Click to enlarge. Photo by Verne's iPhone
For more information and context read The Toronto Star article:
Stage play takes you inside G20’s crammed jail
Final performance at The Theatre Centre as part of SummerWorks tonight at 10pm.
Tickets go on sale at 9pm.
Tonight at midnight 40 people will fill the cage. Photo by Will O'Hare
by Michael Wheeler
Tonight at midnight we are adjusting the way we perform You Should Have Stayed Home. For one night only, the show will be presented as a slightly altered version that includes a cast of 40 instead of the regular 27.
The decision is informed by our desire to present a clear idea:
This is what 40 people crammed into a 10ft by 20ft cage, begging for water looks like. Our set is the same dimensions as the cages at The Eastern Ave. Detention Centre during G20 Toronto, and it will be full of the same number of bodies.
We don’t imagine that this will be in any way a REALISTIC portrayal of what it was like to be detained and deprived of your Charter rights that weekend, but we do think it is something theatre should try to look at.
When I trained as a director at The Tarragon Theatre under Artistic Director Richard Rose we discussed at length the notion that at the end of the day, theatre is people moving through space and time. This is the actual number of bodies, in a good approximation of the space, for about 12 minutes of our hour-long show.
There is an interesting mix of family, friends, and theatre community members joining the cast for one night to contribute to this theatrical experiment. I’m even going in the cage myself. It seems important.
Yesterday’s ruling by a Toronto judge that the police acted as aggressors against peaceful protestors at G20, shows that as a community and a democracy, demanding accountability from our institutions and law enforcement agencies is more urgent than ever. I’m not sure if a piece of theatre can achieve that, but we have decided to try.
“The only organized or collective physical aggression at that location that evening was perpetrated by police each time they advanced on demonstrators… The zealous exercise of police arrest powers in the context of political demonstrations risks distorting the necessary if delicate balance between law enforcement concerns for public safety and order, on the one hand, and individual rights and freedoms, on the other”
Justice Melvyn Green – in a 29-page ruling released yesterday
Photo by Will O'Hare
Photo from CCLA's June 2011 Panel at U of T's Faculty of Law - G20: Lessons Learned, Messages Lost
Moderator:
Emily Burke, managing editor, The Mark News
Panelists:
Tommy Taylor, playwright/performer of You Should Have Stayed Home
Ajamu Nangwaya, labour lawyer specializing in police accountability
Nathalie Des Rosiers, General Counsel of Canadian Civil Liberties Association
Free // Snacks and drinks will be provided.
7:30 Performance: The Theatre Centre
Post-show panel: Conversation Room at the Great Hall
1087 Queen Street West
Wednesday, August 10th
7:30pm show
9pm panel
by Michael Wheeler
Post-show panel presented in the Conversation Room at the Great Hall by The Canadian Civil Liberties Association.
Aug 10th @ 7:30pm show – 9pm panel
Moderator:
Emily Burke, managing editor, The Mark News
Panelists:
Tommy Taylor, playwright/performer of You Should Have Stayed Home
Ajamu Nangwaya, labour lawyer specializing in police accountability
Nathalie Des Rosiers, General Counsel of Canadian Civil Liberties Association
Midnight Show: 40 people in the cage
Aug 12th @ midnight
Photo by Will O'Hare
About a month ago we made the decision to put forty people in the cage with Tommy for a portion of the show. Our approach to the piece changed in a lot of ways after that, including putting a desk in the middle of the stage, so we ended up needing about 27 performers to make room for our new approach.
Beyond the practicalities of bodies in space, we felt it was the right decision artistically as what we were creating wasn’t living anywhere close to realism.
Why 40? Because that is the number of people who were in Tommy’s cage, which is the exact same dimensions of our set at The Eastern Avenue Detention Centre.
So we have decided to pursue this approach for one show only – The Midnight Show! Joining our volunteer detainees will be members of the production team, friends of the show and some members of the theatre community. For one night only, lets look at what 40 Canadian citizens stuffed into a metal cage with no access to water looks like.
Final Show
August 13 @ 10pm
This is probably our best show time and the last show of the run. It’s gonna be packed. Buy in advance, or show up early to get in. They hold 1/2 of the tickets to be available at the door 1hr before the performance.
Photo by Will O'Hare
Globe and Mail theatre critic J Kelly Nestruck tweeted immediately following the opening night show
So far we have received two reviews for the show and they are, well, contradictory. Meyerhold would be proud!
NOW Magazine‘s Jordan Bimm reviewed the show, giving it NNN, but was disappointed with the show’s choice to have Tommy tell his story instead of live it in terms of performance style.
“The adaptation could go further – with more parts acted than recounted – but as it stands this is a sad but important piece of Canadian history.”
