Back 'Wendy and Peter Pan' adapted by Ella Hickson from the book by J. M. Barrie. THE NORTH AMERICAN PREMIERE Now onstage until October 27 at the Avon Theatre at the Stratford Festival Credit: David Hou. Pictured L-R: Jake Runeckles and Cynthia Himenez-Hicks Guest writer Geoffrey Coulter, actor, director, adjudicator, arts educator "Peter and Wendy don't soar in this slow and underwhelming trip to Neverland!" The North American premiere of “Wendy and Peter Pan,” now playing at Stratford’s Avon theatre, is this season’s Schulich Children’s Play. Although the characters in the title and their story are universally familiar to all, the hook here is that this “update” turns J.M. Barrie’s classic children’s novel into a dark, dissonant, and unengaging production, with characters as flat as the pages from which they are conceived. As a child I remember experiencing Peter Pan through books, movies, plays and laugh-out-loud pantomimes. I couldn’t wait to be whisked away with Peter and the Darling children to a land of adventure and fantasy, full of Lost Boys, Pirates, and fairies. I marvelled at the Darling’s huge dog, Nana, the mystical twinkle of the disembodied Tinkerbell and the fearsomely funny Captain Hook. Pity that Stratford’s production of Ella Hickson’s 2013 adaptation retains little of the magic, mystery and revelry and the lovable, iconic characters I remember from the original. Instead, we’re left with a haphazard mix of dull performances, confusing antics and sets that aren’t quite up to Stratford’s normally high standards. In this retelling, the story is seen through the eyes of the protagonist, Wendy Darling. She’s a daring heroine determined not to play den mother to little boys. Peter Pan appears in her nursery and, along with her brothers Michael and John, she flies away to Neverland, teaming up with the Lost Boys and gaining allies of Tink and Tiger Lily to fight the evil, aging Captain Hook. This feminist re-working prominently uncovers some darker themes from the original narrative and introduces new characters such as Tom, a fourth Darling child. The production blatantly explores themes of death, childhood, grief, spirituality, envy and aging—relevant topics to a modern, young audience. There’s lots of flying and sword fighting, colourful costumes, and silly antics. Still, most characters don’t play enough to the children in the audience and end up two-dimensional and uninteresting. The unhappy result? Humdrum storytelling. Several children sitting around me at the opening matinee exclaimed to their adults, “What’s happening?” and “Why are they doing that?” I’m still pondering whether it’s the banal script or lacklustre performances and direction that makes this trip to Neverland rather…average. Director Thomas Morgan Jones, in his production notes, uses words such as “adventure,” “humour,” “alive “pace,” and “engagement.” Ironically, there’s not much of any of these in this production. He seems to have left his cast to their own devices. When a production features a classic villain or hero from Disney, literature, comic books, or even cartoons, kids expect everything they know about that character to come alive on stage. We know these characters and are eager to take their journey with them. Unfortunately, major characters seem watered down and lifeless. Peter (Jake Runeckles), Wendy (Cynthia Himenez-Hicks), Tink (Nestor Lozano Jr.), and even Hook (Laura Condlln) are underplayed and, curiously, lack charisma. Peter is missing his mystical whimsy, and Captain Hook (without a hat!) seems more like a wicked stepmother than a menacing, conniving, over-the-top cutthroat. Even Tink is played more the sarcastic drag queen than an enchanted sprite. Yet there are moments of inspiration, such as The Shadows, Peter’s mischievous team of reflections who move objects, open windows, and carry off humans. The result is an unbalanced, flighty mashup of complexity and commotion. Robin Fisher’s set is sparse and confusing with a noticeable lack of detail, especially in Darling’s nursery. Nothing seems to be made solidly. Wood seems fake, and small hand props, like Tink in fairy form, are hard to see. The bay window that heralds the arrival of Peter and his shadows is recessed and relatively small, making for unexciting entrances and exits (likely because the other side serves as the entrance to the back-end Hook’s Jolly Roger). Neverland is represented by dangling green fabric from a large arch over the stage. The telescoping palm trees seemed flimsy and delicate. Several thatched mounds (rooftops) with an attached highchair upstage are mysterious and confusing. What was this location? Hook’s ship, the Jolly Roger featured a large prow with a skeletal figurehead rolled in from backstage. An impressive piece that looked like it still needed some paint and weathering. The wheel end of the ship and a single mast evoked the rest of the vessel. The highlight was the tick-tocking metal framed crocodile ingeniously fashioned over a recumbent bicycle operated around the stage by Marcus Nance. Fisher’s costumes were appropriately Victorian for the Darlings, cut rags and old ripped coats for the Lost Boys. Pirates looked right for 18th-century buccaneers, with some splashes of colour and cut, but I did miss an eye patch or even an occasional hat, especially on Hook. Where was her hat? It’s in the promo photos. Pirates need hats! Lighting designer Arun Srinivasan once again proves his mastery of the art. His designs have shape, contrast, and colour that augment the story with every cue. Romeo Candido’s original compositions and sound design do their part to move the story along with nice twinkling underscores. Andrea Gentry of ZFX nicely achieves flying effects. Actors seemed very comfortable being surreptitiously connected to a wire and pulled up 50 feet into the air. Performances, as collaborated with the director, largely fall short of their potential. As Wendy, Cynthia Jimenez-Hicks does a fine job playing a feisty 12-year-old with bravery and loyalty to spare but her squeaky high voice never modulates. Noah Beemer and Justin Eddy are just fine as the inquisitive and daring John and Michael Darling. Agnes Tong and Sean Arbuckle make the most of their brief appearances as Mr. and Mrs. Darling. Jake Runeckles as Peter Pan is mysterious but not enigmatic. He never quite engages. His one-note performance lacks chemistry, especially with Jimenez-Hicks’ Wendy. As Captain Hook, Laura Condlln saunters on and off stage, trying hard to scare and cajole but ultimately coming off as an irrelevant aging villain (a real surprise as her performance as Malvolio in Twelfth Night this season is brilliant!). Tara Sky as Tiger Lilly is colourless and unremarkable. James Daly, as the analytical, smart-mouthed pirate, Martin, had genuinely funny moments, but many of his punchlines were lost due to his hushed and mumbled line delivery. Fortunately, there’s some fine comedy brought by Sara-Jeanne Hosie as Smee. Her none-too-subtle scenes pining for her captain and love interest are cute and way over the heads of the kids. While there’s plenty of swordplay, colour, and high-wire work, the production is disjointed and struggles to find its vision. The characters we love and love to hate are reduced to watered-down shadows of the literary classics we know and expect them to be. It is too bad that the fun of the original “Peter Pan” has been traded for this dissatisfying doppelganger. Running time: approximately two hours and ten minutes with one interval. Performances of ‘Wendy and Peter Pan’ continue to October 27 at the Avon Theatre. For tickets: stratfordfestival.ca or call 1-800-567-1600. Previous Next

Back 'Arsenic & OId Lace' by Joseph Kesselring. Produced by Scarborough Theatre Guild Now onstage until July 20 at Scarborough Village Theatre, 3600 Kingston Road Credit: Julie Adams Photography L-R: Scott Baker and Kai Novak Joe Szekeres “American theatre chestnut play arrives at Scarborough’s Village Theatre. How does it fare for a twenty-first-century theatre crowd?” There’s a line about drama and theatre critics in Joseph Kesselring’s theatre chestnut of a play that still makes me smile: “Please don’t think hard of the drama critic. Somebody has to do those things.” With the theatre industry undergoing significant changes over the past five years, the role of the reviewer/critic/blogger has not remained static. Instead, it has evolved into a crucial component. I am currently in an online theatre workshop exploring the concept of equitable criticism. The focus has shifted from mere critique to fostering a dialogue through responses and feedback. I intend to do this with my feedback piece on Scarborough Theatre Guild’s opening night production of ‘Arsenic & Old Lace,’ now onstage at the Scarborough Village Theatre. I hope it becomes a conversation piece and starter for back and forth discussion. Opening on Broadway from 1941 to 1944, the story is set in Abbey (Carolyn Kelso-Bell) and Martha (Jill Tonus) Brewster’s dark, grandiose house in a Brooklyn, New York section. The Brewster sisters are dotty, eccentric, and loveable when we first see them. They have made it their life's work to comfort lonely old men. What these sweet little old sisters do to help becomes a unique and somewhat bizarre premise that sets the stage for a farcical look at American life back in 1941. Some whacko characters live at Martha and Abbey’s, while many come knocking on the door. The Brewsters’ nephew Teddy (Brad Finch) lives with the ladies. Teddy believes he is Theodore Roosevelt. Each time he runs up the stairs at the house, Teddy believes he is running up San Juan Hill and shouts ‘Chaaaarrrrggggeeee’. Nobody bats an eye at this behaviour. Then there is Teddy’s brother and the Brewster sisters’ second nephew, Mortimer (Kai Novak). Mortimer is a pompous drama critic who writes for the newspaper and sometimes enjoys ripping plays apart. Mortimer becomes engaged to his fiancée Elaine (Kiran Bardial), much to her father's hesitation, Dr. Harper (Paul Coady). Why? His future son-in-law promotes the theatre, a shameful task (another comical reason why the play is a farce). Then, a third brother and nephew, Jonathan (Scott Baker), returns home to the Brewster household with revenge on his mind. Meanwhile, some dopey police officers and medical personnel show up at the house at all hours, which leads to bedlam, chaos, and, most importantly, fun because it is a farce. Great comedy involves truth to make us laugh in the face of tragedy and sadness. Can ‘Arsenic & Old Lace’ still live up to the theatrical standards of the twenty-first century? It all depends on the director’s vision. Jeremy Henson and his production team have a considerable task of ensuring they have done justice to ‘Arsenic’ in presenting what it is intended to be – a farce. And have they? Well… Let’s have a conversation. Visually, the production is quite a ravenous feast for the eyes, thanks to Jackie McCowan’s gorgeous two-level set design that fills the Village Theatre space for maximum effect. McCowan also utilizes the stairs at the side of the three-quarter auditorium setting to show how large the Brewster house is. Much attention to detail has been paid in creating this mammoth setting, right down to Heather Hyslop’s props of fine bone china on the dining room table. Andra Bradish’s costume designs are lovely recreations of colours and fabrics from the early 1940s. Without spoiling the plot, Darlene Thomas’ makeup design on Scott Baker is terrific. Chris Northey’s design effectively captures the sometimes-eerie lighting that helps create the incredible and intense tension needed for this theatre chestnut of a farce to work. On this opening night, the auditorium, which is usually air-conditioned, was dreadfully warm. At first, I thought what a clever idea director Henson had—to have the audience vicariously experience the Brewster house's overpowering heat. Later, I learned that was not intentional, as the air conditioning was not working. For future audiences, rest assured the auditorium will be air-conditioned for comfort. Jeremy Henson wants audiences to laugh uproariously throughout the approximately two-and-a-half-hour running time because ‘Arsenic’ must be played outlandishly while never veering out of control. This opening night is hit-and-miss under Henson’s usually focused and astute direction. Several key moments that should have left the audience in stitches of laughter because the play is a farce went right over our heads. Several opportunities for spot-on timing of verbal cues are missed, which is a shame. The humour at that moment propels the story forward in its madcap, zany plot unravelling. ‘Arsenic’ is an ensemble effort, yet Scott Baker, as Jonathan Brewster, comes dangerously close to stealing the show as the revenge-seeking Boris Karloff doppelganger. Baker’s initial entrance in Act One is undoubtedly worth the ticket price—pure comedy gold. He and Neil Kulin’s Dr. Einstein are a perfect duo match. Kulin gets to showcase an admirable accent, as it does come across naturally for the most part. There were a few moments in the second act where I had difficulty hearing Kulin as the accent was getting in the way of the dialogue, possibly because it was getting unbearably warm in the second act. In his appearance near the end, Lorin Beiko’s sturdy stature as Office O’Hara and the surprise he reveals when he shows up at the Brewster house is spot on. Likewise, Alan Maynes’ brief wink and nudge appearance at the end as Mr. Witherspoon with the Brewster sisters responding uniquely in kind perfectly captures the fact that ‘Arsenic’ remains a theatrical farce. Brad Finch’s Teddy Brewster has several key moments that put a smile on my face. Finch’s eyes capture perfectly that he is ‘not all there.’ Nevertheless, I hoped to hear that horn bellow throughout the auditorium as that’s part of the needed humour. Hopefully, Finch can keep practicing before showtime to ensure that he can blow that horn with tremendous force. Kiran Badial's Elaine remains girlishly sweet in trying to understand the comedy behind what she might be getting herself into when marrying Mortimer. Kai Novak’s Mortimer comes across as a pompous blowhard who honestly does care about the welfare of his aunts. But Novak also misses a few visual cues that don’t make the moments as amusing as they should be. Yet there was one moment when he walked in the front door at the appropriate time a character said something on stage. The audience roared with laughter because they got the joke. We need to see more of that. I wanted to see more oddball eccentricities in Carolyn Kelso-Bell and Jill Tonus as Abbey and Martha. Those eccentricities are budding, but the two ladies must pick up on a few more. For example, when they come clean with Mortimer about what’s hidden in the window seat bench, there are terrific looks between the two ladies and some excellent wide-eyed responses. Again, I’d like to see more of that as an audience member. Might it be possible for Kelso-Bell and Tonus to show us some differences in their physicality? For example, both ladies appear to walk the same. Might one be able to be on tiptoes as she crosses a room? Weird, different, true, but that’s the point behind these little old ladies. A Final Thought: The Guild’s ‘ARSENIC AND OLD LACE’ is just about there as a farce. It’ll get there as performances continue.” Running time: approximately two hours and 20 minutes with one interval/intermission. The production runs until July 20 at the Scarborough Village Theatre, 3600 Kingston Road. For tickets: theatrescarborough.com or call the Box Office (416) 267-2929. SCARBOROUGH THEATRE GUILD presents ‘Arsenic and Old Lace’ by Joseph Kesselring Produced by Darlene Thomas Directed by Jeremy Henson Stage Managers: Teresa Bakker and June Watkins Previous Next

Back Moby, A Whale of a Tale Pirate Life, Toronto Raiza Dela Pena Joe Szekeres I must apologize for the fact this review appears late and the show has closed. Through my own fault and not timing traffic, I missed the opening night performance. I finally saw the last Friday night show; however, life got in the way and I was not able to get the review posted until now. I’m also sorry to say that I never read ‘Moby Dick’ during my undergraduate courses in English Literature, but seeing this production made me want to tackle one of the great works of American literature sometime very soon. ‘Moby: A Whale of a Tale’ takes place in 1840. Captain Ahab (a fearlessly ferocious performance by Amaka Umeh) is onboard the whaling ship The Pequod looking for the great white whale, Moby Dick, who bit off his leg on a previous voyage. Ahab is looking for his revenge against the great mammal. Members of the crew who are hired to travel with Ahab believe they will be hunting for whale blubber which, according to the Programme Notes, was a huge business to make oil to light homes and streetlights at night. Captain Ahab had a different view of how things should run onboard, but only told the crew what his intent was after they had set sail. Three years later, the ship and crew continue to look for Moby at Ahab’s insistence as he has charted carefully the whale’s trail in the water. The audience sat on a floating dock either in Muskoka chairs or on a bench at the back in front of an appropriate dark, mysterious and ominous looking whaling ship of The Pequod. A smaller boat is also used a couple of times to signify plot action occurring next to the Pequod. The audience was told if they didn’t care to sit on the dock, then they could return to chairs on dry land. I certainly hope this ‘Moby’ returns for another engagement next summer as I thoroughly admired this fanciful musical adaptation which accomplished two things for me: a) I was a kid again completely immersed in a wondrous sea-faring story complete with vengeful pirates and rough waters b) the literary adult side within me was also made acutely aware of how a dominant obsession and meticulous revenge to find the great white whale make unforgettable characters of classic fiction. So much to enjoy about this production. Clever song lyrics and tuneful period musical melodies from Alex Millaire and Kaitlin Milroy (Moonfruits) nicely underscored and heightened the tension in some of the key plot moments. Director Alexandra Montagnese maintained a snappily energetic pacing momentum with some entertaining performances. Annie Tuma is a bold Ishmael who becomes entranced with the wild adventure of the lure of the sea in the opening song ‘Can You Hear the Call of the Sea?’. Lena Maripuu’s brave first mate Starbuck impressively stands up at one point to Ahab’s obsessive emotional outbursts. Jamar Adams-Thompson’s delightful Queequeg adds that bit of saucy and unrefined humour which effectively balances the hell-bent intensity of Ahab’s destructive compulsions of Moby. It was lovely to hear the harmonized singing of the performers throughout the performance. ‘Moby: A Whale of a Tale’ adapted from the Herman Melville novel: “Moby Dick” Adapted by Annie Tuma and Lena Maripuu Produced by Annie Tuma Music arrangers and writers Alex Millaire and Kaitlin Milroy known as Moonfruits, Lena Maripuu, and Annie Tuma. Directed by Alexandra Montagnese Costumes by Gabriel Vaillant Cast: Lena Maripuu, Moonfruits, Jamar Adams Thomson, Annie Tuma, Amaka Umeh To learn more about Pirate Life, please visit www.piratelife.ca . Production played on a floating dock at 585 Queens Quay West, Toronto Previous Next

Back Esie Mensah Looking Ahead Mikka Gia Joe Szekeres A recent conversation with Dora nominated choreographer and dance artist Esie Mensah certainly opened my eyes to what is occurring in the world of the professional performing artist especially in moving forward to ensure inclusion, equity, and diversity of and for all members. June 1 will mark two important dates – the first is the premiere of the upcoming short film ‘Tessel’, commissioned by Fall for Dance North and Harbourfront Centre. National in scope, this short film features 14 Black dancemakers from across Canada in a crucial conversation on what it means to be an artist in this unprecedented historical time. The second marked importance for June 1 is the one-year anniversary of ‘Blackout Tuesday’ where organizations around the globe publicly committed to institutional change to help the Black community. ‘Tessel’ was conceptualized and directed by Esie Mensah, so I felt it was important to highlight the prolific work of what she has captured. I was quickly introduced to her work through a CBC Arts Segment on her work as a choreographer and dancer, but it was her TED Talk “My Skin was too dark for my profession, so I changed the story” which caught my attention: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dgGQv4efnI8 To begin our conversation, Esie let me know her immediate family has been doing well and in her words: “So far, so good.” They haven’t been hit too hard, but she is sadly and consciously aware how this medical epidemic has affected each of us in some way. Her family are healthy and when it has been allowed, they have been able to see each other on different occasions when they could. At one point during our conversation, Esie re-iterated what many of us are hoping – we “keep looking to the horizon where it feels safe for everybody, but we’ll see how things go the next few months…even years.” Such true words spoken. Just like many artists to whom I’ve spoken throughout this pandemic series, Esie’s professional world also came to a halt as many of her upcoming projects or solo works were either cancelled or postponed to who knows when. And like many of the artists, Esie felt it was a really good question in asking her what she has missed the most about performance during the lock down. She paused for a few moments before she responded. To dance is her first love, and what does she miss the most: “There’s a feeling that you get when you’re on stage live…because I’ve been choreographing so much, I wasn’t always performing and dancing, but there’s that synergy, that energy you get when you’re either creating in a room with people or you’re on-stage dancing with people and the audience is receiving you. The faces to me are such an invigorating and affirming experience as a dancer.“ I was grateful how Esie felt comfortable in speaking about the TED Talk and how her skin was ‘too dark’ for her profession, so she changed the narrative to keep moving forward. She spoke candidly about some of the limitations she encountered early in her career: “I attended George Brown College for the Commercial Dance Programme. That first year I came out of school, I felt the doors opened up and I experienced what I thought the potential of my career could have been. After that first year and over the next two and three years, I realized the reality of the business that I was in as a dark-skinned black woman. What I noticed through the work (since I’ve been in this for so long) was that people place a commodity over dark skin and for whatever reason, they don’t think it’s the same value as somebody with lighter skin.” I’m going to be honest and say that I was rather surprised by Esie’s revelation and I listened intently as she continued: “I had people bluntly tell me that, yes, they think you’re too dark for this music video, and that video was for black artists…when I was applying for a four-month contract in China, same thing, well they really, really love you, but they just think you’re too dark for television…this was the first time I had to contextualize and swallow someone telling me, very candidly, that you’re too dark so we can’t take you. It’s almost as if you could change that one thing the doors would open.” Conversations like this were something Esie said she was used to swallowing, but it wasn’t until giving her TED Talk that this was an issue and real problem. Clearly, this shook the foundation she was on, and it became the catalyst she was on that pushed her to be so good, so amazing, so undeniable that her shade was never be an issue so that people can’t say they want to hire her despite her shade. In other words, I want to hire her because it’s her and that her shade is never an issue. This issue has been a roller coast for Esie as “this issue made me feel very, very small, marginalized or pigeon-holed because of it which, now her skin colour is my superpower.” And as we continued our conversation, I saw how she is a determined and strong woman who took agency in her own hands to carve out her path as a professional artist regarding these limitations of skin colour. What she has done specifically is “to become my own boss, essentially.” I wanted to quote Esie directly for the rest of the questions I asked her because it’s important to read her voice in her own words: How else specifically have you taken charge of your professional artistic journey and path: Becoming my own boss started when I was in the commercial dance scene because I recognize throughout those two to three years where I was waiting for somebody to call me and waiting for somebody to say that I was good enough or if somebody cancelled then I got in for the certain jobs that were coming out, and I was like that I can’t be sitting here waiting for the next job. I want to be in charge of my own life. That was the shift of me in becoming more of a choreographer. As the industry shifted and I shifted, I began more intrigued to tell my own stories and say the things I had experienced, the questions I wanted to have answered or that I wanted to explore through art making, through dance, through theatre. When I was in school at George Brown, I did some acting, but for the amount I’m doing now has just been absorbed through working in theatre. I was really intrigued by it. My first production was a dance play I was writing. That was my first experience in creating my own stories, real true experiences doing work at Harbourfront Centre. Friends of mine were saying I should take this experience and start applying for grants and building my own shows. I was trying to figure out what I wanted to do. My first impulse was to start writing, and I did and started creating stories to ask questions about as a first-generation Ghanaian child, my parents come to Canada, but nobody ever desires to go back. To me, we can’t really be surprised by the fact that our home countries are not progressing because all of the knowledge is now in the diaspora. That was the first set of conversations and that transformed into ‘Shades’, the next thing that happened because of a movie film I had done – I had done the ‘Rocky Horror Picture Show’ remake that had come into Toronto a number of years ago. A friend of mine and I both got the film roles at the audition and we were questioning how many black girls were going to be on the project. There were four of us they seemed to like, and we didn’t think we would get it, and we did. I remember talking to the assistant choreographer. He overhead us at the audition. He quizzed and asked why we would say this, and we told him something like this never happens, having four black girls on a project that are medium to dark toned, never happens. He was shocked and he’s been working in the business for decades. This is a huge conversation about ‘shadeism’, and I know I can’t change everyone’s mind on it but If I can get people to question it, and the ‘why’ behind it, that I think is really important. I am looking forward to seeing ‘Tessel’ Tell me about this short film and why it is so important for you as a person, as an individual and as a professional artist. This short film project was a springboard to everything that has been going on over the past year and beyond. I hit a point last year and recognized as an artist and creator that the space for conversation may not always be there for everybody. When Ilter Ibrahimof from Fall for Dance North called me, he wanted to do something to amplify Black voices. I said, “Great!” Well, if we’re going to do that, I need to bring people together in conversation, and that’s it not just centered in asking people to film themselves and splice something together. I wanted there to be depth and truth. I work as an Artistic advisor, so I’m working in the equity, diversity and inclusion stream that has been popping up over the last year for everybody especially within arts organizations. When I recognized being entrenched in that conversation is that we all have questions, and some people are scared to ask those questions. Some people are scared to step forward with an ignorance to say I don’t know; I didn’t know about your experience; I didn’t know what it was like what you went through. The majority of the artists in the film didn’t know each other which was wonderful, so everybody is meeting new people. The whole group hasn’t met officially yet because some artists came on two different days. Over those two days, we ended up with a seven-hour conversation, and it was so humbling. People needed the space to talk, to chat and knowing people are feeling the same thing I’m feeling and understood my experience. What does it mean now to amplify Black voices? It can mean different things to different people. For me, within my community and my close circle, conversation was the thing that pulled me through last year. I started a group chat with some friends, and it gave us space to have honest, candid conversation. If we’re going to take steps to change, we really need to be more attuned to those conversations and open to hearing the truth of those conversations. For me, giving Black artists a chance to speak and getting our artists to really listen was so important. Now these were the words of only 14 dancers and people We’re not speaking for all the Black community across Canada. We are saying there is a commonality of everyone’s experiences of pain, a heaviness but there’s also a lot of joy and being able to find freedom through movement. Having this conversation and being pushed forward through dance shifts it for people. Talking about racism is never easy but to hear from people and see their bodies move or stillness in looking at the camera, that solicits a response from the audience altogether. We’re starting to see the person behind the skin, behind the artist. We’re seeing the reality and I hope this leaves a lasting impression with the film. How do you see ‘Tessel’ continue to challenge the global discourse on race? With a lot of my work, there’s been that consistency of sparking a conversation. I really want there to be a conversation and want people to feel inspired to come together and discuss. This is the first time we’ve had Canadian dance presenters on one project. This has never happened before, and so I hope everybody continues to understand the urgency and that it takes continual work consistently to open up new doors and allow other people to fill in the gaps that are present. I hope there’s some real honesty and perk up from people. I hope can receive that honesty. Talking is important, but also the listening is far more important. As we slowly emerge from this pandemic and look toward the future, what is it about your work that you would like future audiences to remember about you? Hmmmm… I would hope that future audiences can feel changed from my work, and that it’s an experience. It’s not merely coming in to watch a show or film, it’s an experience they can take with them and it sparks change, a way to care, to love people more, to be more empathetic. I hope my work inspires growth and that the seeds I plant within my work that I hope it continues to flourish in people’s lives. I hope that stays consistent with my work. ‘Tessel’ premieres June 1. Please go to www.harbourfrontcentre.com to learn more how to access the film online. Previous Next

Back Gregory Prest “I feel my job right now is to continue making work.” Dahlia Katz Joe Szekeres I’ve begun a check-in on some artists. In 2020, I held my first conversation with artist Gregory Prest. You can find the link to his earlier profile here: www.onstageblog.com/profiles/gregory-prest. Last time I saw Gregory on stage was as Ron Weasley in the now-closed Toronto production of ‘Harry Potter and the Cursed Child.’ For the last several weeks, he has been the adaptor and the director of the world premiere of Soulpepper’s ‘De Profundis: Oscar Wilde in Jail’, now in previews. The production opens on February 8. Before we even talked about the opening of ‘De Profundis’ this week, I wanted to check in on him to see how he’s feeling professionally and personally about the theatre industry: “It’s not NOT alarming…I don’t know what to think about it. I’m unsure about it. I really don’t know what to do other than to continue doing the work. I don’t have the responsibility of running an institution and trying to figure out how to make it all work in this new world. I feel my job right now is to continue making work.” That reminded me of the motivational UK poster in preparation for World War 2: “Keep Calm and Carry On’. Now, I’m not saying there will be a war of any kind; however, when challenging times continue, we all need to continue what we do daily and keep busy. Prest sees this as an opportunity for the theatre community to continue supporting each other, showing up, and buying tickets to see the work. His latest venture, ‘De Profundis: Oscar Wilde in Jail, ’ opens on February 8. According to the Soulpepper website, [it]is a musical fantasy based on the letter Oscar Wilde wrote while incarcerated for two years at Reading Gaol to his love, Lord Alfred Douglas. The letter was written a page a day over a period of three months, collected at the end of each day, and handed over to Wilde on his release from prison.” Prest is the adaptor and director for this world-premiere production. Rehearsals have gone well, as did the technical rehearsals. Part of the exercise was to come in every night of the preview and watch as if he had never seen the show. There was so much historical context that had to be taken into consideration. The text of ‘De Profundis’ would have probably created fifteen shows, so the entire letter is not in this production. Selections had to be made, and audience experience was essential at this time. Gregory doesn’t call the week before opening Hell Week but rather the ‘wildly unstable snipping section of time.’ ‘De Profundis’ is an experiment in a lot of ways. The creative team is trying something exciting and moving, challenging, interesting, and engaging. Part of the preview period is seeing what the show does and responding as a creative team to how the audience reacts. Prest sees the show changing significantly during previews as the time right now is seeing what is clear for audiences and what is not clear: “A show like [De Profundis] that is abstract in nature is not really linear or narratively driven but emotionally and narratively driven. There’s so much space in it; sometimes that’s a good thing, and sometimes it’s a confusing thing and a puzzle to figure out.” Gregory does not want to leave anyone out in the cold. He jokingly said he doesn’t want audiences coming in and wondering, ‘Who’s Oscar Wilde?’ We shared a quick laugh over that, but again, that’s a fear a creative team must keep in mind. For Prest, Wilde is an incredible artist. ‘De Profundis’ is not meant to be a piece of theatre; it’s a letter. Yet something is fascinating about this letter. It feels like this letter has become the first celebrity trial. Wilde was someone at the top of his game with significant influence, power and reputation who publicly fell, failed, and was the target of scorn and humiliation. The experience of this process for Prest himself is being on the inside. One of the things that became clear at the end of the letter was how to move forward when everything has fallen around you. How does one deconstruct an ego when you’re alone? How do you move forward with sorrow and disappointment? What is so moving about ‘De Profundis’ for Gregory? It’s the piece's dynamic, along with Wilde’s slow movement toward walking with the disappointing facts of his life hand in hand with acceptance. The transformation in the piece is one of moving with a former self as opposed to becoming something new. Prest finds this really interesting right now. The process for the generation of ‘De Profundis’ started with Prest and Original Music and Lyrics by Sarah Wilson and Mike Ross in a room. They spent three days reading the letter, going through it and then realizing the need to break it. Prest calls himself conservative and said if it were up to him, he’d like to stage the entire letter. He had a good laugh, knowing that wouldn’t be possible. The task of bringing ‘De Profundis’ to the stage has been humbling. The team had to: “pull things out and explode things as an act of love.” Out of love, they’ve had to destroy the letter and try to re-build it again. ‘De Profundis’ is not a natural idea for a musical, but it’s challenging and worth pursuing. Mike and Sarah then went to work, and the three came back together, worked again, and then went away to work. Eventually, Damien Atkins (who plays Oscar Wilde) was then brought in. It was continuously creating material, putting it side by side and seeing how everything spoke to each other. The music in ‘De Profundis’ reflects something underneath the plot, a bird’s eye view, perhaps of a moment with Oscar and then coming back down. Jonathan Corkal-Astorga and Colton Curtis appear with Damien in the production. What has each of them brought to the story according to Prest? Jonathan has brought professionalism, skill and heart with care, interest, and sensitivity. Colton brings incredible skill as a dancer and is the most generous person in the room you can find. With sensitivity and skill, Colton brings an enigma to the character of Lord Alfred Douglas (Wilde’s lover). To play him is not an easy task. Damien is all humanity, humour, rage, camp, and talent. This is why it’s so beautiful to have him play Oscar Wilde. Prest calls Damien a ‘great’ friend. When you’re in his presence, and he is ‘on,’ Prest calls it as if you are sitting next to the sun. For him, this is what it must have felt like to be around Oscar Wilde. Just to be clear: Damien is not making an impression of Oscar Wilde; there’s no dialect as we’re not in that world for ‘De Profundis.’ The story is set in a different kind of dreamlike place but with that sense of celebrity. As we begin to close our conversation, Prest recommends reading the entirety of ‘De Profundis’ because it is a beautiful experience. The letter is such a coded document. Wilde could say things and couldn’t say certain things. Even though the letter was very private, it was also public. Prest smiled and said they were being reckless about some things. Without being weird about it, Prest believes some people will really dig ‘De Profundis’ while others are really going not to do so. The flip side to this thinking is if you really like Oscar Wilde, you may really loathe this ‘De Profundis.’ Prest also quickly adds that the production is not meant to be definitive, as there have been many stories, plays, and films about Wilde. What’s next for Gregory once ‘De Profundis’ completes its run? He begins rehearsals as an actor for Canadian Stage’s ‘The Inheritance.’ For these last few days, he has been doing double duty of rehearsals at CanStage in the morning and heading back to Soulpepper in the afternoon for final tweaking and juggling. A remount of ‘A Streetcar Named Desire’ will be performed at Soulpepper, and he’s involved in that production: “It’ll be very good and healthy after this process [of De Profundis] to land in someone else’s room with a big ensemble and have a change of pace as an actor.” Is there time for Gregory Prest to be just Gregory: son, partner, brother, and friend amidst all this rehearsal? “Never!!!!!!!!!, but we’ll see, we’ll see.” ‘De Profundis: Oscar Wilde in Jail’ is now in previews. It opens on February 8 and runs to February 18, 2024, in The Young Centre for the Performing Arts, 50 Tank House Lane, in Toronto’s Distillery District. For tickets, youngcentre.ca or call 1-416-866-8666. To learn more about Soulpepper Theatre, visit soulpepper.ca. Previous Next

Back Joseph and the Amazing Technicolour Dreamcoat Toronto's Princess of Wales Theatre Joseph (Jac Yarrow) sings 'Close Every Door'. Credit: Cylla von Tiedemann Joe Szekeres Joseph’s back, and it’s just as grand a storytelling spectacle of music, song, and dance as ever told by a uber multi-talented diverse cast. Wonderful entertainment. Toronto certainly needs Joseph’s story right now, and I for one am glad it’s back. Based on Joseph’s story from the Bible’s Book of Genesis, the Narrator (a lovely performance by an engaging Vanessa Fisher) tells the story of the young dreamer (Jac Yarrow) and his eleven siblings. Their father Jacob favours Joseph and, as proof of the affection, purchases a multi-coloured coat for his beloved son much to the brothers’ extreme chagrin, jealousy and resentment of both the young lad and their father. Joseph dreams he will rule over all his brothers one day which adds more fuel to the fire in their resentment of him. They plan to kill him but instead sell him into slavery to some passing Ishmaelites. To hide what the brothers have done, they and their wives tell Jacob that Joseph has been killed. We then are introduced to Joseph’s world as a slave where he meets some highly unusual individuals from the Book of Genesis. There is Potiphar and his wife (more about them shortly) who order Joseph to be jailed for a possible indiscretion with the lady. Act One concludes with one of the best versions of Joseph’s ‘Close Every Door’ I’ve heard in quite some time. In Act Two, the Narrator points out there is hope for the imprisoned Joseph thanks to The Pharaoh (Tosh Wanogho-Maud) who has been suffering from crazy dreams which cannot be explained. Joseph is then summoned to interpret what these dreams mean. As a result of Joseph’s interpretation, The Pharaoh makes him one of the most powerful men in Egypt. We then return to Joseph’s brothers who are suffering from a severe famine that has ravaged them all. The brothers are extremely sorry for their actions against Joseph and travel to Egypt to beg for food. Joseph’s brothers are not aware of who their brother is when they arrive and as they beg for food. Joseph consents to help but tricks them with something to see how they respond. When he realizes just how much his brothers have changed, Joseph reveals his true self to them and to his father. And there’s that terrific Megamix at the end. Well, where to start? Directed with an ardent passion for just plain ol’ fun in storytelling by Laurence Connor, this North American premiere becomes a struck oil gusher of music, dance, song, and spectacle for the holidays and the New Year. Joann M. Hunter’s athletic, high-step-kicking choreography is mesmerizing. The tap dance with Fisher and some of the brothers is perfectly executed. From my seat, I couldn’t see Ben Mark Turner in the orchestra pit (just his hand and baton periodically). Let’s just say Lloyd Webber’s music and Tim Rice’s lyrics remain in masterful hands under Turner’s rockin’ musical direction. The only slight quibble I did have was in Gareth Owen’s sound design. There are a few moments in the brothers’ ensemble singing and in The Pharaoh’s Song where I couldn’t hear clearly all the lyrics. I’m a stickler for sound quality so, hopefully, this very minor issue can be resolved for future performances because it’s one helluva of a production not to be missed. Some very smart and creative choices were made for this production that nicely worked for me. For one, Morgan Large’s set design of Pharaoh’s court is awesome and the way it appears on the stage reminded me of something right out of the film version of ‘The Ten Commandments’. During the Pharaoh’s song, I really liked the enormously large religious Egyptian statue icons stages left and right both singing and bopping along with the music and playing instruments. Highly creative and very impressive. Another touch - local Toronto youth have been cast and a few of them play some of Joseph’s brothers which soundly worked for me because this shows us the diverse age range and body sizes of the brothers. What was also a nice touch was the young Jacob Davidov who played Potiphar at this performance. The young Davidov controlled the power of the moment when he, as Potiphar, sends Joseph to prison. For me, the strong visual impact of that moment is still in my head. At first, it put a smile on my face but, when I thought about it after, what if that was a possible historical reality that Potiphar may have been a small man? Additionally, Vanessa Fisher assumes the roles of both Jacob and Potiphar’s wife which was another effective choice made. It makes sense as it initially helps to keep the pacing moving along since the Narrator is on the stage at that point. However, what makes this ‘Joseph’ so unique is its diverse casting and seeing both Jacob and Potiphar’s wife played by the Narrator does leave a strong visual impact. Fisher is a terrific singer and her opening Prologue with the children is still poignant and sweet to watch as she sets the story. There are also some nice modern elements here too. At one point, Fisher takes a selfie with two of the kids. Jac Yarrow is a handsome and charming Joseph whose rendition of ‘Close Every Door’ soars to the rafters of the theatre clearly, forcefully, and meaningfully. This rendition is one that you must hear for yourselves. Personally, I can certainly understand why Lloyd Webber gave his blessing to Yarrow for the role because, in the end, we have seen the positive change in Joseph and what he has become – a man of honour, integrity, family and values. Tosh Wanogho-Maud’s Pharaoh is delightfully sexual campy and his performance of ‘Pharaoh’s Song’ is stellar. His Pharaoh reminded me of a marvellous cross between Elvis Presley (obviously), Rum Tum Tugger (of Cats) mixed in with just a hint of the look of Kanye West. Speaking of Lloyd Webber and his Really Useful Theatre Company and their panoply of iconic shows. See if you can spot some of the Really Useful Theatre Company icons on the back wall near the end of the show. It was fun to pick out a few of them. (Hint: I immediately found the Phantom’s mask). The ensemble of Joseph’s brothers remains extraordinarily animated and focused on many of the choral numbers. ‘Those Canaan Days’ and the marvellously sounding vocal harmonies combined with the campy French accents resound clear up to the second balcony of the theatre. Another of my favourite numbers is the ‘Benjamin Calypso’ where Joseph recognizes just how sorry his brothers are for their behaviour. Again, pure fun on that stage with that message of forgiveness underneath the song. Final Comments: This ‘Joseph’ remains wonderful. Uplifting. We need this production now more than ever to help us continue moving forward out of Covid. I hear the production is Broadway bound. Let’s hope it makes it there to put a smile on audience's faces as it did on mine and those sitting around me (who weren’t wearing masks). A winner. Another of my picks to see this winter before it leaves in February 2023. Running Time: approximately two hours with one intermission. ‘Joseph and the Amazing Technicolour Dreamcoat’ runs until February 18, 2023 at the Princess of Wales Theatre, 300 King Street West, Toronto. For tickets call 1-800-461-3333 or visit mirvish.com. JOSEPH AND THE AMAZING TECHNICOLOUR DREAMCOAT Lyrics by Tim Rice and Music by Andrew Lloyd Webber Director: Laurence Connor Music Director: Ben Mark Turner Choreographer: Joann M. Hunter Sound Designer: Gareth Owen Lighting Designer: Ben Cracknell Set and Costume Designer: Morgan Large Performers: Jac Yarrow, Vanessa Fisher, Tosh Wanogho-Maud (plus many others listed in the programme). Previous Next

