The Duke of Praxis

Cheers to everyone who braved the first truly terrible weather of the season in Toronto to join Praxis Theatre at the Duke of York on Saturday night. There was a great turnout, it was a good time, and there are pictures to prove it.

Please join us this Saturday night . . .

Here’s the map. Doors open @ 8. Hope to see you there!

What’s the deal with being an actor in Tokyo?

An English-speaking-ex-pat acting primer for Tokyo

By Benjamin Johnson

• In Tokyo, acting and modeling are basically considered the same thing.

• Anyone coming to town with some kind of work visa can get an agent, most foreigners have more than one agent, and I’ve heard of people signing up with over twenty different agencies, however Japanese citizens can only have one.

• Once you have an agent, you’ll get emails on your cell-phone with an exact amount the job pays and asking you if you’re available for auditions on certain dates.

• Once you confirm your availability they send your headshot in to the casting agent for “picture selection”.

• If you make it past picture selection you go to the audition, usually with a manager from the agency who acts as your translator and who also works out the details for you.

• Then if you get the job, you show up on the day.

Almost all work is acting in commercials. Although most Japanese can read advertisements in English, few can hold down a conversation, and most would be lost listening to English dialogue. The English-speaking actor in Tokyo is essentially a model paid to draw attention to products. Film and TV work is basically nonexistent, save for extra work and embarrassing guest appearances on variety shows.

Theatre in Tokyo is similar to that in many other major cities. Japan has it’s own casts of Lion King, Cats and a host of musicals running endlessly. There are major houses doing translations of Ibsen and Shakespeare, traditional Japanese Kabuki and Noh plays, but as far as I can tell there’s not a single theatre job to be had for an English speaker in this town of 30 million people. The only agency that mentioned covering English speakers for theatre was a note on a list that said, “ask about theatre” next to the agency name.

There are of course, international touring companies, which perform in English, or without language, such as the new Cirque de Soleil show “Zed”. But for the most part, people are busy, life is expensive, and renting a space, rehearsing (i.e. not working a regular job), and producing a show is an expensive undertaking when your audience may not understand your carefully worded award-winning masterpiece that is basically all dialogue. Movement theatre would be the best way to go, and the Japanese already have the singular Butoh.

As for indie theatre in Tokyo, my next step is to visit a trendy neighborhood called Shimokitazawa. I’ve heard there are some signs of a somewhat indie-theatre community. I’ll investigate and report back.

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Benjamin Johnson is a screenwriter and graduate of Canada’s National Theatre School, currently living and working in Tokyo.

Theatre is Territory 2.0

So. What the fuck is going on with this blog?

I know.

Things have been a bit slow around here lately. It’s my fault. After more than two years, 426 posts, 78 “10 questions” interviews, and more comments section brawls than I can count, I must admit that my capacity for pumping this stuff out is waning. I still love theatre and theatre blogging. But resources are finite, and there are other projects on the horizon – not the least of which is my role in marketing Praxis Theatre’s upcoming production of Stranger, by far our most ambitious show to date.

That said, I am thrilled to announce that starting next week there will be a new voice, and a new energy in this space. If you’ve been a regular reader or commentor, you already know Michael Wheeler and his frequently insightful contributions to this blog. As a commentor, and occasionally as a guest poster, Michael has been a big supporter of this blog since its inception. He also happens to be Praxis Theatre’s Co-Artisitic Director.

Michael will now join me in the day-to-day posting at this venue. In the spirit of its origins, all posts will continue to be signed “Praxis Theatre”. Some will be written by Michael, some by me. Ultimately, and if we’re doing our jobs, it shouldn’t really matter who’s writing the posts. It’s not about Praxis Theatre or about one writer’s voice. It never has been. We’re interested in the big ideas. In learning more from our industry peers. And in being a thoughtful and relevant part of the conversation. Michael’s a great fit and I thank him dearly for caring enough about this project to step up when it needs him most.

So let’s see where this takes us. For my part, I’m looking forward to continuing the “10 questions” series. I want it to be good. So I may take another couple of months off interviewing to recharge and recalibrate.

Thank you kindly for your patience through this transition. And thanks to everyone who has contributed to this conversation so far. I am humbled by your generosity and wisdom.

Obviously, there is plenty more we need to figure out.

Welcome Michael.

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Ian Mackenzie
Director of Marketing
Praxis Theatre

Exciting new work

Coming to The Centre Centre in Toronto on November 13, Kick Theatre presents “a radical new Canadian adaptation of August Strindberg’s play.” Miss Julie. More info here.

Theatre is Territory podcast #2

Praxis Theatre is thrilled to present the second in a series of theatre podcasts Toronto-based arts writer Alison Broverman is putting together exclusively for this blog.

