Oct 31
Alex Johnson is the Project Director of the soon to be announced Playwright’s Project. Check out what she has to say about life with actor parents, the Playwright’s Project and what she thinks about the Toronto theatre scene.
Oct 24
Soulpepper’s Alligator Pie in Rehearsal – Raquel Duffy, Mike Ross, Gregory Prest Photo credit – Nathan Kelly
Hallie Seline: Why Alligator Pie? Why Dennis Lee? How did this all come about?
Gregory Prest: Well, Soulpepper already had a working connection to Dennis through Mike Ross, another member of the Ensemble. Mike grew up writing a bunch of music to his adult poetry and children’s poetry. A few years ago he met Dennis through Soulpepper and put together a show called Civil Elegies, a one-man show that Mike wrote the music for. Dennis Lee is also a resident artist of the Young Centre so he’s around the building. It kind of seemed like an obvious choice. He was very gracious to give us the rights for us to do it.
HS: Beyond that, was there something specific about his work that made you, as the Ensemble, want to play with it?
Raquel Duffy: It was actually presented to the five of us, called the Creative Ensemble (Ins Choi, Raquel Duffy, Ken MacKenzie, Gregory Prest and Mike Ross) as a suggestion. They just sort of said, how about Alligator Pie as an option to create a show? We were left with all of his books and children’s poems and started workshopping it. So although it was kind of given to us as an idea instead of us generating that idea, we just sort of took off with it! It was so fun and easy creating work with it that it just seemed natural to us. It didn’t feel forced or difficult to generate material at all. It started to flow so organically.
GP: The material itself is just so fun. I mean ‘fun’ is such a stupid word but it’s true! What I love about it is, and maybe Dennis would disagree, but it doesn’t try to teach kids anything more than just sort of reveling in the present. From the feeling of playing in a puddle to being with your sister or moments that are just fun and exciting, it’s about word play and nothing else. It’s hard to say, I just really like it. Some of [the poems] are emotional, deep and quite complicated but they’re not trying ‘to teach’.
RD: Yeah, that’s the one thing about a lot of children’s material. They really push to try and teach a lesson, at least in North America. I don’t think that’s the same in Europe at all. But it’s nice and really refreshing to be given material that you can see going a million ways.
And we are not trying to, in any way, be kids or put on that kind of character, because the voice of the text is already so present. Dennis’ voice is very clear so we’re just trying to find our own way through his poetry.
GP: That’s the big challenge: Trying to create a show for families from people five years old to the grandparents that will take them, trying to find what it is that we want to do with it and not aim too low while trying to bridge that gap. We’re not trying to create very general children’s theatre, but at the same time we want to make something accessible. It’s really trial and error. We’ll see when we get our first audience of kids.
HS: Describe a bit of your creative process and the role of ‘play’. I saw your rehearsal photos with the big glasses, the props, etc. It just looks like fun and the element of ‘play’ seems so present. Can you discuss that a bit?
Soulpepper’s Alligator Pie in Rehearsal – Raquel Duffy, Mike Ross, Gregory Prest, Ken Mackenzie and Ins Choi. Photo Credit – Nathan Kelly
RD: One of our first days in rehearsals we went to the Dollar Store, we all went our different ways and came back with these bags of, essentially crap. These became our main tools that we used. We’d start the day just by playing and run games that we would initiate ourselves.
GP: We dressed up too! It sounds ridiculous but Ken, who is a designer in the Ensemble as well, managed to put together this rack of clothes equipped with wigs and shoes and hats. So really, we just sort of played!
RD: In a lot of ways there’s no structure to it, but there is structure in the sense that someone in the group, usually guided by a poem or a song, will initiate an idea and the rest of us will play along.
GP: We’d call it ‘the kernel’. We’d bring in a kernel and say, “This is the poem, this is the kind of melody that I wrote” and people would just sort of jump on it. So initially it starts from the poem, then it gets developed through the connection to the individual, then the group plays with it, which was more exciting than five people trying to figure out what to do all at once. It gave each of the individuals of the Ensemble the space to be able to find pieces that they personally connected with amongst Dennis’ large amount of work.
RD: We would always use the phrase “follow your bliss” when going through the material to find a poem that you really connected with and have a vision for. This is so nerdy, but we’d say that we have ‘a kernel’ and once it breaks out and we’d develop it into something, we’d say “Oh the kernel popped!”
HS: What was Dennis Lee’s involvement in the collective?
GP: When we first started, we sat around with him in the room and read all of his work for children, all taking turns to read. Just hearing him read his own work was so valuable. He takes away the sort of reverence for the author that there is with theatre where often the author has long since passed. He’s more like ‘Do what you want to do. If it doesn’t work, make up a new verse.’ He’s very encouraging. We showed him two mini presentations and then he gave us notes, asking us to question certain things a little further or consider other variations. He’s been really hands-on, really supportive and has given us a lot of room, as well!
