“…sometimes
‘Tis well to be bereft of promis’d good,
That we may lift the soul, and contemplate
With lively joy the joys we cannot share.”
-Samuel Taylor Colridge, This Lime Tree Bower My Prison
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Anthony MacMahon is a playwright and actor from Saskatoon, recently relocated to Toronto. His short play, Eglington, will be a part of the Alumnae Theatre New Ideas Festival.
He appears in the Cart/Horse Theatre Toronto premiere of THIS LIME TREE BOWER by Conor McPherson. Playing until Dec. 22 at The Berkeley Theatre Upstairs @ 26 Berkeley St.
Civil Debates is a monthly series that invites two speakers from opposite sides of an argument to debate their perspectives for a liveaudience. It is also a forum for all attendees to participate and vote on who and what they agree with.
We hope this will be an opportunity to extend the online community we have developed over the years in a face-to-face setting, bringing those conversations into a physical space. We’re enthused by the intelligent and civil discourse that has developed on praxistheatre.com, particularly in the commentsofpostsabouthot buttonissues.
This got us thinking – ‘Hey – as a theatre company, shouldn’t we doing this live in a space with human bodies?’
Debate Questions
The topics for the initial four debates will be curated via a gallery installation January 12 and 13 at The Next Stage Festival at Factory Theatre.
A dual system will be used in facilitating participation: Both sticky notes and a laptop will be available to post issues and ideas that people believe would benefit from more debate. These can be posted to topics like: Theatre, Politics, The City, and Whatever. There will also be the opportunity to suggest who you think would be a great debater.
The goal is to emerge with four questions that will inspire compelling debaters to participate in an event that has genuine community interest.
Debate Format
Debates will take place monthly at The Theatre Centre at 1095 Queen St. W (Queen and Dovercourt) in February, March, April and May 2013.
Debate format will be based on the Canadian Parliamentary model with two speakers for either side. Just like the best acting, each debater should have a responsibility to hear the arguments that come before them and respond – not just deliver a prepared statement.
Each debate will have a moderator whose job will be to ensure debaters obey the general rules as well as the speaking format. The formal debate will last around 40 minutes.
At the end of the debate, the floor will be opened to other participants, each of whom can speak for a period of two minutes. All participants, speaking and non, will be provided the opportunity to register their vote on the topic at the conclusion of the evening. These results will be posted back here on praxistheatre.com where further debate and conversation, as always, is encouraged.
Join the Debate
If you are interested in being a debater or moderator, drop us a line via info@praxistheatre.com.Tell us why critical, respectful debate is important in 150 words or less.
Hope to see you in the tent during the final weekend of The Next Stage Festival. This series begins when we get our topics from you.
Throughout today and tomorrow Toronto City Council’s Budget Committee is hearing deputations from the community about what various citizens and organizations would like to see in the next budget. Again this year, a number of arts organizations and individuals will be making the case to increase arts funding to a previously promised $25 per capita.
The above video was created by BeautifulCity.ca, an alliance made up of over 60 arts organizations. It provides an excellent recap of their work to create a tax on billboards that would in turn provide the funding necessary for Council to follow through on their repeated commitments to increase that funding: the Capital Gains Report (passed 2011), Strategies for Arts and Culture Funding (2010), and Cultural Plan for a Creative City (2003.)
Praxis has written extensively in the past about BeautifulCity.ca and their activities, as well as the various public consultations that helped create documents like the Capital Gains Report, and we’ve live tweeted from a number of public events on this topic.
There are many things you can do to show your support for this initiative to create an arts-friendly budget in 2013. Click here for more information on BeautifulCity.ca about attending & supporting the deputations, the Artists Jam Session & Town Hall in January, or how to contact the Budget Committee members directly.
Check out the document below if you’d like more information on the billboard tax, and what exactly BeautifulCity.ca is asking of the Budget Committee for 2013.
Pam Patel, Michael Spence, Madeleine Donohue, Joel Benson & Ciara Adams in The Sacrifice Zone
Theatre Gargantua Artistic Intern and emerging artist Meara Tubman-Broeren interviews one of our favourite Toronto artists Ciara Adams about her work on The Sacrifice Zone and her long history with the company as a creator and collaborator.