This edition:

1) Rob Salerno talks about the Fringe festival tour and his show Balls.
2) Darren O'Donnell talks about the Department of Culture.

This podcast is about 13 minutes long.

We seek to annihilate your policies

Here’s a link to the English translation of Wajdi Mouawad’s much discussed Open Letter to Prime Minister Harper.

For more commentary on this, go here, and here.

New theatre podcast

Praxis Theatre is thrilled to present the first in a series of theatre podcasts that Toronto-based arts writer Alison Broverman is putting together exclusively for this blog.

This edition:

1) SummerWorks wrap-up interview with Michael Rubenfeld.
2) Nostalgia corner.
3) Broverman’s biggest regret of the summer.

This podcast is about 17 minutes long. Please have a listen and pass along any comments, feedback, or suggestions for future podcasts.

More town hall photos

September 3, 2008 Town Hall meeting to mobilize in the face of sweeping arts funding cuts in Canada.

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Much thanks to Catherine Kustanczy for passing these along.

Town Hall photos . . .

September 3, 2008 Town Hall meeting to mobilize in the face of sweeping arts funding cuts in Canada. Above, Toronto Arts Council Executive Director Claire Hopkinson.

And here, author/activist Naomi Klein rallies the troops.

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Thanks to Naomi Campbell for passing these shots along. We'd love to post more. Send your Town Hall photos here. Thank you.

Town Hall photos . . .

Anyone got any good photos from last night’s Town Hall meeting at the Theatre Centre in Toronto? If you do and are are wondering what to do with them, please pass them along so we can post them here, with full credit, of course.

Please email photos here.

Thanks!

Arts funding cuts

Does anyone have any information or opinions on the federal government’s recent cuts to the Trade Routes and the PromArt programs? Some are saying this is a vicious and sweeping attack on Canada’s culture industries.

Here’s a Globe and Mail primer on the cuts: Ottawa axes second arts subsidy in two weeks.

What does all this mean? What should we do?

SummerWorks picks

A press still for One Reed Theatre's (never underestimate) The Power at SummerWorks.

Today's the last day to catch some SummerWorks action. Does anyone have any recommendations? Funny SummerWorks stories? Top picks?

Why is theatre imporant – survey results

“We need it to see ourselves.” That’s the most popular answer among the 25 respondents to our Why is theatre important survey. The rest of the votes were split between “It’s a shared experience” and “None of the above.”

Given the small sample group, this is hardly conclusive polling. Still, it’s heartening to see a front runner emerge – especially given theatre’s current challenges communicating its value proposition to the non-theatregoing public.

Incidentally, the phrase “We need it to see ourselves” is a direct lift from Daniel MacIvor’s “10 questions” interview, here.
 

How American Theatre saved american theatre

American monologuist and regional theatre reform advocate Mike Daisey has thrown down a blistering response to Theatre Communications Group executive director Teresa Eyring’s How Theatre Saved America, which was published in the current issue of American Theatre.

Eyring argues that the current repertory model in the U.S. is in fine working order:

“Many actors – instead of performing in several shows with a single theatre company in the same season – construct year-round employment by performing in different theatres throughout the year.”

Daisey disagrees:

“If actors manage to create community and continuity IN SPITE OF the institutions, no credit for that reflects back on theaters that refuse to support artists in a meaningful fashion: with staff positions, with health insurance, with a modicum of respect and dignity earned by working craftsman anywhere. Dribs and drabs of roles given when artists can jump for them are no substitute for real institutional support, and to claim otherwise is absurd.”

Daisey ends with a challenge to the magazine to devote an entire issue to the concerns raised in his hit monologue, How Theatre Failed America, opening its pages to “informed bloggers and theatrical luminaries.”

University of North Carolina drama professor and oft-quoted theatre blogger Scott Walters agrees enthusiastically with the suggestion, here.

What do you think? Are theatre’s regional institutions looking out for the artists? Or are they simply working to preserve their own outdated apparatus?

Sex and the Saudi

Publicity shot from the upcoming SummerWorks show, Sex and the Saudi.

How is this show not going to be awesome?

Minor service interruption

We had to do a little bit of maintenance on this blog over the weekend. So if you noticed anything wonky in this space during the past 24 hours, that’s why.

Should be back to normal now. Thanks!

Fringe show recommendations?

Just four more days to go at this year's Toronto Fringe Festival. Any last-minute recommendations?

How Luminato failed Toronto

By Michael Wheeler

Question:

You have a $10,000 a year budget for transportation.

You:

A) Rent a Lamborghini Countache for ten days, and drive it around like hell. Walk everywhere the other 50.5 weeks of the year.

B) Get a sensible sedan on a 12-month lease.

C) Alternate between a transit pass and bicycle. Use the savings to do something interesting.