Back 'AIN'T TOO PROUD': The Life and Times of The Temptations THE NATIONAL TOURING COMPANY Now onstage until December 17 at the CAA Ed Mirvish Theatre, 244 Victoria Street, Toronto Credit: Emilio Madrid. Pictured l-r: Michael Andreaus, Jalen Harris, Harrell Holmes Jr., Elijah Ahmad Lewis, E. Clayton Cornelious Joe Szekeres VOICE CHOICE 'Triple-threat ensemble performances earn a VOICE CHOICE for this uber-chic-looking touring production.' Occasionally, when you come across a show that features triple threat performances, you want to share your thoughts with others and encourage them to go to the theatre. This is one of those times. Principal narrator Otis Williams (Michael Andreaus) tells how The Temptations came to be on its journey from the Detroit streets to Motown Records and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. We’re introduced to how each member initially met and how they skyrocketed to fame and coped with the incredible heights they hit in their recordings. However, personal conflicts, drug/alcohol dependency and egos threaten the group's progress, heightened by civil unrest in the US in the 60s and 70s. Along this road to show business fame, key recording individuals also appear who leave a tremendous impact on the group – from Smokey Robinson (an excellent sounding Derek Adams) and Berry Gordy (a striking Jeremy Kelsey) to Diana Ross (Amber Mariah Talley), Florence Ballard (Shayla Brielle G.) and Mary Wilson (Brittny Smith) whose vocals on ‘Baby Love’ is joyful sounding. ‘Ain’t Too Proud’ remains similar to ‘The Jersey Boys’ that played in Toronto many years ago. Both stories focus on the rise to fame of two groups, from the streets to number one on the charts. Both incorporate a short concert moment – in this touring production, some highlights include ‘Papa Was a Rolling Stone,’ ‘I’m Gonna Make You Love Me’ and ‘What Becomes of the Brokenhearted.’ Similar personal and familial conflicts and troubles also wreaked havoc in both groups. What remains most telling about this touring production is the predominant and gritty social awareness of the Civil Rights movement that anchors the story. For example, the death of Martin Luther King Jr. holds a particular prominence, as it rightly should. Peter Nigrini’s sometimes striking black-and-white projection designs decisively set the era's tone of the late 60s. Directed with style and class by Des McAnuff, this touring production of Dominique Mousseau’s book holds a sleek and refined visual look courtesy of Robert Brill’s set design and Paul Tazewell’s mighty fine-looking ‘60s fashion. The structural and mechanical workings keep the show’s pacing moving at top speed without appearing rushed. Howell Binkley’s refined lighting design suitably focuses attention where needed. Spotlit moments where some actors break the fourth wall and talk to the audience remain visually pleasing. Sound Designer Steve Canyon Kennedy has paid meticulous attention to ensure the lyrics of the songs can be heard. He has succeeded, and I wish to acknowledge how important that is, especially for the musical moments in a jukebox musical like this one. Sergio Trujillo’s zip-tight synchronous choreographed movement captures that same sense of style and class as McAnuff’s direction. Every finger point or leg movement is precise and tight and soundly brings to life the Temptations’ signature moves. Kenny Seymour’s Music Supervision and Arrangements with Harold Wheeler’s orchestrations credibly replicate the unique musical sound of the group – two prominent examples were ‘In the Still of the Night’ and ‘Just My Imagination (Running Away with Me).’ The accomplished onstage performance ensemble work earns this ‘Ain’t Too Proud’ a VOICE CHOICE. Michael Andreaus remains a compelling storyteller as Otis Williams. He has that ‘it’ of connecting with the audience at the top of the show. Andreaus remains grounded and entirely in control of his emotional peaks and valleys in his conversations with the group members or his wife Josephine (Quiana Onrae’l Holmes), who remains the dutiful wife at home, raising the children while Otis tours with the group. The moment Otis speaks with his grown elder son Lamont (Felander), who has other things on his mind, is quite poignant. Otis realizes how much time has passed and how he has missed his son becoming a man. E. Clayton Cornelious (Paul Williams), Harrell Holmes, Jr. (Melvin Franklin), Jalen Harris (Eddie Kendricks), Devin Price (Al Bryant), later replaced by Elijah Ahmad Lewis (David Ruffin) and Derek Adams (Richard Street) deliver nuanced and sensitive performances of character depth and genuine emotion about their places within the group and how each sees the future ahead. Intense conversations never become histrionic as tempers flare. They’re all marvellous dancers who can spin, pirouette, and do the splits while seamlessly moving into place to finish the song. Once again, thanks to McAnuff’s controlled direction, I could keep clear who each singer was along with their backstory. I had forgotten about the story that the Supremes were formed as the sister group of The Temptations. At one point during a televised NBC broadcast in Act Two, McAnuff has the actors placed on stage in an intriguing juxtaposition to showcase the power and reach of these two Motown iconic sounds. Watching this intriguing picture and hearing them vocalize became an inspirational moment of the show. Although I was too young to recall that broadcast, this production finely replicated what I’m assuming to be a televised moment that will never be forgotten. One Final Thought: This ‘Ain’t Too Proud’ is a cornucopia of outstanding harmony work from the entire company coupled with real-life, sensitive individual performances of those who, through their weaknesses and troubles, truly wanted what they thought was the best for the group and everyone involved. Please try and catch this show before it leaves. It is one that must be experienced live. Running time: approximately two hours and 30 minutes with one intermission. ‘Ain’t Too Proud’- The Life and Times of the Temptations runs until December 17 at the CAA Ed Mirvish Theatre, 244 Victoria Street, Toronto. For tickets, visit mirvish.com or call 1-800-461-3333. ‘AIN’T TOO PROUD’ – The Life and Times of The Temptations. The National Touring Company Book by Dominique Mousseau Based on the Book ‘The Temptations by Otis Williams with Patricia Romanowski’ Music and Lyrics by the Legendary Motown Catalog Directed by Des McAnuff Music Supervision and Arrangements by Kenny Seymour with Orchestrations by Harold Wheeler Music Coordinator: John Miller Choreographer: Sergio Trujillo Scenic Design: Robert Brill Costume Design: Paul Tazewell Lighting Design: Howell Binkley Sound Design: Steve Canyon Kennedy Projection Design: Peter Nigrini The Company: Michael Andreaus, E. Clayton Cornelious, Jalen Harris, Harnell Holmes Jr., Elijah Ahmad Lewis, Derek Adams, Brian C. Binion, Reggie Bromell, Felander, Shayla Brielle G., Treston J. Henderson, Dein Holloway, Quiana Onrae’l Holmes, Ryan Hunt, Jeremy Kelsey, AJ Lockhart, Dwayne P. Mitchell, Devin Price, Brittny Smith, Amber Mariah Talley, Andrew Volzer, Nazarria Workman. Previous Next

Back DOUBLE MURDER (Clowns/The Fix) by Hofesh Shechter Company Torque Dance Series at Toronto's Harbourfront Centre Todd MacDonald Joe Szekeres The more I see dance, the more I am puzzled and the more I want to ask questions. And that’s a good thing. But the more I see dance productions, the more I know I’m not going to understand everything and that’s fine since I’ve no background or education in the art form. Recent interviews with many dance artists have encouraged me simply to sit back, experience, revel and admire what I see in front of me. That is most certainly the case with the Hofesh Shechter Company and the opening night of DOUBLE MURDER as part of the Torque dance series at Toronto’s Harbourfront Centre. According to a release I received: “Double Murder is a thrilling exploration of the chaotic and oppressive forces present within our modern times. The performance features two distinctly contrasting works: Clowns is a sarcastic and playful nod to our ever-growing indifference to violence, while The Fix presents a tender, fragile antidote to the omnipresent forces of aggression that press on us daily. Set to Shechter's sweepingly cinematic, percussive score, Double Murder exposes painful truths and deep emotions.” I did what many of the interviewed dance artists encouraged me to do. I sat back… And… I may not have understood everything that played out in front, but the one thing that remains within my soul as I write this today: ‘A captivating, hypnotic and mesmerizing production by artists who held me sometimes tenderly and sometimes cautiously.” I couldn’t take my eyes off the ten of them throughout both presentations. I was scanning the stage quickly to see where each of them was. I wanted to see who held the power at the moment, was that power sustained or was it transferred somewhere else? Underscored by what I call a unique pulsating Shechter score, there are moments of physical assault and violence all in the name of entertainment. Even though it was all mimed, the intensity of the dancers emanated strongly from the Fleck stage and pierced right to my very being. I felt my eyes close at one point because the image was so graphically vivid that I wanted to block it out. After the interval, ‘The Fix’ was just exactly what I needed from the dramatic intensity of the first half. The second presentation became more of a dramatic balm for me. There were such tender poignant moments in connection where the artists embraced each other with the utmost care and compassion that it was magical to witness. But they didn’t stop there. (Spoiler alert) The artists came into the auditorium with the audience and reached out to them silently with arms ready for an embrace and connection. There was no pushing just in case audience members were not ready to share in the embrace. One of the artists made eye contact with me and just by looking into her eyes she wanted to connect with me but there was no pressure if I didn’t want to do so. I accepted her connection and embraced her at that moment, Covid be damned. A human connection with a stranger for a brief moment. Again, truly magical. Final Comments: The art and performance of dance are all about connection. Connection means many things to many people. Go see how this wonderful and stunning Hofesh Schechter Company connects on extraordinary levels. Running time: approximately 90 minutes with one intermission. ‘Double Murder’ continues October 28 and 29 in the Fleck Dance Theatre in Queen’s Quay Terminal, 3rd floor, 207 Queen’s Quay West, Toronto. For tickets, visit harbourfrontcentre.com. Previous Next

Back 'White Muscle Daddy' by Raf Antonio Now onstage at Buddies in Bad Times Theatre, Toronto. Credit: Jeremy Mimnagh. Pictured in profile: Frankie Bailey and Jaime Lujan Joe Szekeres ‘There are moments when the script is clever in its deceptive title. Although it might initially mean what you think it does, there’s an entirely new understanding at the end.’ Raf Antonio’s ‘White Muscle Daddy’ is a horror/thriller ‘film within a film within a play’. My guest and I discussed it intently on the way home. Antonio is bang-on about using the screen format within a play setting. Live and pre-recorded film and video footage are used throughout. Antonio is both clever and perceptive about developing this hybrid use further. Why? Our lives today are intently focused on the screen, whether we are watching a film, sitting in front of our computers for work and careers, or sometimes simply passing the time away on YouTube (I’m guilty of that) or TikTok (Don’t have an account. Don’t want one). Because I don’t want to spoil the surprises behind ‘White Muscle Daddy,’ I will do my best not to give away too much. The press release states that ‘White Muscle Daddy’ uses projection art, live camera feed, and shadow play…to subvert cinema/film and theatre expectations. Was that achieved? More about that shortly. ‘White Muscle Daddy’ is set in Los Angeles, primarily in an exclusive gym. There are moments when we are shown gorgeous photographs of the LA sunset night sky and extraordinary photos of what I assume to be at least $ 3 million US dollar homes. Appreciation to Nicole Eun-Ju Bell, Connie Oreamuno and Khanh Tudo for the specific hours of work that had to be done to search for these photos and then do magic in any editing for specific effects. Alia Stephen’s sometimes perfect lighting design effect underscores the strong visual impact of looking at the photos from where my guest and I sat far stage left. The appearance of camera operators Khanh Tudo and Katerina Zoumboulakis (I hope I haven’t forgotten anyone) was also effective because the LA paparazzi are everywhere with their paraphernalia. It appears that in LA life, to be somebody, one must always be on camera. The notion of privacy is thrown out the window. Cat Calica’s costume selection perfectly reflect the style and finesse of each of the characters. There were moments in the pre-recorded or actual backstage footage where the sound was not aligned precisely when the characters spoke on screen. It was just a split second out of alignment, but it did bring me momentarily out of the scene. Can that also be looked at? In her set design, Echo Zhou places three separate riser platforms on far stage right, middle and far stage left to denote various LA locales. For sight line purposes, Zhou made a good choice to allow for maximum sight line view; however, there were moments when the action took place far stage right, and I could not hear the dialogue as I sat far stage left. The speaker on my right did not appear to amplify the sound, and I could not hear the dialogue. Hopefully, sound designer Stella Conway will be able to fix this going forward with future show performances. At the top of the show, we are watching the filming of one of the Grade B slasher horror flicks. Performer Augusto Bitter plays Stuart in the film. Stuart is reading a book and waiting for the arrival of their boyfriend to come home. In true horror film ‘Scream’ fashion, there are some nifty surprises for the audience that I don’t want to give away. It appears Bitter was having a hell of a good time in the pre-recorded filming. The film's director, Lucy (Chel Carmichael), enters the stage. Chel Carmichael’s Lucy is direct and confident in scenes with the filming. Carmichael’s Lucy is also connected to the rest of the characters in the play’s script. The central story involves Jeremy (Jaime Lujan), an impressionable individual newly hired to work the graveyard shift at the gym. Jeremy’s co-worker Thomas (Shaquille Pottinger) shows Jeremy the ropes of the gym. Thomas was moving out of the gym as he had found another job. One night, Jeremy sees and becomes smitten with Eugene (Ray Jacildo), a fitness instructor who appears to have the kind of LA life Jeremy has always wanted: muscles, good looks, and enviable LA parties. Jeremy’s ‘crush’ on Eugene begins to play havoc. Jeremy begins this insatiable hunger for Eugene and wants to know everything about the dude. Jeremy’s choice to follow the secret desire to know more about Eugene wreaks chaos in his relationship with his partner, Gustavo (Frankie Bayley). In turn, Gustavo looks to Lucy for moral support whenever their relationship with Jeremy appears on the rocks. In a heated moment of passion between Jeremy and Gustavo, the former says something to the latter that is downright nasty and cruel, which begins to alter the course of events not only in their lives but also in those in the story. The question remains right to the end—who is Eugene? Something about this character spells trouble for everyone involved. Directors Raf Antonio and Tricia Hagoriles have selected a diverse cast in their appearance and voice sound. That was another wise choice. For some reason, whenever I hear the name ‘Los Angeles,’ I immediately begin to think of plastic-looking people who are ‘practically perfect in every way’ (as Mary Poppins sang), from their looks to their sexuality and gender. Antonio and Hagoriles have selected real, natural, and ordinary-looking actors who commit themselves to showcase the two-hour and fifteen-minute running time (sans interval/intermission) with intent and focus. Once again, in the press release, Antonio (as one of the directors) spoke of "taking the tropes of the horror film genre and mashing them together to create an experience that will leave audiences chuckling, a little spooked, a little provoked...” Did that vision of mashing create an experience that left me chuckling, spooked, and a little provoked? Well… Yes and No. Directors Antonio and Hagoriles ensured the performers captured the Grade B horror film (over) acting from the sixties and seventies. In watching the pre-recorded film on stage during the performance, I recognized some similar recoiling in horror moments akin to the Vincent Prince scream films and Alfred Hitchcock's 'Psycho.' That left me chuckling. A couple of captured moments left me a tad spooked, but I hesitate to explain what it is because that would give away the surprise I didn’t see coming at all. All I will say - when it does appear, I had to avert my eyes quickly. It’s the word ‘provoked’ that I want to explore just a bit further. The script and the actors did provoke a bit of squeamishness within me so they succeeded on that account. There is one moment on film when I felt myself just scrunching my face up and putting my head down because it is a tad sickening. But I do have some quibbles. Is it possible for Antonio’s script to be re-examined again? I found it too long to sit for two hours and 15 minutes. There are moments where moments need to be tightened especially in moving from film to the stage. With no breaks at all, the production makes for uncomfortable sitting. A few got up around me to go and then return. Getting up and down is distracting both in the film and the theatre, but I get it – rarely are there intermissions in films. The directors have captured that vision. But if I go to the cinema and have to use the washroom during a long film, I quickly leave the hall, run to do my business and then get back to my seat. That’s not always possible in the theatre. This leads me to explain further the hybrid approach of combining cinema/film and theatre. It’s an exciting concept that deserves to be explored further on the stage. The press release calls ‘White Muscle Daddy’ a cinematic theatre thriller. Antonio says in the release that horror can be a malleable genre, and it is rarely performed on the stage. It’s not malleable here for me at this performance. Not quite yet. I hope a re-examination of the script and another staging might just do the trick. Running time: approximately two hours and 15 minutes with no intermission. Masks are required to be worn for the performance. ‘White Muscle Daddy’ runs until March 31 at the Buddies in Bad Times Theatre, 12 Alexander Street, Toronto. For tickets: buddiesinbadtimes.com or call (416) 975-8555. A PENCIL KIT PRODUCTIONS AND BUDDIES IN BAD TIMES THEATRE PRODUCTION Presents ‘White Muscle Daddy’ by Raf Antonio Produced by Claren Grosz Directors: Raf Antonio and Tricia Hagoriles Previous Next

Back 'Peter Pan and the Wendy Lady' adapted by Brandon White Now onstage at Toronto's Campbell House, 160 Queen Street West, Toronto. Credit: White Mills Theatre Company. Pictured Breanna Maloney as Peter Pan Joe Szekeres “An appealing and charmingly immersive fantasy story, delightful performances, and a production that makes me smile.” Upon entering the historic backdrop of Toronto’s Campbell House, Solomon (Scott Garland) greets guests at a podium and passes dance cards to the audience. We’re told not to lose the cards and to wait quietly in the lobby. With Solomon’s booming voice shouting: “Neeeexxxttt”, the next audience member approaches and gives their name for the evening. We have been invited to the Debutante Ball and the coming out tradition of introducing eighteen-year-old Wendy Darling (Ella Mazur) to the world. Before we enter the celebration, the guests/audience are taken to the drawing room where Wendy’s father, George (Scott Moore), converses with James (Spencer Schunk), a dashing, accoutered young man who has come to win Wendy’s hand. The audience is then taken to a cloakroom where George’s wife, Mary (Barb Schleffer) and son, John (Jonas Trottier), welcome us and take our coats and bags. We are then instructed to climb the stairs to enter the sitting room where the ball will take place. On our way, we pass Wendy and her younger brother, Michael (Jessi Ellgood), chatting about the ball and the stories Wendy likes to write. Wendy shares with her brother that a publisher rejected her most recent story. The two are surprised to see the audience there, and Wendy instructs her brother to lead us into the drawing room. A two-piece orchestra band plays ‘The Four Seasons’ while we enter and can sit in chairs. While waiting, a black-shadowed figure crawls out from somewhere. (I won’t spoil it here) At first, I wondered if this might be Darling’s dog, Nana. But it’s not because the dog is in the backyard. This shadowed figure moves quietly around the room and on the floor, sometimes playing with shoelaces, eyeing people, and rolling around. It then struck me that this is a shadow – and as the story progesses you’ll know whose it is. Mrs. Darling introduces her daughter, Wendy, to all of us. However, challenges occur, ruining the Debutante Ball's custom. Mary begins to read one of her stories out loud to the guests to showcase Wendy’s talent as a writer and appease the audience. It is then we learn about Wendy’s rejected story of Peter Pan (Breanna Maloney), his lost shadow (Emily Trace), Captain Hook (Schunk), Tinkerbell (Shannon Mills), the Lost Boys, and the Buccaneers. Even the Crocodile (Schleffer) pays a visit, and a sense of justice is instilled at the conclusion if you know what happens in the original story. That sound effect made the audience laugh approvingly. The rest of the story deals with moving around Campbell House as we fly to various parts of Neverland via pixie dust. The visual look of the story remains gorgeous, thanks to Brandon White’s meticulous attention to costume detail and colour. Captain Hooks’ clothing and Wendy’s ball gown are only two examples. The grime and filth of the Lost Boys’ clothing is spot on. Ella Mazur’s choreographed dance movements are stylish when the ball begins. There is one moment when a couple of audience members are encouraged to participate in the dance. Rob Carruthers and Rae Gallimore’s musical arrangements underscore the splendour of the look of Edwardian Toronto. I’ve always liked hearing Vivialdi’s ‘Four Seasons’; the two-person accompaniment of Rob Carruthers and Rae Gallimore creates a regal atmosphere. Shannon Mills’ musical direction of choral singing remains charming, especially when hearing the harmony work. There are tricky moments regarding lighting that didn’t always work for me. For example, the audience spends some time in the upstairs drawing room watching the confusion emanating from the debutante ball to Wendy sharing her unpublished story. The lighting works well for the ball; however, the shadowy effect to create a dreamlike sequence when Peter is introduced bothered my eyes. I had difficulty focusing on the primary action because the shadows prevented me from doing so. Brandon White creatively adapts this iconic J. M. Barrie story for a twenty-first-century audience. A couple of modern-day references made me smile. My guest told me that much of the original text appears in this adaptation. There are times that once again made me smile as several of the characters genuinely understand the meaning of the words and confidently speak the text. White subtly co-directs the production along with Cassie Davidson and Shannon Mills. They have favourably created a whimsical place where the audience suspends disbelief. The audience has seemingly entered a playful, mostly fun but sometimes harrowing and lonely environment. At times, they move quickly from one room to the next, and I’m amazed at how the cast is not out of breath when moving up and down the stairs. The performances are delightful. Once again, I couldn’t help but continue smiling and watching these J. M. Barrie character icons spring forth with exuberance. Although I was never a fan of the Peter Pan story, several dynamite productions have made me change my mind over the years. Breanna Maloney is a spritely sprite of a Peter Pan. As Wendy, Ella Mazur maintains a grounded performance of a young woman on the cusp of adulthood in her journey of self-discovery of who she is. Scott Moore’s George (and Wendy’s father) sharply represents the values of the Edwardian era, in which everyone had their place within the world. Barb Scheffler’s Mary (Wendy’s mother) is a far too doting Edwardian mother who knows her place within the world and feels responsible when the debutante ball abruptly ends. As Mary’s siblings, Jonas Trottier’s John and Jessi Ellgood’s Michael offer two distinct performances. Trottier’s John is like Moore’s George: a man of values who stands up for what is right. Trottier is amusing in his performance in the kitchen scene and enjoys the attention paid to him by the two attendants. Ellgood’s Michael is quite fascinating in physicality. There’s an impish, childlike innocence of Ellgood that remains believable throughout the production. It took me a few moments to connect that Shannon Mills was playing Tinker Bell. Her free-flowing emerald gown looks great, but there’s nothing in Mills’ first entrance to denote she is the pixie fairy. Perhaps some glitter hanging in mid-air or a bit more on her costume? Spencer Schunk’s brief appearance as James re-enforces the young Edwardian male who wants to sweep the young Wendy off her feet and whisk her away to a world of lovely promises. Having Schunk play Captain Hook in Wendy’s story was clever. Schunk’s Hook is a devilish brute of a monster at first, intent on terrorizing the others with his pirate Buccaneers in the other world of Neverland. Schunk never overplays Hook’s fear of the crocodile. It remains charmingly childish each time Hook experiences it. Having Barb Scheffler play the Crocodile was also a good choice. Again, Scheffler’s Mary is so completely doting as a mother figure that her Mary comes across as suffocating. If you know Barrie’s story, you know what the Crocodile does. Scheffler appears to have great fun leading her Crocodile to that moment of ‘suffocation.’ The enthusiasm of the supporting players adds unique magic to creating a faraway land of ‘pure imagination,’ as Willy Wonka once sang. I especially liked those moments staged downstairs where we are on board Captain Hooks’ ship. It is just purely terrific to watch actors having great fun bringing characters to life with zest and vitality. And Another Thought: Toronto’s Campbell House's historical backdrop has again been an excellent choice to stage an imaginative story. I’m constantly amazed at the energy this cast expends, running up and down the stairs and moving from scene to scene. Make sure you wear comfortable shoes because there is a lot of walking up and down stairs. On this opening night, there was plenty of space for audiences to sit on chairs. As the show continues and the audience grows, please be aware that there may not be ample seating on these nights. A lovely way to spend an afternoon or evening of theatrical entertainment. Running time: two hours and 15 minutes with no intermission. ‘Peter Pan and the Wendy Lady’ runs until March 23 at the Campbell House Museum, 160 Queen Street West, Toronto. For tickets: https://www.whitemillstheatreco.com/upcoming-events Adaptation, Co-Direction, Production & Costume Design by Brandon White Assistant Director & Fight Coordination by Cassie Davidson Co-Direction & Musical Direction by Shannon Mills Musical Arrangements by Rob Carruthers & Rae Gallimore Choreographer & Poster Illustration by Ella Mazur Production Assistant & Portraits Edited by Daniel Tofach Assistant Stage Manager ~ Iris Asserlind Performers: WENDY DARLING ~ Ella Mazur JOHN DARLING ~ Jonas Trottier MICHAEL DARLING ~ Jessi Elgood MARY DARLING/THE CROCODILE ~ Barb Scheffler GEORGE DARLING/MR. SMEE ~ Scott Moore PETER PAN ~ Breanna Maloney TINKER BELL ~ Shannon Mills LIZA/SLIGHTLY ~ Cassie Davidson TOOTLES ~ Shelby Handley NIBS ~ Annie Roberts JAMES/CAPTAIN HOOK ~ Spencer Schunk BILL JUKES ~ Anthony Botelho NOODLER ~ Austin Larusson SOLOMON/CAW/SKYLIGHTS/THE MOON ~ Scott Garland THE TIDE ~ Manon Ens-Lapointe THE SHADOW/ODILE ~ Emily Trace MUSICIAN 1/ODETTE ~ Rae Gallimore MUSICIAN 2/MULLINS ~ Rob Carruthers Previous Next

Back 'Cymbeline' by William Shakespeare. Now on stage at The Stratford Festival Now on stage at The Tom Patterson Theatre Credit: David Hou Pictured: Marcus Nance as Jupiter Joe Szekeres ‘Fine performance work with some interesting, staged pictures, but disappointing that I lost interest in the story’s plot and characters.” Once upon a time, a play from the Bard comes along that one might have heard of but had no context or opportunity to study in school. This is one of those times for me with ‘Cymbeline’. That doesn’t mean the Festival’s production isn’t worth seeing. I’m not saying that at all. There are moments when it’s visually spectacular and worthy of ‘Lord of the Rings’ (as director Esther Jun states in her Director’s Note). There are heated passions and emotions in performances that bubble with intensity. The cast of ‘Cymbeline’ includes Stratford stalwarts and young performers whom I’d like to watch for in the future. I understand that audiences in Elizabethan England would have had some background in understanding the context and the characters. Nevertheless, Cymbeline’s plot is highly complicated. A few subplots feed from the central, and the characters intertwine so much that I got lost a few times. By the end of the three hours, I lost my connection with the story. Instead, I appreciated the wonder and spectacle how Jun shaped the story to become ‘a magical play’ (as she called it in her Director’s Note). In a long-gone Britain that is slowly wasting away, everyone is trying to save the delicate ecosystem and the court of Queen Cymbeline (Lucy Peacock). Innogen (Allison Edwards-Crewe), the only daughter of Cymbeline, secretly marries Posthumus (Jordin Hall), a worthy enough but low-born ward of the court. Cymbeline is furious and banishes Posthumus. Cymbeline’s husband, The Duke (Rick Roberts), plots to wed Innogen to his only son and her stepbrother Cloten (Christopher Allen) and to rally Britain against Rome. Upon banishment and finding shelter in Rome, Posthumus meets the wealthy Iachimo (Tyrone Savage) who bets that Innogen is not what Posthumus believes her to be and that he could seduce her. Iachimo tries to seduce Innogen, but confusion erupts in the following madness. From this point on, there are characters in gender-swapping disguises, battles ensuing, familial strife and forbidden love as right will ultimately prevail. Echo Zhou’s set and lighting designs make this Britain from long ago a fantasy world. Green lighting gobo effects remind the audience that they are in another world. There is a tall tree with branches far upstage. The tree rarely (if ever) moves from the stage. I’m puzzled as to why the tree remains there for the entire performance. Does it have something to do with things rooted in the world that will always remain firm? That point was not made clear. Michelle Bohn’s costumes radiantly sparkle at times, especially in those hushed green lighting effects. As matriarch and queen of Britain, Lucy Peacock’s Cymbeline regally commands the Patterson stage each time she appears. Marcus Nance’s Jupiter and Rick Roberts’ Duke remain compelling throughout. In the second act, Nance’s appearance as Jupiter with the wings of a bird made me sit up immediately and pay close attention to him and how that moment is staged. Even though the play's title is named after the parental figure, the complete character arc of Allison Edwards-Crewe’s Innogen becomes the play’s focus. Edwards-Crewe propels through the various emotions with genuine believability at one moment and an intense ferocity the next. Irene Poole is a gentle Pisanio. Tyrone Savage’s villainous Iachimo is fascinating. Jonathan Goad and Wahsonti:io Kirby have a terrific, amusing moment near the end of the play that draws much-needed laughter from the audience. And Another Thought: Sometimes, when one attends the theatre, it’s okay to sit, experience and appreciate the marvel and staging of storytelling. Character development might just become secondary and that’s okay. I wish I could have connected to more characters and the story than I did. Running time: approximately three hours and five minutes with one interval/intermission. ‘Cymbeline’ runs until May 28 at The Tom Patterson Theatre, 111 Lakeside Drive. Stratford. For tickets: stratfordfestival.ca or call 1-800-567-1600. THE STRATFORD FESTIVAL presents ‘Cymbeline’ by William Shakespeare Directed by Esther Jun Set and Lighting: Echo Zhou Costumes: Michelle Bohn Composer: Njo Kong Kie Sound: Olivia Wheeler Performers: Marcus Nance, Cynthia Jimenez-Hicks, Rick Roberts, Jordin Hall, Allison Edwards-Crewe, Lucy Peacock, Irene Poole, Anthony Palermo, Christopher Allen, Evan Mercer, Caleigh Crow, Tyrone Savage, Josue Laboucane, Anthony Santiago, Wahsont:io Kirby, Julie Lumsden, Matthew Kabwe, Jonathan Goad, Michael Wamara, Noah Beemer, Chris Mejaki, Tara Sky, Jennifer Rider-Shaw Previous Next

Back 'The Tilco Strike' by D'Arcy Jenish Now onstage at 4th Line Theatre, Millbrook, Ontario Wayne Eardley, Brookside Studio Dave Rabjohn The world premiere of ‘The Tilco Strike’ written by D’Arcy Jenish is now running at 4th Line Theatre near the town of Millbrook, Ontario. Those familiar with this unique venue will recognize the creative adaptable theatre space that runs two productions every summer. A rustic outdoor space, using a barn as a backdrop (and a backstage) is perfect for a summer evening’s entertainment and for plays that reflect local history and culture. ‘The Tilco Strike’ fits both categories perfectly. A true story set in 1965 Peterborough, it recounts the labour battle at a small plastics factory between management and a number of feisty women workers who strike against difficult odds and personal hardship. To call this an ‘ensemble’ piece is not quite accurate due to the size of the cast – a parade of talent is more exact. And from that parade there are a number of highlights. Lil Downer and her counterparts have worked at Tilco for years earning a minimum wage of just over a dollar an hour. Each has their own story about family, difficult budgets and complex relationships. The factory is typical of the 1960s – time clock, factory floor and whitewashed cafeteria – each is cleverly blended into the unique space by designer Esther Vincent. The hardnose manager, Dutch Pammett, is barely civil with his employees. Enter a labour organizer who manages to sign the reluctant girls to a textile union. Lil then leads the cause with both victories and losses. Memorable performances begin with Katherine Cappellacci playing the resilient Lil who balances a difficult homelife and battles with management – she reinvents Sally Field standing on a table. Two actors stand out due to the range of emotional and philosophic changes their characters roll through. Ellyse Wolter plays a naïve and shrinking Rita who allows herself to be manipulated and bullied. As events move along, Rita becomes more self reliant and expressive while supporting her fellow workers. Jason Gray plays Donald Harwood who is the company president. He too, moves through a roller coaster of emotions as he balances his fiscal responsibilities to the company and his support for the workers. He just wants peace until he recognizes that Dutch Pammett’s hard line leads to all important profits. M. John Kennedy brilliantly plays the evil Dutch – tenacious and unbending. He is the cigar wielding mustachioed brute who you can virtually see tying his buxom secretary to the train tracks as the locomotive approaches. Sarah McNeilly, as Flossie, plays the most tragic figure as she tries to feed her family of seven while reluctantly supporting the cause. Her acting range is demonstrated with a clever comic turn as she imitates a local pastor’s sermon. Another comic delight comes from Hilary Wear as the eastern European factory supervisor who acts as a Greek Chorus trying to interpret the variety of events. Local references pepper the writing from well-known eating establishments to hockey rivalries. An important story with entertaining performances makes for a memorable evening as the sun slowly sets on the Winslow farm. ‘The Tilco Strike’ by D’Arcy Jenish Performers: Katherine Cappellacci, Matt Gilbert, Jason Gray, M. John Kennedy, Sarah McNeilly, Hilary Ware. For full list see: 4thlinetheatre.on.ca Director: Cynthia Ashperger Music director: Justin Hiscox Set Designer: Esther Vincent Production runs through July 22, 2023. Tickets: 4thlinetheatre.on.ca Previous Next

Back Fall for Dance North – UNBOWED: 2023 Signature Program 2 – Credit: Erin Baiano. Company from Oh, Courage. Geoffrey Coulter, actor, director, arts educator Fall For Dance North did it again! Toronto’s Premiere International Dance Festival is back with its ninth season chock full of eclectic dance companies of unparalleled talent and artistry. Creator and Artistic Director, Ilter Ibrahimof curated a rapturous 2-hour compilation of the dynamic dance stylings of four visionary companies, including one Canadian Premiere. FFDN “celebrates, nurtures and amplifies established and emerging Canadian dance artists…” offering mixed bills that include performances by large and small-scale local and international companies with EVERY seat for the incomparably low price of just $15. Extraordinary value for extraordinary performances! I caught this year’s program on the closing night of its two-week run. The energy from the audience and performers on this Thanksgiving weekend was palpable as the curtain rose to a Canadian premiere by a Tony-award winning choreographer, a collaborative piece with graduates of Toronto Metropolitan University’s School of Performance, a stunning duet with long-separated African brothers, and a poignant portrayal of the life and career of a civil rights icon. The stage was mostly bare with occasional simple props and inventive, evocative lighting. Act one began with the Canadian premiere of “Oh Courage” performed by the Gibney Company and choreographed by Tony and Emmy-Award winner Sonya Tayeh (Moulin Rouge, So You Think You Can Dance). The eight-member troupe performed to original music composed by The Bengsons (who were to play live on stage, but a band-member’s recent illness prohibited their travel, so backup recordings filled in). The company mastered Tayeh’s intricate modern style, mixing athleticism, and creating unique shapes and levels with their bodies. An ease of fluidity followed each hard-hitting beat. With a bare stage save for set designer Rachel Hauck’s quadrangle of four lights on tall stands with a stack of speakers at its centre, the company used the space superbly, allowing each member of the company to impossibly writhe, kick, bend, and flex. Costume designer Marion Talán de la Rosa’s baggy, three quarter length pants and loose-fitting sleeveless tops, enhanced the dancers’ movement allowing them a mesmerizing freedom. Asami Morita’s overall warm, dim, and moody lighting sometimes left the stage too dark, often masking facial expressions. The occasional use of strobes and bright beams shooting into the audience served more to blind this reviewer than add any artistic value. I wasn’t sure what story Sonya was telling, but it didn’t matter. This company told it with passion and artistry. Next up was Light-Print, choreographed by Jesse Obremski and performed by a dozen recent graduates of Toronto Metropolitan University’s School of Performance. In the explainer video preceding the performance, Obremski explains this modern piece to be a personal discovery of what it means to be analytical and factual. The performers begin in what seems to be a lab or research facility (an inspired design by Margaret Steinbach) exploring how ideas can overwhelm, ignite, and excite our conscious and collective energies. Though the program notes proclaim how this piece intends to “enlighten and remind us about the importance of constant self-discovery”, I wasn’t always clear on what the discoveries were and why they were important. Even the lab coat costumes by designer by Keiko Obremski, in collaboration with TMU's wardrobe department, didn’t fully convey the self-discovery these characters were supposed to be experiencing. It was all a little muddled. Lighting designer Asami Morita’s overall dim lighting is punctuated by the amber hits from hanging fixtures, swinging cleverly at different heights, and providing a unique interactive prop in addition to being highly practical. An original melancholic, bellicose, score by composer Trevor Bumgarner provided a rich musical canvas for these young dancers to stretch, writhe and roll to. While this cadre of dance grads showed impressive technique and superhuman flexibility, their movements lacked the passion and intent that was in such abundance in the evening’s other offerings. After a brief interval Act 2 opened with the exquisite narrative, “My Mother’s Son”, a duet performed by South African brothers Siphesihle and Mthuthuzeli November and choreographed by Mthuthuzeli November (who also provided the music). Both talented dancers, the brothers were separated as children to study at ballet schools a world apart – Siphe, here in Toronto at the National Ballet of Canada and Mthuthuzeli with Ballet Black in London, England. They come together for the first time since their childhood in Zolani to dance an incredibly powerful work inspired by their relationship as brothers. The result is simply breathtaking! The thoughtful and emotive choreography speaks to the pain of geographical separation and the enduring bonds of fraternal love. The intimacy is often overwhelming, the emotions raw and authentic, the dancers; magnificent! The narrative is impeccably told through not only the expressive choreography but through superb lighting that transports us through time and place. The shafts of harsh light beaming down from above perfectly evoke the trees of an African jungle, where we first encounter the brothers. The changing of shapes, angles and colours superbly and subtly accentuate their emotions of the love, angst, regret, sadness, reunion, redemption, and celebration. Clad in their own traditional African kilts, the story-telling these men do with their bodies is simply captivating. Siphe has been an undeniable force and integral part of the National Ballet of Canada while Mthuthuzeli’s work as a dancer and choreographer in London, England with Ballet Black continues to dazzle and win prestigious awards. No wonder then that after not breathing for 25 minutes, the audience leapt to its collective feet in rapturous applause. The evening concluded with another absolute gem – Ballet Black’s “Nina: By Whatever Means”. This love letter to musician, performer and civil rights activist Nina Simone isn’t just a dance number. This is theatre, a “playlet” brilliantly combining spoken word, ballet, jazz, and blues. Again, choreographed by Mthuthuzeli November, and performed by the captivating company of artists of Black and Asian descent, this thrilling and imaginative piece takes us through Simone’s turbulent and influential life. Jessica Cabassa’s period costumes are spot on, from Simone’s post war early life in the Methodist deep south, to her swanky high life in Atlantic City nightclubs, cuts, fabrics, and textures were accurate and convincing. David Plater’s inspired lighting design easily transported us through his use of soft, muted, amber tones evoking Southern heat while adding harsh, confining spots to piano classes, dressing rooms and nightclubs. Music by Mandisi Dyantyis and Mthuthuzeli November (and recordings of Simone herself) is beautifully punctuated with original vocals by the Zolani Youth Choir. This review wouldn’t be complete without acknowledging the extraordinary company of dancers, Isabela Coracy, Ebony Thomas, Taraja Hudson, Sayaka Ichikawa, Helga Paris-Morales, Mthuthuzeli November, Megan Chiu, Love Kotiya and Bhungane Mehlomakulu. Their phenomenal technique and ability to fuse their skills in ballet, jazz, lyrical and contemporary was simply incomparable. Special shout outs to the captivating Isabela Coracy as Nina Simone and Ebony Thomas as The Husband. Their expressive pas-des-deux, performed within the confines of Simone’s tiny dressing room was simply breathtaking, combining raw emotion with seemingly effortless facility. If you love dance or just want to be swept away by dazzling, ground-breaking, thought-provoking theatre that resonates with a modern audience, don’t miss Fall for Dance North’s ten-year celebration next year. Tickets are still $15 each! That’s a value that’s simply unheard of in today’s theatre scene. I can’t wait to see what Mr. Ibrahimof has up his sleeve in 2024 as FFDN celebrates ten remarkable years making audience fall in love with the transformative power of dance. Previous Next

Back Iain Moggach “If the last few years have taught me anything, me writing these things down and putting them out into the universe is half of the battle. And whether it is me or a successor at the helm, it will happen.” Khaleel Gandhi Joe Szekeres To Barrie, Ontario: you are one lucky city to have Iain Moggach promoting your theatrical artistic community. The youthful-looking Theatre by the Bay’s (TBTB) Artistic Director is one to watch. What’s foremost for him is his commitment to ensure Barrie’s artistic endeavours, especially in the theatre, remain noteworthy. For example, (and according to his website), much of his work with Theatre by the Bay has been on education and training for emerging artists. Since 2020, he has been the lead instructor of the Emerging Director Project, created the Barrie Theatre Lab to support new play development, and he also launched the Simcoe County Theatre Festival to provide a platform for local emerging artists. I was fortunate to have attended the latter a few years ago. Just recently, in 2023, Iain was formally signed to The Talent House, a leading agency in the entertainment industry for over 35 years. This young artist is going places. I firmly believe that. I’ve continued checking in on artists I profiled three years ago when our world changed. The link to my first conversation with Iain is at the bottom of this profile. He and I once again conducted our conversation via email. As a professional artist, he feels very satisfied that things have never been better. He has had the chance to work with incredible artists and directed shows of which he is incredibly proud: ‘The Ghost Watchers,’ ‘A Scandal for All Seasons’ and ‘Icemen.’ While the pandemic has made it harder to get their work out of Barrie, a goal in the plan, the company has been able to do so. There was a production of ‘Mno Bimaadiziwin’ about Indigenous experiences in Orillia at the Orillia Opera House in 2021 (the first indoor theatre production for many of our audience members since the pandemic had started). I did get the chance to see it, and it was worth the trip to Orillia. In partnership with Theatre Collingwood, TBTB brought both of its 2022 full productions to Collingwood and presented Mary of Shanty Bay at the church that the real Mary O’Brien and her family built. Iain can’t speak about his 2024 show yet; however, I am watching for it and will share the title when it becomes available. Iain is also ‘through the woods’ on a book he is adapting and will be able to announce within the next year if everything goes according to plan. Like all of us, though, the last three years have taken its toll even on our hopeful, enterprising young people who have much to give back to the community. I am concerned for these young people as they are the ones who are going to lead us forward into the future. On one side of things, Iain has had a lot of sleepless nights and periods of overwhelming anxiety, despair, and frustration. On the other hand, there is incredible joy, relief, and success, especially in reading about his accomplishments. Moggach recognizes that such considerable fluctuations in emotions as regularly as the last three years have taken their toll on him. He feels like a very different person than he was three years ago. While an eternal optimist, that optimism has been wrung quite dry. He chooses to keep going. That’s admirable, young man, but please never forget that you and your family come first. The Barrie community (and me) want you to enjoy life and the fruits of your labour with your family and community in that respective order. Moggach hasn’t lost his quick wit during these last three years. He shared he had an acting teacher at George Brown who would use making theatre in Barrie as the punchline of a bad joke. He quoted verbatim what the instructor used to say in class: “You can be a great actor, or you can go and do work in Barrie.” Where is this instructor’s professionalism? Ugh!!!!!!!!!!!!! Moggach has something else planned. Instead, his goal is to swap that asinine perspective and have the broader theatre community be excited (and perhaps a bit jealous) about what is going on in Barrie and be amazed by the quality and quantity of work and calibre of artists coming out of the community. Iain also hopes that the artists who live in the community feel like they always have a place in TBTB. It is also hoped that TBTB can provide as many ladders as possible to ensure a place for them at each step of the local theatre community’s journey. What are some areas of growth Moggach still sees for Theatre by The Bay? He recognizes that the most urgent task is to capitalize better on community goodwill and turn it into dollars in its bank account. TBTB also needs to break into the OAC and CCA operating streams – which has never happened before in the company’s 20+ year history. On the artistic side, the theatre has identified gaps in the local community that need to be addressed to keep hiring local artists as high as it would like. Moggach suspects these two things could go hand in hand and lead to the Theatre by the Bay, which he sees clearly in his mind. There is also the hope of bringing TBTB’s work out more broadly. For example, I was highly impressed with ‘Icemen’ in the fall of 2023 and thought how important it would be to bring that production to community centres or stages in smaller regional towns. Moggach mentioned Alliston, for example, and that would be great; however, since I live in the Durham Region, might he consider bringing productions down further south? The same holds true for two other productions I saw that were indeed memorable: ‘Mary of Shanty Bay’ and ‘Bobbie’, which came to my mind. Iain also spoke about possibly bringing these three shows across Canada in the future. He’s just that kind of earnest artistic leader who would and could make this happen. I’ve asked some artists I’ve profiled where they see themselves again in the next five years. Some have chosen not to gaze into that crystal ball as they see no benefit, while others have pondered the future. Moggach was clear on his five-year plan for TBTB and wanted to share the results. Actually, 2024 will mark the end of the plan that started in the fall of 2019. Despite the pandemic, TBTB has been able to achieve many of the goals that it had set out. TBTB is now twice the size that it was in 2019. It launched much-needed community development projects like the Simcoe County Theatre Festival and the local Indie Producer Co-op. The company dramatically increased the diversity of its storytellers and artists. A few things couldn’t be achieved, but the company is fine with those being in the next plan. One day, TBTB should own its own space for workshops and classes, auditions, and rehearsals, for instance, but 2024 is probably not the right time for that. He elaborated further: “There are more pressing priorities than that right now. Looking back, I knew developing the first Five Year Plan would be useful, but I think it spoke things into being - as if by writing our goals down, we made them real.” The growth of TBTB has been remarkable for Moggach. For him, an example that comes to his mind is the Indie Producer Co-op. This program has always been a gem in TBTB’s crown, but it has really come into its own in the last few years. In 2022, thanks to the donation of a local foundation, the Co-op expanded to include a local component to help develop the producers of the future in Simcoe County – a much-needed expansion and support for the ecosystem. And then, in 2023, it was expanded again to become a national program. TBTB had participants from across the country who lived and worked in Barrie for several weeks. They met the community, saw the value and quality of the work first-hand, and are now using their skills to support their communities. It is an incredible achievement and a unique way for TBTB to support theatre across the country. Once again, he clarified his thoughts: “As I think about it, what the expansion of the Co-op exemplifies is how TBTB is growing. On one side, we are bringing our work ‘out’ and getting people from across the country to take notice, while on the other side, we are addressing issues in our local ecosystem to support its growth!” Go to the theatre’s website: www.theatrebythebay.com and check out more of what has been going on in Barrie. There’s exciting stuff. And make sure you say hello to Iain (and even say that Joe sent you). This polite, industrious and personable fellow will put you at ease very quickly as he shares his thoughts about the future of theatre in Barrie. And it’s looking good as far as I’m concerned. Link to Iain’s first profile: https://www.onstageblog.com/profiles/2021/3/22/theatre-conversation-in-a-covid-world-with-theatre-by-the-bays-artistic-director-iain-maggoch?rq=IAIN%20MOGGACH Previous Next