MEARA: First I wanted to ask about your history with Gargantua, because you have a long history with the company, and I wondered if you wanted to speak to that experience, and how you got involved with them?
CIARA: I first started working with Theatre Gargantua in 2003. I had a friend who was one of the founding members of the company, her name’s Erica Buss, she had originated one of the parts in Raging Dreams and they were remounting the show. She told me I should audition, so I did, and ended up taking on the role she had originated. After we finished that remount the company started the e-DENTITY cycle, I was an associate artist with the company throughout that entire cycle, from the very first day until we finished the show at the Royal Alex. I stayed on for the first version of Fibber, then things got really busy with my music and bluemouth as we were creating Dance Marathon. It’s been great to be working with Theatre Gargantua again on The Sacrifice Zone.
MEARA: You work and devise theatre with other companies as well, in particular bluemouth, so I’m curious about your personal creation process and how that feeds into the Gargantua process.
CIARA: We are in the middle of a new development process with bluemouth, and it has highlighted the differences in a Theatre Gargantua process and a bluemouth process: it’s really illustrated to me that bluemouth is really not a theatre company, we’re a performance collective (if there ever was any doubt). Theatre Gargantua’s work, though highly collaborative, original and devised, lives much more in the world of theatre, and structurally speaking, it’s more traditional in so much as there’s a director, a script, and you’re working as an actor, be it a multitasking interdisciplinary actor! Whereas in bluemouth we don’t work with a director, we create collectively, sometimes I need to be more of an actor, sometimes a musician, at others a dancer, and we all act as the “outside eye”, so yes, very different worlds. It’s really interesting being involved with both companies because aesthetically speaking, they’re quite different, and as a performer and creator it’s my job to shift to the current situation and context.
MEARA: So part of the creation process for the show was sharing personal stories and experiences around the issue of justice, and one of the stories that became a big influence on this piece was your experience teaching in Fort McMurray.
CIARA: I was thinking about it last night, and one of the things I think is really great about The Sacrifice Zone is that it’s not set in any one place, it could be the coal mines in Wales, it could be Australia, Canada, nearly every country has some kind of mining or extraction industry or history of such. It was by chance that I just returned from my second trip to Fort McMurray when we did the first development of The Sacrifice Zone in June. I go there as a teacher with the Royal Conservatory of Music Schools program Learning Through the Arts. It’s a somewhat surreal place, and even though it’s the oil sands, and there are all these politics associated with it, it’s also a community like any other. These kinds of communities exist all over the world, where the local industry, and therefore economy is so closely linked to day to day life. Fort McMurray has its challenges for sure, being able to go there and bring the arts to that community feels important to me because that’s how we all tell our stories and understand who we are.
MEARA: I’m curious about how, since your formal training was in voice and acting, you ended up in the world of more physical work and collective devised work.
Ciara in motion with Michael Spence
CIARA: I did start as a music major it’s true, but by the time I got to the end of my undergrad, what interested me had shifted and I was really inspired by new forms of contemporary postmodern theatre that were emerging. So when I went over to the UK, I knew that I wanted a classically based training, but I was also really interested in devised theatre and contemporary work. I chose the Guildhall School of Music and Drama specifically because they had embraced devised theatre practice and there was lots of movement and voice training. I had studied dance growing up, done gymnastics, and been an althlete, so it just sort of followed on from there. I do love the fact that I knew exactly the kinds of companies I wanted to be working with, when I moved back to Canada, I was able to find them. There’s a great story actually, when I still lived in the UK I met an actress who was coming to Canada to work on a new show, when she described the company that she would be working with and I thought “my god that sounds amazing, that’s exactly the kind of company I want to work with if I ever move back to Canada”, flash forward a couple years, that conversation long forgotten, when I discovered she had been working with Theatre Gargantua.
