In the winter of 2009 I attended a theatre history lecture at Toronto Free Gallery by Alex Fallis on The Progressive Arts Club and the theatre created by artists who were opposed to many of the anti-civil rights policies enacted by Prime Minister Bennett in the 1930s. These people proved to be so fascinating that I elected to create with Praxis Theatre a show about them, Tim Buck 2, which played at The Tranzac Club as part of the 2009 Toronto Fringe Festival.
This led to our Harbourfront Centre HATCH workshop Section 98, which expanded the scope of our work to some other instances when civil rights proved to be a contentious issue for Canadians: namely the FLQ crisis, the Air India bombing, Omar Khadr, and the treatment of Afghan detainees captured by Canadian soldiers. Both the Fringe show and our HATCH workshop were extremely useful in terms of exploring who these people were, what they were concerned about, and the complexity of balancing our country’s commitment to civil rights and concerns of national security.
Unfortunately, neither of these initial explorations did an awesome job of storytelling. So this spring and summer we went back to the drawing board with this project and thought about how to move beyond ‘staged dramaturgy’ and into narrative-based work informed by these themes.
The most consistent positive feedback from our open source creative process revolved around curiosity and fascination with Eugenia “Jim” Watts.
There were also quite a few normal conversations, in person, with live human beings who had seen the show(s).
The first conclusion was that the core personality we had explored that generated a unique resonance with both audiences and ourselves was Eugenia “Jim” Watts, played in both productions by Margaret Evans. A core political organizer and theatre director in 1930s Toronto, she co-directed the legendary civil rights play banned by Bennett, Eight Men Speak, and later went on to be one of two women serving with the Mackenzie Papineau Brigade in the Spanish Civil War where she was an ambulance driver. She was also involved with a number of other projects; she was very busy, and interesting, and worth being the impetus for a work of art.
Margaret Evans playing Jim Watts in Section 98 as part of HATCH at Harbourfront Centre
The second conclusion was that this piece required a playwright, and a good one. This playwright would preferably be an artist who had experience creating theatre about historical events for a contemporary audience (we talked a lot about avoiding a ‘bio pic’) and a passion for social justice.
So it is with much pleasure and excitement we announce Dora-winning playwright Tara Beagan has joined Praxis Theatre in continuing our work on this latest iteration, . Tara and I worked together for two years on Crate Productions’ TheFort at York, and she also acted as an outside eye for Praxis on our Toronto Fringe 07 co-pro, Dyad, but Jesus Chrysler is her first official work with Praxis Theatre and we are thrilled to welcome her.
Jesus Chrysler will be presented at The Factory Theatre as part of Lab Cab on Saturday September 18 and Sunday September 19 at 5pm.The entire festival is free with all manner of art and experiences presented by over 50 artists throughout every nook and cranny of The Factory from noon to 6pm each day. We invite you to come check out the whole festival and save your 5pm – 5:20pm slot for us. This being a Praxis show, we’ll definitely welcome your feedback online or in person, with a particular emphasis on your thoughts about our transition to a script based work about a single individual.
Hope to see you there!
Where’s Praxis? Can you find Tara, Margaret and Michael in the Lab Cab poster? Click to enlarge
(l-r) Maev Beaty, Muoi Nene, Araya Mengesha, Dorothy Atabong, Trey Lyford and Milton Barnes in Glo by Christina Anderson directed by Josette Bushell-Mingo
If I promise to incorporate “World Class City” into my lexicon can we keep making shows like this?
by Michael Wheeler
I have been working on this show for a long time.
I started in late 2008 as Artistic Producer in Training with Volcano – and then later as Assistant Director of Peggy Pickit Sees The Face of God by Roland Schimmelpfennig and Social Media Coordinator for the whole Trilogy. These different roles have afforded me a really broad perspective on a how a major international collaboration comes together – in the office, the rehearsal studio, and in the theatre. Thanks Theatre Ontario.
