Tour Whore, October 7, 2012

Booking (The Process)
by Cameryn Moore

A lot of Fringers, both audience members and other performers, are kind of amazed by my touring itinerary outside of the Fringe. I tell them about TLoTH, that I’m barely getting by, and sometimes it’s just more of a pain in the ass than it’s worth, but they still are impressed. “Do you have an agent?” they ask. “How do you find your venues? Who handles your bookings?”

I don't, obviously. A professional agent wouldn’t make so many mistakes.

I make fewer mistakes than I did at the beginning, or at least have learned how to research so that my misadventures are at least well-educated ones. But holy shit, y’all, YES I BOOK MY OWN SHOWS AND QUITE FRANKLY I WOULD LIKE TO BE DONE WITH IT.

“How do you find your venues?” is the next question that comes, even if I’ve tried to head it off  by rolling my eyes, screaming, and/or frothing at the mouth in response to the first inquiry.

I see where this is going. You wanna know the whole process, don’t you? You think you’re going to do that for yourself, right?

Sigh. Okay, I will give you all of it.

Flop Sweat, October 6, 2012

Captain Spaceship and the Stars
Does reviewing improv make sense? ... Maybe?
by Kyle Allatt

Captain Spaceship’s premise is a fairly solid one.  Take all the kitsch, low-production, one dimensional characters, special effects, robots, aliens and ray guns of yesteryear’s greatest and/or crappiest Science Fiction TV shows and films and throw it all together in an hour long improvised epic.

A solid premise that produced a somewhat shaky, but ultimately fulfilling long-form improvised show.

Before going any further, perhaps an important question to ask is “Does it even make any sense to write a review about an improv show?  A show that will be completely different each time.”  Answer:  Maybe?

Ford's Focus: Chip Chuipka

(Lonely Cowboy)

Chip Chuipka: The Play’s the Thing
by Barbara Ford
(production photos courtesy of Sidemart Theatrical Grocery)

Thirty seconds into my interview with Chip Chuipka, sipping tea in ASM’s bay window overlooking a blustery afternoon on Stanley Street, it was obvious that we weren’t going to spend much time talking about Chip. He dove right into quotation-worthy theories and thoughts, injecting hilarious, touching and deliciously devious episodes to discuss his overwhelming passion: truly inspired theatre. What is that exactly? For Chuipka, it is a well-written story that surprises an audience, disturbs them, provokes them, moves them, and the director, actors and designers are the conduits through which that story is told. 

Chuipka grew up in Capreol, Ontario, a small community that is now part of Greater Sudbury. A mining town, it was also an important railway channel, where the east and west systems converged. Most summers were spent working the rails in some capacity: digging cable, up north with the real toughs, as the manual swing bridge operator or a train order operator communicating, by hand, with both engineer and caboose as the trains roared by. 

The railroad supported Chuipka through to the end of his stint at the University of Toronto where, similar to many artists I’ve interviewed, he studied science- specifically parasites and viruses. Once a month, to take a walk on the right side of his brain, he splurged to see whatever was playing at the Adelaide Court Theatre. That world intrigued him, called out to him, but seemed too distant and remote to penetrate. 

Review: August, An Afternoon in the Country

l-r Eleanor Noble, Clare Coulter (photo: lucetg.com)

Family Pictures
by Rebecca Ugolini

In the oppressive August heat, family tensions come to a boil and secrets and scandals rise to the surface. August: an Afternoon in the Country is an unflinching portrayal of one family’s journey across familiar terrain, the well-worn, cyclical conflicts, celebrations and dramas that make up romantic, platonic, and blood relationships. 

The Centaur Theatre’s 2012-2013 opening night presentation of August is also the English-language debut of playwright Jean Marc Dalpé’s acclaimed French-language script, and neither Maureen Labonté’s lively translation nor director Harry Standjofski’s fine cast disappoint.

Audience members will love August for its true-to-life portrayal of the nature of family conflicts: although it’s natural to hope for a resolution to the tragedies portrayed onstage, like a hot summer’s day that eventually loses steam and fades into a humid, black night, August leaves its broken relationships and hurt feelings hanging in the balance, unresolved, hoping for a better tomorrow, but with only the cold and deadness of Autumn on the horizon.

CharPo's Real Theatre! October 5, 2012

Picture of the Week, October 4, 2012

After its award-winning sortie with the Greeks - Medea - Scapegoat Carnivale returns to the source with The Bacchae.

Beyond The Fourth Wall, October 3, 2012

(ANNIE BAILLARGEON, Éblouissement, 2012)

Photomontage depicting female body in motion.