This was my response to a co-worker who had seen BlackWatch the previous evening. He told me that although they had initially agreed with my earlier Lumi-not-go post, after seeing the production he had come to a different conclusion about the value of the festival. Anything that brings something that good to Toronto must be a good thing.

I really like Lamborghini Countaches too. A long time ago I had a poster of one above my bed. But option A is clearly ludicrous. It’s the same reason why spending $21.5 million over three years on an international festival that bring some of the best artistic work in the world to the T Dot for a short, extremely well publicized run, is also a very poor, frankly ignorant, decision.

Theatre at every level but the best of the most established institutions is in bad shape in this city right now. There’s a myriad of reasons for this best saved for another conversation, but the short version is as follows:

Mike Daisey is right and it’s the same situation up here. Being a theatre artist has ceased to become a profession you can make anything approaching a respectable living at in Toronto for all but handful of our very top practitioners. These lucky folks are still often working 12-hour days and six-day weeks for much less than what any of our non-thesbian friends make. Many of them probably do a little catering on the side to make ends meet. The earth is scorched. Anyone who puts economic well-being in their top-ten list of personal priorities would not come within a stone’s throw of this scene.

Yes, the theatre has always been in trouble. Yes, making art is hard. But the current theatrical economy is a graveyard for anyone who may have to pay bills, rent or student loans. We can see this in what has become of our grassroots institutions, places where the new generation of artists rehearse and perform:

Artword Theatre – gone.
Alchemy Theatre – gone.
Poor Alex Theatre – gone.
Equity Showcase Theatre – going, soon to be gone.

Not only are there few resources to create work, there is no longer anywhere affordable to put shows on.

In the wake of this grim reality, a couple of corporate head honchos who seem entirely unaware of any of this, waltzing in and deciding that they know best with what to do with the first increase in public money that’s been available to the performing arts in some time is a recipe for disaster. Lavishing much of those resources on smash hit shows from other places – a fellow indie theatre producer described it to me as, “putting makeup on a corpse.”

The Scottish Youth Theatre preps a new generation of performers.

Of course BlackWatch was amazing. Not only is Scotland, at roughly the size of New Brunswick home to the world’s premiere Fringe Festival, it has 300 youth theatres. Just for youth. The very best end up at the national chapter, The Scottish Youth Theatre. Many in the BlackWatch cast went through that system. The show represents the tip of a very large iceberg. The country has invested heavily in value of theatre and it is paying dividends – literally. It gets to tour to high-paying international festivals that rent the tips of other peoples icebergs because they don’t want the trouble of building their own.

My original idea for this piece was to throw out a number of options as to how this money could be used in different scenarios. Instead I settled on the 2007 Toronto Arts Council 2007 numbers because similar to Luminato, the TAC funds: Community Arts, Dance, Music, Literature and Theatre in Toronto. It’s a fair comparison. Well, not entirely fair. One does 10 days of programming and one does 365.

In 2007, The Toronto Arts Council distributed $9,738,829 – $247, 725 of which was for theatre project grants (which incidentally is the approximate value of one Lamborghini Countach) to be divided amongst 51 successful applicants. An even more interesting number is: $2,152,783. This is the total amount in project grants in all disciplines that were distributed, when you take out grants for operating funds and to large institutions.

What does it mean when you compare this to Luminato’s $21.5 Million over three years?

A) If we gave Luminato’s money to the TAC we could increase the TAC budget by more than 66%. This is a pedestrian statistic, but the impact of this would be massive.

B) You could more than double the amount of successful project grant applicants and double the amount each project receives.*

*$2,152,783 in project grants + 1 year of Luminato’s $21.5 million = $9,319,449.70
Twice as many project grants =$ 4,305,566 x 2 to double the grants = $8,611,132.00

Twice as many projects with twice as much municipal funding.

It would permanently change how art was created in this town. How much more, better work would go on year-round? How many artists would be able to stop working as waiters and temps and actually practice their craft for at least a couple of months? How many audience members and patrons could we get excited about this thing again by actually having the cash to create this massive wave of new, plausibly funded projects? How many of them could potentially turn in to the next BlackWatch?

Take Unspun Theatre’s production of Minotaur: It was one of my favorite shows of the year. It was new, exciting, smart; full of young artists taking big risks. Well received, well reviewed. I really think they ought to take it on tour. The production received a total of $14,000 in public funding (through OAC and Canada Council). With Luminato’s $21.5 million money you could create 1,500 Minotaurs.

In any case, our government opted instead to give it to their friends for a ten-day play date. They’re likely at their cottages in Muskoka right now talking about how lovely the whole thing was with the glowing balls in Dundas Square (which is usually so dirty) and chuckling about how many times they heard the c-word in Blackwatch. Meanwhile we sit here in the heat wondering how we’ll ever make his thing work again. The opportunity was there, it’s gone, it sucks.

