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Mar 24

In Conversation with Jennifer Brewin about “The Public Servant”, on stage now until April 3

by Bailey Green

“A healthy, strong civil service makes for a freer, diverse and inclusive world, and that is just my world view,” says Jennifer Brewin when asked about what she hopes audiences will take away from the upcoming production of The Public Servant (presented by Common Boots Theatre and Nightwood Theatre). “We vote for politicians and those are the people who determine what kind of civil service we’re going to get. An accountable robust civil service is best for everyone.”

The Public Servant began about 6 years ago, shortly after Brewin was made Artistic Director of Common Boots Theatre (formerly known as Theatre Columbus). Brewin knew she wanted to work with Sarah McVie, Haley McGee and Amy Rutherford and she was drawn to the idea of exploring the strains of public life. “The people who work in admin or in management are often these unsung heros,” Brewin says. “Literature tends to mock them or reduce them, and they haven’t had their place in the sun. So it was an important idea to me, especially because so many people who work in administration are women. Where are the songs about the heroic work of that, getting a report in on time or completing an audit. Those things create foundation, support and innovation.”

Photo Credit: Neil Silcox

Photo Credit: Neil Silcox

The team (Brewin, McVie, McGee and Rutherford) interviewed a wide range of women working in the public service in Ottawa. Over the course of their interviews, they encountered three generations of women working in the public service. There were the women who had worked during Pierre Elliott Trudeau’s time, who had been given responsibility to create new policies and laws for a more inclusive society. “They told incredible stories of fighting for equal pay, for changing maternity leave laws and regulations,” Brewin says. Then there were women who were currently working and were nearing the mid to end point of their careers. These women had worked during Mulroney, Chretien and Martin’s terms as prime minister. “They had faith in what they were doing but their faith was strained,” Brewin says. “Jobs were cut under the Harper administration and people were let go. And then we met young people going in to public service, which was a very different experience. They wanted to be good administrators and managers, but didn’t have particular ambitions to change the world.”

Photo Credit: Neil Silcox

Photo Credit: Neil Silcox

The women wrote the play through long form improvisation. Each of the actors was drawn to a different generation of public service and each character became a composite of the different people the team had met. The character of Madge, a young and eager public servant, originally created by McGee, brings us into the world of The Public Servant. The play originally premiered in Ottawa, where Brewin found it was incredibly exciting to watch a play about women speak to all kinds of people. For this run, McGee had booked a contract in London England, and the role of Madge was taken on by Amy Keating. “Amy’s understanding of the script and the story has really helped reveal new things about the play and the character,” Brewin says. “It’s been really exciting working with her and clarifying her intentions.”

When asked about Brewin’s joys and challenges when working as a director on the piece, she said, “The joy was experiencing Amy, Sarah, Haley and, later, Amy [Keating] interpret the entire art of the play/production. It’s incredibly exciting to throw up all our rules of engagement and just dig into it.”

The Public Servant

BrochureImage
Written by Jennifer Brewin, Haley McGee, Sarah McVie and Amy Rutherford
Directed by Jennifer Brewin
Produced by Common Boots Theatre (formerly Theatre Columbus) in association with Nightwood Theatre

What: The Public Servant is a comic-tragedy about women and administration. Step inside the halls of power as Madge, a young, idealistic and enthusiastic civil servant, gets ready to write her first official memo.
Based on the interviews of some twenty civil servants who shared harrowing tales of navigating the fuzzy divide between individual need and public good, The Public Servant reveals a journey of heroic dedication and professional betrayal, of overcoming cutbacks, bad managers and incompetent ministers. And how in the end, the demands of accountability and transparency seem to defeat even the best bureaucratic soldiers.

Where: Berkeley Street Theatre Upstairs
26 Berkeley Street

When: March 13 – April 3, 2016
Tuesday-Thursday, Saturday: 8pm
Friday: 7pm
Saturday-Sunday: 2pm
Wednesday March 30: 1pm

Tickets: Regular price $35

nightwoodtheatre.net

 

Mar 20

In Conversation with Sex T-Rex – Presenting their Double Bill at the Storefront until March 27

by Bailey Green

I had the pleasure of speaking with Sex T-Rex performers Seann Murray, Kaitlin Morrow, Conor Bradbury and director Alec Toller about their double bill, on now at the Storefront Theatre (Danny Pagett and Julian Frid were unable to stay for the interview but are also performing.)