Back Michaela Washburn Moving Forward Denise Grant Joe Szekeres Before I interviewed Michaela Washburn this morning, I had to go back and see how many performances I’ve reviewed where she has appeared. I counted five and I think I might be missing a couple. Personally, I have never forgotten how powerfully visceral her performances have been on stage, particularly in three productions: ‘This is How We Got Here’ at the Aki Studio, ‘Almighty Voice, and his Wife’ at Soulpepper, and ‘Guarded Girls’ at Tarragon. Michaela hails from Alberta and is a proud Métis artist of English, Irish, French and Cree descent. She is now based in North Bay, Ontario. Michaela’s expertise spans theatre, film, television, hosting, writing, spoken word, clown, improvisation, workshop facilitation, and stand-up. An award-winning actor, Washburn also has multiple nominations - most notably, for the Ontario Arts Council’s Indigenous Arts Award and the K. M. Hunter Artist Award for Theatre. She has performed internationally at festivals and theatres in Wales, Aruba, and across Canada and the United States. She studied clown with John Turner in 2001 and graduated (on scholarship) from the Second City Training Center in Toronto, in 2003. Outside of that, and various workshops along the way, the learning of her craft has been primarily experiential. Her post-secondary studies in the late '80s were in nursing and, during the course of our telephone conversation, I discovered she had also been a high school guidance counselor. It appears that after five exceptionally long months, we are slowly, very slowly, emerging to a pre-pandemic lifestyle. Has your daily life and routine along with your immediate family’s life and routine been changed in any manner? Like many folks, I too have had my ups and downs during these last five months. There have been days where I feel confident and hopeful about the future, and there have been other days where it has been almost impossible to feel anything beyond grief and despair. As my chosen career and the whole industry of live performance has come to a screeching halt, I realize now, that for me, it is a matter of acceptance, and adjusting to the situation by focusing what I can do versus what is beyond my control. Were you involved or being considered for any projects before everything was shut down? I was booked from March – December 2020 from Banff to Victoria to Winnipeg. It was to have been my first time in Banff as part of the Indigenous Playwrights Circle followed immediately by the Banff Playwrights Lab. There would have been an intersection with many international artists and the incorporation of several languages within the work. It was to be a highlight of my year, and unfortunately, all of that work is now gone. I have a Great Aunt who is turning 94 this year, and so I also had plans to visit her in Vancouver and record an interview with her. She is one of the last of her generation and holds so much knowledge of our family’s history which I was hoping to capture on film. Describe the most challenging element or moment of the isolation period for you. I was living in a basement apartment in Toronto and was finding it incredibly isolating and increasingly difficult to get outside. I was often anxious, as when I was out for walks during the day, I began to notice less and less physical distancing and few people in the area were wearing masks. There was a small backyard but a family with a toddler lived upstairs. I understood completely that the backyard was the only space where the child could safely play, and I didn’t want to jeopardize that. Since then, I’ve moved out of the city, which has helped a great deal. What were you doing to keep yourself busy during this time of lockdown and isolation from the world of theatre? I am one of the Ontario Councillors for the Canadian Actors’ Equity Association, and I serve on several committees as well. There is a great deal of advocacy work being done which has been keeping me busy during these last five months. I was also one of the folks who recently stepped forward to help coordinate the online panel discussion and subsequent take-over of the Stratford Festival’s social media platforms for the Indigenous community in June. I felt proud to offer messaging reminding us all to be kind and patient with ourselves and one another as we navigate this extraordinary time. Any words of wisdom or sage advice you would give to other performing artists who are concerned about the impact of COVID-19? What about to the new theatre graduates who are just out of school and may have been hit hard? Why is it important for them not to lose sight of their dreams? For all performing artists who have been affected by COVID – 19 – remember that storytelling is intrinsic to our well being. It is a practice that has seen humankind through many a disaster before and we will find a new way to experience live performance once again. To the new theatre graduates: Trust. Have faith in your dreams and in the gifts you carry within you. They are your medicine. Art is love, and love heals. If you have a dream and are driven to do it, then you’re meant to do it. Trust that. Dreams may also shift and change, and to lean into that rather than fear it. All things happen for a reason. I firmly believe that. Do you see anything positive stemming from this pandemic? As I can only speak for myself, this giant pause has offered me the opportunity to re-evaluate what’s important and to examine closely the impact of my choices on my personal health and balance, that of my fellows, the earth, and all the creatures we share it with. It has revealed many areas that desperately require immediate attention, socially and environmentally, and has reinforced that we need to work together to practice more respectful, responsible, and sustainable ways of being. Identify the actions we can take, and then take them. In your informed opinion, will the Toronto and North American performing arts scene somehow be changed or impacted on account of the coronavirus? For sure. There is so much to consider for the safety of everyone when we return to our theatres from the actors and crew to the audience members. Safe social distancing will be paramount when we first return, and I believe that the inability to fill our houses will have a significant impact on revenue, and thus whether or not some theatre companies will even survive. All artistic teams are going to have to get creative and innovative. In fact, several conversations have already begun across the country, to discuss how and what protocols and procedures will need to be in place, and who will be responsible for their implementation and maintenance. But we’re creative folks! It’s what we do. dream and build and manifest..so I have total faith that we will find our way. What are your thoughts about streaming live productions? As we continue to emerge and find our way back to a new perspective of daily life, will live streaming become part of the performing arts scene in your estimation? I’m not personally interested in participating in live streaming, although I am happy for those who have found expression there helpful. I imagine that it may become part of the performing arts scene, and in fact, think that folks will continue to be creative in how they adapt their crafts. For me, I feel like what’s missing in live streaming is the conversation that is at the heart of live performance… sharing the same space and time together. I am happy for folks who are enjoying the online medium, but if I am to work digitally, my preference is to do so in film and television. What is it about performing you still love given all the change, the confusion, and the drama surrounding our world now? I love the transformation and resiliency which is the crux of being a good storyteller. We have the ability to adapt to whatever situation in which we may be placed, and we must hold fast to that and remember that these are transferable skills. As storytellers, I love that we are able to utilize life as a toolbox from which to build an imagined reality, and in this case, an entirely new one. With a respectful nod to ‘Inside the Actors’ Studio’ and the late James Lipton, here are the 10 questions he asked his guests at the conclusion of his interviews: a. What is your favourite sounding word? “Chum” – not what you throw in the water to attract sharks. ‘Chum’ is the word I use to refer to most of the people in my life. It’s a term of endearment that I love to use. b. What is your least favourite word? Hate. I try not to use that word at all to the best of my ability. c. What turns you on? Kindness d. What turns you off? Aggression. e. What sound or noise do you love? The laughter of children f. What sound or noise bothers you? Crying children whom I can’t comfort or the suffering of others over which I am powerless to help ease. g. What is your favourite curse word? “Shitballs” What is your least favourite curse word? In the spirit of my mom, I’d love to eventually surrender vulgarity altogether. I remember reading somewhere “The absence of profanity will offend no one” and I really like that idea. h. What profession, other than your own, would you have liked to attempt? I often miss the work I did with the youth as a high school guidance counselor, and many times have considered becoming a therapist. I would also like to become a skilled tradesperson, as I believe things like carpentry, painting, drywalling, and home repair are important skills to have. i. What profession would you not like to do? Taxidermy j. If Heaven exists, what do you hope God will say to you as you approach the Pearly Gates? “You rose to your name, Shining Light, and left the world a better place for it. Now come, your ancestors are eager to dance with you.” To follow Michaela, visit her Twitter: @themichaelaw Facebook: Michaela Washburn Previous Next

Back 'Bed & Breakfast' by Mark Crawford Now onstage until June 30 at the Port Hope Capitol Theatre, 20 Queen Street. Now onstage until June 30 at the Port Hope Capitol Theatre, 20 Queen Street. Joe Szekeres “Make a reservation for actor/playwright Mark Crawford’s BED & BREAKFAST at Port Hope’s Capitol Theatre. Smartly directed by Rob Kempson with sharp, delineated performances by Kyle Golemba and Amir Haidar.” Brett (Kyle Golemba) and Drew (Amir Haidar) are weary of their cramped downtown Toronto condo and the disappointment of seven failed home bids. Their lives take an unexpected turn when Brett, upon the passing of his beloved Aunt Maggie, inherits a house in a small town east of Toronto. He and Drew decide to seize this opportunity and start a bed and breakfast in Maggie’s historic home, setting the stage for the unexpected in their lives. The couple experiences comic woes running a B&B. As members of the LGBTQIA+ community, Brett and Drew also face friction in this small town for who they are. By the end of the play, the two of them discover that life is not always straightforward when trying to escape complicated situations. I’ve heard of playwright/actor Crawford’s script before. I only knew it was a two-hander and involved the actors playing multiple characters. What a delight to finally see it live. ‘Bed & Breakfast’ is not an easy play to stage. From a visionary perspective in comic timing, there is much to consider in understanding the vast array of who each character is and their connections to each other, as well as their importance in moving the plot events forward. Ensuring Crawford’s intuitive script remains timely is quite a challenge. This terrific opening night performance met this challenge head-on with gusto. First, Capitol’s Artistic Director Kempson's staging of the play in June makes complete sense since this month recognizes the LGBTQIA+ community. ‘Bed & Breakfast,’ however, is more than just recognizing its roots within the community—it is far more. ‘Bed & Breakfast’ emphasizes the importance of belonging and the feeling of having an essential place within any established community. Joyce Padua’s costume designs purposefully characterize the vast array of characters who enter and exit the condo and the house. Her split-level set design of Brett and Drew’s intimate Toronto condo also nicely outlines the lower level of the B & B. The few steps up and down signify other parts of the house. Michelle Ramsay’s clearly defined lighting design focuses attention where needed, especially in several monologues Brett and Drew deliver to the audience. Round of applause to La-Nai Gabriel’s sound design when the precision and timing of the cues add much to the comedy of the moment. Rob Kempson's assured and confident direction of the subject content does not become preachy or ‘in your face’ at any time. Instead, he guides Kyle Golemba and Amir Haidar to sculpt authentic people who are vital members of all communities everywhere, regardless of their personal lives. Brett and Drew’s struggles, wins, losses, joys, sorrows and laughs have become mine, too, within the two-hour running time. There are moments where I rooted for Brett and Drew and other times when I could empathize with their sadness, loss, and frustration, especially in some of the horrific treatment they sometimes endured from others in this small town. Kyle Golemba and Amir Haidar are the reasons for seeing the show. They’re the kind of neighbours I’d like to have. They’re personable guys with whom you could have a beer or a cup of coffee and talk about everything or anything. They deliver likeable performances. They’re funny. They can be serious. They’re lively. They’re also in physically good shape for all the running around they do on the Capitol stage. Kyle and Amir do a lot of running and quick movements as they become the next character in mere seconds or a quick flourish, perhaps donning a specific piece of clothing or assuming a pose. There is one moment during the second act where all hell breaks loose in the B & B. Kempson has intricately staged that moment with impeccable pacing. I put my pen away, closed my notebook, and watched two solid actors whisk me away to what they know how to do—perform with focus and remain in the moment with intent and purpose. At the close of that scene, the audience erupted into a wild round of applause for Golemba and Haidar, which was appropriately earned. A feel-good opening night production with tremendous heart and joy of life, this ‘Bed & Breakfast’ travels to Winnipeg in the fall to entertain audiences with humour, pathos and drama. Before it leaves Port Hope’s Capitol Theatre, make that reservation and visit this local production. Running time: approximately two hours and ten minutes with one interval/intermission. ‘Bed & Breakfast’ runs until June 30 at the Port Hope Capitol Theatre Mainstage, 20 Queen Street. For tickets, visit capitoltheatre.com or call (905) 885-1071. PORT HOPE Capitol Theatre presents ‘BED & BREAKFAST’ by Mark Crawford Directed by Rob Kempson Set and Costume Designer: Joyce Padua Lighting Designer: Michelle Ramsay Sound Designer: La-Nai Gabriel Dialect Coach: Alison Deon Associate Sound Designer: Christie Heriot Stage Manager: Tamara Protić Assistant Stage Manager: Wei Qing Tan Performers: Kyle Golemba, Amir Haidar Previous Next

Back Patrick McKenna Canadian Chat Janis Harvey Joe Szekeres My immediate family and I recall how much we really liked Patrick McKenna’s work in two shows for which he is well known: despicably ruthless and underhanded Marty Stephens on ‘Traders’ and as loveable nerdy bespectacled Harold Green on ‘The Red Green Show’ broadcast from fictional Possum Lodge. My family and I were impressed at the performance range McKenna revealed in these two opposite characters. Of most important note is the fact he was recognized for his versatility with 2 Gemini Awards in 1998, for best performance in a comedy series and in a continuing dramatic role for these two roles. A recent Zoom call with Patrick revealed just how down to earth this guy is, and what a good sense of humour he has. He put me at ease quickly. He’s extremely thankful for the opportunities he has been given. Like all of us, Covid made Patrick think about what is very important to him as you’ll see from one of his responses. Patrick has recently completed some voice cartoon work with Sesame Street and YTV. I also learned about his traveling improv group, ‘The Yes Men’, and yes, I do plan to catch one of their shows when they are in the region. I’ve included contact information for ‘The Yes Men’ at the conclusion of the profile. He is a spokesperson for the Golden Horseshoe Marathon for wheelchair athletes, the MS Society, McMaster Sick Kids, Lupus Canada, and Adult ADHD. Thank you so much for taking the time, Patrick. Very much appreciated: Tell me about one teacher and one mentor in your life for whom you are thankful who believed in your pursuit of your career as a performing artist. The teacher would definitely be Steven Gaul; he was my Grade 11 English teacher. He took me to Second City because I was a pretty poor student. I wouldn’t do theatre because you had to wear tights in my mind. He said there was a lot of different kind of theatre so his wife and he were going to see Second City and he took me and another troublemaker to go see the show. I went, “Ohhhh, oh that’s what I want to do. I want to be on that stage (Second City).” He opened that door. And professionally, it was Andrew Alexander from Second City who at that particular time, because I have no training whatsoever, none. Other than being the class loud guy (not necessarily the clown, but I was loud). Andrew was the only one who said I’ve got something. I was the doorman at Second City for a couple of years, and people thought what I was even doing at an audition. I snuck in and away we went. Andrew was the one who said, “Let’s hire Pat.” Andrew was high enough up on the ladder to say, “Let’s put Pat there and see how it’ll go – he’ll sink or swim.” And luckily enough I swam, which was great. I’m trying to think positively that we have, fingers crossed, moved forward in dealing with Covid. How have you been able to move forward from these last 18 eighteen months on a personal level? How have you been changed or transformed on a personal level? I guess I’m probably more cognizant of personal time and giving my time away to people. Work can sometimes do that. You get locked in that wheel and just start running and you realize that everybody is happy but you. I think these last eighteen months have given me the opportunity to say there’s way more I want to experience yet. Giving my time away to other people – that changed a lot. I’m slowing down and prioritizing to decide what I want to dedicate my time. How have these last eighteen months of the pandemic changed or transformed you as an artist professionally? Well, quite a bit. A couple of things happened all at once. I turned 61 so you’re into a whole new category as an actor to begin. I’m an old white guy so that’s also happening in the new world and making me step back a few in the line. And Covid stopped production everywhere for quite awhile and made audiences go elsewhere and look for different things to entertain themselves and to fill up their time. You’re splitting any hope you had of coming back that there was going to be a new normal because everyone found a new normal. By the time we come back say with a new CBC show, audiences might be saying they’re into Netflix or Hulu. It’s going to be harder to find a dedicated audience, I think. I also got into a lot of voice work because I have a studio at home. I’m doing seven different cartoons right now. I never really did that before, so that was great. I was nominated for a couple of Screen Actor awards for voice work which is fantastic for me when you start something and you’re acknowledged for it right away knowing you’re going in the right direction. So this has opened a few doors for me. I’ve written a couple of screenplays that are floating around out there too. I wouldn’t have done this unless I had the time to follow through on some ideas. Professionally (and personally), it’s been a hand in hand of walking down the lane and wondering what’s next. In your opinion, how do you see the global landscape of the professional Canadian live theatre scene changing at all as a result of these last 18 months? It’ll be interesting because I’m also working with an improv group. We’re called ‘The Yes Men’, we’re three old guys who go out and have some fun. Before the pandemic, we were booked every weekend. It was a lot of fun with crowds. Even in the early stages of the pandemic, we still had a few crowds even though there were some people who weren’t too sure if they could go out or not, do we wear masks? As a group, we decided to just stop as did the world. But watching now when we go back to book the theatres, we hear the hesitation in the voices over the phone of “We’re not sure yet. We’re not sure we can be open.” So there’s a real hesitancy on the part of the management as to when promotions can start once again. I think audiences are going to be sceptical being nudged shoulder to shoulder. Will audiences have to be so far apart that artists and the audiences themselves don’t get a community feeling and understanding that laughter and empathy can bring? That magic might be changed a little bit. I was just up in Iqaluit doing some improv shows and, because of Covid, the audience had to be so far back from the stage and they had to be six feet from each other, there was no laughter, no infectious energy. It became small individual groups around the room who might laugh but there was no collective laugh. That was a real learning curve of how do you communicate now to these people and will theatre do that? Can theatre do that? I think it’s going to be harder for the theatres themselves than the audiences. When they come back, I think shows are going to be huge, glorious shows, a lot of celebration. We saw this in the 20s, 30s, 50s, after the wars. All these big shows in history were a reaction to being shut down for awhile. It’ll be interesting to see how we’ll all pop back. From a Second City background, there will be reaction on every level. I think Second City will take a hard punch because it is such a cabaret experience with audiences shoulder to shoulder. There’s also a real division now of what we can laugh at in the real world. Two years ago it was Trump, anti Trump; now it’s mask, anti-mask. What excites/fascinates/intrigues Patrick McKenna post Covid? Well certainly audiences – that will make me excited to be in front of an audience and for audiences to be there and who can be there to feel free enough to experience that community again. Being on a set that doesn’t feel sick. I’ve been on a few sets where everyone has to go through so many protocols, it’s half a day to go through protocols. By the time you’re ready to shoot, some of us are tired on account of the protocols we’ve had to go through to get there. And if you have to leave set to go get something, then you have to go through the protocols again. I know we’re all over-reacting at times because we don’t want to be that place that perhaps gave Covid to an audience member or to a performing artist. So it makes it so difficult to proceed in an artistic way, there’s no flow. We’re constantly interrupted by reality. The ripple effect over the next five years is going to be felt tremendously within the industry. And that’s been interesting to watch on a set of how that functions. What disappoints/unnerves/upsets Patrick McKenna post Covid? To be honest, I’m going to have say the loss of some friends. There’s been a line in the sand of where some people stand on vaccinations. People whom I personally know who have passed away on account of Covid. I have a lot of close friends who surprised me in the way they are challenging the vaccinations and Covid. They challenged me on who I thought they were, and they were also challenged on who they thought I was. It really brought politics, beliefs and who you really to the forefront, and made you stand there and confront what’s happening. It’s more of a conservative world right now than my liberal point of view. I have to respect that as Conservatives believe their thoughts and they’re going to have to respect the thoughts and wishes of others. Post Covid, there are going to be a lot of different groups regarding who has been vaccinated and non-vaccinated. RAPID ROUND Try to answer these in a single sentence. If you need more than one sentence, that’s not a problem. I credit the late James Lipton and “Inside the Actors’ Studio’ for this idea: If you could say one thing to one of your mentors or favourite teachers who encouraged you to get to this point as an artist, what would it be? “Good eye.” (and Patrick and I share a good laugh). That’s probably too American. I’d have to say, “Thank you” especially to any teacher along the way who blows support and confidence into an individual rather than negativity. I look back to those people who nurtured strength and confidence in me, thank goodness for them. If you could say something to any of the naysayers in your career who didn’t think you would make it as an artist, what would that be? In an odd way, I’d have to say “Thank you” to them as well. Humour is such a subjective thing and that’s a huge lesson to learn especially if you’re going to be in this business. Just because you said something in a certain way doesn’t mean it’s going to be funny. There’s an audience and there are always going to be different ears. I remember there were those who did try to belittle me and say I wouldn’t make it, and I don’t miss that, but I have to acknowledge they made me work harder at being funny. What’s your favourite swear word? “Shite”. If I’m working somewhere and people think I might use the four letter “s” word, and then I surprise them with ‘shite’. What is a word you love to hear yourself say? “Absolutely” What is a word you don’t like to hear yourself say? “No” With whom would you like to share a meal and dialogue about the Canadian performing arts scene? It’s such a big table, really… “Erin O’Toole” What would you tell your younger personal self with the knowledge and wisdom life experience has now given you? “Listen more.” With the professional life experience you’ve gained over the years, what would you now tell the upcoming Patrick McKenna from years ago who was just in the throes of beginning a career as a performing artist? “You have everything you need.” What is one thing you still wish to accomplish both personally and professionally? Personally, I want to be able to tour Scotland with my wife. We promised ourselves that, and then Covid just stopped everything. That’s our go to right away. Professionally, I would like to see one of these scripts I’ve written produced. As I said I’ve been lucky with acting and with voice work, and I’d like to conquer this new mountain of writing scripts and getting them produced. Name one moment in your professional career as an artist that you wish you could re-visit again for a short while. Ooooh, there are so many great sporadic ones… To be completely selfish, I would say a second show doing stand up comedy at Punch Lines in Vancouver in 1988. There’s nobody on the stage but you, and if it’s working it’s because of you. What is one thing Patrick McKenna will never take for granted again post Covid? Friends. Would Patrick McKenna do it all again as an artist if given the same opportunities? Yes, but…(and again we share a good laugh) There are a lot of things that I would do better if given the same opportunities as an artist. The opportunities I was given were great, I might tighten things up a little such as listening more. To learn more about Patrick McKenna’s improv group “The Yes Men” (with Neil Crone and Kevin Frank), please visit the website: www.yesmenimprov.com or Facebook: The Yes Men Improv Comedy Troupe or Twitter: @TheYesMenImprov. Previous Next

Back Nathan Carroll Theatre Conversation in a Covid World Wade Muir To connect with Wade, visit https://wademuir.ca . Joe Szekeres Again, I’ve recognized Nathan Carroll’s name when I had seen he had read and liked some of the profiles I’ve been compiling throughout this pandemic. I was wracking my brain in trying to remember where I’ve seen him perform. And it’s wonderful when the artist sends me their bio and I can then say, yes, I’ve seen that particular production. Nathan has performed on stages across Canada, from Vancouver to Charlottetown. His credits include: Next to Normal (Musical Stage Co./Mirvish) (saw this one), Hook Up (Tapestry/Theatre Passe Muraille), Vimy (Western Canada Theatre), Once (Mirvish) (saw this one), and The Book of Esther/Bordertown Café (Blyth). A graduate of George Brown Theatre School, he has been a member of 3 Dora Award-winning ensembles. Nathan lives in Toronto with his dog Henry. We conducted our conversation via email. Thanks, Nathan, for your time: In a couple of months, we will be coming up on one year where the doors of live theatre have been shuttered. How have you been faring during this time? Your immediate family? It has been a rollercoaster, and I feel for anyone who has had to deal with my rapidly shifting moods. The lows have been low. But the highs have been, surprisingly, high! The week the pandemic was declared, I came down with another virus that laid me out for a month and continued to make me sick until November. Add a bad living situation and the evaporation of every industry I was working in at the time, and I went dark quite quickly. I remember recoiling at the very idea of participating in online theatre. Things turned around in the late spring when I developed a more positive POV, kicked out my freeloading roommate, and felt the summer coming. Forced to be alone with my thoughts (terrifying!), without the validation of work (I live for the applause, applause, applause), and dating a couple of flakey guys (fair in a global emergency!) combined into an intense period of personal growth. It sucked at the time, but I’m grateful for it now. I am fortunate that my family has been healthy. They’ve all experienced their own challenges, from my brother’s endless Zoom meetings my older sister taking care of 2 teenagers, but we’ve so far been spared the loss of anyone close to us. How have you been spending your time since the theatre industry has been locked up tight as a drum? I’ve oscillated between (short) periods of intense productivity and (longer) periods of ennui. I have also tried to change my relationship to the ‘less productive’ periods and get out of the mindset that says I have to accomplish things to have worth. After those dark first few months of the pandemic, I realized I needed to change my daily routine to try and pre-empt a more serious depression. I, with extreme reluctance, tried to do something physical every day (doing yoga in a basement with low ceilings did not inspire joy) and threw myself headfirst into a few creative projects. I’ve never been able to work slowly and consistently on personal projects. But I do well when I give myself deadlines, writing challenges, and to-do lists. I scheduled a Zoom reading with some actors who have been generously helping me develop my play Cenotaph. This forced me to finish a draft worthy of their talents and watching Yolanda Bonnell, Aldrin Bundoc, Graham Conway, and Michael Chiem read my silly play lit a much-needed fire under my ass to keep writing. After 4 years of procrastination, I finally started a YA novel about an experience I had being gay at a Baptist church camp. And my good friend Fraser Elsdon had the idea to co-write a Christmas rom-com which we outlined together on video calls, providing some much needed social engagement at the same time. Though I famously have no attention span, I decided quarantine might a good time to try and watch more films. I made a list of movies I’d never seen, like The Royal Tenenbaums and 9 to 5 and Breathless, and made watching a movie the ‘thing I was doing’ each evening instead of just listlessly wandering around my apartment wondering why my dog wasn’t laughing at my jokes. Of course, I couldn’t keep up with the freakish expectations I set myself for longer than a few weeks, but it did help kick me out of my funk. Since then, after a summer I spent selling cookies and hanging out at Hanlan’s Point, I’ve been working on a few different things. I started as Assistant General Manager with the Paprika Festival in the fall, the workshop facilitation I do with Canvas Arts Action has shifted online, and I’ve been teaching guitar lessons through Project Humanity’s CAPP program. Commercial and film/tv auditions have picked up a little, and I’ve been working on developing some of my own projects in that medium. But mostly I drink coffee, spend a lot of time on Twitter, procrastinate doing my daily yoga, and hang out with my dog! The late Hal Prince described the theatre as an escape for him. Would you say that Covid has been an escape for you or would you describe this near year long absence from the theatre as something else? I hesitate to describe this year as any one thing but, sadly, this year has felt like an escape in some ways. The theatre industry is dysfunctional, and there are aspects of our industry I’ve been relieved to take a break from. It’s been nice to get away from the hustle. From being underpaid (it was hard to realize how much more financially stable I felt on CERB than I have on most of my theatre contracts). From being looked down on by a large segment of society. From nepotism and bullying and sexual harassment. Start talking about racism and shadeism and misogyny and fatphobia and transphobia and femmephobia and ableism, and that dysfunction becomes even more clear. Yes, we appear to have begun to take some of these things seriously, but I can’t imagine someone who has experienced these forms of discrimination not experience some reprieve when the industry paused. I’ve interviewed a few artists several months ago who said that the theatre industry will probably be shut down and not go full head on until at least 2022. There may be pockets of outdoor theatre where safety protocols are in place. What are your comments about this? Do you think you and your colleagues/fellow artists will not return until 2022? I decided early on that I wouldn’t try to predict the future of the pandemic or when we might be able to perform live theatre again. Even epidemiologists don’t know for sure. I’ve never been particularly good at staying in the moment. I’m always planning ahead, setting goals and then working towards them. Sometimes I even have a hard time doing something as simple as drinking my coffee in the morning. I literally wonder if I’m ‘enjoying it enough.’ And it’s impossible to enjoy something if I’m wondering if I’m enjoying it……. It’s amazing how my brain can invent problems where none exist. As terrible and depressing as the pandemic has been, I’ve taken it as a forceful reminder that I can’t predict the future, and that I can always do a better job of living in the moment, even if the moment is feeling pretty shitty. I’ve tried to practice being present, and ok with not thinking months in advance like I’m used to. It may not be a popular take, and I’m certainly not suggesting that others should take the same approach, but I decided early on to assume that I’ll never act in live theatre again. I knew that having expectations to be back onstage in a month, 3 months, a year, or 3 years—and then experiencing the disappointment of another cancellation—would be hard on me, so I moved forward with no expectation that I’ll get to perform at any point. My mom is a therapist, and one of the things she’s taught me is that imagining the worst possible outcome and accepting that possibility can curb acute anxiety. I often feel more stress imagining the bad things that could happen than I feel when the bad thing actually does happen. Imagining my future without theatre and accepting that possibility has stopped me from the stress that comes from guessing and predicting and worrying. But I know how fortunate I am to have had 10 years of experiences as an actor and feel intense sympathy for artists at the beginning of their careers. Do I actually think theatre won’t come back? No. I know we’ll get back to it at some point. I am just trying hard to stay present and enjoy the time I’m being given to explore other paths my life could take. I had a discussion recently with an Equity actor who said that yes theatre should not only entertain but, more importantly, it should transform both the actor and the audience. How has Covid transformed you in your understanding of the theatre and where it is headed in a post Covid world? I think we’ve made ‘entertaining’ a dirty word in the theatre industry. I don’t agree that it’s more important for theatre to ‘transform’ the actor and the audience than it is for theatre to entertain. To be honest, I don’t exactly know what ‘transform’ is supposed to mean. Maybe the fact our society doesn’t value entertainment as something worthy of investment and respect has made us shy away from the idea of entertainment being enough. But it is enough that theatre is entertaining. COVID has made us realize how important entertainment is. People are getting through this time by watching TV and films and stand-up comedy and Zoom panels and listening to podcasts and reading books and laughing at tweets and Tik Toks. Many of my favourite TV shows, like Broad City and Key and Peele and Arrested Development and RuPaul’s Drag Race, aren’t necessarily ‘transformative.’ But that doesn’t diminish their value. They are—to me—just as essential as shows that aim to be profound. Similarly, many of my favourite theatre experiences, like School Girls: The African Mean Girls Play, Urinetown, and Mr. Burns: A Post-Electric Play, have been entertaining above all else. They’ve also been indelible, but they wouldn’t have been so if they weren’t first and foremost entertainting. And I don’t think COVID has changed my understanding of theatre or where it is headed. I think the powers-that-be have always known theatre should be more inclusive. It just hasn’t been in their own best interest to make those changes. Theatre has always needed to appeal to a younger audience. Part of that is making sure theatre is entertaining and another part of it is giving opportunities to new and younger voices without waiting for them to be ‘established’ or a ‘safe bet.’ COVID didn’t teach us either of these things, it just gave us the space and time to think more about them. The late Zoe Caldwell spoke about how actors should feel danger in the work. It’s a solid and swell thing to have if the actor/artist and the audience both feel it. Would you agree with Ms. Caldwell? Have you ever felt danger during this time of Covid and do you believe it will somehow influence your work when you return to the theatre? I actually picked up a copy of Zoe’s autobiography during quarantine. I’ve looked up to her since I was a teenager. Though I’ve never seen her work, I was obsessed with the history of the Stratford Festival as a kid. The Michael Langham-directed Antony and Cleopatra with Caldwell and Christopher Plummer was, by all accounts, one of the biggest touchstones of Stratford’s ‘Golden Age,’ alongside Langham’s Love’s Labour’s Lost, the Robin Phillips Measure for Measure with Martha Henry and Brian Bedford, and the John Hirsch Three Sisters with Henry, Maggie Smith, and Marti Maraden. I ate up every story I could find about these productions and dreamed of working there. I’m not sure that I agree with Zoe. I don’t know that danger is what we should be aiming for. The best work requires risk, absolutely. Making the choice that isn’t obvious, that will surprise the audience, that might not work. But danger makes me think of fear. I’ve done some of my worst work as an actor when I’ve been afraid. A lot of this was in theatre school, taught by people who had worked with these directors from Stratford’s ‘Golden Age.’ And instead of challenging me to produce work filled with boldness and risk, their techniques scared and humiliated me into creating work that was stifled and small and terrified. Because the shadow side of those Stratford tales I didn’t read about included bullying, abuse, fear, and manipulation. I know this because actors have told me what it was really like, and the danger that accompanied the idea of speaking up. And yes, actors like Zoe were fortunate to thrive in those environments and produce iconic portrayals of Shakespeare’s great characters. But I know what other actors and stage managers endured at the same time. And I think Zoe would have been brilliant as Cleopatra without feeling danger. I’ve been lucky not to feel real danger during COVID. However, the perspectives from artists who have bravely shared when they’ve felt in danger at work (like the #InTheDressingRoom hashtag and the Black Like Me: Behind the Stratford Festival Curtain discussion) have shifted and augmented how I will approach the work when we are able to return to it. The late scenic designer Ming Cho Lee spoke about great art opening doors and making us feel more sensitive. Has this time of Covid made you sensitive to our world and has it made some impact on your life in such a way that you will bring this back with you to the theatre? I can’t conceptualize a more sensitive way I’ll approach theatre as a result of the COVID pandemic, though I do think I will bring a new gratitude to the work when I’m able to return to it. I’ve learned a lot about society and the world during this time, but COVID didn’t mark the start of the learning. Some of the issues that we’ve seen come into the limelight since the pandemic began—like racial injustice, police brutality, inequity in the healthcare system, anti-Indigenous violence, and the ultrawealthy profiting while the most marginalized struggle—have existed for centuries. It’s great to see people engaging with these issues, and there is always more for me to learn, but I know it’s been exhausting for some watch people ‘discover’ their existence during this time. By no means am I trying to brag about my own ‘wokeness’, I just think these things have been visible for a long time, and it’s been weird to witness a sudden interest from the majority of people around me in something I’ve seen marginalized artists speaking loudly about and trying to bring attention to for a very long time. Again, the late Hal Prince spoke of the fact that theatre should trigger curiosity in the actor/artist and the audience. Has Covid sparked any curiosity in you about something during this time? Has this time away from the theatre sparked further curiosity for you when you return to this art form? I’ve become curious about a lot of things in the past 10 months. COVID has granted me more time to watch film + tv, I resubscribed to the Toronto Star and have the time to read the Saturday and Sunday paper throughout the week, and I inhale hours and hours of podcasts while I walk my very active dog. I started dating someone from Azerbaijan in the Fall, and through discussions with him and some articles and podcasts I became curious about the history of both Azerbaijan and Armenia, as well at the history of the region, from the Ottoman Empire to the Soviet Union. Being able to admit that I had hardly heard of Azerbaijan before I met my boyfriend, it’s been a good opportunity to become more aware of both the history and current affairs of the Caucasus. Probably my favourite tv series I’ve watched since this all started has been Veneno, about the life of Cristina Rodrigues Ortiz, an iconic trans woman who rose to prominence in Spain in the mid-90s. I’ve become incredibly curious about her life and the lives of other women in her orbit since watching the show, and am also fascinated and inspired by how the series was made, with a commitment to cast trans actors in trans roles—including the actors who did the English dub. One of my favourite books I’ve read in quarantine was The Nickel Boys by Colson Whitehead, which was awarded the Pulitzer back in May. Because it’s based on a real school in Florida, it sparked my curiosity and led me to do research on the real-life situations the book was based on. There are some horrific parallels between this school (the Dozier School for Boys) and the residential school system in Canada, which I’d read about in books like Seven Fallen Feathers and Indian Horse. These books, along with a long article about youth detention centres in the Star, led me to research the Sprucedale Youth Centre in my hometown—where my friend’s father worked and where we even held our elementary school track meets every year. But the biggest area I’ve been curious about, and the direction COVID has specifically encouraged me to move in, is towards film + tv. I have great admiration for the artists who are exploring what live theatre looks like in a pandemic, but I am personally using this time to learn more about screenwriting and how to produce film. I’ve been chatting with some incredible young filmmakers, have a few projects in development, and am learning as much as I can about the medium in the hopes that I can find a way to bring the skills I’ve acquired as a producer and theatre artists to the world of film + tv. To connect with Nathan, Twitter: @nnncarroll / Instagram: @wademuir Previous Next

Back 'Topdog/Underdog' by Suzan Lori-Parks Now onstage at Toronto's Berkeley Street Theatre Dahlia Katz Joe Szekeres This ‘Topdog/Underdog’ tells the story of a broken family relationship with sincerity and ‘in-your-face’ veracity. It’s brash, it’s harsh, and it’s truthful. Title’s meaning – Topdog is the most powerful individual in the relationship who can sometimes become frustrated because he must always remain on top. The underdog is the one who continues to resist the top dog at all costs. American playwright Suzan-Lori Parks sets this ‘Topdog/Underdog’ in the winter. Lincoln (Sébastien Heins) and his younger brother, Booth (Mazin Elsadig), live together in the latter’s ramshackle apartment. Lincoln has been thrown out of his own apartment by his wife, Cookie. This living arrangement with Booth is temporary. Lincoln works at the local arcade as a white-faced Abraham Lincoln. Humiliating work: however, it’s the only source of income the two have at the present time. Further problems abound at Lincoln’s work when he finds out he will be laid off and replaced by a wax model. When we first meet Booth at the top of the show, he is practicing Three Card Monte and hoping to become a card shark on the street, hustling as many people as possible. He’s not very good at it but excels at shoplifting. Lincoln was a card hustler many years ago but swore it off after one of his crew was shot dead over it. Lincoln thought he would be next. Booth admired how his brother could bring in the money playing cards. The brothers have experienced troubled lives since they were teenagers, but there is always the sense that Lincoln and Booth care deeply about each other. Their parents abandoned them then, giving them each $500 for their inheritance. Each parent then went off with a new lover. Lincoln and Booth have had to learn to cope with racism, poverty, work, and women. They’ve also had to deal with the understanding of their names to each other. (John Wilkes Booth shot President Abraham Lincoln in a theatre box). Booth is infatuated with a woman named Grace and does his best to impress her by showering her with gifts that have been shoplifted. Lincoln’s relationship with Cookie has been tenuous. He suffers from depression, but Grace mistakes it as he is losing interest in her, which is why she kicks him out. The story's events spiral downward as these two grown men continue to play ‘Topdog and Underdog’ with each other. Suzan-Lori Parks’ comment on family identity and relationships is brash, bold, and harsh. It’s also blisteringly truthful in her play. I sat in the immersive audience seating area (stage right) designed for this production. According to Canadian Stage’s website, this extended Orchestra seating allows the audience to experience the play as it was meant to be seen. It's harsh and gritty sitting this close to the action. And it works. Rachel Forbes’ set design resembles a wrestling ring with ropes all around. Periodically, the sound of the bell signifies the end of a wrestling round and an issue between the brothers. Booth’s squalid apartment appears unfit for anyone to live in, but it’s the best Lincoln and Booth can do for now. (An interesting note I learned when I got home and did quick online research is that President Abraham Lincoln excelled at wrestling.) Jareth Li’s solid lighting design eerily captures the dark shadows that light a wrestling ring before the participants enter. Additionally, Li’s shadowy lighting design finely underscores the growing intensity of anger between the brothers. Tawiah M’Carthy directs with a scalding intensity and truthful boldness. At times, it’s uncomfortable to watch the sometimes-fractured relationship between the brothers boil far out of control. Their language is salty, colourful, and vivid. That’s the truthfulness of the moment. Brothers can sometimes be viciously nasty towards each other, and their vernacular will reflect in the heat of the moment. The electrifying synchronicity between Mazin Elsadig and Sébastien Heins makes the two-and-a-half-hour production fascinating and thrilling to watch and hear. Both are fine performers who are well-trained in their craft. M’Carthy has blocked the two men to create exciting stage pictures of who controls the power at any moment. Elsadig and Heins listen intently and respond naturally to each other. They are like wrestlers who wait and watch to see what their opponent will do before responding. One minute, there is the joking, good-natured cussing between each other. Often within seconds, that playful ribbing and cussing turn upside down and the brothers at times appear to come to fisticuffs since their lives have always been “dominated by competition, dominance and violence,” as Production Dramaturge Jordan Laffrenier and CanStage Associate Artistic Director had written in the programme. Younger brother Booth sometimes idolizes his older brother, especially when he wants Lincoln to show how to manipulate the cards during Three Card Monte. Elsadig seamlessly taps into that admiration with the most remarkable ease within seconds. Just as quickly, Elsadig can shut off that emotional intensity of pride to one where his anger may get the better. Booth waits long for Grace to show up at his apartment to have dinner with him at one moment in the second act. When she doesn’t show up, the fury in Elsadig’s eyes and his physical stance shows he is ready to pop. Sébastien Heins’ lanky stature adds an air of confidence. His Lincoln is self-assured and somewhat cocky since he knows those trigger issues that will set off his younger brother. When Heins first appeared as the white-faced President Lincoln, I felt an uneasiness that didn’t dissipate throughout the production. The ultimate showdown between Elsadig and Heins at the end of the play becomes engrossing. I observed the two men's every move and listened carefully to every word uttered to see where this confrontation would lead. It becomes a fascinating and exciting look at two grown men who have often been down this road before. Where does it go this time? That’s the reason to see the show. Final Comments: Good theatre abounds in the city. This ‘Topdog/Underdog’ is that good theatre we all need. Running time: approximately two hours and 30 minutes with one intermission. ‘Topdog/Underdog’ runs until October 15 at Canadian Stage’s Berkeley Street Theatre, 26 Berkeley Street. For tickets, call the Box Office at (416) 368-3110 or visit canadianstage.com. CANADIAN STAGE presents ‘Topdog/Underdog’ by Suzan-Lori Parks Directed by Tawiah M’Carthy Set Designer: Rachel Forbes Costume Designer: Joyce Padua Lighting Designer: Jareth Li Sound Designer: Stephen Surlin Stage Manager: Laura Baxter Performers: Mazin Elsadig and Sébastien Heins Previous Next

