The "To See" List: May

I began April with lofty ambitions and plans to see many plays. Here we are now at the end of the month & I've found that I've failed. Of all the shows I planned to see, I've only seen two. (That said, I have tickets booked to see some of them in May). There have been a number of reasons for this apparent failure.

- One performance which I had tickets to was canceled.
- Volunteer shifts got bumped to May
- I agreed to take on another show (which was on my list to-see) and ended up rehearsing evenings when I'd otherwise have been seeing shows.
- On my rare nights off I was just too tired to go & see something else

Looking ahead to May I've made a new list of shows to see, but I've tried to be a bit more realistic about what I can fit in to my schedule.

That said, here's the list of shows for May:

-John & Beatrice (Pi theatre at the PAL theatre)[attending opening: Weds, May6th]
-Secret World of Og (Carousel theatre at Waterfront theatre) [volunteering Fri, May 8th]
-Dying City (at Little Mountain Studios)
-Les Miserable (Arts Club Theatre at Stanley stage)
-Palace of the End (Touchstone Theatre, Felix Culpa, & Horseshoes and Hand Grenades at PAL)
-36 Views (Tempus Theatre at Jericho Arts Centre)
-Fat Pig (Mitch & Murray Equity Co-op at Performance Works)

Got any other shows you think I should be checking out? Tell me about them in the comments. And if you see me at a show, come say hi!

Be The Audience

Lately my inbox has been innundated with e-mails telling me about shows that aquaintences of mine are doing. I've sent my share of those e-mails too - hoping that one or two people will come to see the hard work you have put into a show. Even moreso when it's a co-op and the only income you'll be getting is a cut of the box office. But I've noticed an interesting trend. For all these people sending invites to see shows, I don't very often see them at shows.

Last week a friend was complaining about what she saw as the cliquiness of Vancouver theatre. Her complaint was that there are all of these little groups doing theatre and they were ridiculously hard to break into. When I said that I hadn't had that problem, she suggested that it was becuase I am not an actor & therefore not the competition. But I'm not certain she has ever gone up to anyone in one of these companies and said, "Hey, I like what you're doing - how can I be a part of it?"

What strikes me about all of this is how entitled we as artists tend to seem. We want people to come to our work without us going to see theirs, we want companies to seek us out rather than taking the first step on our own.

In my experience, the theatre community in this city is very open. I've been invited to opening night parties for shows that I haven't been involved in simply becuase I struck up a conversation with someone who was involved about how much I enjoyed the show. But it requires me to take a step. I have to be at the play to be invited out after it. I have to be willing to step out in order to see things happen.

Instead I often see people (and at times myself) so caught up in what I am creating that I forget to engage with those around me and the art that they are creating. That's why my new years resolution this year was to see three shows a month. Last year I averaged two, and I figured I wanted and in fact needed to see more than that if I wanted to be a part of the community and I needed to be the audience if I wanted to talk about theatre in this city in any sort of responsible way.

I'd put this forward as a challenge to other artists: See a show this week that doesn't have anyone you know in it. Approach an artist whose work you admire & let them know. Ask someone for a tour - the worst they can say is no. Ask questions. And take some time to create something new - a character, a poem, a script, a set design idea - just sit town and do something.

20-Minute Musicals at Club PuSh

If you weren't at Club PuSh last night for the first night of 20-minutes musicals you really should go tonight (or next Thursday & Friday night).

Theatre replacement has put together four 20-minute musicals airing in 2 programs.  This week the two shows are Do You Want What I Have Got?: A Craigslist Cantata & Distant Second: The Steve Fonyo Story. Both shows are directed by Ami Gladstone.

(Above: Veda Hille, creator & writer of A Craigslist Cantata)

The Craigslist musical is a hilarious musical that looks at the humorous things people are looking for or trying to get rid of via craigslist.  With lyrics taken from actual craigslist postings, the musical makes fun of dead moose, missed love connections, and a box of 14 cat-hats.  It's the best integration of a popular website with theatre that I've heard of and is extremely well done.

Distant Second is about the 2nd guy who ran across Canada on 1 leg to raise money for cancer research 5 years after Terry Fox.  It draws a line between sacrilege and being downright offensive, dangles one foot over the line, taps around a bit, but ultimately just makes fun of everyone.  It's a great look at who our Canadian heroes are.  Andrew McNee steals the show as a very drunk Douglas Coupland. 

It was one of the funnest nights of theatre that I've had in a while and I'd really encourage you to go.  Tonight's show is at 7pm. Tickets are $20 at the door and also get you in to the two music acts at 9pm & 11pm.  After 11pm it is FREE.

Were YOU at Club PuSh tonight?

Club PuSh is my new favourite thing about the PuSh Festival.

Tonight was opening night for Club PuSh - a bar/cabaret/theatre/music event that will be running every night for the next week and a half. And it's great. The energy in the building is unmistakable as friends drink, discuss PuSh shows they've seen in the last week, & wonder what exactly they've come to see. The room is a veritable list of Vancouver theatre folk: actors, directors, critics, technicians, administrators & volunteers. I saw many familiar faces both from my own previous projects, but also people who I have never met but only seen on stage.


