Michael Mitchell: Open Letter to Ron Struys, Factory Theatre Board Chair

August 1, 2012

Dear Mr Ron Struys,

In your open letter dated July 30, 2012 (regarding the termination of Ken Gass), you state:

1) Any boycott is a direct attack on the livelihoods of the artists and staff who work at the Theatre or wish to work there.

2) It defies logic . . .

3) There are better tools to engage debate.

  

Ken Gass Responds to Factory Board Letter, July 31, 2012

KEN GASS RESPONSE TO FACTORY BOARD’S ‘OPEN LETTER’ OF JULY 30/12


[ED: Read the letter to which Mr. Gass is responding]

Well, bravo!  

After blatantly ignoring the 4000 people who signed a petition asking for their resignation and my reinstatement, the board is only now, a month later and as a direct result of the boycott, finally discussing the real issues that led to my firing on June 20^th.   

Okay, there are some major factual errors, misrepresentations and omissions in their ‘open letter’ and I’ll get to these shortly, but still, perhaps this is the beginning of a real town hall, a dialogue in which the wide community is allowed to openly face the nine individual board of directors (none of them artists) who are responsible for the current crisis.  Where the public and Factory’s many stakeholders can hear the full story from all sides and be allowed to weigh in and even help mediate a solution.  It is something I had been asking for repeatedly since March, and I genuinely commend Ron Struys and the board for putting their viewpoint to paper as the first step.

However….

Why I Am Boycotting Factory Theatre by Matthew MacFadzean (actor)

Why I am Boycotting Factory Theatre

When Ken Gass was dismissed, it would make sense for someone like me to say “Aha! Nowʼs our chance! Down with the old guard! Letʼs fill in that position with someone younger and more relevant who will revolutionize this town and bring new art to a new era for Factory.” But I know that wonʼt happen...

by Matthew MacFadzean

I am a grumbler. I donʼt like a lot of shows, donʼt understand why most people are in charge of the theatres theyʼre in charge of, heck itʼs hard to even get me out to see stuff anymore. I think theatre in this town needs an enema. It needs new leadership. It needs change. It needs to return to what theatre once was: an evolving artform, rather than a stale ʻwayʼ of constructing a play: fill out the form, check the right boxes, and give it a nice one word title, hopefully an aspect of the human personality like “Shame” or “Dignity.” People will come. And then they can say they stood up and clapped at a play this season, and the theatres will pat themselves on the back because they “appealed to their subscriber base once again” and the cycle continues. This is Toronto theatre. See? Grumbler. So, following this, when Ken Gass was dismissed, it would make sense for someone like me to say “Aha! Nowʼs our chance! Down with the old guard! Letʼs fill in that position with someone younger and more relevant who will revolutionize this town and bring new art to a new era for Factory.” But I know that wonʼt happen, and realize that Boards think financially, not artistically. Hereʼs what the Board of Factory theatre WILL do. They will hire someone safe and secure (and stupid, given how much the community will demonize them following this mess) who will guarantee a larger subscription base and turn Factory into something “more like Tarragon, if you could please.” But I digress. I did not join this boycott because of my opinion of Toronto theatre.

Why I Am Boycotting Factory Theatre by Andrew Moodie (playwright/actor/director)

Why I am Boycotting Factory Theatre

The current Board fired Ken because his plans for the theatre were ambitious. That's not the reason to fire an Artistic Director.
by Andrew Moodie (playwright/actor/director) 


I've been asked to write about why I've joined the boycott against the Factory Theatre Board. I'll start with the reasons why I'm not boycotting the Factory theatre board. 1) I'm not boycotting to hurt artists. I encourage everyone to go to a SummerWorks show at the Factory. And I am hoping this will be resolved before the season starts so that actors and playwrights can get paid the pittance they need to live. 2) I'm not boycotting the Factory because Ken gave me a job, or Ken has promised me work. He is a friend, but I'm friends with many people, and that in itself is not enough for me to boycott the Factory. Nor has Ken asked me to. He hasn't asked for anything, and if you know anything about me, you'd know that I don't do things like this just because someone asks. 

The reasons why I am boycotting the Factory: 

Why I Am Boycotting Factory Theatre by Tony Nappo

Why I Am Boycotting Factory Theatre
Was Ken Gass' plan a good one? A realistic one? A financially possible one? I don't know and I don't give a fuck. It's his theatre.
by Tony Nappo (actor)

Gaëtan asked me to write a few words explaining why I agreed to sign the petition to boycott The Factory Theatre in Toronto and I am happy to respond as I know that this publication speaks to folks outside of Toronto, who likely do not know me personally or many of the other members of the community who signed as well.

