Former Mayor David Miller faced some tough interviews during his two terms as Mayor of Toronto, but perhaps none quite like this 2008 interview with one Lupe Dominguez (aka Melissa D’Agostino).
Since that time, the City of Toronto elected a new Mayor, Rob Ford, and Lupe would like to get to know him better. She’s having a Christmas party this year and has put out a passionate plea to ask Mayor Ford to join in the festivities:
Lupe extends an invite to current Toronto Mayor Rob Ford
Click to Enlarge
Mayor Ford is a tweeter, so perhaps he’ll attend Lupe’s A Very Lupe Xmas this Wednesday, December 14th, at 8pm? It will be a twitter-friendly performance, complete with tweet seats.
As Co-Producer of Lupe’s party, I will be there tweeting from my personal account @AislinnTO.We’ll be using the hashtag #LupeXmas, and I’d love to be able to add another hashtag: #FordXmas. See you there Mayor Ford?
Click here for all the relevant production details on the A Very Lupe Xmas Facebook event,
Click here to see the entire offering of promotional videos highlighting each of the “wise men”, and her right-hand man, Pepe, on their Indie Go Go page.
On the menu today: Croissants, scones, hummus, pita and dark chocolate.
by Melissa D’Agostino
It’s been a while since I’ve held a tea with some fine, theatre-folk, so I’m happy to bring you the second installment of Tea with D’Agostino. In this edition I sit down with Julie Tepperman and Aaron Willis, co-Founders of Convergence Theatre, and husband and wife in this crazy game called life.
Convergence Theatre engages like-minded emerging and established theatre artists to create original, intimate and memorable experiences for a broad audience. Since 2006, the company has ‘converged’ with over 75 artists in the city to bring usAutoshow,The Gladstone Variations, and the currently remounted Yichud (Seclusion)at Theatre Passe Muraille. Aaron and Julie are also active teachers in the community and in the school system.
On Teachers and Teaching:
Julie: I was at this elementary school a couple of weeks ago—and I had this one grade 6 class with a male teacher. The guy was, you know, our age and wearing a really cool t-shirt. Does not greet me. I find the classroom and I’m like, ‘Oh hi, I’m Julie—‘ and he mumbles and he says ‘Walk with me this way’, and I follow him with all the kids to this drama room, and then there’s no key, and he’s upset about it. Then we finally get into the room and this there’s a couch in the corner, and I say, ‘You’re welcome to join the circle and participate’ and he goes, and sits on the couch, takes out his iPhone to play with it and then falls asleep.
Melissa: When I was in grade four in Catholic School, I had this teacher named Mrs. Sheardown.
Aaron: Hahaha. Sounds like a character in a restoration comedy.
Melissa: Exactly! And she would show you how to say her name—like break it down. Shh. Ear. Down. As if it’s the hardest name to say, ever. And she would sit at this student’s desk in the middle of the portable with a bell, and just ring the bell whenever you irritated her. And you’d have to recite In Flanders Fields by memory and if you tripped up she’d humiliate you.
Aaron: It’s like a Charles Dickens novel.
Melissa: You have no idea. Well…part way through the year she had to get her hip replaced, and we got this substitute teacher fresh out of teacher’s college. Mr. DeRose.
Julie: Great name.
Melissa: Oh yeah. He was gorgeous—he looked like Elvis and he wore biker boots, and basically we could do anything we wanted. We would play soccer baseball all morning—
Aaron: I LOVED soccer baseball!
Melissa: I know! He would play chess tournaments with the boys, but never the girls.
Julie: Was that a rule of his?
Melissa: Yep. Girls weren’t allowed to play. I think he wanted to hang out with the boys and he thought all the girls had crushes on him.
Julie: Ah yes.
Melissa: And he used to make us play this game called Duck Hunt, where you would have to walk across the blackboard one at a time and he’d whip tennis balls at us to try and hit us, and you weren’t allowed to duck—you were only allowed to move forward or back or walk faster.
Julie: What? Did people get concussions?
