Each week we’ve invited a member of the Creation Group to write a special blog post. This is a chance to meet our emerging artists and learn about their development through their own words.

This week’s post is brought to you by:
Kathleen Goodleaf
An actor and writer based in Toronto, ON
You can also find Ms. Goodleaf at the TPM Box Office, or behind the bar. When you do, say hello!

We Elephants are gearing up for our first ever showing of work. With such a short creation period, the past two sessions we’ve taken to full on experimentation. Working with a series of exercises to create content, we’ve been tearing apart that content with every restriction, variation and exercise possible.

We’ve take to reserving Lab Time, where anyone in the group or any collection of members can have 20 to 30 minutes to do whatever they want with us and with the content thus far. From each Lab Time comes some pretty amazing stuff.

Without saying too much, the Elephants are having a good time. Hope everyone had an awesome long weekend and enjoyed that sun for us! We were tinkering away in the rehearsal hall.

Much like a few weeks ago when we almost approved marketing copy that said that

Theatre Passe Muraille was the “beast” of Canadian Theatre instead of the best. Fun!

No, where “the shit” starts is with one of our board members Jeff Rayman and his

wife Rita Rayman and this.  Jeff and Rita began this amazing project to provide

sheep to small farmers (mostly women) in Rwanda.  The sheep provide fertilizer,

breed and provide more sheep, which provide income.  Then the original breeding

pair and given to the next farmer, and so on, and so on.  So far there are 6000 sheep

in the project, but they want to increase their reach.  They do this all with no

overhead, no office, just themselves and a couple of Rwandan partners. So, to

help them out, go here  and vote so that they can upscale this project and keep the

shit going.

“Spanning generations and artistic forms to bring together our signature eclectic mix of contemporary plays and musicals.”
– Andy McKim, Artistic Director

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Photography By Michael Cooper.

It started last Monday night at the memorial for Tom Hendry, a titan in Canadian Theatre and a prolific playwright. I join the community in mourning his passing. He had a huge influence on our theatrical landscape. Notably he was responsible for the founding of MTC, Playwrights Co-op (now Playwrights Guild), Banff Playwrights Colony among a slew of other industry changing initiatives. The list of his accomplishments is too long for this article but if you are unfamiliar with his long list of accomplishments then you can look him up in the Canadian Encyclopedia. What is noteworthy in this context is that Tom also started a theatre here in Toronto called Toronto Free founded on the principle that the audience got free admission to all shows. That commitment stands as a challenge to me because it is definitely putting the audience at top of mind.

Then Wednesday I met with the irrepressible Sadie Dixon-Spain, the Artistic Director of The Walking Theatre, based in Argyll, Scotland. Here is the description of her company on their web site: “Our unique brand of interactive ‘walking’ theatre literally takes our audiences on a journey, both physically and creatively, walking through any environment, from forest, Clachan, Kirk yard, garden or school. Our skilled team of professional actors gently draw audiences into the drama, making a fun interactive spontaneous event…As a theatre ‘without walls’ your environment becomes our stage and our work presents an ideal format to engage with audiences and communities, whatever your message.” Naturally when I read their description of a “theatre without walls” it resonated with our name and I knew that Sadie was a fellow traveller, as it were. We talked at length about the possibilities of our companies working together collaboratively and parted with our heads full of potential plans.

On Friday night I went to a Hot Docs film entitled We Cause Scenes, which focuses on a group in New York called Improv Everywhere who have their own You Tube channel. They stage public events which will delight the onlooker. Their raison d’être is to make sure their accidental audience has an experience worth talking about for a long time.  Their first “performance” was going onto a NY subway train with no pants on. Sounds like a frat project, but it did have a big impact on one of the passengers. This led Charlie Todd, the Improv Everywhere founder, to think about doing work specifically to enthral an unsuspecting audience- to give people a memorable artistic experience. You may know his work best from the viral video called Frozen Grand Central Station, in which over a hundred people all freeze for five minutes and then come unfrozen without any visible reason why. It is an art experience that obviously moved the people who happened to witness it. It is also a great example of art created just in order to enchant a random group of people, getting them to participate and become an audience.

Then on Sunday I went to see a long time friend Esmeralda Enrique and her Spanish Dance Company perform their latest show Portales. The work was of such exquisite beauty that I really fell into a state of bliss. But I mention it here because I was struck by the interplay between the audience members and the performers. At very many moments during this two hour performance, individual audience members were encouraging the performers with shouts, mainly shouting “Olé”! The dictionary defines olé as “a cry of approval, joy, etc.”. In this context it was the most profound example of an audience that not only felt included but felt like they were in control of the show’s outcome as they prompted the performers to new heights of performance excellence. And the performers were acknowledging this encouragement by talking verbally or physically to the audience in response. It created a vortex of emotion that lifted the artists above their game and thrilled the audience.

I ended my week with a with the most wonderful example of artists including an audience and it proved to be one of the best art’s experiences I have had in recent memory. Now how do I find a way to bring that audience energy into the/our theatre?

