EVENT: Dick Powell's In The Mood For Jazz

Beyond the Fourth Wall, July 6, 2011

To July 10

International Tango Festival

Featuring milongas (dancing evenings)

Not-Necessarily-Theatre dates for your agenda

by Estelle Rosen

Book

Siqueiros – Biography of a Revolutionary Artist

By D. Anthony White

Lifetime activist, Founder Mexican Mural Movement

Theatre For Thought, July 5, 2011

FOOTING THE BILL: THE GOVERNMENT'S WAKE UP CALL TO CANADIAN ARTISTS

The incident is a much needed wake up call for Canada’s artistic scene, which has existed for too long under the blissful assumption that public funding of the arts is a right rather then a blessing.

joel fishbane

The funding of the arts is in the news again following Heritage Canada’s decision not to renew funding for Toronto’s Summerworks festival. Artists are seeing it as another nail in the public funding coffin while Jim Flaherty, the Minister of Finance, is asking everyone to remember that no one should ever assume they are entitled to a grant. The CAEA has condemned these remarks as an “ideological” attack on the arts. Meanwhile, the battered Summerworks Festival are preparing to scrape by even as other Canadian theatres, festivals and artists have become fearful that their own grants are in jeopardy.

The incident is a much needed wake up call for Canada’s artistic scene, which has existed for too long under the blissful assumption that public funding of the arts is a right rather then a blessing. A government may promote freedom of speech, but it is foolhardy and dangerous to expect them to finance it. Nor should we want it to. When we expect our government to finance free speech, we should not be surprised when they begin to censor it. 

After Dark, July 5, 2011

Getting With The Program
Many still don't know what station it's on
by Gaëtan L. Charlebois


As I write this it is hot, humid and, to borrow a phrase from David Letterman, I am making my own gravy. It is hard enough just to think, let alone think about the future and plan for it. But that is not only what we at CharPo must do but, also, what theatres across the county must do - now! - as well.

The fact is, theatres must think outside the box and, sadly, many of them are not. How do I know this? Because I have spent the last two weeks putting together a mailing list for CharPo-Canada by visiting web sites for dozens of theatres across the country. To start with, this primordial mode of communication is being ignored or misused by even some of the big companies. The sites are eyesores - throw-backs to the days of free sites like Geocities - with design to match. Oh yes!, they all have their follow-on-Facebook/Twitter buttons but my Twitter feed for the national site (@CharPoCanada), as full of feeds from companies as it is, is getting nary a tweet from most of them. Worse, some of the few who do tweet occasionally are giving me numbskull, non-theatre information even as they should be creating a buzz for upcoming shows (casts, directors, etc.). There were Fringe companies, this last month, who did a better job with the social networks. 

The Upstage Interview: Danielle-Ariel Caddell-Malenfant

There aren’t many people doing this in Montreal. It seemed to me a niche existed.

Upstage Contributor Alison Louder spoke with Artistic Director Danielle-Ariel Caddell-Malenfant about Beyond The Mountain Launch. Below is an abridged version of the interview, edited by Estelle Rosen, CharPo Editor-in-Chief.

UPSTAGE

Beyond The Mountain is a new not-for-profit theatre company. Their mission is to use methods of new technology and live performances to internationally disseminate works by Montreal artists while bringing new productions from around the world to Montreal. Their launch begins by funding two productions: my pregnant brother by Johanna Nutter at  the Minnesota Fringe Festival and Paradise Lost by Paul Van Dyk at the Association of Performing Arts Presenters conference in New York. Congratulations! You’re new to this Artistic Director role. I know you’ve been Stage Managing for a few years; graduated from John Abbott Technical Program for Theatre. You’ve had lots of experience behind the scenes and working with actors. What made you want to start a company of your own and take on Artistic Director; that’s a huge bite.

