dossiers – Page 2 – a field of crowns

dossier: Marie France Forcier of Forcier Stage Works for IN absentia

Slowly but surely, it seems, I’m getting to all of the current and past ADs of hub14. The amount my hub colleagues work is astounding to me, and I feel like I can never keep up with their ability to constantly produce. At least, in terms of this project. I’m happy about what my dossiers can do, but sometimes they feel inadequate as I keep wanting to promote the amazing work folks like Heidi Strauss, Cathy Gordon and Kate Nankervis are doing. This project, however, would get overrun with the same names too quickly, and that’s definitely not the direction I want to take this. I want each dossier to be unique.

I am lucky to be working closely behind the scenes at hub14 with Marie France Forcier. She radiates a maternal energy, one that is always in control and capable of steering the ship safely through the storm. She helps bring stability to what can otherwise easily turn into chaos, and the amount of trust she has in others is admirable. I can only imagine what it’s like to work with her creatively.

Enough gushing, on to dossier #25:

Marie France Forcier

Who are we talking to?

Marie France Forcier, artistic director of Forcier Stage Works (forcierstageworks.com) and MFA candidate in Dance at York University; co-artistic director at Hub 14. Montreal-born and raised, Toronto-based for the last decade. Graduate of The School of Toronto Dance Theatre’s professional training program, performer, writer, pedagogue, road warrior but most predominantly choreographer ever since. Academically researching the expression of trauma and dissociative states in contemporary choreography.

What gets you going in the morning?

Since I started my grad studies while keeping up my professional life? The sheer fear of not being able to stay on top of an ever growing pile of work! …In all seriousness: the excitement I feel about my work and my research.

What is your earliest memory of realizing, yep, this is what I’m going to do with my life?

I was in my first of a three year as a double major in Psych and Dance at CEGEP de St-Laurent in Montreal. I noticed that the director of the dance department and senior dance majors were addressing me with the assumption that I was planning on a career in dance.

I’d always vaguely dreamt of it as I was growing up, without ever allowing myself to believe that I had the chops. Finding out that others thought that my going in that direction was plausible allowed me to get there myself.

Have there been times you seriously question why you pursue this lifestyle/art form? If so, what was it that keeps you in it, or has brought you back?

I never question why I do. The drive is always very present although it constantly renews and redefines itself. There certainly are times when the hardships that come with a career in the live arts seem to outweigh the benefits, but those dips never make disconnect with the impetus.

Why IN absentia?

Three choreographic projects make up my MFA’s practical component: an autobiographic solo in studio theatre, an ensemble work for the proscenium stage and a self-produced dance event including the candidate’s choreography off campus. IN absentia is my off campus production. My choreographic contribution to the program is entitled Levity as IN (absentia); it is a short duet, it explores the experience of dissociative states in the presence of the other, revealing the dissonance that creates for the viewer.

My piece being less than 15 minutes long, and since I had Hub 14 for the event at my disposal, I figured: why not create a mixed program, providing an opportunity for other artists to present new work in a casual setting? Lucy Rupert (Blue Ceiling dance) and Brandy Leary (Anandam) are prolific creators, whom I admire and have know through collaborations on various projects. Heather Berry-MacPhail has been a pillar in my work since Forcier Stage Works’ inception.

Half Second Echo is an emerging collective of recent York dance graduates. Offering them a spot addresses my personal mandate to create opportunities for the emergence wherever I can.

In the year that followed my own graduation years ago, I was blessed with opportunities that kept me active and persevering in a competitive world. I am very grateful to those who provided me with such opportunities; the first year often determines the course of a career; whether the young person will persevere in the arts or abandon. I believe that returning the favor is a good way to make the dance community sustainable, on a micro-level.

Anandam_2013_021 — Dancers Heather Berry-MacPhail, Justine Comfort (photo credit: Walter Lai)

What kind of atmosphere do you wish to create with IN absentia?

