Present Laughter by Noel Coward launched The Shaw Festival 2012 Season. Click to enlarge.
by Krista Jackson
May 28, 2012
I just did Tara Rosling‘s yoga class on the day off. Delicious. Opening week has ended! Six shows opened with dinners and parties while we continued to rehearse and set levels for His Girl Friday and assembled for the first day of Hedda Gabler on Thursday. I was only able to see Wednesday’s opening of Present Laughter– which was fabulous and I attended the pre show dinner and performance with old pal Neil Barclay.
I cannot write this post without mentioning how humbled and honoured I am to be in the room assisting Martha Henry on Hedda Gabler. She brings such compassion, insight and humour to the table. We begin blocking tomorrow.
Krista Jackson photo by David Cooper
Meanwhile, His Girl Friday: Jim Mezon and I will be spending 24/7 together in the coming weeks. He is playing Judge Brack in Hedda and we will run back and forth to rehearse, tech and preview his production of His Girl Friday – Heis a goldmine of Farce 101. I have loved my rehearsals with the reporters – who act as a Greek chorus in the play – hashing out the text and drilling the lines while Jim works on other scenes. It is a huge play that demands a lot of precision.
In preparation for writing my His Girl Friday pre-show chat – some thing both Intern Directors do before evening shows at the Festival Theatre – I dug up Neil Munro‘s directors notes from The Front Page’s production program. This show is the 1928 Ben Hecht/Charles MacArthur play His Girl Friday is based on.
I was SO inspiredby those notes, that I took a list of all the shows Neil has directed here to Jean – who creates all the Shaw programs. She gave me copies and I spent an afternoon with Neil Munro – reading his brilliant notes on Ibsen, Miller, Chekhov, Williams, Barker, Shaw etc. Here is his definition of farce from The Front Page notes:
“Farce feeds on insurrection, and its characters stand outside the boundaries of civilized behaviour. Farce also contains elements of rage – rage at the inability to better one’s circumstances, rage at the deceit of false friendships, rage at why Right seems Wrong and the other way around. All of this is usually coupled with a healthy dose of domestic violence and almost always capped with the power of True Love to rise above all and serenely conquer.”
I also started my Academy classes last week. We have chosen Act 1: Scene 1 from Shaw’s Candida and John Bull’s Other Island to work on. I love Shaw! As for my one act choices for the project, I have more than three and am trying to narrow it down. Ionesco, Inge, Williams, Gerstenberg, Kaufman and Galsworthy… Thanks for reading!
xo Krista
Krista Jackson and Michael Wheeler are the 2012 Neil Munro Intern Directors at The Shaw Festival. You can read all their blog posts about this by clicking here.
A Fool’s Life – Ahuri Theatre in association with Why Not Theatre
The Story – Theatre Columbus
The Ugly One – Theatre Smash
Morro And Jasp: Go Bake Yourself – U.N.I.T. Productions
THE LIFE AND TIMES OF MACKENZIE KING – Videocabaret
OUTSTANDING NEW PLAY OR NEW MUSICAL
Adam Paolozza & Arif Mirabdolbaghi (original adaptation) – The Double – TheatreRUN
Eric Woolfe – DOC WUTHERGLOOM’S HAUNTED MEDICINE SHOW – ELDRITCH THEATRE
Heather Marie Annis, Amy Lee & Byron Laviolette – Morro And Jasp: Go Bake Yourself – U.N.I.T. Productions
Hume Baugh – Crush – Optic Heart Theatre
Jules Lewis – Tomasso’s Party – Rooftop Creations
OUTSTANDING DIRECTION
Ashlie Corcoran – The Ugly One – Theatre Smash
Dan Watson – A Fool’s Life – Ahuri Theatre in association with Why Not Theatre
Ed Roy – His Greatness – independent Artists Repertory Theatre (iArt)
Jennifer Brewin – The Story – Theatre Columbus
Michael Hollingsworth – THE LIFE AND TIMES OF MACKENZIE KING – Videocabaret
OUTSTANDING PERFORMANCE BY A MALE IN A PRINCIPAL ROLE
Clinton Walker – Ditch – Sometimes Y Theatre
Cyrus Faird – The Jones Boy – Surface/Underground Theatre
Daniel MacIvor – His Greatness – independent Artists Repertory Theatre (iArt)
Eric Woolfe – DOC WUTHERGLOOM’S HAUNTED MEDICINE SHOW – ELDRITCH THEATRE