MEARA: That’s amazing! Something that’s interesting about this show is that we started with quite a naturalistic text, with quite a lot of text, and the process has been a lot about finding the physical undercurrent of that text and how the text becomes physical. As a performer, how do you navigate that dual thing that’s going on, shifting between the physicality and the text?
CIARA: This process has been very interesting because it has been different from my other Theatre Gargantua experiences. I am sure if you asked Jacquie, the director, she would agree, that it has been quite different from the norm. We did a lot of table talk and reading through the script at the beginning, and Suzie Miller, the playwright, was doing an incredible amount of rewriting based on our daily rehearsals, which I think was quite useful for us as actors because it gave us a real understanding of the characters through that process. Now it’s gotten to the point where slowly we’re coordinating the physical life with the script itself. Now it’s getting to the point where we are able to marry the emotion with the physical. Sometimes that can be tricky because you’re not just having to think about how you’re feeling while acting, you’re having to think about how you’re feeling as you interact, fall to the ground, and roll while saying your lines. But I have always loved that challenge, which is why I do find it really satisfying working with Theatre Gargantua.
MEARA: Would you like to talk about what you have coming up next after this?
CIARA: I would love to talk about that! After this, I’m very excited that bluemouth is undertaking our second phase of development for our new piece which is called Stay (a) Wake: A Field Guide for Strip Poker, it’s a working title, but people seem to like it. We have a residency for our second development phase at Hub 14 in Toronto in December and bluemouth is also throwing a “Happy Hour” Fundraiser at Musideum on Thursday, December 13th from 5.30-7.30pm. Come on out and support us! Musideum is an incredible space located inside the 401 Richmond Street building at Richmond and Spadina. We will share some of our past work, and some new work too. Apart from that we have a few more presentations of DANCE MARATHON lined up for 2013, including the National Arts Centre in June as part of the Canada Dance Festival in Ottawa.
Meara Tubman-Broeren & Ciara Adams on set
There are 2 public performances of Theatre Gargantua’s The Sacrifice Zone coming up this Friday and Saturday at 8pm in Factory Theatre’s Studio. The piece is Associate Produced by Praxis’ own Artistic Producer Aislinn Rose. Tickets are available here.
Ciara Adams has been co-artistic director of interdisciplinary collective bluemouth inc. since 2009; she has worked with the collective since 2003. An associate artist since 2003 Ciara has developed and performed in four of Theatre Gargantua’s cycles. Ciara is also a musician who has released two albums to date. She teaches voice from her home studio in Toronto, and she is a mentor artist educator with the Royal Conservatory of Music’s LTTA program. www.ciaraadams.ca
Meara Tubman-Broeren is an emerging creator, director, and producer of new work. As well as her Artistic Internship with Theatre Gargantua, she is currently the Administration and Documentation Intern for the Rhubarb Festival 2013. Upcoming she is producing The Seagull in Four Movements, a contemporary adaption of Chekhov’s The Seagull set and performed in a Toronto bar, as well as developing and directing a new work for the Paprika Festival’s Olde Spice program.
Theatre Gargantua’s Internship Program is designed to provide an opportunity for emerging artists to expand their skills and experience through observing and participating in Theatre Gargantua’s creation cycle. Interns participate in all rehearsals and creative meetings, while simultaneously assisting in areas of production and administration. This program allows interns to develop new skills useful in future artistic and producing endeavors.
Last month my boyfriend William and I signed a one year lease on an old barbershop in Kensington Market, spent three weeks in our long johns scrubbing the walls and floors of hair, painting it, installing lights, and launched a storefront performance space called Videofag. It is our home and the first one we have shared together. But it also one we want to share with Toronto’s cultural community because we believe we can offer something vital to our peers – space. From Le Chat Noir and Gertrude Stein’s rue de Fleurus salons in Paris, to Warhol’s Factory and the Chealsea Hotel in New York City, to VideoCaberet, A Space Gallery, and Rochdale College in Toronto, space for experimentation and discourse has been critical to the development and evolution of artistic peer groups and cultural movements for generations.