It began with a quote from the movie Predator, “this stuff [chewing tobacco] will make you a goddamn sexual tyrannosaurus.” And then one night, before an improv set, the announcer shortened the improv troupe’s name from Sexual Tyrannosaurus to Sex T-Rex, and it stuck. Performer Conor Bradbury laughs at the memory, “Hey, when someone’s right they’re right! There’s no need to be precious about your comedy.”

The group came together during their time at George Brown back in 2007-2008. Many elements of theatre school didn’t resonate with the actors but when they got together in stage combat class, then things really came alive. “It’s a triumvirate of violence really,” director Alec Toller jokes about the history of Sex T-Rex shows. “All of our action shows are centred around violence,” performer and producer Kaitlin Morrow adds. “Callaghan! was a lot of punching, Watch Out Wildkat is shooting and then Swordplay, which was loosely inspired by Princess Bride, has to do with, well, swords!”

Photo Credit: Cindy Lopez

Photo Credit: Cindy Lopez

This double bill features Watch Out Wildkat! and Swordplay: a play of swords. “Even though we have done Wildkat in 4 cities and Swordplay in 2, we’re still riffing, especially in rehearsals,” Morrow says. “You can always feel when it happens,” Bradbury adds. “There’s this unspoken ‘keep it’ feeling when someone makes a good joke.” Toller says that the group strives for clarity above all else, “We do so much mime, and fake action movie stuff that we’re always fighting to be so precise.”

Toller directs the group’s scripted shows (they also do improv shows) which are written plays with a sketch origin. “It’s very collaborative,” Toller says. “It functions more like a collective, so basically I’m the person not on stage… where I belong… but my job is to manage what everyone wants to get out of it. This show is a remount, so we’re trying to improve as we go, punch things up, and that can be challenging because we have an existing structure but we don’t have an audience.”

Photo Credit: John Gundy

Photo Credit: John Gundy

Writer, producer and performer Seann Murray speaks to the group dynamic saying, “It’s very rare that we have camp A and camp B disagreements. Instead, we usually have eight ideas with each person having three and a half small ideas each.” Bradbury adds, “It’s almost like we’ll have one person who is camp A and one who is camp B, and everyone else just isn’t helping. But it always works out for the best. To have a bit of argument in the room means people care about the product.” Morrow adds, deadpanned, “So we just punch each other in the face until someone gives in.”

Photo Credit: John Gundy

Photo Credit: John Gundy

Murray writes the scripts for the group and describes the process:

“The first step is we identify the genre we want to work in. Then we watch movies and chat about the tropes we want to hit, what we want to see [in the show] from the genre. So it’s not just regurgitation, we want to honour the genre. Once we’ve consumed a bunch of media and batted ideas around, I write the script and we workshop it throughout the process. We often wind up with a small chunk of the script left, we stay true to the character and story more or less, but as Alec [Toller] said, there’s lots of really funny improvisers on the team so we’ll take a scene, work through it and put it back into the script.”

The group considers audience feedback invaluable. They often take their shows to Montreal Fringe before performing at Toronto Fringe. Montreal Fringe offers them the opportunity to try out new material and improve their work. “We change something after basically every show, we find something else we’ve never done before,” Bradbury says.

Photo Credit: Sharon Murray

Photo Credit: Sharon Murray

Morrow, the only female performer of the troupe, tells me how that for years she dealt with crippling nightmares centred around improv. Subconsciously, she wanted to get up and perform but she was terrified. Now, with 19 shows under her belt, she has realized that a bad set isn’t the end of the world and that the joy she feels from performing far outweighs the fear. “The first time I went up to improvise was for Shane Adamczak’s secret show Captain Spaceship in Montreal Fringe,” Morrow remembers. “He just assumed I was in the show because I was a part of Sex T-Rex, and when I tried to back out, he told me I couldn’t because there were no other women in the show. So I didn’t sleep for about a week, and then somehow I was backstage and then I was onstage and I did it. The relief was amazing, and you know, it wasn’t even bad!”