An Olive Branch:
Alright Luminato, I promise to stop hating on you, and all you have to do is one thing:

Return the interest you’re going to make on keeping our extra $15 million in the bank “for the future” back to Toronto’s artists. We’re frigging starving down here, and it’s breadcrumbs really, but we’ll take it. If we trust the math put forth by an anonymous commenter on my original post, that would be $450,000 a year. It would really help. It’s almost double what was distributed for theatre projects last year by the TAC. That’s two Lamborghini Countaches for those of you playing along at home.

Correction. My original Lumi-not-go post incorrectly stated Luminato CEO Janice Price was American. This is not true. Although she comes to us from The Kimmel Centre in Philadelphia, The Lincoln Centre in New York and is a previous vice president of The Shakespeare Association of America, she is in fact a Canadian. My bad.

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This is the fourth and final in a series of four blog posts on theatre by Praxis Theatre Co-Artistic Director Michael Wheeler.

How to build an empire – a Boy Scout’s guide

Now playing at the 2008 Toronto Fringe Festival. Click here for more info on this show.

Domestic

Now playing at the 2008 Toronto Fringe Festival. Click here for more info on this show.

Bluebeard

Now playing at the 2008 Toronto Fringe Festival. Click here for more information on this show.

The Shift

Now playing at the 2008 Toronto Fringe Festival. Click here for more information on this show.

Act 2

My First Headshot (1999).

By Michael Wheeler

A strange thing happened to me this year: I ended up splitting with my fancypants agent and doing more acting than I’d done in the four previous years with representation. It wasn’t something I’d planned. It just kinda developed, and it has me thinking all sorts of things about how and what I want to do in the theatre.

A year and a half ago I had seriously considered hanging up my acting shoes. Being Co-Artistic Director of an indie company and directing shows around town was fulfilling and taking up a huge amount of time. Running around to audition to be an SOC hockey fan in an insurance commercial, or talking broccoli (aka a principal role) in a Sobey’s spot seemed to be a distraction for the most part. I had been given some friendly advice from several quarters that “you can’t be all things to all people” and that if I really wanted to make a name for myself as a director, I should firmly establish myself exclusively as one.

This also made sense to me because acting wasn’t too much fun anymore. When I finished my acting MFA in The States I did the mandatory 1 year in NYC that your visa allows for. I turned into a serious stress case of an actor with essentially 10 months to become wildly successful in order to extend my stay. I started with a part in a show at The Ontological Theatre and spun that into a mediocre agent who also doubled as a radio commentator for the New York Giants. I hustled like crazy between open calls, what the agent could find me, and up to 5 different joe jobs, but much to my dismay I did not find myself wildly successful.

This was partially because the odds of this working out for me were pretty low, but also because of how I was performing and auditioning. The whole I must define my career with this performance attitude the situation had me left me too tense and probably in hindsight, desperate, to really do anything like that. I returned to Toronto just in time for SARS, signing on as the first male client of a failure of a startup agency before landing an agent who was decidedly blue-chip a year later.

The pitiful state of the industry and being the smallest name on a big time roster meant opportunities to audition for projects that weren’t advertising came on a bi-monthly basis. Six, five-minute opportunities a year, to establish myself. It wasn’t cool. I kept myself in classes, volunteered to read for casting directors, but nothing seemed to give. The experience contrasted heavily with the success we were having with Praxis and the whole being an actor for hire thing started to feel like a raw deal. Eventually the agent and I mutually agreed that we “were not a good match”.

Fort at York workshop #1.

So I kind of surprised myself when I showed up to audition for The Fort At York. Over the course of two publicly presented workshops, I played first a mute kitchen boy named with a tendency to break into monologue, and eventually a soldier named Everett with some serious psychological problems in the final production. This led directly to playing an anarchist artist in Save Us at HATCH this year, I followed it immediately by acting in a Praxis Theatre show for the first time as The Prosecutor in our workshop presentation of Stranger.

And all of a sudden acting was a) fun again and b) I was much better at it. The major reason for this was simple: I no longer felt this overwhelming compulsion to make my career with a single performance. My breathing was controlled, shoulders went back, I found stillness, and had confidence in my ability to entertain without striving to entertain. All the little things I understood from my training intellectually, but hadn’t been able to incorporate practically with regularity. It’s tough to breathe from support and have crisp final consonants when you’re trying desperately to succeed like no one has ever succeeded before.

Save Us reading at Cameron House.