I believe Toronto theatre has suffered from a deficit of truly independent, radical space over the past decade. While many young theatre artists, including myself, have benefitted greatly from development programs run by established theatres we are in danger of becoming an overly institutionalized generation of artists. A generation who places value on recognition from the establishment, tentative to seek opportunities for ourselves outside the support of pillared companies and festivals, with selection committees, boards of directors, operational funding, and other structural hierarchies. The theatrical institutions of today were iconoclastic spaces carved from the cultural landscape in the 60s and 70s with a sense of urgency and purpose. As crucial as they remain in our ecology, they are now the establishment – with corresponding programming and financial obligations – and are limited in their capacity to represent the needs and identities of the emerging zeitgeist.
Our generation cannot afford to exist perpetually in the demi-world of workshops and staged readings. Rather than striving for recognition based on a value system prescribed by the establishment, we need to stake out new territory for ourselves. Instead of standing by to inherit old institutions, or to be programmed by them, we should be actively making new space for ourselves, on our own terms and for our own needs.
There is a crisis of space in Toronto – a lack of affordable venues founded and operated by our young peers where year-round access to dialogue, experimentation, creation, and presentation is possible. A space outside the world of the four-hour tech call, the commercialized, review-centric, festival environment, or developmental programs of larger institutions who lack the ability to produce most of what is seeded within them. What is needed is an accessible, year-round space for emerging creators where ideas have the proper time and context to gestate, be torn apart, and reformed. Where the very nature of why we make performance, and what our generation wants out of performance, can be questioned and defined for ourselves. A space that costs nothing upfront to use – affording us more time in the theatre and less time at our day jobs (and mitigating the financial risk in creative risk-taking).
Videofag is @ 187 Augusta Ave in Kensington Market across from the park.
There are many inspiring models for peer-based collaboration in our own theatrical history – the founding of Theatre Passe Muraille in 1969, Factory Theatre in 1970, and the coming together of six independent companies in 1979 to create the B.A.A.N.N. Theatre Centre – and more recent examples, including Hub 14, Unit 102, Toronto Free Gallery, and companies like Native Earth Performing Arts and fu-Gen forging a home for themselves at Daniel’s Spectrum. Furthermore, many informal spaces like family rooms and kitchens have played critical roles in the evolution of Toronto theatre over the years. So there are many working models, historic and present, from which to draw inspiration – without, of course, fashioning replicas of existing institutions.
A few weeks back over coffee, Brendan Healy conveyed his support of Videofag and our hope to present risk-taking and transgressive work there – Buddies was founded on this ethos and continues to embody it to this day. I left the conversation, though, with the understanding that spaces like Videofag shouldn’t attempt to emulate even the most groundbreaking of institutions, but rather embrace their DIY nature and understand how they are specially positioned to present different kinds of work. This is not to say that we shouldn’t pursue opportunities to produce our work on established mainstages, but rather we should not wait to make work solely in these conditions. We should look at our independence as an asset – a freedom from commitments and expectations – to radically explore and innovate on our own terms. I suspect many of the exciting projects of our time will be pieces we create in the spaces and contexts of our own making.
With Videofag William and I want to bring together boundary-pushing artists, academics, curators, and shit-distrubers operating within a wide range of mediums and socio-political communities to form an atelier where new ideas can be explored and worked on over a timeframe tailored to each project. And it will succeed not because of anything William and I do but because a community of creators have already begun to invest emotionally and artistically in it, and are in the process of making it their own. Ultimately, it is the kind of space that I want to create work in. The kind of space I desire as an artist. The kind of space that inevitably will evolve to the point where it no longer fulfills the needs of the next generation and will, in time, be replaced itself.
Videofag is a storefront cinema and performance space in Kensington Market. While one of our primary focuses is supporting new queer voices in the city, we want to nurture transgressive work from shit disturbers of various ages, orientations, cultural backgrounds, and creative mediums. Ultimately, we are interested in creating an inclusive space for risk taking and discourse. www.videofag.com
Jordan Tannahill is a Toronto-based playwright, theatre director, and filmmaker who runs Suburban Beast, a performance company. He launched Videofag with his partner, actor William Christopher Ellis, in October of this year. For more information, or to propose a project to Videofag, feel free to email Jordan at jordan@videofag.com.
