Praxis Theatre is currently on hiatus! Please find co-founders Aislinn Rose and Michael Wheeler at The Theatre Centre and SpiderWebShow, respectively.
May 9, 2011, by
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Text:

“Creativity is contagious. Pass it on.”

– Albert Einstein.

Image:

Sound:

Laughter by dangrossmusic

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Kate Werneburg and Samantha Hayes, co-artistic directors of Winterbird Arts, invite you to The Starling Art Party.

There will be music, food, a cash bar, and a communal creative activity. The activity will be a surprise, but they promise it won’t be hard and that it will be a ton of fun. Meet fellow female artists from other practices and disciplines and expand your creative circle. RSVP to winterbirdarts(at)gmail(dot)com so they know how many surprises to make.

What: The Starling Art Party presented by Winterbird as part of the Festival of Ideas and Creation
Who: Emerging female artists of all disciplines
Where: Canadian Stage’s Berkeley St. Theatre, Rehearsal Room
When: Tuesday, May 10, 6:30-8pm
How much: FREE!

Jordan Tannahill accepts the Ken McDougall Award for a promising emerging director. Photo by Guntar Kravis

by Michael Wheeler

The Toronto theatre community comes together annually for The Harold Awards, self-described as “a kind of rabble-rousing alternative to the Dora Awards”. The 2011 Harolds took place Monday May 2nd at The El Mocambo.

Named after Harold Kandel: a theatre fan, social activist and avid heckler – winning a Harold is a big deal and probably means you put in years of tireless work in some way that has been essential to the theatrical ecosystem. Going to the Harolds is also fun because heckling and consumption of adult beverages is encouraged.

Below is the list of who was Harold-ed last night and now becomes an organizer of the 2012 event. See what you get for working so hard Haroldees: something new to organize and produce!

2011 Harold Award Winners

Nina Okens

Jordan Merkur

Gail Packwood

Paula Wing

Michael Kruse

Karen Rodd

Caroline Gillis

Patty Gail Peaker

Jenni Burke

Lyon Smith

Kristen Mueller-Heaslip

Bridget MacIntosh

John Palmer

Ken McDougall Award

Jordan Tannahill

Check out this great tribute video to Harold created by Kirsten Johnson

May 2, 2011, by
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Image by Adam Scotti licensed under Creative Commons

by Aislinn Rose

“Everything a voter should know” can be accessed here on the Elections Canada website, but I’ve broken it down into a few of the more significant categories below for you. Elections Canada has put out a warning telling voters not to trust any information about voting from any other source after some voters have been deliberately misled, so all of the voter info links I have provided will take you directly to pages on their site.

Do you know what riding you live in?

Click here to search for your riding via your postal code, or by the name of a candidate and your province/territory.

Do you know the candidates in your riding?

Once you have found your riding via the link above, you can find your list of candidates by clicking on the “candidates” button along the top of the page.

Do you know where to vote?

On the same page where you found your riding, there is a link for “where do I vote?” along the right-hand side, where you will then be prompted to fill in your street address.

Do you know what you need to bring with you?

I don’t have a driver’s licence, and I’ve neglected to get a new health card with my current address, so when I go to vote this morning, I’ll be bringing my passport, and a recent credit card statement. See below for a list of options on what to bring, with more info available by clicking on the picture.

Click the image for more information

Not sure if you’re registered?

Don’t let that deter you from voting. You can register at the same location as where you’ll be voting, using the same pieces of identification listed above. Let the person at the door know you’re not sure if you’re registered and they’ll point you in the right direction. More voter registration and eligibility information can be found here.

Haven’t decided whether or not to vote?

Obviously I’m hoping you will vote. Click here to read the amazing letters that were presented at Wrecking Ball 12: Are you dying to vote?, by some of PEN Canada‘s Writers in Exile, about their views on democracy.

I’ll be tweeting on and off throughout the day via @praxistheatre using the hashtag #elxn41arts, which you can follow with or without an account. But I won’t be tweeting the results until the polls have closed… I can’t afford the fine. Happy voting day everyone!

April 25, 2011, by
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The Essentials:

8pm
The Theatre Centre
Map
Pay what you can (at the door)

Today’s Globe & Mail Article on the various Wrecking Ball events can be found here. You can read more about the Toronto artists here, and you’ll find more information on other Wrecking Ball events across Canada here.

For those of you who like to tweet, and for others who can’t make it to the event in person, you can follow along and join in via the hashtag #WreckingBall2011. Observers are invited to be in conversation with the work, the ideas, and with each other, both during and after each event. With Wrecking Ball events happening across the country, we look forward to the conversation going national as well. For those of you who don’t have twitter accounts, click here for a live feed of tweets from across the country, or simply search #WreckingBall2011 at www.twitter.com.

April 21, 2011, by
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Exciting news from the Wrecking Ball team in Toronto yesterday revealed that there will be 7 Wrecking Ball events taking place across the country on Monday the 25th at 8pm local time.

Click here for more information on the cities and venues playing host.

If you can’t attend in person but don’t want to miss out entirely, be sure to join virtually on Twitter via the designated hashtag #WreckingBall2011.