Andy McKim

March 21-30, 2013

I went to Mongolia for the Saint Muse Theatre Festival—an annual festival held in the capital city, Ulaanbaatar, bringing theatre from the countryside (rural Mongolia) together with theatre from the city for 10 days of public performances.  This year they added a monodrama (solo theatre) sub-section and invited international artists to participate.  My show OH MY IRMA was invited, as were solo shows from Kosovo and Macedonia.  There was an international jury adjudicating the festival and an almost an entirely Mongolian audience.

I received my invitation with less than a month to get organized. I am so glad I went.

A few impressions…

Mongolia has a very similar climate to Canada, except that it’s dry, pretty much a desert.  When I was there in late March the temperature was -25-30 degrees but the sky is clear and it never rained.

Unlike our polite audiences in Canada, Mongolian audiences come when it suits them.  The performances never start on time, and throughout the performance people come and go, their phones go off, sometimes they answer them, they translate for one another, they go have a smoke and return.

As I understood it, Mongolia is in a great state of transition.  Being under Russia’s communist regime until 20 years ago, Ulaanbaatar is not only reclaiming its roots but exploding with construction.

The people have a hunger and curiosity for new things.   This attitude, particularly among the other artists at the festival who attended my performance was so exciting.  Through the help of amazing translators—mostly young students studying Mongolian/English simultaneous translation at the university there—who facilitated conversations, I was able to discuss acting styles, approaches, thematic content with Mongolian artists.  I was able to have incredibly nuanced conversations about theatre with people where language is a huge barrier between us.

(this is a picture of homes in the Ger District.  Until 40 years ago most people lived like this, not there is a ton of construction going on, but some parts of the city remain in this style)

 A few other things I had no idea about and thought were incredible…

I love the traditional music.  It is so evocative of horses tearing across open space.  Here’s a little recording from a traditional show we attended.

We were encouraged to take photos/video, etc.

They have now made it so that the monks can marry and also so women can be monks, when I visited the monasteries there are so many little kids (8 years old) practicing and learning.

This is one of the many monasteries.

Inside one of the monasteries.

This thing of everything starting late and time being a guideline rather than a rule was very difficult for me to adjust to. I was maddened and confused by it.  I felt myself butting up against a whole set of western expectations I had no awareness of until I took this trip to Mongolia.   I tried to be gracious, but sometimes I am afraid I wasn’t.  On my last day I discovered the value of this last minute/no plans way of life—some of the translators, on a whim, decided to take me to the countryside! They somehow, got out of a test they were supposed to take at the university. Suddenly I was in a car, tearing along dirt roads, passing gers (we call them yurts, but that is wrong), camels, horses, and shrine after shrine.

We stopped at a famous cave where 300 monks were hidden during the 1930s genocide of monks, and we took a two-hour horseback ride.   This too was slightly terrifying when my horse started going away from the group and reared up.  And I wanted to get off the horse, but the guide only spoke Mongolian and the translators were too far off in the distance to communicate to him.  And so we were off again… I was nervous the whole time.  But utterly in the moment, aware of every breath, my surroundings, I was present in the most unexpected circumstance.

(this photo was taken before I got scared!)

I am so grateful for the challenges of this trip, for the experience of performing my show to an audience whose attention I had to fight for, and for the deeply difficult exercise for me—giving over to spontaneity.

I highly recommend you take a trip there for the fascinating culture, wonderful people and stunning landscape.   Make sure you get out of the city to the countryside, don’t make too many plans and bring your own toilet paper.

Haley McGee

For more information about OH MY IRMA please visit www.ohmyirma.com

and www.facebook.com/ohmyirma

Each week we’ve invited a member of the Creation Group to write a special blog post. This is a chance to meet our emerging artists and learn about their development through their own words.

This week’s post is brought to you by:
Paolo Santalucia
An actor based in Toronto, ON
Twitter: @paolo_sataman

In the past weeks, we’ve been turning our rehearsal hall into an incubator to riff on a theme collectively decided upon as an inspiration point. That is the theme of Community. What that word means to us, and to our various artistic practices, has been an exciting definition to establish.

Two weeks ago we were tasked to bring in a solo piece created on that theme. We all watched and participated in the presentation of those pieces, and further discussed ways in which we can explore the idea. What has since come from that discussion has been as inspiring to us as it has been surprising. This past Monday, we all came in with three things: an object, an image, and a word—all loosely inspired by the solo pieces we witnessed the week before.

We’re at the point now where we’re beginning to discuss in more concrete terms what it is we hope to accomplish. The way in which we hope to do that is by drawing connections between our theme, our practices, and the work we’re producing. Right now, our little rehearsal hall is like a freeway for creativity. We are speeding along at 150km/h, getting stuck for periods of time, only to find an endless stretch of road open to us again. Where that road goes is something we’re going to realize together. How we get there is entirely in our control, and is shaping and evolving everyday. What I’m loving most is the incredible talent, heart, and passion that drives the other 11 people I’m on that road with. I never thought I’d say it, but Mondays are fast becoming my favorite nights of the week.

Later in the week Linda was the subject of a new weekly feature in the  Globe and Mail called Drawn Off Topic. In it she is asked to comment on North Korea. What a refreshing change to hear from someone like Linda on a news subject that is usually the preserve of journalists.

Andy McKim

This time around, Funeral-themed!
 

Friday, June 28th 2013
10:30 pm,
TPM Cab Stage
Admission:  Pay-What-You-Can