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Posts tagged ‘Toronto Theatre’

May 22

Sophia Fabiilli – Assistant Producer of One Little Goat Theatre Company’s “The Charge of the Expormidable Moose” Shares her TOP TEN THINGS She’s Learned About Producing

 Sophia Fabiilli is a Toronto-based actor and budding theatre producer. This spring she had the opportunity to work with One Little Goat Theatre Company, assistant producing their current production of ‘The Charge of the Expormidable Moose’ (on stage NOW at the Tarragon Theatre Extra Space until May 26th).
 
What does an indie assistant producer do? How was it been transitioning from acting to life on “the other side of the table”? Sophia shares her top ten lessons on producing thus far.
 

1) Input does not equal output

My first experience as a producer came last spring when the Amy Project facilitated an internship withSeventh Stage’s production of ‘Stockholm’, in partnership with Nightwood Theatre. I was lucky enough to be an intern producer and worked under the guidance of the magnificent Melissa Jane Shaw, Artistic Producer of Seventh Stage. One of my focuses was educational outreach. I called ninety-one high schools in the GTA and booked zero school groups. Zero. This was a crushing blow to my rookie producer ego…

If you work hard, it’ll pay off, right? It doesn’t always work that way when building new audiences. It’s extremely difficult and you must brace yourself with patience. Lots of patience. Remember: even if it doesn’t work out this time, reaching out to new people will somehow pay off down the road.

2) Cold calling perseverance

Let’s be real: people are busy and inevitably think that you want their money/will waste their time. From my experience, know exactly what you’re going to say before you pick up the phone, but don’t sound like a robot. Be concise. Spark their curiosity. And if they’re not interested, be polite and thank them for their time.

Once in a while, you’ll call someone who is absolutely thrilled that you’re not a pre-recorded message announcing that they’ve won a phony free cruise. “You’re inviting me to your play? Awesome!” You willconnect with people who will be excited to hear from you (and you’ll be happy that you made the call).

3) Know what you’re talking about

This spring, I was fortunate to be hired as the Assistant Producer for One Little Goat Theatre Company’s English language world premiere of ‘The Charge of the Expormidable Moose’ (on stage at the Tarragon Extra Space NOW until May 26th – go see it!). I assisted Artistic Director/Executive Producer/my incredible mentor, Adam Seelig, with everything from securing rehearsal spaces to sourcing insurance to locking down cross-promo deals to brainstorming ways to spread word about the show.

At one point, Adam suggested that I contact some local galleries that showcased surrealist artwork. Claude Gauvreau, who wrote ‘MOOSE’, was part of a radical group of surrealist artists and political activists in Montreal, called Les Automatistes.

This was a brilliant idea on Adam’s part, but when it came time to make the cold call, I got cold feet. I realized that I didn’t know enough about what our project and these galleries had in common. I was going to look like a fool… and worse, make One Little Goat and ‘MOOSE’ look second rate.

I confessed my concerns to Adam and put myself through a crash course on the core and content of the play’s cultural history. Moral of the story? Be an expert on your show. You need to be able to speak passionately about your project and tell people why they shouldn’t miss it.

4) Get organized

This one sounds like I’m running out of ideas, but it could easily be my #1 piece of advice. Keeping track of a thousand details can be overwhelming, especially when you have other projects, a ‘Joe’ job, and a semblance of a social life on the go as well…

The following is completely stolen from Arts Planner Extraordinaire, Sue Edworthy, who did the marketing for ‘MOOSE’ and from whom I’ve learned lots… (do yourself a favour and read Sue’s blog –www.sueedworthy.ca)

In order to keep our Expormidable team on the same page, we created a shared Google calendar and a giant grid of all our reciprocal deals in DropBox. Everyone kept the calendar and the grid up-to-date with deadlines, show openings, and important dates. We scheduled everything (e v e r y t h i n g), even down to our social media postings. It worked brilliantly.

