much ado about funding.

As the storm rages for an extended four weeks around Monkswell Manor Guest House, a new company (and when I say new I mean the individual members working together, not the body as a whole) of passionate artists are banding together and pledging their time, their hearts and their mental well-beings to put on a show themselves. They do this for love and for hatred, for wit and for dullness. They do this because, simply, they cannot do anything else; it is everything, and it is nothing to them.

This past Tuesday, was the initial meeting and read of Shakespeare BASH’d‘s upcoming Toronto Fringe staging of William Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing. And it was wonderful. We sat in a boardroom on the fifth floor of the TIFF Bell Lightbox, a boardroom that was altogether too big for us (and this is not saying we are a small or meek cast). We ate, we drank, we met one another and right away we were able to play with one another. I have never had this experience before. First reads with new casts are, in my experience, usually kind of reserved, there’s a little air of caution all around us as we test the waters with one another. Not so with Shakespeare BASH’d. These waters were as warm as a hot-tub’s.

Shakespeare BASH’d's mandate is one of love, of camaraderie and of that warm embrace of social lubrication.

Now, unlike the Lower Ossington, which is currently housing The Mousetrap, indie-theatre is largely incapable of (i) selling-out their initial run before opening, (ii) being in the position to extend said run by a month, and (iii) be lucky enough to have a producer willing to put up the entirety of the starting capital required to fund a show (even a small one). Now, this is not saying this never happens. I’m just saying when it does, it is a rather rare event. The nature of being independent puts us out in the vast ocean, swimming furiously amongst hundreds, if not thousands of others trying to do very similar things. The advancements of the age we live in have done a tremendous amount for the arts. Crowd-sourcing has become a powerful tool that gives the user, the patron complete control over what they want, how they want to experience it, and how they can help produce more and more of it.

With that said, Shakespeare BASH’d has set up an indiegogo campaign to support Much Ado as we go into rehearsals. As many independent theatres don’t own a building, don’t program a season of 4 to 6 shows, and, therefore, don’t offer the traditional method of support (subscription packages), indiegogo campaigns are an excellent way to show your support for what is sure to be an exciting experience.

If you’re unsure how this fundraising may help, here’s an example: a pledge of $10 is enough to ensure an hour of rehearsal time. And we’re doing Shakespeare here, people, we’ll need / want all the rehearsal time we can get!

So, without saying much more, I ask you to please go and check out the Shakespeare BASH’d indiegogo campaign here. Check out the perks you’ll receive for every level of donation received, some of them are really fun, like a pair of tickets to opening or closing, beer and a fun night out with James Wallis or Rob Kraszewski, posters and more.

If you’ve ever wanted to support some great indie theatre, or the stuff I do, this is the opportunity.

Thanks for reading.

UPDATE: Also, if you need a little more info on this style of fundraising and haven’t seen this yet, check out singer Amanda F***ing Palmer’s TED conference talk called THE ART OF ASKING. It is beautiful.

dossier: Kate Nankervis for SHE WAS

Today marks a little bit of history on this blog o’ mine. With Kate’s dossier, this marks the first time a “mostly” dance piece is featured!

Kate and I just met last week, at what was the beginning of an exciting new opportunity for the both of us plus four others (details are quite secretive right now), and I couldn’t be more excited to showcase this event of hers on my blog. Reading about it makes me sad I won’t be able to see it as I’ll be performing at the same time. If you’ve never checked out a dance show, this one sounds like a great place to start!

Alrighty, without further ado, here’s dossier #12:

Who are we talking with?

Kate Nankervis, a Toronto-based performer and choreographer.

What is your earliest memory of needing, or wanting to dance?

Not sure if it is my earliest memory, but I definitely remember dancing all the time in grocery stores and stores like Sears, because the floors were nice and slippery so I could turn easily. I also remember playing t-ball and always going to out field and just dancing not really paying attention to game- I had a really good cartwheel after that season.

Why do you do what you do?

Wow, good question…! I have almost always danced; it has really become part of my everyday life. Creating dances and producing has been a way that I can further explore my own interests in the world and the people around me. When I consider why I work the way I do it is also really influenced by the people involved. I am surrounded by wicked people, artists and collaborators that really make the all the parts come together and keep me moving forward.

Why “she was”?

‘she was’ is a double bill show of 2 dance works. My work, ‘only place’ is a solo show about a woman left behind. Simon Renaud who is my partner in crime, is making ‘les reines orphelines’, with dancers Joanie Audet and Jasmine Inns. The evening is a collaborative arts event with two dance works, live music, a pop-up lounge featuring work from visual artist Sarah Smith and live music. We are really putting together a whole evening out for audience to come together and experience independent contemporary art.

What can an audience expect from “she was”?

It is an evening out with friends and family to meet artists and encounter new work by mainly emerging artists. We are shining a light on our work and the work of the artists in the city who are inspiring to me and Simon. They can expect to be entertained, moved and maybe provoked, then to move into a lounge with awesome live music and artwork and a bar, of course.

What is your favourite memory from a past dance show?

I remember this performance of a Calgary artist, Helen Husak. she was performing at Guelph Contemporary Dance Festival. She made this emotional and physical perfomance to Timbre Timbre. It was short and it was a mixed program but I remember crying for most of the solo and not knowing why just that I was affected by this work.

Describe “she was” in three adjectives or a phrase.

classy, provacative, ambitious.

Do you have anything you want to share with us? A story? A photo? A song? A video?

she was
choreography by Kate Nankervis and Simon Renaud
May 16- 18, 2013 8pm
The Citadel, Toronto
For tickets email: shewasperformance@gmail.com

FOR MORE INFORMATION: Kate has provided us with the press and media release. This event sounds amazing folks. Check it out!

Media Release SHE WAS (dance, music, art) May 16-18, 2013 The Citadel, TO

Welcome to Monkswell Manor Guest House.

Well, it’s been a tough time getting everything ready, but today Monkswell Manor is finally ready to open it’s doors as a guest house. Do come on by, we’d love to have you. Although I have it on good authority that we’ll be quite busy for the next four weeks, I’m sure we’ll be able to find space for you.

So come by and help us figure out the secret of the Culver Street Murderer.

dossier: John Fleming for RADIO PROJECT X

Hello one and all. This last month has had me terribly busy. Well, not terribly, aside from that sinus cold. This month has been full of much good, including going to see the very topic of this dossier. 

I’m sad I didn’t get around to interviewing this group at the beginning of the month because it’s been running every Monday this month. I saw the second instalment, had a great time, talked to John and, well, here we are. Unfortunately with my rehearsal schedule, I’ve been a bit out of commission, and sadly didn’t get this up before last night’s show. Happily, however, I’ve been informed that they SOLD OUT last night! 

So, with that said, if you were ever interested in checking out how an old-fashioned radio show would have been recorded, go to Black Swan Comedy on the Danforth, next Monday evening to check out the final instalment of April With RADIO PROJECT X!

dossier #11:

Who are we talking with?

I’m John Fleming, one of the producers of, and core performers in, Radio Project X. Last year, when we did a brand new show each month. I used to just act with the group but when two of the three producers had to move on to other exciting ventures I jumped on to help put together this year’s shows. The main man to mention is Neil Jones, head producer and comedy writer, and Peter Church, producer, performer, and radio aficionado.

When did you realize you were not only good at playing with your voice but you could potentially do this as a profession?

I dialect coach for actors and productions as well as perform myself (www.johnfleming.ca). When I was at York for acting, I discovered a real strength with accents and dialects, which likely came from speaking in funny voices a good amount as a child. It was after I had graduated, when a friend of mine suggested I take some voice-over lessons that I realised I had a knack for that as well. For me, it all fits under the same big umbrella.