It has been a wild ride – I don’t think anyone involved in the show would argue it’s been an easy process. Ethically, theatrically, collaboratively, creating three new works of theatre that all deal with the contemporary nature of the relationship between Africa and the West has been a challenge that has pushed some top international and domestic artists to reanalyze themselves and their process. There have been few simple questions – so along with that has come complicated answers. From dramaturgy, to casting, to design, to scheduling, to marketing, to ensuring three separate works are having a contemporary conversation with each other – virtually every decision had to be made weighing the consideration of a huge number of factors.
Nothing will melt your mind faster than a production meeting with three directors, three assistant directors, six designers, four stage managers and two production managers.
Sipping my morning coffee on Opening Night Day it has really hit me how much I’ve learned from this process and how much I’m willing to stand behind this production. I am a much more knowledgeable artist because of it and I want to continue to be involved in projects like it: productions that combine top international artists with the best from Canada. I have a track record of being heavily critical of Luminato in the past – specifically because of the lack of opportunity the festival initially held for Canadian artists – and frankly it seems a little strange to be a physical embodiment of a change I was arguing for, but I’ll take it.
The words “World Class” and “City” get thrown around a lot here. It might even be fair to say we are unhealthily obsessed with whether or not Toronto and these words have a positive relationship. Certainly Luminato was born out of the sense it could contribute to this definition. Separate from whether the critics deem this show a hit or a miss in the days to come – shows likeThe Africa Trilogy are most likely to put Toronto on the map in terms of international culture. If we really want to play with the big boys and girls on the world stage it requires these kinds of resources both financially and in terms of the people we can attract to work with us. The surest way to become “World Class” is to make shows WITH other World Class artists.
Fuse Magazine, XPACE and Images Festival 2010 invite you to the after party for the Fuse sponsored Images screening of Kevin Everson’s Erie and the launch of Fuse Magazine’s Spring issue Bikes, Boats and Big Ideas.
When: Thursday April 8, 2010. Doors Open: @ 8:30 pm — 1:00am
Where: XPACE Cultural Centre, 58 Ossington Ave (at Queen)
What else: Dance the night away to the beats of DJ DJ Tanner and DJ Triple-X Admission is free!
THE SPRING ISSUE OF FUSE PRESENTS:
Jesse McKee and the Aboriginal Curatorial Collective’s Steve Loft, Candice Hopkins and Leanne L’Hirondelle in conversation about changing the artistic landscape in Canada and internationally
Janna Graham on the labour politics behind big European art spectacles
Amy Zion on Art courtesy of the Olympic Games
Artist Project by Reena Katz
Reflections on our Parliamentary Democracy by Michael Wheeler
Reviews by Glen Lowry, Bart Gazzola, Debra Antoncic, Portia Priegert and Chris Gehman
IMAGES SCREENING OF KEVIN EVERSON’S ERIE:
The images Kevin Everson has recorded and compiled in Erie operate within the realm of the ready-made, with nearly the entire film composed of a series of unedited single- takes with sync sound, presented back to back. Forsaking montage for the most part, Everson refuses to insert an editorial presence through the tropes of narration or text, and instead favours a linkage which pivots upon the only direct dialogue in the film, spoken by three workers from an undisclosed General Motors factory. While their conversation centres upon the fate of the company, a united demand for leadership doesn’t stop at the corporate offices in Detroit, but instead radiates far beyond to all levels of government and the public who are now implicated in the crisis.
Laura Mennell plays the mysterious Mila Brook in The Electric Company's Tear The Curtain. Photo by Brian Johnson.
by Michael Wheeler
One of the unconventional things about this residency is that unlike a traditional curriculum that would begin with basic fundamentals and conclude with something grand and complicated, I am taking the best opportunities I can get when they are available. This approach led me to begin my training program by participating in the first half of a 3-week film shoot for The Electric Company’s newest production – Tear The Curtain, commissioned by The Arts Club Theatre Company to open at The Stanley Theatre in Vancouver in early September 2010.
This meant my cross-Canada study of the relationship between direction and design in theatre began with a crash course in how to direct a film. It took me a couple of days on set, and a couple of reads of the integrated script (which overall is formatted as a film not theatre script), to fully appreciate the magnitude and ambition of what I had gotten myself into.