Watch Out Wildkat! & Swordplay: A Play of Swords

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Presented by Sex T-Rex
When: March 11th -­ March 27th, Wed­-Sun
Watch Out Wildkat! @ 7:30 PM & Swordplay @ 9:00 PM
Sundays @ 2:00 PM
Where: The Storefront Theatre, 955 Bloor Street West
Tickets: $20 for single show, $30 for both shows
Available at http://thestorefronttheatre.com/events/swordplaywatchout-wildcat/
Connect: sextrexcomedy.com

Mar 8

Artist Profile: Anusree Roy – Playwright & Performer of “PYAASA” at Theatre Passe Muraille until March 27th

Interview by Brittany Kay

I was lucky enough to sit down with my own personal mentor and friend, Anusree Roy, to talk about her upcoming production of Pyaasa opening today at Theatre Passe Muraille. In her dressing room, we spoke about the discipline it takes to be an artist in this business, the challenges of a remount, and her deep gratitude for Theatre Passe Muraille.

Anusree Roy in PYAASA. Photo Credit: Michael Cooper

Anusree Roy in PYAASA. Photo Credit: Michael Cooper

BK: Tell me a little bit about your show?

AR: Pyaasa is set in present time in Calcutta, India and it’s a play I wrote starting in 2006… so 10 years ago. It’s something that I’m coming back to, which I’m really excited about.

Untouchability is something that is constitutionally banned. Doctor B. R. Ambedkar, who was an untouchable himself, put forth this constitutional change. You can’t practice untouchabililty, but in India it’s very widely practiced. It’s changing, absolutely, but the caste system still very much exists.

When I wanted to write a play, I wanted to look at the world, that world, the caste system world, acknowledging my social location in the system, which is a higher caste person. We had untouchable people clean our toilets all the time and we treated them really badly and I treated them really badly because that’s the environment of the society you were raised in. Pyaasa is a journey about this beautiful young girl named Chaya and her life story in ten days, beginning to end of the show. She’s a girl who’s young, bright and wants to go to school desperately. That’s all she wants. It’s a fun show and it’s a heartfelt show. It’s also a sad show and a truthful show.

BK: It’s just you on stage. Is this is a one character show, or a show with many characters?

AR: I play four characters. Chaya, Chaya’s mother Meera, this other servant lady named Kamala, who both work for Mr. Bikash. So it’s 2 women, 1 man and 1 girl.

BK: Why the title Pyaasa?

AR: Pyassa means thirsty. There’s a lot of water and water nuances all through the play. The name came to me. It wasn’t something, where I was sitting there going what should I name my play? I just thought of it because subconsciously I was aware of the amount of water in the show. I think if I were to analyze why the way it works in the caste system, in the villages that are in the rural areas, our water tank is sacred because I’m from the higher caste and your not and you can’t get water from mine. There are a lot of disputes about water, which is a necessity in life. So when you cut something off that’s a necessity in life, it becomes even more important. The name came to me and I stuck with it. It’s allowed us to kind of really look at the play through that lens.

Anusree Roy in PYAASA. Photo Credit: Michael Cooper

Anusree Roy in PYAASA. Photo Credit: Michael Cooper

BK: There was a lot of development with this play in its first edition. What were the steps and processes it went through? Before this remount, how did it come about?

AR: In 2006, Thomas (my director), David (the designer of the show) and I were doing our masters together. I was having sushi with Thom and I was telling him about my life story back in India and telling him story after story about my past.

At one point I was talking about the untouchables, the caste system, and how it’s abolished but how it still exists and he stopped me and said, “There’s a play there. You know there’s a play there right?” I was like “yeah, okay.” And he insisted on saying, “No, there’s a play there and you have a three week deadline to get me a first draft.” I’m doing my masters and I have sixteen papers due, but he just kept on saying, “Get me a first draft in three weeks.” So in three weeks, I gave him the first draft and ironically, 90% of that first draft is what’s in the show today.

