Filed under: sbux, toronto, Uncategorized, video | Tags: 30 rock, artists, femfest, honey&jupiter, meryl streep, steve martin, tarragon, who's afraid?, winnipeg
FemFest Final Night…aiiieee…I left Winnipeg outrageously excited about what I have created and inspired to make it even better. And I know with effort, time, and patience something magical is bound to happen. The hard part about H&J is how physical the show is…me sitting at my laptop typing and re-re-re-re-reading away isn’t the same. But that’s ok!! More workshops and time and money, plz!
I was e-mailed some audience feedback (these were all done through answering survey questions):
“good acting, good topics, media literacy oriented”
“the actors were excellent and the play was meaningful”
“it was great”
“The performance was excellent – really well done”
“definitely a topic that is affecting MANY families in Winnipeg”
“very well acted”
““Honey and Jupiter” should be shown in High Schools for grades 8-12”
(to which i say, can you fund it please????)
I saw Meryl Streep speak at the ROM 3 weeks ago…pretty effing dreamy…”if you’re lucky [the audience] feels with you, and that is the great miracle of empathy. we want to feel that somebody feels how we feel.”
You said it, M’Streep.
2 weeks ago I saw Steve Martin w/ The Steep Canyon Rangers at Roy Thompson Hall, which was incroyable, and his final encore was a blue-grass version of KING TUT, so life won about 9 million points that evening for being so delightful.
LOOK HERE IT IS:
I was hired back to my old Sbux mere seconds after walking in to ask for my job back. I know it’s only coffee and only a part-time job but I am so happy to be back there…I covered a shift on Sunday and it felt good. Today was my last crummy shift as a busser and I nearly ran out the door once I clocked out. Adieu, job that makes me want to Virginia Woolf myself!
Speaking of…saw “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” at SoulPepper last week. Favorite play. So much to watch. It wasn’t satisfying so I re-read most of it the next day. But I saw Fiona Reid play Martha so I’m a picky lady. Plans to direct this show in about 20 years remain. Stay posted in 2 decades for details.
HOWEVER…“The Drowning Girls” at Tarragon is probably the best thing I have ever seen – highly theatrical, visually and scenically appealing, strong and charming and intense and fascinating and funny and sad and epic and light….amazing. No words.
Alright…I have to sleep, gym, lunch, write, clean, laundry, and screenwriting class…so farewell. I leave you with this:
ANOTHER SUCCESSFUL INTERACTION WITH A MAN!!
lemon, out!
Filed under: halifax, toronto | Tags: artists, beginnings, femfest, halifax, luna/sea, magnetic north, mauralealee, mirv, vulnerability, win, winnipeg, work
This afternoon I had a very unique and interesting experience. I sat in on a forum discussion/focus group between what I believe to be many prominent Winnipeg theatre artists and Ken Cameron of the Magnetic North Theatre Festival. It opened up my eyes to how similar Winnipeggers and Haligonian writers, directors, creators, feel. We’re from small cities that DO produce great work, yet are clearly underrepresented when our country’s theatre world is being defined. The sense I gathered was, artists feel isolated and unappreciated by larger cities. Example: If something amazing happens in Toronto, everyone knows about it. But what about exciting things like FemFest (did you know women can write plays, too??) which is all Female, Canadian work (not just Peggers) or Luna/Sea’s BRILLIANT “To Capture Light” in May 2008? Ask someone in Toronto about THOSE!
I’m not meaning to point fingers at the Tdot because I live there now and I thoroughly enjoy heading out to shows and festivals there. It is an inspiring and exciting city. I am pointing all of my fingers at all of us, I guess? I had no idea the theatre community in the Prairies so closely resembled the one by the ocean’s shore…because I have never been here obviously and have never met anyone from here in Halifax, or Toronto. (Save Hope, AD of Sarasvati Productions, who pretty much rocks my world for giving me the yes my show needed and bringing me here and putting on a kick-ass festival…OH and Lee and Mauralea who taught me in Halifax, but by the time they taught me they had been away from Winnipeg for many years and living in NS.)
Blather, I am rambling. YES we all need to embrace our individual cities, cultures, provinces, etcetera. But my GOD it is just THEATRE can’t we all get along, and be friends?? Our challenge now is finding a way to perhaps tour more shows, or generate audiences from across the country, bringing people to where they would love to be, …or maybe more time can be spent workshopping and delving into pieces, brightening them up, polishing them off and getting scripts mounted across the country…
‘Hey Ottawa, check out this cool show out of Sackville, NB! Hey Calgary, check out this amazing Toronto improv group! Whaddup Winnipeg, here’s a pretty rad show from Halifax. Oh hey, St. John’s, have this new-age technical experiment piece from Vancouver.” ETCETERA ETCETERA.