With Levity as IN (absentia), I am creating an atmosphere where coping mechanisms keep the characters standing. Where “retreating within following an episode of trauma” becomes the new normal. Where they have to share physical space with one other, externally present, internally elsewhere, trapped in a snapshot that may never be successfully processed; in absentia.

The other pieces on the program will bring their own atmospheres.

This is part of your MFA thesis work with York University. Did you ever think your work would bring you to IN absentia?

It has been a gradual process. The awareness that my own history of trauma had been seeping through the symbolism in my choreographic work arose within me over the course of 2 years or so, in phases. This insight about my own work led to my decision to dedicate my MFA research to the expression of post-traumatic stress in choreography. The process for Levity as IN (absentia) is a part of that.

What’s your favourite story about working on this project?

Levity as IN (absentia) is a work that has been in progress for nine months now, re-adapted twice for presentation over the course of that period. The most recent one was presented at Collective Space in Toronto, where the walls are curved, and the two dancers were climbing, reaching for unattainable levity, and sliding off walls as a choreographic feature. It was fun to watch, playful despite the contrasting content.

Describe IN absentia in three adjectives, a phrase, or with sound.

An assignment adapted for the better into a community event.

Do you have anything else you’d like to share? Photos, videos, links, posters, stories, wishes?

dossier: Claire Hill of Safeword Theatre for DONORS

Well, it’s been a while.

The flurry of the end of summer festivals and the prospect of a new space in the city has left me wondering when I’d get time again to devote to this dossier project. I knew it would naturally come up, and I never had any intentions of letting it fall into obscurity, but sometimes time management kicks in and forces my hand in the direction of those things that require a bit more of my physical presence. What with hub14’s Community Chest residency with Adriana Disman’s LINK & PIN starting up, the hub14 Halloween Party and my theatre band’s first show at Theatre Caravel’s Sea Change (as well as that aforementioned “new space”) I’ve had very little time to search for those exciting new shows cropping up all over the city.

Funny then that the first dossier back is of an artist who’s been quite engrained in the very reasons this project has been on hold.

I met Claire Hill this past summer at the Fringe Tent in Honest Ed’s Alley. Mutual friend Brandon Crone introduced me to her as basically the second half of Safeword Theatre. Safeword has a history of working with hub14, producing their first play TURTLENECK there, and I’m happy to know they are coming back for their sophomore production DONORS this week! (EDIT: although after reading her answers, it seems I was at the same edition of Monday Night of New Works as she was, because I remember her saying that and remember hearing Brandon’s script…)

I recently had the pleasure of working with Claire directly: ON AND ON (my theatre band) engaged her to design our costumes for our initial performance at the last SEA CHANGE (pictures and more info coming soon!).

So, without further ado, I am very proud to bring you our first scenographer on the site, dossier #24:

Claire Hill, photo by Chris Cater — Photo by Chris Cater

Who are we talking to?

Claire Hill. Set Designer, scenographer, carpenter, techie, admin monkey.

What gets you going in the morning?

Literally? Coffee and my mother yelling at me to get out of bed. I don’t really believe in mornings and will do anything to avoid being awake for them. In the grander sense of what gets me going, I’d say it’s the desire to work with the people I love. I feel very lucky to be in a community with people who are not only easy to work with but fun to work with.

What is your earliest memory of realizing, yep, this is what I’m going to do with my life?

It comes and goes at different phases of my career. I realized I should be in theatre (just in general) half way through second year of University, while writing an essay about something I hated, probably Wittgenstein, and staring off into the room for about twenty minutes and realizing I needed to switch majors before I died of boredom.

I’ve always been a firm believer that you should try many other things before you commit to a life in theatre, and that it needs to be the thing you must do.

Have there been times you seriously question why you pursue this lifestyle/art form? If so, what was it that keeps you in it, or has brought you back?

