I was in the paper...

...and I didn't even know it.

Two weeks ago the Langley Advance ran an article about You Still Can't at Pacific Theatre, talking about the connection between it and Trinity Western University. From the article:

A Langley contingent is collaborating to bring a wickedly hilarious comedy to the stage in Vancouver this month.

Many theatre lovers will be thrilled to hear the Vanderhofs are back; they're an eccentric family first brought to life in the comic classic You Can't Take It With You. Well, playwright Ron Reed has revived this family in his homegrown sequel called You Still Can't, which opened last week on the stage of Pacific Theatre.

Reed is an award-winning playwright who founded Pacific Theatre in 1984 and serves as the group's artistic director. He has also been teaching advanced acting classes at Trinity Western University (TWU) for the past 20 years, and in 2006 took on the designation as TWU's artist-in-residence.

But he's not the only one with a tie to Langley. Reed is joined by five actors, current TWU students or recent graduates, as well as the resident stage manager Lois Dawson, who is also a TWU alumni.

My mom called me today, having googled me this morning and found the article. I love that my mom googles me :)

Why Do I Have a Blog Anyways?

Lately I've been feeling like I need to remind myself why it is that I have this theatre blog, so forgive me - this post is as much to define this blog for myself as it is for anyone who reads it.

I scan & read an average of 45 blog posts per day from my 115 subscriptions, and most of those are Theatre related; yes, Theatre with a capital T. Economics. Manifestos. Theory. Marketing practice. Script Development. Current events analysis. Philosophy. Projections for the future.

I enjoy reading what people are saying and wrestling with the ideas that they are discussing, but that's not what I want to write about, because it isn't what I am passionate about.

Don't get me wrong. I love theatre. I wouldn't be continuing to try to find work doing theatre if I didn't love it. But my passion for theatre comes from creating theatre and seeing the theatre that is being created by my peers, not arguing about theory. And this may be naiive of me, and I'm okay with that. When it comes right down to it, I still have a lot of time to become jaded with the industry or to learn about just how hard it is to get the necessary funding. I'm still relatively new to all of this.

For me, this blog is an outlet for my writing - something I've missed sorely since finishing university. While in school I was churning out about 3000 words a week and when I graduated and had no assigned writing to do, I missed it. A self-imposed assignment is as good as something a professor assigns as long as it makes me keep writing and thinking. And sometimes it's better because I'd far rather be writing about something I'm passionate about (theatre) than something I'm not (pre-confederation Canada).

So, what do I want to write about?

I want to write about all the crazy things that happen behind the scenes in the course of making theatre. I want to share my experiences as I take part in creating this thing we call theatre. I can't share everything interesting - that ends up breaking confidences - but I'll share what I can.

I also want to write about the theatre I see, but I'm still trying to figure out how to do that. When I started the blog I thought I might include reviews (you can find some among my early posts), but the reality is that at this point in my career doing peer reviews of shows will burn bridges I can't afford to burn. I've written about some theatrical trends that bother me and about shows I am looking forward to, but I'm not yet convinced that these are the best approaches to discussing the vast amount of work that is happening in Vancouver. But I'll keep looking for those ways.

Wandering Mind

There are lots of things on my mind that I'd love to blog about in detail, but haven't had time to, so here are some snippets of what I'm thinking about:

1 - World Theatre Day

World Theatre Day is March 27 & this year the international theatre community is getting together to celebrate.  How do we intend to do this you may ask? Well just check out the World Theatre Day 2009 Blog for more info.

2 - Fundraising Letters

In the past week I've received letters from both the Playhouse Theatre Company & the PuSh International Performing Arts festival asking me for money.  I don't have any to give, but if I did it would have gone to PuSh. Why? The extra effort to put a handwritten note thanking me for volunteering was a good start, but my decision was confirmed when the Playhouse called me yesterday following up on my attendance of The Drowsy Chaperone & asking for a donation.  Only one problem: I never saw The Drowsy Chaperone.

3 - Provincial Arts Cuts

My friend Jackie graduated with a theatre degree at the same time I did and now works with a local dance company and earlier today sent me the following e-mail:

"Well in case you needed another reason to contemplate the increasing incidence of "Gordon Campbell" sounding like a swear word. Follow this link to see what he has done to the arts. Health-care, education, and the arts -- hmmm and yet he's still smiling at all the olympic venue openings right now, perhaps he has no need of hospitals-schools-or theatres, after all those things cater to organs he might have misplaced -- like a heart and a brain. "

4 - Shows I Plan to See or Have Just Seen

I went to the PWYC matinee of Whale Riding Weather today at the PAL theatre.  If you haven't yet gone, I'd highly recommend it.  Allan Morgan, who I most recently saw as Prospero in The Tempest at Bard, is brilliant as Lyle and both Jeff Gladstone & Jon Lachlan Stewart give strong performances as well.