RD: Exactly. He makes suggestions but by no means is he asking us to implement them. Obviously he knows his own work really well and he’s seen a lot of different productions using his pieces so he has a lot of experience knowing what might work and what doesn’t.
HS: What stood out the most while working with his poetry as the core creative text as opposed to something from a classical repertoire like a Molière or Shakespeare?
RD: That’s a good question. I can’t separate it from us working together as a group. This is the first time it has been the five of us working specifically together in a room, though we’ve all worked together in some fashion before on different projects. I’ll just speak for myself with this one in that being able to come into a room with such an amazing group of people, being given text that holds such room for play, because it’s poetry and because Dennis has encouraged us to approach it with as much freedom as we’d like, I can’t wait to come into the room and work every day. I never feel that there is someone saying, “No, that won’t work”. Ideas are always approached with so much give. I just find it hard to comment on the experience of the creative process without connecting it to the people in the room who I’m working with. It’s been such a pleasure.
HS: A true collective.
RD: Yes! Exactly.
GP: What’s challenging and interesting about working with the poems as text is that it’s not a Molière, Shakespeare, or Eugene O’Neill, and it really is a challenge trying to connect with it as an actor and as an adult, being who we are in our lives right now. I’m also the only one out of the five who doesn’t have children all under the age of three, so that adds another aspect of your creative approach. The question is how do you keep honest about the material as an adult so you ensure that you’re not doing that bad kind of children’s theatre acting? The challenge is to stay who you are and yet be open to that child-like mentality. As an actor, it’s really interesting to make a puddle, for example, the most important thing in your world, but to not dumb it down and be an idiot. It’s really challenging to keep everything you’ve got but then reach way, way back to find that honest outlook.
HS: You had mentioned before that you are hoping to reach anyone from children from the age of five to their grandparents with this show. With such a broad target audience, how have you been working to bridge that interest gap?
GP: Well, trusting your instincts is a big thing. We perform for each other so if it’s interesting and funny for us then hopefully that will translate. It’s really tricky, to be honest. The target audience is families, which is a little generic. I was a member of the Dora jury for TYA and I saw a lot of kids’ shows. Some were amazing and some were just awful. Having one of those painful experiences sitting in the audience and seeing parents who had brought their children and were so bored was just awful. You hope to not put your own audience in that kind of position.
RD: This may not be the best analogy but my son watches a lot of Sesame Street right now and when Alicia Keys comes on and sings a song with Elmo, well my son is really into music and loves watching Elmo, but as an adult, I like sitting and listening to Alicia Keys sing and play the piano. In these skits the adults might say things that the kids are getting on a totally different level, I wouldn’t say simpler level, but I’d just say that sometimes there’s a larger, more mature joke going on that isn’t cleverer necessarily, but includes everyone. Again, as you can see, our main goal is that we don’t want to ‘dumb down’ for the kids. Both my son and I can sit, watch and enjoy everything being done because it’s creative and smart. That’s the goal.
GP: We’ve been working with actual games on stage, as well. It adds an element of ‘event’. We are actually playing a game of badminton in front of you and we are really going to try and win while we do it or we’ll do poems with a metronome and see how fast we can go. If you screw up you have to start again. There is a ‘liveness’ to it that will hopefully keep the audience engaged.
HS: With past productions like (re)Birth: E.E. Cummings in Song/Window on Toronto, Dirt and this production, there seems to be a growing presence of Collective work in the Soulpepper season. Is this a new initiative of Soulpepper and something that the company is trying to explore?
RD: Yes. I think it’s something that Albert has a lot of interest in. That and I think there is a growing interest for bringing in new works, like with Kim’s Convenience. It’s an area he really wants to explore, which is why I think he put together this Creative Ensemble.
GP: He was very frank and open in saying to us that this is an area the company would like to go in. With the experience and resources of the founding members, they weren’t really sure how to do it. This is part of the reason he has us here, to teach them how to expand. The goal would be to get projects going and then begin to get the founding members of the company involved so we are all creating work together.
HS: Have you started incorporating the founding members?
RD: We’re all really busy right now but we’ve started to do some nights where someone from the company brings in a piece of work and we help explore it. It may not go anywhere, but it’s just to open people up to different ways of looking at material and creating. For example, Nancy Palk brought in a Dickens’ piece for the Word Festival in December that she’s adapting. She brought it into the room and we spent a night with her and some other company members that had experience with collective work maybe twenty years ago that wanted to get their mind back into it. We’d love to have more nights like that.
GP: Definitely.
HS: So what can your audience expect from Alligator Pie when they come to see the show?
