Sunday Roundup – May 19

What a – week. SO much going on in the theatre world with One Little Goat continuing to get amazing reviews for The Charge of the Expormidable Moose, The Dumbwaiter opening at Odyssey Studio, Sister Mary’s a Dyke gearing up to preview on the 25th of May, and Atrium Theatre bringing us Midlife Crisis, inspired by M.Frisch’s novel Gantenbein for three nights at the top of June.

No post tomorrow – it’s a holiday.  But I think Tuesday will bring the second post in what I feel like could be a sad, sad series entitled “Dear Rob.”

A Play Reading and The Harold Awards!

What You’ve Got is What I Need

Infographics and an Article or Two. Maybe three.

To add to our content today, our intrepid Communications Coordinator Lisa has created the post below from a discussion we had on the Queen car westbound. I like the look of all these folks – they’ve been a pleasure to work with, and we’ll work together again.

When I arrived at 288 Queen Street for the Sister Mary production meeting, I didn’t expect to know anyone but Sue in the room. I left realizing just how small the Toronto theatre scene is. Here is a quick visual for some (this is in no way complete) of the connections we’ve had between shows at Sue Edworthy Arts Planning.

 It seems that every time I meet a new person in the theatre world I soon find that I know of their work, or have worked with someone they’ve worked with, or am friends with their friends. People often complain about this becoming claustrophobic or ‘incestuous’, but the reality is: people who do good work continue to work together.

 Reputations and relationships matter, and even in a city of 2.615 million people, amid competition and the feeling of anonymity, communities arise. Like-minded people come together to create. Talent is rewarded and shared and I think it’s important to keep this in mind… both as a warning and as a celebration.

It’s Our Anniversary!

 

Thanks so much to the clients who made these two years a success, a challenge, a joy and most importantly – made art.

ACCA, Art and Lies, Art is Hard, Arts Etobicoke, Atrium Theatre, Bound to Create, Cahoots Theatre, Control Over Destiny, Creative Trust, DTRC,

Expect Theatre, fu-Gen Theatre, Gallery 1313, Harold Green Jewish Theatre, Humber College, George Brown College, bARTer,  Junes Theatre,

 Little Revolutions, Lisa Wegner, Marco Veltri, Necessary Angel, NinjaFunk Orchestra, Obsidian Theatre, OCAF, Odessey Studios, One Little Goat

Opera Atelier, PACT, Parkdale Village BIA, Pax Christie Chorale, Proud Productions, Quickening Theatre, Ryerson University,

Shannon Litzenberger Dance,  Sheep No Wool, Small Elephant Productions, Small Print Toronto, Stratical Theatre, Theatre 20,

Wiggly Dolly Productions, Young Associates and more.

Sometimes Hearing is Believing

I said a week or so ago  that I wanted to talk about how you don’t have to see it to believe it, and you definitely can react to it just by hearing.

The Whipping Man has eight shows left and you should go and see it. Brilliant piece of work. At the near very top of the show, Simon (Sterling Jarvis) performs what we’ll call a “life-saving  procedure” on Caleb (Brett Donahue). We’ll call it that so as not to spoiler, and it’s a phrase I borrowed from the NOW review.
In a movie, it would be fairly easy to just “show” the procedure being done, with closeups and CGI and special effects. Done and done. And it would be fairly horrifying – I say more gross than horrifying.

The “procedure” can’t be done in live theatre. Not that way.

Have you ever heard the business phrase “tell us what you’re going to do, do it, show us what you’ve done“? It happens here beautifully.

Instead Simon tells what will happen, in extreme detail, what will happen to Caleb if it isn’t done. And he tells John (Thomas Olajide) how they will do it.

And then they do it.

We hear about it. We see the props needed. And we hear the reaction of the three men as it happens. Lights out. And back up on Caleb recuperating.

The entire audience started squirming as we heard what would happen. And hands were at mouths when we heard how it would happen. And heads dropped and eyes averted as it allegedly happened. The event didn’t happen. But it sounded like it did and we didn’t see anything at all. But we reacted like it was happening before our eyes. Brilliant. Some wonderful acting by those three gentlemen, and brilliant direction by Philip Akin. And the emotions and actions in that scene set it so I would fully believe the inner characters of these men, and that they would act and react as to everything that happens throughout the rest of the play.
Go and hear and see for yourself. It’s really solid work by all involved.

Whipping Man photo by Keith Barker, of Brett Donahue and Sterling Jarvis.

Job Opps, Job Descriptions and Things on your Timeline

CAHOOTS THEATRE COMPANY is seeking applications for the position of ARTISTIC DIRECTOR

Cahoots Theatre Company has been dedicated to the creation, development and production of new Canadian plays that reflect our cultural diversity for 26 years.  Cahoots Theatre Company believes that theatre should reflect the richness, diversity, and complexity that we live daily. Diversity means more than race or nation of origin or ethnicity. It also encompasses gender, sexual orientation, ability, language, and class.  Cahoots is a registered charity.
Please see http://www.cahoots.ca/company/job-opportunities/

Cahoots did a good job on their job description – on that note I found this article at bizlaunch the other day.