Why RADIO PROJECT X?

This group is actually an amalgamation of two different projects. Peter Church and Sean Wayne Doyle worked together to produce studio-recorded shows (with me as an actor) under the moniker Radio’s Revenge (check out the great recordings available here: www.radiosrevenge.com), and Neil Jones had a live sketch-comedy radio group called Radio Vault. The two groups came together to create these live podcasts with a mix of comedy, drama, and adaptations of old stories now in the public domain. While I wasn’t at the group-naming meeting, I like to think the name conjures images of radio bandits, identities unknown, keeping sound entertainment alive through any means necessary.

What is so appealing to you about recording a podcast in front of a live audience?

The format of our shows is just like how they used to record radio plays: scripts in hands, standing at microphones. I’ve had a lot of people tell me after a show that they had never thought about how radio shows were produced before then. Knowing about the production of old radio, from foley tricks (crinkling cellophane for the sound of fire, etc.) to microphone technique, really brings the medium alive for people used to staring at screens and not exercising their imaginations. This live format allows for a bit of imagination, but still has visible performers to watch; a bit of both worlds. Of course, the laughter and applause always sounds great in a recording. And while the shows don’t make too much profit, the live audience gives us a bit of money to play with, allowing us to keep our website up, and let’s us eat snacks at our rehearsals.

What kinds of things can we expect from RADIO PROJECT X?

Every RPX show is sure to contain a number of ‘olde tyme’ commercials for products such as “Mail-Order Toupees,” “Special Paper Pants” or the revolutionary new skin cream “Your-Skin’s-A-Mess,” dramatic adaptations from fiction writers like Philip K Dick and Theodore Sturgeon, and new versions of classic radio plays like Arch Oboler’s The Dark (which some people may recognise from one of The Simpsons’ Treehouse of Horrors). My favourite pieces, though, are the longer (about a half hour) original comedy serials such as “I Smell a Mystery” and “The Adventures of Kurt Richardson, Geo-Seismologist.” Neil and Peter write some hilarious stories in the style of the 1950s radio serials which both use and poke fun at the old radio conventions. We always have a musical guest as well, to break up the stories with musical interludes.

What is your favourite memory from a past RADIO PROJECT X?

Last year, we had 8 shows, one a month, at the Black Swan Tavern, and we sold out more than a couple times. I think the Christmas holiday-themed show and the Hallowe’en show were especially strong. I, personally, quite liked playing The King of the Cheese Men (an invading alien horde), and Half Pint, the four foot tall evil defender of the Imperial System, foiled in an episode of The Mighty Metric Men. It’s radio; anyone can be anyone.

Describe RADIO PROJECT X in three adjectives or a phrase.

An old medium refreshed for the new century.

Do you have anything you want to share with us? A story? A photo? A song? A video?

Well, certainly listen to some of our podcasts at www.radioprojectx.com. There are some fascinating old stories and hilarious new ones there. Radio Project X is also on Facebook, where you can find updates and links to other radio goodies. Our final show of this month – Crime, Corruption & Murder (and that’s the nice side of town) – is at The Black Swan on the 29th of April, so come and share that with us!

dossier: Eric Double and Julia Nish-Lapidus for Theatre Caravel’s SEA CHANGE

Last year, my friend Nicole Ratjen asked me to do a staged reading with her at an event I’d never heard of. It was of her play, a work-in-progress about two polar bears set adrift on an ever-shrinking ice-floe in the middle of the ocean. As the polar bears contemplated their fate, and hunger, they would be ravaged by storms. We’d done this reading before, at a different event, and were curious how it would go over at this one. 

This is when I met Eric and Julia. We asked if Eric would be interested in reading our stage directions. Of course. Nicole told him about the audience participation, that he was to cue the storms and the audience would be involved with making it come alive. No problem. And this is where the real test came in; Are you both cool with us arming the audience with pin-pong balls that they can throw at us when you cue the storm? Not even a hesitation. Eric even helped by throwing the ping-pong balls back into the audience to restock them. That’s the kind of event SEA CHANGE is. And that’s the spirit that Eric and Julia bring to this; they are so excited to see artists try new things and for their nights to be as varied and unique as possible.

I’m excited to have this next dossier focus on such a fun event. The next SEA CHANGE is happening on April 5th, and, along with Haylee McGee, Joel Battle, The Templeton Philharmonic and Freddie Rivas, I’ll be performing some new writing of mine. 

Here we go, dossier #10:

Who are we talking with?

Eric Double, Artistic Director of Theatre Caravel. I am an actor, director, and mask maker.

Julia Nish-Lapidus, Artistic Producer of Theatre Caravel. I’m an actor and producer.

Theatre Caravel strives to create theatre that is changeable, innovative by necessity, and important by default.

What is it about theatre that really gets you going?

Eric: I think I was drawn to the theatre because it’s such an immediate art form. When a piece of theatre works there is a palpable energy around the performance and it becomes otherworldly in a sense. I love that feeling of connection between an audience and a performance, which is both personally intimate and communal at the same time.

Julia: Theatre is alive. That’s always really excited me. It’s never the same twice, so the actors and the audience in that room are the only people who will be able to share that specific experience.

How did you two meet?

Eric: We met through university, but became friends because we were neighbours in our residence. Julia had a mouse problem and was afraid to clean the traps, so she asked me to come over and clean up dead mice. I meet all my best friends cleaning up dead animals.

Julia: It’s true. Dead mice are gross. After university we talked over (a few) drinks and realized that we were both looking for similar experiences and challenges and decided to join forces and bring our voice to the theatre community.

What is the earliest memory you have of wanting, or needing to do this?

Eric: Well, according to my mother I was quoted as saying “I want to be a clown because I want to make everyone laugh” when I was 4, but my actual memory comes from high school. I remember getting hooked on performing when I landed a part in the play in high school and since then there was never any question about what I would be doing. It wasn’t really a need or a want, just a feeling that nothing else was important to me other than being involved in theatre – I never felt more at home than when I was in or involved in the theatre.

Julia: What inspired me to get into theatre is not exactly what people expect, considering the type of work I now do… It was CATS, the musical. When I was four, the touring production came to Halifax (where I was living) and I saw commercials on TV with singing and dancing cats, and I begged my parents to take me for my birthday. What four year old girl wouldn’t? Barely halfway through the show, I turned to my mom and whispered “I want to do that.” And I meant it. The next day I hassled my parents until I was signed up for every dance, voice, and acting class we could find. And I haven’t stopped since then. It was never something I thought about. Being in theatre was just the way life was for me.

Why Sea Change?

Sea Change is a phrase that means “a profound or notable transformation” and was coined by Shakespeare in the Tempest. Our event is about encouraging new works from artists of all types and creating a community around that. It gives artists a chance to experiment and try something different in a really unique mix of like minded people and the audience gets a chance to be a part of a fresh new artistic landscape that is unfolding right in front of their eyes.

What kinds of things can we expect from Sea Change?

Sea Change is a curated event and we’re always accepting submissions from all different types of artists. We’ve had poets, playwrights, puppeteers, and painters; musicians, mask makers, clowns, storytellers and more. We’ve also had a bunch of artists who want to try something different than what they normally practice. So, for example, it’s always a great joy to us when an actor wants to put up their visual art, or when a playwright wants to try out some poetry. Providing a community for artists to push their boundaries is really what Sea Change is about.

Also, there are free baked goods. And we’re talking home-baked yumminess. People come for the art, but stay for the brownies.

What is your favourite memory from a past Sea Change?