I am grateful to Tara Beagan, Chris Reynolds, Chad Dembski and Simon Rice for creating three shows that really fostered an exchange of ideas and valued collaboration in rehearsal. I had a lot of confidence in these projects because I was afforded the opportunity to play a part in things from the get-go. I also remembered something I forgot: I love opening night. As a kid I had hoped first to play for The Toronto Blue Jays and later, as a starter on any NBA team but The Utah Jazz. It was only after both of these goals proved entirely unrealistic that I started to get heavily into theatre at 16. In hindsight, I think I know why now:

Opening night as a performer, and all the shows that follow, is the closest you can get to approximating Game Day in sports. There is a specific time where you have to show up in front of a crowd of people. You get one chance to do something special with your teammates. The nerves, the excitement, the onus on yourself to thrive under pressure – once I lost an impossible sense of tension and just concentrated on the task at hand – it became addictive again. If I’m not going to play in the NBA Finals, this is as good as it’s going to get. And it’s pretty good.

So Mike the actor is back – resurrected from the graveyard of classic frustrations that plague actors in their first years out of a training program. Screw pigeonholing myself. Theatre pays so poorly we ought to do exactly the types of projects we would like to do and often you have to find these things yourself. And maybe a new agent.

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This is the third in a series of four blog posts on theatre by Praxis Theatre Co-Artistic Director Michael Wheeler.

We advertise your Fringe show – free!

Sounds impossible – and slightly suspect – we know. But here’s what we’re thinking: Send us a digital version of your 2008 Toronto Fringe Festival postcard or poster, and we’ll post it here on our blog, sometime between now and the end of the festival. Simple.

We get to learn more about your show, look at your awesome postcard, and everyone wins.

Please send your Toronto Fringe Festival postcards here.

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By the way, does anybody have any fun stories about an upcoming North American Fringe Festival? What are you working on?

Dufferin Grove is the pinnacle of Western civilization

By Michael Wheeler

In an attempt to prove I am bi-hyperbolic (my hyperbole goes both ways), I return from my anti-Luminato crusade on a positive note. If you are against some things you should be for other things.

Man do I love Dufferin Grove Park in the west end of Toronto. It’s The Greatest. It reaches its zenith with the Cooking Fire Theatre Festival, which opens tomorrow and runs through Sunday. I really do think there is a convincing argument to make it the pinnacle of Western progress in terms of exemplifying the values, principals, and aspirations we have arrived at thus far. (With a particular bias towards my own values, principals and aspirations.)

It was not always thus. There was a while back in the 90s where it was not much a public space. Just a kind of mundane shortcut on your way to the many dollar stores housed inside the Dufferin Mall. Not dangerous, but maybe dodgy. In any case, it was underused and a little forlorn. But miraculously, for once, the forces of gentrification have abandoned the dark side and pulled off something truly miraculous.

The place has transcended into some sort of actual, non-theoretical, social democratic utopia. Sometimes the biggest miracles are the ones staring you right in the face. There have been the usual basics added that make a public space somewhere you want to be: Safe, clean, well maintained, a sports field, a leafy area with benches, fire pits, a massive kids’ area with multiple playgrounds and a wading pool. It’s all first rate.

It’s the extra things that the staff of the park have worked very hard to integrate that really sets it apart though:

Food: Sunday, Tuesday, and Wednesday afternoons you can make your own pizza in the park ovens for just $2.50 – Principal toppings: The vegetables that grow right there in the park garden. Friday nights, chefs prepare incredible dishes exclusively from the ingredients bought at the organic market. Soup is $2; a full meal is $6!

Organic market: The weekly Thursday organic farmers’ market has become an institution in Western downtown Toronto. It’s HUGE. If it’s organic, or grain-fed, or generally best solution for sustainable existence on this planet, they’ve got it. Some items are still pricey, but that has to do more with economy of scale and will work itself out over time.

Community programming: Just right now, in June, there are community drop-in games of cricket, soccer, ultimate frisbee, youth ball hockey, and a gardening clinic! The park also plays home to a myriad of community-based festivals throughout the temperate months. Also if you and your friends, team, family, etc. want to have a bonfire in one of the two fire pits, they’ll give you some training and hook you up no problem.

Most impressive to me though as a theatre guy is the Cooking Fire Theatre Festival. Now in its fifth year, the festival pulls off for one week what no other theatre festival does: A presentation of really great plays by the people for the people. What do I mean by this?

Although there is an international element to how Artistic Director Kate Cayley curates the festival, the majority of the works are created and presented by local artists. These are plays that attempt to be accessible to everyone who frequents the park without sacrificing artistic integrity. Kids, hippies, theatre buffs, parents, random folks who just happened to be walking through the park: all the regular folks we have such a hard time pulling to the theatre. Most Artistic Directors would salivate at the diverse audience base the festival has attracted with this focus. There is none of the elitist, moneyed; culture is for those 60+ with $50+ for a ticket notion that’s killing us right now.

