In a Word..Kelly Thornton, Artistic Director at Nightwood Theatre

[ED: Today we're  inaugurating a new weekly feature at The Charlebois Post - Toronto: In a Word... Each week, on Wednesday, you'll be treated to a short-form interview with someone in the Toronto theatre. Some will be talking about their upcoming productions, some about their lives, some just addressing questions about their work or the world around them. Enjoy!]


I'd love audiences to be astonished by the power of women's voice in theatre.
Kelly Thornton faces a new season and looks again at Penelopiad
by Jasmine Chen

CHARPO: As Nightwood enters its 33rd season, what challenges did you face when planning the programming? Did you have themes you knew you wanted to explore, or were you surprised with the season you eventually arrived at?

KELLY: Well, it's very interesting, having launched the New Groundswell Festival last year, the mandate of this festival is to fortify new work before it hits the Mainstage,  before it's open to critics and audiences at large. The idea of the workshop production is to lay seed for a Mainstage production. So, certainly Between the Sheets revealed so much in the Groundswell Festival. It was very appealing to audiences, and we knew right after the festival that we would go forward with it. 

And then The Penelopiad was such a raging hit! I mean people were so passionate, sometimes angry about not getting a ticket that we knew we had to bring it back. The Penelopiad is one of those plays that just doesn't happen every day. For us as a company it was such a huge ambitious show, we were mavericks to take it on, I think. With the alchemy of the Company, the characters, the cast and the whole design and production team, we really had a gift of a show on our hands. That was an obvious choice to bring back. So in terms of themes, I think the Fates really brought those two pieces of the puzzle together. 

The New Groundswell Festival is premiering a work by Judith Thompson [Who Killed Snow White?], which was also just coming up the pipes. Judith was playwright-in-residence last year with OAC, and she came to us with a monologue in Femcab about the disconnect between young women and feminism. It's a subject matter that has been very personal to her, so she really wanted to take it on. She came to us with this super provocative anti-feminist teenager, a first year University student taking an elective in Women's Studies and really having a clash with her teacher. It's comic but then goes very dark, in the way that Thompson does. 

Odelah Creations with La Memoire Du Corps|Body Memory is a Company that I have been watching. Their explorations come from a very Québecois - very physical perspective. They research into personal stories from women and body memory. I want to continue to stretch the boundaries of what theatre can be and I'm interested in the Quebec voice. And then The Oracle at Gros Morne is a totally different kettle of fish coming out of Newfoundland! The New Groundswell festival with its touring productions, is trying to reveal to the Toronto audience what's happening in other regions of the country.

There's no real theme that I hung the season on. My desire as the Artistic Director of Nightwood, is to interpret 'What's my job as the AD of a feminist theatre company in the 21st century'? For me, it's to look at women in all directions, to look deeply and excavate the women's experience, in the most flawed of women to the most heroic of women. I'm not necessarily just looking at women's success, but also the struggle that they have.

I think I just want to go deeper.

CHARPO: With the remount of The Penelopiad, what do you hope to achieve this time around? 

KELLY: I think I just want to go deeper. I've remounted a number of productions, the most significant one was The Danish Play, where we had two separate rehearsal processes. It is such a  privilege to go back in and go deeper. The Penelopiad is such an ambitious production, so we were really working like dogs up until the finish line to get it on its feet in front of an audience. I think all of us were shocked at how well it was received, because we were sprinting to the finish line to get it ready. Monica Dottor certainly pushed towards ambitious choreography; same with Suba Sankaran, the songs were also complex. Not to mention navigating the journey of Penelope, who's practically reading a novel on stage, she's got so much to say! We pulled it off, but I'm really excited to go deeper. This time around we have a couple of amazing singers. I think that is just going to up the ante in terms of vocals for the production. I want to look in every corner of the script to make sure we didn't miss anything. The same thing is happening with Between the Sheets. With a workshop production under our belts we can go back in and look at it beat to beat. Jordi sat through every show during Groundswell and has done some re-writes to refine it. We want to explore everything that is being said, the motivations, the connections and disconnections, and the conflict. 

CHARPO: Nightwood offers many opportunities for emerging and established artists to continue training. How do you choose what Masterclasses to offer?

