On a Zoom call that confirmed our students’ worst fears for their final year, I was there to provide a glimmer of hope: a partnership with Outside the March to commission original digital plays for our graduating class.
Next Stage isn’t happening this year. Like most arts festivals, it’s been halted by COVID. In this peculiar time of rest, many theatres have been re-evaluating their practises, seeing who they’ve left out of the programming and how they may better serve their communities.
The productions are captured by several cameras that allow the audience to see the performance from centre of auditorium—which is similar to watching a live performance from the best seats in the house.
“We could’ve just said we’re not doing a Fringe, that we’re just going to take this moment and not do anything. And we all thought, well, this is the mandate of Fringe, to support the artist, to be a platform for the artist. And this is an opportunity.”
Alan Dilworth is on a journey. An educator who became an actor who became a writer who became a director who became an artistic director, he articulates his relationship to theatre as one of continual discovery.
Institutions want to make us feel like they are doing us a favour by inviting us into their space… But I think that we have way more power to challenge these systems and institutions.
It’s just interesting that the size of the theatre and the size of the budget is a deciding factor. Stratford has yet to have a woman lead the theatre in a solo fashion. And that day will come, I have no doubt.
“What I see in her writing is a tremendous amount of character detail and an ability to create characters that contain contradictions, who are very much sitting inside the oppositions that exist within them. That to me is a real sign of a great writer, like a Chekhov.”
Martha never thought she would be a director. As far as experience had taught her, directors were men. There were a few female directors that she was aware of, but it wasn’t the norm […] Directing jobs at The Grand and Tarragon followed, and Martha felt she always had to get over the initial hurdle of colleagues accustomed to only working with a male director. Technicians made fun of her if she asked what they felt was a stupid question, or ignored her if the question was smart
What is feminist theatre? Who is it for? Is it for everybody? And what does feminist theatre look like today, in Canada? I needed to wrap my head around all of these questions. To do so, I decided to go straight to the source and sit down with some female theatre artists.
Though feminism had of course been around for years, it had become a pressing topic for their generation at that time. And as women working in the theatre. “We were trying to establish ourselves as people in an industry that usually looked upon us as less than,” says Martha, “and as adjuncts, and as supporters, and subordinates.”
Co-directors of Every Day She Rose, Sedina Fiati and Andrea Donaldson talk intersectionality, Pride, and making space in friendships.
TO Live President Clyde Wagner discusses their upcoming Dance Collection with Canadian Stage, featuring acclaimed local and international artists.
Pass Over puts audiences in an uncomfortable position, and I think that’s necessary. Sometimes the people who have been comfortable the longest need to be uncomfortable for a change.
Matthew MacKenzie and Alida Kendell of Punctuate! Theatre talk dance, theatre, and bringing them together anew in The Particulars.
For Gillis, the invitation that occurs between the show and the audience exists in the music.