Eric: Probably Teodoro Dragonieri performing in masks made from cut-up laundry detergent bottles. I remember the audience didn’t see it coming and he had everyone on the edge of their seats trying to figure out how he brought inanimate objects to life.

Julia: There was one time when a performer needed a bit of extra time to set up, so he told a joke while he was getting ready, but then he still needed more time, so the whole crowd got into it. Eric and I told bad jokes and audience members just kept yelling out more jokes. The performer was ready to go after only a couple of jokes, but everyone was having so much fun, we kept going for a while. That’s what Sea Change is like. It’s not rehearsed and the audience is a part of it. It’s a great community feel and that’s what I love the most.

Describe Sea Change in three adjectives or a phrase.

Supa-fresh – electric – baked goods

Do you have anything you want to share with us? A story? A photo? A song? A video?

Our first Sea Change took place in a very small cafe space, where people were crammed in on top of one another. It was raining that night and everyone was dripping wet. The thunder and lightning cracked just as we were getting started and one of our performers, David Calderisi, let us know that in some eastern traditions thunder is a omen for great creativity and we can remember feeling like there was a certain electricity and excitement in the air. That thunder really set the tone for that night, and three years later we still think about it before every new edition of Sea Change gets started.

Watson-ing.

This past March Break, I was lucky enough to have participated in a Sherlock Holmes-themed event at my local place of business, Black Creek Pioneer Village. For seven days I got to play a Dr. John Watson, cane and all, while recruiting and helping the recruited to solve a village-wide mystery of the missing clockmaker. As any good detective knows, especially world-famous ones, in order to get the truth, one usually has to go undercover. So, over the course of 9 days, 7 of which I worked, not only did I get to dress up, but I also got to wear a silly moustache to… blend in with the locals.

The following is the evolution of my moustaches over those seven days.

dossier: Andrew Young and Shayne Monaghan for MONDAY NIGHT OF NEW WORKS

Welcome back! After a short break, the dossier series is back up and running, starting with an exciting event indeed.

What Andrew and Shayne do with their Monday Night of New Works is an absolutely indispensable commodity. Usually falling on an “every-six-weeks” kind of schedule, Monday Night of New Works (which oddly finds itself on a Tuesday this month) does the impossible by creating an open, round-table-minus-the-table atmosphere more than welcoming to those stumbling in off the streets. It is a place to bring a script and know that everyone sitting in the circle is completely open for whatever is thrown at them; it is a place to go knowing that everyone present is an actor, a playwright, a producer, a general enthusiast of theatre ready to read, hear and talk about your piece, if you want them to. There is no screening process. An email, saying you’d like to have something read is enough to guarantee space (unless they have received too many – and even then they’ll tell you to bring something anyway, because, really, who knows what’ll happen?).

Andrew and Shayne do a lovely job of making the space comfortable. As soon as you walk in you’ll be introduced to everyone there and yet to come. They usually have coffee, water and some sort of candy. The city is all the more richer for having an event so open and warm as this one. I’ve been lucky to have one of my troublesome scripts read at the last instalment, and am grateful for what I received.

That said, let’s meet the boys.

Here’s dossier #9:

Who are we talking with?

Andrew Young [above], Co-founder of Monday Night of New Works, Actor, Puppeteer, Artistic Director of My Brother the Changeling.

Shayne Monaghan [below], Co-founder of Monday Night of New Works, Actor, Playwright, Educator, Artistic Director of ChickenWing Theatre. 

What draws you to theatre?

Andrew: The direct connection with the audience, the instant reaction you are able to hear. The fact that anything can go wrong at any moment and you have to be able to adapt, rediscovering the character show after show. Everything is in flux, hopefully within the set blocking.

Shayne: A show? Well mostly I hear good reviews and do my past to see what I can. Theatre as a career? I love the adrenaline you feel when on stage. My high school made me fall in love with theatre. I was luckily enough to be part of a touring ensemble of His, Tom Slater’s, original production of “…A Permanent Solution.” and before every show he would say today you’re going to change some ones life. That gave me goosebumps.

What is the earliest memory you have of wanting, or needing to do this?

A: To perform? For me, I think I was 14 or 15, I think on a school trip to see a play. I grew up in a rural area so once a year my high school packed up a bus full of kids and made our way to the city for the day and see two shows. On the trip I saw a one-woman play called “the shape of a Girl” by Joan MacLeod. It a fairly dark story but the way it was simply one girl talking about these experiences I was enthralled by the storytelling of the show. Since then I said that’s what I want to do, tell stories.

S: It was December of 2010, and Andrew and I were sitting in our living room and, after reading our own shows for the Nth time we said to each other, “Lets invite people from school and class to come over and we can get them to do a play reading for us, and we can invite others to bring work too! We can make a night of it.”

Why Monday Night of New Works?

A: After being out of Humber for a few months, Shayne and I had gotten a few people together to read our scripts. We were sitting at the pub talking about said scripts that we were developing , or trying to write an ending to rather. Shayne and I had both read numerous drafts, new scenes over and over and found it really refreshing to hear new voices in our plays. In school we were lucky to have a playwriting class where we would bring in something and it would be read in front of the class. It was great hearing different voices week to week each with different interpretations of the characters. We said wouldn’t it be great if we could get a network of people to do the same thing on a regular basis and just keep developing these new works. Giving ourselves imposed deadlines in the process.

S: We wanted to hold it on a Monday because most theatres are dark on Mondays so we were trying to optimize our intake. Plus what else is there to do on a Monday?

What can we expect from Monday Night of New Works? (is there a mandate for what you host, what’s the layout of the event?)

A: It’s an open forum to talk about play- or screen-writing. A place to experiment with an idea and hear something off the page. A place so that you can stop forcing your roommates or friends to read your play over and over again.

S: What Andrew said, plus somewhere for fresh eyes, ears and opinions. Our slogan is: Nothing too Rough, Nothing too Short.

What is your favourite memory from a past Monday Night of New Works?

A: It’s anytime I hear a script that is brought back for a second or third time and I get to hear how it has changed and/or grown since. Or seeing something that I heard pieces of or maybe even first draft that has developed and since been mounted as a full production. Seeing it up on stage is such a great experience.

S: My favorite memory has to be our first time in the fringe creation lab when a gentleman came with a script he was developing for a community project, and we found out he came from Barrie. I was flabbergasted that we drew some one from there. Also, a friend of Andrew’s comes from Windsor. Just the dedication that people have and the repeat attendees astonishes me.

Describe Monday Night of New Works in three adjectives or a phrase.

1) Nothing too Rough, Nothing too Short

2) Social

3) Community

Do you have anything you want to share with us? A story? A photo? A song? A video?

A: Our Next Monday Night of New Works is held at the Fringe Creation Lab on March 26th (on the Tuesday[!!!]) at 7:00pm. Come Check it out if you would like to see what we are about.

During New Works we make a point of holding a brief talking point called “Shameless Self Promotion.” This is were anyone who is working on anything has the opportunity to plug anything they are working on, developing or have an idea they want to work on without trying to sound too pushy about it. In that vein we are going to continue with this Idea.

I am currently working on a show with Theatre Lab that is going up in a double bill in the Factory theatre studio space. The show is called, “To the Last Cry”. It opens March 20th and plays till the 24th with shows at 8:00pm with a 2:00pm show on the 24th as well. It’s a double bill show, so there’s Theatre Lab’s show and another put on by Pandemic theatre called “Tjorvi ” the same night. More details at http://theatrelab.ca/

S: What I would like to share is that we try to support all the shows that come through, and the more that come, and the more people support us, the more I feel we can do. Monday Night of New Works has helped in the Launch of several successful shows. Brandon Crone’s “Turtleneck,” (2013), Alex Daults “The Campbell House Story” (2012), Victoria Velenosi “Princess of Porn” (Fringe 2012), Micheal Atlin “Zugzwang” (SummerWorks 2011), as well is this upcoming Fringe’s “The 8th Day” by Shayne Monaghan, ChickenWing Theatre.