Back Harry Potter and the Cursed Child Presented at Toronto's Ed Mirvish Theatre Evan Zimmerman Joe Szekeres (Note: This review is based on one of the last preview performances. With the publication of this article online, ‘Harry Potter and the Cursed Child’ will have officially opened.) Visually resplendent with superlatively exquisite technical wizardry in ‘Cursed Child’, but is there anything else? Yes, this rhetorical question is to hook you into reading, and I’ll answer it shortly. I’ve only read the first two of the Potter series and have seen the first three film adaptations so I’m coming at this review not as an aficionado, but as a theatregoer. I was still able to follow the story closely for the most part. Additionally, there are excellent refresher notes in the programme so take advantage to read as much as you can before the performance begins. It also helps my invited guest and friend, Darlene, is a ‘Potter head’. There are moments where ‘Cursed Child’ becomes jaw-droppingly engrossing for formidable technical special effects and Jamie Harrison’s mind-blowing wizardry and magical illusions. Three examples come to my mind. One is the entrance of the Dementors at the end of the first act, especially with one flying and gliding over the orchestra and stationed close to the balcony. Enchantingly and horrifically mesmerizing. Another hypnotic moment occurs visually when time travels backwards. You must see it for yourselves to experience it. The third is the entrance of some characters through the fireplace floo. Wow! However, I do want to point out a few things that drew my attention for concern. ‘Cursed Child’ becomes very dark as the story unfolds and I wondered if it is appropriate for young children to see. Advertising might say the show is suitable for 10+, but I strongly advise it should be 12+. Parents, if you have already purchased tickets for young children, prepare them well, please, before arrival at the theatre. My friend, Darlene, said there was a young girl in the women’s washroom at intermission crying her eyes out and telling her mother she wanted to go home because she was so frightened. The mother was trying to calm her daughter down by saying she would be fine and that nothing would happen to her. As Darlene and I walked up the aisle at the end, we both looked around and saw many young children had fallen asleep in their chairs possibly (probably?) because of the play’s heightened emotions. Big bucks spent here, folks, so be aware and prepare if you are taking the kiddos. Visually the production remains incredibly stunning throughout. Renovations were completed in the Ed Mirvish Theatre to accommodate the show’s staging requirements. Upon entering the auditorium for the preshow, we are at the train station and hear the customary usual sounds thanks to Gareth Fry’s designs. Christine Jones’s set design is magnificent to take in. Moving back from the proscenium arch, the house is covered in the brick found in the train stations of the United Kingdom. Neil Austin’s lighting design eerily illuminates moon ray beams ghostly reflected off the floor. I loved the flourishing and hearing the ‘whooosh’ sound of the black cloaks of the ensemble as they changed the scene settings. Katrina Lindsay remarkably captured an effusive array of colours and textures in each of the splendid costume designs. The story begins where Harry (Trevor White) and his wife Ginny (Trish Lindstrom), Ron Weasley (Gregory Prest) and his wife Hermione (Sarah Afful) are seeing their children Albus Potter (Luke Kimball) and Rose Granger-Weasley (Hailey Lewis) off at London's King Cross Station Platform 9 ¾ to Hogwarts. It is at school where the young Albus meets the young Scorpius Malfoy (Thomas Mitchell Barnet), son of Draco Malfoy (Brad Hodder) who was Harry’s arch-rival years ago at Hogwarts. Circumstances quickly erupt and unfold which leads the young Scorpius and Albus off into a nether world of darkness, mayhem and mischief that threatens to destroy them and their families. Just like the principal players, the supporting characters in the ensemble are also many of Canada’s finest stage actors who have appeared across Canada from Canadian Stage, Soulpepper, The Stratford Festival and The Shaw Festival to name just a few places. It was tremendously exciting to go through this list. When I read the Covers who substitute for the listed performers, again the names there are top-notch so the production is most assuredly in capable hands going forward. I’m not going to be able to mention each of them for the sake of space. The show most definitely belongs to Thomas Mitchell Barnet and Luke Kimball who deliver ardent performances in their character arc of development as Scorpius and Albus. Exciting to see youthful, emerging talent given their chance in this show that I’m almost certain will change the course of their professional careers. Several supporting moments drew my attention. Steven Sutcliffe brings a touch of decency and humanity as Severus Snape in his Act Two encounter with Albus. Brad Hodder’s death-like stare as Draco Malfoy is memorable. Trish Lindstrom’s Ginny becomes that voice of calm and reason often in the face of confusion and flusters. Fiona Reid is a stately and elegant Professor McGonagall who means what she says with her students (and Ms. Reid looks as if she is having a great deal of fun with some of the wand effects she enacts). Since I’ve neither read the completed series nor watched all the films, Trevor White’s Harry Potter has come full circle for me. I only remember seeing the young lad on film and reading about him breaking a million school rules. White’s convincing performance certifies that eventually troubled young lads must begin to take responsibility as an adult and as a parent. Director John Tiffany and Associate Director Pip Minnithorpe have magically and memorably created an enticingly surreal world of loss and trauma which threatens many lives in the story. However, the ultimate message behind ‘Cursed Child’? No matter the hardships and deep troubles that will occur in life, nothing will destroy the unconditional strength and bond of familial love. Now to answer the question posed earlier. Along with the beguiling look and sound of ‘Cursed Child’, is there a good story told underneath all this veneer? Let’s not forget that is the prime reason why we attend the theatre – to become wrapped up in the story told by the artists. Yes, Potter lovers will most certainly adore the story with its flash and dazzle. Theatre lovers will ask (demand?) a bit more which is what I’m doing regarding some quibbles that hopefully have been addressed. For one, there appears to be a great deal of shouting, yelling, and screaming throughout Acts One and Two which started to hurt my ears since the actors are wearing head mics. Sound design is magnified for several of the special effects but why have actors try to do the same thing with their voices? Was something amiss with Shawn Wright’s headpiece as Lord Voldemort? From my seat, it looked as if it wasn’t fitting his head properly and appeared just slightly askew. A sense of dreaded fear had to be felt at Voldemort’s entrance, and I wasn’t feeling any of it at that moment. Just minor issues which I’m sure have been addressed. Final Comments: Before I retired from my teaching career, I can recall some Ontario school boards wanted the Potter series removed from the shelves for concern about the use of ‘black magic’. After seeing ‘Cursed Child’, I can honestly say there is no cause for concern regarding this issue. The story deals with troubled father and son relationships and their eventual repair through familial and unconditional love. That is the important message audiences leave with after seeing ‘Cursed Child’. The feats of wizardry and spectacle are a bonus. Running time: approximately 3 hours and 30 minutes with one intermission. As of the writing of this article, As of the writing of this article, the show has an open-ended run. Mask-wearing remains in effect at the theatre. To purchase tickets, visit www.mirvish.com or call 1-800-461-3333. HARRY POTTER AND THE CURSED CHILD Based on an Original New Story by J.K. Rowling, Jack Thorne & John Tiffany. A New Play by Jack Thorn Director: John Thorn. Associate Director: Pip Minnithorpe. Movement Director: Steven Hoggett. Set Designer: Christine Jones. Costume Designer: Katrina Lindsay. Lighting Designer: Neil Austin. Sound Designer: Gareth Fry. Illusions & Magic: Jamie Harrison. Music Supervisor & Arranger: Martin Lowe. Hair, Wigs & Make-Up: Carole Hancock. The Company: Sarah Afful, Kaleb Alexander, Thomas Mitchell Barnet, Michael Chiem, Mark Crawford, Raquel Duffy, Sara Farb, Bryce Fletch, Brad Hodder, Luke Kimball, Hailey Lewis, Trish Lindstrom, Lucas Meeuse, Kyle Orzech, Gregory Prest, Fiona Reid, Katie Ryerson, Yemie Sonuga, Steven Sutcliffe, Brendan Wall, Trevor White, David D’Lancy Wilson, Shawn Wright. Previous Next

Back Paul Constable and Steve Ross “Something as light as a panto takes away the darkness of this time” – Paul Constable Selfie provided by Messrs. Constable and Ross Joe Szekeres These two personable guys kept me smiling during the Zoom call. I had the opportunity to profile Steve Ross at the height of the pandemic almost three years ago. A National Theatre School graduate, I’ve seen Steve’s work on the Stratford Festival stage. He’s been a member of the company for fifteen-plus years now. Go here for Steve’s first profile: https://www.onstageblog.com/profiles/2021/2/3/theatre-conversation-in-a-covid-world-with-steve-ross Paul Constable appeared as Gary in the Canadian Tire commercials for ten years. He attended the University of Windsor and attained a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Acting from the School of Dramatic Art. His comedic training came from Second City classes, just doing improv shows in Toronto. With a smile, he stated he’s done other things, and his work as Gary was only one job. What draws these two affable guys together? They’ve recently opened in Port Hope’s Capitol Theatre’s annual panto during the Christmas/holiday season. This year’s production is ‘Jack: A Beanstalk Panto’ written and directed by Rebecca Northan. There’s singing and dancing. The story is a very loose presentation of the fairy tale with loose meaning many liberties can and will be taken. The Capitol’s panto has two versions: the Family and the Naughty. Naturally, I chose the latter. Audiences can decide which one they would like to attend. I will attend the show this week. Look for my review to follow. From seeing Paul’s limited work in commercials, he had a wry sense of humour as Gary. I’ve seen more of Steve’s comedic work at Stratford – Amos Hart in their production of ‘Chicago,’ Mr. Mushnik in ‘Little Shop of Horrors’ and as the Narrator in ‘The Rocky Horror Picture Show.’ Who can forget those fishnet stockings, Steve? What perfect timing for writer/director Northan to put these two together in a panto. This is Constable’s first time performing on the Capitol stage. Ross did a reading of Yasmina Reza’s ‘Art’ years ago but never an entire show. Rehearsals went well. According to both, everyone was in a really good space before opening. Paul said it’s amazing what can be accomplished in two weeks and comically mentioned how the first day lifting a rock in front of him might not have been possible. Two weeks later, the rock is over his head, and he’s doing okay. He added further: “We’ve run the show many times. Now we got to tech week, and everything became stop and start, that’s wrong, take two steps, and now take three steps back. It didn't push us back because we were in such a great place for tech week. There’s always the excitement of the preview crowds coming to the show, hearing the laughs, and figuring out where the pacing is and timing issues, it put us in a really good place for opening.” Compliments galore from both Paul and Steve about their cast members. Steve called Rebecca a great ship captain; he took this gig because he’s been a fan of hers. Every day, she knew what she wanted to get done, and it was completed. For him, an exciting part of working with Northan was noticing she was in the cleaning process of the show on the second day. Cleaning is something usually not done until a tad closer to show dates. Steve also commented on how quickly the rehearsal process went for the show. It’s a three-month process at Stratford, but there’s been a brain shift in thinking about how to tackle the panto. It was an intensive two-week process, but it went well for him. The talent of the cast still amazes Paul. He jokingly said he is becoming a two-and-a-quarter threat. Steve said that Paul can get the t-shirt because it’s true. Both agreed Rebecca wanted clean comedy. That’s what she’s getting, and that’s what audiences will be getting. Everyone is having fun; it’s a good time, which has made this show a good opportunity for everyone involved. The two coyly said chickens weighed into the show and would leave it there. If you’re a chicken fan, you will like the show. Was there any distinction about the chickens between the Family and the Naughty version? Ross said the show is universal chicken and will be played as such. The two versions are fun, but Constable prefers the Naughty. Steve has never been involved in a show with two versions, so he doesn’t have a preference. For him, it’s virtually the same show with the dial turned up for the Naughty. Along with Rebecca, the guys clarified an essential item for the audiences on how the actors will approach the show's subject material. The Naughty version will not push into a place of blue and dirty for the sake of being blue and dirty. Paul is thankful the naughty version didn’t go there because his parents, wife, son, and friends are coming. He didn’t want them to feel embarrassed, and he didn’t want to cringe at any blue material. Steve also felt the same way as Paul. Instead of being blue: “It’s fun. It’s smart. Rebecca knows a line to walk. You’re laughing because it’s a joke, not harmful or hurtful. Sometimes stuff happens in life, and it’s silly. It’s the kind of show you’ll talk about with your friends and say: “Maybe we shouldn’t say this.” Sounds like double entendres and second glances are on the menu for the Naughty version. Nothing’s hurtful, except ‘anti-chicken people’ might consider it bothersome. I’m sensing the show might just make a few comments on how our woke world has become extremely sensitive to the point where no one feels comfortable laughing anymore. Oh, by the way, now I’m curious how these barnyard animals will figure into the show. The two are excited to gauge the audience's responses from both versions. There’s improvisation involved from everyone. Sometimes, a joking improv on a Tuesday audience might kill, and the actor might consider bringing it back on Wednesday. However, that audience might not respond in the same way. For Paul, that’s the beauty of improv. Are there messages in the show that the cast hopes audiences will take away with them when they exit the theatre? When Rob Kempson (Artistic Director of the Capitol) and Rebecca first approached Steve with the offer, the term ‘forward thinking panto’ was coined. He’d never heard of it. Body shaming gets addressed, and fluidity of sexuality gets addressed (not directly). These are only two messages. None of the messages is ever hammered over the audience’s heads. Doors are open; if people want to see that stuff, it’s there. Steve also shared Rebecca had seen pantos in the UK and even in the GTA, where the dame, always in drag, also gets booed. Rebecca is not interested in someone getting booed. The panto is crafted in such a way that no one will feel the need to boo. Steve admires Kempson and Northan for trying to do something different within the genre. Paul concurred and added that the show will have its own message subconsciously. There are mixed characters and situations, but no one will ever feel as if they are being preached to or told how to feel: “At the end, you’ll probably be exhausted from laughter. Something as light as a panto takes away the darkness of this time, and you’ll forget about whatever you were thinking about when you came to the theatre.” As we neared the end of our conversation, it turned to some changes in the industry that hit the live artists hard. Steve referred to the Writer’s Strike. Since returning to work, he has noticed gratitude at Stratford. He set himself that goal of gratitude for the two years he sat inside his house, not working. If he is lucky enough to be back, he will not complain about anything, whether it’s a 12-hour day or why something might be missing. Steve has also noticed there’s an understanding that artists do work hard and that it’s okay to say one must take care of him/her/themselves for the day. Steve is also quick to add it’s not just him. He sees so much gratitude for the profession because Covid was the reminder it was taken away for two years. Gratitude is easy to forget in the theatre/performing arts industry, and Steve doesn’t want it to happen again. Paul agreed Steve nailed it. The former returned to a different rehearsal process, and Covid permitted people to acknowledge what was bothering them. Paul mentioned a joke I hadn’t heard before – how do you make an actor complain? Give him a job. That joke couldn't be any further from the truth. Since the return, Paul has noticed a check-in at the beginning of each rehearsal. Rebecca and Rob set that tone right from the start. That was something new, but it was welcomed because Paul just saw so much of the attitude of learning lines, showing up, doing what is asked of you, saying nothing, and going home before Covid changed the world we know. Once the panto concludes its run at the Capitol, what’s next for Paul and Steve? A piece of advice was shared I had never heard either – as actors, you just get used to not knowing, and somehow you will land on the ground. Paul was Gary for ten years with Canadian Tire. The actors are in a strange place, and there’s some hope union actors can return to work in commercials. If that happens, Paul hopes to be a part of it. Paul is pleased he took the panto job because it allowed him to step back into theatre. He hopes artistic directors are listening and looking for his talents (hint, hint, call his agent). Steve will put his writing hat back on before returning to Stratford for the upcoming 2024 season. He has two drafts he’s working on. He’s excited to sit at his laptop and write for the month. There will be some free days during the panto run, so he’ll continue writing. (Rob Kempson, are you listening? Steve will send you the drafts). ‘Jack: A Beanstalk Panto’ runs to December 23 at the Port Hope Capitol Theatre, 20 Queen Street, Port Hope. For tickets, call the Box Office (905-885-1071) or visit capitoltheatre.com. Previous Next

Back Frances Loiselle and Michael Williamson Emerging Artists Selfie Joe Szekeres As this Pandemic Profile series winds down, I thought it was important to check in with emerging theatre artists at the beginning of their careers and to see how they’ve been faring during these last sixteen months. Many of the seasoned artists to whom I’ve spoken are concerned and hopeful that the emerging artists have not been deterred or discouraged. Frances Loiselle and Michael Williamson have not been swayed at all as you will see from their responses below. If anything, both have faced the results of the pandemic head on with the knowledge that their careers may appear different looking ahead, but they will move forward and continue in a career which they still admire and appreciate. Loiselle and Williamson are both graduates of Toronto’s George Brown Theatre School. They have appeared in a variety of summer productions with Port Perry Ontario’s ‘Theatre on the Ridge’ with their most recent as Tinkerbell and Peter Pan in 2018. This summer, they will perform in a touring production of C. S. Lewis’s ‘The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe’ around the Durham and Scugog Regions on your driveway, your front lawn or even on your street. I’ll include the link at the end of the profile. The three of us conducted our conversation via email: It’s a harsh reality that the worldwide pandemic of Covid 19 has changed all of us. Describe how your understanding of the world you know and how your perception and experience have changed on a personal level. FL: The pandemic was a good shattering of the illusion that anything about your life is remotely under your control. You can’t control anything; you can’t plan for anything. Things just happen to you, you accept, you change, and you continue. Covid, or more precisely folks responding to it, hit home with the reminder that we do not all experience this life, and this world, in the same way. There are some deep, deep injustices and inequalities constructed into the fabric of our society, by white supremacy, capitalism, and colonialism, many of which by virtue of my privilege I could comfortably remain ignorant to. Many of them benefit me, as a white woman, and endanger and oppress others. They also steal a better, more just world away from all of us. The pandemic, as well as the enforced isolation and loss of employment, and most importantly the labour undertaken by many BIPOC activists, educators, authors, journalists, and peers in writing pieces, creating art and sharing knowledge, forced I think many of us to stop looking away and take some responsibility. The pandemic shook up the foundations of what I took as regular, every day, unchangeable life, and it made more possible the questioning of this state, these institutions, myself and my attitudes. I’m still very much learning. MW: I suppose for myself, the pandemic has shed a lot of light on my mental health. I think I have lived with a lot of things that I had been ignoring for most of my life, but the pandemic has aggravated those things enough that I think I am now starting to acknowledge them and work through them. So, the pandemic has definitely made parts of my life a lot more difficult but it is also giving me opportunities to face some of those things that I might have ignored for years to come. In regard to “the world I know” I think a lot of people are starting to become more aware of a world bigger than just themselves or the people they are in contact with. Through that, I think people are taking this opportunity to become much more active and really define themselves in what they stand for and what they can actually be doing to make the change they want to see in the world. With live indoor theatre shut for one year plus, with it appearing it may not re-open any time soon, how has your understanding and perception as a professional artist of the live theatre industry been altered and changed? FL: I feel a little like a fraud, answering a question as a professional artist of the live theatre industry, because most of my time, and especially during this pandemic, I haven’t really gotten to be that. Just starting out, work as a professional artist can be few and far between. I think it has been an interesting time of all of us collectively getting to question, what is live theatre? My romantic notion of it is up on a stage, or at least in some in-person space, with an audience present. But I’ve seen some fantastic shows (and been a part of one!) that were definitely not film, not television, that were live, not exactly theatre, but this whole new entity. Initially, I wanted to entirely dismiss “zoom” theatre. I found it depressing, a pale imitation of reality, it didn’t offer to me anything I loved from in-person theatre. But I’ve changed my attitude on that because some great artists have made some cool stuff. MW: I think reinforced is a better word for me. I feel like through this shutdown of most live theatre it has only solidified my stance on the essentialness that is live theatre for society as a whole. Live theatre is a wonderful place to share and experience; be inside a room with many others as you all witness something going on in front of you. Whether that experience is funny, frightening, or riveting, you all are allowed to go through something in the same room while still being kept safe. As a professional artist, what are you missing the most about the live theatre industry? FL: I miss being live, in theatres. Being around other bodies. Strangers gathered to witness a performance. Seeing real human people in front of me speaking, feeling, listening, sweating, and breathing, and breathing with them. Feeling the collective audience response around me, and not merely my own. The sense of, for a brief span of time, forming a small community, together. Being alone, in my bedroom, watching a screen, sometimes just feels lonely. MW: Working in a room with your whole team. There is no substitute. And while zoom and other mediums people have been using to work through are nice and provide a variety of comforts for everyone involved, nothing compares to the joy, unity, and cohesive strength that can come from working with your team face to face. As a professional artist, what is the one thing you will never take for granted again in the live theatre industry when you return to it? FL: The little in-between moments. The camaraderie you build with your collaborators when you sit down to eat lunch together, or warming up before rehearsal, or getting dressed before a show. The new relationships you get to build, the cool and interesting new people you get to meet. When you have to sit alone on your living room to warm up before your zoom show or wear a mask and move six feet apart as soon as you break for lunch, it’s difficult to make and enjoy those connections. MW: Probably the rehearsal room/stage. It provides such a wonderful freedom and atmosphere for everyone to create; to leave behind whatever else is going on that day, whereas when you are rehearsing at home everything serves as a constant reminder about your “non acting life”. Describe one element you hope has changed concerning the live theatre industry. FL: I’m hoping that there is a move away from the “you have to work yourself to the bone” attitude towards making theatre. To be honest, I was mostly trained and brought up in that attitude, and I was really devoted to it for a long time. You are taught that you have to work incredibly long hours, shirk all other responsibilities in your life, and experience incredible mental, physical, emotional strain to create good theatre. It was both an expectation and a behaviour that was rewarded. And I took pride in being tough enough to survive it, and it meant I had a very toxic attitude towards expecting others to do the same. But I’m coming across more conversations, now, and people speaking up, especially many artists who are often marginalized by these attitudes- Black and Indigenous artists, artists with disabilities, artists with young children- about how it doesn’t have to be this way. I’m trying to reconsider that assumption. First, it’s an extreme privilege to be remotely able to make theatre in that way. It assumes you don’t have loved ones to take care of, mental or physical health issues or differences of ability to accommodate, that you aren’t experiencing an additional, invisible burden of dealing with white supremacy inside and outside the rehearsal hall. “Working yourself to the bone” for theatre, for any art, really is just not an option for the majority of people, students, artists, arts workers. And it shuts them out. Second, it’s really not an option for anyone. It just burns you out and makes you want to quit. It makes you need to take time away to recover, if you’re lucky enough to be able to. Why am I having to recover from making art? I think the pandemic has been a part of it, of mine and other folk’s reconsideration around their devotion to “working to the bone.” There’s more conversations, now, about how people are doing, how long they can handle rehearsing on zoom. Maybe many institutions are doing it superficially? I hope not. It feels like a shift. I certainly hadn’t stopped to consider it until the pandemic. But I obviously want to acknowledge I didn’t suddenly come to realize this; a lot of artists have been speaking about this for a long time. I actually recently read Yolanda Bonnell speaking on this subject in another ‘Self-Isolated Artist’ interview for OnStage Blog. MW: Hopefully, demand for it! Explain what specifically you believe you must still accomplish within the industry. FL: Um… everything? Quite a bit? I don’t feel like I’ve accomplished very much, yet. I’m not sure yet what I want to accomplish, what path I might take. I think my next step, for me, is finding more of a voice as an artist. My training and experience have been more as a facilitator of others’ voices. That is your work, as an actor. You are a collaborator, you contribute, and you help shape the piece, but (for me anyway) I don’t really feel I am a creator. I assist in the creation process. But I would like to also be an artist, with a voice, with something to share, and I just don’t really know what it is yet. I struggle with feeling I have anything of importance to share, really. I feel comfortable as an interpreter, and I want to develop my own voice. To do some of my own work. MW: Well there’s a lot of things here. I’m still very much starting out, so I have a pretty hefty bucket list but if I had to pick something I would say getting the opportunity to act alongside some of the actors I grew up loving in some mainstage show. Some artists are saying that audiences must be prepared for a tsunami of Covid themed stories in the return to live theatre. Would you elaborate on this statement both as an artist in the theatre, and as an audience member observing the theatre. FL: We make art in response to life, to our lived experiences, our perceptions of this world. We make art to comment on, explore, reflect, celebrate, criticize, question, transform what we observe. So of course, with COVID having affected so many of us, in such different ways, all around the world, artists will want to respond. I think, or at least I hope, this doesn’t mean a very homogenous, repetitive slew of theatre pieces talking about the exact same experience of the pandemic, from the same perspective, with the same ideas, over and over. The pandemic has been many things. The pandemic has been about isolation and loneliness, about maintaining connection, and accepting solitude. It has been about the staggering inequalities and injustices in our society being laid so bare, becoming such a matter of life and death. It has been about loss. It has been a dystopian sci fi weirdness of masks and social distancing and mass vaccination clinics. We could make a lot of varied, interesting theatre out of all this. Especially if a huge diversity of perspectives and voices are given the money and support to do so, and not just a handful of old white guys who spent the pandemic safe in their living room trying to figure out how to share their screen on Zoom. MW: I don’t think it’s that difficult to piece together really. The Covid Pandemic has universally affected the whole world for over a year. I think whenever something like that happens a ton of art is created around that experience (any large war, the aids crisis to name a few). So much of art is based around sharing an experience with one another and Covid might be one of the biggest shared experiences we have had recently. As an artist, what specifically is it about your work that you want future audiences to remember about you? FL: No idea! I still deeply identify with the label of “emerging artist.” I feel sometimes like I look at fellow “emerging artists,” my peers, and they seem to already be developing a strong vision, a confident voice, good relationships, be blossoming into lovely and interesting butterflies of artists. And I am still contorted in a safe gooey cocoon, existing as a half-formed mush of vague ideas and self-doubt. So my work, my artistic voice, still feels a little unknown. I guess, if it’s about the work I’ve done so far. I’d like to be remembered for my honesty. I’m still working on being honest with myself, with others, in my life. In my work, I always want to be honest. MW: I think it would be an honour to just be remembered outside my own circle of friends and family for my work. I think though for me, it's less about being remembered for my work and more being remembered for being someone people wanted to work with. To learn more about Theatre on the Ridge’s productions this summer and the touring production of ‘The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe’, please visit www.theatreontheridge.ca.You can also visit their Facebook Page: Theatre on the Ridge; Twitter: @TheatreOTRidge; Instagram: @theatreontheridgeportperry Previous Next

Back La Bulle/The Bubble Toronto's Corpus Dance Projects Muriel Cavanhac Joe Szekeres La magie de ‘La Bulle’, c’est merveilleuse / The marvellous magic of ‘The Bubble’ (This review is based on the first preview performance of ‘La Bulle’/ ‘The Bubble’.) My word, artist David Danzon offers a remarkably charismatic solo performance of complete and focused concentration. During my undergraduate years at Western, I had minored in French language, culture and literature and had studied some elements of the art of mime. I remembered seeing various interpretive photos in print of Pierrot, the iconic dreamer, dressed in black and white and with the thick white pasted looking facial makeup. I often wondered how an artist might reveal how he/she/they would bring Pierrot to life, and how might I respond in seeing an artist present such a quirky spectral of this sad stock character of a clown especially in the twenty first century world. David Danzon moves beyond just a mere representation. His ethereally fascinating Pierrot remained enchantingly haunting for me during the hour-long production. To watch someone showcase the intricately challenging artistry form of mime with such poetic grace and fixed attention was enthralling. Mr. Danzon is a gifted performer, and the elegant silence in his sleek movements hooked me immediately and I allowed him to take me on a metaphysical journey of lights, colour, and sound. The press release stated ‘La Bulle’ was conceived before Covid-19 and it was “already meant to explore themes of social distancing and solitude before it became a concern for all. This new original work also speaks of an equally contemporary paradox: achieving privacy in an increasingly exposed and monitored world.” I smiled when I read this statement because the production uniquely emphasized for me the social distancing and solitude I’ve felt during this time personally and how to reconnect again in a world that has been so heavily influenced from the results of all this privacy we’ve experienced. Upon entering the courtyard of the Berkeley Castle, a huge balloon like see through bubble appears in which Mr. Danzon, dressed as Pierrot, sits in the middle. There are objects inside the bubble which contain some of the props to be used. Additionally, there are chairs physically distant around the bubble for the audience to sit. We are encouraged if we wish to do so to get up from our seats and move around to watch the action. I remain in my chair as my visual vantage point was perfect for me. Danzon is focused on a game in trying to make a ball move on the top of a large wooden peg. He spends a few minutes moving himself around in his seat to the various sightlines so that each vantage point watches and waits with bated breath (at least I was) to see if he would be successful in lodging the ball on top of the peg. I won’t spoil the surprise and tell you if he is successful or not. And then the pièce de resistance: to follow how Danzon (as Pierrot) utilizes his craft to invite some members of the audience to step forward and become part of his bubble for a few moments. Through their laughter, the young children adored the connection he was making to them and to others. At one point, Mr. Danzon beckons one audience member forward to outstretch her arms and appear as if she is inviting him for a hug on the outside of the bubble. On the inside, Danzon uses a white marker and then traces the outline of the person for a few moments. He then admires the work he’s completed on the inside and then steps toward that outline and stretches out his arms to receive the other person’s hug. Loved this connection Mr. Danzon made with someone. I hesitate to spoil the other charming elements in the performance, so all I’m going to say is I found myself thinking about the movements I make when I swim somewhere. Pay careful attention to the moment where Pierrot swims. So rather fetching. And I didn’t want his Christmas celebration to conclude at all as I was having so much fun watching him and watching the kids in the audience respond so believably to him. Absolutely magical, but underneath all this is a tad bit of ‘tristesse’ since we celebrated Christmas and our summer vacations solo during the pandemic. Danzon at one point wrote on the bubble, ‘C’est un peu triste, non?’ which reflected what we all experienced during the holidays. FINAL COMMENTS: La magie de ‘La Bulle’, c’est merveilleuse pour toute la famille. Allez-y à voir un bon spectacle. Vraiment remarquable! Recherchez vos billets gratuits en ligne maintenant avant qu'ils ne disparaissent. Théâtre français de Toronto et Jami present ‘LA BULLE’ by Corpus A Silent Solo Outdoor Performance Conceived, directed, and designed by David Danzon & Carolin Lindner (CORPUS) Presented by Théâtre français de Toronto and Jamii. Performed by David Danzon Costume Design by Francoise Autran No Spoken Word: From September 2 – 5, 2021 (Thursday to Sunday) at The Berkeley Castle Courtyard, 2 Berkeley Street, Toronto (The Esplanade) Running Time: 60 minutes FREE TICKETS. For reservations, please call 416-534-6604 or visit www.theatrefrancais.com . Previous Next

Back 'Hypothetical Baby' written and performed by Rachel Cairns Runs until December 17 in the Tarragon Theatre Extraspace Credit: Dahlia Katz. Pictured: Rachel Cairns Zoe Marin ‘An intimate and emotional solo show performance’ Hypothetical Baby is as intimate and emotional as it is politically relevant. Whether it’s the specific details about writer-performer Rachel Cairns’ life or her more TEDxTalk-style explanations of broader feminist issues, I can’t imagine anyone leaving this show without feeling a deeper introspection about themselves or an acute awareness about the socio-political state of the world. When the lights went out after Cairns’ last line, it seemed that everyone was so emotional they forgot to clap. For a few seconds, all I heard was a mix of sniffles and the shaking chairs from people suppressing their full–body sobs. It’s not that I thought a story about abortion would be incredibly light-hearted, but I was surprised by the extent to which it impacted me and the people around me. Hypothetical Baby is a solo-show written and performed by Rachel Cairns, a multidisciplinary artist known for her award-winning podcast “Aborsh” about abortion in Canada. Hypothetical Baby begins with Cairns inquiring about how to get an abortion, and the doctor inquiring about her financial and relationship status to figure out why she would even want an abortion. After discovering that Cairns is meant to fly back home to Vancouver the next day, the conclusion is that this is an issue for Cairns and some other clinic in Vancouver. Ultimately, Cairns finds herself getting a “medical abortion” on Christmas Eve in her family home. Although this specific event inspires the rest of Hypothetical Baby, as Cairns explains in the show, life isn’t just an “event”, it’s a “process”. Therefore, for the remainder of the show, Cairns jumps back and forth in time to analyze what led to her ultimately choosing to get an abortion and how it continues to affect her to this day. She also goes through the history of Canadian abortion laws and other systemic issues to analyze how the “choice” she made isn’t fully hers. Cairns first refers to the titular “hypothetical baby” in the days leading up to her abortion when her signs of a healthy pregnancy make her briefly consider what it would hypothetically be like to have this baby. Obviously, most of the concerns are financial. She’s been told many times that there’s never a “perfect time to have a baby", and she asks: Why not? Despite Canada being such a “progressive” country, its capitalist structure creates various access barriers that prevent people from keeping a child even if they wanted to. And so, although Cairns legally can choose to get an abortion, how much of a choice does she really have? And how much less of a choice do other people have? Cairns is self-aware of her specific privileges and disadvantages as a white woman with a non-salaried job living in Ontario. Through a mix of her personal interactions with other women, as well as her mini-lectures, she shows the audience how the intersections of gender, race, citizenship, able-bodiedness, and class play into reproductive rights. With the mix of so many personal anecdotes and lectures, Cairns covers a lot of ground within the 75-minute time frame. There are moments that could have felt random, like a long section about author Sylvia Plath’s life or a presentation on how women are specifically affected by the Covid-19 pandemic. However, everything in the show connects strongly to the question of the hypothetical baby. Every moment is deeply personal to Cairns’ story, but also exposes Canadian society and specific systemic issues that I have not seen explored so directly on stage before. The production elements are very simple, but effective. There is a small platform with a rug, chair, and white backdrop. Along with this set, the lighting, projections, and sound transport the audience to various locations including a walk-in clinic, a house party, a Hudson’s Bay, and the bathroom where she experiences her abortion while her family has Christmas Eve dinner downstairs. Director Lancaster keeps the information-packed story flowing, while also giving the audience the time and space to sit with the heavier emotional moments of the piece. Lancaster makes specific choices about when to pull out all the bells and whistles or when to hold back. At times, Cairns is very active throughout the space, and the sound and projections are as overwhelming as what she is experiencing. Then there are other moments when Cairns is simply sitting in a chair and talking to the audience. Each choice made by both Lancaster as a director and Cairns as an actor does justice to how emotional, provocative, intimate, angry, political, educational, and even funny the text itself is. One of my favorite aspects of Hypothetical Baby is Cairns’ portrayals of conversations between herself and other characters, especially with the characters who are a bit harder to sympathize with like her uncommunicative boyfriend or the failed actor turned anti-abortion public speaker she stalks online. Although Cairns doesn’t justify their behavior, by stepping into their shoes, they reveal larger societal issues to Cairns as well as her own internal conflict about her abortion. The heart of the piece, however, is the relationship between Cairns and her mother who is there for the entire story including her abortion, her existential crises about her career, issues with her relationship, and the final moment of the show that left most of the audience sobbing. Cairns’ mother’s story draws many parallels to her own story, and provides a really personal exploration of the concept of motherhood as a “choice”. In the same way that Cairns’ connects with the many people around her regardless of how different their stories may be, I believe that anybody who watches Hypothetical Baby will find something that resonates with them. THE HOWLAND COMPANY presents ‘Hypothetical Baby’ written and performed by Rachel Cairns Directed by Courtney Ch’ng Lancaster Sound Design by Cosette Pin Production, Lighting & Projection Design by Julia Howman Associate Technical Artist: Emily Jung Previous Next BACK TO TOP

Back Norm Foster The Self Isolated Artist Self portrait Joe Szekeres Thank you to the theatre gods who have looked down upon me with grace and have blessed me with the opportunity to converse either online, via telephone or by email with some of Canada’s finest members of the professional performing arts community. These ‘self-isolated artists’ have been tremendously kind and receptive in speaking about how they are holding up during this Covid crisis while sharing some personal and poignant memories and thoughts. I cannot recall of any theatre company off the top of my head, either amateur or professional, who hasn’t produced at least one play by Norm Foster, another of Canada’s finest playwrights. I remember the first time I saw ‘The Melville Boys’ and was struck by how funny the story was at one point while several minutes later I was wiping a tear from my eye. I’ve always found Norm’s plays, characters, and dialogue true to life, sometimes daring, sometimes witty, sometimes harsh and most often humane. The story of how Norm came to a love of theatre always makes me smile each time I read about it. He went with a friend to an audition of a community theatre production of ‘Harvey’ because Norm wanted to see what this ‘theatre thing’ was all about. He ended up with the role of ‘Elwood P. Dowd’, the central character who has an invisible six-foot rabbit friend. Norm had never seen a play in his life up to this point. He seems like the kind of guy with whom you could sit in a pub for hours, have some beers, and just ask him questions and discuss everything and anything. I certainly hope I get that chance one day. And I just found out today that one of Norm’s hobbies is photography. His headshot is only just one example of his work. We conducted our interview via email right after he had recovered from surgery. Thank you so much, Norm, for your kindness to be interviewed: 1. It has been just over two months right now that we have been under this lockdown. I just found out you got out of the hospital. First off, Norm, a very speedy recovery to you. Before your surgery how have you been doing during this period of isolation and quarantine? How is your immediate family doing? Oddly enough before THIS surgery, I was recovering from another surgery for a ruptured aneurysm that occurred on a flight from Costa Rica to Toronto. So, it has been an eventful couple of months. I have actually been recovering from some surgery for the entire Covid adventure. If there is such a thing as good time for it to happen, this is it. The rest of the family seems to be doing okay. My wife Helena is doing a lot of gardening and online studying. 2. Before I started reviewing for On Stage Blog, I had just missed you by that much (as Maxwell Smart used to say) when you performed at The Capitol Theatre in Port Hope, Ontario several years ago. Were you involved in any projects before the pandemic was declared and everything was shut down? I was set to do a tour of my play ‘Jonas and Barry in the Home’ in several theatres in Southern Ontario starting in June. Plus, I was scheduled to go into rehearsals for two new plays of mine at the Foster Festival in St. Catharines this summer. All of that was wiped out of course when the theatres shut down. 3. What has been the most difficult and/or challenging element of this period of isolation? Not being inspired to write. I’ve talked to other artists about this and many of them feel the same way. You would think that with all of this down time available to us that we would be writing furiously. Not so. Ordinarily I have no problem sitting down first thing in the morning and writing. That is no longer the case, and I’m not sure why. I still have the ideas. I just don’t have the urgency to get them down on paper. 4. Now, along with your recovery from surgery at home, what have you been doing to keep yourself busy during this time of lockdown? I watch tv. I practice my guitar. I face time with my children and grandchildren. I argue with my wife about nothing. I check my pulse. I sit in my beautiful yard like an old man and hope against hope that the NFL season won’t be canceled. 5. Any words of wisdom or sage advice you would give to other performing artists or emerging playwrights who are concerned about the impact of COVID-19? What about to the new theatre graduates who are just out of school and may have been hit hard? Why is it important for them not to lose sight of their dreams? I would just tell them to hang in there. This is just a speed bump. Mind you, it’s a pretty big speed bump, but this too shall pass and your dreams can still be achieved, given time. 6. Do you see anything positive stemming from this pandemic? At first, I thought that this would lead people down a less selfish path. The old ‘we’re in this together’ idea, but the more I see what’s going on in the world, the more I realize that I was just being naïve. For the most part, people are looking out for themselves. Positives? Yeah. I haven’t put gas in my car since March 3 and my last credit card statement was $32. 7. In your estimation and informed opinion, will the Canadian performing arts scene somehow be changed or impacted as a result of COVID – 19? It will be changed but I’m not sure how exactly. It will take some time for it to return to the way it was, if it does at all. We are all going to be cautious. I don’t think it will be nearly as enjoyable or fulfilling for the artists or the audience for quite some time. I fear it will seem more like work, something which I avoid at all costs. 8. Many artists are turning to streaming/online performances to showcase/highlight/share their work. What are your thoughts about this format presentation? Any advantages to doing this? Disadvantages? Are you participating or will you be participating in this presentation format soon? I think it’s great if the artists want to do that. Personally, I’m not interested in online performances right now, because they haven’t made the technology watchable in my opinion. It is just a stop gap measure for now. A way for artists to stay active, and that’s good. But it doesn’t interest me at this time. 9. Once you’re back on your feet and feeling better, will you do any live performances soon? What is it about the arts you still love given all the change, the confusion and the drama surrounding our world now? Oh yes, I plan to get back out on the road next year or whenever they say we can. I love performing and being a part of getting a play up and running. In fact, that’s why I do what I do. I love telling a good story to an audience. That won’t change. But I will not be writing any plays about COVID-19. People seem to think that we writers are all going to be telling our stories about it. Not me. I’ve got plenty of other stories to tell. With a respectful acknowledgement to ‘Inside the Actors’ Studio’ and the late James Lipton, here are the 10 questions he asked his guests at the conclusion of his interviews: a. What is your favourite word? Funny. b. What is your least favourite word? Laborious c. What turns you on? Quality writing. d. What turns you off? Opinions. e. What sound or noise do you love? Waves coming ashore f. What sound or noise bothers you? Arguing. g. What is your favourite curse word? Fuck h. What profession, other than your own, would you have liked to attempt? Piano player in a smoky bar. i. What profession would you not like to do? Law enforcement j. If Heaven exists, what do you hope God will say to you as you approach the Pearly Gates? “Nice job.” To learn more about Norm, visit his website www.normfoster.com . Previous Next