5) Reciprocals are your best friend

What’s a reciprocal anyway? Basically, it’s an agreement between two companies to help promote each other’s shows. If your shows run at the same time, you can trade postcards or program ads. If they don’t, get creative… Offer shout-outs in your e-blast or on your website, free tickets, social media or blog posts, whatever you got!

Advertising is expensive, my friends. What better way to pump your shows than to connect with each other’s audiences?

The Charge of the Expormidable Moose - One Little Goat Theatre Company

The Charge of the Expormidable Moose – One Little Goat Theatre Company

6) Use social media wisely

Remember last July? Remember receiving 12,000 notifications a day about Fringe shows? Remember how much you loved that? …Yeah. Social media is a powerful tool, but it won’t do squat if someone stops following you or turns off notifications about your event.

I’m going to take a page from Sue Edworthy again. For the ‘MOOSE’ event page we posted: “IMPORTANT: We will not be posting to this page. To keep up-to-date about the show, please “like” One Little Goat Theatre’s page. Thanks!”

SUCH a great idea! By directing people to “like” your page instead of “attend” your event, you retain those Facebook followers after your show closes… and have them on hand for your next project. LOVE. IT.

7) Be thoughtful about online etiquette

I was in charge of social media posting for ‘MOOSE’ and my first thought was “everyone is going to think it’s Adam posting, not me”. It was really important that I wrote in a style and tone that suited the aesthetic of One Little Goat Theatre.

Being the voice of someone else’s company is a huge responsibility! Go the extra mile and triple check… This is important to remember when it’s so easy to tweet or send off a quick email in a matter of seconds. Careful that what you’re writing won’t be misinterpreted or, quite frankly, sound rude. And while you’re at it, respond to correspondence in a timely matter. It makes a HUGE difference.

8) Get your hands dirty!

AH YEAH! This one sounds like fun!

When Adam and I were planning in January, I suggested that we create a promo video. Great idea, Sophia! Fast forward to April, when I shot and edited seven one-minute videos interviewing our incredible cast members (here’s an example: http://onelittlegoat.org/blog/2013/5/6/video-actor-sochi-fried-talks-moose).

I have neither shot nor edited a video in my life, but let me tell you… iMovie and I are intimate partners at this point. I also catered our opening night reception. Sometimes you just need to jump in and get a job done.

9) Ask questions

Holy hell, I asked a lot of questions! You can ask Adam. Actually don’t… that poor man needs a rest.

I’m new to this and didn’t want to screw up. So, I asked a bunch of questions and learned a lot (although I still have so many more to ask…). If you’re new to producing like I am, get out there and talk to people who’ve done it. There are incredible people in this community who are happy to share advice (and war stories).

10) Praise to producers everywhere!

Producing is an all-encompassing (and sometimes thankless) job and your work is never totally done. There’s always another post to be writing or another invite to send. Honestly, it has been a challenge to balance the workload with my other life as an actor.

Struggles aside, it has been fascinating to see a show come together from the “other side”. I had expected to find it artistically unsatisfying; I wondered if I would envy the cast, wishing that I were up there instead. I am happy to report the opposite! There is a creative side to this job and, let me tell you, sitting in a full house on opening night of the show you helped to produce feels DAMN GOOD.

So far, producing has been an eye-opening experience for me. The next time I work as an actor, I’ll remember that my director, producers, and designers have been working on the production for months(maybe years!) before I came onto the scene. The show cannot go on… without everybody’s efforts.

 
THE CHARGE OF THE EXPORMIDABLE MOOSE
by Quebec visionary Claude Gauvreau 
“A tour de force” -GLOBE AND MAIL
“A production not to be missed” -STAGE DOOR
“An unforgettable performance” -CHARLEBOIS POST 
 
Runs: May 10 – 26, 2013, Tue-Sat 8pm | Sun 2:30pm
Where: Tarragon Theatre Extra Space, 30 Bridgman Avenue Toronto
Tickets: $25 | $20 student senior artist + $3 final week | Fri & Sun rush tix $13
Buy your tickets over the phone: 416-531-1827 (no service fees!)or 
In person at the Tarragon box office: 30 Bridgman Ave. 
 