GP: Well the poetry is amazing. To hear Dennis Lee’s poetry is fantastic on its own. My hope is that it’ll be really fun! We have really great music so I’m hoping they will have an enjoyable time all around.
RD: I’m really proud of where we are right now. I mean we don’t have a completely finished show right now, but just what we’ve been doing with the music and the pieces we’re developing, it’s all very exciting. I think people will have a really fun time and leave feeling energized and excited.
GP: Lastly, I hope we leave our audience members inspired. Part of the design element for the show, by using odds and ends from the Dollar Store, was that we wanted to create this theatrical magic out of everyday objects. We wanted to make it accessible, creating using everyday materials, so that a kid in the audience could think, “That’s just a sheet and a garbage can. I can do that myself, at home!”
Alligator Pie – Credit: Brian Rea
The one woman show Honesty opens tomorrow in Toronto’s most famous discount warehouse, Honest Ed’s. Virgilia Griffith acts as a shape shifter, transforming age, race, and gender as she embodies the employees of the iconic emporium.
The show is presented in two acts; Honest Work and Honest Stories. Honest Work takes place from 5pm -6:30pm where Virgilia performs the everyday tasks of the HE employees. The audience is encouraged to engage and interact with her as she carries out her responsibilities like any other staff member.
Honest Stories takes place from 7pm-9pm. Here Virgilia performs monologues as a plethora of different characters as she leads the audience throughout the store. Watch her as she melds from character to character, creating a true living inventory of the warehouse’s personal stories.
Honesty runs from October 18 to November 4, 2012. The performance exists in two acts over a 4-hour period each night: Tuesday – Friday, 5 – 6:30 PM and 7:30 – 9 PM, and Saturday – Sunday, 2 – 3:30 PM and 4:30 – 6 PM.
Performances are free and take place within Honest Ed’s, 581 Bloor Street West, Toronto. The performance location within the store will be posted at the main entrance on Bloor Street.
For more info visit http://www.kofflerarts.org or http://www.suburbanbeast.ca
October 12 2012
By: Noah van der Laan
It’s curtain call for the Princess of Wales Theatre. On September 29, 2012 it was announced that the 2000-seat theatre, barely twenty years old, would likely be demolished in favour of a multi-purpose complex conceived by David Mirvish and designed by architect Frank Gehry. The project envisions an extensive re-development of the King Street West ‘Theatre District,’ stretching from John Street to the Royal Alexandra Theatre.
The ambitious project is centered on three 80+ storey condo towers, which Mirvish refers to as “sculptures for people to live in.” A primary feature of the development is the inclusion of a free public gallery for David Mirvish’s extensive contemporary art collection, gallery and classroom space for the Ontario College of Art and Design, retail facilities, and over 2,600 condominium units.
The project is the first major proposal for the re-development of Toronto’s evolving entertainment district, and despite the scale, is destined to create a new vibrant cultural corridor at street level. The new design proposes a series of large sculptures, a green-roofed podium, and the creation of a new public space to compliment David Pecault Square located across the street. Bordered by the TIFF Lightbox to the west and the Royal Alex to the east, and with Roy Thompson Hall located across the street, the King Street West strip will become an awe-inspiring entertainment hub.
Further, the project will provide an opportunity to redesign the drab streetscape and improve the public realm. With an influx of so many residents, infrastructure development is a must. In the process of upgrading sewers, gas, and electrics, the city will have the chance to reorient King Street and, based on the vision of the Entertainment District’s Business Improvement Association (BIA) Master Plan, should widen sidewalks, add separated bike lanes, restrict vehicular traffic and prioritize public transportation.
Frank Gehry is a major contributor to this vision. As a native Torontonian, it’s about time that we provide him with a canvas to showcase his work. His extension of the AGO located at the top of John Street was subdued during that project’s community consultations by neighbours who desired to maintain the particular architectural vibe of the streetscape. King West, on the other hand, provides a perfect niche for transformative architecture, neighbouring fellow skyscrapers and cultural institutions.
The loss of the Princess of Wales is unfortunate. At the time of its construction, it was the first privately owned and financed theatre built in Canada since the Royal Alexandra was built in 1907, and the first such to be built in North America in over thirty years. David Mirvish commissioned a series of murals by American abstract–expressionist painter Frank Stella. The paintings — 10,000 square feet — cover the entire interior and are believed to comprise one of the largest mural installations of modern times.
Yet the Princess of Wales no longer attracts the row of queued tourbuses it once did. Productions tend to run shorter lengths as seat vacancy has increased. Toronto’s big box musicals have been ravaged due to the post 9/11 increase in border security, in addition to the string of millennial recessions.
Don’t mourn quite yet however, The Princess of Wales marquee will remain lit for some time. The Mirvish/Gehry project has yet to submit an application to the city of Toronto for zoning approval, at which point the plans go through a community consultation.