Back 'Damn Yankees' The Shaw Festival Michael Cooper Dave Rabjohn Grab a hotdog and head for the bleachers (Shaw Festival) to catch a spectacular revival of the ever-popular ‘Damn Yankees’ now playing through the summer at Niagara-on-the-Lake. This particular performance had an inordinate number of understudies taking over and the show seamlessly continued with marked precision and energy – a tribute to both the talented cast and Brian Hill’s direction. Another highlight punctuating the success of this production was Cory Sincennes’ brilliant design which was clearly intended to unabashedly immerse this period piece in the heart of 1950s post-war America. This added a sense of nostalgia and integrity to the story. The set included posters advertising new household gimmicks and nuclear families, art deco furniture and blinking black and white TV sets. Costumes included wildly printed a-line dresses, zoot suits and baggy baseball outfits that would make a modern player cringe. A soaring red canopy bed was another highlight. The Washington Senators stink and everyone hates the Yankees. In a ‘be careful what you wish for’ moment, Joe Boyd makes a deal with the devil to relive his youth and become a Senators star and help beat the New Yorkers. Disappearing from his wife and suburban comfort, Joe is torn between fame and his cross-generational yearning. The devil (Applegate) continues through the play as Joe’s manager, lawyer and social director all with a plan to eventually steal his soul. The Senators finally beat the Yankees, just as Applegate makes one final effort to embarrass Joe who makes the last dramatic catch, as the old Joe, who then rushes back to his home – the everyman can also be a star. Shining out of an accomplished cast were two brilliant performances. Mike Nadajewski as Applegate (Devil) was effortlessly chameleon-like. Just as the devil changes shapes, Mr. Nadajewski roams through various personalities, partly listed earlier, with both precision and abandonment. He cements his star turn with the campy ‘Those Were the Good Old Days’ thrilling the audience with his George M. Cohen-like number complete with straw hat and cane. The second rich performance came from Elodie Gillett as Applegate’s colleague Lola. Her exotic, sultry style suited the homewrecker to be. Her voice soared in ‘Whatever Lola Wants’ and a duet with Joe (James Daly) was striking. Mr. Daly did a lot of heavy lifting as the dashing Joe Hardy and was most endearing in ‘A Man Doesn’t Know.’ Another captivating comic performance came from Gabrielle Jones as the likeable Miss Weston whose squeaky voice and dreamy fawning gave way to some elegant dance routines with her posse of excited groupies. This production is elevated by creative choreography from Allison Plamondon. ‘The Game’ was especially endearing. Special effects from Skylar Fox added some mind-contorting illusions – floating balls, human transformation, and a magical wardrobe among others. Clever sound design from John Lott was highlighted by the unmistakable sound of ‘bat on ball’ – each ‘crack’ was subtly different as the unseen ball moved in various directions. This writer would be remiss to not mention a spectacular final exit that most actors probably dream of executing. Elodie Gillett, as Lola, somehow engineers her own portal into one of Dante’s circles of hell – we see some wispy evidence of brimstone as she slowly moves in, red dress steaming and blond hair flashing until – she is gone. Devilishly magical. ‘Damn Yankees’ by Richard Adlar and Jerry Ross Performers: Andrew Broderick, Shane Carty, James Daly, Peter Fernandes, JJ Gerber, Elodie Gillett, Patty Jamieson, Gabrielle Jones, Graeme Kitagawa, Caitlyn MacInnis, Allison McCaughey, Kevin McLachlan, Mike Nadajewski, Drew Plummer, Kimberley Rampersad, Alana Randall, David Andrew Reid, Ric Reid, Jade Repeta, Adam Sergison, Olivia Sinclair-Brisbane, Taurian Teelucksingh, Jaqueline Thair, Jay Turvey, Kelly Wong. Director: Brian Hill Music Director: Paul Sportelli Choreography: Allison Plamondon Set and Costumes Design: Cory Sincennes Sound Design: John Lott Lighting Design: Mikael Kangas Magic and illusions Design: Skylar Fox Shaw Festival Performances run through October 9, 2022. Tickets: shawfest.com Previous Next

Back 'Uncle Vanya' by Anton Chekhov in a new version by Liisa Repo-Martell Now onstage in the Guloien Theatre at Crow's Theatre Bahia Watson and Tom Rooney. Photo by Dahlia Katz Joe Szekeres An astounding adaptation by Liisa Repo-Martell of Chekhov’s ‘Uncle Vanya’ that remains firmly riveted in my mind. Not merely just to see but to experience an opening night of Liisa Repo-Martell’s new version of Chekhov’s ‘Uncle Vanya’ is one of the reasons why we must continue attending the theatre. Again, I confess that I’ve not seen a live production of ‘Uncle Vanya’, but I briefly knew the story. But when a play hits me on many emotional levels, I want to share and encourage everyone to attend this ‘must-see production’. Chris Abraham and Liisa Repo-Martell’s Programme Notes spoke about how sometimes the “opening up of dormant dreams, passions and ambitions is risky because sometimes we must risk everything to get something new.” Abraham has majestically captured a truly stunning vision of this statement in his risk-taking about the “telling of the truth of the lives of these characters – just as they were” when we meet them. There appears to be something uniquely different about this world of ‘Uncle Vanya’ upon entering the Guloien. When we do, we’re instructed to go either left or right depending on the colour code of our ticket. And as I saw the world created inside the auditorium, I felt my jaw drop as if I’d experienced something sacrosanct. Those in front of me appeared to feel the same as we tried not to cross the sacredness of the stage. It’s not a traditional proscenium arch setting for this ‘Uncle Vanya’, and that was a wise choice by Abraham and co-set designers Julie Fox and Josh Quinlan. We are in a theatre in the round which magnificently captures how grand this estate must have been in the waning days of Czarist Russia. The actors always make tremendous use of the entire stage, and never, ever does it look as if they are crowding in one spot. Instead, I always felt as if I was that proverbial fly on the wall watching with anticipation what was playing out before me. Kimberly Purtell and Thomas Ryder Payne’s lighting and sound designs gorgeously reflect the era and the historical moment in which we find ourselves. Purtell’s soft lighting designs nicely reflect the glow of the oil lamps used throughout. Ryder Payne’s richness in sound design magnificently underscores the tension within the scene. The growing sound of the impending storm caught my ear so many times and I kept wondering when the heavens would open it. And when it finally does, breathtaking to hear. Ming Wong’s costume designs splendidly reflected the muted earth-tone colours of the era. I’m reminded of the line “Attention must be paid” from ‘Death of a Salesman’ and, once again, Fox and Quinlan have done just that in the selection of many noteworthy period piece props from a Victrola to the fine bone china right to the gorgeous chandelier suspended over the stage. Before the performance began, my eyes scanned every inch of that stage noticing so many of the intricate details of the set dressing that I encourage future audiences to do the same. Ivan “Vanya” Voinitsky (sublime work by Tom Rooney) and his niece, Sonya (a passionately emotional performance by Bahia Watson) toil ceaselessly to run the family estate. The arrival of Sonya’s father celebrated and retired professor, Alexandre (a fervently ardent Eric Peterson) returns to live on the estate with his young and glamourous second wife, Yelena (believably vulnerable and grounded work by Shannon Taylor) which adds turmoil and conflict to this group of those gathered because we so learn she does not love the older man. We learn about the lives of other individuals on this estate. Carolyn Fe is a matriarchal Marina who offers solace and comfort, especially to Sonya in intense moments. We also meet the handsome country doctor Astrov (a gallant performance by Ali Kazmi) whom Sonya has secretly adored for quite some time but never feels validated because she considers herself homely. It is in Astrov’s opening comments in the play that he recalls his first visit to the region when Vera Petrovna (Alexandre’s first wife and Sonya’s mother) was still alive. As Astrov, Kazmi heartfully reveals his selfishness regarding life in this part of the country as boring and dull and he doesn’t have time for anything including love and affection. Astrov has appeared on the estate to treat Alexandre’s painful gout. Upon Alexandre and Yelena’s arrival at the estate, we also meet Maria (dtaborah johnson), Vanya’s mother who clearly has issues of her own to deal with but manages to provide brief moments and bits of humour. And there is Telegin nicknamed Waffles on account of his pockmarked face. I found there to be a great sadness enveloping him, and Anand Rajaram steadfastly infuses the character with great gusto. The one believable yet sad moment of humour he does provide with Astrov occurs in their drunken stupor where they begin singing a ditty which brought applause from the opening night audience. I’ve always wondered why this play is named after Vanya. Tom Rooney’s sensationally staggering portrayal amply explains why. Vanya is more than just a sad sack of a man. Here is someone who truly envelopes that strong sense of lethargic unhappiness because he cannot have the one thing he wishes he could have in his life – namely, Alexandre’s wife, Yelena. It is this same sense of unrequited unhappiness that envelopes each of the characters. For example (and it isn’t Vanya) one of the characters asks another if they are truly happy, and the response from that character is a definitive no. That was then I knew why the title is an apt one. There are many moments in the production where the chemistry between the actors is electrically charged and a sight to behold in watching, listening and in hearing. As mentioned earlier, the drunken scene between Astrov and Waffles is a tour de force comic moment. Another occurs in a dream sequence dance movement between Tom Rooney and Shannon Taylor upon Vanya revealing his true feelings for Yelena and she rebukes them. This moment made me hold my breath as I watched two individuals inherently trust each other in their graceful swanlike rhythm intertwining of body and soul. I will only share two examples (although there are more) of what I will call a master class in acting pivotal moments. One occurs in the extraordinarily painful look of rejection of Bahia Watson’s Sonya as she learns Ali Kazmi’s Astrov does not feel the same about her as she does. The silence between the two and the heartbreakingly realistic look within Watson’s eyes in realizing the truth becomes achingly real. The other moment occurs at the end of the play when a quietly sobbing Vanya turns to Sonya in the realization that this life of unhappiness is all that they will ever know or attain. I felt my jaw drop as I was witnessing such remarkable delivery of regretful poignancy which tore my heart in two. Final Comments: A story of intense impassioned magnitude told with gut-wrenching honesty, this ‘Uncle Vanya’ deserves to be at the top of your list to see and to experience. It is an evening at the theatre I will never forget. I’m reading more and more about Critics’ Picks in the theatre industry. This is one of my picks. Running time: approximately 2 hours and 45 minutes with one intermission. The production runs to October 2 in the Guloien Theatre at Crow’s Nest, 345 Carlaw Avenue, Toronto. For tickets, call (647) 341-7390 or visit www.crowstheatre.com UNCLE VANYA by Anton Chekhov in a new version and adaptation by Lisa Repo-Martell World Premiere Directed Chris Abraham and Assistant Director: Lisa Repo-Martell Set and Props Co-Designers: Julie Fox and Josh Quinlan Costume Designer: Ming Wong Lighting Designer: Kimberly Purtell Sound Designer: Thomas Ryder Payne Stage Manager: Jennifer Parr Cast: Carolyn Fe, dtaborah johnson, Ali Kazmi, Eric Peterson, Anand Rajaram, Tom Rooney, Shannon Taylor, Bahia Watson. Previous Next

Back Seulement Toi/Only You As part of Torque '22 at Toronto's Harbourfront Fleck Dance Theatre Mary Rozzi Joe Szekeres Please Note: I hold no background or education in the field or study of dance. Instead, I will comment on the theatricality of the production I’ve noticed a few elements from the last few dance productions I’ve attended. There’s a great deal of simplicity in their set designs which is very important as the focus must remain on the dancers and their work. Anne Plamondon’s ‘Seulement Toi/Only You’ continues in that same vein of simplicity in set design at Harbourfront’s Fleck Dance Theatre. From my vantage point in the audience, on the darkened upstage looked what I thought were seven flats appropriately placed side by side each other. The last two flats stage right were placed slightly downstage for a possible entrance and exit for artists Anne Plamondon and James Gregg during their performance. I was pleasantly surprised at the set design by Marilène Bastien, Anne Plamondon and visual artist, Hua Jin. Once the performance began, what I thought were flats appeared to be scrims I could see through with the most intricate detailing of what appeared to be trees and foliage. Nicolas Descôteaux’s subtle whispered lighting at various moments of the piece created an almost beatific lighting around Plamondon and Gregg. Olivier Fairfield’s sound design incorporating the music of several artists (whom I will list at the conclusion of this article) enchantingly underscored the movement of the piece. The programme stated this evening’s work is an exploration of everything that brings us together or separates us from one another. I had the opportunity to profile Anne this week as part of a column series last week. She stated: dance is “a language of the body, of touching, reunion and communicating through the body from one person to the other.” The placement of hands, the feet, the head are all of prime importance in creating a visual experiential journey. In watching this performance last night, I can now understand Anne’s sentiment with her above statement. This sensually, intimate communication between partners in dance becomes strongly evoked in ‘Seulement Toi/Only You’ where, according to the programme that through dance, “the protagonists gradually remove invisible veils between each other to unmask the truth.” Plamondon and her dance partner, James Gregg, took me on a lushly, corporeal experience of movement through sight, touch and the occasional musical sound provided by the artists listed below. At this Toronto opening performance re-scheduled from March 2020, I witnessed two performers who were in love with the artistry of dance through their sinewed, strength, supple, powerful, and harsh creative movements and moments. During our online conversation last week, Anne wanted individuals like myself who have no background in dance that it is something that is worthwhile to experience. Yes, dance can tell a narrative and sometimes a story does not need to be present in the moment. Instead it is most likely an audience member can be swept away in a visual picture created in a split second on one part of the stage. It might be something that caught your eye momentarily. In other words, it’s not necessary to understand everything about dance. And that’s why it’s worthwhile to see ‘Only You’ tonight. What made this production work for me was the fact that Plamondon and Gregg are not merely just artists, take their bow at the end and walk away. Before they are artists, they are humans first. I loved this re-iteration. At the top of the show after the stage is lit up, we see both Plamondon and Gregg are at opposite ends of the scrims dimly lit, and it appears they are removing and putting on certain clothes knowing they will be spending time in an activity they cherishingly respect. The almost erotic touch both have in removing and placing on various clothing pieces lets us in on the fact that we can expect more from these two in their dance. Gregg then crosses over to meet Plamondon in her space, and it looked from my perspective as the lights went down they were both ready and fit to enter into a sacred space of dance. Their 60-minute movement in creative dance, of sensual appeal and of sometimes erotic touching of hands and fingers created a divine sacred space of worship for this art. Glorious to watch. SEULEMENT TOI/ONLY YOU by Anne Plamondon Productions As part of Torque ‘22 Performance this evening at 7:30 pm followed by a question-and-answer period with the artists at the Fleck Dance Theatre, 207 Queens Quay West, Toronto’s Harbourfront Centre. For tickets: 416-973-4000 or harbourfrontcentre.com Performers: Anne Plamondon and James Gregg. Choreography: Anne Plamondon Sound Design: Olivier Fairfield with additional music by Ezio Bosso, Ben Frost, Daniel Bjarnason, Nina Simone, Dimitri Tiomkin, Ned Washington Lighting Design: Nicolas Descôteaux Costumes: Marilène Bastien Technical Direction: Pierre Lavioe Previous Next

Back Mark McGrinder Moving Forward Trish Lindstrom. Joe Szekeres To chat with Studio 180 Theatre’s Associate Artistic Director, Mark McGrinder, was a lesson in learning and watching someone who is humble, down to earth, articulate and passionate about where he sees live theatre moving forward once we all find ourselves emerging slowly from this world wide pandemic. Mark’s biography from the Studio 180 website states he is a co-founder of the company. Mark is an actor, writer, and artist educator. As a member of Studio 180’s Core Artistic Team, he coordinates Studio 180’s IN DEVELOPMENT program and works as a Studio 180 IN CLASS workshop leader. For Studio 180, he has appeared as an actor in many productions, adapted and directed, Love, Dishonor, Marry, Die, Cherish, Perish, directed Standing on Ceremony: The Gay Marriage Plays and a reading of The Arab-Israeli Cookbook, and worked as Associate Director for Blackbird (Metcalf Foundation Internship), God of Carnage and our 10th Anniversary reading of The Laramie Project. He has performed in several reviews with The Second City’s National touring company and was a member of the acting company at the Shaw Festival for five seasons. Mark’s directing credits include the issue-based comedy Power Play and a workshop production of the musical Parade at the Shaw Festival. He has been head- or co-writer on several collective creations (Single and Sexy, That Artz Show and The Berlin Show) and his play MacHamlet was presented as part of the Alumnae Theatre’s New Ideas Festival. Mark was the one who suggested he and I have a hybrid conversation. He took the first five questions, answered them and sent them back to me AND I transcribed the answers to the final five questions. Mark made me feel very much at ease and, at one point, I think I told him I could sit and talk to him about everything and anything but I had to get back on track and the reason for this conversation. Thanks again for your time, Mark: It has been an exceptionally long eight months of the pandemic, the isolation, the social distancing and now it appears the numbers keep edging up and down every day. How are you feeling about all of this? Do you think we will ever emerge to some new way of living in your opinion? It's strange. In so many ways the outlook is bleaker than it's ever been, at least in terms of the prospects for live theatre, and yet I find everything much more liveable now. Maybe I've just found my groove or a sense of certainty in the uncertainty, but I think I've been able to normalize the day to day of it all. Perhaps that's just becoming numb, but I prefer to think that it's some form of adaptability. I often hear people discussing whether we'll ever get back to "normal" but normal is just what you're used to. This, now, this moment we're in is normal. It's a new normal but it's normal. Actors talk a lot about being "in the moment" so maybe I'm leaning into that. I can't have every day be focused on hypotheticals or aspirational "what ifs". I've stopped living for what might be and am settling into what is. I don't see that as abandoning optimism. It's more a conscious act of embracing the moment and living for what we have and can achieve in the here and now. It's surprisingly freeing. How has your immediate family been doing during these last eight months? I'm fortunate to have two young children who staunchly refuse to believe that theatre is dead or that there's any sort of moratorium on live performance, so that's heartening. There's an opening night in our living room virtually every night, even if it's just for an audience of two. It's been tough otherwise and the return to school was fraught with anxiety but since they've been back it's made a huge difference in our collective mental health and well being. We're a pretty tight unit and, despite the anticipated challenges of being cooped up in a finite space we were doing pretty well but I don't think we realized how much they missed their friends and we missed the space to focus on each other and our work. There's a lot more movie nights than there were a year ago and it's daunting to imagine the winter ahead but so far, we are getting by just fine. As an artist within the performing arts industry and community, what has been the most difficult and challenging for you personally and professionally? I just really miss the intimacy of working in person, of feeding off each other's energy. Whether it's in a rehearsal hall or a workshop we might be doing with high school students, I miss being able to feel the room. It's such an intangible thing and something I admittedly take for granted. Or used to. It only takes its absence to be felt deeply. Theatre is such a live, embodied art form. It's about proximity and spontaneity and presence and, no matter how hard we endeavour to replicate or approximate it with online rehearsals or performances, it will always feel a bit bereft of something. Of magic. I'm not usually one to embrace that sort of vocabulary but that's what it is. It's finite and fleeting and it's at the heart of what we do. Were you in preparation, rehearsals or any planning stages of productions before we fell into the pandemic? What has become of those projects? Will they see the light of day anytime soon? There was a lot on the go, both for Studio 180 and for me personally. One of the few bright spots in all of this was the fact that we were actually able to complete our run of Sweat in the winter before everything shut down. That was such an extraordinary group, and it would have been heartbreaking for them to have had their run interrupted or to have been denied the experience of sharing that work with an audience. Unfortunately, we were just about to begin rehearsals for Indecent, the second show of our season, that was cut short literally days before it was about to start. We invested a lot of time, energy and financial resources into that show so the hope is that it will see the light of day but it's a big, ambitious piece, the likes of which will be hard to contemplate when we eventually ease back into live performance. Still, I can't imagine a piece that better exemplifies theatre's capacity to create an intimate, communal experience. It's very much about our primal need to tell stories and endeavouring to find some essence of truth in those tales. I really do hope that we can share it with Toronto audiences in the not too distant future. On the personal front I was about to head off to Montreal to be in a production of Oslo at The Segal Centre. I was really relishing the notion of being a part of another production of a play I knew so well through our own Studio 180 production. It's a pretty rare gift to get a second chance at anything and I haven't worked in Montreal for years, so I was really disappointed when that fell through. As with so many other projects there's a sense that, once things get back on track, we'll have an opportunity to do the piece, but I don't anticipate that happening any time soon. What have you been doing to keep yourself busy during this time? Surprisingly, I'm extraordinarily busy right now, which I recognize is a privilege not afforded to everyone in my field. We have really front loaded the work of our season and are creating digital presentations that enable us to connect with audiences and artists alike. My work over the last little while has been to put all the pieces together, and now we're in the midst of doing the work which is always the most rewarding part. So much of our time has really been spent trying to figure out how to not only get by in the current climate but to also figure out how we can create practices and infrastructure that can become a vital part of our work when we return to live performance. So much of what Studio 180 does is about the conversations the work instigates and I'm so grateful that; even in the absence of being able to share a common physical space, we're finding ways to connect. And grants. Lots of grants. There are so many foundations and funders that have created programs to support arts organizations, which is extraordinary, but there is a lot of writing involved in courting that support. What's terrific about that though is that it really forces you to articulate a vision and can help focus your planning for an uncertain future. Any words of wisdom or advice you might /could give to fellow performers and colleagues? What message would you deliver to recent theatre school graduates who have now been set free into this unknown and uncertainty for at least 1 ½ to 2 years? I don’t know if I consider myself one capable of giving sage advice, but my chief offering would be to be kind to yourself. It’s an occupational hazard of being an artist that a massive amount of your time is not spent being an artist. It’s the work and trying to find the time to share the art. A lot of the time when you’re not working people can feel I’m not an artist. I think we just really need to be generous with ourselves and we need to say no. Just because I’m not in a play doesn’t mean that I’m not an actor. It’s incumbent on everyone to embrace opportunities to feed your artist self. Maybe your doing ‘The Artist Way’, maybe you’re just reading plays, maybe you’re just exposing yourself to art or contemplating art or finding ways to fill the tank. Maybe you’re memorizing monologues that you’ll never use but you’re keeping the engine going. In good times, I’m still only working a few months a year as an actor. The possibility of performing keeps you going and makes it easier to say, “I’m an artist and I’m pursuing that work.” When there’s so little of the work, that becomes harder, that optimism and that belief in yourself as an artist. Just because the work isn’t there doesn’t mean you’re not an artist. Be an artist. Believe in yourself as an artist. Maybe this is a flipside and perhaps a contradiction: It’s also okay not to be an artist. Let yourself be in the moment. Especially out of the gate when the pandemic hit, we all panicked, we had to reinvent ourselves, we gotta do this, we gotta keep doing the work. I’m devoid of meaning if I’m not sharing or writing. I think it took awhile but we did arrive at the point where we can contemplate our lives outside the treadmill of the busy, busy of trying to be an artist. So believe you’re an artist, embrace that you’re an artist but at times it’s okay if you don’t do any of that for awhile but instead just ‘be’ in the moment. If you have to work at the LCBO on the weekends, don’t feel as if you are giving up on your dreams as you have to do that NOW in order to get to where you want to go. Do you see anything positive stemming from Covid 19? A few things coming out of it – sort of counter intuitively it’s been a time of re-connection especially for families and for me. This Zoom platform has been a joy and the bane of my existence since we’re all getting Zoomed out. I can talk and connect with people all over and Zoom allows us to normalize this weird interaction. In terms of the doing the art, we’ve already had the opportunity to collaborate with artists in Toronto, working with people in Winnipeg and on the east coast. Zoom has opened up a lot of possibilities to work with so that’s been positive. It also means that our work can be enjoyed by people who are not here in Toronto area. The lack of live theatre has created a real recognition of how much we are missing that. I feel people are recognizing how special that is. When the opportunity does come, and I know it will be slow and people will be cautious, I think there will be a hunger for that authentic in person experience. I’m hoping that becomes a positive effect as we return. Theatre has been a dying art for so long, (Mark laughs, as he is kidding) but it seems to always find its way back. It’s an act of communion and people need that. That’s why they go to church, to the synagogue, it’s our temple and we are going to gather again. I’m excited about that. The other thing I hope for is that people will recognize the value of art in times like this. The numbers on Netflix and other platforms must be astonishing and that’s how people are getting through by watching films, reading books, listening to music. I’m not sure if people make the connection such as “Oh, wow, the arts are really important. They help us survive and feed our soul.” The arts is a vital piece of our society, even though it’s always an uphill battle. Do you think Covid 19 will have some lasting impact on the Toronto/Canadian/North American performing arts scene? I think it’s going to be significant. The effects will be seismic and will ripple for years, and the landscape will have changed. In some ways, it will be devastating as some companies will not come back after this. Non venued companies like Studio 180 are particularly vulnerable. We’ve been really fortunate to have so many great partners and so many venued partners, and that makes it easier to keep going. The inverse and converse of all this is the teaching of a real resilience and a pull up the boot straps and a Mickey and Judy ‘put on a show’ to make something happen. For the young people coming out of the theatre schools, there’s a real resilience coming out of all this, a sense of purpose and wanting to continue the work. I think there’s a lot of innovation coming out of it. There are a lot of companies like us who are hesitant to dive fully into the digital realm, but then realizing it’s an authentic form of connection. For us, and a lot of other companies, it’s easy to be precious and sacred about the live space, but we’re already learning there are ways to supplement that live experience with online experiences. When we come back and when we’re in theatres, we’ll see a lot more integration of online technology. I would love to see emerging out of this a movement in Toronto and Canadian theatres in general to accommodate real archiving of our work. That’s not something we have outside the Stratford Festival productions. Those are epic and cost a lot. You can go to New York and go to the library and watch a really high-quality video of an off-Broadway production that was done 10 years ago with close ups and angles. Just because of economic realities and union rules, the only recording that can take place of one of our productions is a still camera at the back of our house. It is that. It’s a resource for understudies and stage managers, remounts and a lot of us are thinking maybe we can get permission to show our archives and that would be something people can enjoy while we wait six or eight weeks until we’re back on stage. But when we watched them, we saw how terrible it was. We’re trying to figure out ways how to improve. We’re doing recordings on Zoom, try to get a few people in a large space and work with the regulations and create some videos together in the space. Now more than ever I’m realizing how little capacity we have to archive the incredible work we do. If we have what they have in New York and London’s West End to archive clear and precise encapsulations of that moment and time, I would love to see a movement of that sort come out of this so our work can be captured, remembered and enjoyed going forward. Some artists have turned to You Tube and online streaming to showcase their work. What are your comments and thoughts about streaming? Is this something that the actor/theatre may have to utilize going forward into the unknown? Well, there are two different realms there. You Tube is one thing. My daughters do fake You Tube videos. They don’t have a You Tube channel. For some, You Tube becomes an encounter with the banalities of life. I’m certainly not interested in a You Tube personality. That maybe something for some people as it is a cultural currency right now. All the power to you if can exploit that medium. That said, Studio 180 is sharing video and recordings of work we’re doing via You Tube/Vimeo and those platforms are good as they help to get the work out. Something important to us is that people are getting paid for the work. It gets complicated because a portion of the work is Canadian Actors Equity Association work. As soon as you record and share it, it then comes under the jurisdiction of ACTRA (Association of Canadian Film and Television) union. That relationship has evolved and the rules on how you can disseminate the work have evolved. It’s been a real dance and a lot of paperwork balancing to make sure that the right channels are being followed and that people are being compensated properly. I’m really grateful we’ve been able to embrace the platforms and create work that we are paying artists for. One of the things that has come up is the thanks for the opportunity to work which goes back to what I was saying earlier in our interview about feeling like an artist. I don’t mean to be cynical and having a You Tube channel and you’re not getting paid but you’re trying to make the most of that and get paid somehow. That’s no different than putting on a Fringe show. You’re not in the union and not working at Tarragon but you’re creating and getting out there and being entrepreneurial and seizing the opportunities out there. Know the value of your work and don’t be taken advantage of in any form of streaming. There will be times when you’re doing it for free. But, if you’re going to engage in it, do it responsibly and make sure artists are compensated properly and embrace it and take advantage of it. Artists, value yourselves and do whatever possible to be compensated for the work. Despite all this fraught tension and confusion, what is it about the art of performance that Covid will never destroy for you? I think it’s coming back to that notion of ‘aliveness’, of community. Theatre is something that you experience with other people. Covid has taken that away from us for the moment, but it has not killed the recognition or the desire for that and the hunger for it. In our current climate and limitations, the two things that keep me wanting to do the work is the desire to tell stories. I see my own kids always wanting to write plays. They are constantly focused on narrative (which can be a dirty word in theatre). But my kids, artists want to tell a story and put a point across. If that story has a deeper lesson or meaning, that’s great. It’s where we all start as kids playing, acting and telling stories. There’s joy in that. Maybe we can’t gather in a physical space, but we can still find joy in telling stories. I think it’s terrific to see the breadth of stories that are being told and that people are pursuing. I’m excited to be a part of that. Even though we can’t gather in a space, we can still create dialogue, meaning and I think we get cynical about youth and their connection to the theatre. For some reason, theatre has become a stodgy old person event and form. I’m sure that’s true to a large degree, but Studio 180 is involved in a programme where it focuses on kids in high school and our work. It’s been challenging but also so rewarding on how hungry the kids are for connection to art and engagement around stories and ideas. Teachers are struggling to feed that in this digital platform. To be a part of helping in some small way to make those connections and to allow people to follow their creative impulses and tell stories is really special and heartening. Drama saves lives in high school. So many kids are at a critical point in their lives right now and a connection to drama could be a make or break moment. That’s scary but the fact the kids still have an appetite for this connection is riveting and special. For me, once again, Covid will not destroy that desire to connect and to participate is undervalued for audiences. Engaging in theatre is less passive than we think. It demands of you things that you can’t do when you watch television. It’s exciting on some small level to create those opportunities. To learn more about Studio 180: http://studio180theatre.com ; Facebook: Studio 180 Theatre; Twitter: @studio180. To follow Mark on Twitter: @McGlinter Previous Next

Back Michael Ross Albert Looking Ahead Megan Terriss Joe Szekeres Michael Ross Albert and I had recently connected through Instagram. I’m still having some issues with Instagram and how to use it. When I saw Michael’s name, I kept wondering where I had seen it before. And then it dawned on me. Just this past summer, Theatre on the Ridge had staged a reading of Albert’s ‘The Huns’ about the corporate world which was a really interesting production given the restrictions of Covid. I remember speaking to Carey Nicholson, Artistic Director of Theatre on the Ridge, after the show and told her that I really hope she might consider staging a full production of ‘The Huns’ when it’s safe for all of us to return. Michael Ross Albert is an award-winning Toronto-based playwright whose work has been performed across Canada, the United States, and the United Kingdom. He received an MFA in Playwriting from the Actors Studio Drama School and has been honoured to teach new play development as an instructor of record at the University of Waterloo. We conducted our interview via email. Thanks again, Michael: In a couple of months, we will be coming up on one year where the doors of live theatre have been shuttered. How have you been faring during this time? Your immediate family? Thankfully, my immediate family and I have been keeping healthy, safe, and relatively sane. We’re all a little lonely, and a little bored, and some days are tougher than others. But that’s all. Considering the huge difficulties others are facing during this pandemic, I feel extremely fortunate. How have you been spending your time since the theatre industry has been locked up tight as a drum? During the first wave, I spent a lot of time doom-scrolling through the Internet and trying to find comfort in junk food, booze, and classic episodes of The Simpsons. But after a while, I realized those behaviours weren’t quite doing the trick, and I decided to completely change track. With so much out of our hands, I’ve tried to focus on things that I actually can control, which these days, is mostly just my daily habits. So, I became a person that goes to sleep early and wakes up before sunrise. I deactivated my Facebook profile, which was one of the best decisions I’ve made. I’ve turned off a lot of notifications. I’ve been limiting my comfort food and alcohol intake. I’ve been taking long (and I mean long) walks in nature. I’ve started meditating. I’m becoming that guy. And you know what? It’s been pretty helpful. I’ve also had the very good fortune of working on writing assignments that had tangible deadlines. The uncertainty facing our industry has cast a big, looming shadow over my writing desk, and my focus has been even more scattered than it usually is. But once I really got going, the act of writing was very pleasurable. And I’ve been meeting with the collaborators involved in these projects periodically throughout the year, where we’ve had great, daydream-y conversations about the future. Those process-oriented conversations gave all of us a really welcome distraction from, you know, all of this. The late Hal Prince described the theatre as an escape for him. Would you say that Covid has been an escape for you or would you describe this near year long absence from the theatre as something else? I’m not sure “escape” is the word I’d use. To a degree, I’ve found myself retreating inward more, which could be a kind of escape. And when I’m writing, I do sort of feeling like I’m absconding to a different world, a different set of people’s circumstances. But, overall, I think the pandemic’s been a magnifying glass. Which is, like, a real gift, eh? How many generations have really gotten this gift of time to examine everything? Over this past year, we’ve had the time to put our industry, our artistic practices, our creative habits, our personal relationships, our values, our priorities, our commitments to our communities under a magnifying glass, and I think that’s going to lead to a lot of positive change. Obviously, the disease spreads like wildfire; we’re all at risk of being infected, we’re all grieving, the majority of us are facing financial insecurity and serious anxiety. COVID’s not a good thing. But the conditions of the moment have forced people in all sectors, not just the arts, to really scrutinize everything, so that hopefully, we can all make significant improvements to our very flawed systems. I’ve interviewed a few artists several months ago who said that the theatre industry will probably be shut down and not go full head on until at least 2022. There may be pockets of outdoor theatre where safety protocols are in place. What are your comments about this? Do you think you and your colleagues/fellow artists will not return until 2022? We should be focusing on our health and safety. If that means the industry can’t come back in full force for a while, it is what it is. Artists have to be resilient because the industry has always been precarious at best. If anyone can deal with prolonged unemployment, it’s professional artists. We have to get creative; we have to make adjustments, we have to stay creatively nimble, and keep doing what we do, in whatever small ways we can. I do not envy artistic directors, or leaders of big cultural institutions, or folks running indie theatre companies right now. No one cannot predict the future, and theatre requires a ton of planning. With vaccinations underway, it does feel like there are reasonable grounds for hope that public indoor gatherings will be able to return (someday…), but we can’t really predict how long it will be before audiences feel safe returning to a theatre. Unfortunately, I think we have to wait and see. And in the meantime, artists have to find ways to stay sharp, stay connected to their community, and stay curious. The financial toll this will take on organizations is really frightening. And I think that, no matter when in-person performances can resume at full capacity, the cultural landscape will look very different for a little while. I had a discussion recently with an Equity actor who said that yes theatre should not only entertain but, more importantly, it should transform both the actor and the audience. How has Covid transformed you in your understanding of the theatre and where it is headed in a post Covid world? Honestly, I don’t know if my understanding of theatre has changed all that much over the past year. If anything, the theatre that I’ve seen during COVID, either online or outdoors, has reinforced some of my core beliefs about it. The work I’ve seen has really hammered home the fact that communal storytelling is an essential component of the human experience. That, whether they’re watching on Zoom or sitting in a lawn chair, an audience may be more willing to suspend their disbelief and go on the journey of the play if the stakes are high and the story is personal. This work has reinforced the idea that theatre should reveal a deeper truth about humanity while being extremely entertaining. And it’s proven beyond all doubt that theatre-makers are some of the most adaptable people on the planet. As to where theatre is going. For a while, I think plays may get even shorter than they currently are. We may only see small casts on stages for a while. Technical designs will probably become a lot simpler. Theatre companies may start regularly offering online ticketing options, which would be great. They might also prioritize accessibility, which would be even better. Ultimately, despite the difficulties of rebuilding, I think the theatre will come back stronger than it was before. And after a few more months of lockdown, I think we’ll all be craving live, in-person experiences. I know I am. The late Zoe Caldwell spoke about how actors should feel danger in the work. It’s a solid and swell thing to have if the actor/artist and the audience both feel it. Would you agree with Ms. Caldwell? Have you ever felt danger during this time of Covid and do you believe it will somehow influence your work when you return to the theatre? I don’t think artists should put themselves or others in the way of physical danger in order to do their work. Emotionally speaking, though, I think art is most relatable when it addresses deep, uncomfortable feelings that we all experience but have difficulty talking about. In order to create a piece of theatre that truly explores difficult emotions like guilt, shame, fear of death, an artist needs to find methods to safely access a “dangerous” part of themselves. This past year has certainly felt dangerous. I worry about vulnerable family members and friends. I worry that a stranger’s carelessness could seriously impact the life of someone I love. And I think this sense of our interconnectedness, the fact that we rely on so many people, even people outside our sphere of personal relationships, in order to not get sick and die will definitely influence my future work in the theatre. I’m not exactly sure how. But the stakes are life or death for everyone right now. And that’s definitely the key to excellent drama. The late scenic designer Ming Cho Lee spoke about great art opening doors and making us feel more sensitive. Has this time of Covid made you sensitive to our world and has it made some impact on your life in such a way that you will bring this back with you to the theatre? Oh yeah. Early on in the pandemic, we heard one piece of rhetoric over and over: “We’re all in the same boat.” But it’s clear that’s really not the case. As a dramatist, what I’m most interested in is the various perspectives of different characters, especially in the face of moral crisis. COVID-19 has shone a spotlight on individual circumstances, big decisions, heroic acts of selflessness, and flagrant disregard for other people’s safety. I’m endlessly fascinated with why people behave the way they do when faced with the extraordinary, and that fascination has only grown during the pandemic. Again, the late Hal Prince spoke of the fact that theatre should trigger curiosity in the actor/artist and the audience. Has Covid sparked any curiosity in you about something during this time? Has this time away from the theatre sparked further curiosity for you when you return to this art form? You know, I am curious about human behaviour and why people act the way they do under pressure, and COVID has given me plenty to ponder about in that regard. But I think what I’m most curious about right now is… What story will we need to hear, after all this is said and done? What will we-- artists and audiences-- need from the theatre, in order to help the collective healing process? And how do we make sure we carry all these important reflections from the past year into our artistic practices, and into our regular routines when the pace of normal life resumes? For further information and connection to Michael, please visit his website: www.michaelrossalbert.com or his Twitter handle: @michaelralbert. Previous Next

Back GANANOQUE'S THOUSAND ISLANDS PLAYHOUSE ANNOUNCES ITS 2025 SUMMER SEASON It’s ‘launch’ time for some of Ontario’s theatres for the 2025 season. Courtesy of the company Joe Szekeres I received word today about the 2025 season for Gananoque’s Thousand Islands Playhouse. Although I could not attend today’s information session, I was anticipating what would be in store for this regional theatre in one of Ontario’s beautiful summer/fall excursions. This morning, October 17, at 10 a.m., the Managing Artistic Director Brett Christopher relayed how excited he was to announce the 2025 season: “On the heels of a record-breaking season, I am so grateful to our audiences who visit us each summer in Gananoque.” Christopher reported the following statistics for the Playhouse: Total box office sales have passed $1.6 million for the 2024 season, exceeding last year’s total of $1.5 million. The year before the pandemic was $1.18 million . In 2024, it was over 80%. In 2023, it was over 78%. Four of the seven shows for the 2025 season are Canadian. Brett looks forward to building the creative teams over the next few months. AT THE SPRINGER THEATRE: ‘HOW THE OTHER HALF LOVES’ by Alan Ayckbourn. Performance dates: May 30-June 22, 2025. ‘MARY POPPINS: The Broadway Musical’ based on the stories of P.L. Travers and the Walt Disney Film. Performance dates: July 8 – August 16, 2025. ‘STAG AND DOE’ by Mark Crawford. Performance dates: August 22-September 14, 2025. ‘9 to 5, the Musical’ Music & Lyrics by Dolly Parton and Book by Patricia Resnick. Performance dates: September 30 – November 2, 2025. AT THE FIREHALL THEATRE: ‘COTTAGERS AND INDIANS’ by Drew Hayden Taylor. Performance dates: August 8-August 30, 2025. ‘THE DRAWER BOY’ by Michael Healey. Performance dates: September 5-September 28, 2025. ‘THE PIANO TEACHER’ by Dorothy Dittrich. Performance dates: October 10-November 2, 2025. To read more about the shows, go here: https://www.1000islandsplayhouse.com/2025-season-lineup/?fbclid=IwY2xjawF-Uh5leHRuA2FlbQIxMAABHeFOyTORK3FTnUcatYHQ3kgNk_tyvFJXqZm_2biAF8GMo54vtmMhcNlALg_aem_6UYxpVZQUz096_wlrMnINQ Go here to learn more about the Thousand Islands Playhouse, visit: www.1000islandsplayhouse.com . To follow the Playhouse on social media: Facebook: @ThousandIslandsPlayhouse X/Twitter: @TIPlayhouse Instagram: @thousandislandsplayhouse Previous Next

Back TH’OWXIYA: The Hungry Feast Dish by Joseph A. Dandurand Now onstage at Toronto's Young People's Theatre Javier R. Sotres Photography. These actors are not in this production, but this photo gives you an idea of the costumes. Joe Szekeres “A delightful First Nations tale. Amiable and genteel performances of its Indigenous storytellers are one of the highlights.” The traditional Coast Salish and Sto:lo music sets the stage for ‘Th:owxiya: The Hungry Feast Dish’ on the Ada Slaight stage. Th:owxiya is a giant spirit. In this production, the mouth of Th:owxiya’s statue holds lovely foods from around the world. However, if anyone steals from the mouth of the statue, they will pay a terrible price as Th:owxiya has developed a taste for children. A hungry Mouse (Cassandra Bourchier) takes a piece of cheese from Th:owxiya’s mouth and is caught. To appease the ire of Th:owxiya, the mouse must bring two children for her to eat before the second moon rises. If this does not occur, Th:owxiya will eat the mouse’s whole family. The mouse seeks assistance on her journey to trick Th:owxiya with the help of Raven (Damion Leclair), Bear (Braiden Houle) and Sasquatch (Danica Charlie). There’s quite an array of colourful objects, set pieces and props, thanks to Production Designer Jay Havens’ careful consideration in selecting these items. When I sat down in my seat, I scanned the stage, and some items caught my attention – one was the large spindle whorl near the back. The other was the statue of Th:owxiya. At first look, it doesn't appear very comforting. However, something is intriguing about the statue each time I look at it—extraordinary colours on both props. Havens’ set design compactly fits the Ada Slaight stage. Nothing appears cramped as the actors can maneuver around with ease of movement. The costumes are lovely. Damion Leclair’s Raven is remarkable from my seat in the house. The headpieces on Bourchier, Houle and Charlie uniquely give vibrancy to the animal characters they have created. For the most part, playwright Joseph Dandurand’s script uniquely captures the vernacular language of children, which will sustain interest in the story. There are moments, nevertheless, when some First Nations vocabulary is introduced that could be confusing for young viewers. I had to use the Vocabulary list provided in the Study Guide before and after seeing the show for clarification – for example: Sasq’ets (Sasquatch); Kw’at’el (Mouse); Sqeweqs (Raven); Theqa:t (tree); Spa:th (Bear); Sp’oq’es (Eagle); Chitmexw (Owl). Hopefully, if children are brought to school matinées, then teachers may want to review this vocabulary prior. Parents, if you do bring children unfamiliar with the vocabulary, you may want to ask for the vocabulary list. The underlying messages behind the story are important ones of overcoming adversity together and problem-solving. Young People’s Theatre also supports the Ancestral Teachings of First Nations. I’m pleased the company continues to fulfill this important connection, especially for those of us in the audience who want to know more about the culture. In this production, the teachings of Wisdom and Respect are reinforced. Chris McGregor’s direction and pacing succinctly capture the whimsy and curiosity of childhood. As an adult, I got caught up in the story. Kudos to McGregor’s vision of curiosity to include everyone in the audience. The strong actor ensemble remains committed to the moment and in the moment. Several child-participatory sections are fun to watch. The actors didn’t appear unnerved by the children’s responses. The cast instinctively knew what to do to maintain the focus and to get the story back on track when necessary. Final Comments: Charming! Creative! ‘Th’owxiya: The Hungry Feast Dish’ is another example of an appropriate storytelling moment in the First Nations culture. Even for adults like me who wish more First Nations stories were taught when I was in high school, this production provides teachable moments for adults who want to learn more. Thank You, Young People’s Theatre, for your continued work showcasing the stories and culture of First Nations. Running time: approximately 45 minutes with no intermission. There may be some Q and A sessions following the performance, so check when you book tickets. The production runs until November 6 on the Ada Slaight Stage at Toronto’s Young People’s Theatre, 165 Front Street East. For tickets, call the Box Office at 416-862-2222 x 2 or email at yptboxoffice@youngpeoplestheatre.org . To learn more about the theatre, visit www.youngpeoplestheatre.org . TH’OWXIYA: The Hungry Feast Dish An Axis Theatre Production Written by Joseph A. Dandurand Directed by Chris McGregor Production Designer: Jay Havens Music Composer: Marguerite Witvoet Stage Manager: Sophie Kaplan Performers: Meela Alexis, Cassandra Bourchier, Danica Charlie, Braiden Houle, Margo Kane, Damion LeClair Previous Next