The story operates on two levels: Plot-wise it is a film-noir styled story set in a semi-fictional Vancouver full of gangsters, tycoons, a secret cell of revolutionaries and double-crossing vixens. Fundamentally it is a narrative that will entertain. Thematically, it attempts something very complex and intricate by centring the plot around an embittered theatre critic in an era where film is becoming the dominant medium. The lead character is both fighting this shift, in part to keep his livelihood, and searching for the reason he was so enamoured with theatre to begin with.
Jonathon Young plays critic Alex Braithewaite. Photo by Brian Johnson.
This is not just an intellectual existential problem for the lead character to be considered by an audience. The show is a combination of both mediums. The Stanley Theatre – where the show will premiere – was once a movie theatre that has been transformed into a theatre theatre. All of the filmed sequences have been shot with in the Stanley Theatre and many of the shots are from the audience’s POV of the stage – or acknowledge in some way when that they were shot in the same room where the audience will experience the performance. Experientially – the line between film and theatre as mediums will be blurred as the same actors from the filmed portions will also tell the story through live scenes.
Still with me? Also, all of this was happening in the heart of Vancouver in the middle of the Olympics. Not too many of the huge crew of people that were working three weeks of consecutive 12hr days seemed all that aware of snowboard cross, curling or the luge – even though the Olympic village was around the corner. We had important things to do! (Not entirely true: Managing Producer Nathan Medd scored last minute tickets with his family to the Opening Ceremonies and came back with some impressive photos on his iPhone.)
My role was to observe – and occasionally be a sounding board for – director Kim Collier as she tore through an ambitious and demanding shooting schedule. Although I have been on film sets before, I have never considered each day and shot, from a director’s perspective, as such the learning curve was both steep and fascinating. One of my first realizations was that a production that used a large number of professionally filmed segments like this had only recently been made possible, or at least economically feasible, by new technology. The film sections are not actually shot on film; a RED One high-res camera was used. This is considerably cheaper than shooting on film and allows all of the information to be stored digitally and viewed immediately.
This technology is not flawless. RED One cameras are a little too good – they can show too much detail and not have the pleasant hues that come from shooting on film. To combat this effect – and to contribute to a film noir-ish feel throughout, there was a single person whose only job was to keep a thin mist of haze circulating whenever camera was rolling. Keeping this haze perpetual and consistent was a major battle throughout each day, but was key to both the atmosphere and continuity of the material being filmed.
Kim Collier (foreground right) directs while a Red One camera is operated by a RoboCop-like suit wearing cameraman. Photo by Tim Matheson.
A second element that jumped out at me as a theatre director learning to direct film was how little time there is for experimentation or mistakes. In theatre I think our creative process often leads us to take time feeling our way into things, trying different approaches, and sometimes using good ol’ trial and error. This is not even remotely a possibility on a film shoot – not only do you have to know exactly what shot you want ahead of time, but exactly what you want from each of your actors and your DP for each individual shot well ahead of time. Certainly you can make adjustments on the fly and always keep your eyes open for discoveries and opportunities – but time is money and a professional film crew is a lot of people’s time.
The biggest day of the shoot was my last one, when a huge number of extras were used to create the crowd shots both of the audience filling the theatre and of a party in that occurs in the lobby of the theatre. On that day over seventy volunteer actors (myself included) showed up at 8am on a Saturday to be dressed in high fashion of the 1930s and strike a number of sophisticated poses and while feigning conversation throughout the day. Most ingenious use of the RED One Camera occurred at the end of this day when the seventy actors were shuffled to completely fill small sections of the 600ish seats the theatre with the camera “locked down”. Later in the editing room these multiple iterations of ourselves will become citizens of the same time and space filling the entire audience in a single shot.