CADDELL-MALENFANT

Very different from being a Stage Manager! I had produced 2 shows, and liked producing. A few years ago, I met this woman who wrote a play, started her own production company,  brought it to Minnesota, New York, Montreal and Toronto. It got me thinking.  It hadn’t occurred to me you could just decide to bring a work to the U.S. Of course there are work permit issues, but it’s worth it. People are very welcoming and excited to see what’s going on in Canada. There aren’t many people doing this in Montreal. It seemed to me a niche existed. It happens I had worked with Paul Van Dyk before, so asked what he thought about bringing his show to New York.

Sunday Feature - Deeper into FOUR Yourself

(Photo credit: Richard Muller)

Reconsidering FOUR Yourself

Thinking longer about a play which strikes you

by Valerie Cardinal

A few years ago when I was still interested in becoming an actress, I was asked a very interesting question in a theatre school interview; what is the purpose of theatre?

At the time, I stumbled through an awkward answer about social relevance or something. After thinking deeply about last month’s performance of the MAP Collective’s FOUR Yourself, I feel like I’m a little closer to uncovering what the meaning of theatre is, at least to me. 

The piece of verbatim-style theatre has stayed with me even a month after its run, which is definitely saying something. FOUR Yourself combined filmed interviews with its three actors with references to books, movies, television shows and more. It’s a concept that was confusing, odd, a little infuriating and ultimately enlightening. 

Review: Redshift (Podcast)

Warzone

C'est La Vie goes into the heart of darkness

by Émilie Charlebois

I had heard positive things about C’est La Vie Theatre and so I sat down to listen to yesterday’s “Redshift” by Ed McNamara with pretty high hopes. First, I have to agree with Rachel Zuroff that it is super enjoyable to sit down for a play in your own home. It’s more comfortable, you can have a drink, and pause the performances or rewind them if there are any interruptions. I’ve been a fan of radio plays and dramas for a while. My family is made up of avid CBC radio listeners and I remember listening to some of the plays broadcast while returning from annual fishing trips. There’s something awesome about only listening to a performance. You really zone in and the imagery is all made up in your mind. I think my appreciation may have to do with this kind of transportation, similar to that provided by books, where for a moment you are in your own little world. 

Book Review: The Dramatic Legacy of Dorothy Davis and Violet Walters

A Cup of Tea
There is a readership for Muriel Gold's book on two theatre ladies
by Gaëtan L. Charlebois

On every second page of Muriel Gold's book about The Montreal Children's Theatre there is a name I recognize (indeed names most people who go to theatre in English here would recognize). They're the name of thousands of alums from this company, all students of Dorothy Davis and Violette Walters - each working one of them the ladies' living legacy. You don't need to read Gold's book to understand the importance of this institution; the roll call from the place would do. So what else does Gold offer to draw readers in? 

The Friday Five, July 1, 2011

FIVE FICTITIOUS ONE-PERSON PLAYS THAT COULD ACCURATELY REPRESENT 80% OF ALL ONE-PERSON PLAYS

by Jessica Wei

Being that this is a theatre blog, it's not a wild guess that if you're reading this, you hold a certain amount of interest in theatre, particularly theatre in Montreal. Based on that assumption, it wouldn't be unreasonable to then conclude that you've probably been to a Fringe show. And if you're a regular reader of this blog, you're probably a little bit over the Fringe buzz – after all, theatre does exist outside of the festival circuit.  

So I'll say very little about the Fringe, except for this – a large percentage of Fringe shows? They kind of sucked. That's okay. They're supposed to suck. Great scripts are never finished, they're abandoned (someone really smart said that). The Fringe is just where many scripts face the chopping block. Say you're a few drafts deep in a script. You think it's pretty good, so you take it out for a test run in the Fringe. If you get picked, you then have a super-elaborate focus group to tell you if your show really must go on. Theoretically, if 40 people show up per performance and you get semi-dece reviews in some alternative papers, why shouldn't you take that script, tweak it to your best ability and go a little bigger? 

CharPo's Real Theatre!