Also Check out New Works at http://mondaynightofnewworks.wordpress.com/

Or find us on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/MondayNightOfNewWorks

Or on twitter @MondayNewWorks

dossier: The Boys of Living Room Theatre for NEW ART NIGHT

I met these fellas last year through a series of events, parties and a writer’s circle. Andrew Thomas McKechnie, Jesse Byiers and Alexi Pedneault make up Living Room Theatre. My first experience with their event New Art Night was when Andrew called me at about 6pm on May 29th, 2012 – two hours before the show – and told me one of their acts had cancelled and if I’d like to perform. I missed the call, so it landed in my voicemail. When I listened to it, my reaction was, “Uh, buh, guh, muh, hubba,” and after, maybe half an hour of making strange sounds to myself, I called him back and said, “Yeah. Sure.” He asked me if I needed any actors. I said, “Sure, a woman would be fine.” I arrived at about 7:40, was introduced to said actress who would read the excerpt of the play I was working on, and that is that. It’s like an improv exercise: just say yes, because, really, you won’t regret it. I met many people I now spend a lot of my time with that night.  

On the eve of the third Toronto-instalment of New Art Night, I came to the boys to make a dossier for them.

And this is what happened.

What follows is a rather untraditional entry. Instead of simply responding to the questions I sent via email, or of me actually being there to ask the questions, the boys took it upon themselves to interview each other using the questions I had provided. They recorded it during some sort of electrical storm, or while being attacked by an assassin with Metal Gear Solid-style chaff grenades (this is the only thing I can imagine that can explain the overpowering static in the recording). So as we read the following, just imagine these three guys sitting, probably in the dark of their kitchen, sitting around a many-candled and knife-scarred table. Imagine three men who made the journey from Red Deer to Toronto where they immediately began inspiring everyone they came in contact with. 

Are you ready? 

Here we go, dossier #8:

[begin transmission]

(Andrew) Thomas: Who’re we talking with?

Jesse: Is it recording?

Thomas: Yep. We’re gonna send him this whole file. It’s gonna be great, “This is like an hour long. You guys are assholes”

(sounds of coffee being sipped)

Alexi: So… who’re we talking with?

Jesse: Jesse Byiers.

Alexi: Alexi Pedneault.

Thomas: Andrew Thomas McKechnie.

Alexi: Whoa… Thomas.

Thomas: Shut the fuck up!

(laughter)

Jesse: It’s your Soulpepper name.

Alexi: Should we say our middle names too now?

Jesse: I should just go, like, James? I should make up a stage name too?

Thomas: Yeah.

Alexi: My name’s Luis.

Thomas: That’s not bad except we already know a Luis. We don’t know any James’ though so you’re okay with James.

Alexi: Fuck you.

Thomas: Fuck you.

Jesse: Woo.

(sounds of coffee being sipped)

Thomas: What draws you to do what you do?

(silence)

Jesse: What do I do?

Thomas: I don’know, what do you do?

Jesse: (reading) Oh, playwright, visual arts, acting…

Thomas: I-I-I don’t think it’s, like, I don’t think that’s like Andrew, Jesse, Alexi, it’s just like – like – what are the things – what are the things that you do, Jesse? And why do you do them?

Jesse: Oh, I see.

(sounds of coffee being sipped)

Jesse: Aaaahm…

(sounds of coffee being sipped)

Jesse: I-uhhh ok, I act which is my main focus. Um, I also, I also, do devised theatre, uhhh, I am a… man… I don’t know, what else do I do?

(laughter)

Thomas: Just think of what you get fired up about.

Alexi: What fires you up?

Jesse: Okay, someone – Andrew, you answer this first because you obviously have a better grip on this question.

Thomas: I write, predominantly. Um, I produce because there’s a lot of good things happening and I wanna support them and encourage them; I direct because it’s exciting to be sitting in the room seeing those little sparks in people and being like, “Yeah, yeah! Yeah! Go with that!” and being able to sit back and that’s very much why I like to create work because you get to do that in a lot of different roles and you get to be in a group of people and just follow impulses and try things. But, predominantly, I write and I write because I’ve always just communicated, um, received and shared information most effectively through written word. So I write plays and screenplays and poems and books and things like that.

Alexi: (to Jesse) Do you want to think on yours first?

Jesse: Well, k, I – k – I – predominantly, I act. I also study devised theatre and work in collaborative work efforts, so I suppose that involves a little bit of directing and puppetry and all that fun stuff but mostly I – mostly, I guess – mostly devised theatre: creating a piece – creating pieces – in a group environment and a shared work environment. I also do music. (laughs) I perform music? I write music? And –

Thomas: Fills our house with music.

Jesse: – fills our house with music and – and – and amateur poetry.

Thomas: I like your poetry.

Jesse: Thank you. Um… the reason why I do what I do is because I do a lot of things okay. But I’m not really good at one thing and maybe acting isn’t what I’ve always wanted to do but there’s nothing else I’ve spent as much money on in education and as much time and endeavoured my entire life towards so it has to mean something.

Alexi: Ah, well my first passion was visual arts so in a way the reason why I did visual arts was more because I felt like it was more like a therapy, but, like, not just therapy. It was just a way to have my own way of expressing myself without being just loud and obnoxious and then I went into theatre where I could be loud and obnoxious and be art-feely with my little small world which is visual arts. So I got the best of both worlds. Um. But it’s just about creating. I just – I just loved creating and loved collaborating. I loved talking with people, building on what their ideas are and that’s what got me into art in general. It’s just – it’s just so much love and passion. I want to keep building it, not just in one field, because I went to school for theatre-acting, but just that wasn’t enough. I wanted to do everything, I wanted to try everything else. I didn’t want to just limit myself to one title. What draws me to do what I do is a most pure love and adoration for the arts.

Thomas: Why New Art Night?

Alexi: No. You skipped one.

Jesse: Yeah

Thomas: Oh, shit!

Alexi: You skipped a question, sir.

Thomas: It was – it seemed like a boring question. JUST KIDDING! It sounds like a great question.

Alexi: Andrew, it’s a great question. Gaboury that is. Ummm.

Thomas: Have we…?

Alexi: Let’s read that one.

Thomas: What is the – (beat, laughs) What is the earliest memory you have of wanting or needing to do this?

Alexi: I don’t know.

Jesse: Ok

Alexi: Um, the first thing that comes to my mind is of – of – of – I’ll say theatre. First thing that came to my mind that I always wanted to be in this was the first time I ever saw a play, I guess. It was me being 12 and seeing this live performance of Cinderella which was actually really damn good in high school –

(laughter)

Alexi: Anyways, Cinderella, um, and it’s – and what made it so great is the fact that you shared this room with these people and you saw things live and you saw this story live. And what makes it even more special is that you saw them fuck up live, which was why I love theatre: mistakes. Because you just see the most interesting things come out and I guess that was the first time I [remember. Wanting to] be a part of their fuck-ups.

(laughter)

Thomas: You’ll get plenty of those in Living Room Theatre.

Alexi: Oh, there’s plenty of those.

Jesse: (clears throat) Hi! You are a yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy. Yeah that’s a vocal [warm-up], yeah.

Thomas: Please include that in your interview.