Melissa: No… just minor bruising. And then one day, he brought in his guitar because we were doing a unit on sound and instruments. And he says, ‘Okay, kids, I want to introduce you to my favourite band—The Sex Pistols.’ And he unbuttons his shirt and he’s wearing a Sex Pistols T-shirt.
Julie: No!
Melissa: Oh yes. And then he plays us the song Abortion—which is really a song called Bodies, but it’s about Abortion. ABORTION. In my fourth grade, Catholic School, portable classroom. And I don’t know if you’ve ever heard that song, but the lyrics are pretty much: She was a girl from Birmingham/She just had an abortion. Dragged to a table in a factory…etc, etc.
Aaron: Wow.
Melissa: And I think we were all so shocked that it was happening that none of us went up to our parents and said, ‘Guess what? Mr. DeRose played us an abortion song today’.
Julie: Do you know what happened to that teacher, Melissa? Did you ever see him again at school?
Melissa: I’ve never seen him since then.
Julie: You should put a shout out.
Melissa: Ha. I should.
Julie: I mean…we have all these memories. And we were quite young when some of these things happened. And I wonder if these teachers would be shocked to hear our memories of these stories played back, how they remember them—if they remember them at all. It just proves that what you do has an impact.
On Diego Rivera & Being Lost in Detroit:
Julie: In November we were in Michigan teaching Shakespeare in High Schools. And we were obligated to go one afternoon to a luncheon with these members—
Aaron: These are all the rich donors—
Julie: Our grandparents’ age, mostly, who give money to the company we work for, and support this education program.
Melissa: Okay.
Julie: So they have couples who come pick us up at the hotel and drive us downtown into Detroit, now what’s so funny is that none of them live in Detroit, they all live in the Burbs, which is where the hotel was, so they all got lost, they didn’t know where they were going.
Melissa: Lost in Detroit?
Julie: Lost in Detroit.
Melissa: I’ve been lost in Detroit. At night. In a cab. It’s not fun.
Aaron: Scary.
Julie: So we go—it was actually at a gorgeous museum—
Aaron: The Detroit Institute of Art.
Julie: Right, the DIA. And before lunch, the couple who drove us, they’re nice enough, and they say, before lunch you have to let us take you to this mural. It’s the –I can’t remember his name. Frida Kahlo’s husband at the time—
Melissa&Aaron: Diego Rivera.
Julie: Yes. Was commissioned to make a gigantic mural of the workers. So he took us there—
Aaron: And what was cool is they got a docent to give us a talk about it. And she was telling us the story of the mural, and the things he did, because he was an ardent socialist, and—
Julie: He put himself in the mural—
Melissa: He often did, yes, and other historical and socialist figures.
Aaron: And so there’s a lot of stuff about the Ford factories, and there is a black man front and center working on the floor.
Julie: Which was very controversial—
Aaron: –because Ford never had a black man working on the floor. He also had Ford sitting at his desk next to a bunch of pipes which looked like a big ear, alluding to the fact that Ford would have people on the floor listening to people talking about unions.
Julie: And then she leaves…
Aaron: and they’re walking back, and this guy felt the need, very strongly, to defend Henry Ford. I don’t know if he knew we were Jewish, or not.
Melissa: Okay.
Aaron: You know, because Henry Ford is so famous for anti-Semitism.
Melissa: Yes.
Aaron: But he was basically saying, ‘You know Ford did a lot of great things’. He was doing all those mental contortions…
On Criticizing Israel & Judaism:
Aaron: Well our times running out here.
Melissa: I know. I wanted to talk more about Jewish things.
Julie: Like his conversion?
Melissa: Yes—because you converted to Judaism, right Aaron?
Aaron: Yes. And we didn’t get into Jews and Israel.
Melissa: Well, I thought about that question, and then I thought ‘That’s going to take over because that’s a huge question’.