Lost Lands

Galerie D’Este

Oct 4-21

Shows of interest 
by Estelle Rosen

Performance, lecture, installation

La Jeune-Fille et la mort
Espace Libre
Oct. 10 – 20

Solo performance with live music accompaniment
Dialogos entre Darwin y Dios
Studio 303 - La Sala Rossa
Oct. 14 

Series of lectures reflecting initiatives by University art galleries
Dexterity
Community  Art Lab with Vicky Chainey Gagnon  Director  Foreman Art Gallery Bishops University

After Dark, October 2, 2012

Self-inflicted wounds
The internet was supposed to kill print...think again
by Gaëtan L. Charlebois

(Patience...this IS about theatre...eventually.)

Scratch a media pundit and they will bemoan the replacement of print journalism by the anarchism and - woe is us! - lack of FACTS of the internet. Where they see chaos, others - especially the young - see a joyful noise - a new world that requires us to use judgment towards what we are seeing.

In Canada, in the last two weeks, we have come to look askance at information and thank Christ and finally! Messes in "real" press didn't start this year. Lies were being printed in newspapers as far back as the Hearst empire and to the great broadsheets of England before that. More recent examples of big media failures are easy to find: how the press colluded with the Bush Whitehouse to drag America into a nonsensical and bloody war in Iraq. Elsewhere - and at another time - new media (The Drudge Report) and "reformed yellow" media (The National Enquirer) were breaking big stories that didn't even appear on the radar of the soi-disant serious press. Yes, the Monica Lewinsky story was risible, but it stopped the world - we all paid attention; it was not only a Republicans v. Democrats story, it was - around the world - a barometer of values.

The Question, October 1, 2012

SUSANA VERA Costume Designer
by Estelle Rosen

Susana Vera has worked as Costume Designer and couturière for over a decade. She received her BFA with honours in studio painting prior to studying at the renowned Dalhousie University Costume program. Ms Vera is currently working on Harlem Duet for Black Theatre Workshop. Her recent credits include The Bacchae and The Heretics of Bohemia for Scapegoat Carnivale, Intimate Apparel for Centaur Theatre, Haunted Hillbilly for SideMart Grocery, The Taming of the Shrew for Repercussion Theatre, On 2nd Avenue and Equus for the Segal Centre. Susana has received a MECCA for costume design of the Jungle Book for Geordie Productions and has been nominated for serveral others.

CHARPO: What's the worst 'wardrobe malfunction' that ever happened on stage during a performance, and how do you prepare for unexpected problems?

VERA: I have a very vivid memory of my biggest "wardrobe malfunction".  The play was set in the 1930's based on a true story about an elderly heavy- set woman.  The actress cast for this role was thin... and boney for lack of better words.  So we made a fat suit for her which included breasts filled with small bags of rice to create the sagging effect required to age her.  

The suit I designed was a beautiful purple two piece with straight skirt and intricately patterned jacket.  She looked amazing and authentically "large".  I was very proud of her silhouette.  The actress asked for the jacket fastening to be string ties rather than button and snap.  My gut said, "this is not secure", but I trusted her opinion as she often performs at the Shaw and Stratford Festivals.  I assumed they must do string fastenings there.

During an audience preview night the string fastening untied in the middle of her performance.  Of course it happened at the most dramatic moment, as the actress passionately flung her arms... for what  seemed … forever!  Sitting in the audience, I gasped when her jacket flew open and stayed open as her fat suit breast was thrown to and fro.  The actress didn't know this was happening as the fat suit is a covering and she could not feel air on her chest as would happen if her bare skin were exposed.

The end result was she asked for the button and snap I originally designed.  Since that incident I always stand by my gut feeling even if it gets me into an argument.

Since every theatre show is different,  every costume is different. I've never made the same thing twice in the last 12 or more years I've been building shows.  I've worked as a costume maker before becoming a designer.  Predicting possible problems is not foolproof.  But in general I test the sturdiness with more force than an actor would and I hope that most blunders happen before an audience show.

My goal is to only see theatrical drama rather than wardrobe tragedy on stage!

Tour Whore, September 30, 2012

TLoTH
by Cameryn Moore

I did a show last weekend with 6 people in the audience, two of them paying. The next night was spectacular, relatively speaking: 17 people in the house, 14 of them paying. That’s an increase in paid ticket-holders of 600 percent. Holy crap! Wow!

I’m back in The Land of Tiny Houses.

TLoTH, for short. I don’t know if you can pronounce that, but I wanted to put a name on it. As soon as I put a name on it, I have something to hang my explanations on, to try to make you understand. I think it really captures the parallel-universe feel out here. I mean, doesn’t TLoTH sound like an alien city that you’d find in a near-future, off-planet, pulp-fiction novelette? That’s EXACTLY how it feels. The cars look pretty similar, but I suspect the people-looking people around me actually are hiding an external brain, or at least a USB port, at the nape of their necks and WHY DO THE HORSES ON MARS HAVE SIX LEGS.