Let me say, clearly, that I do not speak for anyone but myself. I have been saying that a lot, lately, on the pages of Facebook and whatnot, as this issue has become a very polarizing one in Toronto and I personally never signed up to be a recruiting officer or to be a divisive force in the community. At the same time, this was not a scenario where I could sit idly by and wait to see what happened. For myself, and for many, this is not just an artists vs. "the Board" scenario, it is a human one.

First-Person: Itai Erdal on How to Disappear Completely

Mother and Me

Exploring life through theatre

by Itai Erdal (production photos by Emily Cooper)

Twelve years ago, I was going to be a documentary filmmaker. I became a theatre lighting designer instead. I never planned to be a designer, it kind of happened by accident. I was a good lighting technician in Israel but I was happy to leave theatre behind to pursue my dreams in film, and when I moved to Vancouver in 1999 it was its booming film industry that attracted me. I worked as a lamp operator in big union movies (Halloween 8, Air Bud 4, etc.), and at the same time I tried to be an independent and documentary filmmaker. I bought a video camera and I tried to start a business of shooting EPK’s (electronic press kits, or the behind the scenes). It was around that time that I received a phone call from Israel telling me that my mother had lung cancer and nine months to live. 

Review: Oil and Water

Neema Bickersteth as Adeline and Starr Domingue as Vonzia in the 2011 run at the LSPU Hall (St. John's, NL) 

ACT I Problems

Oil and Water takes its time

by Beat Rice

I am instantly curious when I hear that a play is inspired by real events and true stories. What about this story intrigued playwright Robert Chafe so much that he felt the need to translate the events for the stage?  Oil and Water is inspired by the story of Lanier Phillips, the only surviving black male from a shipwreck of U.S. marines off the coast of Newfoundland in 1942. He is rescued and cared for by the people in St. Lawrence, Canadians who have never seen a person with coloured skin. We experience the majority of the events through Phillips’ older self’s reflections, although it was not consistent.

First-Person: Robert Chafe on Oil and Water and Lanier Phillips

Chafe and Phillips (photo credit: Don Ellis)

Lanier Remembered

Oil and Water explores the consequences of lives lived

by Robert Chafe

In February of 2011 my company, Artistic Fraud of Newfoundland, premiered my new play Oil and Water in St. John’s. The premiere marked the culmination of three years of research, scripting, workshopping and revisions, but truly the story of Oil and Water and its genesis stretch back for me as far as 1996. That summer myself and my collaborator, Jillian Keiley, had the occasion to spend a significant amount of social time with Newfoundland painter Grant Boland. On one trip to his studio he showed us a work in progress, a large striking canvas depicting tired, near naked men, covered in dirt being bathed by a set of angelic women, they themselves stained by their labours, their toil visible on their cheeks and aprons. One of the hallmarks of Grant’s work is its consistent narrative clarity. There was a story behind this painting, and I had to know it.

On a stormy night in February 1942 a convoy of American Naval vessels ran aground on the south coast of Newfoundland. Two of the boats sank in the ensuing hours, with a huge loss of life. The USS Truxton had wrecked a mere one hundred feet from land and a few miles from the small isolated town of St. Lawrence. The men of the town, mostly workers at a nearby Fluorspar mine, mobilized to help the survivors, collecting them as they reached shore, exhausted, frozen, and coated in the thick black bilge oil leaking from the foundering ship. One of those surviving men was Lanier Phillips. He was eighteen years old, on his second voyage since joining the navy, a private, a lowly mess attendant, and one of only four people of colour on the entire ship. He was to be the only black man to survive.

Interview: Actor Brendan McMurtry-Howlett on Sia

(photo credit: Sandra Lefrancois)

The Theatre Politic

A committed actor talks about those dangerous times of "I can do anything"

by Jasmine Chen

This week I sat down with Brendan McMurtry-Howlett who plays Nicholas Summers in SIA, to talk about his experience rehearsing and performing this intensely demanding play, now playing at the Factory Studio Theatre until April 15.

CHARPO: SIA is an extremely politically charged piece; as someone who is quite political himself, how do you relate to your character? 