Richard Donat – His Greatness – independent Artists Repertory Theatre (iArt)
OUTSTANDING PERFORMANCE BY A FEMALE IN A PRINCIPAL ROLE
Amy Nostbakken – The Big Smoke – Theatre Ad Infinitum in association with Why Not Theatre
Astrid Van Wieren – This Wide Night – Mermaid Productions
Lesley Faulkner – Dying City – Surface/Underground Theatre
Melee Hutton – Brothers Karamazov – Wordsmythe Theatre
Shannon Taylor – The Jones Boy – Surface/Underground Theatre
OUTSTANDING PERFORMANCE IN A FEATURED ROLE / ENSEMBLE
The Ensemble – A Fool’s Life – Ahuri Theatre in association with Why Not Theatre
The Ensemble – Stockholm – Seventh Stage Theatre Productions in association with Nightwood Theatre
The Ensemble – The Story – Theatre Columbus
The Ensemble – Morro And Jasp: Go Bake Yourself – U.N.I.T. Productions
The Ensemble – THE LIFE AND TIMES OF MACKENZIE KING – Videocabaret
OUTSTANDING SET DESIGN
Andrea Mittler – Brothers Karamazov – Wordsmythe Theatre
Camellia Koo – The Ugly One – Theatre Smash
Catherine Hahn – The Story – Theatre Columbus
Kimberly Purtell – His Greatness – independent Artists Repertory Theatre (iArt)
Sean Frey and Sonja Rainey – A Fool’s Life – Ahuri Theatre in association with Why Not Theatre
OUTSTANDING COSTUME DESIGN
Astrid Janson – THE LIFE AND TIMES OF MACKENZIE KING – Videocabaret
Camellia Koo – The Ugly One – Theatre Smash
Catherine Hahn – The Story – Theatre Columbus
Lindsay Anne Black – Peter and the Wolf – Theatre Rusticle
Sean Frey and Sonja Rainey – A Fool’s Life – Ahuri Theatre in association with Why Not Theatre
OUTSTANDING LIGHTING DESIGN
Andre du Toit – The Double – TheatreRUN
Andy Moro – THE LIFE AND TIMES OF MACKENZIE KING – Videocabaret
David DeGrow – Hallaj – Modern Times Stage Company
Jason Hand – The Ugly One – Theatre Smash
Kimberly Purtell – His Greatness – independent Artists Repertory Theatre (iArt)
OUTSTANDING SOUND DESIGN/COMPOSITION
Gaisha Ishizaka – A Fool’s Life – Ahuri Theatre in association with Why Not Theatre
John Gzowski – The Ugly One – Theatre Smash
John Millard – The Story – Theatre Columbus
Patric Caird – Peter and the Wolf – Theatre Rusticle
Thomas Ryder Payne – Hallaj – Modern Times Stage Company
This year we are trying something new over the busy summer months when the city’s two biggest theatre festivals play host to roughly two hundred indie productions over July and August. As YouTube trailer and promo vids become the norm in indie theatre promotion, simply creating a video is not enough to attract the interest of potential audience members.
For these videos to be effective they have to be seen, and seen by people who conceivably would buy a ticket to some indie theatre. This year, we at praxistheatre.com would like to help ensure that your video will be seen by a wide number of potential audience members through exposure on our site.
What we provide:
1) Your own blog post with your video embedded, published over the ten days leading up to your festival.
2) A video listing with a playable thumbnail version of your video that will live in the sidebar of praxistheatre.com for the duration of your run.
What you provide:
1) An embedable video no more that 4 minutes long from YouTube, Vimeo or comparable site.
2) $100
Email us at info@praxistheatre.com to sign up. There are a limited number of slots available.
The basic math on this is that if you think having your video on praxistheatre.com will sell 11 Fringe tickets, this is an opportunity worth taking advantage of. (11 tickets @ $10 = $110)
From the first scurry of red squares into Dufferin Grove, Montreal’s spirit was felt in Toronto. As the park filled it became evident; Quebec’s struggle is our struggle. We are united.
Yesterday, I joined Toronto – pot and wooden spoon in hand – to participate in Casseroles Night in Canada. I donned my red apparel and arrived at Dufferin Grove, where a camera crew asked: “Why Toronto? Why participate?”
I thought of all the connections:
Ontario suffers the highest tuition rates in the country. Canadians, deserve affordable accessible education. A threat to freedom of speech and the right to assembly is a threat to us all.