Constantly. Design is a difficult career. I started as a technician and learned scenic carpentry so I would know HOW things are built and could interact with technical staff. I had a great time in theatre school but when I graduated and worked professionally I was very frustrated, and I encountered problems I never could have prepared for. After my first year working as a technician I’d had enough, and was very discouraged about the arts in general, so I went back to school and completely relocated and changed everything in my life. Whenever I’ve been discouraged it usually had something to do with the scene of the city I was in, so I’ve moved around a lot and tried different places. I’ve tried a lot of different paths in theatre from techie to admin to design to academic. After I lived out west and only designed a few tiny projects, I came back to Toronto and found a community I really connect with. I love the variety and freedom I have here. This is the first time I feel like I’ve worked with like-minded folk. A professor of mine told me you need to find your tribe, and I think that is a very important element in making a design career work.

Why DONORS?

The obvious answer is that it’s Brandon Crone, who I would pretty much walk over hot coals for. The rest of it is that I love this script, I love the freedom he gives me as a scenographer to create what is best for the play. The trust is really there between us now that we’ve worked together and there’s a strong give and take between us. Very few directors give you absolute freedom to essentially design anything that comes to your mind, but he gives me that.

What kind of atmosphere do you wish to create with DONORS?

Dirty and uneasy. This script makes my skin crawl, and when I first finished reading it I kind of wanted to take a mental bath. I’m a very clean person, very organized and meticulous, so this set is my way of throwing that away and embracing a bit of chaos and a lot of mess. The challenge in design is to create an atmosphere that illustrates the mood of the show but doesn’t foreshadow the events of the play, so it’s a delicate balancing act. Then there’s just the fact that I want to do something people haven’t seen.

donors maquette — DONORS set maquette by Claire Hill

One of my major goals as a designer is to prove that Indie design can be scenographic, affordable, fresh and of the same caliber as professional design. I am so bored with black stages and ugly risers and flats. I encounter so many people who think that as soon as they make cuts to the budget the first thing that goes is set design- and of course if you’re working with realism the set is going to be the first thing you cut. But if the team is willing to do away with realism there is so much freedom. I have a long list of cheap materials I want to use and am slowly going through it. This time it was twigs and sticks and chicken wire, last time it was clear shower curtains. Fortunately I build what I design, I even have a garage at my parent’s house and a very willing recently retired father who drives me around to get materials. I essentially got this set for free because we sourced it all through people who were throwing things away. Then we built it at home.

How did you and Brandon Crone meet?

I met Brandon through his roommate, Alex Dault (of Single Thread Theatre Company). Three weeks after moving here my good friend took me out to Monday Night of New Works, and we were going around the circle introducing ourselves and I started by saying, “I can build things” and before I knew it Alex literally leaped across the room at me, business card in hand, insisting I get in touch with him. Brandon wasn’t at that edition of Monday Night but Alex was sent with a script from one of Brandon’s plays and when we read it, I was floored. I knew I had to track Brandon down, so I went to another reading the following week at Canadian Stage and basically walked up to him and was like, “I’m Claire. I’m bored. I want to design your sets.” I think that may be the oddest introduction I’ve ever made, but Brandon is the kind of person who rolls with that, so we met a while later about Turtleneck and his warmth and excitement made me really want to be a part of what he does.

Do you have a favourite story so far in regards to working together in the past?

Last winter, while working on Turtleneck, we opened during a snow storm. I had to run to Midoco at Bloor and Bathurst and get some big white sheets of foamcore to cover the windows adequately, so I did that. Of course when I got on the streetcar with two big pieces of foamcore as tall as me and the width of my armspan no one was happy. When I finally fought my way off at Queen I walked down this little alley way to Hub14, and tried to approach the building but was literally blown away. The foamcore was like a sail, and I just started wailing for help. Everyone inside thought I’d slipped on the steps up to the building and broken something, so they were pretty amused when they opened the door and found me struggling against the wind, being blown back about five feet, with these huge pieces of foamcore.

I also made the (slightly regrettable) decision to use the real doors of hub14 to the outside and make Brandon stage things on the fire escape in the middle of February. Basically, I didn’t feel like building a false wall with fake doors, and I’d been living in Victoria for two years and forgotten what a Toronto winter is like. The actors were so amazing about that though, and all of them had to sit in a tiny shed with just a space heater during snow storms and bitterly cold nights. Brandon stood outside for the opening scene of every play and assured people on the street that when our actors were screaming at each other it was just for a play, and not real domestic violence. I think it worked out though, since that was an element of the staging audiences really responded to.