September 23rd 2012
Interview by Ryan Quinn
John Fray is one of the cast members of Alumnae Theatre’s February, written by Lisa Moore and running September 21st to October 6th.
RQ: Perfect. So. John Fray.
JF: That’s me.
RQ: How’re you doing?
JF: Great! You?
RQ: Great. So, do you want to tell me a little bit about February and how your character, Cal, fits into it?
JF: Sure! It’s an adaptation of a novel written by Lisa Moore. Lisa adapted it herself. It is about the Ocean Ranger, which was an oil rig which went down off the coast of Newfoundland in 1982. My character is one of the workers on the oil rig. The story is predominantly about the wife of this worker and her son, and how my character’s death impacts their family. So, that’s where I fit in. Many of the scenes that I’m in are flashbacks to moments that happened in the past. I’d say the two main characters are Helen, who is the woman who loses her husband; and Johnny, the son. He’s ten years old when Cal dies. I’d say the play predominantly focuses on their relationship and the struggles that they went through: him growing up without a father and her having to take care of the kids all by herself. My character has some ghostly scenes where I come back and you don’t know if what you’re seeing is in her head or if I’m a ghost.
RQ: How does it feel exploring this piece of Canadian history? It feels like in a lot of American theatre, every important piece of history has been dissected multiple times by multiple shows; whereas this event was important in Canadian history but we don’t hear about it onstage or in novels or on film.
JF: It’s been really interesting. This went down the year I was born and I had no idea about it at all until I was asked to audition for the play. It’s been interesting learning about it and finding out about it. In terms of the process of getting into the character, for me, it’s been a very light experience because that’s who the characters is. He’s sort of this happy-go-lucky kind of character, often up for a good time, and very light hearted. So, that’s kind of the place that I’ve put myself in while working on it. Still, the subject matter might be pretty heavy, 84 men went down on the rig and died on it, which is pretty heavy stuff to think about, and it all could have been prevented. They had the equipment on board to deal with this but they didn’t know how to use it properly. But, despite all that, it’s been a pretty light experience for me just because of the nature of the character. That’s kind of the feeling I entered rehearsals with.
RQ: It sounds like even though you’re the reason for a lot of the heartbreak, you’re a light counterpoint to things.
JF: That’s right. I’m the reason for all this going down, but I don’t have to deal with any of it! You know what I mean?
RQ: Has there been an ongoing conversation between the novel and the play. Or, right from the beginning was the play its own entity?
JF: Right from the beginning it was its own thing. Michelle, the director, said “Read it if you’d like to read it, but don’t make that the point. Take everything that you’re getting from the script.” Turning a novel into a play, it has to be its own beast. You have to bring to it what’s inside of yourself. There will be things about the character, certain details that are perhaps described in the book and fleshed out in a certain way that will inevitably change with the actor that’s playing the role. They’re breathing a new life into it.
RQ: How do you think the show resonates for today’s audiences? On an emotional level, or a political level? Both?
JF: What you learn about this event as the show goes on is that why this happened was due to cutbacks. They didn’t want to pay to have men trained thoroughly. So, they were given a manual, and in this manual it described the procedures if such a storm happened and if they had to operate the systems manually, but it was just sort of handed out. There wasn’t any proper training. There were no courses to make sure they understood this information. It all had to do with cutbacks. Not wanting to spend the money. There’s actually an interesting scene in the play, one of the present day scenes, where Johnny’s going to get a job. The employer is talking about how they’re hiring him on to make everything more efficient. They want him to trim and make cutbacks. So I think all of that will resonate.
It’s funny. You have these companies that are so big and so expansive, dealing with so much money. You just sort of assume that everyone very skilled and highly specialized. You think it’s all taken care of, in case of an emergency, they have a plan, and everything’s sorted out. But it’s all an illusion. It’s often not the case.
RQ: It’s kind of easier to see that when you put a face or a family on the tragedy. I don’t mean to say that at its heart it’s a political piece…
JF: It really does put a human face on all this, though. Especially Cal. He’s kind of a simpler kind of guy. I don’t mean of low intelligence, but he is down to earth, likes to have fun, isn’t looking for a lot of complexity on his life. The simple things make him happy. The wife who he loves, is totally in love with, having a family and children with her. Living a good life with her is what he’s looking for, what will make him happy. So he goes to work on this rig without asking too many questions. There’s a job to be done, he’s ready to do it because he’s a hard worker and he’s got a family. There’s not a lot of questioning of “does this company know what they’re doing?”. Cal even admits that once they got in there and started on this operation, there was kind of an uneasy feeling. Everybody began to realize that they were, as he says, “taking their lives in their hands”. But, they continue to go ahead and do it anyway because that’s the kind of guys they were.
inthegreenroom 