But, as the sun set over our march, on Bloor St., I glanced back over the crowd of thousands and my answer was simple – I march because I am inspired.
Montreal has shown us it is possible.
In the last glimmer of sunlight, I watched the students hand out flyers while I reading the messages carried overhead. There were Occupy banners, signs rejecting Bill 78, posters against C-38, flags in support of railway workers. We are a crucible of intersecting movements.
What began as student strike against tuition hikes is transitioning into a united fight for social economic justice and a struggle against austerity.
In theatre, we often explore what it means to be human and what it means to be Canadian. For me compassion, equality and being a citizen are at the route of both. We have an opportunity to fight for fairness and democracy.
This is the beginning.
Crystal Skinner is a CAEA stage manager, arts activist and rabble rouser. She is currently in her fourth season with The Stratford Shakespeare Festival, as assistant stage manager, on Much Ado About Nothing.
Greta gets some Fringe Tips from Johnny Walker, the Co-Artistic Producer of Nobody’s Business Theatre (not the cheap whiskey):
JOHNNY WALKER’S 5 TIPS FOR PEOPLE DOING THEIR 1ST FRINGE SHOW:
1. Find people you trust and like to working with, even if they have little to no experience.
2. Befriend an amazing photographer. This is how you get press-awesome photos.
3. Fundraise, fundraise, fundraise! Do not go into a show with zero capital and expect to recoup all you expenses from your box office.
4. If you write your own work and you have limited resources, write to your resources. Don’t write set pieces you can’t afford or characters you will never be able to cast.
5. Sell your work. A catchy title, pithy synopsis, memorable poster and aggressive web presence go a long way.
Nobody’s Business theatre company has two shows going on during the 2012 Fringe Festivals: The Other Three Sisters will be playing at the Toronto Fringe and then the company leaves for a cross Canada Fringe Tour of their 2010 Summerworks hit – Redheaded Stepchild read the review here.
Greta Papageorgiu is an actor, writer, teacher and director. She performs and teaches throughout Ontario and Quebec. Greta loves the theatre and hopes to share some of her love with you through 2 Minutes With Greta Papageorgiu.
Small Matters Productions is an Edmonton-based theatre company dedicated to creating and performing original works of modern clown theatre. Drawing from our experience in the uniquely Canadian Pochinko-style of clown, we use classic theatre techniques, improvisation, and audience participation to reinvent clown for contemporary adult audiences.
Every evening at 8pm in Montreal, and recently in other parts of the province, Quebecers gather to bang pots and pans in support of the student movement and against Bill 78, which limits the right to freedom of assembly and association as protected in the Charter.
Tantalize your taste buds with the seasonal flavours of June
Click the icon to reserve now
Praxis hors d’oeuvre including spring leeks, fiddle-heads, squash blossoms, wild arugula, cherries, peaches and more!
You are invited to celebrate with an evening of cuisine and art at the Praxis Summer Party on Monday June 11th at 6:30pm.
Hosted by donors Christine Armstrong and Irfhan Rawji at 358 Wellesley St. East, your ticket includes an open bar stocked with local wines and beer, a seasonal menu of locally created cuisine, Praxis performers, live art, music and more. Tickets are $75 and all food and drinks are included.
Tania McCartney prepares the open bar
We appreciate your already generous support of Praxis Theatre. The past year has been an important period in our development. Jesus Chrysler at Theatre Passe Muraille was our first production in association with an established theatre venue and the first time we have engaged all of our artists under the Canadian Theatre Agreement.
Our award-winning production of You Should Have Stayed Home at the SummerWorks Festival generated significant interest from a number of theatre companies and organizations and has already been invited to be presented as far away as the Yukon. The process of building a national tour of Tommy’s G20 story is well underway.
We will also continue with the development of our Dungeons & Dragons experiment, which launched at the Toronto Fringe Festival and combined interactive performance, twitter, and live drawing and live sound and video design by some of Toronto’s most established theatre artists.