Describe DONORS in three adjectives, a phrase, or with sound.

Donors is a rat in your walls. It chews a hole inside, nests its way through your insulation and your things and your food and keeps you up at night as it crawls around. It makes you angry and grosses you out and sends you off on a murderous rampage, but when you finally encounter the little bastard in the walls, there’s a sad humanity in its eyes that you can’t deny, and you almost feel bad for what you have to do.

Do you have anything else you’d like to share? Photos, videos, links, posters, stories, wishes?

This, obviously.

http://www.safeword.ca/#!productions/cezk

And this, because I think more Scenographers and designers should model themselves off of the fearless Honey Badger.

DONORS Trailer #2:

donors image

dossier: Jess Taylor for The EW Reading Series

Today’s entry in the dossier series sees it branching away from the overwhelming majority of posts focused on theatre creators (you’d think I’m in theatre or something) and brings it into the territory of those artists most people don’t think would get up on stage to perform their art. The EW Reading Series was introduced to me by my then-roommate, and poet, Matthew Walsh as a poetry jam. I showed up, unsure of what to expect. It was my first time attending a poetry jam. I thought everyone would be drinking wine and I’d be expected to snap after each poem.

This wasn’t the case. And I was surprised to learn it wasn’t just a poetry jam, but a laid-back, party-esque event that celebrated writers of all forms.

What’s funny is that, although it was Matthew who introduced me to this event and to Jess, a few months later Jess independently moved into the same house we lived in (and I still live in). Just a couple floors up.

So, even though one roommate moved away, he, this event and Jess remain relatively, and literally, close to me.

Enough said.

I’d like you to meet my upstairs neighbour.

dossier #23:

—

Jess Taylor

Who are we talking to?

I’m Jess Taylor! Hello. I’m a Toronto-based writer and events promoter. I also do art, play music, and teach the youth.

What gets you going in the morning?

I like being busy and keep my life jam-packed. So usually before I open my eyes, I already am thinking about everything I’m going to do that day. I wake up full of anticipation. I make coffee, I hug my cat, and then I get to work. It makes me incredibly happy most of the time.

What is your earliest memory of realizing, yep, I need to write?

I’ve always been a storyteller, but I first started writing things down in grades two and three. I began with poetry, then started writing stories in grade four. Before that, I told stories through pictures and art. I did the usual nerdy writer-kid stuff – like start a poetry club in grade six, start writing weird novels about mice and parallel universes, and made zines in high school. I spent a lot of high school as part of gigging band, The Big Man Himself, but I still saw writing lyrics and the management of the band as contributing to a writing career somehow. I went to high school at Mayfield School of the Arts with a focus in Visual Arts, but I also brought text (either poetry or prose I had written) into my visual work. It all fit together for me.

Why The EW Reading Series?

When I moved to Toronto, I was really shocked by the literary scene here. It was part of the reason I moved. I’d started at U of T for their English in the Field of Creative Writing MA and was automatically included in a community of current students and alumni. I’d been missing that in Burlington, where I’d been living before, and at York University in their undergraduate creative writing program. I wanted to get involved any way I could. My first idea was to use my management and publication background (making zines and working for Existere Magazine at York) to start a micropress for work by emerging writers.

I’ve always believed in running my writing career like how I ran the band: working extremely hard, putting out a lot of content (but content I’m proud of), putting on shows, and – if something isn’t getting done – just doing it myself. So I thought I’d make chapbooks and then sell them at shows to make back the production costs (not really thinking about doing a special “launch” but just running a show every so often). I never got funding for my second year of the MA and was really poor, so getting a press started would be difficult and I gave up on the idea (for the meantime at least).