Competition for TAC & OAC Theatre Project grants is fierce. The pass rate for Project Grants sits at below 35% and isn’t changing. Let us help.
STAF will assist with the writing of your grant application, helping you to gain the upper hand. We will work collaboratively with you to create a clear, concise and compelling application. By taking the time to work with a trained eye you will be able to identify the strongest artistic argument for the councils to fund your work.
If a full application preparation seems like it’s out of your price range, talk to us about a grant review. We can give you detailed notes and suggestions that will strengthen your request and isn’t as hard on the wallet.
As always, STAF works collaboratively with you to help you stay within your budget.
Contact us before December 1 and we’ll give you a 15% early-bird discount on grant writing services for the upcoming TAC & OAC Theatre Project deadline (February 1st, 2013).
Our grant writing spaces fill up fast – should you wish to take advantage of this offer, contact Emma Mackenzie Hillier, emma@theatreadmin.com or 416.703.2773 x200.
As the Interim Artistic Directors of Factory Theatre, Nina Lee Aquino & Nigel Shawn Williams announced their upcoming season earlier this week. We asked them to provide an artistic response to the shows they selected for that season in the form of our 51st Variation on Theatre.
Every Letter Counts by Nina Lee Aquino
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“Between his interest in words and his architect’s love of structure and order, [Alfred Mosher] Butts decided to work on a word game that utilized a grid concept. In addition, he wanted to create a game that combined both luck and skill, with stronger emphasis on skill. He also liked the idea of 100 tiles. As he began his first set of sketches, Butts called his boardless anagram game idea Lexiko, which later evolved into the board game Criss Cross Words.”
– Everything Scrabble: Third Edition by Joe Edley & John D. Williams Jr.
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Do You Want What I Have Got? A Craigslist Cantata by Bill Richardson & Veda Hille
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“When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro.”
– Hunter S. Thompson
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Iceland by Nicolas Billon
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“People are always asking me about eskimos, but there are no eskimos in Iceland.”
– Björk
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Stopheart by Amy Lee Lavoie
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“All of us grow up in particular realities – a home, family, a clan, a small town, a neighborhood. Depending upon how we’re brought up, we are either deeply aware of the particular reading of reality into which we are born, or we are peripherally aware of it. “
– Chaim Potok
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Photo of Nina Lee Aquino and Nigel Shawn Williams by Jonathan Heppner – click to read more about their new season
Ontario All Candidates Meeting:
Monday, October 1st – 7 p.m. – 10 p.m.
The Tapestry/Nightwood Ernest Balmer Studio
9 Trinity Street – The Cannery (Distillery), Studio 315, Toronto, Ontario
From CAEA:
“There are a record number of amazing candidates who are running in Ontario this time around. Please come out to support your fellow member candidates and hear their positions on the many many important issues facing our association.
Be sure to have your current membership card available!
“It is with sadness that we, the undersigned participants of the Factory Boycott of 2012, witness Ken Gass’s honourable exit from the whole debacle. We respect Ken’s decision to do so and understand his desire to move on. However:
While we do not want to impinge on fellow artists who need or desire to make their art on the stages of that venerable old dame, Factory Theatre, we believe that theatre artists are, and must be, responsible for the actions they take when dealing with unacceptable theatre governance.
Therefore we cannot move on without reiterating that the board of Factory theatre has behaved in an appallingly disrespectful and off-handed manner, not only towards Ken Gass but to the 4000 plus people who signed a petition protesting the board actions, the significant group of artists and other citizens who participated in the Factory boycott and, indeed, all of The Factory’s stakeholders within the community.
We believe the nine directors on the board showed and continue to show contempt for the artists and arts supporters who asked simply for meaningful dialogue, respectful action and serious mediation in this sorry affair. As long as the current board still reigns, there will be a black asterisk next to the name of Factory theatre.