How, how, how can we stop pitting cities against each other, and instead transfuse theatre from one place to the next? To CONNECT our whole COUNTRY, to stop feeling immobile, or like we all have to be in Toronto, or shunning out other cities or isolating ourselves to one spot like an angsty teenager who locks themselves in their room? IT’S ART, IT’S THERE TO MAKE LIFE LESS BLAND AND DULL AND HORRIFYING. Do we not create theatre to connect, to escape, to reflect, to FEEL LESS ALONE? I felt today that the artists in Manitoba want to share their work with other people (not just other artists) the same way the people of Nova Scotia do, the way many small-but-mighty groups probably feel. And shouldn’t we be open and welcoming to the things that come from far away?
Dear everyone in Canadian Theatre,
treat others the way you would like to be treated.
Dear Winnipeg,
you guys rock my world.
Dear anyone who read this,
I realize it’s just a lot of questions and pretty non-sensical. I’m running on tofu and peanut butter m&ms and so not enough sleep.
Filed under: video | Tags: adventure, artists, family, femfest, honey&jupiter, me, video, vulnerability, wi, winnipeg, work
THEY. NAILED. IT.
Kerri-lee Smith, who directed? Mother Effing Genius. GENIUS.
JUPITER – Hailley Rhoda, you are wonderful, you were divine. this girl is BRAVE beyond words. she rocks!!
AUTHORITY, Erin Hammond…still thinking about her in the ‘circus’ scene. Blew my mind. And she captured the last scene between mom&Jupiter so well…gorgeous.
HONEY, Amy Groening, is a fucking STAR. I want her in everything I write. She is SOOOOO BEAUTIFUL. & an INCREDIBLE dancer. She’s brilliant!
Ahhhh. Tonight I am going with my notebook and really listening to the words. It’s a work night for me, but that’s ok. It’s important work, work I am passionate about. This feels really, really right.
Filed under: halifax, neptune, toronto | Tags: adventure, alice in wonderland, artists, brunch, dancing, family, femfest, honey&jupiter, hugs, joni m, kaypee, kelin, metric, neptune, shakespeare, sinclair, tea, vulnerability, winnipeg, work
life has been bundles of confusion, energy, mud, airplanes, pot, shakespeare, ginger ale and madness. there are not enough bicycle rides or journal entries or dance classes (yet!), but there are a lot of people to see and a lot of things to talk about.
biggest and best would probably be; Honey&Jupiter , my first play that I directed at the Atlantic Fringe Festival last year, is going to be preformed in Winnipeg this fall at FEMFEST. I am elated…first professional production at a festival run by the President of the Playwright’s Guild of Canada! I get to work on the script with a dramaturg and everything…so, so excited…and scared…and excited…
I am now home in HALIWOOOOD teaching me some Shakespeare. The students are two 15 year olds and four 14 year olds, all girls. They are all on very different maturity levels and theatre levels but they are all keen and hungry to learn, they make me well up with happy tears on an hourly (yep, hourly) basis.
I saw my favorite band live for free yesterday. METRIIIIIIIC. Yeah they are my favorite. I have been an anxious crazy the last week or so (lack of working out makes me want to cry all the time. No, but really…) and i feel like listening to Metric is one of the only things I can do to manage the blues. I love them bigger and badder than anyone else who loves them…yep, I went there. Unfortunatly me and Mic made some unwise choices we feel we’ll laugh about in 20 years before Metric played, so I spent the first half of their set paranoid, lost in the crowd, and with a ghost-white face&blue lip combination. But by the time Sinclair found me and we rocked our faces off together, I was rejuvenated by the magic that is besteverbandever.
tell me you aren't blown away by how fucking brilliant they are
Today I had brunch with Kim, who gave me a very Alice dress. This was perfect as I then went to dirty Dtown for a tea party at Kelin’s. Kelin is like every Joni Mitchell song blossomed into a beautiful blonde artist in a white dress and pearls, who gives the best hugs and makes the best cookies. Like that. I needed to see both of these ladies really bad, so it worked out well.
ANYWAY. I wrote a poem tonight called EDGE and it is going to speak for me now. Read and enjoy.
On the verge of on the verge of
Somethings on the verge;
Pain.
Words fester…
Silence,
Blank pages disguise pain,
It’s white noise.
On the verge of
Screaming tears.
I wish with all my made-up might
To uncloak the sorrow
Dig my nails in scratch off the mask
Uncover the words
Unbury the words
Scratching the surface
Where I sit so square
Play so safe it hurts.
Keep so quiet I choke.
Sit so still I ache.
Unable to
Get off the verge and
Dive in
Crash
Rinse refresh
Instead I let my mind rot
Words fester; Tangled language.
A rat’s nest sits where my heart used to wheeze.
You'll Never See My Eyes 