For more info go to One Little Goat Theatre Company’s Website – onelittlegoat.org/moose/

May 2

A Chat with Alex Johnson. The Playwright Project A Year Later: Sam Shepard May 1-7th

by Ryan Quinn

Q: Here with the brilliant Alex Johnson. The Playwright Project kicked off last night to a great start. Tell me a little bit about what you’re doing with the project this year.

A: It’s the exact same format as last year with a different playwright and several different venues. We wanted to rebrand as The Playwright Project and move away from being a Tennessee Williams festival. We never had any interest in being a Tennessee Williams festival; it’s more the format, the community-mindedness, and the artistic collaboration that we were interested in. So, we rebranded as The Playwright Project and went with Sam Shepard for a number of reasons. I guess the first and most important one was that we’re all absolutely in love with him. He’s exciting, he’s a little filthy, you know, “the sacred and the profane”. There’s great music in his plays, huge amounts of live music, that awesome, bluesy, folksy stuff. There’s all that sweaty, New-York-in-the-60’s experimental theatre, but there’s also some really down-to-Earth and conventional work. So, there’s a huge variety. Also, they’re plays our generation can really sink their teeth into. They’re restless and young and urban. So, it seemed like a good fit for the people we were working with.

Q: And who are you working with this year?

A: So, we’ve got Heart in Hand Productions, who actually just did a Sam Shepard play. They did Cowboy Mouth at the Cameron House, which is also a venue that we are working in this year. Those girls are great and they were very keen to re-enter the world of Shepard and investigate a different play with us. They’re also this great team of babes doing a really masculine Shepard play, so I’m really excited about that. They’re doing Fool for Love. Peter Pasyk from Surface/Underground will be joining us, doing When the World Was Green. He was just chosen to be the 2013/14 Urjo Kareda Resident at Tarragon Theatre, so that’s amazing. Theatre Brouhaha and Red One Theatre Collective are both back on the project; they were with us last year as well. We’ll actually be working in Red One’s new venue, The Storefront Theatre, which those boys are also running. We’ve also got Alec Toller, who is more known for being a filmmaker. He’s got a film coming out called Play, that Kelly McCormack was in, and it’s about theatre. He’s doing Angel City which is very cool because it’s really film noir and cinematic, so I’m really curious to see how this filmmaker meets this live filmic piece. Natasha Greenblatt and Pomme Grenade Productions, who just did The Peacemaker at Next Stage, which was a huge hit. She will actually be doing Cowboy Mouth. Lastly, and this is really exciting, Alex McCooeye has adapted a Sam Shepard short story called Saving Fats into a play. Alex and I actually worked on his adaptation of a Poe short story about a year ago with the incredible Greg Kramer who sadly passed away a couple weeks ago. Alex is a really great writer with an amazing eye for adaptation, so I’m really excited he’s taking this adventure on. Jeremiah Sparks is in it, so, yeah, it’s going to be great.

Q: Are you doing it in the same venues as last year?

A: Yeah, so we are back in the Curzon in Leslieville. I was in there the other day and since we were in there last year, it’s been revamped into this amazingly Sam Shepard-like space. It’s the coolest. There are these white embossed animal heads on the walls, and it’s all…country. It’s so cool. It’s so cool. I walked in and I was just like “Why? This is so perfect. This is touched by God”. We’re also back in the Magic Oven. The interesting thing about that space is that once the Project is done for this year (although we’re already vamping up for next year), I’m partnering up with Tony at the Magic Oven to turn that downstairs space into an actual year-round, multi-disciplinary performance space. Tony has built a full kitchen and bar in the back, so it’s going to be fully operational by the fall. I will be managing and programming everything in that space. I mean, there’s not a lot like that out there on the Danforth. You have the Fraser Rehearsal Studios, the Danforth Music Hall, you’ve got the Red Sandcastle, but it’s significantly more south. We’re really going to try to engage with the Danforth community and be a new place where culture can happen. It’s really exciting. We have not confirmed a name for the space yet. We jokingly call it The Tragic Oven.