Jesse: Uh, kay: the reason why I got into theatre, I never wanted to do theatre or be an actor until I was 18 / in grade 11… so I guess I was 17. My dad was a cabinet maker and I worked for him for a very long time and the plan was to become a cabinet maker and live out in a shack in the woods. Um, but there was a girl that I had a crush on in my band class and, uh, and, uh, in order to impress her, I don’t know how this was supposed to impress her, I memorize and recited the orchard monologue, “But soft what light through yonder window breaks,” from Romeo and Juliet.

Thomas: Can you still do it? Can you still do it? Can you still do it?

Jesse: I can barely…

Thomas: Do it right now!

Jesse: No, I can remember some of it but I…

Thomas: Go as far as you can go.

Jesse: No!

(laughter)

Jesse: Cause now I’m learning new things and I suck at Shakespeare, so I can’t even talk properly. Um, I memorized the speech for her and recited it for her. She half listened to it and then she ended up dating a rig pig so I stopped talking for a week.

Alexi: What a bitch.

Jesse: But I – then I took the drama program, the one limited drama program my town had, and my friend said I was good and so I don’t really know why or how that was the particular reason that made me audition for Red Deer College’s theatre program but, uh, for some odd reason I did it and then I ended up getting in, so, uh, despite the fact of being offered a free tuition and spot at SAIT for cabinet making. I turned it down and went to acting instead.

Thomas: The rest is history. (beat) I was in like grade seven? And we had this creative writing assignment where we had to write a page and I ended writing this, uh, I was super jacked about it and the teacher forgot that the assignment was due that day but I was so excited that I walked up to the front of the class and put in on her desk and she was like, “Oh yeah! Everyone hand those in!” and my classmates were very angry with me.

Thomas: Why New Art Night?

Jesse: Well I never really got involved, I never really had my own thing in it until we moved to Toronto because Andrew said that instead of doing a full show why don’t we do this thing instead, that we were doing in Alberta?

Alexi: But it started even earlier then that with Love and Time Machines.

Jesse: But I never curated a night until Toronto.

Alexi: Do you remember the night that we all took turns kinda curating it because of one giant fuck up? I think that was the first time I –

Jesse: Where all three of us –

Thomas: You mean the time at the Nickle Studio?

Jesse: Yeah.

(laughter)

Thomas: That was the second – that was the second – waitwaitwaitwait –

Jesse: Ok, start with – start with Love and Time Machines.

Thomas: Yeah, yeah let’s go there. The very first time I did anything like this was in October of ’09 when I was lookin’ to raise a bit of money for a Fringe bid. I got a local theatre space donated to me by the owners who were friends of mine in exchange for some bitch labour around the place and I just got a bunch of my talented friends to put stuff in. I had a couple of musicians a couple of actors, good stuff, and I carried on doing that. We did one in the in October of the next year, which was the first time I worked on a project outside of school with Jesse and Alexi where none of us got cast in – there were 6 people we had an acting class of 18 people and 6 didn’t get cast for a show, so we said, “Fuck it, we’ll make our own show.”

Alexi: Instead of the praire show.

Thomas: Yeah, yeah fuck that show.

(laughter)

Thomas: But it ended up being this excellent, excellent show that we just made in two weeks for funzies. Uh, called Major Tom’s Last Night on Earth, which involved Jesse playing David Bowie and Alexi and I playing identical twins. This is funnier when you realize that Alexi is a kinda short Philipino guy and I’m a really tall Aryan dude and we’re clearly not twins, but yeah, just a fun, fuck-around kinda show. Essentially what the impetus behind it was is that I have a lot of friends who are good at things and it seems a damn shame that these things are not being consistently and avidly shown. So I started doing New Art Nights. That was the second New Art Night – uh, no, that was the first New Art Night as such. We did the second one in Jan. of 2011..? Yes?

(Jesse looks across the room at a New Art Night poster, with dates saying May 28th, 29th and 30th)

Thomas: No that was the first one in Toronto. We did the one in October that was Major Tom and then the one in January which was Better Worlds.

Jesse: Oh yeah.

Thomas: And then June was The Hangoverture and Brown Toast and –

Jesse: That’s right.

Thomas: The legendary show. Brown Toast I was actually super excited by because it was essentially like two days before the show, uh, the day before the matinee show. We did like a Friday show, a Saturday matinee and a Saturday evening, and the Friday evening I was told that one of the acts for the Saturday matinee was dropping out and I was like, “Yeah! Fuck! Yeah! Fuck!” So then two of the guys who were at New Art Night on Friday, I was like, “Hey do you wanna put something together for like… 2pm tomorrow?” and they were like, “Okay,” and they ended up writing this wonderful little show about two dudes writing Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and it was super good .

Alexi: And the toast.

Thomas: Yeah, while just, like, making toast constantly –

Alexi: The toast became –

Thomas: The Brown Toast story, very much for me exemplifies what I like about New Art Night. Brown Toast exists because I threw two people into a desperate situation of needing to make a play and ending up being a great play and they ended coming back in the evening and then taking it to Alberta Culture Days in the following Fall and it had a life past that and it was very exciting.

Jesse: Me and Alexi were always in the photo in the paper.

Thomas: Yeah! There was always the photo in the paper. Jesse and Alexi were always in it.

Alexi: What? Really?

Jesse: Yeah.

Thomas: There was the shot from Jordan’s play.

Jesse: The shot of you and me staring at each other doing some sort of Meisner thing.

(laughter)

Alexi: Oh, yeah.

Jesse: And then we did Jordan’s, “Who hates Jordan?” circle.

(laughter – lots of in-jokes apparently)

Jesse: The weird thing.

Thomas: It was a weird day.

Jesse: And then we were in the hallway for Better Worlds.

Alexi: Right, rightrightrightright. I didn’t even realize that

Thomas: And then when Jess and I moved to Toronto we wanted to keep doing it because it’s always been a really wonderous time; we get bring people together and try things and inspire creativity and… and fail boldly. So we kept doing it.

Alexi: What kinds of things can we expect to see at New Art Night?

Thomas: Why don’t you talk about your piece?

Alexi: Uh, I thought it was a question in general about –

Thomas: But as a case study in the kind of stuff, because I think that’s very much the kind of stuff we want to do.

Alexi: Oh, ok. Well I have a piece. It’s an experimental piece. Something that I always love is the dog park and I’m always very happy there and I was also really interested in the idea of not having to have a set theatre space where [the performers] could essentially go anywhere. Anywhere you want to do the show and could have a crowd of people. So for this one I had this dog mask that was specially built by Evan Harkai who does masks. It’s about a man who’s unable to realize the two realms of a soulmate and having a companion, AKA a dog. In order to cope with his dog’s death he becomes his dog by wearing this mask around the dog park. It also involves improv theatre. Where I don’t know how to experiment with improv theatre, so it’s great to be able to try something in front of audience and see how they would react. This would be a first step because I don’t want to act in the show; I want to write it and direct it but this gives me a chance to try it in the meantime.

Jesse: I feel like we never had a mandate for New Art Night. It’s always more like a workshop – it’s not like a workshop were you can get feedback and people are like, “Ah! Yes, I liked this part of but I would have liked more of this” – it’s more so like you’ve put up something you’re working on and creating and you have no idea what it looks like or sounds like and it’s this foetus and you ripped it out of the womb and put it in a jar before it was done growing and then you’re like, “I wonder if this baby’s cute?” And then putting it in front of a crowd of people and asking –

Thomas: This analogy is fucked up!

Jesse: No, then you see if the crowd is like “Awww” or if the crowd is like, “AGH!” and try and step on it.

(laughter)

Thomas: That’s really the heart of New Art Night.

(laughter)

Jesse: And then you will know if your baby is ugly or, y’know, a mutant and you need to destroy this thing and start again or if it’s – if you’re on the right path and you to like, add something, put eyes in to it and add fingers.