True to its name, each evening begins with a park-created dinner similar to the weekly Friday night meal. Productions take place throughout the park and the audience is led through the various performance sites by volunteers. Halfway through, naturally, there is a park-catered coffee and desert break. The final show almost always starts as darkness falls. The younger kids get packed off to bed, the generators get fired up, and what started with a sunny outdoor folk festival kind of feel, finishes as something full of shadows and mystery. Then, if you’re really good, you go help the kitchen folk who are struggling with a mountain of dishes, ’cause this is not a disposable cutlery kind of place. And you leave feeling great about yourself, your community and the place you live.

Saturday June 21st and Sunday June 22nd, the Festival starts early at 5pm in order to present a Theatrurtle pre-dinner production of Alphonse, by Wajdi Mouawad, performed by Alon Nashman. These are legitimately two of Canada's top talents in the theatre world. All things being the same, it is probably not a bad idea to hit the festival on the weekend and catch this one too

Because this is a virtual utopia and not an actual one, there are small problems in Dufferin Grove. The guys that hang around the basketball courts and the moms pushing SUV-sized strollers to the organic market have their beefs with one another, and there has been a ridiculous debate amongst residents about installing an environmentally friendly toilet. This is small (likely organic) potatoes compared with what a united community and some dedicated staff have accomplished here though.

Everyone is welcome in this public space and these many disparate groups have found a way to co-exist and really thrive. Because of its location in a downtown neighborhood in the world’s most multicultural city – people from almost every class, income level, and ethnicity uses this public space on a given day. It feels like home to everyone. Where else in the world can you say that about? I’m calling it the pinnacle of Western Civilization until someone proves me otherwise.

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This is the second in a series of four blog posts on theatre by Praxis Theatre Co-Artistic Director Michael Wheeler.

We advertise your Fringe show – free!

Sounds impossible – and slightly suspect – we know. But here’s what we’re thinking: Send us a digital version of your 2008 Toronto Fringe Festival postcard or poster, and we’ll post it here on our blog, sometime between now and the end of the festival. Simple.

We get to learn more about your show, look at your awesome postcard, and everyone wins.

Please send your Toronto Fringe Festival postcards here.

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By the way, does anybody have any fun stories about an upcoming North American Fringe Festival? What are you working on?

Dora Award nominees – independent theatre

We’re a couple of days behind on posting this, but the 2008 Dora Award nominations for Independent Theatre are in.

Here’s the full list of nominees in the independent theatre category:

Outstanding new play
Anusree Roy – Pyaasa
Michael Rubenfeld – My Fellow Creatures
Beatriz Pizano – Madre
Michael Hollingsworth – Laurier
Brendan Gall – A Quiet Place

Outstanding production Waiting for Godot – Modern Times Stage Company
Lullaby – Dark Horse Theatre
Laurier – VideoCabaret
April 14, 1912 – Theatre Rusticle
A Quiet Place – single threat

Outstanding direction
Soheil Parsa – Waiting for Godot
Nina Lee Aquino – People Power
Michael Hollingsworth – Laurier
Allyson McMackon – April 14, 1912
Geoffrey Pounsett – A Quiet Place

Outstanding performance by a male
Nicco Lorenzo Garcia – People Power
Benjamin Clost – My Fellow Creatures
David Ferry – Lullaby
Ryan Hollyman – Lawrence and Holloman
Christopher Stanton – A Quiet Place

Outstanding performance by a female
Erin Shields – The Unfortunate Misadventures of Masha Galinski
Anusree Roy – Pyaasa
Marcia Bennett – Madre
Maev Beaty – Dance of the Red Skirts
Pragna Desai – Canada Steel
Karin Randoja – Breakfast

Outstanding set design
Trevor Schwellnus – Waiting for Godot
Camellia Koo – People Power
Trevor Schwellnus – Madre
Lindsay Anne Black – April 14, 1912
Jackie Chau – Antigone: Insurgency (Sophocles Revisited)

Outstanding costume design
Angela Thomas – Waiting for Godot
Jenna McCutchin – The Fort at York
Astrid Janson and Sarah Armstrong – Laurier
Nina Okens – Bella Donna
Lindsay Anne Black – April 14, 1912

Outstanding lighting design
Andrea Lundy – Waiting for Godot
Michael Spence – Raging Dreams - into the visceral
Trevor Schwellnus – Madre
Andy Moro – Laurier
Laird Macdonald – Breakfast
Michelle Ramsay – April 14, 1912

Outstanding sound design/composition
Romeo Candido – People Power
Thomas Ryder Payne – Madre
Brent Snyder – Laurier
Richard Windeyer – Breakfast
Christopher Stanton – A Quiet Place

Wow! What a wonderful year it has been in Toronto’s independent theatre. Congratulations to all nominees and best of luck at the Monday, June 30 Dora Awards ceremony.