Q: That sounds horrible, haha. That’s a horrible name.

A: I know! We’re just going to program Greek tragedies. So, yeah, we’re back there. I think everything else is new. We’re at the Storefront; we’re at the Cameron House…oh! The Cameron House is partnering with us this year to be the post-show hub every night. So at the Cameron House every night at 10pm, Cameron House records and our director of music Gaby Grice have co-curated a whole line-up of Shepard-y music in that bluesy, folksy, rock and roll cowboy vein. So, every night at 10pm, a whole different lineup of Shepard-y music at the Cameron House. So, that’s going to be a blast. We’re also in some other great spaces, the May Café in Little Portugal, Lazy Daisy’s in The Beach, Annette Studios in The Junction. I’m really excited about the venues.

Q: Now, sometimes you call it a project, and sometimes a festival. It also kind of seems to walk a line close to being a repertory season. Where is that line?

A: It’s so funny that you bring that up. We were just talking about this last night, actually, that the language that we use needs to be paid close attention to because the end result is festival-like but the process is not. The process is much more collaborative and about the seven companies as well as the administrative body supporting each other as opposed to them working independently of us until show time like you would for Fringe or Summerworks. So, the process is much more, as our initial vision from last year stated, about creating a tighter-knit community of artists who work toward one communal goal together. In that regard, I don’t think you could call us a festival.
I like what you said about thinking of it almost as a repertory season. It’s like a really fast, really intense repertory season that goes down. If I can find a more succinct way of phrasing that, I might steal it from you for next year. I actively avoided calling it a festival last year, but the language sort of just became easier to use. People understood more what the end result was, what May 1-7 would be. But, yeah, I think I want to go back next year, for 2014, and re-examine what we call ourselves.

Q: Do you feel like the community has gotten more tight-knit since the festival last year?

A: Yeah, I mean, I don’t think we’ve changed the theatre scene. I think what Playwright Project has served to do is broaden many of our artists’ connections and resources. They now know, in some cases, almost a hundred new people that they can access in the community and that they can share with. The thing is, though, everybody works differently. Everyone has their own process. Some are more about reaching out and bringing people into the fold, and some people are much more isolated. One is not better than the other. Some people work better in isolated think-tanks, and some work better with an “it takes a village” mentality. So, I wouldn’t qualify the festival as being some giant community. What I know it is, is an opportunity to access things that you wouldn’t be able to access otherwise. And you’ve got a really strong support system under you. So, like, the Playwright Project team and I are here to handle the things that could take away from your artistic focus and clarity of vision. We are here to enable you to do what you want to do.
But, in the bigger picture of things, is the Toronto community getting tighter? Yeah. I think it is. I think I see things changing and I see the grassroots stuff growing and I see people reaching out more.

Q: What have you learned since last year that’s been implemented this year?

A: It’s so funny. We were talking last night about how at the end of last year we went “Oh alright, we know what to do now. We know now. We get it now. We got it”. And now it’s coming up to the end of the rehearsal period and I’m like “Oh wait. I still don’t know anything”. What have I learned? I’ve learned so much. I’ve learned that people want to help. People want you to call them up and present them with an idea and a way they can get involved. I’ve also learned a lot of practical things. I’ve learned how to rent a van and how to hang a piece of black fabric. I’ve learned a lot about Equity and the new agreement and the festival waiver.
I have learned that it is very important, whether you’re an arts institution, or an organization, or a collective, or an individual artist, every project and every endeavour needs to have a personality. It needs to know what it is and have a clarity of what it’s doing. When our logo started going into development and our amazing graphic designer Lisanne Binhammer was sending us sheets of proposals, picking it was remarkably hard because we didn’t yet have that seed of exactly as an organization, what our personality was. As the logos started to come in, I started to see it. Started to visually see what we look like on paper, and it helped us to better understand what we are. We’re this scrappy, spirited group of young people, and trying to fight it and become something more polished is not helpful. I was at the Shakespeare in the Ruff gala and they know so well who they are as an organization. They have such a specific sense of humour and how they put themselves out into the world is so clear. I’m becoming more and more aware of how important that is. I mean, I guess, in simple words: branding. The importance of branding. You can’t engage people if you don’t know who you are. You can’t get them on your team if you don’t know who that team is.

