dossier – Page 3 – a field of crowns

dossier: Alex Eddington for YARN and the WIND DOWN FESTIVAL

Alex Eddington and I have known each other for a good number of years now, a number so good I can’t even recall it without looking into my CV (and, looking into my CV tells me the number is 4). Alex and I met during a staged reading in what was apparently the year 2009. The staged reading was for a small festival and was a rather unfortunate experience ~ a bit too long, a bit too uninspired, a bit too much palpable not caring in the air. I think Alex and I gravitated towards each other because we needed something to help get us through this thing. Also, we could talk about writing. And we still do.

This dossier is big, as it’s about two things at once: Alex’s new Fringe show YARN and his mini-cabaret-like-festival WIND DOWN. And I’m happy to bring Alex to this site!

dossier #14:

Who are we talking with?

Alex Eddington: According to my bio I’m a composer, musician, writer and actor… but I might change that last one to “storyteller”. I’m also a music teacher, arts administrator, and bird enthusiast.

But you didn’t ask “WHAT DOES HE DO with whom we are talking?” As for WHO: maybe ask me again in a few years. That’s a messy thing. Rather than try to solve it I’ve convinced myself that that’s a messy question for everyone. And that messy is good.

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

I’m not sure which path I’m on, but I have a nervous inkling that I’m straddling three paths at once: music, theatre, and teaching. I’m hanging onto the hope that these paths will converge, or at least run parallel.

I used to be on only one path… with some side-trails. I was a semi-professional trombonist, then focussed on composing music and now I’m still a professional composer – including now a lot of music for young performers.

I actually got into theatre writing/performance because of Fringe. I entered the 2005 Edmonton Fringe on a dare with a bizarre “musicological comedy” in which I played a demented accordion-wielding prof in a third-rate university music program. The rest, somehow, is history.

Teaching is even more recent. I had an opportunity to teach middle school band in an independent school for a year, decided that I loved it, took my B.Ed., and am now doing as much arts education work as I can.

I’m always trying to pull all these threads together. Some helpful genres: opera, composition and drama workshops, shows like Yarn with a bunch of live music in them…

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

Probably watching my parents and their friends rehearsing and performing in the Kew Beach Couple’s Club Show every February. That was an amateur variety show that ran for 60 years: chorus, dancers, skits – all the songs from the great musicals – all the puns and character tropes of Vaudeville. And sometimes some absolutely inspired themes and scripts holding it all together. It was amazing how much time and love everyone put into these shows. I would hang around backstage (my Dad was sometimes the Stage Manager) and it was so thrilling.

What I learned: songs and jokes are for everyone to love and pass on; anyone can put on a show; something magic happens on a stage when there is an audience watching.

So I dabbled in theatrics at church and high school. But somehow I didn’t make my own theatre until I was 25.

Why YARN?

It’s a true story that I’ve been trying to write for ten years, since the story actually happened. In 2003 I was traveling in Europe and the UK, and needed a job, and got a “chambermaid” position in a little hotel on the Isle of Mull, Scotland. I lived there for 5.5 months – April to October. I lived two miles from a 90-person village, and all I had to get around on was my bicycle. It was beautiful place, but the loneliness got to me. I became quite superstitious, convinced (partly) that Good Luck and Bad Luck were fighting over me. I like to say that I went to the island to find myself, but lost my mind instead. Temporarily.

I’ve been sharing the stories of that summer since 2006, when I toured my first original Fringe show: Wool. That show made me some performer fans, but I never felt that it got to the root of what happened to me on the Isle of Mull. I’ve been doing workshops and drafts of these stories ever since. Seven years after Wool, Yarn comes out of having had more time to digest the events and craft a script with an arc about how the human mind (well, mine at least) tells itself stories to survive loneliness and the unknown. It’s also a funnier show now. But Yarn is so much more refined than Wool. In another seven years I will write another version of the show, called Sweater.

What kind of atmosphere do you intend to set up, or can someone expect from YARN?

I want people to feel at times like the show is really casual – off-the-cuff storytelling, with the stories being remembered just for them. Of course that’s a bit of an illusion – the asides are written in, and I tend to memorize scripts accurately, but I have tried to be much looser about this one. Yarn is written in a thinking-aloud style, and I also use music casually, flowing through everything. I deliberately chose instruments that I’m not an expert on (ukulele, baritone horn, dumbek…). I’m on stage when people come in (in Toronto the audience can come in an hour before the show if they’d like!), practicing my instruments and being in whatever mood I’m actually in. I’m not an expert who performs his thing and ignores you, I’m a guy with an unusual story and we’re in the room together; you have to trust and like me for this story to resonate with you. In Toronto I chose a room that we can’t forget we’re in: the Majlis Art Garden is sheltered (you won’t get rained on) but semi-outdoors, so there will be evening breezes, bedding birds, and the change of sunlight over the course of the show.

I also feel like this show is never done. I’m going to keep working on it over the next years. And when each performance ends, I like to hang out and talk to people. So after performances of Yarn I’m inviting the audience to stay to chat – and then to stay for guest acts each night at 9:00pm: a sub-festival I’m calling the WindDown Festival of intimate performance.

You’ve done the Canadian Fringe circuit a couple times in the past. What do you look forward to the most when touring a new show to a new city?