I am already looking forward to returning to Vancouver to join the theatre portion of rehearsals for Tear The Curtain leading up to an early September opening night. The whole company has been awfully nice to a guy from Toronto whom they’d never met before, and it was awesome to be included in this ambitious process. I’m looking forwards to learning the process by which The Electric Company and Director Kim Collier integrate the filmed and live materials both in the rehearsal hall and in tech at The Stanley Theatre. Next post – Michael Healey’s Courageous arrives at The Citadel Theatre in Edmonton.
On February 24th, I woke up to find an email from Section 98’s director Michael Wheeler, saying “have you been following my conversation with Omar Khadr?”. I’m sorry, what? Now, I think it says a lot about Mike that my first thought was, “if anyone’s going to find a way to have a conversation with Omar Khadr, it’s Mike”. Or maybe it says a lot about me. Then it dawned on me that a week earlier I had mentioned Omar Khadr in my Open Source entry “Checking for a Pulse“. I had dared to suggest that if one is going to support human rights and civil liberties, then one must do so in all cases, and, instead of quoting Margaret Chase this time, I’m going to quote Oscar winning actress Mo’nique: “sometimes you have to forego what’s popular in order to do what’s right”. I also said, based on this idea, that I’d like to know when we would be bringing Omar Khadr home. If I was going to find Mike’s conversation with “Omar Khadr” anywhere, I was betting it would be at the end of this post.
I headed to the comments section of the post, and there it was: ‘Everyone calm down! It’s me, Omar Khadr!‘… and it looked like Mike and Omar had stayed up “conversing” until the wee hours of the morning as well.
Don’t feed the trolls
If you spend a lot of time (angrily) reading reader comments on news sites like I do, you’ll often find the line, “don’t feed the trolls”. Can I go so far as to call this person a troll? Wikipedia defines an Internet Troll as “someone who posts inflammatory, extraneous, or off-topic messages in an online community, such as an online discussion forum, chat room or blog, with the primary intent of provoking other users into an emotional response or of otherwise disrupting normal on-topic discussion.” Well, the posts were reasonably on-topic, but cue the inflammatory on his end, and the emotional on my end. Ultimately, I don’t want to call this person a troll as I think he truly believes in his point of view (and isn’t just engaging in order to be a nuisance), but at the same time, he isn’t posting to debate or discuss. He’s posting to say “how it is”.
I was surprised at first that Mike had taken on a somewhat similarly comedic tone with his responses. Good on him for not taking the bait I guess, but I was also frustrated at the amount of misinformation sitting there that was going undisputed (in the beginning). It’s so very easy to spout inflammatory statements like, ‘“The Young Offenders Act?!” Even I know that was replaced in 2003!‘ as thought that actually means something. In this case, it means nothing. While the YOA was replaced in 2003 with the Youth Criminal Justice Act, Omar was captured in 2002, and therefore still covered by the YOA. Regardless, the new Act still considers youth to be between the ages of 12 and 18, and Omar was 15 when captured. So what was his point, other than to say something in an authoritative manner, thereby casting doubt on Mike’s earlier assertions?
Same goes for such lines as ‘here’s the only law that DOES apply to me and my “situation”‘ (when in fact there ARE other international laws relating to child soldiers that apply to him and his situation), and ‘(unlike a lot of these bastards at Gitmo) I was actually charged WITH A CRIME‘… as were other Guantanamo Bay detainees who, regardless of their charges and/or convictions, were still released to the custody of their respective countries. I’ve always enjoyed people saying that Canada is unique, or special, but not when we’re unique because the only Western citizen remaining in Guantanamo Bay is Canadian.
Omar Khadr: Then & Now
… can we send it back?
The “debate” went on for a few days, with Mike and another valiant participant going head to head with this person… and I just sat back watching, wondering what to do, feeling a little bit useless, and a little bit overwhelmed. Oh, not by the level of debate, don’t get me wrong. In fact, when I first started reading his comments, I actually thought it might be satire. I thought, here is an ignorant, arrogant Colbert-like character playing up the ridiculousness of “the other side”… you know, that side that suggests the only reason anyone is interested in Omar’s rights in this case is ‘because they hate America, they hate what it stands for‘. It would almost be funny if he weren’t actually being utterly serious… in a quasi-funny, (mis)appropriated, and conveniently anonymous voice. So the level of debate wasn’t what was overwhelming me.