But I still wanted to do shows. No one knew who I was in Toronto. More accurately, I was a young young emerging emerging writer… I was no one. Nobody was going to ask me to read at their series or even really cared what I was working on. At the time, it seemed that series with curated programming tended to be reserved for more established writers, and younger writers were expected to scope out open mics, stay home and work on their craft instead of seeing performance as part of their craft.

So I decided to start a series. I went and talked to a couple venues. Duffy’s Tavern was really close to my house and was free. I had read there as part of a variety show, and the sound system was decent. I gave myself two months to plan the first show, booking it in January with the first show running March 2012. After that it took off. I now book up months in advance and have a submissions process.

Since I started the series, other series have popped up that feature emerging writers. Some of these series started before my series, but I wasn’t aware of them before I was running mine. I think having so many series in the city really enriches the community. There’s enough crowd to go around, and they are events people want to attend.

I named my series The Emerging Writers Reading Series to make it clear what the series was all about. I call it by its short form “EW” because I think it’s funny. It gets across the sense of play that I look for when curating. I want writers who have a good time writing and will have a good time performing.

What can someone expect when going to EW? What kind of atmosphere do you wish to create?

I found a lot of reading series around the city to be really serious, very quiet. I liked it when I was in the mood for that atmosphere, but I knew for a reading series geared towards emerging writers the atmosphere needed to be different. I drew a lot of inspiration from Pivot, where people could sit with people they didn’t know and make new friends and connections. I wanted to have that sense of inclusiveness, but have even more hype, even more of a raucous environment.

At the beginning, I did this a few ways. I would say hello to everyone who came, introducing myself to people who I hadn’t met before. I would try to introduce people to each other on break and before and after the show. I made a long break between the first half and the second half of the show to encourage people to start conversations. I hosted with a high energy style that tried to show that I cared about each of my readers, that I cared about them as people and as writers, and that I had a great respect for their work, even though they were at the early stages of their careers. The readers and I used to take a shot of tequila either after the show or on break as a bonding experience.

My hosting style has more or less stayed the same, and I think the atmosphere is the same too. The one thing that has changed is that the audience has developed a life of its own. People introduce me to newcomers now. There are too many people for me to introduce myself to everybody, and while there is a steady group of regulars, I get new faces at every show. And a lot of those faces come back. The venue fills up almost completely, so that people have to stand. That already lends a certain excitement to the show, something that no curating or hosting can control. I don’t do readers’ shots anymore because not everyone drinks alcohol and now I often work the next day. I pay my readers and give them two drink tickets. I also become the “drink ticket fairy” and drop drink tickets on unsuspecting members of the audience, convincing them to stay out later at the show’s after party.

The level of quality has stayed consistent as well. The city has a lot of talented and ambitious young writers in it, and I’m always amazed at how good the sets are. I curate each show, but I now have an assistant fiction curator, Sofia Mostaghimi.

What is your favourite memory from a past EW show?

My first show was probably my favourite because it showed me I wasn’t a complete hack; I could really run a series and I could fill a venue and everything would be ok.

Most recently, we ran BIG on Bloor Emerging Writers Past Readers Showcase, and I was thrilled. No one went over their allotted time, people gave great readings, and it was neat seeing EW at a different time (the daytime!!!) and in a different location. It allowed me to dream about it, wondering how big EW might become and what direction I’ll decide to take it.

Describe The EW Reading Series in three adjectives, a phrase, or with sound.

Our slogan: Read! Listen! Have fun!

Do you have anything else you’d like to share? Photos, videos, links, posters, stories, wishes?

Our website: http://www.ewreading.com

My website: http://www.jesstaywriter.com

I blog for The Town Crier about other people’s reading series: http://town-crier.ca

Come check out our first show of the fall season: September 10th, 2013 at Duffy’s Tavern. 8pm, PWYC. Facebook event: https://www.facebook.com/events/221493711333479/229475087202008/?notif_t=like

I have a wish for all of my past readers: never stop writing or reading your work. I book you because I think you’re fantastic, and I can’t wait to see where we all end up as our careers progress.

dossier: Adam Lazarus for The Art of Building a Bunker / SummerWorks

As SummerWorks gets ready to open, and as the performers are applying the last of their pre-audience polish to their shows, I am trying to figure out my schedule and how to fit everything in. Just like the artists’ minds before opening a show, there is always so much to do and not enough time to do it.