You can follow this tag with out without a Twitter account, and there will be Wrecking Ball tweeters at all of these events to fill you in, including @praxistheatre at the Toronto Wrecking Ball at the Theatre Centre.

April 20, 2011, by
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by Aislinn Rose

Tonight, as part of the Theatre Passe Muraille Buzz Festival, The Original Norwegian and Praxis Theatre will be presenting a 20 minute reading from our new collaboration, You Should Have Stayed Home. After tonight’s reading, the piece will be developed further with a workshop in May, and we are proud to announce that we have been offered an opportunity to present the full piece in August this year as part of the 2011 SummerWorks Festival.

Based on a Facebook note called “How I Got Arrested and Abused at G20 in Toronto, Canada”, You Should Have Stayed Home details how Tommy Taylor experienced the billion dollar G20 in Toronto in the summer of 2010, with the good times including processed cheese slices, condom balloons, and the total dismissal of his civil rights. You can read the entire Facebook note here.

For more information about tonight’s reading at the Buzz Festival, take a moment to RSVP to our Facebook Event. If you’d like more information about the team collaborating on this piece, you might be interested in an earlier Google Chat between the writer Tommy Taylor, and the director Michael Wheeler, which can be found here.

Tommy was also the subject of a 5th Estate Episode, which can be seen in its entirety here. We hope to see some of you at the Buzz Festival tonight, and look forward to receiving feedback on the work. If you can’t attend, but would like to be kept informed about the show as it is developed and presented, send us an email to info@praxistheatre.com.

The essentials for tonight:
Theatre Passe Muraille
16 Ryerson Avenue, Toronto
7:30pm
Come out and support the other great artists showing there work tonight as well!

April 18, 2011, by
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By Simon Rice

Most theatre school students do not graduate to a career in the theatre.

While theatre may be an important part of their experience, it simply does not have enough employment opportunities for all theatre school graduates. It has, in fact, very few.

Lwam Ghebretariat, 2011.

If we can accept that premise moving forward, obvious questions spring to mind.

What is theatre school for? What is its value to the great masses of us that it has produced who, for many different reasons, are not in the theatre’s employ?

Lwam Ghebretariat is a graduate of Canada’s most reputable theatre school, and yet he has never pursued a career in acting. He has persued a very different career, which he says has a unique connection to theatre.

Lwam and I sat down recently to try to answer these questions and others. Here’s how it sounded…

Lwam stared in the 2010 Summerworks hit, Homegrown

(If you would like to download this Exit Interview as a podcast, click the arrow above on the right.)

After graduating from the National Theatre School of Canada in 2003, Lwam stayed in school, completing a BA (Honours) in philosophy and French at the University of Alberta. He is currently in his final semester of law school at the University of Toronto.

As an undergraduate student he spent his summers researching Eritrean/Ethiopian literature and culture (some of that work can be seen here). As a law student he has worked and volunteered at Downtown Legal Services, representing low income clients in criminal court and disciplinary hearings, and at the African Canadian Legal Clinic, in the area of human rights litigation.

As an actor he most recently appeared in Homegrown (by Catherine Frid, directed by Beatriz Pizano/Aluna Theatre, Summerworks 2010), a play which received national media attention. Other credits include Twelfth Night (Canadian Stage) and Ministry of Love (Theatre Rien Pantoute).

Since this interview, Praxis has learned that Lwam was recently voted Valedictorian for his graduating class. So congratulations Lwam! We’re pretty sure your theatre training will come in handy.

April 15, 2011, by
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Text:

He kissed the girl
in the ballerina skirt.
It was a long one –
like the kiss –
drenching her sneakers
in tulle.

Image:

Sound:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6EdFUEcbh3A
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One Block examines how each of us is shaped by our physical environments, by the people who have surrounded us, and by the histories that swell under our feet. Unspun Theatre imagines an investigative romp that explores a convergence of ideas about landscape and story. Part of the Harbourfront Centre HATCH season.

Saturday, April 16, 2011

8:00PM Studio Theatre

York Quay Centre, 235 Queens Quay West

Click here for tickets.

April 14, 2011, by
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At 7pm tonight, Department of Culture and Project Democracy bringing you The Yes Men at The Royal on College in Toronto.

Entry is by donation, and the doors open at 6:30pm with the show beginning at 7pm.

Click here for the Facebook event page.

Click here to read more about on Torontoist and NOW.

Get there early to make sure you can get in.

April 11, 2011, by
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by Shira Leuchter

Project 3/2/1 is an evening of dance that features three choreographies and a cast of six dancers, who perform all six roles on an alternating basis throughout the run of the show. I was very fortunate to have been able to sit in on a rehearsal of Ame Henderson’s piece, this body is another body, late in its rehearsal process.

As a response to the process that I observed, I made this piece using watercolour, ink, found text, a photograph of Philip Johnson’s Glass House, and an image of the night sky.

Project 3/2/1 runs from April 6 – 17, 2011 at Dancemakers Centre for Creation. You should probably go twice.
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Shira Leuchter makes performance stuff and other art stuff. She is currently working with UnSpun Theatre on a new piece that will be performed as part of Harbourfront’s HATCH program this April. She collects all of her shallowest thoughts here.

Click here to see “Your process is showing: an introduction”.