No, it was more about the fact that I knew engaging him further was useless. Consider, for a moment, his insistence that Omar is guilty (though he has yet to be tried), and his complete dismissal of the evidence to the contrary provided by Mike. In fact, any good point in the real Omar’s favour was simply met with something like ‘just which side are you on? Because it sounds like you’re on mine! This is fantastic, I need another “useful idiot”‘. So t. schwellnus gets called an idiot… not by the writer of course, but by “Omar”… so he gets away with it.
And then there’s the issue of my being a woman. Fake Omar’s first comment said (in reference to me), ‘what’s with the lady that hates “Borat” and why is she even allowed to view such Western filth?’. After that, I (wrongly or rightly) assumed that any comment I made would be met with a similar ‘joke’ about my place as a woman. He would be ‘in character’ of course, and I would be expected to be able to take a joke of course… otherwise I’m just another one of those humourless shrews we see portrayed on the television every day. I didn’t say any of this to anyone, yet I was asked by a female friend if this was one of the reasons I wasn’t responding to the discussion. And let me tell you now, I’m not proud of the fact that I stayed away.
Finally, it is overwhelming to know that there are so many people out there like this person. As Mike said in one of his responses, ‘it is valuable for the production to acknowledge that the reason Omar Khadr is in Guantanamo Bay is because there are many, many people, just like you out there.’. I don’t mind that people have differing opinions than my own, not at all. I just want to be able to have discussions with those people where we can share what we think and what we know, and actually drive the discussion forward. I love to learn, and I therefore love it when someone proves me wrong… but that can only happen if I actually listen to what the other person is saying.
t. schwellnus may have said it to fake Omar best: ‘I don’t know what your intentions are, ultimately, but this shit just kinda makes me crazy‘.
So, as the keeper of Section 98‘s Open Source Theatre project, here’s what I want to know: what the hell do you do in this scenario? Do you take the bait and engage in the name of accuracy and/or principle? Do you ignore the “troll”? Do you delete his posts (as he accused us of doing)? Or, like Mike, do you try to find a way to incorporate this “voice” into the show, without taking the voice “out of context” (which is what concerns fake Omar). Though, I don’t see how we can take a voice that doesn’t actually belong to this person out of context, but we’ll certainly do our best.
Now I want to leave you with a question… and feel free to tell answer in the comments section below: what were you doing when you were 15? What was I doing when I was 15? I was going to Catholic school, and campaigning for Perrin Beatty? Why? Well, I was raised by my parents as both a Catholic and a Conservative. And, while I hate to admit it, I was pretty much one of those kids that did as their parents told them. It wasn’t until a little later in life that I realised I wasn’t a believer, and I certainly wasn’t a Conservative (of the big or small c variety). Luckily, when I was 15, I didn’t have parents that sent me to Afghanistan to fight in a war, as I probably would have gone. You?
Come see Praxis Theatre’s Section 98 interactive work-in-progress presentation on Saturday, March 13th at the Harbourfront Centre Studio Theatre. Click here for more information.
Throughout 2010 I will be engaged in a Director in Training program at TheTarragon Theatre funded by The Canada Council for the Arts. The premise of this program is that although I have significant experience directing theatre in festivals or site specific locations, I am still lacking in some key skill sets – namely how to tech a show and work with designers in a full professional production that has multiple days of tech and several previews.
Basically the program should teach me how to direct a show with a real budget in a big theatre. I have been an assistant director or script coordinator on a number of large budget shows, but the focus has always been on the process in the rehearsal room. At this point the other half of a director’s job is what I really need to bone up on, and I am thrilled (and a little incredulous frankly) that I have been presented with this opportunity.
As anyone who has ever done a fringe show knows – design elements are difficult to prioritize in indie theatre: Often festival productions have one “special” – a light designated just for the use of a particular show. Sets must be kept simple in order to be loaded on and off stage in under 15 minutes. Sound design must be kept basic in order to be programmed along with all your lighting cues in under three hours.