Q: Looking into the future, in five years, where would you like to see the project?

A: There are a lot of internal things I would like to see change. Just in terms of, you know, office space. Things that would make the daily practical work easier. I think much of our personality is that every year, we’re going to be different. Last year was Tennessee Williams, and this year is Sam Shepard and there are cowboy hats everywhere and the music at the Cameron House. If it’s Ibsen (and it won’t be, but hypothetically), if it’s Ibsen, the personality of that week in May will be entirely different. Instead of having music at the Cameron House, we might have…sad Norwegian poetry nights. Every year there will be a different flavour to what we do.

Q: An atmosphere?

A: An atmosphere, yeah! And secondary programming will arise from that, and different people we can work with will arise from that. Different things these neighbourhoods can engage with and see that they wouldn’t normally. I want to be surprising people five years down the road with what we do. I don’t want to sit still too long. As I said, we’re already in talks for next year, and it will be surprising. I can tell you right now, the format will not be changing, but some things will be and it’ll surprise you. You’ll like it.

The Playwright Project: Sam Shepard runs May 1st-7th
For show listings check out our complete Toronto Theatre Listings page.
For exact venue schedule and ticket purchase go to The Playwright Project’s website!

Apr 4

We want YOU!

Hey nifty peeps! Like the cut of our jib? Want to join the fun? Check out our latest Job Posting for Writers/Contributors for our In the Greenroom team! We want YOU! Read more on our Job Board.

Feb 27

Strong Shows in Small Spaces – Rarely Pure Theatre Opens The Pillowman

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I sat down with Ryan Quinn and David DiFrancesco, director and actor of Rarely Pure Theatre’s The Pillowman running from Wednesday February 27th to Sunday March 3rd at the Propeller Gallery. Over hot chocolate and croissants, we talk about the show, get to know these gentlemen, discuss the benefit of strong shows in small spaces and explore the challenges and benefits when working with those you know so well. We even get a little playlist to listen to before the show!

The Pillowman – Trailer

Hallie Seline: Tell me a little bit about Rarely Pure Theatre and something that we might not know about the company?

David DiFrancesco: Rarely Pure Theatre was started around last January by a group of people from the University of Windsor. Essentially, its function is to be a hub that artists can come to when they want to put on work and Rarely Pure will help them do it. It doesn’t necessarily have to be people we have worked with either. When someone has an idea for a show they can just throw it at us and we’ll work on all of the ins and outs to help put it on.

Ryan Quinn: This is our second production with Rarely Pure Theatre and as for something you might not know, we are now doing a dinner theatre in Erin Ontario!

HS: Tell me about that.

DD: We are going up to Erin Ontario, which is just outside of Brampton to do two performances of The Pillowman before our Toronto run. It’s going to be a dinner theatre feel at an inn location. It’s a small town that doesn’t get a lot of theatre, so they are very excited to have us up there and if all goes well, it may be something that we can continue doing with Rarely Pure.

RQ: Yeah, and I think what’s interesting is that with a lot of dinner theatre, the dinner becomes part of the theatre, whereas this is going to be more like you sit down for dinner then after you see a show. It will definitely be interesting to gauge the reactions of our dinner theatre audience who may think they are coming for a certain kind of theatre and will be getting, I believe, something quite different and a little more hard-hitting and real.

DD: The Pillowman has some dark themes to say the least.

RQ: Oh yeah. Reading The Pillowman, at times, still makes me feel uncomfortable but I believe at its heart, it has a very beautiful story. That’s what captures me every time. I read it, I get caught up in it, I feel disgusted with what the characters do and with what they say, but at the end it’s rewarding and actually kind of heartwarming.

HS: What is one thing that we might not know about you?

DD: Well, this is Ryan’s first full directorial show that he’s taking up all on his own, which is really exciting.