BK: If anyone can work under pressure, it’s you.

AR: It just came together. I felt so passionate about it. When you play a solo show, it’s not about how good your storytelling is, it’s all about how distinct each character is. Thom and I, while creating the show, did a lot of that character work. David, Thomas and I created a company together and we did our first one-night-only here at Theatre Passe Muraille. TPM was in a financial strain at the time and whatever money we raised, we gave it to them. We wanted a production space, so it seemed like a fair trade.

BK: That’s amazing. And ballsy.

AR: We just did it. We did it fearlessly and we did furiously and we did it in good faith. The universe was there. The play won 2 Doras for Outstanding Actress and Outstanding Writer and as a result of that, it just escalated. Suddenly we had a touring agent. TPM, beautiful Andy McKim, contacted us and said he wanted to produce the play and put in his very next season. That was his first season programming as an Artistic Director here. It just grew and grew. Our touring agent took us to many places: Vancouver, Ottawa, Victoria, and many others. It became our golden child. Honestly, it wasn’t something that we spent years labouring over. We just did it in good faith, really hoping it would bite and it did. And of course our awards helped us marketing-wise. That was the trajectory of the show.

For the last five years, the company is no longer together, but we’re all very good friends. Our lives have taken us very different places. David is doing a PhD, I’m more into film/television and theatre, and Thomas is the AD of Theatre New Brunswick. We’ve split as people but our core is the same. So when TPM contacted us to do the show again, we said of course, of course.

BK: What are the challenges and excitements of remounting a show?

AR: Challenges? It’s one person. I haven’t done a solo show in five years. It’s a lot of work. It’s A LOT of work. It’s kind of keeping your body in shape and your mind in shape. I feel like an athlete, you know what I mean?

Anusree Roy in PYAASA. Photo Credit: Michael Cooper

Anusree Roy in PYAASA. Photo Credit: Michael Cooper

BK: Oh for sure! It’s a whole marathon from beginning to end.

AR: Exactly. My meals are planned. My workouts are planned. Everything is very scheduled to save energy for those 5 hours of rehearsal and those 45 minutes of show. It’s a very intense show.

BK: What about the excitements? Anything you are looking forward to this time around?

AR: The excitements? It’s coming home to the boys. That’s what it feels like. TPM feels like home and the three of us are coming home.

BK: Why TPM initially?

AR: At the time, we knew it wasn’t doing well financially and we needed a space. So our proposal to them was, if you give us a space for one night, we’ll give you all the money we make. We didn’t know that it would grow. People stayed that night and said, “No no no no! This can’t just be one night. You have to do this show many, many, more times.”

TPM has always felt like home. It has supported me so much in my career, especially Andy McKim, huge shout out to him! My father calls him my theatre dad, because it’s true. He gave me that initial push you need as a creator when you’re 25. He gave me that. He really gave me that.

BK: That’s a lovely answer.

AR: It’s true.

BK: Because it was created in 2006, why does this story need to be told to audiences today?

AR: Because it’s still relevant. Judith Thompson, in one of the earlier versions, came to see the show and she asked me “Why is it relevant for a Canadian audience?” I found that really fascinating and at the time I didn’t have an answer for her. She told me to look at the homelessness in Toronto – look at the way we treat street people here, as if they don’t exist. People with mental health issues, they’re doing their thing and we’re just walking by.

We, as a society, practice classicism in the most heinous way. We do it. All of us do it. I’ve done it. I do it constantly because when you’re in a rush, you’re going, and you don’t want to give a panhandler money. There is a division in class that we practice. How is that different from the play I’m doing that’s set in India? It’s not really. I am segregating you and someone is segregating someone in India. It’s the exact same thing.

Anusree Roy in PYAASA. Photo Credit: Michael Cooper

Anusree Roy in PYAASA. Photo Credit: Michael Cooper

BK: Where do you find inspiration for your work?