(more laughter)

Thomas: Are you clear with how birth works?

Alexi: This is like a Mr. Potato-baby.

Thomas: That’s not – it’s not – that’s not how that works. There’s like a gestation period.

(laughter)

Thomas: You don’t just, like, put eyes on babies.

Jesse: Well, anyways, it’s like – anyways. It doesn’t necessarily have to be just theatre, theatre is the only thing that really needs [something like this].  There’s lots of other stuff where you can write a song and put it up on Soundcloud and have people judge it. From that you can put it on YouTube and have people say whether it’s shit or if it’s good or not, where with Theatre you can’t do that; there’s no opportunity for people to put there stuff up –

Alexi: Unless you’re in school.

Jesse: Yeah, unless you’re in school. You have no chance to put up your piece that you’re working on and hear and audiences laughter or an audience claps or an audience’s silence.

Thomas: Theatre has to be evaluated live.

Jesse: Theatre has to be evaluated live so we have no other option then to just put it up. And of course you can get it work-shopped by professionals or something but that costs money, that costs their time. But this a chance to have an actual audience.

Thomas: What I get really excited about is, since they are these weird little weird, test-tube babies that don’t have eyes – is that the analogy we’re using to describe the art we’re creating?

Jesse: It’s like Frankenstien’s baby.

Thomas: What I like most about that is that so many of these things are sort of odd little Frankenstien creatures that could not stand on their own. So there is no other place to see a young lady reading poetry while projected video plays over her for three and a half minutes. This is sort of the only venue for that sort of stuff and just the sort of weird, interesting assortment of stuff that we have on a night by night basis. That this sort of event is the only one where we can get such an interesting and diverse mix of things. What do we have? What going on for this one? We got, suicide plays, a fairly straight realism piece about a coffee shop, a bit of   pick up artists, and a sketch comedy troop, and then me and a bunch of people are going to go into a room with a bunch of poems and just make something on Monday and we don’t know what that’s going to be but we’ll find out Monday evening when we put it up. SO! So it’s consistently a strange and wonderful evening of literary and theatre art.

Thomas: What’s your favourite memory from a past New Art Night?

Jesse: Oh! Can I take this one! Can I take this one first.

Thomas: Yeah, yeah hit it.

Jesse: Okay, so first my favourite New Art memory, there’s a few good ones, but my top-notch one has to be, yeah, it has to be New Art Night May 28th, 29th, 30th 2012? Yeah, 2012. The first one that ever happened here in Toronto, we didn’t know any body, we had – we had this one professional group come up and there was like two people in the audience so they were super unimpressed but the second night there was about 4 or 5 people in the audience and then half way through it these two drunk guys stumbled in. They had no idea what it was they just accidently stumbled into this place. The guy’s name was Vladimir and he sounded like he was from The Cure almost and he’s just, he’s started talking to Andrew (Thomas) and Andrew’s like, “Hey this guy’s a bit drunk but he wants to do something for the next New Art Night.” And I was like, “Cool!” So I told him to come in a little earlier and we’ll have an audition for him, and thought this was cool: meeting new artists. And he was going to sing some songs with his guitar, put on a little concert. So he came in and we sat and watch him and he wasn’t… awful… but he wasn’t spectacular and me and Andrew decided to take a risk on him. That’s what New Art Night’s about, failing, taking risks; so we’ll take a risk as producers and we’ll just put him up. So like… five minutes before the show starts, he says he’s changing the song, that he’s going to sing a different song than the one he sang before. And we’re like, “Okay!” and at that point were kiiinda worried about it but we’re like, “All right! Okay. You do what you need to do.” He’s like second last or something and me and Andrew are sitting next to each other and he opens the door and comes in with his guitar and as soon as he slams the door behind him you know something bad is going to happen. He then takes his shirt off swings it off stage and then starts playing this 40 minute long song with like 20 different endings and the entire audience was like – this was the one time was actually had a very good crowd for New Art Night as well and everyone just stared at this guy and a couple of our friends came up and said they thought it was a joke, they thought he was going to say, “This is how long I can lead you on this terrible song. Look how long you held on to every single note.” And every time he hit the chord you were like, “Oh good it’s over” and then he’d hit another one and you’d be like, “Okay, it’s over… okay, maybe not… okay, it’s over… okay, maybe not,” and I remember Andrew grabbing my knee and squeezing it and I could feel myself turn red. That was my favourite memory.

Thomas: And now I see him everywhere!

(laughter)

Jesse: Yeah, everywhere

Alexi: Andrew (Thomas) will be like, “That’s the guy!”

(laughter)

Jesse: Alexi?

Alexi: I guess it would go back to the first New Art Night. Not the first one in Toronto but the first one you did in Red Deer. I just loved doing that weird and funny and just collective show of Major Tom’s Last Night on Earth. Just two weeks of talking and talking and talking and then ten days before the show we put up this just really absurd show of David Bowie’s apocalypse circus and it was the silliest thing ever but still to this day I love it. I giggle about it. And his – oh God! There’s another good memory was that fucking monologue that was about nothing! There is no transitions –

Thomas: It’s a page long monologue of non-sequitors.

Alexi: Non-sequeitors, and then Andrew’s (Thomas’s) like, have fun with this and perform it! And I’m like, “Aaandreeew” but it was awesome.

Thomas: Alexi comes to me and he’s cramming in Theatre History, he’s just totally tuned out because we were in school at this time. He just totally tuned out in theatre history and he’s just cramming this monologue and he’s like, “Andrew, we need to cut part of this so I just scan through the non-sequitors and found a place that I can jump it.” And then I just cut the middle of the monologue right out and it’s just a series of non-sequitors so it just jumps to the next one and he’s like, “Good that’s much easier.”

Alexi: And then I was thinking, with that memory, is how did you write a monologue with non-sequitors. Like, where did you pull this shit up? The best! The worst and the best and it turned out to be quiet a fun show and to this day I find myself bragging about that show, like “Half of our class got to do this prairie play by this Canadian playwright, we did a play about David Bowie”

Thomas: I would say – yeah, no, I – you, uh – I want to say: every night I get something different. Every night there’s a second or a line or a moment that’s transcendent and to pick one out would seem to diminish all the others so I’ll say the Brown Toast is a favourite memory because it was created by two of our friends in a morning and an evening and a morning out of total desperation and involved making a loaf of bread’s worth of toast onstage. And Jesse walking on stage without pants on. It was just this insane show, in fact: not only was it good enough to use it was great and they brought it back and they carried on with it.

Jesse: I liked the Nickel Studio because it was a cabaret setting so you couldn’t tell how many people didn’t show up, whereas in Unit 102 it’s all seats so it’s like, “This many people showed up!”

Thomas: But then at the final show of the last New Art Night we had to find chairs to fit more people in. There were so many people.

Thomas: It’s says he wants us to describe New Art Night in three adjectives, what if we each said an adjective and – uh…

Jesse: Can I say a phrase?

Thomas: Yeah

Jesse: Okay, yeah, I can do one adjective. I don’t wanna start, but –

(silence)

Thomas: Brave.

Jesse: Courageous.

Alexi: Passionate.

Thomas: Do we have anything we want to share with us? With “us?” Andrew, you’re the only person who runs this. Us! Oh, the audeince is us.

(laughter)

Thomas: A story, a photo, a song, a video, these can be plural.

Jesse: Yeah.

(silence)

Thomas: I suppose we should get the Stop Playing – er, “Stop Praying, Start Playing” recorded we could send that.

Jesse: Why not send him everything? You write him a story, Alexi paints him a photo, I’ll send him a song.