Back 'The Complete Works of William Shakespeare' Abridged (Revised) (Again) Now on stage at the Scugog Shores Village and Museum, 16210 Island Road, Port Perry. Presented by Theatre on the Ridge Now on stage at the Scugog Shores Village and Museum, 16210 Island Road, Port Perry. Presented by Theatre on the Ridge Joe Szekeres ‘A wacky, laugh-out-loud journey through the Bard’s 37 plays. Plenty of smiles upon exiting the Theatre on the Ridge tent.' ‘The Complete Works of Willam Shakespeare’ (Abridged) involves hilariously shortened versions of all 37 of Shakespeare’s plays. Originally created by the Reduced Shakespeare Company founding members Adam Long, Daniel Singer and Jess Winfield, the play is meant to be performed by three actors. Director Andy Massingham loves to re-vision and re-imagine theatre. He chose proficiently not to follow the trio format with some slicing of the text here and there and has cast five agile performers whom he affectionately calls ‘The Marx Brothers’. Karly Friesen, Adrian Marchesano, Henry Oswald Peirson, Shannon Pitre, and Austin White perform this actor-driven play with joyful abandon and lightning speed. During my interview last week, Andy mentioned that the five-member cast is a pleasure to work with. Technically proficient, the actors are focused on not straying from the purpose of their performance—to recount Bard’s tales with merry humour. In his Director’s Note, Massingham also calls the cast ‘top-flight physically comic.’ They speak clearly and can be heard throughout the show, which is another bonus, thanks to Lyle Corrigan’s spot-on sound design. One of Massingham’s artistic foci is his understanding of the art form of clown. Watching these five youthful players emerge in this vein with a determined zest, they set out what they intended—to make us go to the theatre and have a good time. There are some adult language and situations, so this ‘Complete’ is not recommended for ages under 12. Less is more for this production, and Massingham made solid choices to keep the pace moving. The set is basic, and that’s all one needs. There are some movable crates and a chair. A specific entrance/exit with flaming red curtains is placed at the back of the stage. Because this is supposed to be a laugh-out-loud, feel-good show, Lyle Corrigan’s apt selection of pre-show entrance music (which has nothing to do with any of the plays) purposefully reflects this. Many props by Ari Leroux and Carey Nicholson and several well-timed, easy-to-slip-on-and-off costume changes are the order of the day and work well. It’s also essential to acknowledge Stage Manager Michael Williamson and assistant August Hofbauer, who have their work cut out to ensure the actors are where they should be when called. Why? Much of the humor comes from the timed entrances and exits of the actors. On the night I attended, Williamson was handling lighting duties, so Hofbauer would have been backstage, making sure everything was in its proper place. Reflecting on the years I taught some classic Shakespearean plays, I wish I had known about Long, Singer and Wingfield’s text. It’s intelligent, clever, naughty, bawdy, and playful fun. Massingham says in his Notes that the show is not for deep-dish intellectuals, even though there’s nothing wrong with that. It’s a celebration of laughter. I’m sure the deep-dish intellectuals love a good belly laugh now and then. I did. My guest did too. To try and describe what occurs during the show would be a disservice and spoil. You have to experience the community, the gathering and the laughter that can sometimes ensue from the theatre. That’s one of the reasons why we attend. Go and see “The Complete Works of William Shakespeare” Abridged (Revised) (Again). Running time: approximately one hour and 45 minutes with one interval/intermission. The production runs until August 24 at the Scugog Shores Village and Museum under the Theatre on the Ridge tent, 16210 Island Road, Port Perry. For tickets: theatreontheridge.ca, boxoffice@theatreontheridge.ca or call (905) 431-0977. THEATRE ON THE RIDGE presents THE COMPLETE WORKS OF WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE ABRIDGED (REVISED) (AGAIN) By Daniel Singer, Adam Long and Jess Winfield Directed by Andy Massingham Stage Manager and Lighting Design: Michael Williamson Assistant Stage Manager: August Hofbauer Fight and Movement Choreographer: Karly Friesen Sound Design: Lyle Corrigan Set/Production Design: the Company Props/Costume Construction: Ari Leroux, Carey Nicholson Props/Costume Coordinator: Isobel Robinson Performers: Karly Friesen, Adrian Marchesano, Henry Oswald Peirson, Shannon Pitre, Austin White Previous Next

Back Craig Francis Self Isolated Artist Julian Stamboulieh, Beanduck Productions Joe Szekeres The first time I saw Craig Francis’ name was in the programme for performing artist Rick Miller’s productions of ‘Boom’ in Montreal and ‘Jungle Book’ at Toronto’s Young People’s Theatre. I was pleased to learn as well that Craig was also following reviews from On Stage and the ‘Self-Isolated Artist’ series. Craig (he/him) is a writer, director, illustrator, and multidisciplinary creator. As a founding member of The 20K Collective, Craig co-created with Rick Miller the productions ‘Jungle Book’, ‘Twenty Thousand Leagues Under The Sea’, and ‘Game of Clones’, and he is adapting ‘Frankenstein’ with Rick Miller and Paul Van Dyck. He's a producer, dramaturg, and Stage Manager for Miller's solo works: the BOOM, BOOM X, and BOOM YZ trilogy (Kidoons/WYRD/Theatre Calgary). He performs improv comedy, and theatre credits include ‘The Refugee Hotel’ (Teesri Duniya). Craig’s animated digital shorts for the Kidoons Network and Not-for-Profit Organizations are seen by millions of viewers and are installed in museums in four Provinces. Craig lives in Montréal, has illustrated several books, and voiced games and animated series. How have you been keeping during this artist isolation period with no clear end in sight for the performer? I just hit 120 days isolation! That's a lot. Overall, though, I feel grateful and enormously fortunate. I had surgery for cancer in my leg in December and was pronounced all-clear before the pandemic hit, so I really feel for the people in the throes of other illnesses or suspended treatments during this time. The first shows I came back to in February 2020 were our Kidoons productions of Rick Miller's BOOM Off-Broadway, and Jungle Book at Young People's Theatre, which both had excellent theatres and audiences, and were well-received (including by yourself – thanks!). What has been most challenging and difficult for you during this time? What have you all been doing to keep yourselves busy? The most challenging thing has been moving my creative effort into new projects, and then finding their development also postponed. We had even cast our next project for rehearsal. I feel like I've gone through the Kübler-Ross "Five Stages Of Grief"... sometimes all in one day! There was the suspension of our Jungle Book run, then the remainder of the season, then the fall season for our 4 touring productions.... now we're looking at a solid year dark. Sometimes 2020 feels like a dream where you're standing on the side of a mountain and seeing a snowball rolling towards you, and it's getting larger and larger, in slow motion. But it's not snow, it's shit. And the mountain is also made of shit. The silver lining is getting to be off the road and back in Montreal with my husband, for the longest stretch in years. As well, all my biological family is in BC, and ironically, I've been seeing them more than ever before, as everyone learned video calling. I also recently upped my training with a terrific GhostLight directing class with Jillian Keiley. I will be creating the design of our third family production Frankenstein as a graphic novel. Most of my work is optimistically forward-looking, but some is deliberate distraction. Yet somehow RuPaul managed to foresee that need for distraction, and give us three overlapping series of Drag Race. Craig, I remember Rick saying one of the hardest things he had to do was to let the actors know from the touring company of ‘The Jungle Book’ that the production tour has been cancelled. In your estimation and opinion, do you foresee COVID 19 and its results leaving a lasting impact on the Canadian performing arts and theatre scene? That was a bad moment; and we had to do it a second time for a different show, also cancelled. "Decimated" is not too strong a word, as one in ten artists or companies may not come back from this. It's not just us creators and performers who're suspended, but also the designers and technicians and crew who would work on the runs and tours. Further, given that programming happens 16 or months out or more, when our industry reopens, AD's will have to choose whether to run previously suspended shows or create new ones, but either way half the artists who might have expected to be in that season, won't be. Beyond that, how performers perform intimacy may well change; I think we've all had that pandemic experience of watching a TV show where someone is touching someone else's face and you scream at the screen "DON'T TOUCH THAT PERSON! Oh, for the love of God, now DON'T TOUCH YOUR OWN FACE!" We may well see a glut of COVID-isolation pieces and political tragedies, so I think my next script will be something maximalist, fun, and stupid. Meantime, online I'll be pursuing our video collaborations with Not-for-Profit Organizations, to help them tell their stories online. Do you have any words of wisdom to console or to build hope and faith in those performing artists who have been hit hard as a result of COVID 19? Any words of sage advice to the new graduates from Canada’s theatre schools regarding this fraught time of confusion? I would say it's a good time to practice self-care that is too often overlooked in the rush of this art form; to reconnect with the people who really matter, and to find your people. I recently looked out an old quote by Armistead Maupin that I love, about chosen family: "Sooner or later, though, no matter where in the world we live, we must join the diaspora, venturing beyond our biological family to find our logical one, the one that actually makes sense for us." Do you foresee anything positive stemming from COVID 19 and its influence on the Canadian performing arts scene? I do. The conversations I've been listening to in support of Back Lives Matter, and The Indigenous Circle, and the Queer community, might not previously have the opportunity to bloom, because under normal circumstances someone would go, "We don't have time to think about this, we have to get a show up and open!" Now, everyone has time to think. From better social justice to better backstage hygiene, we may come out of this with some new best practices. YouTube presentations, online streaming seems to be part of a ‘new normal’ at this time for artists to showcase their work. Nevertheless, I’ve spoken with some individuals who believe that online streaming or YouTube presentations destroy the impact of the moment of a group of people who have gathered with anticipation in one sitting to watch a particular production. What are your thoughts and comments about the advantages and/or values of online streaming? Do you foresee this as part of the ‘new normal’ for Canadian theatre as we move forward from COVID 19? With Kidoons productions, Rick Miller, and Irina Litvinenko, I already create digital shorts that help Not-for-Profit organizations deliver narrative content. That is not theatre, but it's creative storytelling that's very fulfilling to me, and also lets me pursue my visual art. Thanks to the covid-response streaming of theatre, my family in the UK has been able to see our "Jungle Book" and "Twenty Thousand Leagues Under The Sea" productions on Broadway On Demand, and I have also watched pieces that I otherwise wouldn't have been able to access. Of course, the best of these were filmed for cinemas, and so aren't really theatre. Filming in front of a live audience helps, but there's a shared energy in the room that can't be duplicated. Some theatre-makers have possibly been naïve, going "We're going to figure out how performance could work on social media!" as if there weren't an established ecosystem of performers doing that already. But one piece that I have enjoyed is using social to complement the production as outreach and behind-the-scenes process, generating interest in the art of theatre itself. I hope that continues. I have participated in a few readings on Zoom, and as a playwright I hope this will remain as a viable, non-public way to hear text delivered by terrific actors, for accessible work-in-progress performances and feedback. As far as "real live theatre" goes, I am optimistic people that will want to buy tickets and return as soon as possible. What is it about the performing arts that COVID will never destroy? The delight of a performer and audience in a room all suspending their disbelief at the same time, to create a shared reality. With a respectful acknowledgement to ‘Inside the Actors’ Studio’ and the late James Lipton, here are ten questions he used to ask his guests: 1. What is your favourite word? Kerfuffle 2. What is your least favourite word? deadline 3. What turns you on? A well-turned phrase well delivered. Failing that, Henry Cavill. 4. What turns you off? Using "gifted" as a verb; what did the word "gave" ever do to you? 5. What sound or noise do you love? Wind in leaves. 6. What sound or noise bothers you? The squeak of Styrofoam® packaging makes every hair on my body stand on end. 7. What is your favourite curse word? Fuckface What is your least favourite curse word? Homophobic slurs, anything demeaning because of gender or sexuality. Stick with fuckface. Or maybe asshole, everybody's got one. 8. Other than your current profession now, what other profession would you have liked to attempt? Muppeteer. 9. What profession could you not see yourself doing? Anything involving driving, I let my license expire because I'm really... not great. 10. If Heaven exists, what do you hope God will say to you as you approach the Pearly Gates? “Your friends are waiting for you downstairs.” To learn more about Kidoons, visit: www.kidoons.com . Previous Next

Back 'Jungle Book', A New Adaptation Young People's Theatre YPT Site Joe Szekeres I’m hoping I’m not that old in pointing out how we’ve all watched the dancing, singing and cuteness version of Disney’s ‘The Jungle Book’. Whenever I’ve seen the film advertised on television, it’s always Baloo’s memorable ditty to Mowgli, “Look for the Bare Necessities”. There’s nothing wrong with this adaptation as it introduces Rudyard Kipling’s stories of Mowgli, the wolf boy, to new audiences. However, don’t allow Disney to be the only experience you have of this story. An exciting, colourful and eye-catching production of ‘Jungle Book’ from creators Craig Francis and Rick Miller opened at Young People’s Theatre with theatrical flair and musical excitement right from the top of the show. According to the release, this production is part of a North American tour after a recent appearance in New York. Four rousing actors entered grandly from the house and moved their way down to the stage in a fanfare of audience participation that even the adults around me clapped along in fun filled unison with the kids. And I was taken on a wild adventure ride through an immersive technology and multimedia to the urban jungle of Mowgli’s childhood in the forests of India. I loved every minute of it and am pleased it’s playing here for just over a month. For me, this touring production was magical as it took me back fondly to my childhood when I first read Rudyard Kipling’s tale. The set design consisted of three see through scrims. Behind the scrims, there is a large rectangular raised platform with a large white hanging screen which I’m assuming will be to view projections throughout the show. Rebecca Picherack’s lighting design was fascinating at the top of the show as the swirl of red and green was intriguing to watch. The reflection through the scrim made it appear as if water was nearby. Irina Litvinenko’s multimedia designs are exquisite to the eyes. Ms. Litvinenko’s work in capturing the fast-paced world of New York City where the adult Mowgli (Levin Valayil) is an architect is exquisite. The multimedia designs colourfully and cleverly place us in the richness verdant jungle where such characters as Shere Khan, Bagheera and Kaa inhabit and roam. What is also remarkably dazzling to watch are the use of puppets co-designed by Astrid Janson and Melanie McNeill. I’ve always been fascinated with puppetry as part of theatre, and the extraordinary creations of these two women is astounding. Make sure you pay careful attention to Tahirih Vejani as Kaa, the snake. With the puppet, she slithers in front of the audience with the elongated ‘s’ sound sinisterly sibilating in her voice as the puppet slithers in front of the audience at one point. Under a guiding vision of dignity for life in co-direction by Messrs. Francis and Miller, this ‘Jungle Book’ gently balances the theme of Respect in exploration of the consequences of colonialism and continuing human domination of the animal world. The four principal ensemble players merrily bring to life (through songs by composer Suba Sankaran and clever lyrics by Kipling/Miller and Francis) several of the famous characters whom we have come to know. Levin Valayil is a charming and affable adult and architect Mowgli who leaps and moves around the stage with gusto. And can he ever sing and hold a musical note. I especially liked Mr. Valayil’s work in the adorable young boy puppet of Mowgli. I heard some audience members around me along with some children utter and affectionate, “Aaaahhhh”. Matt Lacas becomes a comfortable, genial teddy bear as Baloo, the sloth bear. His relationship with the young Mowgli in teaching him to become more than just a wolf boy is sweet. As the panther, Bagheera, who is out to protect the young Mowgli, Mina James is solid in her work as she contorts her body to an animalistic pose in the puppetry costume she dons. FINAL COMMENTS: There is rapturous joy in this ‘Jungle Book’. It’s a definite go to and must see for the family. It’s here for Family Day and the March Break, perfect for day or evening shows. Performance runs approximately 65 minutes. There will be some Q and A sessions following certain shows. Photo of Levin Valayil as the adult Mowgli by Rick Miller. JUNGLE BOOK Runs on the Mainstage to March 21 at Young People’s Theatre, 165 Front Street East. For tickets, call the Box Office (416) 862-2222 or visit www.youngpeoplestheatre.org . Written & Directed by Craig Francis & Rick Miller. Adapted from the Works of Rudyard Kipling. Produced by Kidoons and WYRD Productions in association with The 20K Collective. Creative Team: Co-creator/Director/Stage Manager (select performances: Craig Francis); Co-creator/Director/Production Manager: Rick Miller; Production Manger/Technical Director: James Kendal; Stage Manager: Andrew Dollar; Set/Costume/Props Puppets Co-Designers: Astrid Janson and Melanie McNeill; Lighting Designer: Rebecca Picherack; Multimedia Designe: Irina Litvinenko; Sound Designer/Composer: Debashis Sinha; Puppetry Consultant: Frank Meschkuleit; Song Lyrics: Kipling/Miller/Francis; Original Song Composer: Suba Sankaran; Shadow Puppetry Consultant: Eric Woolfe; Fight Consultant: Siobhan Richardson; Cast: Mina James, Matt Lacas, Levin Valayil, Tahirih Vejdani Previous Next

Back Adrian Marchuk and Jeff Madden "When you put it all together, Frankie Valli just had “it” - and people will always recognize that “it” factor when they see and hear it." Courtesy of Adrian Marchuk and Jeff Madden Joe Szekeres A recent email conversation with Jeff Madden and Adrian Marchuk clarified how their personal lives and professional artistic careers must be well-planned in this sometimes challenging and uncertain performing arts industry. Throughout this weaving web of gigs, shows, auditions, and discussion, what’s the most essential element in their lives? They are, first and foremost, family men. I like that. They are currently touring in the concert show ‘How We Got to Jersey - A Tale of Two Frankies.’ I love the title because it says it all. I saw Madden’s work as Frankie Valli several years ago in ‘Jersey Boys’ when it played at the North York Performing Arts Centre. I haven’t seen Marchuk’s work yet, but I look forward to attending the upcoming concert show in the next leg of its journey. Adrian and Jeff call themselves theatre guys. The former calls himself a theatre guy who loves creating, rehearsing, and performing in the medium. He loves bringing joy to a live audience during the show and receiving immediate feedback as an artist. Marchuk says, " [Theatre] is where I first felt really safe and where I like myself.” Jeff says he, too, is a theatre animal and where he’s most at home. Nevertheless, he also realizes the only way to make work and earn a living as a performing artist in Toronto is to be available – and able- to do all kinds of work. Madden has worked on some television shows, voice-over gigs and commercials. He’s also just completed recording his first audiobook, which he says was fun. But he loves theatre so much. Adrian began creating his own work about ten years into his career. He has four concert shows in his ‘Broadway Biographies’ series, all of which go behind the scenes to explore the life and work of the greatest composers of Broadway and Hollywood, including Andrew Lloyd Webber, Alan Menken (of Disney fame), Richard Rodgers, and Harold Arlen. Jeff was involved in the Toronto production of ‘Come From Away’ before the pandemic shut it down. He also put together his first solo cabaret show, ‘My Life In Song’ and performed it a few times around the city with the great pianist David Atkinson. A few years later, Jeff created and performed his follow-up solo cabaret - My Life In Song - Act 2 during the pandemic, as a means of creating work for himself and lifting his spirits when the entire performing arts industry shut down. What about Frankie Valli’s music keeps drawing audiences to hear the songs? Jeff suggests that, in some ways, Pop music today is still quite like Pop music from the 1960s. It has a good, strong, up-tempo beat that makes you want to dance, incredible melodies that are earworms, pleasing harmonies, and great lyrics that tell the stories of finding love, struggling in a relationship, losing love, and hoping for love. He also adds that maybe it’s Frankie’s unique voice, with his piercing falsetto, which is sometimes playful and exuding joy and sometimes growling with yearning passion. Perhaps it was the 10-piece band with a killer horn section. Maybe it’s because they kept recreating themselves musically, with their hits spanning through the teeny-bop era, the more sophisticated mid-60s pop-rock, the late-60s psychedelic-tinged classic rock, and even into the disco era of the mid-1970s. These guys were incredible, charismatic men of the times. How did the concept of ‘How We Got to Jersey – A Tale of Two Frankies’ germinate? Over the years, Adrian and Jeff have been asked to perform material from ‘Jersey Boys’ at events nationwide - even internationally. And sometimes, they’ve performed together with a couple of other guys at a corporate event. Jeff said the guys were killing time backstage one night before a show, talking about all the tribute acts and touring shows performing some of this iconic material. And he remembers just kind of casually blurting out rather off-the-cuff that they should put their own show together. Madden added further: “We didn’t exactly jump at the idea right away, but this particular idea stuck in the back of my mind. I remember thinking we were the OG Frankies in Canada; it would be hard to top what we could bring to the table.” Adrian recalled being approached by the folks at Abbey Gardens, a venue in Haliburton, who were aware of the kinds of shows he already produced. The Abbey Gardens folks had a date they wanted him to come and do a show, and he pitched them a few ideas. They didn’t jump at his first couple of ideas. But then, out of the blue, Marchuk pitched the idea for this concert show of the ‘Two Frankies’: “When they [The Abbey Gardens folks] jumped at it, suddenly I was like, “Oh, crap! I better find out if Jeff is available!”. Thankfully, he was, despite his insanely busy schedule, and we got right to work. After that, the show came together quickly - we both had the same clear idea of how we wanted the show to take shape. We got it ready for its first performance in three months, which is fast!” ‘How We Got to Jersey’ is not just songs strung together. Adrian reiterated it’s his and Jeff’s story, their relationship with each other, and this career, all told through their experience of the insane roller coaster that was and is ‘Jersey Boys.’ Adrian re-iterates that, as opposed to fully staged musicals, concert shows are a bit easier to put up in a short amount of time, which means they can pick the show up and bring it anywhere. The show's intimacy and its direct, honest, and exciting connection with the audience is thrilling. Jeff further adds to Adrian’s thought: “[The show] is a bit of a hybrid piece - it could be considered a concert show, a tribute act, even a book musical. I’m most proud of how we tell our personal story, and how we use over 25 pieces of music - songs made famous by Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons - to help us tell our story. Some songs are used simply as underscoring; some are sung in part, and some in whole. Some have new arrangements; some are performed in the traditional arrangements you know and love.” But what about life on the road and away from their families? Marchuk says one of the main themes in “How We Got to Jersey” is the struggle to find the ideal work-life balance between being a performer and being a parent. Madden and Marchuk are both very dedicated to their families and their art. They’re both the stay-at-home parents to their kiddos, so doing an eight-show week or travelling across the country to work would be challenging. These shorter runs are an excellent way for them to have their cake and eat it, too! Both men agree that the responses to the show have gone far beyond their expectations. The script is funny, personal, and interesting, and it draws the audience into the story. Audiences might be expecting that it’s a tribute act, but "How We Got to Jersey” is more than just that. Jeff and Adrian hope for full houses for seven upcoming shows at Theatre Aquarius on June 6 for one show, Theatre Collingwood on June 11-14 for five, and Abbey Gardens on June 22 for one show, so please go to their websites and grab tickets! What’s next for these two talented gentlemen outside the concert show? Adrian teaches voice privately out of his studio in Toronto and continues to write new shows. He's working on one about George Michael and another about Kafka that one is non-musical - that he hopes to get up and running sometime next year. He has a tour of one of his Broadway Biographies shows happening in the fall of 2024 - Any Dream Will Do: The Music of Andrew Lloyd Webber will play in Markham, Barrie, and Oakville in early October 2024. Jeff says he might rejoin the Toronto cast of a particularly successful, long-running Canadian musical about the kindness that an east coast community showed to travellers from afar in late September 2001. You know, the show with three words in the title and a blue and yellow poster with the planet Earth spinning on it. Previous Next

Welcome to Profiles “A friendly check-in on professional and equity-based theatre artists .” Profiles Gallery Elena Belyea Meghan Lindsay Andy Massingham Kim Blackwell Chris Tolley and Laura Mullin Linda Kash Megan Follows Jamar Adams Thompson Eponine Lee Rob Kempson Rose Napoli Frances Koncan Iain Moggach Lynn Slotkin Rodrigo Beilfuss Arkady Spivak Brett Christopher Naishi Wang and Jean Abreu Soheil Parsa Gregory Prest Damien Atkins Eric Woolfe Michael Man Sergio Di Zio Katie Kerr and Matt Stodolak Paul Constable and Steve Ross Louise Lecavalier Maev Beaty Shauna Thompson Gerard Gauci Michael Mori Slava Polunin Ins Choi Cliff Cardinal Rebecca Northan 郝邦宇 Steven Hao Walter Borden Matt Baram and Naomi Snieckus Dawn Jani Birley and Ramesh Mayyappan Jeremy Smith Marie Beath Badian - Playwright Lucie Arnaz Luckinbill Krystin Pellerin Tracy Michailidis Tim Leyes_edited_edited Rick Miller Pamela Mala Sinha John Ng Love You Wrong Time 1 - Photo Credit Erin Brubacher (1)_edited Joelle Peters Colin Ainsworth Show More

Back Lesson in Forgetting, English Language Premiere Pleiades Theatre, Young Centre for the Performing Arts Cylla von Tiedemann Joe Szekeres Sometimes, works of artistry defy commentary. In the right hands of a committed artistic team, live theatre is skillfully crafted to become either beautifully cerebral and/or sharply felt within the heart. This is Pleiades Theatre’s ‘Lesson in Forgetting’. But I will do my best to comment. I attended this production with a friend who was intrigued as I was. We dissected as many theatrical elements of the production during the car ride all the way back to Oshawa following and then wondered if we were doing justice and being fair regarding this extraordinary presentation. If anything, we hope there might be future talkbacks (at least one?) for future audiences as the depth and breadth of this, what I will call, ‘mystical production’ remains with me even as I write at this moment. HE (a stunning, marvelous performance by Andrew Moodie) has suffered a massive brain trauma as a result of a car crash some years earlier. At the top of the show, we hear the crash so a possible trigger warning for future audiences. Ever since, the only thing HE can remember is how much he loves his wife SHE (immeasurably poignant and emotional character arc work by Ma-Anne Dionisio). SHE is confined to caring for him for the rest of her days and wishes nothing more than for him to forget that he loves her so that she might yet start over on her own path of life. Initially Reese Cowley as the Narrator puzzled me. Why is the person there? I needed to sit overnight on this question. When I re-read Ash Knight’s Director’s Programme note, then it suddenly made sense to me. Cowley’s confident performance at the top of the show where we are introduced to these two characters is noteworthy. The Narrator becomes the split in SHE’s mind and (spoiler alert for the rest of this paragraph), thus the reason why SHE is dressed in red and the Narrator is dressed in white. SHE has been broken and bleeding for so long as she does what she can to be of assistance to HE. The Narrator becomes that split in SHE’s mind as she is constantly wondering if there is something else for her beyond the struggles she now faces. How often have each of us wondered about this when we believe we can’t deal with our own personal struggles and challenges? Jackie Chau advantageously places the set in the middle of the auditorium with the audience on both sides. This sense of free flow allows for actor maneuverability and for the audience to be drawn immediately into the story action. Stages left and right are mirrors of each other as we see rectangular risers and boxes placed equidistant from each other. Marissa Orjalo’s selection of eerily sounding music coupled with Arun Srinivasan spectral lighting design foreshadows unearthly and metaphysical visions and movement. I loved that feeling of anticipation in hearing something and then wondering what might occur shortly. Denyse Karn’s Projection designs are breathtaking to watch as they appear so true to life that I felt like I wanted to reach out and feel the leaves falling into my hands. At one point, when SHE mentions how everything just stopped after the accident, the falling leaves are perfectly timed to cease at that moment. Exhilarating to watch and to take it all in visually. Jackie Chau’s costume designs suitably reflect the other worldliness captured in her set design. Dionisio majestically utilizes her deep red dress in a definitive, regal like movement. Moodie’s subtle earth tones of matching pajamas, beige housecoat and comfortable looking slippers offer a visual juxtaposition of two individuals who care deeply for each other but are worlds apart on account of the trauma and its aftermath. According to Andrey Tarasiuk, Pleiades’s Artistic Director, Haché’s script is super poetic and delicately written. How veritably true is this statement. Periodically, I found myself closing my eyes and just listening and hearing each spoken word of the text delivered with clarity, definition and understanding. Not once did Moodie or Dionisio’s monologue delivery ever sounded rushed. They instinctively allowed the words to speak and to sound what they mean and infer, an important task for all good actors to attain. To me, it appeared Director Ash Knight tenderly cares very much about the three individuals in this production. Might I even say he loves this piece as he asks us, in his Director’s Programme Note, if love is enough because by going deeper into the complexities of love between this man and woman, we realize love’s complexity challenges our minds and hearts. Both Ma-Anne and Andrew are certainly up for this challenge. I had the chance to interview her a few weeks ago and asked her how rehearsals are going. She stated the piece is a wonderful observation about the vulnerability and fragility of the human mind and heart, and the human spirit. And it is, but I’ll go one step further. What makes this production memorable for me is Knight’s vision in centering real grounded performances from Dionisio and Moodie. One example occurred in the dancing choreographed by Nicola Pantin. From my seat in the house, just watching Ma-Anne and Andrew move and sway themselves, their bodies and, ultimately, their souls in time with the music and with each other was sensually and sensitively arranged through Intimacy Director’s Siobhan Richardson’s coaching. There was nothing erotic or sexy about the dancing or movement between HE and SHE. It’s all about that spiritual and soulful connection we all wish to have in our lives, and that made the dancing bewitching to view. Again, in her recent interview with me, Dionisio reiterated how she has trained herself for the work to come through her, and never making it about her. How true this statement is for both actors. Never once during the heightened, tender, anguished, and wrenching emotions did either of them ever venture over the top into unbelievable melodramatic emoting, not once. Near the end of the production, I felt a gasp of breath as if I had been slapped in the face when we learn something about HE from SHE, but Dionisio moves forward as if to say it’s important to know, but going forward is it really worth it to know and to remember? Final Comments: There is a line from the play that resonated with me and I wrote it down in the dark hoping I could decipher it later: ‘Your body has forgotten desire, but not love.” In her playwright’s Progamme Note, Emma Haché asks of us if love is sufficient given what we may encounter in our lives? What kind of love then? Familial love, selfless love, unconditional love? Questions upon questions upon questions….but that’s what makes good theatre. This ‘Lesson in Forgetting’ is good theatre. Running Time: approximately 75 minutes with no intermission Masks in effect at the Theatre Production runs to May 22 in the Michael Young Theatre at the Young Centre for the Performing Arts, 50 Tank House Lane, Toronto. For tickets, visit www.youngcentre.ca or call 1-416-866-8666. LESSON IN FORGETTING by Emma Haché Translated by Taliesin McEnaney with John Van Burek Commissioned by Pleiades Theatre Director: Ash Knight Choreographer: Nicola Pantin Set & Costume Design: Jackie Chau Lighting Design: Arun Srinivasan Projection Design: Denyse Karn Sound Design & Composition: Marissa Orjalo Intimacy Director: Siobhan Richardson Stage Manager: Laura Lakatosh Production Manager & Technical Director: Madeline McKinnell Performers: Reese Cowley, Ma-Anne Dionisio, Andrew Moodie Previous Next

Back 'The Musical of Musicals: The Musical' by Eric Rockwell and Joanne Bogart Presented by Theatre on the Ridge and now on stage at the Scugog Shores Museum Village, 16210 Island Road, Port Perry. Credit: Shannon Widdis L-R: Steven Suepaul, David Cardinal, Laura Murphy, Kayla Rankine Guest writer Geoffrey Coulter actor, director, adjudicator, arts educator "Opening night wobbles still make ‘The Musical of Musicals: The Musical’ a fluffy, fantastical farce of a show." Who doesn’t like a good musical?" Who doesn’t like a show that parodies good musicals? Port Perry’s Theatre on the Ridge continues its summer festival with Eric Rockwell and Joanne Bogarts’s crafty parody ‘The Musical of Musicals: The Musical’ that walks a fine line between poking fun at and paying homage to some of the most popular composers of the twentieth century. You don’t have to be a musical theatre fan to enjoy this production’s luscious lampooning of Broadway’s best – but it’d certainly help if you are. The small-scale musical is a good fit for the company’s outdoor venue, requiring only a single set, one piano, a few props and four actors. It’s structured into five acts: ‘Corn!’ (parodying Rodgers and Hammerstein), ‘A Little Complex’ (Stephen Sondheim), ‘Dear Abby’ (Jerry Herman musicals in the manner of HELLO, DOLLY and LA CAGE AUX FOLLES), ‘Aspects of Juanita’ (Andrew Lloyd Webber) and ‘Speakeasy’ (the bawdy, gritty world of Kander and Ebb). Each revue-style sketch is essentially the same, centering around youthful ingenue June (Laura Murphy), who can’t pay the rent to her villainous landlord, Jitter (Steven Suepaul/David Cardinal). Will her boyfriend/admirer Willy (David Cardinal/Steven Suepaul) come to her rescue? And what good advice will her older friend/neighbour Abby (Kayla Rankine) be able to offer? This opening-night production is a lot of fun. It features tuneful songs, jokes, and groans aplenty performed by a dedicated cast that really sells the shenanigans. The format steals from the ‘Forbidden Broadway’ series mocking mega-musicals since the early 1980s. Make no mistake – you need to know your musicals to get the gist of what’s going on. Fortunately, I do – mostly. Unlike ‘Forbidden Broadway’ which replaces recognized classic tunes with hilarious new lyrics, ‘Musical’s’ tunes are skewed, played as ‘sound-alike’ versions – similar to the original without being the original. This is where the non-musical theatre folks may be left scratching their heads and wondering what show is being riffed. Additionally, the five vignettes segue into each other without the benefit of a narrator or storyteller. I was missing some pre-show context, pouring over the program in vain, looking for something to identify each segment, composer and song being roasted. If you don’t know your musicals well, this omission might confuse. Though initially clever, this follow-through threadbare theme of not being able to pay the rent starts to feel strained, obvious and contrived by the end of the first act. What the book and music lack in structure, the cast and artistic team more than make up for in enthusiasm and a dedicated desire for everyone to have a good time, themselves included. Carey Nicholson’s set design is simple and functional – an upstage framed curtain lit like a theatre marquee provided practical entrances and exits. While occasionally wobbly, the frame effectively masked the backstage area. Small props such as chairs, easels, and shoes (to name only a few) are easily brought off and on. Nicholson does triple duty as costume designer, placing the performers in a simple base of black T-shirts, dresses and pants. From here, the cast adroitly slip in and out of additional hats, vests, capes (again to name a few), identifying their musical personas and variations from one vignette to the next. Lyle Corrigan’s direction is fast-paced and fun. He places his dynamic cast effectively on the stage and has coached them well on when to ham it up, go more tongue-in-cheek or just bask in the silliness. I appreciated the upstage riser, providing levels in various scenes. Hats off to Corrigan’s unabashed inclusion of the backstage crew as on-stage helpers, dangling strings of plastic birds and swinging a plastic chandelier before crashing down to the stage. I am not a fan of backstage crew visible during a show, but I almost wanted to see more in this campy sendup. Corrigan’s lighting design is a kaleidoscope of colours and hues, aptly enhancing the mood in each scene. Musical Director Carol Salamone is a star on the keyboard. Not only is her accompaniment spot on, but she also deftly creates excellent ensemble harmonies and ensures focused, clear articulation on vowels during solos and duets. Karin Mahoney’s choreography nicely enhances each segment simply and effectively. However, the finale ‘Done’, a parody of ‘One’ from ‘A Chorus Line’ disappointingly lacked precision compared to some other numbers. Undoubtedly, this cast of uber-talented community theatre veterans will prop up the pace and find their stride as performances continue. As ingenue June, Laura Murphy is sweet and innocent with a pretty voice and spot on comedic timing. Her ‘Liza with a Z’ spoof in Act 2 garners lots of laughs. David Cardinal as boyfriend Willy and evil landlord Jitter is a formidable and funny baritone. His country-bumpkin romantic lead as he riffs ‘Oklahoma’ in the opening Act 1 number ‘Corn’ is delightfully goofy. Steven Suepaul, also playing Jitter and boyfriend Willy, is hilarious without taking himself one bit seriously. He seizes his villainous personas with glee – a great voice and lively to watch. Kayla Rankine as Abby has a joyful command of all her over-the-top characters (LOVED her ‘Follow Your Dream’ in the style of ‘The Sound of Music’ and her delicious ‘Did I Put Out Enough’ in the style of ‘Mame’). Rankine shows her full range as a dramatic soprano and powerhouse belter. The cast work well together, and all have tremendous power in their vocals; however, when the entire ensemble of mic-ed-up big voices starts belting out their tunes, the amplification is a tad overpowering, sadly sacrificing some of the intimacy. The Theatre on the Ridge tent has great acoustics. I’m sure these voices would sound fine without enhancement in such a small space. ‘Musical of Musicals: the Musical’ requires some serious staying power and extended energy levels from this cast. Keeping this train rolling at full steam for almost two hours is no easy feat. The cast lost much of its steam on this opening night throughout the second act. Like a tire with a slow leak, scenes seemed to be moving slower, and cues were not as tight. Again, I’m sure the pace will become propped up once the run catches its breath and shows continue. Despite its structural flaws, Theatre on the Ridge’s production of ‘The Musical of Musicals: the Musical’ is hugely enjoyable. It’s a fluffy, fantastical farce with a cast that shines individually and as a group. If you’re a musical theatre buff, you’ll find this show a gem of clever lyrics, puns and stabs at some of the most prolific composers. Summer theatre the way it should be. Running time: approximately one hour and 45 minutes with one interval/intermission. ‘The Musical of Musicals: The Musical’ runs until July 27 at the Scugog Shores Museum Village, 16210 Island Road, Port Perry. For tickets: theatreontheridge.ca or call (905) 431-0977. THEATRE ON THE RIDGE presents ‘The Musical of Musicals: The Musical!’ by Eric Rockwell and Joanne Bogart Directed by Lyle Corrigan Musical Director/Pianist: Carol Salamone Choreographer: Karin Mahoney Lighting Design: Lyle Corrigan Lighting Operator: Ari Leroux Sound Design: Lyle Corrigan Sound Operators: Lyle Corrigan and August Hofbauer Props/Costume Design: Carey Nicholson Stage Manager: Amanda Cook Performers: David Cardinal, Laura Murphy, Kayla Rankine, Steven Suepaul Previous Next

