After Dark, March 6, 2012

Confusion
CharPo is in deep debate
by Gaëtan L. Charlebois

Maybe it's because I'm old. Maybe it's because Arden Ryshpan, the executive director of Actor's Equity is a friend since our days in the trenches of the ACTRA board. Maybe it's because I was a union activist in CEGEP, staging guerilla theatre during student/teacher strike marches and even walking out of a production directed by Jean Gascon because I felt we were scabbing...

Maybe it's because of all of these things that I truly did not see a controversy coming at me like a train in Actor's Equity's stance on non-Equity productions (as expressed by Arden herself on this site). Joel Fishbane's enormously well-reasoned rebuttal came out of the blue for me. The discussions we've had in the CharPo contributors forums surprised me.

The Upstage Interview: Lynne Cooper on Traffik Femme

(photo credit: Samuel Lalonde)

...how do we talk about this without turning these women into victims?

Upstage host Eric Sukhu spoke with Artistic Director Lynne Cooper about Le Trunk Collectif’s presentation of Traffik Femme. Below is an abridged version edited by Estelle Rosen, CharPo Editor-in-chief.

UPSTAGE: Traffik Femme is about a woman caught in the hell of human trafficking. Welcome to Upstage, Lynne. Tell us about this play;  how did your Company get involved?

COOPER:  In 2005 I did a tour with Théatre Parminou with a play called Lost in Traffic from which I learned about human trafficking in Canada. I never thought such a thing existed in this country. So I started doing more research.

After doing a play about immigration - Sunk in the Trunk - I realized my next step was to produce a show about  human trafficking.

The Sunday Read: Rick Miller on Critics

“We should not seek immortality in reproduction. But if you contribute to the world’s culture, if you have a good idea, compose a tune, invent a spark plug, write a poem, it may live on, intact, long after your genes have dissolved in the common pool.” 

(Richard Dawkins, The Selfish Gene)

“This one’s done, Rick. Stick a fork in it and let it go.” 

(Richard Ouzounian, from a Toronto Star review of HARDSELL 2.0)

by Rick Miller

My last article dealt primarily with ‘control’, specifically control of the creative process and one’s career in the arts.  This one deals with ‘survival’.  

Survival in the entertainment industry conjures up images of a plasticized Wayne Newton or a Botox-ed Liza Minelli but I want to explore something closer to home: why I keep pushing my shows to survive in a competitive market instead of just “letting them go”, to paraphrase our esteemed Toronto Star critic. Granted, I wish we hadn’t invited critics to that show (which was still trying to find its form) but the sheer gall of a theatre critic dispensing The Last Judgment on something I have been working on for 5 years astounds me. The fact is that HARDSELL 2.0 is not only surviving but thriving: I am premiering the French version at Festival le Carrefour in June, we’ll be shooting a short film that will hopefully lead to a TV series adaptation, and I’ve already premiered the in-school info literacy workshop. My point is that the fate of a show shouldn’t lie in the hands of a critic. If I had listened to the ‘critic within’ in 1994, I would have killed the cast-party joke that was to become MacHomer, which is still on tour and is premiering in New York and at Stratford this spring. More on MacHomer and critics later…

Theatre For Thought, March 3, 2012

CAEA STANCE INSULTING TO CANADIAN ARTISTS

joel fishbane

Earlier this month, Canadian Actors Equity Association (CAEA) raised a protest over a non-union touring production of In the Heights, brought to Toronto by Dancap Productions. Speaking to the Globe and Mail, CAEA executive director Arden Ryshpan made the following remark: “We think that audiences shouldn’t be inadvertently misled into thinking they are seeing a Broadway calibre production – which we would say they are not, if the productions are non-Equity.” Ms. Ryshpan echoed these comments in a subsequent article for CharPo.

The CAEA is trying to stop the media from covering non-union productions in the hopes of creating a backlash against producers who don’t hire members of the CAEA. These members lose work whenever a non-union company comes to town and the CAEA hopes that with media support, they can dissuade these companies from performing in Canada. Although I am sympathetic to their dilemma, in framing their argument the CAEA has taken a position that is both misleading to the public and gravely insulting to all Canadian artists. 

EVENT: QDF Spring Calendar Launch

News: Harper/Moore announce commitment to the arts/NTS

GOVERNMENT INVESTMENT TAKES CENTRE STAGE

joel fishbane

The Canadian government will invest $9.2 million dollars in the National Theatre School over the next two years, Heritage Minister James Moore announced today. 

“To invest in culture is to invest in Canada,” said Moore, speaking at a packed press conference in the lobby of the National Theatre School in Montreal. Quoting politician and gay activist Harvey Milk, Moore said “I am here to recruit you!” – though in his case, Moore was referring to encouraging the private sector to make a firmer financial commitment in arts and culture.

CharPo's Real Theatre! March 2, 2012

EVENT: 10-Minute Plays

click to enlarge

Review: A History of the Devil

01

The History of the Devil a Trial-ing Experience
by Byron Toben

Clive Barker is a sort of adulte terrible in story weaving circles. A multi-disciplined  myth-maker - plays, novels, films, paintings - he has engendered tons of controversy. Director Jeremy Michael Segal has proven himself as a sort of enfant terrible by assembling 10 young and talented actors (many, like himself, recent grads of  the Dawson theatre program) to portray 31 characters in this cluttered work. Lucas Chartier-Dessert is particularly impressive as the devil himself. The other 9 switch between 30 roles, some fictitious people, some mythological characters, some historical.

CPM's Picture of the Week, March 1, 2012

As Occupy Montreal Culture Committee works, one 

unidentified poet reads at Square Victoria - October, 2011

(photo: Norman Nawrocki)