Meanwhile S. Bear Bergman reviewed the show for Mooney on Theatre (which does not rate shows out of 4 or 5) and was enthusiastic about the choice, comparing the performance style to Spalding Gray:
“Tommy Taylor’s You Should Have Stayed Home, which has more than lived up to its pre-SummerWorks hype…You Should Have Stayed Home is in many ways the truest testament to the power of a likable narrator.”
So there you have it, the only way to weigh in on this is to come check it out.
Back in the winter, Tommy was interviewed as one of four subjects that were focused on in a CBC Fifth Estate documentary about G20, during which Tommy told CBC about his plan to make a play about his experience. Low and behold – when the show airs, it shared the same name as the play Tommy was planning on creating (plus the word AT).
We’re not complaining – this was a great publicity boost for the show and the documentary was very well received. So much so that it was just nominated for a Gemini award for best writing in a documentary. Congrats to journalist Gillian Findlay on her nomination for bringing some of the consequences of G20 Toronto to viewers across the country.
You can watch the full Gemini-nominated doc on the CBC website here.
by Aislinn Rose
Earlier this year I had a conversation on twitter about social media, the arts, and audience development. One of the topics that came up was tweeting during actual performances. Many suggested that twitter didn’t belong in the theatre during a show, thinking it would pull the tweeters out of the performance and distract others in the audience.
When I asked a first-time theatre-goer who had been brought to the theatre via Twitter what she thought, she said tweeting would have made her feel more engaged and that she really wanted to know what other audience members were thinking throughout the show.
While some tweeters said Canadian theatre-makers were woefully behind the times when it comes to integrating social media in their work, some were adamant that tweeting during a show was a bad idea. Having already experimented with a show that incorporated live-texting throughout, I was adamant that it ought to at least be tried.
So here we are with our twitter-friendly performance of You Should Have Stayed Home at SummerWorks. We’re offering dedicated tweet seats, at the back of the audience so as not to be distracting for others, where tweeters can tweet away using our hashtag #G20Romp. All we ask is that you turn off any feature that makes a sound or vibrates, and darken your screens as much as possible – in a dark theatre you don’t really need much light.
Not sure what you’d tweet about? Our hashtag has already been in effect for some time, so here’s some of the conversation we’ve already been having.
Jonah Hundert and Praxis Theatre chat post-opening night:
Jonathan Goldsbie had a few thoughts after opening night as well:
We were pleased to have Davenport MP Andrew Cash join us for opening night and the SummerWorks opening night party after the show:
You Should Have Stayed Home performer/playwright Tommy Taylor with The Honorable Andrew Cash, Member of Parliament for Davenport
You Should Have Stayed Home
2:30pm at The Theatre Centre
Look for the marked tweet seats in the back rows, where you’ll also find the previously mentioned requests about turning off sounds, vibrations, and lowering lights.
Use the hashtag #G20Romp
Buy your tickets here or at the venue.
After the performance, we’ll be wanting to chat some more, both about the show and how you felt about tweeting during the show. Let us know if you met anyone new in the audience because of twitter!
Not a tweeter? Don’t feel left out.
We’re always happy to continue post-show discussions here in the comments of the blog. We welcome and look forward to your feedback.
If you’re not a tweeter but you are interested in this live-tweeting experiment, you can follow the hashtag even without a twitter account by clicking here.
“(SummerWorks) is tackling one of the biggest thorns in the city’s side in recent years: last year’s G20 summit, demonstrations and police overkill. In the highly anticipated play You Should Have Stayed Home, writer Tommy Taylor depicts his experience as a detainee in the squalid makeshift prison where hundreds of protesters were held.”
“Despite a certain controversy over a play about homegrown terrorism last year, SummerWorks isn’t shying away from politics. In this show from Praxis Theatre, Tommy Taylor adapts a Facebook note he wrote last year after being detained for 24 hours during the Toronto G20 Summit for the stage. Billed as “the true story of a heartbroken Canadian.”
“Here are a few of our best guesses as to what shows might cause a stir (and even if they don’t, they’re worth checking out).
You Should Have Stayed Home: A G20 Romp
The always political Praxis Theatre teams up with Tommy Taylor’s company The Original Norwegian in a stage adaptation of Taylor’s experience being illegally detained while out for a walk during last summer’s G20.”
Tommy Taylor and Kate Bullock go back to the Eastern Avenue Detention Centre at The Toronto Film Studios.
The Toronto SUN‘s Joe Warmington calls for a public inquiry into G20 and references You Should Have Stayed Home as clear evidence of abuse of police powers.
Praxis Co-Artistic Director Michael Wheeler writes an op-ed, Defunding Alternative Voices, for The Mark on defunding SummerWorks, cultural policy and directing a play about G20 Toronto.
