentially rewrote Toronto’s municipal budget.
Yep, that’s right, pretty much everything that was advocated for in our previous post, went down when the rookie Councillor, who had previously sided with Rob Ford as often as not, became the face and instrument by which Toronto got its services back. Rob Ford’s budget was rewritten and passed in a single day astonishing even seasoned observers.
The eventual vote was 23-21, as other centrist Councillors joined Colle along with progressive pols who had been advocating saving services from the beginning. (Note to progressive councillors: Thanks – you guys are heroes too – it’s just important to encourage this behaviour.)
Is this a turning point for Toronto city politics? Certainly overnight it seems that Rob Ford has become a lame duck mayor. In Federal or Provincial politics if a government’s budget is defeated, the government falls and an election is required. Of course city government doesn’t work the same, but it’s a pretty big deal either way.
This was important because A) It embraces a broad definition of culture that encompasses the complex experience of being a Torontonian and B) takes an approach to cultural advocacy that recognizes saving arts funding while stripping away things like homeless shelters and bus routes is bad strategy that will hurt us in the long run with our allies and fellow citizens.
There is a village
which sits on my shoulders
like a vulture …
Despite this
O my village
I uninvited relate with you
as you fly
within and outside of me
like a vulture
Modern Love written by and starring Jessica Moss was one of 6 sold out shows on Saturday, but the only one to include a rickroll
The fifth edition of the Toronto Fringe-run festival, designed to take companies and shows that have emerged through the Fringe circuit to The Next Stage (get it?) is having a banner year for box office sales.
The first three days of tickets sales each set records. By the fourth day of the festival, six of the ten shows were sold out, including a raucous crowd that packed the Factory Theatre Mainspace to see Montreal’s Uncalled For and their Just For Laughs Comedy Award winning Hypnogogic Logic, based very loosely on the dream logic that exists while falling asleep. Oh btw. hope you have your tickets to see legendary Fringe clowns Moro And Jasp, as their entire run at the festival is sold out already
Just as important as the sheer number of theatregoers, is the much younger demographics attending The Next Stage than your average theatre production. One imagines this will be interesting to any Artistic Director or GM contemplating their non-subscription based ticket sales over the past few years of declining box office in Toronto theatre, as this type of success demonstrates a demand for theatre from a cohort that has sorely been missing.
As this is the Fringe’s last Next Stage Festival with Executive Director Gideon Arthurs at the helm, hats of to him and his team for engineering this success-in-progress, and hats off to The Tarragon Theatre for snagging a GM familiar with a future audience for new Canadian theatre.
We have been around since 2004 making ten original plays and blogging since 2006. We have no government operating funding or corporate sponsorships. Everything we make or communicate is supported by A) The occasional project grant, B) Box office revenue C) Labour donated by Praxis artist/producers, D) Cash donations from people like you.
Right now – for the next 2 days – in pursuit of bolstering option D – you have the option to donate to Praxis Theatre and support the work we do online and on the stage and receive a charitable receipt.
In the past week, we have been selected by NOW Magazine and Torontoist as a company to watch in 2012. It’s an exciting time for us and it feels like our potential will be in large part determined by our resources. Which is where you come in – with a $25 donation – to support relevant, engaged communication and performance.
Thanks! We’ll use it wisely.
Team Praxis
Click here to donate via the Theatre Passe Muraille Canada Helps page, and be sure to select Praxis Theatre in the fund/designation drop-down box.
Soup Can Theatre‘s critically acclaimed show Love is a Poverty You Can Sell is returning to the stage as part of the 2012 Next Stage Festival.
The show pays tribute to the timeless music and musical influence of German composer Kurt Weill with a production that marries the bold and naked theatrical style he and writer/director Bertolt Brecht pioneered with the bravado of traditional musical theatre – all with the ambiance of a 1920’s Berlin cabaret program.
The Agony and Ecstasy of Steve Jobs: Hilarious, heartbreaking, dedicated to exposing the Means of Production in the 21st Century
by Aislinn Rose and Michael Wheeler
10
The Cult of Mac for including Mike Daisey’s play The Agony and the Ecstasy of Steve Jobs in its round-up of 2011 Mac stories.
Cult of Mac reports that in February of this year, bad publicity was at an all-time high surrounding the conditions and suicides at the Chinese factory Foxconn, Apple’s largest supplier. Apple Co-Founder Steve Wozniak was apparently moved to tears by the story as told by Mike Daisey when he saw the show, and urged Tim Cook, Apple’s Acting CEO to see it as well, saying “I will never be the same after seeing that show.” [Full disclosure: this list was created on two Macbooks, with some side research on one iPad, after tweeting to one another via two iPhones.]
We’re not surprised by Wozniak’s reaction to Daisey’s performance. Daisey has appeared on a number of 2011 lists across North America, and for the New York Times list of Cleverest Theatrical Moments a category was created for “most remarkable storyteller who isn’t Mike Daisey”. Daisey was a definite influence on our co-production of You Should Have Stayed Home at SummerWorks this summer, and we hope he’ll come to Toronto soon.