AR: The truthful answer to that would be prayer. I have a very good, solid relationship with prayer and meditation. I really quiet myself when I need to think as to where the character is going and what their journey is or what the story will be. I’m writing a play for Nightwood Theatre right now called Trident Moon. It’s a ten person show and so I have to come up with characters for that and their journey. How do you sustain yourself for a three-year mark as it’s taken me three years to write the play. It’s prayer. It’s quieting yourself. Finding it inside of you, versus outside. Those things are true and I know that because I practice it.

BK: How do you commit to this kind of work?

AR: Discipline. Discipline. Discipline. There is no shortcut to success. I truly believe it. My mom always tells me that. It’s with everything. You wake up and you do the work. You don’t think about it. You don’t whine about it. You don’t wait for the inspiration to hit you. You don’t wait for Monday. You don’t wait for your soul to be ready. It is ready. Get up. Write. That’s it. I really practice it. You set your times, for me it’s four hours. Whatever it is in the day you decide to write, you turn everything off; your phone, the internet. You sit wherever you’re sitting, and you write. Do the job. Do not whine. Because the more you sit and wait for the clock to strike 12 and the inspiration to hit, it’s never going to happen. That’s not reality. You live in a state to be inspired. You’re not sitting there, waiting for inspiration to show up to write. That’s bullshit. That is bullshit. What I learned as a young writer, and I’m really grateful for it, is that discipline and inspiration are two separate things.

Success comes to people that work hard and opportunity arrives. That’s it. They work hard. You just do your job and let the world take care of itself. There’s a lot of glamorizing of what it is to be inspired in order to write. I do not prescribe to that. I prescribe to the discipline route. You will write shit, don’t get me wrong on that. There are days when everything you’re writing is shit. That’s the process. And then when you get there and it’s not shit. If you write everyday, something will be good. One day something is good and whatever is not, you throw away. But you wrote, versus sitting and waiting.

BK: You are absolutely right.

AR: You have to train like an athlete.

BK: Do you have a definition for success or what it means to be successful for you?

AR: That my parents are proud of me? I don’t know… (she laughs) I think my nine-year-old self wants me to make my parents happy. I don’t think that will ever go away. But my adult self is very goal orientated, in everything in my life. I strive to achieve them. But how do I define success? Going to bed in gratitude, knowing that I achieved my goals… but mainly to make my parents happy.

BK: How do you wear so many different hats, especially in this production? How do you divide your time?

AR: Priority and sacrifice. I have to make sacrifices for things that I want to do. I don’t socialize a lot, because I don’t have time. When I do socialize, I don’t do other things. It’s just knowing that whatever you’re doing is all you’re doing. Wearing so many hats has taught me that time becomes very valuable, so I have to make time for my partner. He is extremely important to me. I can’t have him feeling like I’m neglecting him because of work and I can’t neglect my work. It’s always a balance. One thing that I do fail miserably at is how to answer back to emails on time. I’m consistently behind. I get about thirty emails a day and I cannot get below the fifty-email mark. I feel like everyday my inbox goes up to a hundred and four emails and I get down to fifty but I can’t go past it. It just doesn’t happen.

BK: What about playwright versus actress in this show?

AR: When I’m a playwright in the show that’s all I’m doing, and I don’t care what actor Anusree feels. When I’m actor Anusree, I have to not care what playwright Anusree thinks. I have to do the job.

Anusree Roy in PYAASA. Photo Credit: Michael Cooper

Anusree Roy in PYAASA. Photo Credit: Michael Cooper

BK: What are your goals and plans for the next five years?

AR: I would like to make a transition to television where I write for TV and produce. Here is why; write this down. DON’T skip this…

I want to see the stories of my people on screen. Television is an incredible medium and I am deeply inspired by what I’m watching, but I do not watch our stories of people of colour on the screen. It’s important that a medium that has such a wide reach, share our stories, that we are more than the secondary characters… We are more than that! That’s something I want to do. Of course, I want to keep doing theatre. There’s no question about that. I have to. It feeds my soul. But television is something I want to make a transition to simply because I want to, because the medium is good and the writing is so good for TV. I want it to have stories from my people.

BK: Do you have advice for emerging artists?