Tonight! New work by Catherine Hernandez

Please join Praxis Theatre tonight for the season finale in our series of original play readings. This month, we are pleased to present Catherine Hernandez’s Kilt Pins.

WHAT: Reading of Catherine Hernandez’s Kilt Pins

WHEN: Tuesday, June 10 @ 8 pm

WHERE: The Lower Ossington Theatre
100A Ossington Avenue (one block north of Queen St.)

CAST: Pip Dwyer, Jo Chim, Simon Rice, Greta Papageorgiu, Tania McCartney, Margaret Evans, James Murray. Directed by Michael Wheeler.

TICKETS: Pay-What-You-Can @ the door

For more information, please contact Laura Nordin.

Lumi-not-go

By Michael Wheeler

This post is not about the art being presented at Luminato. There are a lot of really cool works being presented at the festival and I wish all the artists involved enormous success. Except for Joni Mitchell. What? Joni Mitchell is a visual artist!?!

This post is about money. Cash dollars for the arts. How it is spent, who decides, and for what purpose. I didn’t really understand how off the rails this whole spectacle had gone until I read Kate Taylor’s May 24th , 2008 article From zero to $22.5-million in 2 years in The Globe and Mail.

And then my head exploded.

Taylor begins by answering some of her own questions:

“How did a 10-day Toronto arts festival, which had completed only one season, win a direct provincial grant of a kind usually reserved for established government agencies? How did Luminato, that ill-defined grab bag of splashy public spectacles and pricey international performances (which gets underway for a second season on June 9) come out of nowhere so fast?

The answer is: one part strategy, one part timing, many parts political connections.”

She comes to the conclusion based on the following evidence:

The festival was founded and is co-chaired by Tony Gagliano and David Pecault. Gagliano is CEO of St. Joseph Communications, which publishes Toronto Life, and is also friends with Greg Sorbara, former Liberal finance minister and architect of McGuinty election victories. To complicate matters, his family also donated $10 million to the recent AGO renovation. This is relevant because the three major grants for the arts by the Ontario Government recently have been to the AGO, the ROM and Luminato. There is a strange, out of my just-trying-to-make-rent league, cycle of money going on there.

Pecault is Senior Partner with The Boston Consulting Group but, surprise, is married to Helen Burstyn, a prominent Liberal supporter who used to work inside McGuinty’s office and is now volunteer chair of The Ontario Trillium Foundation, another provincial arts granting body.

These well-connected founders managed to immediately, out of nowhere, get our Ontario government to commit $7.5 million dollars towards this festival over its first three years. What the? Praxis Theatre has to receive three successful project grants before we can even qualify to apply for operational funding. But fine, the post-SARS tourist economy ain’t what is used to be and some stimulus that skips the red tape is perhaps in order. But this latest, no-application process, trust us we’ll do something good with it, extra $15 million dollars – which Luminato admits that they don’t know what to do with yet – is quite frankly beyond the pale.

Here’s the top three reasons why:

First, access to public arts funding should not be political. Public money can’t and shouldn’t be about who you know. We have a hard time making the case for public arts funding period. Why not house the homeless, make the TTC cheaper, and paint some more bike lanes instead? If it begins to be even perceived as a slush fund for political friends to throw exclusive red carpet parties, while they wine and dine international artists, we’re screwed selling this idea to the rest of our citizens. The connection between the co-chairs and the Premier’s office are embarrassingly obvious. For all of us in the arts.

Second, there has been much to do in the media, and on this blog, about what’s wrong with theatre in Toronto as of late. In particular the lack of strong new voices and the conditions many artists work in. Alec Scott’s Toronto Life Article (who publishes Toronto Life again?), comes to mind. A lot of arguments have debated whether or not the criticisms are valid – not much talk about why they could be true. I think the answer is money and access to it. The more people that live here, make plays, and can find a way to live, the more exciting new art will be made. Throwing $15 million at Luminato will do little to address this for Toronto theatre.* If you think you know about the other disciplines being presented at the festival, let me know. It’s going to do very little to address the root causes of what plagues us in Theatretown.

*Note. Yes. The Luminato windfall was immediately followed by a $5 million increase to the Ontario Arts Council yearly budget to deflect this sort of criticism. But consider these #s: With the new money, The OAC distributes $60 million a year to roughly 400 organizations. This is peanuts, we’re talking $150,000 a piece after a rigorous process of peer review. Right now Luminato is rocking along with an average of $7.5 million a year and they just invented themselves.