Julie: This idea of Tikkun Olam, which is Hebrew for ‘Repairing the world’, and it’s something that—it’s a Jewish value, but it’s a human value. Because we’ve come up against older people in our lives who’ve said, ‘You know…as a Jew, you just have to vote for the candidate that supports Israel’. And that’s so infuriating to me. We live here. And it’s lip service! It’s total lip service! Just because you criticize Israel doesn’t mean you don’t support it.
Melissa: A thing I’ve noticed in the world is that we’re living further and further away from living in a real context—a communal context. Everything is being taken out of context. When you start divorcing one ideal from the rest of your ideals, or from your community or the world, you start making decisions that are incomplete.
Aaron: Totally.
Julie: And it doesn’t actually mean anything—what does it mean to ‘support’ that country? Does that mean if there’s a war you’ll send troops? Will you…what will you do?
Melissa: Yes, I suppose it means if there was a war, that Canada would be on Israel’s side.
PAUSE
Julie: It means nothing to me.
Melissa: I know. But it’s also all in the context of war, and money and politics on a level that I don’t really think about on a daily basis. I don’t use that as a context to negotiate my values—like, ‘If there was a war, how would I feel about that? ‘
Aaron: No, in fact, really it’s about what about today, now? What are the problems happening here, now?
Melissa: Yes! And what can my leaders do to make things better. Here. Now.
Welcome to Tea with D’Agostino, an interview series where members of Toronto’s theatre community come over to my place for tea and homemade treats, and we sit around to not talk about theatre. That’s right: theatre artists not talking about theatre. It’s time.
My inaugural interview is with the core members of Project: Humanity who recently doubled their goal to raise 5000 tokens for Youth Without Shelter in Rexdale through a massive campaign that took over TTC Subway stations called Tokens4Change. They managed to raise 10,000 tokens and raise awareness through live performances by both youth and professionals within the subway stations, as well as a texting campaign that is still active (text TOKENS to 45678 to donate).
They also recently opened The Middle Place at Canadian Stage, a piece of verbatim theatre written by Andrew Kushnir based on on-camera interviews with the residents of Youth Without Shelter. The Middle Place is a product of the De-Shelter Initiative they began in 2007, and is the inaugural project emerging from the community work they are currently engaged in.
I sat down with Andrew, Dan, Antonio and Catherine for some tea.
On the menu today:
Teas: Cream of Earl Grey, Forbidden Fruit, Bravissimo
Treats: Homemade blueberry scones and finger sandwiches
Melissa: Thanks for doing this, folks.
Andrew: No problem. We want to win the trip
Melissa: Oh right, one of the interview groups wins an all expenses paid trip to the Bahamas.
Andrew: Really? That’s great.
Melissa: Yeah. This is a theatre blog so we have lots of money!
Catherine: I can’t remember the last time I had a cucumber sandwich.
Antonio: Um…quarter past never.
On effecting social change:
Melissa: Now, your company started out wanting to effect local and global change, but you seemed to have shifted your focus more on the local. We’ve talked before, Antonio and I, about how my personal feeling is that that’s how you create global change, through the local. Do you think there’s another way for you to move into having a more global, or national, or wider affect through the work that you do, or if you see the local as the stepping stone to that?
Antonio: I don’t really think you can be here and affect things globally without being there. Does that make sense? I’m not totally interested in sending relief, I’m interested in knowing what the culture is around you and figuring out who you are in that ecosystem, and figuring out how you can be a better you, and help people be a better them, and help people develop their own skills and resources. So if I had the money and the this and the that, I would say ‘Here’s a parachute Dan, we’re going to drop you off in this place, go set up a headquarters and make a whole new team that works elsewhere’, and then once you’re there start fixing things locally. It’s still global change and global awareness, but it’s from a local sensibility.
Melissa: So you’re taking the language that you’ve created as a company, or the…
Antonio: the methods…
Melissa: right, but then tailoring it to that community?
Dan: Yeah, like, what are the fundamental principles behind what we’re doing? And I think our principles and our approach to the work we’re doing is what forced us to be local. What we found, as we tried to do things and approach things authentically, what we found actually connected was local, because that’s what we had access to. But, even in being ‘local’, we are still entering a community that’s not our community. So our approach still has to do with getting to know the community, finding out what their needs are, how we can fit in, how we can be helpful—so our result is from that process of getting to know that community.