AR: I’ve talked about this before, but I really, really believe in discipline. Do the work! Don’t participate in Facebook debates. Don’t participate in this convoluted need to please. Don’t participate in bringing each other down. Do YOUR work and the rest will follow.

I have a red folder, which my mother told me to start in 2006 that houses all of my rejection letters and all of my acceptance letters. To this day, I get rejected from things constantly, as I get accepted to things constantly. That’s how our business works. But it houses all of it to keep me on track and keep me grounded and focused on the work, because if I just save the rejection letters that doesn’t serve. If I just saved the acceptance letters, that’s not true. Because I house all of them, it makes me realize how much it actually takes to be an artist.

My true advice, honestly, is do the work. If you’re an emerging artist, contact every senior artist that inspires you and ask him or her to meet and take them out for coffee. Have conversations with them. Ask them if you can help them. You’ll be amazed at how approachable they are. Fear gets you nowhere. Fear is boring. You have fear. We all have it. So if you’re scared, it’s not going to serve you. You think a senior artist is not scared? We’re all equally scared because we’re just people sitting on a rock spinning through the universe doing nothing really. My best friend Barbara came up with that and I thought that was the most profound thing I ever heard because it’s true.

The more you do the work, the more it cultivates work. Then you’re more interesting and people are more interested. Ask senior artists what their trajectory and transitions were because they’ve all done the work. Ask to work with them. You’re going to be amazed at how many say yes because they’ve been through it or they’re going through it in their career right now. I’ve been fortunate to be in the business for the last ten years but I’m a complete newbie in the television world. I don’t think you’re ever not emerging if you’re constantly in a state to learn.

Rapid Fire Question Round:

Favourite Food: Mom’s cooking

Favourite Movie: Oh no! I can’t tell you, it’s too embarrassing. For Drama, it would have to be House of Sand and Fog. For ridiculousness, it would be Two Weeks Notice.

Favourite Book: Fall on your Knees, Ann-Marie MacDonald

Favourite Play:  Crackwalker by Judith Thompson

Favourite place in Toronto: Annex.

Best advice you’ve ever gotten: “Apply to everything”, from Thomas Morgan Jones. It even applies to life, not just career – Apply yourself. Or in terms of your career – Apply to everything. Best advice he ever gave me in 2006 and now we’re working together again.

PYAASAPYAASA TPM Cover Photo DRAFT C

Who:
A Theatre Passe Muraille Production

A Celebratory Remount of the 2008 sold-out TPM run, launching TPM’s 50th Anniversary Celebration Play Series, featuring the original creative team:

Written and Performed by Anusree Roy
Directed by Thomas Morgan Jones
Production Design by David DeGrow

What: “Life is not easy, Chaya… but you have to believe in it.”

Set in Calcutta, Pyaasa (meaning “thirsty” in Hindi) tells the story of Chaya, an eleven-year-old untouchable who dreams of nothing more than learning her times table. When Chaya’s mother begs a woman from a higher caste to give Chaya a job at a local tea stall, Chaya’s journey from childhood to adulthood begins and ends over ten days.

A moving and heartfelt play, Pyaasa illustrates with subtlety and nuanced truth the inequalities and injustices that persist through the Indian caste system. But it also speaks to us about the inequalities and injustices that are all around us here in our own community.

Anusree Roy is a Resident Playwright with Theatre Passe Muraille.

Where: Theatre Passe Muraille Backspace, 16 Ryerson Ave. Toronto.

Tickets: Pay-What-You-Can Saturday & Sunday 2pm Matinees, $17 Under-30, $20 Artsworkers, $28 Senior, $33 General Admission
passemuraille.ca/pyaasa

When: March 3-27, 2016
Tuesday to Saturday Evening – 7:30pm
Saturday & Sunday Matinee – 2:00pm

Connect with us!
Spread the word: #PyaasaTO
Anusree Roy – @i_write_plays
Theatre Passe Muraille – @beyondwallsTPM
In the Greenroom – @intheGreenRoom_
Brittany Kay – @brittanylkay

Mar 7

In Conversation with Julia Krauss of “Orpheus and Eurydice”

by Bailey Green

The tale has been told for centuries in many ways but in basic terms the story of Orpheus and Eurydice goes something like this: Eurydice and Orpheus fall in love. One day Eurydice enters the forest and is bitten by a snake. She succumbs to poison and dies. Orpheus enters the Underworld to find his love and with his beautiful singing, charms Hades. Hades permits Orpheus to lead Eurydice out of the underworld on one condition – that Orpheus must not look back at her. Not once. But as they walk, Orpheus cannot contain his fear. He looks back and Eurydice is lost to him forever.

