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.

The Vid, September 12, 2012

Unless you've been living in a cave (or watching something other than CBC), you know that Over the Rainbow, the CBC/Mirvish reality show about casting Dorothy in Wizard of Oz begins September 16. (As they say...check your local listings.)

After Dark, September 11, 2012

The Language of Disrespect
Things have actually gotten worse
by Gaëtan L. Charlebois

Last week I wrote about how politics should be teaching us, in theatre, lessons about respect and civility. You just had to look at political campaigns in Quebec and the United States to understand that when we have grievances in the arts, we clearly should not be as rancorous. Firstly, because our community is too small to contain feuds and, secondly, because somewhere - down the line - most of us will have to work together. Grudges must die (or at least be set aside and painted over with a smile).

After I wrote that editorial two things happened:

- There was an assassination attempt on our premier-elect, allegedly by some guy spouting stupidity about how "The English are awakening!" What made the event more chilling and tragic was that there was an actual death during the attempt, a stage techie named Denis Blanchette.

- I received an open letter (email) about the crisis at Factory Theatre that I suspect I was meant to publish but where the content of the letter was so angry and uncivil I decided I would not put it up on the site. I stated that I would no longer publish pieces that did not advance dialogue that might resolve the situation.

Review: Death of a Salesman

Joseph Ziegler and Ari Cohen (photo by Cylla von Tiedemann)

A Death Foretold
by Beat Rice

It is common knowledge that Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman is a staple in the roster of classic American theatre. It won numerous awards and is now studied in English and drama classrooms in high schools and theatre schools alike. I remember learning myself about about how Willy Loman is the symbol of the idealistic and unattainable American dream. I have even heard people use the name ‘Willy Loman’ as a term to refer to those who rely desperately on selling to make a living and to obtain self-worth. To some, Willy Loman may be a signifier of hopes had, and dreams lost. The remounted production at Soulpepper acknowledges this, but also shows Willy Loman for what he really is: a human being, just like the rest of us. 

The Show, September 9, 2012

Look at this stunning photo by Tanja-Tiziana very carefully. It is of Tawiah M'carthy and it's for the upcoming production of Obaaberima. This is one of those photos which tell part of the story of a play while seducing you into finding out more. And there is much, much more to discover. M'carthy's work (he created it and performs in it) is indeed a work that harks back to a motherland but if you look - again - closely...at the lips, for instance...you will see it also a work about Queer identity. This is a potent mix - colour and sexuality - that is addressed rarely in our theatres and - guess what? - even more rarely in the Queer community. Moreover, M'carthy is bringing an African cultural vocabulary to the piece. However the evening turns out, from the outset we are talking of one that is as challenging as it is potentially destabilizing.

The Story: Soheil Parsa on the season at Modern Times

The Lesson and Forgiveness
Organizing a year
by Soheil Parsa

This year I will work on two shows with Modern Times: ‘The Lesson’, by Eugène Ionesco, and a new creation called ‘Forgiveness’, which is in its second phase of development.

I’ve had a long history with ‘The Lesson’. I remember reading it for the first time in Farsi in Tehran back in the 70s, shortly before the Revolution. The next time would be in English, in preparation to direct Ionesco’s ‘The Chairs’ in 2001 in Toronto. When I stumbled upon the play again in 2010, I decided that I had to direct it. 

I guess my fascination with the play is two-fold. To begin with, the concept of dictatorship in the ‘The Lesson’ is familiar to me. I experienced it first-hand in Iran, and my attempt to understand that experience is one of the reasons that I choose the type of material Modern Times does. Secondly, ‘The Lesson’ speaks to ideologies, which are present around the world. For Ionesco, it’s ideology of language: empty slogans that seem so beautiful at first, but which eventually kill; the Professor uses language as a weapon against the student. I have witnessed this in many venues, Canada as well: when the truth crumbles, language can be used to cajole, intimidate and pacify.

Theatre For Thought, September 8, 2012

COLORS OF THE FUTURE
joel fishbane

Many young artists have made bold pacts after a night of too many beers, but every now and then the promises remain even in the harsh light of day. Such was the case for the founders of Metachroma Theatre, Montreal’s newest independent theatre company. Comprised of some of Montreal’s most talented actors – Tamara Brown, Lucinda Davis, Mike Payette to name a few – the company was created to promote a singular mandate:  to produce theatre that normalizes the presence of cultural minorities on stage. 

“This is an idea that we have all had in our heads for a long time,” said Julie Tamiko Manning, a Company member who's playing several roles both onstage and off. A third-generation Japanese-Canadian, Manning can relate to the idea that sparked the Company’s creation: How come we never see minorities on the stage unless it’s a culturally specific show?

CharPo's Real Theatre! September 7, 2012

The Still, September 6, 2012

A warrior goddess from Cirque du Soleil's Amaluna, landing here this week.

The Vid, September 5, 2012

The funny/sexy (the two go hand in had...so to speak) Pomme is French for Apple, returning for one night only after a hugely successful run at the Fringe. 