KELLY: We're doing it right now! It's funny, in 2009 during the 4x4 Festival that focused on the female director, we decided to unveil a whole slough of masterclasses. There was such a huge response and we were fully subscribed. Since then, I feel like a lot of companies are offering masterclasses. So we're still trying to be individual within a market that is starting to get crowded. I think Nightwood's desire to train the next generation is huge. Part of my personal mandate is to see the next generation come up. We're going to do another playwriting class with Judith Thompson, because everyone wants to take a class with Judith. We're still hammering out what else there will be exactly. I know our Literary Manager and Dramaturg Erica Kopyto is offering a class this year on developing your own work. We're still at the drawing board, but we're talking about potentially,“what is the solo show?” and how do you take the solo show you created in your graduating class and turn it into something more. That class is quite geared towards the emerging community. Certainly, I cut my teeth in the Fringe Festival, SummerWorks and Rhubarb. I think emerging artists are doing the same thing and need a vehicle to showcase themselves. Last year in the Groundswell Festival, Michelle Alexander put together a big panel for emerging artists and what they needed to know, where we had more senior artists talk about what they wished they had known when they had started. It was a packed house and a great discussion. We're exploring enhancing that program and trying to see what else we can do for youth within the Groundswell Festival. We're doing a play reading series as well and are accepting submissions.

It's rare that I can sit in an audience and  hear them all the way through going, “*gasp*”, “ooh” or “ah!”.

CHARPO: The annual Write From The Hip Program is an indispensable program for emerging female playwrights. What essential characteristics do you look for in the plays and playwrights that apply? 

KELLY:  A couple of things. Part of our mandate is about being inclusive, we're looking for diverse voices as much as possible. Ultimately, I'm looking for difficult plays. I gravitate towards plays that push the envelope, that have a razor's edge where the situation has high stakes. I don't think I'm looking for light fare. I'm looking for something that is politically challenging, that packs a punch. Between the Sheets is not necessarily a political show, but it is about the personal politics between two women in the highest stakes, both of them fighting for what they want so intensively. It is a political piece about women and about aging, marriage, fertility and mid-life crisis. It's rare that I can sit in an audience and  hear them all the way through going, “*gasp*”, “ooh” or “ah!”. There is a vocal response to this show moment to moment because some of the blows they throw each other are so low, or so awkward. They come out and say things to each other that hit the gut, it's exciting theatre. Everybody that has watched it has said they go from one side to the other. With Jordi's re-writes she has finessed it even more that at the end I don't know if you can sit on one side. It is not a black and white situation, they are both fighting for their lives. It's a complex play in that way.

For me, I'm not so interested in the kitchen sink; I'm interested in shows that transform an audience's perspective of the world, that ultimately go for the jugular.

CHARPO: With all of these challenging shows that you have programmed that examine women in very different ways, it is hard to sum it up, but what do you want audiences to take away from this season? 

KELLY: I'd love audiences to be astonished by the power of women's voice in theatre. I fight for advocacy, and I have been for women in theatre since 2002. I think we all assume that women's voices are being heard everywhere, but it really is an issue in Canadian theatre that not enough women are getting produced. I feel that if you were a pass holder for the entire Nightwood season, I think you would be astonished at how powerful each of these plays are. We need to get more women's voices out there and we need to be heard on the mainstage, especially because 75-85% of ticket buyers are women! What doesn't seem obvious at first is how few women playwrights and directors are reaching the mainstages. In the Indie scene there's a ton of women, but that means they are being paid a lot less. Women in theatre schools too, there are a lot more roles for men. It's a big question mark in terms of what we're going to do with that. We have to keep knocking at the door and rattling to keep everybody awake. It's amazing how people forget so quickly. It's imperative for women in theatre that we push forward. Similar studies are happening in the States, Australia, and the UK where women in theatre are asking, “why aren't there more female artistic directors?”; “why are we not getting more plays produced?”; “why are the female directors not being hired as often?”. That has got to change because there are so many dynamic voices; from a new playwright like Jordi Mand to the most established playwright like Judith Thompson, or a celebrated author like Margaret Atwood. There is a slough of talented women, and I think our perspective is refreshing. Women see the world in a different way because we are not the dominant. That needs to be heard. 

Nightwood's website
Also read: Kelly Thornton's first-person about her initial approach to Penelopiad