Antonio: We are interested in saying ‘What is our conversation with this community, and what am I bringing to it and what are they bringing to it?’
On Justin Bieber & Swagger Coaching:
Andrew: Can we talk about Justin Bieber?
(Laughter)
Melissa: Actually I was going to ask you about Bieber.
Antonio: Really?
Melissa: Yeah. We can’t talk about theatre, so…
Andrew: Well there are these two things that are going to come out in this Rolling Stone article—
Antonio—is it out already?
Andrew: It may be out already. He says abortion is wrong, and arguably under any circumstances—so they asked, ‘What if somebody was raped’, and he sort of said, I’m paraphrasing, ‘Everything happens for a reason’.
Antonio: Yeah, I read it though.
Andrew: You read the actual interview?
Antonio: That’s why I thought it was out already.
Melissa: I think it is out.
Antonio: I just feel like, ‘cause I’ve heard a couple people say ‘Justin Bieber thinks abortion is wrong’, and the other half of that sentence is, ‘I’ve never been in a situation like that and I’m not judging anybody’, so…
Dan: And I think that’s an important side to it.
Antonio: It is!
Dan: I mean are we actually looking to a twelve year old for our worldviews?
Andrew: He’s not twelve.
Dan: Well-
Catherine: He’s 16. He doesn’t even know how to have sex yet.
Andrew: His music would suggest that he is a fantastic love maker.
(Laughter)
Andrew: He also makes a comment about gay people in that interview, and I think maybe this is being spun in a certain way, but, he says it’s a person’s decision whether they are gay or not. So people have pounced on that because is he saying—does he think that homosexuality is a choice, which would be a terrible idea to advance.
Antonio: Sure.
Catherine: But if he’s coming from the religious background that the abortion comments come from—
Antonio: No, he’s from Stratford.
Catherine: His family’s very religious. He’s all about God gave me this, God is bringing me this way, so if that’s the background from which he’s coming, at 16 years old when you do not understand action versus consequence, the world’s bigger picture, all of these things, then it’s just doctrine, right?
Antonio: He’s a kid, right? So he says things the way they come out.
Andrew: And frankly, he can have whatever view he wants. I don’t actually care what his view is.
Dan: Well—
Andrew: It would significantly alter my appreciation for him as a, you know…
Antonio: You might return the album?
(Laughter)
Melissa: (to Andrew, and somewhat surprised) do you like Justin Bieber? Are you a fan?
Andrew: I’m actually more impressed by Jaden Smith. I think he’s a good little actor, and he’s got that, what’s that called that Bieber had? Not a ‘strut coach’ but a –
Antonio: Swagger?
Andrew: Yeah, like a ‘Swagger Coach’
Antonio: Oh my God! Why do I not have that job?
Andrew: I know.
Antonio: I could be a Swagger Coach.
Dan: Yeah.
Melissa: But do you like the ‘Swagger’? I find it so fake. He was on Ellen and they were dancing, and he wasn’t dancing. He was posing.
Antonio: I find a lot of his dance moves suspect. They’re very weird. He’s not a good dancer, so when he does them it looks like he’s punching the air. It’s like punch the air, kick the tiger, turn, turn.
Melissa: Kick the tiger?
Andrew: Isn’t it like the Michael Jackson ‘distract the tiger, kick the tiger move’?
Melissa: Wow, I am clearly missing out on Bieber’s moves.
The Middle Place runs until March 12th at the Berkeley St. Theatre. Click here for tickets and info.
To make a $5 donation to Tokens4Change, and help raise even more tokens for Youth Without Shelter, text TOKENS to 45678. For more information visit www.tokens4change.com or www.projecthumanity.ca.
Melissa D’Agostino is an award-winning actor, writer, singer and producer. She also likes tea. Check her out at www.melissadagostino.net
“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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