1) Seeing old friends who I only see randomly when we happen to be performing in the same Fringe festival. Sometimes I don’t see people for years because we live in different cities and the touring schedules don’t line up. That’s the nature of the lottery-drawn Fringes. 2) Meeting new friends: performers, audience, Fringe volunteers and staffers. 3) Seeing about 100 shows a summer.

What is your favourite memory from a past Fringe circuit show?

My 2010 tour of Tired Clichés (a new production of a TJ Dawe script) was gruelling: I was in Bring-Your-Own-Venues in Winnipeg and Edmonton so I was performing almost every day of the festival. The most memorable day of that tour happened in Winnipeg. I had a day off and was seeing a bunch of shows. Here is the sequence of events:

1) Saw Commencement, a solo show about a high school shooting massacre. Wept aloud (this doesn’t usually happen to me).

2) Had a beer at the King’s Head. Actually, a beer and a half because my director Laura Anne Harris couldn’t finish hers in the 15 minutes that we had to drink it.

3) Ran back to the SAME venue, sat in virtually the SAME seat.

4) Saw The Screw You Review – a raucous, button-pushing and very funny improvised comedy show starring an extremely cranky old man. Laughed until I literally fell out of my seat.

5) At one point in The Screw You Review, they MADE AN IN-JOKE about Commencement, the show I’d wept at earlier.

I’ve never felt so emotionally open. It was better than a sweat lodge.

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

The sound of one sheep clapping.

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

VIDEO: Currently there is one stop-motion teaser trailer for Yarn. The plan is to make more and post them to my Youtube channel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=ePVhNJ0LrXk

LINK: Here is Yarn info central: http://www.alexeddington.com/alexeddingtoncom/yarn.html

POSTER: (I’m super-proud of my DIY marketing stylez)

WISHES: That people will come to the show and it starts a conversation. With me or with whomever.

What is the WIND DOWN FESTIVAL?

I have rented a really cool site-specific venue for my Toronto Fringe run of Yarn. Majlis Art Garden is precisely 1/2 rose garden and 1/2 theatre. It’s sheltered (you won’t get rained on) but evening breezes and birds will come through the garden. It’s an intimate performance space where the audience is outdoors (sort of) but is an acoustically contained space. So I decided to host guest acts every night in this lovely space, where I could try out something I’ve wanted to do for years.

I’ve been dreaming of an outdoor performance festival without amplicifaction (or with as little as possible). Small audience, contained space. I enjoy amplified music/sound, and it has its place of course, but I feel like amplification increases the distance between performers and their audience. I want to bring them closer together. The venue and festival are proudly low-tech and that is part of the ambiance of the events.

It’s a multidisciplinary festival. 10 nights, different acts every night: music, words, comedy, dance, puppetry, clown… and TWO nights devoted to Fringe performers who will share acts and get interviewed quirkily by me – plus special guest performers.

Performers are paid from the door proceeds – the audience pays $10 (cash only) for each event – so everyone is being so generous to perform without a financial guarantee.

WindDown is a collaboration with Tricia Postle who owns the Majlis space.

Another festival DURING Fringe? Are you insane?

Yes, I am.

The WindDown Festival is a sub-festival: not part of Toronto Fringe, but running concurrently. Fringe staff told me that this is a totally new thing – they were interested in it, but I have to be careful to separate the two festivals. I’m publicizing WindDown at the same time as Yarn, and hoping that people come for both, once they’ve made the (teeny-weeny) journey to the Majlis Art Garden. And then I hope that people will come back for multiple WindDown shows!

It can be hard to get word out about a new festival, so we made the decision to run it as a kind of add-on to my Fringe run.

I really have no idea how this will go. But what a fun risk. And while I’m mostly behind the scenes, I’ll get to do some things I don’t normally get to do: interviewing performers in Open Stage nights, performing in clown. My biggest joy though is to bring all these performers and audience into this incredible little urban art garden which I feel is one of Toronto’s best-kept secrets.

We might run WindDown again as a separate thing, next summer…??

What can we expect from the WIND DOWN FESTIVAL?

The headline act is Amy Thiessen, a singer-songwriter with an absolutely lovely voice (and great guitar chops) who is coming all the way from Calgary to perform for us on two different nights. On July 11 she’s doing a solo show; on July 12 she’ll be hosting a songwriter’s circle with a couple of Toronto-based performers.

Other highlights:

– “Nightfall for Fools” (July 8) is a clown/mask/mime show with 12 performers, led by Helen Donnelly as Mildred the Maid.

– Therevox: a concert of eclectic music for soprano and THEREMIN (July 9).

– The Comedy/Storytelling night (July 13) hosted by Paul Hutcheson has an amazing lineup including stand-up comedian Nile Séguin.

And then there is a night of dance (and performance poetry), a puppetry night, the Array Session Players (improvised music) and those two Fringe open stage nights – including a really fabulous comedy juggler named Aji on July 10.

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

Here is WindDown info central: http://www.alexeddington.com/alexeddingtoncom/the-winddown-festival.html

There are also Facebook events for each WindDown show.

WISHES: That people will take a risk and see a show or two.

Here is a picture of WindDown headline act Amy Thiessen!

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!

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.