Site-specific work offers more freedom but comes with new obstacles: Power supply for lighting instruments is always an issue as is the ability to hang them without a grid. Sets must often be built inside the venue to fit though human-sized doorways. A lot of time gets burnt on how and where people will sit. Insurance, washrooms, fire exits come up time and again too. Design elements always seem to move to the end of the list.
To bring me up to speed on how the established theatre world has been working with design while I have been making-it-up-as-I-go for the past seven years, I will be investigating and learning about the design and technical elements at theatres across the country and at The Tarragon Theatre. Sometimes my travels take me along with Tarragon Theatre Artistic Director Richard Rose, and sometimes I’ve been lucky enough to be included by other companies.
The goal of the program is to give me the knowledge and understanding to direct a play at any theatre regardless of scale or budget. As editor of a website about indie theatre I would be remiss if I didn’t write about all of this, so starting next week start looking for posts on the topic, starting with Tear The Curtain a project The Electric Company has been commissioned by The Arts Club to premiere at The Stanley Theatre in Vancouver – aka the most technically ambitious production I’m aware of a Canadian indie company ever attempting – so it will be a great place to start!
Over on The Next Stage you can find the final round in the Theatrosperical State of the Nation these two websites have been engaged in at the end of 2009. Last chance for any and everyone to leave a comment, question, opinion, or just straight up hyperbole in response.
At the end of today the whole conversation will be scooped up and sent off to the people at Summerworks (with some editing) as an article for Works magazine. When else are you going to have a chance to leave a comment in digital-land with the chance it will be reprinted and distributed in a classy paper physical form?
You can read Round 1here, Round 2here, and Round 2.5: a Kris Joseph Intermezzohere.
Guest Post by Simon Ogden of Vancouver’s The Next Stage – second in a series…
Greetings, my fellow Canadians (and theatre fans around the world), my name is Simon and I’m a blogging advocate. Which basically means I’m enamored with the potential power of internet self-publication as a business tool. I’ve been using it to much success in the past few years, and so I’m officially convinced of both its practicality and potency. Mike asked me if I would care to elaborate here (and over on my own blog), and having just publicly declared myself a blogging advocate, I had really no choice. We’re going to ping-pong a conversation about the Canadian theatrosphere spurred by Michael Rubenfeld over at Summerworks between us for a while, and see where it goes. We would be delighted if you would join the conversation, if you do your comments may be published in the hard-copy compilation in Works magazine. And we hope you do.
thenextstage
Thanks M-Dub (if no one calls you that they should, it’s dope. S.O. just sounds like a shrug). It’s a topic that I have a peculiar amount of verve about, so this should be a good conversation. And hopefully an inspiring one.
“While the digital revolution hasn’t changed theatre much…”
Four years ago I made a prediction that the rise of the blogosphere would radically change theatre in Canada. Change it in the way practitioners thought about the way they produce work, in the way resources were shared and in the dramatic expansion of the audience base. At this point I’m prepared to say that I wasn’t altogether wrong in this prediction, but I would certainly excise the word “radically” from that sentence. The internet is proving to be a tough monster to wrangle for our particular discipline, the growth of the Canadian theatrosphere so far has proven to be relatively slow. That is, relative to tech-centric arts communities; photographers and digital artists have a surfeit of chatter to engage with on line.
It’s essential here at the outset that we define what we mean by ‘the theatrosphere’, and what exactly it means when it uses the term ‘theatre blogging’. There are a lot of active theatre blogs that aren’t really part of the theatrosphere, these are self-contained sites – usually company blogs – that post solely on their own business. These are marketing sites, and have little or no interaction with the rest of the industry online. The theatrosphere uses social media for two distinct agendas – and yes, sometimes those agendas get muddied – to market our work, and to engage in dynamic, real-time conversation with our fellows. If you’re not connecting across borders, you’re not part of the conversation. This, in a nutshell, is the great hope of the core concept of theatre blogging: to create an inter-connected, self-supported, crowd-sourcing resource hub that anyone can plug into.