BRENDAN: It feels close to home in a lot of ways, and in a lot of ways pretty different. He is a young guy, younger than me; he's rough around the edges which is something I could relate to when I was 19-21, that feeling of “I can do anything”. It is that age where you learn all that you are capable of, and very shortly after you learn all that you are not capable of. That's very much where Nick is. I come from a background of social justice. I can relate to a lot of that social consciousness that is looking outwards towards global impact. This play presents us with an interesting dilemma, how do you engage that desire to make the world a better place? Which is what I think led Nick to volunteer in the Liberian refugee camp, in the first place; which is a noble thing to do, but how do you go about that? That becomes the major question. 

I think a lot of the things he says in the play are valid, some of which get him into more trouble. I don't think it is what he's saying, I think it's how he's saying it. It can be that ignorance or naiveté about the difference of the realities of living in North America vs living in a Liberian refugee camp that leads to serious breakdowns in communication. Personally, I think that is at the core of Nick and Abraham's relationship in the play. Most of the problems spark from both of them not understanding where the other person comes from, not having any context beyond the stereotypes of what it is like to be a white person or a black person living in Africa. I don't think Nick's crime was going there wanting to help. It is so complicated, because here in North America I know tons of people who have gone to volunteer in Africa.

Review: Sia

Brendan McMurtry-Howlett and Thomas Olajide (photo credit: Sandra Lefrancois)

Searing Sia

Cahoots at Factory serves up pain and compassion

by Jasmine Chen

Last night’s opening of SIA at The Factory Theatre could not have fallen on a more appropriate day. On World Theatre Day, when we were asking ourselves, what is the purpose of theatre?, SIA answered. Matthew Mackenzie’s new play does what great theatre is supposed to do, challenge our perceptions, provoke thought, and be a mirror to society, reflecting what can sometimes be hard truths to swallow. SIA is grueling, painful, unforgiving at times, but in the end full of compassion. 

First-Person: Matthew Mackenzie on the creation of SIA

Full of Fire and Hope

A journey, cultural dislocation and a play

by Matthew Mackenzie (photos courtesy of Matthew Mackenzie)

In the fall of 2003 I flew from Alberta to West Africa, with a brief stopover in Toronto.  My plan was to go and research my play concerning the civil war that had recently torn the tiny country of Liberia apart.  Talked out of going directly to Liberia by my parents, I decided to go to Ghana, which was the most stable English speaking country in the region, where there was a significant Liberian refugee population.  Alarmed that I was travelling half way around the world without having done any kind of research, my Aunt Karen—who is a Librarian at the University of Toronto—hastily put me in touch with a Ghanaian student she knew, in the hopes that he would be able to offer some guidance.  As it just so happened, a member of the congregation the Ghanaian student belonged to back home, was the former Head Nurse of the Buduburam Camp—the largest Liberian refugee settlement in the world.

Review: My Granny The Goldfish

Sincerity Wins The Day

The script is uneven, but the cast is superb

by Stuart Munro

“Yes, you may die. But are you happy with the life you have lived?”

These words are spoken early on in Act II by a loving grandmother to her grandson as they wait to hear the results of his biopsy. In many ways, this simple question is at the heart of Anosh Irani’s play “My Granny the Goldfish,” on stage now at The Factory Theatre.

Set primarily in a Vancouver hospital room, “My Granny the Goldfish” is the story of Nico (Kawa Ada), a recent arrival from Mumbai, India, who may or may not have cancer. His granny (Yolande Bavan) shows up unexpectedly in order to comfort him. Eventually, his parents Farzeen and Dara (Veena Sood and Sanjay Talwar) arrive as well, and the stage is set for an awkward family reunion; old grievances are brought up, and ultimately some wounds begin to heal.

Review: The Big Smoke

A Solo Fails to Stir

Structure and script hamper a tale of life and death

by Beat Rice

The Big Smoke is a unique one-woman show that is also a different kind of musical. The narrative is sung and in some parts spoken by co-writer, composer, and performer Amy Nostbakken. The play is sung in a jazzy style and is done entirely a cappella.

The story follows Nathalie's last summer before she dies. She is a young painter from Toronto, in London to compete for an exhibition spot. She tells us about the gallery openings and shows she and the other young artists attend, of raunchy nights in clubs, and of trysts with different men. It was unoriginal and shallow. We do not find out enough about the character's nature to care about her decline in the end. There were many details in the story-telling that felt petty and made the show longer than it needed to be. Detailed descriptions are effective when one knows why they are being provided.