Back Rebecca Northan "Improvisation is completely alive, completely responsive. There's honesty, a sense of permission and relief." Both photos courtesy of Rebecca Northan Joe Szekeres At the height of the pandemic three years ago, I had the opportunity to Zoom with actor and improvisation artist Rebecca Northan. You can find our conversation link here: https://www.onstageblog.com/profiles/2021/1/31/theatre-conversation-in-a-covid-world-with-rebecca-northan. Fast forward three years and our conversation continued. She’s a busy lady but enjoying every second of it. Rebecca has just closed ‘The Applecart’ and ‘The Game of Love and Chance’ at the Shaw Festival. What else is coming up for her? Not in performance since the pandemic, ‘Blind Date’ returns to Regina’s Globe Theatre on October 18. ‘GOBLIN: MACBETH’ opens October 14 in the Studio Theatre at the Stratford Festival. She will write and direct JACK: A BEANSTALK PANTO this holiday season, which opens November 24 and runs to December 23 at the Capitol Theatre in Port Hope. Northan calls GOBLIN: MACBETH a very new show. It has never been performed in Ontario. It was developed in 2022 for The Shakespeare Company in Calgary and described on its website as: “[a] theatrical experience not soon to be forgotten. It is a three-hander, mash-up [whereby] audiences are brought to the edge of the seat for a ‘spontaneous theatre’ experience.” At Stratford, the show features musician Ellis Lalonde, Northan, and Bruce Horak, her creative partner, who have all performed the show out in western Canada. Northan and Horak have been making shows for over thirty years. What’s the ‘mini story’ behind ‘GOBLIN: MACBETH? These creatures have found a copy of ‘The Complete Works of William Shakespeare’ and have read it cover to cover. They wonder who this Shakespeare guy is as he knows a lot about witches, fairies, goblins, and monsters. If the Goblins try to do theatre (and they’re unconvinced it’s a good idea, but they’ll try), they may understand more about humans. They chose ‘Macbeth’ because it’s the shortest. Rebecca and I agreed the Scottish play is terrific for high school students as they seem to love the witches, blood, gore, and murder. She even goes as far as to call it one of our perfect plays: “It’s got everything. It’s dark, scary, sensational. There’s something watching the train wreck of blind ambition.” As a retired teacher, I know the importance of getting kids to like Shakespeare. What better way to do that than to take them to a live production? Rebecca stated that she, Horak and Lalonde have performed ‘GOBLIN’ for student matinees in Calgary and at Vancouver’s Bard on the Beach. She compares performing for students to a rock concert. Rebecca and Bruce adore Shakespeare and remain respectfully faithful to Macbeth’s text. However, the two come from an improvisation background. Along with Lalonde, according to Rebecca, the three of them have ‘an internal permission’ to break out of the text at any time if something occurs to them. They can do this if that improv moment highlights something in the play, is directly related to it, or what’s happening in the audience at any given time. As actors, they are responsive to what’s happening in the room. Young people at student matinees don’t know what to expect; however, combined with the appearance of the Goblins and all the ensuing hijinks that follow, the students all wonder what this play is they’re watching. “That’s how we won them over,” Rebecca stated with an accomplished tone. I’m sure what the three of them accomplish for the student shows also applies to the other performances. Three words came to mind when I saw the Bard on the Beach trailer for ‘GOBLIN’ – creepy, eerie, but fascinating. Northan loved these three descriptors and said they’re apt for the production. What caught my eye immediately in the trailer was the Goblin mask she, Lalonde and Horak wear. These single silicone headpieces, which fit snugly to the face, are made by ‘Composite Effects’ in the States. The picture above next to Northan's headshot shows the three actors in costume. There is some articulation for the three actors, and the masks move slightly. For Rebecca, these headpieces are: ‘wearable works of art. There are veins in the headpiece and depth to them. They’re quite remarkable.” What is it about improvisation in GOBLIN and in the upcoming holiday panto for Port Hope’s Capitol Theatre that makes for great theatre? “It’s completely alive, completely responsive. There’s honesty, a sense of permission and relief. Improv lets the audience know they’re seen. I think, especially after two years of the pandemic (which we say is over, but it’s not), of being disconnected to having an experience where the performers see you and connect with you is so essential. It is the thing that live theatre can offer that nothing on your laptop or streaming device can…this modern notion of improv being a separate practice has never made any sense to me because there’s been improvisation in the theatre as long as there has been theatre.” With a wink and a twinkle in her eye, Northan says misbehaviour and it being in the best way is the hallmark of the work she does constantly. Misbehaviour is something our world needs right now. Once ‘Goblin’ concludes its run at Stratford, Northan is off to Port Hope’s Capitol Theatre to write and direct the Christmas/holiday fairy tale panto. She’s always loved fairy tale storytelling and listening to many accounts. She mentioned she heard a CBC broadcast that the ‘Disneyfication’ of fairytales has done a disservice as they serve to warn listeners of the dangers out there in the world but not to shut ourselves from it. Rebecca is looking forward to the experience. Although she’s never performed at the Capitol, she has known the Artistic Director, Rob Kempson, for over 15 years and says he’s terrific. (Side note: I agree, too). She’s excited that Rob trusts her and gives her free reign to prepare. Kempson is also a wonderful dramaturg and has given her excellent notes on the script so far. She’s written the Naughty version already. The Family version will simply have the mature references removed. Kempson told Rebecca that tickets to the Naughty Panto outsell the family version. She is utterly fascinated by the fact there is this hunger for naughty fairy tales. She says it’s not dissimilar to GOBLIN in that audiences want something familiar with a twist on it. It does something for us as audiences. The first panto I saw at the Capitol was rather adult in nature. A cast member carried out a particular adult toy without going into specific details. Rebecca’s version will not be that ‘adult-naughty.’ She and Rob have had some conversations already. Rebecca proudly states she is a storyteller first and foremost. She has to make a good play that will tell the story of JACK AND THE BEANSTALK – a pretty thin narrative – so what can she do to augment it? Then the jokes can come. Northan is more interested in naughty, cheeky double-entendres than overt dirtiness for the sake of dirtiness. The latter is of no interest to her at all. She describes the adult text as ‘flirting with the line’ while still telling a story. There’s nothing more satisfying than great double entendres. The line can be very innocent, and what the audience brings to it makes the double entendres. That’s an extraordinary meeting between the playwright, performer, and audience. ‘Blind Date’s’ performance runs at the same time as at the Stratford Festival. Although Rebecca is delighted it’s back, the play is still dangerous. A stranger will be brought up on stage each night and made the star of the show with the hope this person does not have Covid since the setting is a small space. Because ‘Blind Date’ exists in the present moment, it’s growing and changing, and Rebecca is thrilled the script continues evolving. “As it should be,” she quickly adds. The play is always for sale anytime, and anyone can book it. What’s next for the artist after the panto concludes at the end of December? She and Bruce Horak have been commissioned to create GOBLIN: OEDIPUS for the High Performance Rodeo put on by One Yellow Rabbit in Calgary. That’s happening in January/February 2024. Northan and Horak are also waiting to hear about some grants if GOBLIN: MACBETH goes to Edmonton. She’s also directing Shakespeare’s ‘Comedy of Errors’ at Bard on the Beach in the summer of 2024. To learn more about GOBLIN: MACBETH, visit stratfordfestival.com. To learn more about Port Hope’s Capitol Theatre, visit capitoltheatre.com. To learn more about ‘Blind Date’ at Regina’s Globe Theatre, visit globletheatrelive.com. Previous Next

Back Steve Ross Theatre Conversation in a Covid World Trish Lindstrom Joe Szekeres It was time to update the questions for the profile column series. Now who to ask to be a part of this new discussion? Enter Steve Ross. Steve commented on one of the profiles I had submitted to a Facebook posting this week. When I saw his name, I was positive that I’ve seen his work before at Stratford but had to do a bit of research. That research culminated in remembering seeing Steve in some momentous productions at Stratford including To Kill a Mockingbird, The Music Man, The Rocky Horror Show, Billy Elliot, Little Shop of Horrors. An impressive resume which is only a mere introduction to this artist’s work. Steve went to the National Theatre School and graduated in 1991. Prior to that he spent two years at Brock University studying theatre and this past fall returned to Brock (online) to complete that BA…thirty years late but happy to have done it. 2020 would have been his 16th season at The Stratford Festival. Steve’s favorite productions here have been The Grapes of Wrath and Crazy for You. He was part of the ensemble of London Road at Canadian Stage in Toronto and won the Dora Award for best ensemble. Steve was also part of the highly successful production of Assassins presented by Talk Is Free Theatre in Barrie, Toronto and Winnipeg. This is perhaps the favorite show of his career. He emailed me how he misses it so very much: “I miss the character, I miss the cast, I miss every single thing about that production. Even though he did four separate runs of the show it was never enough.” Thank you for this gentle reminder, Steve, for me to get in touch with Talk Is Free this summer. We conducted our conversation via email. Thanks, Steve, for connecting and for adding to the conversation. Many professional theatre artists I’ve profiled and interviewed have shared so much of themselves and how the pandemic has affected them from social implications from the Black Lives Matter and BIPOC movements to the staggering numbers of illnesses and deaths. Could you share with us and describe one element, either positive or negative, from this time that you believe will remain with you forever? I think this great pause has given us all time to think. Without this time, I don’t know that we’d have been able to truly evaluate the horrors that are in front of us at the moment. Black Lives Matter NEEDS to be heard and acknowledged. We need to make forward strides. The United States is just broken, and we need to fix that…not Canadians specifically but, it needs to be addressed. I’m grateful to have had the time to sit and reflect and learn from the generosity of my colleagues with regards to race and inclusivity. Have you learned anything about human nature from this time? I can’t speak for all of humanity, but I know I’m much stronger than I thought; much more resilient. We’re not meant, as human beings, to be in crisis for this long a time and I am witnessing extraordinary strength in people. We’re all just…getting through this…one day at a time. How has your immediate family been faring during this time? As a family, can you share with us how your lives have been changed and impacted by this time? My immediate family has been doing all right. I think we’re all into this next phase of things just going on too long. I think we’re all just sick of it but there’s nothing really to be done about it. It’s a big waiting game. I know none of us can even begin to guess when professional theatre artists will be back to work. I’ve spoken with some who have said it might not be until 2022. Would you agree on this account? Have you ever though that you might have had to pivot and switch careers during this time? I’m hopeful that smaller companies might find ways to “bubble up” before 2022. I’d love to see some Christmas work come around. I considered “the pivot” but I’ve decided to stay the course for a while longer. I am pivoting within the profession…branching out into teaching and writing…which I didn’t foresee but I’m enjoying both very much. How do you think your chosen career path and vocational calling will look once all of you return safely to the theatre? Do you feel confident that you can and will return safely? I do think we can return safely. But that will be on each individual. I’m very curious how things will look when we get back in a rehearsal hall. Will masks become the norm? How will we get back to any sense of intimacy in scenes? There are so many questions that I suppose we will just have to wait to have answered. This time of the worldwide pandemic has shaken all of us to our very core and being. According to author Margaret Atwood, she believes that Canadians are survivors no matter what is thrown in their path. Could you share what has helped you survive this time of uncertainty? Shakespeare. I started to read and watch his plays and it became such a balm for me. On particularly tough days when nothing else seemed to help, I would turn to Shakespeare. It sounds pretentious and I don’t mean it that way. But it forced me to listen and be present and as a result I forgot about the current situation…if only for that three-hour play. I am so grateful for this. Imagine in a perfect world that the professional theatre artist has been called back as it has been deemed safe for actors and audience members to return. The first show is complete and now you’re waiting backstage for your curtain call: Describe how you believe you’re probably going to react at that curtain call. I want to be grateful. I never again want to complain about the long days or the uncomfortable shoes or any of the little gripes that I have been guilty of complaining about. I want to stand there at the curtain call and be reminded that this is why we all do this wild profession. We do it to share stories with others…in a dark room…and then that night will never exist again. There is a crowd of people waiting to see you and your castmates at the stage door to greet all of you. Tell me what’s the first thing you will probably say to the first audience member: Whew! I’m so glad we could both be here. I’m missed you so, so much! Steve Ross’s headshot by Trish Lindstrom. Previous Next

Back 'My Fair Lady' Now on stage at the Queen's Parade Theatre, Niagara on the Lake. Courtesy of The Shaw Festival web page Geoffrey Coulter, actor, director, adjudicator, arts educator “Pull out the stopper, Shaw has a whopper. Another dusty old classic in this season’s Festival offerings is given a grand and loverly treatment.” After a series of hit-or-miss ho-hum musicals over the past several seasons, Shaw Festival undoubtedly had high hopes for this season’s big show. I can attest that this “Lady” easily eclipses them all with this nuanced musical retelling of George Bernard Shaw’s Pygmalion, a thoroughly entertaining romp through class-conscious Edwardian England, complete with the sexist and abusive themes central to its plot. About those dated mores? Who cares? That was 1912. This is 2024. Forget about the hot-button social issues; you can enjoy this battle of the sexes by sitting back and being charmed by catchy and appealing songs like "With a Little Bit of Luck," "Wouldn't It Be Loverly" and "Get Me to the Church on Time." Mix in stellar performances and some high-energy and elegant dance numbers, and you’ve got a not-to-be-missed summer hit. I'll remind you if you don’t know the plot (made into a movie in 1938 and later became 1964’s Academy Award-winning film). Pompous phonetics professor Henry Higgins (a brilliant Tom Rooney) is so sure of his abilities that he takes it upon himself to bet his friend, Colonel Pickering, (amiably played by André Morin), that he will transform a Cockney working-class girl and “shall make a duchess of this draggle-tailed guttersnipe” in “six months.” He dithers in his attitudes towards everyone, spewing vitriol about the women in his life and calling himself “an ordinary man” with “the milk of human kindness by the quart in every vein.” He's a contradiction in terms. The subject of this bet turns out to be the feisty but captivating Eliza Doolittle (a wondrous Kristi Frank). She is unaware of the bet and takes Higgins up on the offer to better her job prospects; she dreams of owning a flower shop. Higgins and Eliza clash but then form an unlikely bond, one threatened by an unlikely suitor, Freddy (a fine Taurian Teelucksingh). The challenge of resurrecting any age-old production is figuring out how to make it relevant and/or engaging to a modern audience. Yes, there are many challenges to this production, namely Higgins’ treatment of Eliza. His contemptuous, demeaning remarks and haughty, overbearing comportment garnered more than a few audience giggles at the performance my companion and I attended. There isn't an awful lot to like or appreciate about Henry initially, as he urges his housekeeper to thrash Eliza if she doesn't conform. Henry's insistence on ridicule and humiliation as a form of improving a student seems more insulting and grating than enlightening. But that’s just it, they were giggles at all of this, squeals of delight, not gasps or whispers. Higgins’ rudeness only seems to empower Eliza. But despite the splendid songs, there’s a certain amount of sadness in watching Eliza, initially so defiant, start to conform to Henry, first by finally breaking through her accent and adopting the more sophisticated one that Henry prefers, then beginning to fall in love with the man who spent so much time denigrating her. Similarly, Higgins realizes he’s affected by her, not quite knowing how to process his newfound emotions. This is where co-directors Tim Carroll and Kimberley Rampersad (who also provides the spirited choreography) cleverly give us a relatable battle of wits “girl power” story involving two characters who are ultimately more alike than they know – fiery, blunt, opinionated, tenacious. In the program notes, Carroll admits to being a first-time director of a musical. His work with Rampersad is to be applauded. Scene transitions were magically immaculate, and blocking was natural, with clever use of every inch of stage space. Carroll and Rampersad wisely don’t forget that characters need dimension. They’ve taken the time to work scenes, build song rendering and intent, and understand what drives and motivates key players. They can be very proud of their partnership. Musical direction by Paul Sportelli is spot-on, his baton leading a dynamite pit band. Voices are strong and blend well. Lorenzo Savoini’s simple yet elegant set effortlessly shows us class mobility, from the grimy dregs of the London slums to Higgins’ opulent, two-story library. From the spartan Ascot races to an old wooden pub, we see life from both sides of privilege. Joyce Padua’s turn-of-the-twentieth-century costume design is stunning and captures both the extravagant and the drab. The highly stylized women’s hats at the Ascot races are a feast for the eyes, while the attire of the working class in Covent Garden is dirty, ripped and coated in coal dust. Kimberley Rampersad’s choreography was basic and in unison, serving the narrative well, but overall, some excitement was missing. There’s a very fine trio of male dancers in the opening street scene who kick and leap beautifully, but their sequences are all too short. They dance again throughout the show but for mere seconds only. I wanted more! Her couple’s waltz was elegant and refined, but her “I’m Getting Married in the Morning”, while lively, lacked full-out exuberance. Not sure about the motivation of the sudden appearance of those four can-can dancers. Mikael Kanga’s lighting does a fine job of establishing location and mood. His warm, amber side lighting in the Covent Garden scenes evokes fire and gas-lit streets while Higgin’s library is bright and airy. Lighting designers need to show me where to look in a scene. Kanga delivers with well-placed spots on key players while subtly dimming the rest of the scene when needed. Fine work. Using the rear wall for projections or simply silhouette performers wonderfully enhances the visuals. John Lott’s sound design is apt, although the Ascot horse races were strangely quiet, while the band sometimes overpowered vocals in the more significant numbers. One of the many marks of sound direction and performance is seeing the journey the main characters take throughout the show. They are affected by the events of the piece and should, resultantly, be transformed by the show’s end. Tom Rooney brilliantly embodies Higgins’ character arch, first seeing Eliza as a project to be discarded, then softening his disdain for her while uneasily processing his growing affection for her. He has lovely moments of subtlety and nuance, especially in the ball scene, where he shares some truly touching moments with Eliza. As one of the main characters, he sets a beautiful pace in all his scenes with clear, snappy dialogue and marvellous vocals. Unhappily, that pace was interrupted mere moments before intermission as a fire alarm forced a mass exodus. False alarm. All was back on track for the second act. Kristi Frank is a fine Eliza with a good handle on the motives and situations that drive her character. Her heavenly soprano in songs like “I Could Have Danced All Night” attests that her voice is meant for this score. But it’s her journey from an uneducated, rough-around-the-edges “guttersnipe” flower seller to rising, independent “duchess…in six months” which is a treat to watch. Her physical countenance transforms in sync with her “proper” (and authentic) British accent - straight, poised and endearing. She, too, has beautiful levels as her relationship with Higgins burgeons. She comes into her own and knows who she is by show’s end. André Morin plays a compassionate Colonel Pickering, taking pity on Eliza rather than dismissing her. At the same time, as housekeeper Mrs. Pearce, Patty Jamieson is a charming and compassionate mother figure to Eliza and tolerates Higgins’ idiosyncrasies. She also does double duty, playing the Queen of Transylvania, and has a royal air in both roles. As Mrs. Higgins, Sharry Flett is hilarious and delightful, sarcastically knocking her son down a few notches over his overbearing pomposity. David Adams is deliciously bombastic as Eliza’s insouciant drunkard of a father, Alfred P. Doolittle. Although Doolittle is egocentric with feigned fatherly affection only to line his pockets, Adams nonetheless brings an endearing, heartwarming and fun performance to his big numbers. We should hate this guy, but we don’t. As starstruck Loverboy, Freddy, Taurian Teelucksingh is a powerful crooner, all doe-eyed and giddy in his school-boy infatuation with Eliza, although seeing him notice her more at the beginning of the show may have given them a nice moment. The ending is left ambiguous—a wise choice by Carroll and Rampersad. This is one slick show, just the hit Shaw needs right now. As I perused the directors’ notes, Kimberley Rampersad sums it up nicely: "Sometimes even singing isn’t enough, and you need to dance.” You’ll want to dance all night after leaving this show. Running time: approx. 3 hours with two 15-minute intermissions. The production runs until December 22 at the Festival Theatre, 10 Queen’s Parade Theatre, Niagara-on-the-Lake, ON L0S 1J0 For tickets, call the Box Office at 1-800-511-7429 or visit shawfest.com The Shaw Festival Presents Lerner and Loewe’s “My Fair Lady” Co-directed by Tim Carroll and Kimberley Rampersad Choreographed by Kimberley Rampersad Music Direction by Paul Sportelli Set designed by Lorenzo Savoini Costumes designed by Joyce Padua Lighting designed by Mikael Kangas Sound designed by John Lott Starring: Tom Rooney, Kristi Frank, André Morin, David Adams plus many other Canadian artists in the ensemble. Previous Next

Back 'A Streetcar Named Desire' by Tennessee Williams Now onstage in Toronto's Distillery District at the Young Centre for the Performing Arts, 50 Tank House Lane Credit: Dahlia Katz. Pictured L-R: Mac Fyfe, Amy Rutherford and Shakura Dickson Joe Szekeres “Intensely raw and, at times, animalistic emotional responses. Palpable and tawdry grit makes this ‘Streetcar’ thrilling.” We find ourselves in the French Quarter of New Orleans not too long after World War Two. The city and the production are drenched in sweat with intoxicating ‘bluesy’ music, a seductive lure that draws the characters (and even me) into this district of broken dreams and relationships. It’s the hottest of summers. It’s also a time of misogynistic relationships that appear to be accepted as the norm. Women did as the men wished. There are moments when Stella and Blanche will not acquiesce to Stanley’s wishes. It’s also a world where people shout and scream at each other with racial epithets periodically thrown in for emphasis. A delicately nervous Blanche DuBois (Amy Rutherford) arrives at the cramped two-room apartment of her younger sister Stella Kowalski (Shakura Dickson) and her brutish brute husband Stanley (Mac Fyfe). Blanche has no money on her. She has taken a supposed leave of absence from her English teaching position at a school on account of her nerves. We eventually discover the truth of what happened there. She has never met her brother-in-law, and the two clash with each other because Blanche becomes critical of her sister and the life she has chosen to lead in New Orleans. Stanley is a working-class son of Polish immigrants and resents Blanche’s high and mighty superiority of airs. Blanche and Stella are the daughters of southern plantation owners of Belle Reve Estate. When Stanley learns what happens to the estate, he’s annoyed that perhaps he and Stella (on account of the Napoleonic Code) may have been cheated out of an inheritance. We also meet Stanley and Stella’s upstairs neighbours, Eunice Hubbell (Ordena Stephens-Thompson) and her husband, Steve (Lindsay Owen Pierce). Steve is also part of Stanley's weekly poker game in his apartment. The other poker players are Pablo (Sebastian Marziali) and ‘Mitch’ Mitchell (Gregory Prest), Stanley’s best friend and an all-around nice guy who lives with his mother and takes care of her because she is ill. The contentious animosity between Blanche and Stanley continues to heat up continually because he senses his sister-in-law is not being honest about why she has shown up. Mitch develops feelings for Blanche, which does not sit right with Stanley. Throughout the three-hour running time, secrets upon secrets are revealed by individuals who, according to director Weyni Mengesha’s programme note, are “connected through their desperate need to survive.” This opening-night production is the heightened climax of what every working actor wishes and hopes to accomplish on stage – a chance to showcase how these characters manage to survive against the odds thrown at them. Mengesha weaves Williams’ intriguing theatre classic craftily. Once again, she writes in her programme note that the audience will “not see[ing] anybody truly, but all through the flaws of their own ego.” These are iconic literary characters constantly living on the brink of possible emotional and mental distortion. Lorenzo Savoini’s sparse set design at the pre-show caught my eye immediately. He has carefully captured the gritty look of a downtown setting. Corrugated aluminum siding along the back wall with a staircase leads to Hubbell’s apartment. There is a single door centre stage. A rolling suitcase sits slightly downstage, just off-centre. Kimberley Purtell’s, at times, silhouetted and jarring lighting design perfectly accentuates and captures the intensity of the mood within the scene at a given moment. Rachel Forbes’ costume designs evoke everything from Stanley’s torn wife beater undershirt to Blanche’s frilly undergarments and dresses. Debashis Sinha’s terrific soundscape of rumbling streetcars noisily passing by Stanley and Stella’s apartment awakens the ears to create an, at times, suffocating atmosphere. Thanks to the work of original director Mike Ross, the New Orleans music sound remains prominent. It’s loud and haunting, but Divine Brown, Oliver Dennis, Kaleb Horn, and Sebastian Marziali must be recognized for evoking this musical era and sound with marvellous aplomb. Buckle in because the story’s pacing flies. It never feels rushed at all, ever. There are moments when Mengesha places the action smack dab in the audience’s faces where we can’t look away - nor did I want to do so - as the performances are damn good. Actors will sometimes enter from and exit through the audience, often with much fanfare, either with music or boisterously loud voices. The stormy and chaotic lives of upstairs neighbours Steve and Eunice Hubbell (Lindsay Owen Pierre and Ordena Stephens-Thompson) strongly reflect those of the Kowalskis. Mengesha’s choice to showcase and balance how the two couples are similar, disregarding the racial element, remains quite effective. Gregory Prest is solidly heartfelt as nice guy ‘Mitch’ Mitchell, Stanley’s best friend. Prest remains genuinely believable in his smitten infatuation with Blanche. As their summer romance begins to turn a corner in the second act, Prest’s eventual turning against Blanche may seem entirely out of character for the gentle Mitch, but damn believable because she has hurt him. Shakura Dickson’s Stella remains feisty but oh-so compassionate towards Blanche. Dickson and Mac Fyfe become a jaw-dropping, fiery, sensual, and carnal syncopation of animalistic lust and rawness. The attraction, repulsion, magic, and reality between Amy Rutherford’s coyly teasing, beautiful Blanche and Mac Fyfe’s brawny, muscled and dominant Stanley drive this performance forward with a powerful thrust of a definite sexual kinetic rawness. That moment in Act Two is handled with a loud crashing bang against the corrugated aluminum siding and a flourishing theatricality of light and sound, leaving me momentarily speechless. And Another Thought: Blanche tells Stanley in Act Two: “I don’t want realism; I want magic.” This gripping opening night performance makes me reconsider this line: “I want the realism to be magic.” It may seem odd to call this ‘Streetcar’s’ realism magic, but it is for me. The magic stems from a stellar cast and crew entirely focused on creating a world of fragility susceptible to demons, as mentioned in the programme. It’s not just Blanche at the end of the play who must face her demons. This ‘Streetcar’s’ final tableaux reveal how each character must fight his/her past of demons and recognize how they have been changed through the arrival of Blanche DuBois. Running time: approximately 3 hours and 15 minutes with one interval. ‘A Streetcar Named Desire’ runs until July 7 in the Baillie Theatre at the Young Centre for the Performing Arts in Toronto’s Distillery District, 50 Tank House Lane. For tickets: Soulpepper.ca or call (416) 866-8666. SOULPEPPER THEATRE COMPANY presents ‘A STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE’ by Tennessee Williams Directed by Weyni Mengesha Assistant Director: Tanya Rintoul Set Design: Lorenzo Savoini Costume Design: Rachel Forbes Lighting Design: Kimberly Purtell Associate Lighting Designer: Imogen Wilson Sound Design: Debashis Sinha Original Music Director: Mike Ross Original Fight Direction: Simon Fon / Fight Director: Daniel Levinson Remount Intimacy Director: Burcu Emeç Dramaturg: Joanna Falck Stage Manager: Robert Harding Assistant Stage Manager: Laura Baxter Performers: Divine Brown, Oliver Dennis, Shakura Dickson, Mac Fyfe, Kaleb Horn, Sebastian Marziali, Lindsay Owen Pierre, Gregory Prest, Amy Rutherford, Ordena Stephens-Thompson Previous Next

Back Scott Wentworth Looking Ahead Ann Baggley. Joe Szekeres When you know you’re in the company of a compelling raconteur, you don’t want the story to end because you’re on every single word this individual speaks. Thus was my conversation with artist Scott Wentworth where I was on every word he spoke. I’ve seen so many productions at the Stratford Festival in which Scott appeared. I can’t list all of his accolades here as both artist and director because there are so many, but I do recall vividly his performance as Gloucester in ‘King Lear’. I was still teaching high school at the time and had brought students to see the matinee. I remember the students asking how you think they will deal with the plucking out of Gloucester’s eyes, and I also remember telling the group that you’ll just have to wait and see how it’s done. It was a horrifyingly magnificent moment of stage craft that remains with me today. Scott Wentworth is an American actor and director who immigrated to Canada in 1986. His first production at the Stratford Festival was in 1985’s ‘The Glass Menagerie’. He has also gone on to play Iago in ‘Othello’, Shylock in ‘The Merchant of Venice’, the title role in ‘Macbeth’ and has directed at the Festival ‘Romeo & Juliet’ and ‘The Adventures of Pericles’. Scott also appeared in Neil Simon’s ‘Lost in Yonkers’ at the Richard Rodgers Theatre in New York City. Other US appearances include ‘Red’ at the Hubbard Stage in Houston, Texas and ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’ in Santa Cruz, California. We conducted our conversation via Zoom. Thank you for taking the time to add your voice to the conversation, Scott: It’s a harsh reality that the worldwide pandemic of Covid 19 has changed all of us. Describe how your understanding of the world you know and how your perception and experience have changed on a personal level. This is a difficult question (and Scott has a good chuckle) …I notice it’s the first one so get the really hard one out of the way (and we two have another chuckle). It’s a little intimidating, frankly, as an older white CIS male person belonging to a community that has traditionally held a microphone. I’ve spent most of my pandemic months keeping my mouth shut and listening and reading and ruminating, so to be asked to opine on some of these very important questions, at the moment, makes me feel a little uncomfortable, not reticent necessarily, but a little uncomfortable so forgive me if I stammer my way through this. (Note: Scott is extremely articulate in sharing his thoughts and ideas with me) To say that the pandemic is unprecedented is so obvious that one doesn’t need to say it. But I think it’s been important for me anyway to understand that essentially, we’ve just stopped, particularly those of us in the arts. But in many ways, the best way of dealing with this emergency has been to stop and to be still. (Scott emphasized clearly these words) I’m not sure how we’ve changed yet. I feel like I’m going to learn that about myself and my community and my world more completely once we’re moving again. It’s very difficult in the moment to have any kind of real understanding of how this has changed my perception of the world. As you know, Joe, one of the gifts of participating in the arts, whether as an activator, active participant, or an audience member, is that one is constantly in a state of re-evaluating oneself and one’s world, and one’s relationship and connection between the two. I’ve always strived throughout the pandemic to try to look on it as a little gift rather than as a trial so what are the benefits to me personally, and to the other humans that I know and don’t know. What are the benefits of standing still for a time? As our world becomes more and more connected and fast moving and quick changing, what are the benefits of standing still? What are the benefits of stopping? I’m not a young person anymore so at my age it’s a different experience than friends of mine who are in their 30s and 40s who are starting families, in their first release of energy into their careers or indeed in a very different experience from young people who are just beginning. So again, my perception of all this is quite biased but frankly I don’t know how my understanding of the world has changed yet. I’m hoping to get some insights into that soon. I really don’t know. With live indoor theatre shut for one year plus, with it appearing it may not re-open any time soon, how has your understanding and perception as a professional artist of the live theatre industry been altered and changed? It’s going to be a process because there’s been a near two-year gap in gatherings, and when will individual people feel comfortable to do that? I spent many years doing outdoor theatre in Santa Cruz, California, where in the summer it never rains so you go out and do it. We don’t have that luxury here in Southern Ontario. There’s not going to be one day where we’re all going to shout, “Okay, we can open the doors. C’mon back in.” I frankly don’t think anything will be back to normal. Again, we’ll see if my understanding and perception as an artist have changed. There’s a lot of conversation going on at the moment over Zooms, not unlike this, about how the theatre can change, be more humane, better serve communities that haven’t had access to it or have had limited access to it. Much conversation has also ensued on developing and looking for healthier relationships on account of crushing practices that have long been unquestioned within the community that makes theatre. Because it’s literally stopped and, at the moment, there really isn’t any theatre it’s hard to say what has actually changed yet. It is great that these conversations are taking place. I think these kinds of conversations have always taken place, but because we have been given the luxury of space where we don’t have to do a lot of the stuff we normally have to do, they can take more room and therefore can be more far reaching. But at the moment all this stuff is theoretical, and we have to see what happens when we try to put them in practice. Is it enough? Is this a cosmetic solution? Is there a systemic problem that is causing this one thing? Again, at the moment, it’s so easy to equate everything to science and doctors because we’ve been so inundated with that reality, but it’s very similar. Are we taking care of the patient holistically? Are we treating the symptom with a cast on the arm or asking questions about how the arm got broken in the first place? Those are all questions that will be answered and hopefully more questions asked once we’re in practice again. When it begins again, theatre will undoubtedly and, hopefully, be profoundly so. The very nature of theatre is that it constantly re-defines itself. This is a process that has always happened. I suspect there will be fundamental changes but I’m not sure what they will be yet. I can’t imagine anyone really does. As a professional artist, what are you missing the most about the live theatre industry? It’s a silly answer, but ‘everything’. I have worked in the theatre since I was 22 years of age. I’m 66 now. It has defined and affected every aspect of my life. Just on a personal, emotional level, I am missing what has heretofore been an enormous part of how I have self-defined. There are two ways of looking at how one defines one’s working life. There are jobs and careers that allow you to do the things you need to do – put a roof over your head, look after your loved ones, put food on the table, pay for bills and things you need - but those activities, even though they may be important to an individual, are not necessarily the defining core of an individual identity. Then there are other endeavours that are less a job than a kind of calling. For those individuals, those activities can become and usually do become very central to who you are, and how you see yourself and indeed present yourself. There are benefits and negatives to this kind of understanding of how one fits in and serves oneself and one’s community. I miss the rehearsal process, the collaborating with fellow artists. I also miss the other side of the equation of telling stories to audiences every night. There’s not one thing I miss. It’s the whole thing because I do feel that a large part of how I’ve always identified myself hasn’t been available to me for a long time. I never thought I’d retire as long as I was healthy, and as long as somebody was willing to ask me to do something with them. And so, being in a sense forced into a kind of retirement has brought up all sorts of questions about how one spends one’s time, what is the nature of time. Actors are used to unemployment, but then there was always the knowledge that theatre was going on and that someone was working. Both a possibility of future endeavours and just the notion if it’s not me, it’s somebody. But now that that’s gone, it’s a real adjustment because it’s not simply about me. It’s about the larger community and the endeavour that I’ve spent my life engaged in. There’s a profound sadness. I don’t know if I give myself to magical thinking, but there’s a part of me that feels (I don’t think this but I feel it) that there is some kind of correlation between the fact theatres stopped and the world went crazy. Theatre is not the primary form of how people hear stories these days. At times it can be thought of as elitist, but I wonder if there’s not a tipping point that enough people in the world were going to the theatre to keep the world in a kind of balance. And then when it stopped, that ballast was no longer available and so we’ve all gone a little crazy. A ridiculous theory, but nevertheless… (and Scott emits a quick laugh) As a professional artist, what is the one thing you will never take for granted again in the live theatre industry when you return to it? This is a great question. I will never take for granted that the theatre will always exist. Clearly, we’ve just seen how a medical emergency can put a stop to it. We alluded a few minutes ago to a fundamentalist religion gaining government power can stop it. There are climate emergencies that could or would essentially stop it. And I think in a larger sense if I have gained some kind of wisdom about the world is that one can’t take anything for granted there will always be a theatre, there will always be a seashore, there will always be a sunrise. We have to work to ensure that these activities, institutions and events that we cherish continue. They’re alive so they have to be nourished, and they can’t be taken for granted. We have to constantly re-invent them and question them. We have to constantly re-engage on a profound level. We perhaps ought to stop asking “What kind of theatre” that we have and perhaps we should now ask “Why should we have it?” My hope is that we will always answer that in the affirmative, but the why will always change and lead us to a deeper conversation of “Why do people feel the need to gather together and tell each other stories? What’s that about?” That to me is the real question we need to ask ourselves culturally why are we doing this? We need to ask this question before we go to rehearsal. We need to ask this each night before we go on stage. It has to be a deeper reason than simply how we spend our time or how we entertain ourselves. As our technology has increased, theatre is the least cost-effective entertainment platform that I can imagine, so there must be something beyond how the theatre functions commercially; there must be something beyond simply the surface entertainment value that humans respond to when they get into the same room each other, and breathe the same air, sit shoulder to shoulder both scary now and tell stories. Describe one element you hope has changed concerning the live theatre industry. Again, I’ll get back to “We’ll see”. (Scott takes a long pause before he continues) Maybe my issue with this question is the word ‘hope’. I find the word ‘hope’ is kind of inactive. I think we have to work to make these changes happen. I suspect that what we may discover is that we actually haven’t gone far enough in re-imagining how theatre can function in a post-pandemic 21st century world. What I hope and plan to do if and when I plan to get involved again in this work is one of things I’ve been really thinking about and contemplating for most of my career in the theatre which is, like most institutions in the 20th and 21st century, the theatre has become more and more and more of a top down organization where decisions are made by a small select group of people that are then filtered down to a larger group of people. Because the theatre is the most collaborative of art forms, it’s difficult to make change if you’re not a position to make change. The effect that has on the collaboration at times might be impossible if people feel like they are in this kind of trickle-down dynamic. My hope and my continued work are to come up with practical strategies and work practices that will help to allow the real collaborative nature of theater to become more important than it is at the moment. We’re hearing a lot of conversations now where theatres are saying that we need to ensure that people are heard and seen. I want to counter that with maybe it’s better to think of it in terms of “I don’t want someone to feel heard. I want to listen to them.” “I don’t want someone to feel seen. I want to look at them, I want to see them.” Those kinds of changes, I think, are necessary particularly when so much of our theatre in North America is so much a product of colonialism. All of the contracts that we currently work under are very much a matrix of the commercial theatre. I hope we stop defining what is the majority of the theatre and continue to define it by what we want it to be, not what we don’t want it to be. We want a theatre that offers something to the artist and audience to collect together and share stories, and that’s why we need to reach out and collect more stories shared. We listen to the stories that we heretofore have not paid enough attention to, and we need to re-tell old stories that speak directly to the world we live in, and not to a world that no longer exists. I think the best way to do that is to ask why we’re doing theatre in the first place, and to try and set up a situation where we are more actively collaborative with the artists who are actually responsible for putting this together and have a real critical look at what is the role of the actor? director? designer? We’re at the beginning of pulling this apart. We’ve been given a gift of time to examine what it is. We have to keep working, and we have to be keep WORKING. Explain what specifically you believe you must still accomplish within the industry. Ah, well, on a technical level, there are still stories I want to tell and still stories I want to hear. There are still parts I want to play. It’s very interesting the word ‘accomplished’ that you’ve used. I’ve been doing some writing myself over the months of pandemic. I’m an occasional ‘journaler’ and have been re-reading stuff that I’ve written about how to act stuff, how to direct stuff, and why I think classical theatre is still a good thing, and how Shakespeare might continue to speak to us. The other day I was doing a bit of writing about a speech from ‘Henry V’. Shakespeare uses the word ‘accomplish’, and I found out the original meaning of the word ‘accomplish’ was to make something out of metal. So, we were talking about armours accomplishing the knights with hammering them into these suits of armour. Sometimes, I think that personal accomplishments in the theatre is not unlike a suit of armour. It is something that everyone can see, it is something that we wear, and it is something that protects you from the dangers of examining these plays and putting on these plays, and trying to tell the truth to each other, and eventually to an audience. I’m not looking to accomplish things so much as I am looking forward to continue questioning. I still have lots of questions I want to ask. Sometimes they’re about specific roles – what’s up with Willy Loman? Or as a director, what’s going on in ‘Measure for Measure’? What’s that line from ‘Chorus Line’ – Am I my resume? This list of accomplishments in an actor’s bio can so easily be something that actually functions like armour as it might stop somebody from touching you, or you from touching somebody, as you have to get through the armour of your accomplishments. You have to get through your accomplishments in order to make contact and let the play touch another person. Sometimes, as an audience member, they’re simply “I want to hear your story. I don’t know of anyone who has had your life experience.” I have questions about that as what’s it like to be you? What I want to accomplish is to continue to do what I’ve done in the theatre which is questioning new plays, old plays, myself, the people I’m talking to. Some artists are saying that audiences must be prepared for a tsunami of Covid themed stories in the return to live theatre. Would you elaborate on this statement both as an artist in the theatre, and as an audience member observing the theatre. I frankly don’t think there’s going to be any. I really don’t. I think there’s going to be a tsunami and onslaught of new plays. I think a lot of people are writing. I think a lot people who have always wanted to tell a story and haven’t for lack of time, lack of courage lack of access have suddenly gone, “Yah, why not?” I suspect there’s going to be a lot of new writing that has come out of this time. I expect there will be a lot of one person performance pieces that will come out of this time which is interesting. If anything, for most of us, this has been a period of stasis for some people that have suffered dire economic hardships, dire medical suffering, and death of loved ones, but that’s the stuff of life anyway. There will always be stories about that. My mother passed away in November. She lives in the States. I live up here. Very difficult to get there. She was in LTC that had an outbreak of Covid and even if I was there, I couldn’t see her. I have felt in the six months since she died a kind of disconnect with her death, for instance. I still find myself going. “Oh God, I haven’t called my mother in such a long time, or I should call her to share this with her as she’d appreciate this. The rituals of completement were unavailable to me. Now, if I wanted to tell that story, is that a Covid story? It’s only superficially a Covid story but it’s how our modern life sometimes doesn’t allow us to participate in these interpersonal rituals because of events that are outside of our control. I suspect a lot of the new writing that will appear post pandemic will probably be more political than it’s been for awhile. That also goes in phases and cycles, but obviously and culturally we are grappling with and dealing with. I wouldn’t be surprised if most plays had that political or cultural political aspect in their plays than perhaps the interpersonal relationships. I think certain sensibilities we’ve had to deal with during Covid, I find myself thinking about mindfulness. We’re talking about mindfulness in these cultural conversations we’re having, uncovering individual and unacknowledged biases and how we need to be more mindful of that and mindful of the language we use because we’re now aware of how dire the consequences could be if we are not mindful and aware. As an artist, what specifically is it about your work that you want future audiences to remember about you? (With a good laugh, Scott says) I feel like I keep throwing spanners into these questions, so I’m going to continue my role as spanner thrower. I’m not sure I will be remembered and I’m not sure I ought to be remembered. (Scott then proceeds to tell me a fascinating story of one summer years ago when he was watching create Da Vinci life sized sand sculptures of The Last Supper. Scott remembered as he was walking home late one night around midnight where he saw the sculptures on the sand and noticed the wind on the beach had softened the features of these sculptures and, by morning, these sculptures were lumps of sand.) (Scott’s comparison of this moment of the sand sculptures to the theatre was intriguing). We who work in the theatre are sculpting out of sand; we’re inviting people to watch us create these characters and stories out of nothing, out of sand, and they come into incredibly sharp focus. So, as you watch the face of Jesus, of Judas appear out of the sand as this sculptor created was an extraordinary moment to watch and to participate in because we’re in the moment watching this sculptor do it. I found it really liberating to work in a medium (of theatre) that is all about time, and that only existed in the moment. I couldn’t go back and visit the creation of the face of Christ in the sand. It was an experience that I shared, and it lived with me, but I couldn’t go back and look at it again in the way I could go to Europe now and look at the actual painting of the Last Supper. Theatre doesn’t have the sociological impact of the mass media of film and television to immediately change peoples’ perceptions on a large scale – how we dress, how we behave. Theatre has a unique ability partially because it only exists in the moment and exists in the space between the artist and the audience. I think it has a unique ability to affect the human soul. The power of theatre is perhaps less apparent than some of the other platforms for creativity, but on an individual level, it really does have the possibility to get people to change the way they think just a little bit, just move that bias in a slightly different arc. And so, to answer the question you asked, the people who occasionally stop me who say, “I’ll always remember certain roles you’ll play” will carry that experience as these are wonderful plays. Hopefully my inhabiting of the character(s) at that moment had an affect on those people, and perhaps changed on a tiny little level, the bias of their lives. But those of us that work in the theatre know that once the people who have seen our work die, that’s kind of it. The giants of the theatre a century ago (Ellen Terry, Edwin Booth) are forgotten now, which is as it should be, because theatre is the now, it’s about the moment. I don’t want to be remembered. I want people to continue experiencing the now. Previous Next