To put it another way, the theatrosphere is a big ol’ cocktail party that’s always running. It’s a klatch full of a crazy array of personalities, from brash and irritating to gentle and wise. But always highly opinionated, and therein lies its true promise. I hear young theatre artists constantly complaining about how cliquey an industry independent theatre is, about how tough it is to break into ‘the scene’. What they’re talking about is information sharing; where does your audience come from, what is it about your process that works for you, how do you get to know the critics? Etc, etc. I don’t believe that we’re cliquey at all, actually, we’re an art form that does its work in little groups in little dark rooms that require a certain bond of trust to get the most from the process itself. We’re not snobby, we’re just busy. And we’d all like to meet regularly to socialize and network, but who has the time? Making the time to make connections is the next stage in the evolution of the indie theatre industry, and the internet offers the most economic solution to time-manage our networking and marketing efforts.
And yet we still lack a true National connectivity. Or even a regional one. I have amazing connections in my niche across the country (not even counting the inspiration and assistance I get from theatre bloggers in the US – which has a busier if not a more comprehensive blog community – and the rest of the world), but the actual amount of theatre practitioners walking into this cocktail party is shockingly small. Engagement is so easy to measure on the blogosphere, because the platforms themselves tell you when someone is talking to you or about you. There is still only a handful of engaged theatre bloggers across the entire country. I know of exactly zero East of the Rockies until you hit Toronto, then a couple in Ottawa and…that’s pretty much it. Where are the theatre bloggers, Canada? Edmonton? Winnipeg? What’s up?
As for the question of comics marketing themselves on social media better than theatre, well, maybe. But it’s kind of apples and oranges, stand-up comedy is YouTube friendly, it fulfils it’s core objective – to make you laugh – on the computer almost as much as it does live. But theatre’s objectives – to make you feel, connect, respond viscerally – just don’t translate that well to 2D. Televised theatre looks like crap, unless it’s shot well and then it suffers the iniquity of being mutated into a different medium. On top of that, the public at large understands stand-up, it’s something they already want, while they still mostly think of us as tight-wearing, Elizabethan-blathering bores. So we have to get mighty creative with how we sell ourselves on the web. It’s happening, there are some wonderful explorations in digital marketing going on in our corner of art, but it is truly in its infancy. To grow it’s going to need a movement. We have to find some way of selling the power of blogging to the world of theatre, to create a true National presence. To brand independent theatre as a mighty, united force to be reckoned with. And then the people will come.
MK
Simon, I certainly agree with what you say in terms of comedy being a much friendlier video medium. I haven’t figured out any way to create a video to promote a play reading festival so if someone has ideas I’d love to listen.
I know for me that I’m a lot less engaged in blogs, even my own, because of needing more time away from the computer and from Twitter. Twitter’s much less time consuming way of receiving and conveying information. I’m not sure if that says something about me or if that’s a trend in general. The more growth there is, the more overwhelmed I feel by it all.
I’m curious to see where this experiment between the two of you leads. I’m one of those lucky people who have met both of you and have a ton of respect for how the two of you manage to stay engaged in the blogosphere on top of all the other things you do.
thenextstage
Twitter’s really got you, eh? I totally get it, there’s been a real waning of the blogoshpere since twitter tipped. And that’s probably a good thing, full posts tend to be fewer and farther between, but the quality has escalated.
Another tick in the win column for twitter.
There actually were a ton of theatre co’s here that had never blogged that jumped on twitter, it’s my sincere hope that it proves a gateway to full blogging. Because I’d really love to hear about their work from the artist’s perspective.
A turnout like this means something, you know what, when your first meeting is packed up and its sold out to put it in theatre terms it means you have a hit on your hands. To put it in activist terms it means you are in a movement moment, it means if you organize it they will come. It means you have good timing. That’s the moment we’re in right now.
Naomi Klein addresses the Department of Culture organized Town Hall at The Theatre Centre, September 3rd, 2008.