Finally for today (it’s Friday of a long week) a question that came up in Monday night’s class was on how to keep certain stories from specific people off your Facebook timeline – whether it’s items you’re sensitive to or you’re simply tired of cat pictures. It’s a combination of things – Facebook is something you can do your best to tailor to your individual needs. I still like the explanation I heard a while back – people can put whatever they want on their walls, and you can put whatever you want on your wall, and that news feed is just that – an aggregate of everyone’s whatever they want. If you don’t want to see certain stories there are things you can do, from hiding that person, to hiding certain stories, to changing the status of your friendship with that person. But it requires you to do something. Found this on my newsfeed.  Same folks who created the un-baby me app for folks who were tired of seeing so many pictures of their friends’ toddlers and tots.

Lisa and I were talking last night on the way home from The Whipping Man – it’s brilliant, by the way and you should go and see it –  about the fact that we’ve been part of five shows that have opened since February 7. An opening on February 7, February 14, March 1, March 14, March 21. We have been BUSY, and we’re proud of the work we’ve done. And today marks the first read through for another production.  Add that in with three teaching/guest speaker events this week, plus new client consults and RFPs and I’d say business is going well and I thank friends and colleagues and past and present clients.

Things I want to talk about next week include the power of hearing something on stage, not seeing it.

I also got to thinking about our city. I spent two days guest speaking at a school that is in the far reaches of East Toronto – a GO stop away from Pickering, and The Whipping Man is at the Toronto Centre for the Arts in North York. Two places that are remarkably different from where I live in Parkdale.

Happy Friday!

More Guest Speaking, On Flexibility and The Whipping Man Opens Tonight!

Yesterday was Day Two of guest speaking at Mowat. A different class, again some new face and again some I’d met at the Harbourfront field trip. Smaller group and fewer questions about meeting Harry Styles – not a judgement call, just different.

Interesting to note that the focus didn’t seem to be as much money although there were still two questions about the most money they could make in social media as a career. More questions this time about being happy. What should a job bring to you – what made a good job was being happy in it.  Still a couple of questions about whether or not a degree was absolutely necessary, were contacts more important. Competitiveness and cut-throat also made the cut. We had some good conversations, and when I say conversations I mean genuine back and forth which is something I much prefer as a guest speaker – I always prefer to guest-converse.

A favourite question of mine  – “what exactly do you do?’ – somedays I wonder myself. And this one was incredibly thoughtful, and one we should all remember: “What can I do to help balance happiness and stress in the future?” Excellent question and we all need to ask ourselves that every so often, changing future to NOW.

On the same sort of note, a great blog post from Andy McKim over at Passe Muraille – Are we flexible enough in the arts sector?  which stems from an article in the Guardian: Flexible working: why the arts and culture sector doesn’t get it yet

“Culture jobs are advertised as either full-time or part-time, but rarely as flexible. We define “work” in terms of hours and days worked rather than tasks completed. Even in senior positions, there is often a contractual reference to hours per week and weeks per year. What would happen if we didn’t measure jobs in terms of days worked but in terms of tasks completed? What would happen if we gave people completely free reign to deliver those tasks in a location and time of their choosing?”
Some food for thought.

The Whipping Man opens tonight, we’ve gotten some great pre-press and I’m looking forward to the show.  Fantastic first person article from Philip Akin for the Charlebois Post – take a read and hope to see you at one of the performances. That’s number 5/5 in the shows opening marathon I’ve been participating in since February 7th – am delighted with the results from them.

 

More Video, Artist Earnings, Retrograde Mercury and Media and Patti Smith

Fantastic video from The Whipping Man, a Harold Green Jewish Theatre production in association with Obsidian Theatre – director Philip Akin. At the bottom of the post for your viewing pleasure.

An excellent article from the National Post on artist earnings, specifically indie musicians, and I agree with a friend who said it was possibly one of the best written articles on a stats report she’d seen.

Mercury is in retrograde til the 17th. Whether you believe in that stuff or not, enough people bring it up and blame it to have an effect.   Mercury is the planet of communication in all forms.  This includes verbal, email, phones, internet, written, signing papers and electronics.  It can also affect mechanical issues such as your computer or your car.  In retrogrades, communications are affected negatively. It was in retrograde through Pisces.

Mercury in retrograde with Pisces. Planet of Communications (also my ruling planet) in retrograde with the sign for artistic endeavours. I spent yesterday afternoon juggling six interviews with three newspapers with four actors on two shows. It all worked out in the end.  Wanna dance, Mercury?

ANYWAY.

