News: Rick Miller at Sydney Festival

Rick Miller, star of Fringe, film and big stage (notably many works with Robert Lepage) is making noise in Oz with his own piece Bigger Than Jesus. Read The Australian article here.

CharPo's Picture of the Week; December 10, 2010

Four Hairy Fellers

Uncalled For's Hypnogogic Logic (Photo by: Jeremy Bobrow)

Sitting: Mike Hughes; Standing l-r: Dan Jeannotte, Matt Goldberg, Anders Yates

The show plays the Wildside Festival, starting January 4

Be wise...

Party season! Be wise. Call Nez Rouge. Happy holidays from CharPo!

Interview: Nina Arsenault of The Silicone Diaries

by Richard Burnett in Hour (with permission)

It is pure synchronicity that I am blabbing with Nina Arsenault - the most celebrated transsexual in Canada - on international Transgender Day of Remembrance, a day set aside each Nov. 20 to memorialize those murdered because of anti-transgender hatred or prejudice.

Nina, star of her critically-hailed, autobiographical one-transwoman show, The Silicone Diaries, is very aware of this too.

"The hardest part of my transformation was when I was living as a woman but still looked very masculine and people would make fun of me on the street," Nina says. "They'd yell things out of their car. I realized there is a double standard for transsexuals, because if you're a beautiful transsexual, people will accept you more easily. If you 'pass' you will be more accepted. You may not even be noticed. But if you don't pass... That's what really hurt me - people don't see you as human."

Truth is, after 60 cosmetic surgeries over eight long years, Nina doesn't look very human.

Similarly, last winter when I asked famed NYC tranny (and photographer Dave LaChappelle's muse) Amanda Lepore what she thinks she looks like, Lepore replied, "There is something alien about my face - there is something spacey about me. If I dressed like Lady Gaga, [my face] would get lost. But because I dress retro, vamp and classic, the [alien] qualities come out more."

Nina Arsenault is equally frank. "I look like a cyborg," she says, unafraid to showcase her eye-popping 36D-26-40 bombshell body in her first play, the aptlynamed I Was Barbie, which was a hit during Barbie's 50th anniversary at Toronto Fashion Week in June 2009.

But it wasn't always so.

Review: Raisin in The Sun (Archived)

By Richard Burnett, from Hour, with Permission

Lorraine Hansberry`s landmark play A Raisin in the Sun takes its name from the Langston Hughes poem Harlem. Then in 1959 it became the first-ever play written by a black woman to be produced on Broadway, starring Sidney Poitier, who’d also go on to star in the 1961 Hollywood adaptation. More importantly, A Raisin in the Sun was the first cross-over play that portrayed African-Americans as they saw themselves. While much has changed in society since 1959, A Raisin in the Sun still resonates deeply today, as black folks still deal with identity politics, and as disproportionate numbers of black men are still shut out of the job market and black women remain the glue of their family units. Black Theatre Workshop’s remount stars a solid cast of locals, notably Montreal jazz legend Ranee Lee who owns the stage every time she opens her mouth or lifts an eyebrow. Lee gives the cast and production that extra gravitas, and the soundtrack (notably Dinah Washington`s This Bitter Earth) adds to the period atmosphere. My one complaint is the cast`s voices didn’t carry well - the actors need to speak  louder or BTW needs to mic the stage. Hopefully this problem was corrected after opening night. Other than that, this is a sterling production of a classic play. Don’t miss it.

Black Theatre Workshop’s A Raisin in the Sun plays at the Centaur Theatre until December 5)
(Richard Burnett, Hour, by permission)

CharPo Poll Results; Tuesday December 7

We asked visitors to the site if they had seen a play in English in Montreal in the last year. Thirty answered. Twenty-six said yes, four said no.

What this might mean:
That you don't have to go to theatre to enjoy reading about it.
Or
Those four went to a play in French or some other language.
Or
I go, I read, I think, I talk, I write...I don't vote, leave me alone.

Nevertheless, have a look at our newest poll and accord the average score you'd give the English-language plays you've seen in Montreal this year.

After Dark - December 7, 2010

By Gaëtan L. Charlebois (Editor-in-Chief) I am astounded by the success of The Charlebois Post after a single week online. I am also enormously thankful to be surrounded by collaborators who like theatre and its people so much. The ideas and the writing here have certainly struck a chord with our readers and with me.

Steve Galluccio's piece, for instance, offers an important lesson: to carve out a good career in this business you not only need talent, you have to work your ass off. But Galluccio's piece also reminds that it's also about how you approach the work (a dinner with a producer is not only good business it can also be pleasant) and moreover, you'd better enjoy the work you do. In our business, we can spot lazy, jaded malcontents a mile off: it shows in sloppiness on the stage, it shows in inelegant PR, in aimless texts and it shows in tired (and ultimately tiresome) reporting. As one professor of mine reminded his theatre students over and over again: it's not called "play" for nothing.

News: Estelle Rosen, CharPo Editor, Honoured at QDF Calendar launch

Estelle Rosen, producer of CKUT's Upstage: Theatre on Radio and CharPo editor was honoured by the Quebec Drama Federation last night for her contribution to local theatre. However, because of the snow storm, the honour was conferred via speaker phone by QDF executive director Jane Needles. Estelle, also one of the forces behind the Montreal English Critics Circle Awards (MECCAs), has been with the Circle from the start and has been a key figure at CharPo from its inception. The QDF honour is richly deserved.

(Gaëtan L. Charlebois, Editor-in-Chief)

News: David French dies at 71

David French, a playwright frequently produced here (notably productions at the Segal Centre of Salt-Water Moon and at Centaur, his Mercer plays and Jitters) has died at 71 of brain cancer, the CBC reports.

CBC report

David French's Biography at The Canadian Theatre Encyclopedia

CharPo Sunday Feature: Patrick Goddard's Personal History of The Montreal Fringe

GODDARD AS MY WITNESS

For the 2010 edition of the St-Ambroise Montreal Fringe, Hour asked a few us to contribute to their Fringe Fanaticism blog. Jeremy Hechtman agreed to do a year-by-year account of his experience with the festival. This inspired me to do the same, albeit with a twist: I'd look at the evolution of the Montreal Fringe by reviewing a single show from each year. So here, collected for the first time in one place, is how I've seen it...

1993: DIARY OF A MADMAN
1993 was my first Montreal Fringe. I had finished my first year at Concordia Theatre and was volunteering my ass off in order to see free shows. Volunteering gives you a very different perspective when it comes to choosing Fringe shows: something may look great in the program, but then you meet the performer and decide they're a dick unworthy of your Fringe Bucks. And then there was Rush Pearson. Rush was doing a one-man adaptation of the Gogol story and had come up from Chicago with his partner and his dog; they were the darlings of the volunteer crowd. His pre-Fringe promotion campaign became legendary: he faxed the media constantly before coming to Montreal, with a series of increasingly incoherent messages. And the show rocked. Fringe solo shows often seem like they were created that way out of financial necessity rather than for artistic reasons, but this needed to be done solo to truly convey the madness of the narrator. Rush had crafted a very solid adaptation of the text and was an engaging and warm performer. Diary of a Madman was funny, sad, sharp, and touching. 4 Bucks out of 4.