Back Mark Cassius Theatre Conversation in a Covid World Courtesy of Victoria Playhouse: A Starbright Christmas Joe Szekeres Mark Cassius made his Broadway debut in the revival of Shenandoah in 1989. He was an original cast member in the World Premier of Ragtime (1996) in Toronto. Ragtime took him to Broadway for a second time in 1998. The third time’s a charm and he was on Broadway again in the revival of Jesus Christ Superstar in 2012. That production came out of his second season at The Stratford Festival of Canada in 2011. In his first season, 2007, his performance as “Mr. Magix” in My One and Only won him critical acclaim. Mark was a cast member of many of Canada’s mega-musicals in the 1990s such as Cats, Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat (with Donny Osmond), Miss Saigon, and Showboat (second replacement Toronto company with Cloris Leachman). And I’m pleased to say that I saw Mark’s performances in each of them when there was no need to travel to New York as we had top notch entertainment here. Regionally, Mark enjoys performing in shows for D2 Entertainment – Hollywood Sings, A Starbright Christmas. And always feels at home in front of Drayton Entertainment audiences, - Damn Yankees, The Little Mermaid, Sweet Charity, Dance Legends. One of the few times doing theatre in Toronto in the past decade, he received a Broadway World, “Best Actor” nomination, for his role in The Musical of Musicals (The Musical). From 1997 – 2005, he was a member of world-renowned acapella group, The Nylons, touring with them extensively. He has been a Kiwanis Musical Festival adjudicator, is a wildly sought-after vocal coach and has taught at the Randolph College for the Performing Arts and Sheridan University. He continues to mentor and support young performers and is passionately invested in and dedicated to the creation and survival of Art. Thank you so much for this conversation, Mark: In a couple of months, we will be coming up on one year where the doors of live theatre have been shut. How have you been faring during this time? Your immediate family? I won’t lie to you – denial for the first two months. Nothing changed. I went back to school and just finishing my master’s degree in Music Composition at York University when this started. I had already suspended my performing to work on the degree even though I was doing a little performing throughout that. When it started, I didn’t feel the shutdown immediately and then slowly I needed to take time to finish my Master’s Research Project that it started to sink in. After the first two months of being in my head and conjuring up an idea of what this paper was going to be like, the reality of writing the project became further and further away because I realized 1) the solitude was all of a sudden not finite. It was going, “When is this going to end?” I live alone and the solitude of the pandemic started to get to me. It was about May when friends reached out and I started responding and there were more Zoom calls and Face Time of coffee or toast in the evening just to get myself socializing again. It was disbelief first, then dismay, then disdain. I went through those phases and now, a year later, I’m starting to feel the creative bug again. I’m getting my paper finished and realizing this time hasn’t stopped me from being a creator and an artist and it’s great to be having that. This is something that I didn’t realize alone. I’ve lots of friends who helped me realize this and we are moving forward and trying to create content. There’s no point in saying, “Woe is me, what do I do now?” Eventually there will be venues and places to showcase the work so, create the work. My immediate family is good. I have an aunt in Pickering that checks in on me pretty much every day. I’m not a very big family here. I have an uncle in Montreal and cousins there. But I was born in Trinidad and that’s my mother’s side of the family. Since she’s been gone we’ve been trying to keep much more connected with more frequent calls and check ins. It’s difficult but social media (even though I have my problems with it), I have to discipline myself periodically and shut myself off it. I was off Facebook for six months during the pandemic. And now I’m off Instagram for now. I’m giving each one a break and rest so I can have a fresh perspective when I re-join because my needs on social media are very specific. It’s an outreach and a way for people to know what I’m up to and what I’m doing. When it gets into all the opinions and expressions, I need to, as we say in tap class, time to do some pullbacks. How have you been spending your time since the theatre industry has been locked up tight as a drum? The Master’s program has taken up most of my time. I had my thesis statement and now it’s, “Wow, that was eight months ago when I thought that.” I’m doing revisions on my thesis because there are things about the world that have changed since then. I wanted to write about music in terms of my native country. A lot of what has happened in society is not yet a global voice. Before it becomes a global voice, the people who I want to pay attention need to do pay attention to the globe and listen to the other voices so there’s more of a consensus. I just want there to be more listening than speaking. So I’m hoping from my small corner of the world to say, “This is what happened in the native history of my country and how music influenced us as a culture and how we influence music as a culture. Whatever, in Trinidad, the different cultures that came influenced something that we know all own. We talk about it in terms of Trinidad music, not in terms of African music.” I think this is something the world can learn from because it speaks to a level of integration that happened through the arts, music and culture and learning from each other and not pushing people away. Holding on to this gives me a cohesive sense of what the world is supposed to be about. The late Hal Prince described the theatre as an escape for him. Would you say that Covid has been an escape for you or would you describe this near year long absence from the theatre as something else? ‘Escape’ is an interesting word because it feels like some sort of fantasy, and yes theatre is fantasy at times. But there is so much truth in theatre that it’s interesting that I don’t see it as an escape but as a necessary journey. Sometimes you can’t believe what’s happening so the actual reality becomes like a fantasy because you’re in such disbelief of what this near year of Covid was really like. This year seems like an alternate reality, it just can’t seem to be real, but it is really happening. So I guess escaping from something like that into theatre which is always better because we really get to explore the human condition through theatre when we get into the work. Even as an audience member people get to live out things by watching plays and musicals. As artists we never get to really know sometimes the effect we have on an audience. The story has to be told with such honour when we’re up there. There’s always part of me thinking, “Somebody’s going to be moved by this.” This is going to have some relevance in ways I can’t even think of. So, full circle, I think Hal Prince is right but certainly not escape in trying to run away from things. Sometimes it’s an escape to run into things and make discoveries. Life is very difficult right now and I want the escape to hear a piece of music or see something that may move me. I’ve interviewed a few artists several months ago who said that the theatre industry will probably be shut down and not go full head on until at least 2022. There may be pockets of outdoor theatre where safety protocols are in place. What are your comments about this? Do you think you and your colleagues/fellow artists will not return until 2022? Well, the logistics of it would indicate this is kind of accurate. I might not using back at all. I’m always moving forward into whatever is going to occur or be next. For theatre to be what fully what it is going to be next, that’s an accurate prediction that it won’t be back until at least 2022. However, I don’t think in 2022 it’s going to be there. Absolutely not. I think there are going to be versions of it trying to creep in all along. That’s what I will add to that statement. As soon as it is safe to do so, we’re going to have to try and make attempts to reach audiences because THAT is the relationship that makes theatre – the artists and the audience. We need both to make it happen. The buildings might be a problem for theatre to return because I don’t know if I want to be in any room with a thousand people right now or anytime soon until we have real proof of the efficacy of the vaccine when everyone has it. We’ve got to start doing something, continue to do something and not lose faith and not lose momentum because that is what is going to get us to that 2022 projection. I am looking forward to all the new discoveries and the re-discoveries of theatre because let’s face it – when things were being performed in the amphitheater by daylight or moonlight many, many moons ago, that was the only lighting plot we had. We can’t let our advancements and concepts now surround the piece and the people get in the way, we can’t let this happen. We need to find new discoveries to do things in live performance. We’ve got to stop depending on all the electronics and amplifications that we have used as enhancements. Yes, they’ll come back but they’ll be the last to add once we have the buildings again and we’re inside again and people feel secure again. Meanwhile we the artists and the audience have to be convinced that yes we still want to do and they still want to see. I had a discussion recently with an Equity actor who said that yes theatre should not only entertain but, more importantly, it should transform both the actor and the audience. How has Covid transformed you in your understanding of the theatre and where it is headed in a post Covid world? I cannot ever put aside the strong sense of responsibility that I now have. I always felt that there was a greater purpose than me just making people laugh. Yes, there is vanity in the theatre and great feeling on stage doing what we do. I’ve got a stronger sense of responsibility for the mantle I carry, the body of artists actually, to tell these stories, to get these messages, to get things heard. The isolation has made me super aware of how, despite the fact we’re so connected by the Internet of technology, still how many people don’t get the messages or are not hearing the voices outside of their own realm. There is a bigger picture for me than just the eight-show week. I’m not sure what exactly that is going to mean but I think I’m still in the middle of transformation of that. I honestly don’t know but it’s definitely put me in a place where I’m thinking beyond the next contract, or beyond realizing my voice isn’t limited beyond the 2 ½ hours on stage and what that’s going to make me do next. My work as a writer is just beginning so that may be the thing that will fuel me now. The late Zoe Caldwell spoke about how actors should feel danger in the work. It’s a solid and swell thing to have if the actor/artist and the audience both feel it. Would you agree with Ms. Caldwell? Have you ever felt danger during this time of Covid and do you believe it will somehow influence your work when you return to the theatre? I’m going to speak quite frankly about my physical danger. I’m a recent kidney transplant recipient so physically this pandemic and things around it have been a dangerous thing for me. When Covid started I received all the notices that I had to be extra cautious so there’s that other level. I’ve adapted that extra level of caution to make me feel safe all the time so physically overcoming all that has been a huge part of my time during Covid. There’s this danger on a philosophical level almost. We do so many things as humanity to put the structure of safety into our lives. We want to make ourselves and the people whom we love safe. And in a moment this thing that we have no control over sweeps in and devastates that plan. It’s doing raspberries in our face. That’s maddening to our sense of self-empowerment. Yes, there’s been danger on many levels – society, the things we are seeing right now on a social discourse; Did it take a pandemic and the feelings and stresses to make this matter ooze out of us? With the danger comes the caution. I am cautious now. I am cautious of the world and my world. Don’t take anything for granted. Be vigilant. Know that the job isn’t done. My mantra is “I believe everything is going to be fine” but I’m also thinking at any time I might be called to arms to defend that. If called, what am I going to do and what can I do? My place is as an artist so be prepared. The danger is hovering, but I am thinking of ways to offset it. Dark times? Well, I have a lot of musical material to make things happy for myself and for others so that seems like a good counter. So, Zoe Caldwell, there’s something in your comment. The late scenic designer Ming Cho Lee spoke about great art opening doors and making us feel more sensitive. Has this time of Covid made you sensitive to our world and has it made some impact on your life in such a way that you will bring this back with you to the theatre? Oh, gosh, yeah. I’m going to get all dramatic here. If this was a bigger disaster, and we were looking at the end of days (or something prophetic like that) I would have really been caught off guard. I thought I was actually doing a good job of giving my all when I was on stage and not holding back. I’ve been more successful on stage than I have been off. And that is something I am confessing and I admit it to myself and since I’ve been able to say that, I can now say, “It’s time for some balance. You need that presence in your life.” Leading with love and joy instead of fear, that is one of the basics. Fear is a component and can’t escape it but I’d like to think I have a fairly conquering spirit and I can apply it to that particular demon. Sometimes I allow fear to spend too much time and I have to learn to tell it to take a hike. Sometimes fear is good. It can come in and have some tea and can tell me how it’s going to challenge me today. When it’s time to tell fear to go, I have to learn how to say to it, “Bye, bye. It’s time to go.” I have to re-set the table for love and joy. That’s where I want to be and that’s what I want to tell my friends and to invite them to this table. I want to make sure my family knows without a doubt what they mean to me. I want others to know that I am engaged with them and others to know they can give me a shake when necessary, and I can give them a shake when necessary, all the while feeling safe with each other. This is a lot of time to think and I’ve tried not to dismiss anything. Again, the late Hal Prince spoke of the fact that theatre should trigger curiosity in the actor/artist and the audience. Has Covid sparked any curiosity in you about something during this time? Has this time away from the theatre sparked further curiosity for you when you return to this art form? Oh my gosh. As you know, Joe, I worked with Hal in Showboat for the second cast in Toronto when the original cast went to Broadway. I can say that I heard Hal utter these words in a room and that was so exciting for me then and when I read the question you sent me. I had been doing Miss Saigon in Toronto and came in the second wave of Showboat. Hal used these words and it’s true. Truer words have never been spoken. Theatre should spark curiosity from everybody involved, everybody. It’s a journey, every step of it, and the artists and the audience should be thinking, ‘What’s next and how do I participate?’ Covid has made me curious on a more esoteric and spiritual level. If I’m going to do something that is going to harm another person then I have to think and be curious about the awful implications behind that. Things like this have made me realize why I am doing the things that I am doing. I like to believe I am a good person but this time of Covid has made me curious about our human actions and responses with and to each other. Hopefully this time of isolation, I know it worked for me, it’s about how much I appreciate interaction with others as I never have before. I’m an only child so growing up I was content to be on my own but now I appreciate interaction with others because I miss people. Just simply that. I miss people. I miss the option of seeing them because it’s been taken away. This time has made me curious to be aware of who I am and what is my relationship to others in a positive way. This time of Covid has made me aware to keep curious about our relationships with others because those people in your life is changing just as you are. Remain curious about them and don’t take who they are for granted. Maintain the curiosity that made you want to be that person’s friend in the first place. You can follow Mark on Facebook and Instagram: @TheMarkCassius Previous Next

Back Phillip Nero DREAMCO Theatre (Durham Region Entertainment and Music) David Walker Joe Szekeres A new professional theatre company has moved into Durham Region. Although Artistic Director Jeremy Smith (a former student of mine) no longer lives in the Durham Region, I always salute his company, Driftwood Theatre, which has produced some extraordinary Shakespeare in the Park productions across the province every summer. In my heart, Driftwood was and will always remain a professional theatre company stemming from sturdy roots here in the Durham Region. Port Perry’s Theatre on the Ridge (TOTR), under Artistic Director Carey Nicholson’s vision, has staged classic and modern plays over the last ten years both indoors and outdoors. Passionate and articulate about the theatre, Phil Nero, an Equity-based artist, now living in Brooklin (with his wife and six-year-old daughter) is excited beyond measure to open DREAMCO (Durham Region Entertainment and Music) even in these uncertain fiscal times for the Arts on account of Covid. He knows it is going to be challenging over the next couple of years since many have lost income, but Nero is confident the enjoyment and love of live theatre will outweigh in the long run especially if local residents do not have to spend gas money to drive downtown to Toronto. Starting out small and inexpensive, Nero wants DREAMCO to show just how valuable they are in what they plan to offer to Durham Region and beyond. Phil is not out to be in competition with other local professional theatres in Durham such as Driftwood and TOTR. On the contrary, he says there is no reason for that. Instead, he made a comparison to car dealerships that are on the same street and next door to each other. People who are going out to look for a car will venture and look all around for what they want. For Phil, the more these theatre companies thrive and work together in the same manner, the more theatre is generated, and the more people and audiences will attend. During our conversation at the Brooklin Coffee Culture over a cold drink on a very warm afternoon, the conversation turned to Nero telling me how he stumbled into dance and when the proverbial ‘theatre bug bit him’, specifically by accident in Grade 6, when he was involved in the school play ‘Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Phil fondly recalled watching ‘Dead Poet’s Society’ in high school and how its message of CARPE DIEM/SEIZE THE DAY spoke volumes to him. That film’s message brought him to this point in his life where he is right now in making his dreams come true and pursuing them. Nero grew up in Markham where he next appeared in a production of ‘West Side Story’ with the Unionville Theatre Company. Two dance teachers from the area grounded Phil going forward where he participated in and won several competitions and discovered what he calls this extraordinary gift of dance. Undecided whether he wanted a career in show business or as a chef (another of his passionate interests), Phil took a year off to decide while he performed in Grand Bend’s Huron Country Playhouse of ‘West Side Story’ where he was offered the Equity Apprentice role. When he returned home, he knew of Sheridan College’s Musical Theatre Programme and wanted to attend. He failed his first year because he was ill-prepared and thought it would be a waste of time to return. However, a couple of teachers took Phil under their wings and in his words was told: “it would be a game-changer for you to repeat your first year again.” He stayed and turned the three-year theatre programme into a four-year one. Phil didn’t graduate Sheridan because he went to do ‘West Side Story’ at the Stratford Festival where he worked with famed choreographer Sergio Trujillo* in 1999, but he did assure that he completed his diploma (now a degree from Sheridan) So, to all theatre lovers who want to school themselves in the art, Nero strongly advises to make sure you get that degree or diploma first and foremost. The theatre life then became ‘serendipitous’ for Nero as he quoted this word several times during our conversation. He auditioned and was cast in the Toronto production of ‘The Lion King’ for a year and then moved down the street to The Royal Alexandra where he appeared in ‘Mamma Mia’ as Dance Captain and understudy for Pepper. Nero then went on the road for a year and a half with the US National Tour of ‘Mamma Mia’ where he played Pepper. When he returned, he directed and choreographed a production of ‘A Chorus Line’ at Stage West in Mississauga and ‘Chicago’ at Halifax’s Neptune Theatre. Nero was supposed to return to Halifax to perform in ‘Evita’ when he was offered a role in the Toronto run ‘The Lord of The Rings’ where he was the Dance Captain/Fight Captain/Swing and then went to work on the production in London. Upon his return, Nero went to direct and choreograph six seasons at The Citadel Theatre. Nero recognizes how Covid has put a kink in the plans of the trajectory going forward in the Canadian theatre industry. Many of the major and independent/regional theatres are focusing on smaller casts at this time as everyone weathers this continued Covid rain for now to reduce overhead costs and capital investments which means less work for actors and less parts to be had. But as DREAMCO evolves over the next several years. Nero assured me Durham theatre actors and lovers can look for opportunities to grow as artists. Starting off, Nero called the company’s focus now ‘a Math game’ and will produce non-Equity presentations to begin with the idea going forward that Equity credits could be earned in the distant future. Phil also reiterated this is not a comment on the artists’ abilities whether they are union or non-union. All Equity artists were once non-Equity. It is Nero’s goal that DREAMCO will produce entertainment across many genres and not focus merely on musical theatre. He believes and wants so very much to be able to create the magic of gathering together as a community for theatre here in Durham Region. He wants his shows to enable audiences to question, think, act, react and talk. These are the points of why theatre is shared in the community. Going forward, Nero says a long-term wish is to build a theatre for DREAMCO within the Region. He specifically said: “Mayors of Durham Region, are you paying attention?” __________________________________________________________________________ (*Trujillo learned the choreography from the famed Jerome Robbins who originated the dancing from the original ‘West Side Story’) __________________________________________________________________________________________ Although this is far off in the future, Nero’s goal and desire are to fashion DREAMCO in the same manner as Drayton Entertainment and London, Ontario’s Grand Theatre where there are six-seven shows a season, possible Fringe festival, workshops for students and a bridge for community theatre to professional theatre. Although musical theatre is Nero’s passion, it is his hope that the company will also tackle the great stories from classic to contemporary and modern. Phil’s wish list for the inaugural DREAMCO season would include ‘Death of a Salesman’, ’12 Angry Men’ and ‘Inherit the Wind’ (readers: remember this is a wish list and not a given). To bring audiences back to the theatre, DREAMCO is planning a Concert in the Village Series to be held at Brooklin Community Centre. No money or profit will be made from this series, according to Nero as that is not the intent at all. DREAMCO is planning to bring in entertainers well known around the province. There are also plans for Sunday afternoons around 2 pm ($10/$20) where tea and scones will be served and listen to performers with special engagements planned to celebrate Autumn, gather for Remembrance Day, Thanksgiving, Christmas, Valentine’s Day, Mother’s Day, and Father’s Day. Part of DREAMCO’s mission statement is to improve the quality of life through art, and these Sunday afternoons will reflect that statement. DREAMCO’s Board of Directors include Nero, Katherine Docherty (who works at Active Natural Health in Brooklin), Brooklin Rotarian Rod Hunter, and Rex Harrington (National Ballet of Canada) My jaw dropped when I heard Harrington’s name mentioned. DREAMCO will present its first concert ‘Songs of Hope’ at Port Perry’s Town Hall 1873 on June 17 at 6 pm and 8 pm with proceeds going to help Ukraine. Phil has selected from the musical theatre scene and one from the pop world. He smiled and said he called in a lot of favours, and there are some terrific artists who will participate: Mark Cassius (who has played in Toronto and Broadway and was a member of the acapella group ‘The Nylons’); Cory O’Brien (who recently appeared in the Toronto production of ‘Come from Away’); Cory’s wife, Christy Adamson (who appeared in ‘Cats’ and ‘War Horse’) and Cynthia Smithers (who appeared in Stratford production of ‘A Chorus Line’) and local talent Jessica Docherty who attends Oshawa’s O’Neill Collegiate. Thank you so much, Phil Nero, for your time. I look forward to seeing the inaugural season for DREAMCO. To learn more about DREAMCO, Nero encourages interested people and audiences to sign up on the website: www.dreamcotheatre.com to be placed on the mailing list so information can be sent to you regarding the inaugural season. To purchase tickets for ‘Songs of Hope’ A Benefit Concert for Ukraine on June 17 at 6 pm and 8 pm, go to www.townhalltheatre.ca . Tickets are $50.00. Previous Next

Back 'Moulin Rouge' The North American Tour Now on stage at the CAA Ed Mirvish Theatre, 244 Victoria Street, Toronto Credit: Matthew Murphy and Evan Zimmerman for Murphy Made. Pictured: Some of the cast from 'Moulin Rouge.' Joe Szekeres “A visually dazzling spectacle of kaleidoscopic colours, textures, shapes, and sizes. It’s too much sometimes, and I had to shut my eyes because I was in sensory overload and had to clear my thoughts. The challenge with fully appreciating this ‘Moulin Rouge’ is John Logan’s book.” ‘Moulin Rouge’ (English translation: red windmill) is one of the nightclub hotspots in the late 1890s, Paris. The exterior of the building is a windmill painted red with spinning turbines. When I first visited Paris in the mid-1990s for the first time, the ‘Moulin Rouge’ was still operational. During a recent trip to New York City, I spoke with someone who had seen the Broadway production of "Moulin Rouge." This conversation prompted me to think more about the touring production at the CAA Ed Mirvish Theatre. Please note that I have not seen the New York production. This individual to whom I spoke in New York said there is an actual red windmill in the Broadway production. The stage is large and spills right into the audience. None of that exists here because the show is touring. What conclusion did I finally arrive at about the touring production now playing in Toronto after a weekend in NYC? This ‘Moulin Rouge’ resembles the red and white holiday candy prevalent this time of year. It is beautiful to look at and exquisite to enjoy, but the flavour doesn’t last very long. It’s the late 19th century in Paris's bohemian, avant-garde Montmartre district. The opening musical number reminisces of ‘Cabaret,’ where the Emcee welcomes the audience to a seedy nightclub setting in Berlin. In both stories, people come for nightly entertainment, including music, drinks, songs, smoking, and the occasional imbibing in debaucheries. ‘Moulin Rouge’ introduces us to director Harold Zidler (Robert Petkoff), who breaks the fourth wall and speaks to the audience as if we were the audience that night in the late 1890s. We are reminded that the ‘Moulin Rouge’ is a place where all our dreams will come true (no matter what they are) and that we: ‘Can, Can, Can’. You’ll understand that reference when you see the show. Young composer Christian (Christian Douglas) meets the nightclub’s regular guests, Toulouse Lautrec (Nick Rashad Burroughs) and Santiago (Danny Burgos). The latter two are in the process of writing a play with songs in it and would like to see it mounted in the nightclub. Christian has become smitten with the nightclub’s superstar, Satine (Arianna Rosario). Zidler, however, has something else entirely in mind for Satine. He wants to introduce the superstar to the Duke of Monroth (Andrew Brewer), who might be a potential investor in the show created by Lautrec and Santiago to help save the club from closing for financial reasons. Monroth’s interest in Satine becomes deadly. With music direction by Andrew Graham, many of the production’s well-recognized musical numbers are sung with a fiery passion. I especially liked Adele's 'Rolling in the Deep' and 'Your Song' (which appeared in the 2001 film.) The remix at the conclusion gives the audience one final opportunity to hear the music again. However, the sound balance between the orchestra and the performers needs tender, loving care. The orchestra is too loud. It overpowers. I knew the words to some of the songs but not all of them. There are moments where I didn’t catch a thing. At the intermission, my guest turned to me and asked what was going on with the bass. Again, hopefully, sound designer Peter Hylenski can work this out. Visually, some extravagant moments in lighting, costume designs, and choreography are noteworthy. For example, Justin Townsend’s extraordinary lighting design fluidly becomes sharp one moment while seamlessly blending into another shadowy effect moments later. Catherine Zuber’s skin-tight costume designs become fine reminders of the era, accentuating the various builds and frames of the sexy actors, singers, and dancers in the ensemble. I particularly noticed these clothing designs during the pre-show when the actors appeared on stage and began interacting with each other and the audience in the front row. Sonya Tayeh’s choreography is sleek and sharp. Directed by Alex Timbers with a taste for the flamboyant in music and dance, Arianna Rosario is a sultry Satine. Christian Douglas is charming as young composer, Christian. Robert Petkoff’s opening number with the ensemble becomes veritable eye candy. I was trying to take in as much as I could. Andrew Brewer is a swarthy, lanky Duke who creates a couple of frightening moments with Satine. The challenge with this touring production lies in John Logan's script. It provides a superficial take on the classic boy-meets-girl story. Significant gaps in the storyline make it easy to anticipate the plot twists as they approach. Final Thoughts: I tried to sit through the film version of ‘Moulin Rouge’ when it first appeared at the local cinema. I walked out because I didn’t get the story. Regarding DVD, I thought I’d give it another chance. About fifteen minutes in, I turned it off because the story did not interest me at all. What was I supposed to glean from the film? After thinking more about this, I realized that the film’s script just didn’t appeal to me. Yes, the musical numbers caught my attention, but that’s not the only reason people should attend musical theatre. The music is an important part, agreed, along with the choreography and movement. However, if the story doesn’t appeal to me, no amount of singing or dancing will cut it. The Mirvish show programme includes a reference to this ‘Moulin Rouge’ as a work of theatrical imagination. There are moments where imagination and creativity exist in this touring production, no doubts at all. I wish there was more of a believable story. Approximate running time: 2 hours and 45 minutes with one interval/intermission. MOULIN ROUGE runs until January 12, 2025, at the CAA Ed Mirvish Theatre, 244 Victoria Street, Toronto. For tickets: mirvish.com or call 1-800-461-3333. Previous Next

Back 'The Stillborn Lover' by Timothy Findley Presented by Scarborough Theatre Guild now onstage at Scarborough Village Theatre Darlene Thomas Joe Szekeres A master acting class for a community theatre production thanks to a gelled ensemble cast who remained intently focused throughout. Bravo to Scarborough Theatre Guild for tackling one of Canada’s prolific writers of the twentieth century. As we all slowly emerge from this pandemic, what an enjoyable and golden opportunity it was to be treated to a company of actors who were clearly and diligently prepared for Timothy Findley’s ‘The Stillborn Lover’. First produced in 1993, ‘Lover’ is not an easy play to stage by any means as there are so many subtleties within the script that requires an audience to pay close attention to the unfolding story. Clarification about the title. For most of us, the word ‘stillborn’ means born dead. There is another definition for stillborn - failing from the start: ‘unsuccessful, abortive’ - to remember as you are watching the production. Thankfully, Scarborough Theatre Guild got me out of a rut of binging ‘Netflix’ or On Demand. Not that there’s anything wrong with that if that’s what people want to do; however, when I go to the theatre, I look forward to being challenged and being able to think about what’s playing before me. And hopefully, I will leave the auditorium at the conclusion with new thoughts and ideas or having learned something about human nature. As Prospero once said in ‘The Tempest’: “This is such stuff of which dreams are made.” Jeremy Henson directs this terrific cast with much sensitivity and compassion and creates a wonderful dream of a story to be told. Pay close attention nevertheless as it is easy to get either lost or confused in all the dialogue. The year is 1971. According to Theatre Scarborough’s website: 'The Stillborn Lover' follows the abrupt recall of highly regarded Canadian ambassador in Moscow Harry Raymond (Clive Lacey) from his post to a safehouse by the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Michael Riordan (Ted Powers). At this safehouse, Harry is questioned by two members of the RCMP Daniel Jackman (Neil Kulin) and Greg Mahavolitch (Brad Finch) about a crime committed in a Moscow hotel room. Accompanying Harry is his daughter Diana Marsden (Marisa King) who defends her father during this interrogation. We also meet Harry’s ill wife, Marian (Jill Tonus) and Riordan’s wife, Juliet (Vivian Hisey). In another interwoven plot, we also learn Riordan is planning to run for the leadership of his political party upon learning the incumbent Prime Minister is stepping down on account of poor health. Both Michael and Juliet are wanting to avoid any scandal that could ruin the former’s run at becoming leader of the country. However, past secrets and indiscretions threaten the careers of both Harry and Michael. Lester Ruiz’s gorgeous set design amply fills the playing space of the Village Theatre. I spent a good deal of time just sitting and taking in as much as I could in noticing the intricate workings of the safehouse. From my seat, I noticed the detailed painting on the stonework in front of the first set of steps. I counted five levels each representing an area of the house. Ruiz didn’t have to add anything further as he allowed me to fill in the rest of the house in my mind. Chris Northey’s lighting design effectively created a sumptuous fall look with the necessary earth tone colours of fading browns and hue tones. Jennifer Bakker’s selected appropriate projection designs to add visual context to the scene. Andy Roberts’ sound design and Ross Inglis’s musical score successfully underscored some of the intense moments of dialogue. Andra Bradish and Darlene Thomas’s work in costumes and make-up coordination and design strongly delineated the various idiosyncrasies and habits of each of the characters. I especially liked how the makeup on Jill Tonus’s face keenly reflected her illness. This ‘Stillborn Lover’ company has clearly understood the importance of working together as a gelled ensemble to tell a good story. None of these seven actors ever ventured over the top in reactionary or histrionic moments in this opening night performance. They strongly remained always grounded and, in the moment, while allowing the words of the dialogue to speak for themselves. I hesitate to point out individual performances here because, as Jeremy Henson wrote in his Director’s programme note: “[these actors] tackle numerous themes and controversial topics [in this play] regarding politics, diplomacy, loyalty, betrayal and power…but in the final analysis I distilled my answer into one word [what this play is all about]…..LOVE!”. This theme of love is key to understanding the unfolding drama with the characters and its connection to each of them. Spoiler alert – there are two moments of brief nudity which is handled with the utmost care. It is not gratuitous or gaudily presented, but it is necessary for important plot development. FINAL COMMENTS: As we return to the theatre, I believe the key for community theatres to keep moving forward is to take a risk and select a production that will take actors out of their comfort zones. So much has occurred to all of us over the last two years, and our artistic culture will become part of that evolution and growth moving forward. Nearly thirty years old, ‘The Stillborn Lover’ still speaks to audiences today if we allow it to do so. I wholeheartedly recommend seeing this solid production. Running time: approximate 2 hours and 30 minutes with one intermission. I continue to wear my mask at all theatre performances. Production dates: July 14, 15, 16, 21 and 22 at 8 pm. July 17 and 23 at 2 pm. Ticket prices are $24 with Student/Senior at $20 taxes/fees included Warning: ‘The Stillborn Lover’ is meant for mature audiences for its themes, sexual situations and brief nudity. Performances run at The Scarborough Village Theatre, 3600 Kingston Road, Scarborough. For tickets, visit www.theatrescarborough.com or call the box office at 1-416-267-9292 THE STILLBORN LOVER by Timothy Findley presented by Scarborough Theatre Guild Producer: Darlene Thomas Director: Jeremy Henson Stage Manager: Teresa Bakker Performers: Clive Lacey, Jill Tonus, Marisa King, Ted Powers, Vivian Hisey, Neil Kulin, Brad Finch Previous Next

Back 'New' by Pamela Mala Sinha Produced by Necessary Angel in association with Canadian Stage and Royal Manitoba Theatre Centre Credit: Dahlia Katz Pictured: Fuad Ahmed and Pamela Mala Sinha Joe Szekeres A first-rate production directed with a clear vision and purpose by Alan Dilworth. Set in Winnipeg, in 1970, ‘New’ follows the lives of three South Asian couples who are friends: Qasim (Ali Kazmi), a medical doctor, reluctantly agrees to an arranged marriage and ties the knot over the phone much to the shock of his girlfriend, Abby (Alicia Johnston). Qasim must then face the reality of this decision to welcome Nuzha (Mirabella Sundar Singh) to Canada. Sachin (Fuad Ahmed) and Sita (Pamela Mala Sinha) struggle in their marital relationship. Aisha (Dalal Badr) and Ash (Shelly Antony) are a modern, liberated couple who have been challenged by pressures back home. Nuzha’s arrival becomes the touchstone for these couples to re-examine again where they fit in the world around them and in their relationship with their significant other. I made a concerted effort not to write any notes in my book about the production as I watched it. Instead, I sat back and allowed the story to take me away to a time that I still believe was not that long ago (even though fifty-plus years have gone by). I made the right choice to do that here as I didn’t want to miss a minute of this ‘New’. Lorenzo Savoini’s set design of three separate rooms of the kitchen, living room and bedroom smartly and wisely serve as the home of all three couples. I’m loving the kitschy ’70s set look right down to the shag carpet in the living room and bedroom. The wall phone with the elongated telephone cord was an apt choice. John Gzowski’s terrific sound design of ‘70s music combined with South Asian melodies provided the ideal juxtaposition of two cultures meeting head-on. Michelle Bohn’s capture of the seventies in her costume choices was spot on right down to the men’s plaid checkered pants and ladies’ high-tail boots. The South Asian dresses worn by the ladies remain colourful and eye-catching. Hugh Conacher’s subtle lighting design intensely reflected those moments of dramatic intensity when needed. In her Playwright’s Note, Pamela Mala Sinha stated some of the things she has tried to capture in the play. One of them immediately caught my eye: “[I have tried to capture] what it means to be thought of as ‘new’ – because of how you look – in a country where you are not new, a country that is your home.” That statement is powerful and strikes an emotional chord. Being thought of as new in how one looks really hasn’t changed that much from a twentieth to a twenty-first-century societal standpoint. I like to think some progress has been made but we still have a long way to go. Alan Dilworth directs the play with a clear vision and intended purpose. In his compassionate and capable hands, Sinha’s script naturally flows from its believable dialogue This fine actor ensemble delivers convincing performances of credible emotions which never venture over the top. Ali Kazmi is a forceful Qasim. He still harbours feelings for Abby while becoming strikingly cold in his relationship with Nuzha. Alicia Johnston’s Abby’s frank confrontation with Qasim about why he has contacted her becomes one noteworthy dramatic highlight. Here is a woman who has chosen willingly to let go of the love of her life, painful as it has been for her. But cultural context also opens how this moment is also painful for Qasim as he too experiences regretful choices just like Abby surrounding this arranged marriage from his family back home. Mirabella Sundar Singh showcases an intriguing mystery in her demure performance as Nuzha. Initially, a quiet woman who only wants to please her husband Qasim upon her arrival to Canada, Sundar Singh cleverly manipulates the audience’s feelings and reactions to Nuzha’s newly found growing confidence in her behaviour as the story progresses. In the final moment of the play, as Sundar Singh and Kazmi look at each other, their eye contact and vocal tones strongly indicate these are two strong-willed people who will survive no matter the decisions made going forward. Playwright Sinha tackles the role of Sita with assured conviction. Her relationship with her college professor husband Sachin initially appears grounded; however, the couple’s tragic loss becomes heightened by his growing suspicions about his wife, Nuzha, and how the world he knows has changed. Fuad Ahmed’s charming Sachin in the beginning soon morphs into someone to whom attention must be paid (and not for the right reasons). Solidly dramatic work from Ahmed here. The seventies were a time of change in so many cultural elements of liberation and freedom to do whatever one wants. As the free-thinking Ash and Aisha, Shelly Antony and Dalal Badr aptly evoke that freedom to do whatever they want if it feels good for them as a couple. Just like Sita and Sachin, Ash and Aisha also suffer painful decisions and choices that need to be confronted as they would have been considered an immediate ruin of their relationship and their individuality. Antony and Badr deliver sound performances of a couple who appears to have it all amid the social changes of the ‘70s. When Ash and Aisha’s world comes crashing down, Antony and Badr soundly keep their emotional intensity in check in their last minutes together. It is the deafening silence between the two of them that says so much. Final Comments: Passionate and intense one moment while funny and poignant the next, ‘New’ ‘s universal messages of acceptance, loneliness, sacrifice, and love resoundingly touch an emotional chord. The play must continue to be seen by as many people as possible. Go see it. Running time: approximately 2 hours and 25 minutes with one intermission. ‘NEW’ runs until May 14 at Toronto’s Berkeley Street, 26 Berkeley Street. For tickets, visit www.canadianstage.com or call (416) 368-3110. ‘NEW’ by Pamela Mala Sinha Produced by Necessary Angel Theatre Company in association with Canadian Stage and Royal Manitoba Theatre Centre Directed by Alan Dilworth Set Designer: Lorenzo Savoini Costume Designer: Michelle Bohn Lighting Designer: Hugh Conacher Sound Designer: John Gzowski Stage Manager: Sandy Plunkett Performers: Fuad Ahmed, Shelly Antony, Dalal Badr, Alicia Johnston, Ali Kazmi, Pamela Mala Sinha, Mirabella Sundar Singh. Previous Next

Back Richard Ouzounian Moving Forward ---- Joe Szekeres It was reading the many reviews of now retired Toronto Star theatre critic Richard Ouzounian and theatre critic Lynn Slotkin (of The Slotkin Letter) which led me to enter the world of professional theatre reviewing, and I am gratefully taking this opportunity to thank both of them publicly. I had interviewed Lynn earlier this season. My friend, Kathy Knight, told me that Richard was out for a walk and happened upon the porch side concert in which she was performing. Kathy said to get in touch with Richard for an interview, and I was most thankful and pleased when he agreed to answer the questions via email. I also had the opportunity to see Richard’s direction of ‘Four Chords and a Gun’ (Gabba Gabba Hey) and loved it for its bleeding rawness about the Ramones. Now that I know Richard will direct an upcoming concert production of ‘Follies’ since it has been postponed, I do not want to miss that one especially when you see the cast he names in one of his answers. Thank you, Richard, for our email conversation: It has been an exceptionally long five months since we’ve all been in isolation, and now it appears the numbers are edging upward again. How are you feeling about this? Will we ever emerge to some new way of living in your opinion? I always knew this was going to be a long haul. Well, not always. Initially I thought it would be over for North America in a month or two. Then reality set in. I think we might be back to normal – whatever that means – in about a year from now. But I secretly feel that our world has changed forever. Anyone who thinks we’ll all bounce back like rubber balls is crazy. The world we left in March of 2020 is gone forever. There will be a new way of living. I hope it will be a better one: free from systemic racism, conspicuous consumption and a lifestyle that has come to confuse motion with movement. How have you been faring? How has your immediate family been doing during these last six months? Like everyone, we’ve had our ups and downs. My wife Pamela decided finally to quit her job as Board Secretary at the National Ballet of Canada and is enjoying that freedom tremendously. My son Michael lost his two part time jobs as well as his three-day-a-week involvement with the LINKS program at Variety Village. He’s having trouble coping without those anchors. And my daughter Kat, who worked in event planning, saw 10 months of work vanish overnight, which left her all at sea. But despite all of that we have stayed well and surprisingly happy. As an artist within the performing arts community, what has been the most difficult and challenging for you professionally and personally? I’ve been the most hurt by what’s happened to my colleagues, especially the younger ones. I’ve had a great 48 year career in the business, so I have nothing to complain about, but I think of the personal and professional losses of the casts of potentially thrilling shows like Soulpepper’s The Seagull, Talk Is Free Theatre’s Sweeney Todd, Stratford’s Hamlet, Shaw’s Mahabarata, the Crows/Musical Stage collaboration on Natasha, Pierre and the Great Comet of 1812 and so many more that my heart is well and truly broken. Were you in preparation, rehearsals, or any planning stages of productions before everything was shut down? What has become of those projects? Will they see the light of day anytime soon? I was joking early in March that I had just turned 70 and was about to embark on the best 7 months of my career! I had four amazing projects at Stratford: a Kander and Ebb cabaret called Only Love that I had created for Vanessa Sears and Gabe Antonacci, a late night revival of the iconic comedy revue, Beyond the Fringe, a staged concert of the forgotten musical, High Spirits, which had an all-star cast and - best of all – a celebratory gala to mark the opening of the new Tom Patterson Theatre which would pay tribute to the productions and artists who had graced the original venue. And after all that, I was going to go to Koerner Hall, thanks to Mervon Mehta , and direct a production of Stephen Sondheim’s Follies In Concert, starring Eric McCormack, Chilina Kennedy, Cynthia Dale, Thom Allison, Jackie Richardson, Sheila McCarthy, Ben Heppner and many more….along with a 26 piece orchestra conducted by Paul Sportelli. Deep sigh as I let all of those go. The Stratford projects, I’m assuming, are gone for good. But Mervon has postponed Follies one year and we will be doing it in 2021, God and the medical profession willing. What have you been doing to keep yourself busy during this time? I have been so lucky. The one show that wasn’t cancelled was the world premiere of an amazing musical called Super School, written by Dan Abrahamson and Sarah Mucek. I thought it might be cancelled as well, but the visionary head of Bravo Academy, Melissa Bencic, decided we do the whole show on Zoom….and so we did! Auditions, workshops, rehearsals, performances….the works! And this was a musical with a cast of 13, all under the age of 18. It was a a total blast, thanks to the authors, the cast and my astonishing Associate Director/Choreographer Kayla James, who taught me how to embrace the new art form. Then, courtesy of Corey Ross, I was invited to write the Programme Book for the Immersive Van Gogh Exhibit in Toronto and will be doing the same shortly for a Banksy Exhibition in Taiwan and Tokyo. I’m also preparing a new and exciting musical video project for Stratford to stream this winter, but I can’t reveal the details just yet! Any words of wisdom or advice you might /could give to fellow performers and colleagues? What message would you deliver to recent theatre school graduates who have now been set free into this unknown and uncertainty given the fact live theaters and studios might be closed for 1 ½ - 2 years? To my colleagues, I’ve found that staying disciplined keeps the mind from going too crazy. I’ve continued to get up early every morning, shave, shower, dress and exercise. For me, it’s walking a minimum of 10K a day. I’ve tried to feed my family well and healthily and post a lot of my recipes on Facebook and Instagram. I’m proud of the fact that I actually have lost 5 pounds over the past six months. You also need something philosophical to hold on to. I’ve come to embrace the Stoics over the past few years and they really saved my ass during this difficult time. Dip into https://dailystoic.com Ignore the commercials, sign up for the daily email blast and give it a try. Marcus Aurelius survived a plague far worse than this one. To the younger generation, don’t let your tools get dull, don’t let your dreams sink into the dust, don’t let the negativity weigh you down. You WILL get a chance. Time is a pendulum. It always swings both ways. Do you see anything positive stemming from Covid 19? I hope it is the death of the dinosaurs. I hope it kills off the bloated, traditional, complacent ways we led our lives and – for some of us – produced our art. I hope it signals the end of my generation pulling most of the strings in all walks of life. I hope it makes it impossible for any racist, sexist or other forms of judgemental behavior to continue. Do you think Covid 19 will have some lasting impact on the Toronto/Canadian/North American performing arts scene? Closing down all the theatres for 18 months to two years will definitely have an impact. What is will be, I couldn’t begin to guess. Some artists have turned to You Tube and online streaming to showcase their work. What are your comments and thoughts about streaming? Is this something that the actor/theatre may have to utilize going forward into the unknown? The best streaming projects have been the ones that try to find a new way of doing things instead of just producing the same old work over Zoom. We have to learn how to write for the form, to direct and design for it, and most of all, to perform for it. In the future, I see it being a vital tool rather the only game in town. But, as Hamlet says, “the readiness is all.” Despite all this fraught tension and confusion, what is it about performing that Covid will never destroy for you? The joy of communicating something you believe in deeply with other human beings. To connect with Richard, visit his Facebook page: Richard Ouzounian or Instagram: richardouz. Previous Next