Four years ago, co-directors Julia Krauss and Nicholas Walsh were living in Kitchener. After seeing a version of Orpheus and Eurydice at Ghost River Theatre in Calgary, they were intrigued by the imagery of this myth. Walsh at the time was running a youth company, and so Krauss and Walsh decided to work with teens using the myth as a jumping off point. What emerged was a story of youth and first love, pain and loss.

The piece toured for two years to high schools in Southern Ontario. “Last year, when we moved to Toronto,” Krauss says, “we wondered how and if the show would change if we worked with adult performers on it. Once you’re older, there’s a different kind of life experience.” Krauss and Walsh assembled a collective of twenty performers—young professionals who have finished their education in dance, theatre or physical theatre. “We were intrigued by what breaks a relationship apart, what will break that deal between two people,” Krauss says. “And the bodies are older, so they tell a different story.”

Walsh and Krauss are partners in life and in theatre. “We see ourselves as context keepers, the people who put the ends together,” Krauss says of their work in devised theatre. “We’re interested in collective collaboration work that shows the final product. Everyone is passionate about it, and that shows in the final project.” Walsh, a drummer with a love for basketball, has a great sense of organization on stage and a strong awareness of sound and music. Krauss describes herself as a visual person, finding imagery in bodies and their shapes. “We balance each other out in that regard,” Krauss says of Walsh. “When we first did the piece, it was a celebration of our partnership. And so it’s been really lovely to revisit it. Being in a committed relationship is not always roses and sunshine, which we can explore with an older cast because they have had similar experience.”

Julia Krauss was born and raised in Germany and left when she was 19. Two years later she came to Canada and discovered that her accent created barriers for her to get involved with theatre. “I felt reminded that I am different,” Krauss said, “and it became something I was aware of because of casting directors. But when I worked with Majdi Bou-Matar at the MT space, he is all about celebrating cultural background. The work [we were doing] was created through improv and for the first time I felt free. That was my personal entry to devised work. Suddenly I fit in and was recognized for what Majdi called my ‘German expressionism’.”

Krauss feels grateful and inspired to work with a large ensemble of courageous and open artists. “One of my mentors when I first went into devised work told me why would you rely on your own brain when you have twenty to twenty-five people in the room?” Krauss remembers. “Everyone has a voice and story, and we, as directors, keep the bigger picture in mind […] but I love the rehearsal process. It’s a beautiful thing to watch people share and offer something really vulnerable.” Krauss hopes the piece asks audiences to consider what it takes to stay in a “functioning, fluid human relationship with another person,” and consider what may hold us back from truly embracing another person.

Orpheus and Eurydice

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Who:
Presented by Theatre TOnight

performed by
/ rhiannon bronnimann
/ cheryl chan
/ roberto ercoli
/ mateo galindo torres
/ vivek hariharan
/ marion henkelmann
/ julia hussey
/ sarah ignaczewski
/ mamito kukwikila
/ diana luong
/ brittany miranda
/ damian norman
/ brian postalian
/ amanda pye
/ hugh ritchie
/ shakeil rollock
/ kyle shields
/ dylan shumka-white
/ elizabeth stuart-morris
/ kathia wittenborn

directed by
/ julia krauss
/ nicholas walsh”

What:
“two people meet.
they fall in love. and it is thrilling. it is soft.
but it is also consuming and exhausting.

orpheus & eurydice
is an invitation to reflect on past and current relationships,
to wonder what could have been,
and to embrace what is now.

through the context of the myth, it presents
an emotionally raw and
physically captivating
exploration of our desire
for connection.