Tommy Taylor performs a portion of You Should Have Stayed Home on CBC Radio. Complete with slideshow.
Toronto Life covers the SummerWorks controversy and You Should Have Stayed Home
The Toronto Star‘s Brendan Kennedy covers Tommy Taylor addressing the Toronto Police Services Board’s independent civilian review of the G20.
Torontoist‘s What’s Hot at SummerWorks preview calls You Should Have Stayed Home “one of the most hyped plays at SummerWorks, so don’t stay home for this one.”
by Michael Wheeler
Six days to opening and things are heating up.
Tommy Taylor reads from the script at one of our BIG rehearsals
In the current configuration and story-telling methods this means we have probably room for 5-7 more guys in the cage. It will be just fine without them – there are some objects on stage that did not exist in reality, and what we are doing is much more representative rather than a re-creation, at this point, but why stop now?
So here it is, the final call for participants in a show about G20 and the weekend Toronto stopped being part of Canada.
You can either do it, or you can’t. If you can do it, we want you, especially if you are a guy. We are pretty good with women, though we could probably take two more.
Here are the details. Email info@praxistheatre.com to let us know you’re coming – or heck – just show up to rehearsal #3. Today at 6pm.
All rehearsals and performances @ The Theatre Centre.
REHEARSALS
July 29 – 6-10 PM & July 30 – 1-5 PM
TECHNICAL REHEARSAL –
Aug 4, 11 AM – 3 PM
PERFORMANCES – The Theatre Centre
August 4, 5 PM
August 6, 2:30 PM
August 7, 10 PM
August 10, 7:30 PM
August 12, MIDNIGHT
August 13, 10 PM
by Michael Wheeler
Director – You Should Have Stayed Home
Rehearsals are sometimes an unpredictable place. Ideas come and go, scenes are rearranged, staging is adjusted, and sometimes, as was the case yesterday, you can arrive at a fundamental realignment of your strategy:
We don’t need just men to tell this story – we need at least ten women to tell a ten-minute section of You Should Have Stayed Home at Summerworks.
So it goes. It makes sense artistically. It makes sense practically. And we were also growing uncomfortable with excluding half the population from participating in this project.
So, new game plan:
If you are a guy – still get in touch. Although we have had huge a number of men express interest, we still don’t have enough confirmations. We still NEED to hear from you.
If you are female – we currently have at least 10 open slots, open on a first email first reserved basis. You don’t have to be a performer, you do have to be able to work with others in a safe and structured environment.
Relevant Details:
(If you can’t make one of the rehearsals – we can still make it happen.)
TO RESERVE: info@praxistheatre.com
ORIENTATION SESSION – July 24, 1 – 3 PM – Tarragon Theatre
REHEARSALS – July 25, July 29 – 6-10 PM & July 30 – 1-5 PM – The Theatre Centre
TECHNICAL REHEARSAL – Aug 4, 11 AM – 3 PM (Please meet outside the venue at 10:45 AM) – The Theatre Centre
PERFORMANCES – August 4, 5 PM, August 6, 2:30 PM, August 7, 10 PM, August 10, 7:30 PM, August 12, MIDNIGHT, August 13, 10 PM – The Theatre Centre
Still reading? Its time to sign up!
Want to get involved with this piece of theatre?
If you are available for 3 or 4 rehearsals next week – you can join the cast for a 10-minute scene with 39 other people. You don’t have to be an experienced performer- as long as you can work with other people.
To learn more email info@praxistheatre.com.
Strategically, what we need to make this piece go is cash. Funding cuts to Summerworks by Heritage Canada have increased ticket prices, but artists involved in the festival don’t receive that increase – the festival does. So we have the same product at an increased price, with no increase in revenue. Strategically we need to pursue multiple revenue streams, like partnerships with engaged citizens just like you. Click here to get strategic.
Dates: Aug 4th @5pm, Aug 6th @ 2:30pm, Aug 7th @ 10pm, Aug 10th @ 7:30pm, Aug 12th @ midnight, Aug 13th @10pm
Location: The Theatre Centre, 1087 Queen St. W. Click for Map
Tickets: Info on how to buy tickets available via Summerworks.
The show has a Facebook Page and Praxis has an active Twitter Account – both of which will be full of info and stories surrounding the production.
Do you know someone who may be interested in this sort of thing? Tell them about it. Word of mouth is the single most powerful factor that can drive awareness of a production. Use Facebook, drinks with old friends, Twitter, family dinner, sports practice, etc. There are a lot of venues where you can say, “Hey did you hear about this G20 play where….”.
Looking forward to your involvement with the piece!
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