Ouzounian didn’t have much to say in favour of Canadian Stage’s 2011 productions, noting that the only shows anyone seems to be enjoying are the “imports”. He’s quick to congratulate Theatre Passe Muraille on importing Ride the Cyclone, however, hinting that perhaps it’s not WHETHER a show is imported but WHO does the importing, if you’re looking for a measure of consistency. (For more on Ouzounian’s vendetta against large-scale theatrical risk-taking, see Globe and Mail Critic J. Kelly Nestruck’s thoughts on the matter.)
Maybe they’ll open the balcony, but if they do it just to mount Shirley Valentine again who cares?
General Assembly at Occupy Toronto
8
Torontoist for embracing complexity and contradictions by listing Occupy Toronto as both Hero and Villain in their year-end poll.
For progressive-minded Torontonians who think structural change is required to make our society more just, generous and inclusive, Occupy Toronto was equal parts inspiration and frustration.
HERO: “Nominated for: establishing a beachhead of resistance during an age of austerity… Occupy Toronto may have annoyed a lot of neighbours with its first volley of direct action, but in the long run that annoyance has forced a critically vital discussion about social justice into the mainstream.”
VILLAIN “Nominated for: squandering a rare opportunity… “Friday” made Rebecca Black famous; it did not make her talented… No matter what the alt-press told you, the robber barons never broke a sweat worrying about the park-dwellers.”
Storify is an awesome resource that reinforces the notion of Twitter as a microblogging or even news-writing tool. Earlier this year we enjoyed Jonathan Goldsbie’s use of Storify to highlight humourous tweets collected under the #matlowmurdermystery hashtag he created after Councillor Matlow tweeted about attending a murder mystery dinner.
David Hains was another great Storifyer with his use of Storify to collect the Open Letter Councillor Wong-Tam wrote to Mayor Ford via Twitter after she had been blocked from attending a City child care meeting.
Storify used its own tool to highlight the 3 most “liked” stories of 2011, with Josh Stearns topping that list after collecting stories about journalists being arrested at various Occupy protests across the U.S. Stearns had this to say about Storify: “It really paints a whole picture, rather than just being a series of links… You get to see journalists … being tackled by police, shouting that they’re press in video they took as they’re being arrested.”
Just because we missed this multimedia show about terrorism created and presented by Kitchener/Waterloo’s MT Space at Theatre Passe Muraille doesn’t mean we can’t be excited about it topping this list. Great to see a critic unafraid to give accolades a show with reduced profile, if it is in fact the best thing he saw all year.
We're all used to this image now, but take a sec to imagine what it was like the moment before doing it.
5
Huffington Post Canada for including theatre artist Brigette DePape and her STOP Harper sign in their Top News Photos of 2011.
When a lone page on Parliament Hill walked onto the floor during the Throne Speech with the STOP Harper sign she had smuggled in under her jacket, the notion that brave and unimagined theatrical interventions would be required under a Harper Majority was cemented.
It turned out that the page, Brigette DePape, is also a theatre artist who had toured the Canadian fringe circuit with a solo show she had written about the possibility of change through activism. Here’s to theatre artists taking more chances in 2012.
4
J Kelly Nestruck for The Globe and Mail’s Theatre ‘Year in Review’ which reiterates the important role Summerworks plays in the theatrical ecosystem.
For continuing to point out that The SummerWorks Festival is one of the most important places for new theatrical work to emerge and that the recent decision to remove funding by Heritage Canada smacks of political interference.
Ride The Cyclone (practically every 2011 top 10 list), If We Were Birds (2011 Governor General Award) and The Middle Place (2011 Toronto Theatre Critics’ Award), are just a few of the shows that used Summerworks as a barebones way to get these important works in front of an audience. There is no credible reason based on artistic merit for this festival to have its funding pulled.
3
NOW Magazine for their bursting-at-the-seams “Top 10” list.
Not content to mention a mere ten favourites from 2011, Jon Kaplan and Glenn Sumi of NOW Magazine had to include a selection of “other standout shows” and “riveting revivals” along with their “top 10”. This is probably a reflection of the amount of shows this duo sees in a year, and a reflection of their commitment to covering a wide range of indie theatre.
Among their favourites and honourable mentions were several shows by indie companies big and small, including Obsidian Theatre, Studio 180, Litmus Theatre, and Convergence Theatre. (And no 2011 list is complete without mention of Atomic Vaudeville’s Ride the Cyclone from Victoria.) NOW Magazine seems to get how this new theatre ecology works.
This producer, consultant and pundit used his website to compile, summarize and link to most of the major theatre-related top 10 lists for cities across North America. the English-speaking world. Tip-o-the-hat Sir. Well played.
Way to go Ombudsman Marin – you are the praxistheatre.com top of the top 10s for 2011.
First off – flat out mad props to any provincial ombudsman who takes some of his or her time between Christmas and New Year’s to publish a Top 10 list of things their office investigated that year and promote it on their personal Twitter account.
Secondly, although he rates it #8 on his list, we think his report ‘Caught in The Act’ which widely condemns policing actions actions at The G20 Toronto Summit as“the most massive compromise of civil liberties in Canadian history” is historically and fundamentally a categorically important document for all Canadians concerned with preservation of civil rights.
“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.”
Pip Bradford is the Mainspace Technician at Tarragon Theatre, an intern for the Toronto Fringe Festival, and is the founder of Art Is Hard, a grassroots arts philanthropy project. In her spare time, she is a gadabout and girl-around-town. She also blogs (infrequently) at The Christopher Pike Project.
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