Third, and most importantly, this is bad strategy. It’s the same kind of Lastman-era flawed logic that got us a basketball team named The Raptors and the notion that somehow we can buy a world class city instead of building one. Hiring a high-priced American Artistic Director to bring World Class shows to Toronto will not put us on the map as an international hotbed of talent. People travel to London and New York for this reason because of the shows that are created there, and the tradition the community has of making great works that push boundaries. That’s when the rest of the world follows suit and tries to participate with it as well. Until we have more legitimate domestic talent, stars, and the hits that go with them, we’re never going to achieve that sort of status.

So I’m Lumi-not-going. There are a bunch of shows, both domestic, and international, that seem really interesting. Normally I probably would check them out. But I’m disturbed enough by all of this to opt out. I’ve got a grant application I should probably be working on anyhow.

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This is the first in a series of four blog posts on theatre by Michael Wheeler.

Out and about

Toronto-based actor Terrence Bryant – fresh from wrapping My Fellow Creatures at Theatre Passe Muraille – gets ambushed by Praxis paparazzi.

He wasn’t happy to see the press.

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Spotted any hot theatre talent out and about
in your neighbourhood?
Send us your starstruck theatre photos:
celebrity@praxistheatre.com

Toronto theatre blogs – the search continues

Last week, we asked for help to create a definitive list of Toronto theatre blogs. Here’s what we’ve got so far:

BlogTO – Theatre
Case Study: The House at Twenty-Seven Edgedale Road
Chris Dupis
Notes from the 3Cs
Off the Fence
Spinning/and/spinning
Theatre is territory

This is a great start, but we can’t help feeling like we’re missing some. Anyone know of any other Toronto-based theatre blogs? They could be actor blogs, production blogs, company blogs, or any other kind of blog, as long as they primarily relate back to theatre.

And while we’re at it, why don’t we broaden our search to include Canadian theatre blogs: We’re now looking for all Canadian theatre blogs.

As always, please pass along any relevant links by dropping a link in the comments section below, or by sending us an email. We’ll post the revised list next week. Thank you!

My Fellow Creatures – Now playing

Absit Omen Theatre in association with Buddies in Bad Times Theatre
presents the world premiere presentation of

My Fellow Creatures

At Theatre Pass Muraille
16 Ryerson Street, Toronto

For tickets, call Arts Box Office @ 416-504-7529
or online, here.

Special offer

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Play reading: Tonight!

Please join Praxis Theatre for the next entry in our series of original play readings. Tonight, we are pleased to present two short works: The Progressive Apparatus by Hugh Spencer and Dark by Simon Ogden.

WHAT: Reading of The Progressive Apparatus (Hugh Spencer) and Dark (Simon Ogden).

WHEN: Monday, April 7 @ 8 pm

WHERE: The Concord Café – 937 Bloor St. West
(Just West of Ossington subway station on the south side)

All are welcome. For more information, please contact Laura Nordin.

Out and about

Actor/Director Hume Baugh (The Girl in the Picture Tries to Hang Up the Phone, Child Hood) wasn’t happy to see photographers while leaving this house on Toronto’s trendy Queen Street East.

His production of All’s Well That Ends Well opens March 26, 2008 at Alchemy Theatre.

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Spotted any hot theatre talent out and about
in your neighbourhood?
Send us your starstruck theatre photos:
celebrity@praxistheatre.com

Out and about

Eric Peterson (Necessary Angel’s Half Life, TV’s Corner Gas) and Caroline Gillis (Tarragon’s How It Works, da da kamera’s A Beautiful View) outside the Capitol Event Theatre before Necessary Angel’s 3 Plays/1 Day Gala. (Thanks to Daniel MacIvor for the photo.)

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Spotted any hot theatre talent out and about
in your neighbourhood?
Send us your starstruck theatre photos:
celebrity@praxistheatre.com

Out and about

Elsa Perez (right), Artistic Director of the Théâtre Bilingue de Montreal (TBM), was seen out celebrating a friend’s birthday at the Trattoria Piatto Pieno in Montreal’s Little Italy.

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Spotted any hot theatre talent out and about
in your neighbourhood?
Send us your starstruck theatre photos:
celebrity@praxistheatre.com

Out and about

Celebrity fight director Joe Bostick (Dirty Dancing, A Nanking Winter) and Derrick Chua (left) co-producer of Studio 180’s Stuff Happens seen chatting it up and the opening night party of A Nanking Winter.

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Spotted any hot theatre talent out and about
in your neighbourhood?
Send us your starstruck theatre photos:
celebrity@praxistheatre.com

Out and about

Courtenay Stevens – who played the Architect/Sailor in CanStage’s The Overcoat – was spotted chatting on his cellphone outside Bread & Circus theatre bar in Toronto’s Kensington Market.
Word on the street is that he’s remounting his production of Lawrence & Holloman at this edgy, downtown theatre in early April.

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Spotted any hot theatre talent out and about
in your neighbourhood?
Send us your starstruck theatre photos:
celebrity@praxistheatre.com