On my to-see list for the next month: 

- East of Berlin (Touchstone/Tarragon @ Firehall Arts Center)

- Coriolanus (Coriolanus Co-op @ Jericho Arts Center)

- Beggars in the House of Plenty (Evolving Arts Collective @ The Beaumont Stage)

- Summer of My Amazing Luck (Gateway Theatre Co)

- And also (hopefully) Rigoletto (Vancouver Opera @ Queen Elizabeth Theatre)

If you have any shows to recommend, please do!

Back From Vacation

If you've noticed that posts have been a bit sparse lately, I promise that there has been good reason: I've been on vacation.

8 hours after closing Jesus, My Boy, I hopped on a plane with my family & flew to Mexico for a week, where we welcomed 2009 on the beach with fireworks and a live mariachi band.


Four days after returning to Vancouver (and experiencing a 30 degree drop in temperature) I jumped on another plane to Edmonton (and experienced another 30 degree temperature drop). I spent 5 days in Edmonton with my best friend, being goofy & enjoying each others' company.

(Canada Day came early in Edmonton this year!)

But now I'm back!

Rehearsals for Holy Mo (the next show at Pacific Theatre) start on Monday. I attended my first theatrical production of 2009 tonight at the Playhouse (more on that in an upcoming post). I start volunteering with the PuSh festival in a couple of weeks. I've jumped back into this theatrical world with both feet & am looking forward to what 2009 has to offer.

Getting into the Christmas Spirit

(Photo by: Flickr user blue ridge laughing)

One of my favorite traditions as a child was the day we drove around and looked at Christmas lights.

A week before Christmas (or there abouts) my parents would load my brother and I into the car with a thermos of hot chocolate and a few cookies to begin the annual tour. There were some houses we always hit: one of them looked a lot like the picture at the top. It was owned by an elderly couple who went out of their way to make Christmas bright for others. And over the years we got to know this couple & their talking parrot. They would invite us in for mandarin oranges & an opportunity to take a look at the decorations inside their house. Sure the outside was a bit overwhelming, but it was always fun.

It was a sad day when we drove up to their house and there were only lights around the windows. We went and knocked on the door to see if they were okay. They were fine, it was just, they said, that they were getting too old to put up all those lights themselves & they'd hired neighbours to put them up the year before, but it hadn't worked this year. But, if we drove another five blocks we'd find their friends who they had given all the lights to.

So we drove three blocks and began to see the glow. Not only had these friends put up all of the original decorations, but they had added to them, along with a sign out front that said something about an injury their son had sustained the previous summer & how these lights were very special to him, but that they wanted to give back, so if the viewers enjoyed the lights, they could make a donation which would go to charity.

And then it invited you to walk through the yard.

It was magical. The whole yard had been transformed into a winter wonderland, and when you got around back, there was the couple with candy canes for all the kids & some antique ornaments that they were showing off. When asked why they did it, they were quick to mention their son's desire to do it, but also they wanted to share it with the community.

There were other houses that we visited (one even had a live Nativity play in the backyard!), some of the homes were classy, others were tacky, but it was a very communal event. There were other families looking at each home, getting out of their cars to look around. It was also a special family event: an evening that we all spent together, even through my university years, this was still what we did when I got into town.

On Tuesday night, I had been out shopping with a good friend of mine and on our way back to her place, we saw some houses with lights & decorations and began to reminisce about our childhood adventures looking lights (like my family, hers had done a similar tour each year, though hers was usually much more spontaneous). So we drove around the block looking at lights.

There weren't many houses with them, but like always some were classy & some were ridiculous.

But it made it feel like Christmas. And I loved it.

I'm not going to see my family for Christmas this year becuase I have shows on Christmas Eve & Boxing Day, but one night next week after work I am going to get on a bus, and just ride it for a while & take in the lights. Maybe I'll fill my ipod with Christmas music :)

Manifesto on Creating

(Photo by Tristan Brand)

Context: In my first year of university after a one of my first crew calls, I had this real sense of calling to the arts, but I didn't know what that looked like. That night, I wrote in my journal, and what I wrote (with a few edits over the years) has become something of a personal manifesto for me: something that shapes the way I look at the world. At faith. At art. At my relationship to all of those things. And I still don't know where I'm headed, at least not in any concrete sort of way. But I'm certainly enjoying the journey.