(Read our - rave - review)

BREAKING NEWS: Factory announces interim artistic team

Press release (received 4:45 PM, September 4, 2012):

Factory Theatre announces Interim Artistic Team
and play development activities for 2012-13 Season
Nina Lee Aquino and Nigel Shawn Williams

Toronto, ON - Tuesday, September 4, 2012 – Ron Struys, President of the Factory Board of Directors, and Managing Director Sara Meurling announced today that Factory Theatre Associate Artists Nina Lee Aquino and Nigel Shawn Williams will be taking on the role of Interim Artistic Team to take the lead on programming and artistic operations at the company.

After Dark, September 4, 2012

The Tribes
There are lessons we must learn from politics
by Gaëtan L. Charlebois

Today Quebeckers vote. It has been a rancorous and unpleasant campaign and I'm glad to be rid of it (though suspect by midnight we will have a minority government and be heading back to the fucking polls in no time).

I've heard all the hyperbole I can handle. It didn't come close to the scum thrown in the US, but it did approach it. Because of the confluence of the student uprising and the burgeoning strength of the sovereignist Parti Québécois we were treated to ugly epithets hurled on one side and another not just on Facebook and Twitter - bad enough - but in editorials too. One idiot editorial in anglo Montreal trotted out "fascist" to describe the PQ leader's aspirations. When you've heard that one thrown at the Liberals for nine months, it becomes meaningless.

US politics are uglier than ever. But that seems to be a refrain we repeat every election.

The Show, September 3, 2012

Nancy Palk (photo by Cylla von Tiedemann)

Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman is not only a play, it is a monument: a brilliant model of everything that works in modern theatre. It treats time as it wants. It tells a compelling story. It uses an average man like the Greeks used heroes - showing them as victims of destiny. It strikes universal themes: love and betrayal, sons and fathers, family. 

But make no mistake: as the work's title suggests, it is first and foremost about a small man in a downward spiral. From its opening lyrical moments to its inevitable close, you see Willy Loman as already drowning and it is merely a question of how many of his loved ones - his sons or wife - he will pull down with him. Men, especially, will tell you how they are always brutalized by the troubled relationship Willy has with his boys but Salesman is also a great love story and Linda Loman one of the most convincingly written female characters of the last century. As much as Willy is actor-bait, Linda is one of the great roles, reminding one of the many great women of theatre who saw their husbands' flaws even as they loyally defended them. (Inge's Lola in Come Back, Little Sheba springs immediately to mind.)

The tragedy of everyone in Salesman - particularly apt in this age of big business spinning all of our lives out of control - is their smallness. And in the final words of Death of a Salesman, Arthur Miller, through Linda, rescues us all from that tragedy. We will not give those words away because if you have never experienced this work, do...now.

The Story: First-Person - Mitchell Marcus on Acting Up Stage's season

The Magnificent Arlene Duncan with Michael Levine in the company's highly praised and rewarded Caroline, or Change of last season. Now on to the next season. 

The Journey of a Year
An Artistic Director reveals the ideas behind planning a season
by Mitchell Marcus

Programming a theatre company's season is a complicated job. Most people assume (and in many ways correctly) that it’s the most enjoyable task for an Artistic Director, as he or she gets to delve into possibilities and extract a comprehensive slate of exciting stories to tell onstage. However, creating a season can also be challenging and demanding. How do you balance building on past success while avoiding predictability? How do you find the right mix of programming that strengthens connections with audiences, artists, granting bodies and sponsors? And then, how do you tie this all together in a neat, digestible package? 

At Acting Up Stage Company, we were blessed with a 2011-2012 season where all of the elements magically came together. All of our public presentations (Ride The Cyclone, Caroline, or Change and The Long and Winding Road) received critical and audience acclaim, and we had the good fortune of selling out each production and garnering some wonderful accolades during award season. Where do we go from here? Topping our 2011-2012 year at first seemed an impossible task. But I started where I assume most Artistic Directors must: I began to revisit pieces which had affected me; I attended performances which had received good word of mouth; and, I began to daydream about initiatives which could complement a season's worth of shows. Throughout all this, I tried to determine, as I always do, a driving theme or agenda to unite our 2012-2013 slate. 

Theatre For Thought, September 1, 2012

THE ART OF TRANSLATION
joel fishbane

“I think translators have done their job when they aren’t noticed,” remarked Bobby Theodore. “The moment someone compliments me on the translation, I worry the script needs another draft.” It was a smart remark from a veteran translator / writer, one that encompasses both the goals of a translator and the problems in being one in the first place. As important as theatre translators are, if they do their job well, people forget they were ever in the room. 

This talent for invisibility has had an unfortunate consequence within the Canadian theatre industry: there currently exists no standard contracts that outline the translator – writer relationship. “What’s missing is dialogue,” Theodore revealed. “No one ever talks about money. There needs to be something that outlines the legal relationship.”