Where:
The Berkeley Street Rehearsal Hall, 26 Berkeley Street, Toronto

When:
March 16 – 20, 2016
Wed Mar 16, 9pm
Thurs Mar 17, 9pm
Fri Mar 18, 9pm
Sat Mar 19, 8pm
Sun Mar 20, 8pm

Tickets:
20 adult / $15 student, senior, or artsworker

For more information, visit their website here. 

 

 

Mar 2

“Surreal and Trashy” – In Conversation with Ali Joy Richardson, director of STILL by Jen Silverman

by Bailey Green

“I have read other plays on the subject of a stillborn child…but none with language both surreal and trashy, none as funny, and none as moving.” – Marsha Norman (‘night, Mother)

Ali discovered STILL while searching through the Toronto Reference Library for a play to direct. She knew she wanted to direct a piece written in the last ten years and that preferably the play would be by a female playwright. While scanning through titles on the shelves, she saw the cover of STILL — the shadow of a baby in a stairwell. She read the character list: Morgan, a professor, Dolores, a sometimes dominatrix, Elena, a midwife and Constantinople, a giant dead baby. “I remember being uncomfortable because I kept laughing out loud in the library and then crying in public,” Ali remembers. “I knew I had to pick this script.”

STILL cast

Ali reached out to Annemieke Wade, Alicia Richardson, Julie Tepperman and Christopher Allen. Annemieke Wade’s reply: “I’m in and I’m pregnant,” Ali says. “So I said take a couple weeks, read the script and then she [Annemieke] reached out again and she was in. I was so, so glad.” Annemieke came on board to play Morgan, the professor who we find stuck in the womb of her own basement, wearing the clothes she wore when she delivered her stillborn child.

We find the giant dead baby, Constantinople, hitchhiking after escaping from the morgue. Constantinople is in search of his mother. “Christopher Allen’s physicality is so perfect, he is so tall and playful,” Ali says. “And the minute he speaks in the shows or moves it’s just bubbles of joy […] I asked him if he had any questions or worries about being a manifestation of a stillborn baby on stage and he said, ‘hm, nope.’ So he’s been so open to everything.”

Binocular full group

Alicia Richardson, who plays Dolores, said during table work that there are no heroes in the play. “No one fixes it,” says Ali. But the characters bring the audience into their world and deal with the subject matter with honesty, humour and candor. “Jen [Silverman] never lets you sit for too long. There’s permission to laugh,” Ali says. Dolores, the play’s self-made dominatrix, is kinky, funny, queer and unafraid to reinvent herself. Elena, played by Julie Tepperman, is the midwife who goes between Morgan and Dolores. It is through their dialogue we discover that Elena is under investigation for her practice. The stories intertwine and jump from basement to dilapidated hotel room.

For Ali, one of the greatest joys in directing this piece has been the opportunity to dig into fresh, challenging, unique female characters without the need to reinterpret due to dated or insufficient text. “The female characters are written beautifully and the relationships between women are really high stakes and complicated,” Ali says. “So to not have to fight against writing is so exciting.”

Note: STILL was inspired by a memoir called Ghostbelly, written by writer and professor Lisa Heineman in Iowa. Lisa was 46 when she gave birth to her stillborn son at home with a midwife. She wrote a brilliantly honest and heartbreaking memoir about her experience of grief and healing. If you’d like to read more about the collaboration behind STILL, please visit: http://howlround.com/authors/jen-silverman-elizabeth-heineman

STILL

Still Poster 1

Who:
Directed by Ali Joy Richardson, featuring Julie Tepperman, Annemieke Wade, Alicia Richardson & Christopher Allen

What:
STILL is the story of a professor, her midwife, a dominatrix, and a baby who never got to be. Morgan’s son was born dead, Dolores is pregnant with a child she doesn’t want, and failed midwife Elena seeks either redemption or a career change. All three women confront their fears, desires, and each other, while Morgan’s baby is running out of time to find her.

Where:
Unit 102 (376 Dufferin Street)

When:
March 4 – 13, 2016

More details: http://www.binoculartheatre.com/still

Tickets: http://still.brownpapertickets.com/

 

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