shows and events – Page 22 – a field of crowns

announcing…

Today I am writing with exciting news indeed: in a month’s time, my next original piece of theatre and very first attempt at writing, producing and performing a one-person show, totem., will be premiering at the Hamilton Fringe! For its tenth season, the Hamilton Fringe has decided to expand into a few art galleries across the city, and I’m proud to have totem. be part of this inaugural addition to an already bustling festival.

This is my first full piece of new writing in a little over a year. It began its life as the product of an exercise in Steady State Theatre’s bi-weekly writer’s circle and an excerpt from it made its premiere at Theatre Caravel’s Sea Change. I’ve now teamed up with friend and colleague Kallee Lins, a director / dancer / academic, to take my words from page to mind and body. I’m really curious to see how it goes!

I’ve attached the press release below so you can learn a bit more about it. And check back often for updates!

Cheers!

—

For Immediate Release: June 17^th, 2013

Media Contact: Andrew Gaboury

Phone: 647-404-2994

https://afieldofcrowns.wordpress.com

a field of crowns debuts its premier production, “totem.” at the 2013 Hamilton Fringe Festival’s Gallery Mini-Series

a field of crowns is excited to bring its debut performance to the Hamilton Fringe Festival’s inaugural Gallery Mini-Series. totem. draws inspiration from the tempestuous active-narration inherent in stream-of-conscious writing, as well as the lyricality of spoken-word poetry. In the endeavor of theatricality, writer/performer Andrew Gaboury and director Kallee Lins have embraced physical theatre and dance to help punctuate the world of the piece and emotional journey therein.

a field of crowns is the brand of Toronto-based theatre artist Andrew Gaboury. totem. marks the first step of taking a field of crowns from a screen-name and website to a producing theatre company. totem. is a collaboration between performer/playwright Andrew Gaboury (who recently appeared as Giles in The Mousetrap at the Lower Ossington Theatre, and will appear as Borachio in Much Ado About Nothing at the 2013 Toronto Fringe) and director Kallee Lins (who will be pursuing her PhD on “the body in performance as a means of theorizing the socio-political world” this fall at York University). Andrew and Kallee are artists interested in working in cross-disciplinary platforms; Andrew working mainly in lyrical wordplay and physical movement and Kallee focused on the possibilities of performance art and dance. Together, they are both excited by the animation of space and presenting performance in non-traditional venues.

totem. is an exploration of one man’s emotional, mental landscape as he confronts his crumbling relationship and is presented with a surreal manifestation of his ideals. It plays at the James North Studio Gallery from July 19^th– 21^st.

totem.

at the Hamilton Fringe Festival Gallery Mini-Series

Written and Performed by Andrew Gaboury

Directed by Kallee Lins

James North Studio – 328 James Street North, Hamilton ON

Friday, July 19^th – 7:30pm

Friday, July 19^th – 9:00pm

Saturday, July 20^th – 4:30pm

Saturday, July 20^th – 7:45pm

Saturday, July 20^th – 9:15pm

Sunday, July 21^st – 3:45pm

Sunday, July 21^st – 5:15pm

Sunday, July 21^st – 8:30pm

Tickets: $8.00 (with a $4.00 Fringe Backer button required)

For Advance Online Tickets: www.hamiltonfringe.ca/tickets

Approximately 20 minutes

LATECOMERS WILL NOT BE ADMITTED

dossier: Coyote Collective for ICARUS DANCES WITH THE SUN

Today’s dossier is an exciting one. The folks of Coyote Collective have such a vigour and passion for generating work that I can’t really say anything to add to the following dossier. The only thing I know is I’ve spent much time with Max Tepper, who is an unbelievably encouraging fellow, and some time with Susannah, Blue, Garett and Eric at various events and parties and you can see, just by looking at them, just by talking with them, that they have that spark behind their eyes.

Their most recent production, ICARUS DANCES WITH THE SUN will make it’s premiere THIS SUNDAY, June 16th as part of Clay and Paper Theatre’s Annual Dufferin-Grove Park event DAY OF DELIGHT! Outdoor theatre! Beautiful weather! A park! Coyote-pelt-masks! Check it out!