RQ: Last year I had the chance to work with Lee Wilson, assistant directing on The Merry Wives of Windsor up at Theatre By The Bay. This year I really wanted to do some of my own work and then maybe go back to assistant directing and hopefully continue to go back and forth to really develop both skills at once.

This has been a really big undertaking but it has been incredibly rewarding so far.

RQ: I’ve also started doing a little bit of stand-up comedy.

HS: Oh, that’s fun! And what about you, David?

DD: I’ve got nothing…

We all have a good chuckle about that.

HS: We’ll leave David as a Man of Mystery. So, why The Pillowman?

RQ: It’s a show we’ve been talking about doing since we were in second-year University. It came up in Scene Study and all of us were completely taken by it. The aspect that I still love about The Pillowman is how it still surprises me. I go through the script and I write things down like ‘Ok, I know the show is about this, and trying to talk about this,’ and then I read it again and I can come out with something completely different. It is a show that poses a lot of questions and doesn’t necessarily assert answers.

DD: Because it has been such a fantasy project for us, we never thought that it was actually going to happen. One of our main actors, Davydd Cook (who plays Tupolski), moved to Greece and we just figured it was never going to happen with just the few of us but he sent us a message saying he’d be back for the Christmas holidays and a few months after so we jumped at the opportunity. We just decided that it was now or never.

HS: What has been the most interesting or the most challenging aspect about working on this play as an actor, for you David, and as a director, Ryan?

DD: I think for me, the most challenging aspect has been finding my character Michal’s mentality. Because the character is slow, having severe mental damage from being beaten by his parents for several years, it has been interesting and a challenge trying to get into his mindset, figuring out where his thoughts are coming from and really attempting to speak through the truth of the character.

RQ: For me, it has been working with people who I know so well and their processes, which I also know so well, and still making sure they challenge each other. It can be tempting to say that something is good enough or to say ‘that’s what I thought you would bring to the table’. I needed to make sure that we kept the rehearsal process fresh and challenging in hopes of achieving the best from everyone involved. And they’re so good at that, leaving the years of experience that they have with each other at the door, getting in the space and really trying to affect one another. For something that I thought would be a bigger challenge, it has turned out to be a great benefit in many ways. We can regroup quicker and dive into the material, working relationships a lot more smoothly without the reserve there is at times when actors are meeting for the first time.

DD: I think that is the most exciting part about it too. Getting to work with these guys on our own project. We’ve never gotten to work just the five of us outside of school on something we were all really passionate about. It’s great.

HS: What should people hope to expect when coming to see The Pillowman?

RQ: Well, it’s at the Propeller Gallery (Queen Street West & Ossington), which is a small, intimate space and it is a very emotionally and physically violent play, so I think that audiences can expect to be taken for quite the ride and really feel the heart of this story. Some of the best shows that I have seen in Toronto have been in small, intimate spaces with shows that pull the audience in and make them feel complicit. I think that’s really what we’re going to do with this show – make the audience question what they’re watching, question why they’re enjoying it and question the nature of violence in theatre or in art.

DD: We have commissioned a couple of artists who have devised paintings for our play and they will be showcased around the gallery for the week, as it still needs to function as a gallery space. I think with all of the elements that we’ve employed, from the actors, to the projections we’ll be utilizing throughout the show, to the images showcased in the gallery, it will make for a very overwhelming show, to say the least.

HS: If someone from the audience could have a playlist to listen to before coming to see The Pillowman, what would you recommend they include on it?

RQ: This is the best question.

Gustav Holst – The Planets Suite. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AHVsszW7Nds
It’s just a very emotional and god-like suite. It is very intense but also very gentle at times

Aphex Twin – “Selected Ambient Works 85-92”. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xw5AiRVqfqk
This is a really great album of ambient music, which is also very slow and droning.

Set Fire to Flames – “Sings Reign Rebuilder & Telegraphs in Negative”, “Mouths Trapped in Static” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qPc26RnZij4
They are a group of improvisational musicians from Montreal who locked themselves in a house and starved themselves until they could write an entire album. It is the most raw, human thing I have ever heard because they just wanted to get it out there and to get out of the house, while still working to make something they could be proud of. It’s a little sadistic but it really made me think of the play.