Speaking of media – great little post from Seth Godin on Understanding Local Media

Tonight I’m off to the Patti Smith exhibit at the AGO .
There’s a talk after, and I’m looking forward to it. It’s obviously been a delightfully theatre-centric few weeks, but sometimes you need other art to sustain you, perk you up and juice up your creativity from another angle. It’s like a dill pickle after days of bread.

VIDEO!

Sunday Roundup – February 24

Last Roundup for February – De Chardin Project closed last week, and 4.48 Psychosis closed Saturday night, and by next roundup, Laws of Motion will have opened. So much going on – all these are followed by Ching Chong Chinaman, The Whipping Man, The Charge of the Expormidable Moose, Sister Mary’s a Dyke?! and Aromas. Got theatre? Yup.

Noticed last week there were a few problems with WordPress.com  – images not loading, pages taking forever to load. Hopefully it’s been resolved on their end, because I did notice it had an effect on my site stats and hits, and I can’t blame people  – slow or not loading sites don’t get traffic. Fingers crossed. Times like this I’m glad there’s a roundup – here’s what might not have loaded for you last week.

Last week…

things going well and not so well in the socialmediaverse

Three Directors Talk Back and Baby’s First Opening

Video Thursday

I obviously do a lot of writing in my work, and for fun as well. Words make me happy,  well written words delight. And any number of people want a blog, have a blog, say they want or need a blog, are writing a blog, etc. so when I found this article… one of the comments struck me as mighty true “although we “publish” more content than ever before, our writing skills (often) get in the way of effective communication.”

I thought it was a great Sunday read, and something many of us should take a look at – enjoy!

Want To Be Taken Seriously? Become a Better Writer

Client Shout out

Usually at the end of the year I do a touch up to my projects list, so thought since I was here, I’d update you as well. These are fantastic companies I’m working with – be prepared to hear more about them

We’ve just closed the books on our wildly successful production of Proud, and we’re continuing to work together on something.

Expect Theatre Company (we worked together for Fringe 2010) is in the 2012 Next Stage Festival with their production of Awake and I’m working with them again in marketing.

Still happily working with OCAF on social media and PR – and they’ve got an anniversary coming up in 2013!

Small Print Toronto and I are working on a communications strategy to let the world know about the amazing events they put together for small people, including my favourite, Totsapalooza.

Just signed on with Harold Green Jewish Theatre/Obsidian Theatre to do PR and communications for their upcoming production of The Whipping Man, which is an incredible script.

Working with the fine folks over at The Quickening Theatre on their spring show The DeChardin Project, and looking forward to it.

Tidying up last loose ends with Young Associates from social media strategy to a webinar Heather and I did together for ACCA

Fall production of Math Out Loud out of Vancouver!

I’ll know about two more (exciting!) by the end of the day.

Quick volunteer update – Friends of the Arts, Toronto Fringe Festival, and we had out first meeting for Artsvote 2014 yesterday. Be prepared.

I love my clients. I love working with them, and I really love the art they create. Pleasure to be working with them.

 

Sunday Roundup – December 2

Am pleased to report I have finally kicked this horrifying cold, and am about to begin work with two new clients: The Quickening Theatre and a co-production with Harold Green Jewish Theatre and Obsidian Theatre Company. Delighted about both.

Last week:

Fringe Lottery tonight! – so it was, and a great time was had by all with celebrity drawers, 25th anniversary announcements and a birthday!

Fringe Lottery Results and a New Poet Laureate – there they are!

OAC Podcasts, The Arsonists and Cahoots – really hoping the OAC continues with their podcasts. I think it’s a great idea.

It’s a Wonderful Toronto – NTOW am really looking forward to National Theatre of The World’s holiday show

Since it’s been so busy lately, I haven’t mentioned reading and good books as much. Here’s what I’ m currently reading: Let’s Pretend this Never Happened, Jenny Lawson ~ Alligator, Lisa Moore  ~ The Cocktail Waitress, James Cain ~ The News From Spain, Joan Wickersham ~ It Must’ve Been Something I Ate, James Steingarten.(Last one overdue at the library. Eep.)

And this is Slate’s list of Best Books of 2012. I’ve read three of them, and looked at one yesterday in the bookstore.

Also, saw this on The Charlebois Post‘s Facebook page yesterday: From December 22-28 we will be presenting the best photos of the year at CharPo-Toronto, CharPo-Montreal and CharPo-Canada (different photos on each site so check them all out). On December 29 we will announce the finalists for the first CharPR Prize (for best PR) including best photographers. On December 30, 2 runner-up photos will be presented on each site (separate from finalists). On December 31 the best photo of the year for each site will be presented. On January 1 the single Photo of The Year will be announced. Finally, on January 2, the CharPR winners will be announced including best photographer, best PR (small, medium, large and indy).
I’m going to go and look at the photos. And tham do some book balancing. Happy wet Sunday!