I was born to create something. I don't know yet what I am going to be creating, but I know that God has something great planned for me. As a child I wanted to be so many things when I grew up. I wanted to be a nurse, a teacher, a candy store owner, a dancer, a musician, an actress and so many more things. Today I don't know what I will grow up to be, but I know what I will do. I will create. I don't know how I could not create. I think that if I were to stop creating, a part of me would die. To create is to imitate God: a high form of flattery as the saying goes. How could I not create? Creating is my worship. It may not be through music, or prayer, or any other conventional means of worship, but I am worshiping from a part of me that is unique. I am not singing someone else's song. I'm dancing to the beat of my own drummer and I am creating a beautiful dance between me and God.

Would you care to dance?

15 Questions with Lois

Date & place of birth:

May 2, 1986; Vernon, BC

Lives now in:

Vancouver, BC

Education:

BA from Trinity Western University with a double major in Theatre & Communications, and a certificate in Media Studies.

If you hadn’t become a stage manager, what might you have done professionally?

I've changed my mind about my career goals many times: the first plan was to do PR in the music industry, but I think that if I were not stage managing, I'd probably go back to school and get my masters in television studies and end up as a professor.

Favourite plays:

Metamorphoses (Mary Zimmerman), Esspresso (Lucia Frangione), Proof (David Auburn), Jake's Gift (Julia Mackey), The Mistakes Madeline Made (Elizabeth Meriwether)

Favourite TV shows (currently airing):

Pushing Daisies (ABC), Dexter (Showtime), How I Met Your Mother (CBS)

Favourite TV shows (no longer airing):

Veronica Mars (UPN/CW), Arrested Development (Fox), Wonderfalls (Fox), Six Feet Under (HBO), Slings & Arrows (Movie Channel/The Movie Network), Joan of Arcadia (CBS) & Dead Like Me (Showtime)

What was the last thing you saw on stage that had a big impact on you?

The last thing I saw on stage that had a big impact on me was UBC's production of Unity: 1918 a couple of week's ago. It is an award winning script (and with good reason!), but this production was so visibly stunning. The image of a spinning lantern dangling from the ceiling, a wounded soldier returning on a train (done with the actor standing on a chair on a revolve while a train track was flown in from the ceiling), a giant bonfire and revival meeting behind a cyc, a room full of dead bodies, a scene done entirely in the dark. Each image had the potential to fail hugely, but rather than fail, they inspired.

And the first?

The first play I ever saw was a local production of Annie when I was about six which sort of set up for me the fact that theatre was out there, but the first play that really had an impact on me was the Art's Club's 2001 presentation of Axis Theatre's Flying Blind. My high school was very arts focused and each semester the theatre teacher would take approximately 60 kids on a trip to either Vancouver, Calgary or Edmonton to see mulitple productions and learn about the education opportunities in each city. The 2001 Vancouver trip was my first of three, and it was a very eye opening five days in regards to what theatre is capable of. We saw Elizabeth Rex at the Stanley, The Edible Woman at the Playhouse, some terrible musical review at the Gateway, & Flying Blind. What stuck out for me about Flying Blind was it's use of design to help shape the world. I've never been an actor - though I can recognize and appreciate good acting - but I've always been impressed by strong visual elements. I remember after the play going out for pizza with the rest of the people on the trip and discussing the show. I was one of only two students who enjoyed it (along with the two escorts). Everyone else "didn't get it" or thought that it was too abstract. I didn't care whether or not I "got" it - I just wanted to do that - create a world similar to our own, yet not our own that causes people to converse.

Favourite books:

Walking on Water: Reflections on Faith and Art by Madeline L'Engle, the PostSecret books by Frank Warren, & Life After God by Douglas Coupland

Favourite after-show haunts:

Anywhere near Pacific Theatre that still has it's kitchen open when the show gets out: lately that's been either Earls, Cactus Club, or Cafe Barney. We used to always go to Ouisi's but the service there has gotten atrocious and the kitchen has been closing much earlier (besides, who really wants to eat alligator all the time?)

What do you expect to be doing in five years?

I've told myself that if in five years I am bored or burnt out from Stage Managing I will go back to school and do my masters in television studies after all.

What are the personal things that you do in your life simply because they make you happy?

Spend a whole day on the couch watching old TV episodes on DVD even though I've seen them 10+ times, try to laugh as much as possible, take photographs whenever I'm having fun so that I can look at them later and smile.

What would you advice would you give the government to secure the future of Canadian theatre?

I would advise the government that first and foremost, "Ordinary Canadians" really do care about the arts, I would advise reversing the millions of dollars in cuts to arts funding, I would advise the leaders to go take in some of the local theatre - independent, ground-breaking work so that they get a glimpse of the magic being created in their own backyards.

Last but certainly not least, what are you working on, now?

Jesus, My Boy is running at Pacific Theatre until Dec. 27 and I've already begun prep for Holy Mo, which begins rehearsals mid-January.