Finally, there’s a great album by The Mountain Goats called “The Sunset Tree” or there’s a stripped-down acoustic version called “Come, Come to the Sunset Tree”, and it comes out of the lead singer’s experiences as an abused child. What I love about the album is how optimistic, child-like and full of wonder it is but always with that underlying darkness. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xa-DWtGsl8I

DD: For me, there is a song by The Tallest Man on Earth called “Kids on the Run”. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pfYu4MEuQuQ
It’s about just looking back on life and not really being able to move forward, which is a lot of what my character deals with in the show.

270802_503688596348597_969923593_nHS: Now a little word association, for fun.

HS: Story-telling:

DD: The Pillowman
RQ: Danger

HS: Toronto:

DD: Crazy
RQ: Community

HS: Theatre:

DD: Awesome
RQ: Danger

HS: Pillow:

DD: Comfort
RQ: Smother

HS: Emerging Artist:

DD: Rarely Pure
RQ: Rarely Pure

HS: Favourite Spot in Toronto:

DD: The Stockyards (St. Clair Avenue West & Christie)
RQ: The Distillery District (Just south of Parliament & Front)

HS: Any last words?

DD: The seats for the show are very limited because we’re in a small art gallery and we can only fit approximately forty people, so there’s the possibility that there won’t be tickets available at the door. Advanced tickets are available at www.ticketbreak.com. Search The Pillowman. Other than that, I’m just very excited for this show and we can’t wait to put it out there for you all.

RQ: Yeah, I’m really excited about the show. Every single person that we are working with in design, illustration, music, lighting, is so talented and so ‘on-the-ball’ with this piece. It really blows me away how beautiful the show has become and how much everyone has been able to contribute to our final product. We can’t wait for people to see it.

The Pillowman opens tonight until Sunday March 3rd.
 
Breakdown: Katurian the writer stays in and writes stories. That’s it. Brilliant but often grotesque tales, shaped by a twisted childhood experiment conducted by his own parents towards his brother, Michal, heard through the cracks in the wall separating the siblings. Now Katurian has been blindfolded and taken out of his home to face questioning at the hands of two brutal detectives, representatives of an ominous totalitarian state. His stories have put them on the trail of a serial child killer, and several lives hang in the balance as Katurian wrestles with his responsibilities to (and for) his art. Martin McDonagh’s play is a harrowing and blackly funny meditation on the tricky power of words to shape the world.
 
Where: Propeller Gallery (984 Queen W)
When: Wednesday, February 27th to Sunday March 3rd
Time: 8pm
Tickets: $10 and can be bought online here:

http://www.ticketbreak.com/Pages/Search.aspx?search=rarely+pure+theatre

For more on Rarely Pure Theatre: http://rarelypuretheatre.com/ https://www.facebook.com/RarelyPureTheatre

Jan 14

3 Comments

“Start, Stop, Continue” for 2013: A Conversation Starter for the Toronto Theatre Arts Community

By: Hallie Seline – Co-Founder & Editor

The past year in Toronto theatre has been a tumultuous one to say the least. From the firing of Ken Gass from the Factory Theatre, to the open letter to younger theatre artists by David Ferry on the Praxis website and the debate that ensued. From government funding, a desire for a new union model, the plethora of new independent theatre companies, and where emerging and veteran artists alike fit into the Toronto theater world, there is a lot of discussion to be had about where we stand as a community and where we should hope to go next. As we begin the new year I think this is a perfect time to reflect on what we have done as an arts community in 2012, where we currently stand and most importantly how we hope to move forward in 2013.

I have done this in the form of a “Start, Stop, Continue”. Our first installment features the ideas of Rob Kempson (Theatre Passe Muraille/Paprika Festival), Stacey Norton (Theatre Smash), Kelly Straughan (The Toronto Fringe, Seventh Stage Theatre) and Eric Double (Theatre Caravel).

Read our Feature’s first installment here!

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