Alexi: WhoooOwww

Jesse: And then the video.

Thomas: Spit roast?

Jesse: Yeah, spit roast.

(indistinct mumbling, i.e. conspiracies)

Alexi: Okay. Okay.

Thomas: That’s not like a thing that you need to –

Jesse: That’s off the record.

Thomas: Yeah, that’s – let’s just not include that bit about spit roasting in the video. Um, that’s not something that needs to be audio recorded, so we’ll stop recording now as we’ve already given you more then half –

[end transmission]

dossier: Jordan Tannahill and William Ellis of VIDEOFAG

Jordan and I met a couple years ago, at a workshop of a mutual friend’s show. Since then we’ve continued to stay connected in some way or another, usually around performances and works-in-progress. When I started this blog up, I immediately thought of VIDEOFAG for a dossier entry. We tried to meet, but life was a little too unstable for us. Things kept getting pushed back and ultimately forgotten, until I was able to come by VIDEOFAG to see a “prototype” (more polished workshop term coined by Jacob Zimmer of Small Wooden Shoe) of a new Sky Gilbert show, To Myself at 28. Jordan invited me to stick around afterward for tea and so we could get this done. Thinking about it now, how serendipitous that it took another “workshop” to get us in the same space for an extended amount of time.

If you haven’t met the boys of VIDEOFAG, or if you haven’t been there to see their ever-changing programming, do yourself a favour and check it out. It’s arguably one of the more exciting new spaces in Toronto right now.

Alright, enough gushing. Here we go, with dossier #7:

Who are we talking with?

On the right: My name is William Ellis. One half of VIDEOFAG.

On the left: I’m Jordan Tannahill. We’re boyfriends and proprietors of VIDEOFAG.

Co-owners of the space?

William: Co-renters. And co-programmers / curators.

What else do you guys do?

William: I’m an actor.

Jordan: I’m a playwright and director.

Tell us what keeps you going, in other words, why do you do what you do?

William: I think, ultimately,  I’m interested in stories, people’s stories. That’s both fictional and people who are working through things. As an actor you get to embody these stories and relate it to your own life.

Jordan: I think I’m just naturally a curious person. I love being challenged and I think art making allows me to pursue my curiosities and surprise myself and challenge my assumptions. Having this space is almost, like, you never have to have a Netflix account. We can just sit in our living room and just watch the most incredible performances in Toronto. And I think in a way it’s about nurturing ourselves as artists as much as it is about building a community. I really do believe in the value of community building and creating opportunities for my friends.

It’s a lot of work running VIDEOFAG, but it always feels new. Every project we put on, there’s new challenges and new rewards and so it doesn’t ever get, it never feels like we’re just doing 9 to 5. We’re building a space that we as artists want to see. We’re building our optimal experience.

What’s your earliest memory of wanting, or needing to do this kind of stuff?

William: Just playing when I was a kid. Just playing by myself and using my imagination. It wasn’t about being a performer or acting or anything or anyone even watching. It was just sort of going off into my own world or going off into the forest by myself. Just letting your imagination run wild, living in your own world.

Jordan: Yeah, I was the kind of kid who wandered a lot by himself all along the edges of the playground. I’d be thinking and singing to myself. When I was at my grandparents’ place, I’d be wandering through the woods by myself for long periods of time. I remember also making my own episode of Camp Caribou, I don’t know if you remember that show, and that was maybe when I was, like, 3, or maybe –

William: My god.

Jordan: I mean, I didn’t, like it wasn’t all staged and –

William: I was like peeing my pants when I was 3.

Jordan: We never had, we were never a camcorder family, so maybe that’s why I’m in performance because I was never playing with the family camcorder.

William: Did you have an audience?

Jordan: Not really. Although I feel like, (to William) you and I talked about this, but I think space making came very early, because I would always have stores and barber shops in our basement. I think a lot of kids do that.

William: Or like building forts? Our own little playhouse or something.

Jordan: I feel like VIDEOFAG is our adult fort.

William: Totally.

Just like the Storefront Theatre, Videofag is an amazing new development for this city’s art scene. The excitement for these new spaces is palpable. Tell us how Videofag came about?

Jordan: It seems like in the last four or five months specifically there seems to be this kind of renaissance of space. Speaking personally, I was actually really inspired by, specifically, what was happening in the visual art world. Visual arts has continually and regularly engaged with the DIY headspace since the get-go. I think a space like Double Double Land on Augusta, just up the street, that was hugely influential for us. The fact that people were making their homes into these spaces for community and for art presentation and art creation was really exciting, and that they were always innovatively being used, not just for rehearsal, or whatever, yoga classes, but they were actually being used as spaces where challenging work was being put on on a regular basis. I think FAG as well, Feminist Art Gallery, Allyson Mitchell and Dierdre Logue’s space that they run out of their home was a really inspiring model as well, the idea of just, having this space with a very strong mandate. They’re completely charting their own. They’re kind of making their own utopian political environment. That’s really inspiring.

William: [Art galleries] have been around for much longer as well. Judith Thompson mentioned in the 70s about these early spaces. I was reading an article last night about a bunch of underground art spaces that were on Augusta just two years ago. Most of them no longer exist. They were all sort of live-work art spaces that had a quick turn-over.

Jordan: I think that’s what sets up apart from a lot of the theatre spaces. It is borrowing often from more of a visual art model.

What kind of programming is Videofag interested in hosting?

Jordan: I always use the word transgressive. I think something that’s challenging maybe a marginalized or – whether because of form or content – wouldn’t otherwise get programmed at other institutions. We’re interested in works in progress or new ideas.

Is it always performance-based?

Jordan: We do a lot of video screenings, we do lots of lectures, talks, community dinners. We do function as kind of an art gallery. So we’re a totally omnivorous space.

We were talking about the idea of feral curation: the idea of artists will come to us, or we’ll come to artists. There’s no set model for how we engage. It’s very conversational. We just allow projects time to gestate. We find the right resources for that to happen and we also gift the space to artists. We host a lot of residencies and tailor them to a project’s needs because one size doesn’t fit all. That’s why we’re always so active and also why so much new work is being developed in the space because we’re totally flexible.

William: We’ve certainly been amazed at the different communities we’ve discovered in Toronto, and how many different people and how many different groups there are. I think a lot of traditional theatre spaces tend to tap into the same theatre audience and it’s not that big. There are all these other people doing interesting things.

Jordan: I think it’s important for us that VIDEOFAG be a place that’s accessible to artists of every age. Different generations. That it’s a space for conversations between generations, in both the queer community and the larger arts community. I think as young artists we can learn a lot from artists who have been doing this for a lot longer than we have.

What is your favourite memory so far in the development of Videofag or of the programming you’ve hosted?

(a brief pause as they look at each other; smiles on their lips.)

Jordan: I think we’re both thinking the same thing. It’s kind of legendary now. It’s become my favourite memory but it was horrifying.

William: It was horrifying. Oh my god. It was during Salvatore Antonio’s TRUTH/DARE event –

Jordan: – and Adamo Ruggiero’s –

William: – and they’d done a live reading of Madonna’s Truth or Dare documentary, and there were dance breaks during the show, and, our downstairs neighbour just came up at, like, 10:30 – 10:35, and the show had just ended and people were slowly drifting out and she, she came with her husband and with their friends, and sort of tried to shut the party down by unplugging the speakers. And then she –

Jordan: (noticing my mouth hanging open) It’s just getting started.

William: And then we were trying to tell her, we’re done, the show’s over, people are slowly leaving, and she just, like, lay down on the floor and had a panic attack, or, like, some sort of, like, we didn’t know if it was a seizure, or –

A tantrum?