Luckily, I was able to connect with Adam Lazarus a couple times this year about interviewing him for this site. The first was for The Toronto Festival of Clowns, but, as it goes when you are organizing a festival, time just disappears. Adam then got in contact with me shortly after the festival to do something for his SummerWorks show. I said I’d be more than happy. We gave each other so much time! Almost too much time… I almost forgot about it, this time.

But! Here we are: a day before the festival, and a dossier for proof. I’m very excited to share this honest and humourous dossier with you today. The first time I saw Adam he was dressed as a recently deceased Vladimir Lenin who took to haunting a soldier stuck in a boxcar of a motionless train on its way to Tyumen. I remember it well. It was definitely one of my top Fringe experiences that year.

Enough said. Here we go, with dossier #22:

Who are we talking to?

Adam Lazarus. Born and raised in Toronto. Theatre maker, teacher, husband, father. Travelled around, learned some here and there and then started making shows. I love actors and creative thinkers. I love problems and the process of finding possible solutions.

What drew you down this path? (to theatre, to this particular show, to wherever the hell you are in life)

Bunker is born out of a meditation on my difficulty functioning in the world — I’m too sensitive, I’m not always a great communicator, I’m not well read enough, I’m misunderstood, I’m moody, I’m angry, I’m defensive, I’m an egomaniac, I’m an underdog, I’m private. I want a better world and can’t do anything about it. I want my family to be safe. I want to take more naps.

More generally, I wanted to write a show about how people are tricky.

What is your earliest memory of realizing, yep, this is what I’m going to do with my life?

I’ve always been a bit of a masochist with art. I like impossible situations and put pressure on projects to fulfill an impossible artistic desire — to fully fulfill. If a project doesn’t, I change angles for the next venture. What I’m doing with my life is always changing and evolving. I’ve never had an absolute, resolved moment of career realization. I just keep working: I love acting, writing, directing, teaching, studying, producing, gardening, hiking, swimming. I do them all and then some.

Why The Art of Building a Bunker or Paddling the Canoe of Myself Down the River of Inclusivity and Into the Ass of the World?

As a title? Cause it’s funny and you remember it. Or at least remember that it’s the long titled show.

As a show? Cause that’s what we’re all doing right now – we’re building our bunkers, our safe spaces, and happy places. We do it to protect ourselves from, or to function better within, this complicated world we’re living in.

What kind of atmosphere do you intend to set up, or can someone expect when attending BUNKER?

Prepare to enter the mind of Elvis Goldstein. It’s a little noisy in there. And funny and sad and confused.

How did you and Guillermo Verdecchia meet?

I met him outside the theatre a few years ago. We were introduced. We shared a few jokes. A beautiful relationship blossomed.

Have you two ever co-created a show before? If so, what drew you back together? If not, how did this all get started?

This is our first time working together. Guillermo is a deep and intelligent thinker, and a fantastic storyteller. He’s also very funny. Really, it evolved naturally. We got into a room, started improvising, and now we’re premiering the workshop presentation of our play 8 months later.

What is your favourite memory from a past Summerworks experience?

In 2011, Susanna Hood’s Shudder. I love her work. That, and winning the Spotlight award for my bouffon show Wonderland…

Describe BUNKER in three adjectives, a phrase, or with sound.

AAAAAHHHHH!!!! WAAAHHHH!!!! HAHAHAHA!

Do you have anything else you’d like to share? Photos, videos, links, posters, stories, wishes?

Early on in rehearsals, Guillermo and I listened to this terrifying and mesmerizing woman rant about the world for 20 mintues. As Guillermo puts it, she became our spirit guide as we ventured along the rivers of our bile and toward the shores of our spleens.

http://youtu.be/wLoqti0lzAw

Here’s the poster of the show (click on the image to be taken to its SummerWorks profile):