Tonight's two acts were widely varied. The opener, The Be(A)st of Taylor Mac was a drag-queen comedian with a hint of ukelele. She had the audience roaring with laugher as she laid down her 2 fundamental rules for her show:

#1 - Comparision is terror. Do not compare the show to anything else.
#2 - Chatty Catty's are welcome, but will be forced to join the show in a drag outfit.

(Left: Taylor Mac. Photo by Simon Phillips)

The second act, The Awkward Stage is a local band that despite the sound technician's desire to deaffen most of the audience, were very fun and talented.

Both of these performers are back tomorrow night and I highly recommend attending. Swing by after whatever show you see and grab a drink or simply enjoy the buzz. I'll be back on Thursday, Friday, & Saturday nights selling drink tickets and pointing out seats. Come say hi!

PuSh Festival: Week 1 in ReView

The PuSh International Performing Arts Festival got off to a great start last week. I kicked it off by seeing Skydive at the Art's Club's Granville Island Stage as my first show of the 2009 PuSh International Performing Arts Festival. The show premiered as a part of PuSh in 2007 & I really enjoyed the show then and was looking forward to seeing it again. And it didn't disappoint.

The theatre was only about two-thirds full, mostly with patrons who had no idea what they were about to see. I overheard many husbands asking their wives just what this play was about. The lights went to black at the top of the show and the muttering continued until the lights came up & the curtains were falling down, actors were flying through the air. It is a visually stunning opening scene & from that moment on the show had the audience in the palm of its hand.

There have been a few re-writes in the past two years, but most of them make the dialogue smoother - only one or two places feel a bit clunky - like there were some references that they really wanted to include. But overall the script is strong - a story that evokes a lot of nostalgia in people who are old enough to remember the 80's - and makes people laugh.

But the strongest thing about Skydive are the ES Dance Instruments - the technology that allows the actors to fly above the stage & audience. And at this point I feel the need to give a shout out to the operators of the ESDIs - despite being completely hidden for the majority of the show, they are integral to making the show happen - and get a few moments of guaranteed audience love.

The second show that I saw this week was not nearly as good. 5 Days in March is advertised with the following sentence:

In March 2003, in the days before the US war against Iraq, two Japanese urban hipsters meet at a post-rock show and are swept into a one-night stand that turns into five days’ continuous sex.

And with a premise like that, it shouldn't be nearly as boring as it is. Written entirely in Japanese and performed with English surtitles, it reads like an interesting short story, but doesn't work as a play. The language is colloquial - it sounds like a group of friends sitting around at a party telling a story to a friend who wasn't there - complete with different people telling their versions of what happened, going back over the same part multiple times, and sharing little details that are entirely irrelevant to an audience that doesn't know the specific neighbourhoods mentioned.

As they tell these stories about passionate subjects (sex, war, etc), there is no passion and there is little action: just small fidgety movements on a bare stage. One rocks back and forth, one grabs his crotch, one balances on the side of her foot and so on with the little twitches.

I'll admit it: I fell asleep three times in the first act.

I'm looking forward to Week two which is now up and going & tomorrow night Club PuSh opens at Performance Works where I'll be volunteering Tuesday, Thursday, Friday & Saturday night. I look forward to seeing some of you there.

PuShing onto the Scene

Five years ago the PuSh International Performing Arts Festival burst onto the scene in Vancouver and has quickly become one of the most anticipated festivals of the year.

Running for two and a half weeks beginning January 20th, it boasts work from as far away as Japan & New Zealand while still promoting shows from right here in Vancouver. Some of the shows have been very successful internationally while others have been commissioned especially for the festival.

With a line up that includes dance, theatre, music, film as well as performances that defy categorization, it provides something for everyone whether they are regular patrons of the arts or not. This year they've added Club PuSh, a miniature fringe festival with lots of live music, one-man shows, miniature musicals and multiple performances each night.

As we approach the festival I will be writing previews of the various shows and once the festival is up and running I will be providing reviews of as many of the shows as I can make it out to.

But now, a little over a month before the festival begins, I'd like to encourage you to volunteer. This will be my third year as a volunteer with the PuSh festival and I highly recommend getting involved. For those of you who are involved in the arts, this is a great opportunity to support other artists in the community, as well as meeting a number of other artists. For those of you who just love the arts, the PuSh festival provides complimentary tickets to shows for every four hours of volunteering that you do.

I have worked as an usher, I have poured wine for opening night receptions, I have sat at information booths for art installations, & I have driven to the airport to pick up artists. Again this year they are looking for people to volunteer in all of those capacities as well as others.

If you are interested in volunteering, please read the volunteer job descriptions for more information and then fill out the volunteer registration form.

The registration deadline is December 19th, so register now, before it's too late!