“In 2011, there was hardly a theatre company more vocal, inventive, and relevant than Praxis. From discussions about the new Culture Plan, to funding cuts, to the arts under the Ford administration, to the federal funding issues with the 2011 SummerWorks Festival, Praxis’s online presence made sure that the word was spread … as quickly and thoroughly as possible. Not to mention the fact that their shows… demonstrated creativity and political awareness that few others matched.” Torontoist.com
Simon, Michael and Aislinn
We hope you can make the party. If you are unavailable to attend, donations of any size will be gratefully accepted at:
Pip's dispatches have moved from the Tarragon Theatre Booth to the Toronto Fringe Office
Dear Friends:
There is a saying in this world that “a change is a good as a rest”. Frankly, years of club-hopping has left me unconvinced of the truth of that statement. Sometimes, readers, I would have been far better served by going home to bed than by going to the Dakota. However, I have decided to take this dubious advice to heart and, finding myself tiring of the trials of being a space technician, I have flown the Tarragon coop and found a new roost here at the Toronto Fringe Festival for a brief time.
The Toronto Fringe, in what can only be a moment of near-godlike inspiration, has seen fit to hire me as their Youth Outreach Coordinator. And after reviewing the reasons you wish you were in my program I have listed below, I’m sure you will agree that clearly they could not have gone in any other direction.
5 Reasons Why You Wish You Could Be In My Youth Outreach Program
We’re talking the Fringe Festival here.
Seriously, why would you not want to be part of the best two weeks in Toronto theatre? Do you not like seeing plays for free? Do you not want to be party to some of the most interesting discussions in theatre? Do you not like hanging out with awesome people?
I’m too new to know what isn’t allowed.
If you think it is a good use of our time together to watch episodes of Gossip Girl and analyze the development and progression of Blair Waldorf, the greatest character on television, who am I to say no?
Thanks to my raging adult ADD, I have more energy than any one human being should.
Being me requires enough energy to fuel a rocket ship to the moon and back. Think you’ve got lots of drive and get-up-and-go? I wrote the book on overnighters WHILE OVERNIGHTING. This party never stops.
I’m a technician, which means we are not dilly dallying around here.
We are going way beyond theatre games, my friends. Largely because I am not too clear on the rules and motivation behind Zip Zap Zop.
You get to come hang out with me in my clubhouse
As the Youth Outreach Coordinator for the Toronto Fringe Festival, I am finally achieving a Fringe Dream five years in the making: I get to hang out at the Fringe Club all day long while people come visit me in my clubhouse, The 100 Salon. No, seriously, I have a salon. You want to come to my salon? WELL TOO BAD, because you’re not in my youth outreach program.
The program Pip is taunting you with is The 100, a new program the Fringe is developing for young artists between the ages of 17 and 24. This 12 day immersive theatre entrepreneur boot-camp allows participants to get hands-on experience developing viral and guerilla marketing techniques, learning about self-promotion and branding, and generating street theatre while acting as ambassadors for the Fringe Festival of Toronto.
Perks include an unlimited pass to the Toronto Fringe Festival, access to behind-the-scenes action at the Fringe Club, and more fun than you can shake a stick at. To learn more, you can email her at outreach@fringetoronto.com, or to apply simply click here.
Sarah ‘Pip’ Bradford is the Youth Outreach Coordinator for the Toronto Fringe Festival, the Mainspace Technician at Tarragon Theatre, and the founder of Art Is Hard, a grassroots arts philanthropy project.
If you like what you see here, she blogs (infrequently) at The Christopher Pike Project, and posts daily to Tips From Pip, an unsolicited Tumblr advice blog. She is also willing to accept Samwell Tarly on Game Of Thrones as a contender for best character on television.
A Great Thunder. An open letter to striking students.
CHRISTIAN NADEAU, May 17, 2012
Christian Nadeau is a professor in the Philosophy Department of Université de Montréal.
This letter was originally published in French here and distributed in the above video.
Dear students,
Please allow me firstly to address you as a group in its entirety and not solely to your spokespeople, nor to those the media label as your “leaders”, an expression that reflects the moronic servility of our current era. I wish to speak to the student movement’s activists.
I am writing you this letter in order to salute you and to humbly ask that you help us follow through with your endeavor. Your struggle is becoming the rebirth of of the left in Quebec, asleep for years thanks to the privilege of the few and dizzied by its own prefabricated rhetoric. You are liberty’s workers. You have denounced the sugary splendor of our artificial paradise. You have reminded us of what a nation is when it is at its best: a great act of confidence. You spoke to us, you offered us your hand even when we did not answer. But it is not too late. We will first be a few hundred, then thousands who will work alongside you. The question of violence remains, which is the wall between us. But what violence do we speak of precisely?
Violence and contestation
It is comfortable to condemn when we are not faced with it daily. It is convenient to judge without understanding, to judge the striking body as a whole for highlighted actions, ones that were perhaps even cynically hoped for by our elected officials. Of course, some of you would deem the present not suitable for festive events where imagination confronts power. But you also know that might does not equal right.