The inaugural Department of Culture meeting drew hundreds of people to the Theatre Centre on the hottest day of last fall, with people spilling into the lobby and out onto the sidewalk where the event inside was telecast.
Politically, for the arts in Canada, those were some very dark days. The Conservative Government had released a number of ideologically motivated cuts to arts funding over the summer of 2008, while every day the polls showed Stephen Harper cruising to a larger majority government. The notion that Canada “had become more conservative” was being floated as a talking point, and even some of my most progressive friends were starting to reconcile themselves to a bleak five years. Our Town Hall was organized in direct opposition to that notion. We proposed that there was still time to turn this train around and that artists and arts workers could play an integral role in doing so.
The speakers were great, and the turnout was impressive, but what was really key about that meeting was it provided the three absolutely essential resources that our fledging organization needed: Money, volunteers and profile. Money came in the form of individual cash donations straight out of people’s wallets and cheques that came in over the next week. Volunteers were identified with contact info, availability and skill sets by a team entering info into a bank of laptops in the lobby. Profile came from the sheer size and enthusiasm for the event and the clearly serious manner with which our community organized.
1 year ago today, The Theatre Centre was packed to the rafters and out on to the streets.
We used each of these resources for all they worth every day from September 3rd to October 14th 2008. What was kick-started that night morphed into a national grassroots movement. Some of the actions that came out of our first event were:
Departments of Culture were set up independently by likeminded artists across the country.
These autonomous ad hoc organizations were tied together in the last week of the campaign by a series of concerts, video contests and theatre pieces, including the first ever national Wrecking Ball in ten Canadian on the same night from coast-to-coast.
Not all of the thousands of volunteers across the country relied on art. Online volunteers made our Facebook site the #4 Special Interest Group of the election according to CBC.
Swing teams targeted key 905-area ridings holding public meeting, attending debates and distributing information at GO stations and bus stations.
Our biggest electoral success was playing a part in changing the overall ballot question. 2008 was the first time that a question about culture was posed at the leader’s debate. That artists from across the country were united in their opposition to the government in both official languages had some influence on changing the question from: “Is Canada becoming more Conservative?” to a more traditional Canadian election question like: “Is Stephen Harper too ideologically motivated and out of touch with Canadian values to be trusted with a majority government?” On this question the government will fail every time.
The same creative team behind this video by Hooded Fang was the same gang behind this summer’s Fringe hit musical East of Broadway. Nice year guys.
Michael Ignatieff’s announcement two days ago that the Liberal Party would no longer prop up the Conservative Government points to a new campaign soon. Department of Culture is not affiliated with any political party, but clearly this will mark the beginning if a new chapter in arts activism in Canada.
Some of the key questions facing us are:
What role will we play this time?
How can we involve everyone who wants to participate?
Where will our resources come from?
Should we have another Town Hall to kick things off?
How do you play an effective part in an election if you don’t endorse any political parties?
What is different this election?
What is the same?
What do you think? I hope Department of Culture will be revived not just because we support the arts, but because culture is an integral part of a healthy society along with a compassionate social safety net, environmental reform, support for the rights of all Canadians, and many other things our current government opposes. Culture does not occur in a vacuum.
Whatever your thoughts, stay tuned to departmentofculture.ca for more information. It’s sure to be back up and running shortly. No, you are not experiencing deja vu. Yes, it does seem like this is exactly half over.
Harper’s Ordinary Artists by Rob Baker, Alastair Forbes, and Alex Hatz gets my vote for funniest video of the 2008 campaign.
About 25% of the time I put into being Co-Artistic Director of Praxis Theatre is devoted specifically to our blog and online presence .
That we would have ever ended up spending this much time developing our theatre company online never occurred to Co-AD Simon Rice and I when we began Praxis in the winter of 2003, but it seems wholly necessary in the early spring of 2009. We think it’s so important we’re in the middle of putting time and money into integrating and re-launching our website and blog at praxistheatre.com.
Why? Because theatre, like virtually every other art form and industry, is being radically reshaped by the power and popularity of online media. Here are the top three reasons why:
“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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