Jordan: Tantrum is the perfect word for it. It was not medically induced, it was absolutely a performance of, like, exasperation.

William: It was so confusing because we didn’t know what to do or how serious it was. And so I called 911, and paramedics came, and people just sort of, you know,  were just watching.

Jordan: And all of these hunky paramedics came in, and it was funny because it was like this gay porn fantasy, and they were escorting her away. And it was just this bizarre end to this 3-day amazing show. It was just this surreal encounter between the Toronto Art World and, and our neighbours. Lovely people, and we’re constantly in negotiation with [them]. So, anyways, that was definitely a memorable evening.

Amazing.

Now usually I would ask about what kinds of shows we can look forward to. 

But because I took a bit longer to get this post live, the shows Jordan and William plugged when I interviewed them are either just about to happen or have passed.

So, instead of me transcribing that portion, I’ll just divert you to VIDEOFAG’s website and Facebook page to keep up-to-date with the many, many events they have planned. It’s really this hugely mixed bag of goodies, kind of like those mystery grab-bags you may have bought from a corner store as a kid. I’m sure something will raise an eyebrow.

Alright.

Wasn’t that a lovely talk?

- AG

extra dossier: Guy Doucette and Katrina Carey for WAYDUT

Today’s dossier is an extension of dossier #5 with Natalie Frijia. After re-connecting with Guy Doucette, a peer from theatre-school days, and talking about the What Are You Doing Up There? festival I’ve become awed at the scope of it. Around 30 acts across 3 evenings, each one different. It stands aside from other festivals because the performers hang about throughout the event to meet people and just have a good time instead of disappearing behind the curtain after their 10-minute slot. It is quite remarkable. 

After this, I got in touch with Katrina Carey through an absolutely lovely “over-the-phone-coffee-date.” We also connected over the simplicity and fun this festival is all about. I’ve transcribed the majority of it below.

So, without any more possible ado, I present dossier #5.1:

Guy Doucette

Katrina Carey

Who are we talking with?

Guy Doucette and Katrina Carey – 2013 WAYDUT Festival Coordinators

What drew you to this? (to theatre, to WAYDUT, to each other, to wherever you are right now?)

Guy: Working in the arts has been something I’ve been drawn to since I was in elementary school. I got into public speaking and choir in grade 4, and then later a school musical. It snowballed from there. SO the road that brought me to meet Katrina Carey and Natalie Frijia started a little over 20 years ago. The traveling companionship has never been better!

Katrina: My mother would tell you that I came out of her womb singing and performing. It was just always a part of who I was. I was the black sheep of the family in that way. At Christmastime I wanted to dance and sing carols where everyone else wanted to sit around and watch Christmas movies. I grew up in B.C. in a small town called Port Coquitlam, and when I moved to Toronto I started finding people like me, that loved to perform, that just loved everything about theatre and that moving people to think things and feel things through art. That’s what really drew me to it: finding kindred spirits in the arts, I guess.

Guy, why What Are You Doing Up There? Haven’t I heard of this festival before, but with a slightly different name?

Guy: This is the festival’s third venue. The first was an open concept basement apartment that was converted into a theatre space several times throughout the year – people used to walk by and crane their heads and sometimes peek in through the window when they heard music or actors shouting. When you keep seeing people coming to or leaving a house in costume you can’t help but wander over to see “what is going on”. So, since it was in the basement we called the festival “What Are You Doing DOWN There?!”. Our next venue took us to the back space of the Queen on Dominion Bar, transforming to ‘BACK There!?’ and now… you guessed it, Siren Rock Studios is UP on the second floor of a multi-studio building on Sterling Avenue.

Katrina, what drew you to this festival? Is there something about it that really excites you?

Katrina: Oh yeah. It’s the bringing together of any and all facets of art that really appeals to me. I dabble in a little bit of painting myself, I play the guitar, I sing, I act, I do a little bit of everything, I puppeteer, and to be able to bring all of that into one festival that’s not specific to one medium really speaks to me. The first festival that I was involved in, I believe it was the maybe the first or second year that they were going, and I was an emerging artist myself, and had nowhere to go to perform, um, out of fear. I didn’t want to go to an open mic. I didn’t want to do anything above my artistic level at that time and that festival really opened the doors for me to start showcasing my work.

Back Burner has humble and quite charming origins. Tell us your favourite story from the house.

Guy: Living at 11 Lonsdale and converting it into the In House Theatre for four seasons certainly created many a story – so it’s hard to choose any one singular moment as my favorite. Certainly holding rehearsals on the front lawn in summer time as people passed by and watched will be some of my favorite moments. Teaching other artists (and even some neighbours!) how to stilt in the back parking lot and up and down the street is ranked very high , not to mention the community meals, the after-hours jams and once even doing a recording of a special kitchen object musical symphony as part of weekend project called “The Kitchen Collectives”. [Also,] dancing and then joining in singing with the great punk-grass band The Stables from Oshawa back in 2008. Anyone who has ever had the pleasure of meeting them and hearing their music can agree that that not only are they terrific people, they make phenomenal toe-tapping, get you up and dancing music!

Katrina: Do I have a favourite story from the house? God. Not at the moment. I think what I really loved about the festival in the house, and especially when I was living there, was how we transformed the main floor of the house, or the basement into a theatre and getting up in the morning and going downstairs into an art gallery, into a theatre was so inspiring. I could totally be one of those eccentric old ladies that lives in a loft above a theatre in the abbey. I think that probably for me, personally, that was one of things that I really enjoyed. And the energy that always just stayed after the shows.

What is the earliest memory you have of wanting, or needing to do this?

Guy: People have the capacity to bring great change into the world through creativity – if they are only given the chance. Coming out of York University in 2006, I saw many emerging and mature artists of all kinds, but rarely did I find events where they all converged to share their works. Festivals have always been a great way to bring people together in celebration. My knowledge had at first been primarily with theatre festivals and indeed the first winter festival in 2007, was comprised of 5 theatre shorts, but it soon grew as the festival opened to artists to all walks of life. It was during those early months out of University that I really became aware of needing to help create the festival.

Katrina: My parents always tried to get me into sports, and all the, you know, the regular piano lessons and things that you do just ’cause you do, and I had a good friend who was in dance classes, and her mother was my babysitter, and I had to sit in on one of her dance classes one day, just ’cause there was nowhere else for me to go, and I watched it go down, and I was probably about 6 years old, and something just hit into my spirit and said, This is what I want to do, and I remember going home to my mom and going, “I want to do dance lessons. I want to do that.”

In a sentence, tell us what to expect from WAYDUT.

Guy: Expect to see the arts through a kaleidoscope – dance, theatre, music… they all spin into one another to create a spectacular festival experience you won’t ever forget!

Katrina: Expect the unexpected.

Describe the event in three adjectives or phrases.

Guy: Welcoming, Vibrant and Unforgettable.

There’s something for everybody.

Katrina: Ugh. You’re asking the girl that can never find the right word at the right moment. Um. What’s the word for when people… oh god. Ecclectic… it’s kind of like Cheers. Anybody can come in there and have a good time. Any walk of life, there’s something for everybody. There’s one: there’s something for everybody.

Do you have anything you want to share with us? A story? A photo? A song? A video?

Guy: Here is a video from one of our past arts festivals! It features Lane Argue from the Living Art on guitar. Shadow puppets and performance by Craig Morrison, Krista Dalby and myself (Guy Doucette)

—

And of my own accord, because they just posted this video today of what happened last night at WAYDUT, I’ll embed this video featuring SideBoxNation, Jeff Giles and Princess Penelope Pamplemousse: