Out and about
Autumn Smith and Cathy Murphy of MackenzieRo at the opening night of Someone is Going to Come presented by One Little Goat.
Theatre Is Territory 3.0
What the fuck is going on now?
Basically this:
After four months of transition with help from Ian Mackenzie consulting from the shadows, the kids at Praxis are finally ready to run their own blog. We’re on our own now in this e-wilderness, without the benefit of a pioneer of the Canadian theatrosphere.
Theatre Is Territory will continue in a new location, the appropriately located: theatreisterritory.com. You will be able to find all of Ian’s famous 10 Questions interviews here and a few of his other ongoing projects too.
Everything here will remain almost unnoticeably the same…or will it?
NO IT WON’T!
We have a lot of changes in the works:
• Praxis Theatre Co-Artistic Director Simon Rice will begin contributing regularly with his own series of interviews.
• Greta Papageorgiu’s wildly popular Celebrity Theatre series is set to return as well.
• No more Just The Facts. It was boring. We‘ll develop a new way to let people know what the fuck is going on
• A full re-launch that fully integrates this blog with the Praxis Theatre website.
We would like to give sincere thanks to Ian for everything he has done for the company as our Marketing Director and in particular with this blog. From his first post at 10:33am on October 11th 2006, to his last post on Monday January 26th 2009, two-and–a-half years later, this blog has become an important place for discussion and information about indie theatre in Canada and around the world.
Thanks Ian. Praxis Theatre is certainly better known and respected because of all of your savvy, imagination and hard work.
Sincerely,
Everyone at Praxis Theatre!
Canadian indie productions get slick on YouTube
After scouring the internet for good uses of YouTube videos to promote Canadian theatrical productions, one thing became crystal clear: Indie companies have this scene locked down! No venued or commercial companies we found really had anything worth posting in this format.
Give it time. The mainstream takes time to co-opt new forms, but they invariably get around to it. It has likely not sunk in that people who watch YouTube promo clips are the NEW audience for theatre and they are still milking the OLD one.
Here are some fine examples of the use of YouTube videos to promote indie productions:
Experimental Indie
Dedicated To The Revolutions
Classical Indie
Macbeth
Theatre for Young Audiences Indie
Cranked
What do you think? Is this the new cost effective way to promote a show, or just a fun hobby for artists with too much time on their hands? Do these clips make you want to see these shows, or are they just entertainment unto themselves?
What should we talk about now?
Any suggestions?
(New picture every time we ask that question from now on.)
Panych gives the straight goods to Piatkowski
Highly recommended interview with Canadian theatre legend Morris Panych on One Big Umbrella today. Never one to pull punches on the internet, Panych gives a series of entertaining and refreshingly uncensored responses to the questions posed by M.K. Piatkowski. Highlights include:
“Who would direct the coolest production of one of your plays?
I can tell you who would direct the uncoolest. The asshole from New York who directed Avenue Q…”
“Where would you like your work to be produced?
It’s a nice feeling to have a play make you some money, so anywhere is fine. That said, one of my favorite recent experiences was going to see Lawrence and Holloman at a little hole in the wall place in Kensington Market…”
“What scares you? What can’t you write about?
…Sometimes I think I should write about being gay but I have nothing to say about that, either. ‘I’m gay’ is not a play; although some people seem to have made a career of it.”
Total eclipse of the arts
The provincial government in BC has the arts community piping mad after they reduced arts funding to 1980s levels in a single pre-election budget! (Did these guys pay attention to how well that worked out for the government in the federal election?) Theatre Skam has responded with your typical, “Don’t get mad, record and remix a really hilarious song about it” response. Click the link below to hear:
Member-Creator Resolution Passes 96-1 at CAEA Annual General Meeting
On Monday February 24th CAEA held its annual AGM. Though attendance in the past has been so poor that quorum has not been achieved, members turned out in exceptional numbers this year. Debate from the floor made clear the motivation behind this unparalleled presence. The Member Resolution put forward by TAPA Indie-Caucus member Mark Brownell prompted this surge in numbers—artists came to vote.
The resolution (with minor amendments), passed with overwhelming support; only one individual voted against it.