For my part, I will always be opposed to power that is at gunpoint, no matter who holds the gun. But I have never seen a club in the hands of a student. On the other hand, I have never seen such a display of violence against a social group in Quebec. I have never witnessed such contempt on behalf of the government towards its own citizens. I have never witnessed such an arrogance on behalf of such a vast number of journalists and columnists in the face of those who could even teach them to write and express themselves decently.
The student movement is rising up against the beatings by the bullies who are gripping their clubs, these weapons held as though they were rattles. They spit Cayenne pepper and degrade their entire profession. Maybe I’m a tad naive, but I remain absolutely convinced that the police force remains divided with regards to the impression made by their militaristic repression. The martial charges by rows of armed and armored officers against peaceful protesters are not intended primarily to frighten you. They are actually intended to humiliate you until reason gives into anger, setting off hostilities against which the forces of order will be victorious. This is what you are fighting against: might equalling right, you are opposing the force of reason. By denouncing violence against individuals, you have brought us back to the real meaning of this moral debate. You have done what you’ve been doing for months now: you are providing us with edifying words.
This strike is about learning…
There is a famous passage in Wind, Sand and Stars (Terre des hommes), where the author condemns the will to put an end to what is best in the hearts of men. “What torments me, says Saint-Exupery, the soup kitchen cannot heal. What torments me is not the humps nor hollows nor the ugliness. It is the sight, a little bit in all these men, of Mozart murdered”. This sentence, often tarnished, still resonates within the current context, as it expresses disgust in the face of the dishonorable. The government insists on looking down upon you, in the process looking down on its own reason to be. It was counting on a public humiliation and it did so with its club, but also and perhaps especially with the insults of a guard dog to the well-off, the profiteers, and those who sabotage the common wealth. To the worst sycophants, you respond with dignity. You offer a lesson in public morality to a government that stopped being preoccupied with honor long ago.
But the struggle is for everyone
It is surprising to see commentators being stunned at the political turn taken by this student strike. However, since the beginning, you have clearly expressed why this struggle is concerned with a fundamental issue for our society. Since the beginning, you have refused any form of corporatism. You have proposed options and you have accepted all societal debates, including ones undertaken with those who would rather see you dragged through the mud than being granted the slightest credit. However this plays out, you have already generously shared with us a daily victory since the beginning of this strike.
If a segment of our society has wanted to humiliate you, it’s because it fears the return of a social-democratic tide. If this segment reacts with such violence to your movement, it’s because they are afraid of those who wish to stand up straight and are ready to defend the common good. Why would you wish to cage freedom and destroy the hopes for a more just society? Is it really Mozart who we are murdering by wishing to destroy your movement? Should we not seek to understand why it is that they wish to kill Jaurès?
Great thunder
I will end by thanking you once again and by inviting all those who, like me, feel at their very core this infinite gratitude towards you for having accomplished so much. We will salute your courage and your refusal to abdicate. And together, we shall rebuild a civil society and a state that the corporate eulogists would like to see destroyed.
Dear students, you have shown us the way. It has been said that you are expecting the impossible. On the contrary, you are opening doors to the possible. That is the reason why we will be so numerous in accompanying you at the large demonstration on May 22, walking with you or forming a hedge of honor around you to salute your determination, waving down to you from all the windows. We will create together the greatest thunder, yes, a very great clamor of applause, an ovation the echo of which will be heard again and again, in order to sustain the struggle and the hope.
*Translating the printemps érable is a volunteer collective attempting to balance the English media’s extremely poor coverage of the student conflict in Québec by translating media that has been published in French into English.
These are amateur translations; we have done our best to translate these pieces fairly and coherently, but the final texts may still leave something to be desired. If you find any important errors in any of these texts, we would be very grateful if you would share them with us at translatingtheprintempsderable@gmail.com.
Please read and distribute these texts in the spirit in which they were intended; that of solidarity and the sharing of information.
“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.”
“In 2011, there was hardly a theatre company more vocal, inventive, and relevant than Praxis. From discussions about the new Culture Plan, to funding cuts, to the arts under the Ford administration, to the federal funding issues with the 2011 SummerWorks Festival, Praxis’s online presence made sure that the word was spread … as quickly and thoroughly as possible. Not to mention the fact that their shows… demonstrated creativity and political awareness that few others matched.” 
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