Ahem. Here is dossier #13:

Who are we talking with?

Susannah Mackay, Blue Bigwood-Mallin, Max Tepper, Eric Welch, and Garett Oliver. The young pups of Coyote Collective!

What drew you down the path to physical theatre?

Susannah – Art has always been a huge part of my life; I was dancing and painting before I could read or write! I suppose I was drawn down this specific path because of the complexity and wholeness of theatre as an experience. There is also something intoxicating and mysterious about theatre; it is so all encompassing and tangible in the moment and then -POOF!- its gone once the house lights come back up. I think this nebulous quality is what has always drawn me into theatre and continues to do

Blue – I think the way someone gets drawn into any artistic form is seeing a piece of art or an aspect of that type of work and having their perceptions moved because of it. I found myself on the physical-creation side of theatre as I was drawn to many other artists that worked this way. I was also drawn into their forms and modes of expression and from there began to work on directing, writing and acting as a way to test out these various modes.

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

Blue – I first became interested in acting when I was around 8 or 9 years old and saw the Jim Carrey movie “Me, Myself and Irene”. The images of him fighting himself and being ridiculous made me think “I want to be able to do that”, to have the ability to make people laugh was very important to me as a child and after seeing the movie I got involved with the island group Shadowland and scored my first major role as a paper-maché fish.

Max – I completely relate with Blue in wanting to make people laugh being the biggest contributor to my desire to perform. My parents used to joke with the other parents when I was growning up. They would go on about whose child would grow up to be a doctor or a lawyer, and my parents would always say: “Yeah… Max is probably going to do stand-up and smoke cigarettes.”

How did Coyote Collective come to be?

Susannah – Despite being current Artistic Director, I didn’t found the company! I’m told it was conceived after a few too many drinks at the TPM Backspace bar and a shortlist of favourite collaborators. However, I can say we have remained together because all of us have a love of essential, simplistic work and dark, comedic honesty. I think each member has a perspective that is, to be frank, a little cracked, a little strange, and a little wild at heart.

Why ICARUS DANCES WITH THE SUN?

Max – Blue had been working on this Icarus character for about a year now. A stiff accountant that secretly yearns to fly and dance. Icarus has seen two prior incarnations. The first was during Blue’s undergraduate thesis show for Creative Ensemble at York University, and the second was at a fantastic performance workshop hub called New Art Night run by the fine folks over at Living room Theatre. So for the summer we wanted to bring Icarus back and put him into a story that could allow us to work with new languages of gestures, and also keep us focussed on creating work that all audiences of all ages, and of all languages can understand.

What kind of atmosphere do you intend to set up, or can someone expect from ICARUS DANCES WITH THE SUN?

Max – Super-fun, dopey-love, let’s-be-kids-again atmosphere.

What is your favourite memory from a past Coyote Collective show?

Garett – When we first started, and our lights didn’t work, we were all tired from doing other shows, and we didn’t know if we would be ready in time. A member of the Excalibur press showed up to give us our first article. Made me realize that we were being noticed, and people were interested in what we were doing.

Eric – The moment in my life that will be etched in my brain until the end of time came about during the run of “Like A Generation” It was a matinee show and my parents and siblings were all coming that afternoon to see it. There is this one scene in LAG where my character literally has sex with his television. No matter how hard you work to justify this moment in terms of its necessity to the narrative, or the audience experience, when you have to get down and do it with your family that knows you so intimately well right there, well, it’s downright awkward. Working with Coyote has given me the rare opportunity to have sex with a television right in front of my family. It was a thing. It happened.

Describe ICARUS DANCES WITH THE SUN in three adjectives, a phrase, or with sound.

Eric – It is the cure for what ails you

Garett – A show of comedy understood universally.

Max – The sound your shoulders make when you relax them after a long day’s work.

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

Check out our website for more updates on the company – coyotecollective.wordpress.com

Also a big thanks to Clay & Paper Theatre for having our work put on in their Day of Delight Festival! It’s been such a pleasure working with them!

Come see the whole she-bang on Sunday, June 16th and join Coyote Collective as their premiere Icarus Dances with the Sun!

something he never expected.

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.