Those who spoke in support of the resolution—which deals with member-created work —urged the audience to consider the specific manner in which the way that artists work has changed. Individual members spoke for those from across the country who could not be present, reporting that they see their impetus to create as being stymied by the association. A particular point of emphasis noted the distinction between producers and member-creators. A second distinguishing point was the necessity of making this discussion a national dialogue. The President himself could not help commenting “I am getting a strong message here.” He explained that member-initiated production has been put on Council’s work plan for the next year.
With respect to concerns about the resolution, one speaker suggested that CAEA avoid an influx of too many member-creators and make the agreements available to these artists more difficult to access.
Council meets in March. Equity by-laws place the command of this Member Resolution firmly in the hands of Council. The membership present at the AGM has voted, with quorum. Council now has the opportunity to vote and determine the future of this resolution. Attendance on Monday evening must send to Council a clear signal as to how the resolution and its outcomes might be handled.
Summerworks Performance Gallery 2009
Photo by Design Wallah licensed under Creative Commons
- What would you do in a completely empty hotel room or the hallway in between?
- What is the importance of the audience to this piece?
- Does the risk and imagination stretch beyond the physical confinements?
Launched in 2008, The Performance Gallery (Inside the Box) was one of the SummerWorks Theatre Festival‘s many new initiatives. In its inaugural year, the gallery, which took place on the 2nd floor of the Gladstone Hotel, featured an eclectic group of artists offering everything from short plays to dance to performance art to improvised concerts. This year it returns to the Gladstone (Aug 6- 9 & Aug 13-16th) and is seeking site-specific but not necessarily site-themed pieces (7-10 minutes) in all performance mediums.
Are American MFAs a Ponzi Scheme or just ten times better than Canadian MFAs?
Mike Daisey’s visit to Canada was overshadowed by that of another charismatic Yankee who rose to success through a combination of excellent public speaking skills, fully harnessing the potential of the internet, and the notion that a broken system requires change. So it goes.
Mike Daisey performed this month at Vancouver’s PuSh International Performing Arts Festival, and judging by the overwhelmingly positive response he received from folks like Simon Ogden of The Next Stage, America’s most prolific and relentless theatre blogger seems not to have disappointed with his abilities as a performer in his visit to Canada.
While he was there, Daisey was not blogging about the scenic wilderness or the high quality of our maple syrup. He was responding to the firestorm he started off, when he pointed out the numerous parallels between American MFA acting programs and the characteristics of a Ponzi Scheme.
The basic premise of Daisey’s argument is thus: A system that encourages artists to incur $100,000 + debt while the average wage of graduates hovers somewhere below the poverty line, is a corrupt one that will eventually collapse under the weight of its inability to provide a return for its investors.
This scheme implicates academia, a large swath of artistic institutions, and of course American Theatre Magazine, whom in a matter of months it seems Daisey has singlehandedly de-legitimized as voice genuinely representing the interest of American artists through a critique of its role promoting and benefiting from deeply flawed institutional and educational models.
These are all very good and valid points, but they raise an even more interesting question for North American theatre artists who enjoy their beer with a higher percentage of alcohol under the benevolent rule of a Constitutional Monarchy:
If it costs roughly $40,000 a year to go to New York University, and $4000 to go to York University, is NYU ten times “better” than York? What added value does your extra $36,000 a year buy you?
Although there are a number of excellent undergraduate or certificate conservatory programs, there are actually very few MFA theatre programs in Canada period. What’s up with that? Are MFAs necessary at all – or do we not have enough? Two thirds of the cast of our recent production of Stranger (and the producer) trained in the US after completing an undergrad degree in Canada…
Matthew Jocelyn picked to run Canadian Stage Company
Time to find something new to gossip/speculate aimlessly about. After an exhaustive search, Matthew Jocelyn was announced this morning as Artistic and General Director of Canadian Stage Company.
Was this the right pick? This was not one of the old guard names that had been thrown around ad nauseum over the past few weeks. On the surface though, a born and bred Torontonian who is bilingual and has significant international accomplishments under his belt seems just about right. Care to disagree?
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