It is our belief that Mr. Struys and his cohorts entered into the process cynically and in bad faith. Both prior to and during the month of August they ignored mediation opportunities that might have saved the season from collapse. Only 36 hours before the start of mediation the Board appointed an interim artistic director team charged with finding replacement shows. This pre-empted any meaningful possibility of Gass’s involvement in the season should mediation be successful. Given the board’s steadfast refusal to respond to any community demands over the past three months, is it surprising that mediation failed?
Is this what the artists, Factory supporters and audiences deserve?
Our answer is a resounding; “No!”
Mr. Struys and the Factory board may feel today that they have simply “played a hand” well, that their policies of stonewalling and intransigence have paid off. However, there is no justice here, only shame. We believe there can be no true peace in this community unless and until the current Factory board resigns. Furthermore we wish for an engaged, renewed Factory board and membership that will be committed to putting in place a code of conduct that respects artists’ moral right to determine how our theatres are run.
We urge the various arts councils (OAC, TAC, CC), foundations and artist organizations engaged in collective bargaining to proactively engage our theatres in a dialogue about Board conduct. In the end the broader issue of who owns our theatres and artist participation in the governance of the institutions we have built must be addressed.
We fervently believe that only then we will be able to truly move forward. Only then can we go about healing the wounds within the community. Only then can this black mark be expunged from the Factory’s inspiring history. ”
Maja Ardal
Liza Balkan
Nancy Beatty
Steven Bush
Jack Blum
David Boechler
Mark Brownell
Richard Alan Campbell
Shari Caldwell
Cheryl Cashman
Alex Castillo-Smith
John Cleland
Sharon Corder
Laura de Carteret
David Christo
Jason Dietrich
Bruce Dow
Shawn Doyle
Atom Egoyan
David Ferry
Peter Feldman
Barry Flatman
Kelli Fox
Verne Good
Kyra Harper
Martha Henry
Kate Hewlett
Maggie Huculak
Stuart Hughes
C. David Johnson
Arsinée Khanjian
Jeanette Lambermont-Morey
Michelle Latimer
Diana LeBlanc
Paul Ledoux
Patricia Ludwick
Sallie Lyons
Kate Lynch
Joe Madziak
Sarah Manninen
Jefferson Mappin
Meridith McGeachie
Seana Mckenna
Elana McMurty
Andrew Moodie
Lisa Norton
Rahnuma Panthaky
Vickie Papavs
Soheil Parsa
Ronald Pederson
Gordon Pinsent
Irene Poole
Miles Potter
Geoffrey Pounsett
Susan Purdy
Fiona Reid
Kim Renders
Maria Ricossa
John Roby
Dani Romain
Jonathan Rooke
Lora Senechal Carney
Mike Sereny
Julie Stewart
Sally Szuster
Bill Talbot
Dylan Trowbridge
Joanne Vanicola
Patricia Vanstone
Sugith Varughese
George F. Walker
Brendan Wall
David S. Young
Margaret Zeidler
SENORA CARRAR'S RIFLES BY BERTOLT BRECHT: Directed by Michael Wheeler. Wendy Thatcher (c) as Teresa Carrar, Sharry Flett (r) as Old Mrs Perez, Wade Bogert-O'Brien as Juan Carrar.
IF MEN PLAYED CARDS AS WOMEN DO BY GEORGE S KAUFMAN: Directed by Krista Jackson. (l-r) Peter Millard as John, Kevin Bundy as Bob, Neil Barclay as George and Martin Happer as Marc
SENORA CARRAR'S RIFLES BY BERTOLT BRECHT: Directed by Michael Wheeler. Benedict Campbell (l) as Father Francisco, Wendy Thatcher (c) as Teresa Carrar and Ben Sanders (r) as Jose Carrar
OVERTONES BY ALICE GERSTENBERG: Directed by Krista Jackson. (l-r) Julia Course as Harriet, Kiera Sangster as Maggie, Claire Jullien as Hetty and Ijeoma Emesowum as Margaret
Set and Costume Design by Erin Gerofsky. Lighting Design by Conor Moore. Photography by Mark Callan.
“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.”
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