Theatre Articulation 2013

UFV Performance Theatre North Campus 45635 Yale Road, Chilliwack, BC

Agenda

10:00 Meet and Mingle - Coffee, Tea, Muffins, etc.

10:15 Call to Order

1. Agenda Approval 2. Articulation 2012 Minutes 3. Roundtable Reports from individual institutions 4. Teacher Education Programs - Drama (Gordon Hamilton - ABCDE rep) 5. Discussion arising from Reports or other in-meeting issues

12:15 Lunch

1:00 Resume Meeting

6. Equity directors at educational institutions (Kathryn Shaw, Langara) 7. Policies and Procedures manuals (Mike Taugher, VIU)

2:30 End of Meeting

Record of Attendance

Bruce Kirkley (Chair) University of the Fraser Valley Heather Davis-Fisch University of the Fraser Valley Ian Fenwick University of the Fraser Valley Stuart Aikins Gillian Barber Capilano University Mat Herrmann Capilano University John Fitzgibbon Council on Admissions & Transfer Gordon Hamilton Association of British Colombia Drama Educators Robin Nichol Thompson Rivers University Kamloops Heidi Verwey Thompson Rivers University Kamloops Mike Taugher Vancouver Island University Trena Hollands Douglas College Amanda Larder Douglas College Danica West Douglas College Daniel Dolan Studio 58 / Langara Kathryn Shaw Studio 58 / Langara Lloyd Arnett Trinity Western University Robert Gardiner University of British Columbia Tom Scholte University of British Columbia Neil Cadger University of British Columbia Okanagan

Bruce Kirkley, UFV, Chair • Motion to approve 2013 agenda – Bruce Kirkley, seconded Ian Fenwick; ABCDE Report moved to #2 on agenda; approved • Articulation meeting minutes from 2012 passed around • Reminder to send reports/updates electronically before meeting

ABCDE, Gordon Hamilton • Teachers back to doing extra-curricular activities; teachers doing productions good for getting students back into programs; • Reported on provincial drama festivals, 18 zones across province, 9 zones active with regional festivals, showcase of chosen shows at Douglas college, 12 shows, 3 of the 12 are youth written shows, students participate in workshops during the 3 days; glad to have it back, looking forward to future years; • Teachers still facing issues with class sizes, up to administrator - putting 40 kids in class, a lot of kids for a small space; can negotiate with administrator depending on who/if supportive of arts. Still fighting for programs. Competing with sports - one or the other, not both. Not all schools have fully qualified drama teachers - TOC or English teachers. Still faced with outflow of drama retirees, not enough coming in. All student teachers in district hired as TOC or into temporary contracts. Need more drama teachers in schools; • Drama teachers need another teachable subject; there hasn’t been movement on theatre being one teachable subject. Ministry determining this as far as known, need pressure on ministry. High school drama teacher - SM, director, costume maker, etc. - one man show - less people being trained in that aspect. Theatre production is becoming a lost art in high schools. Not a lot of schools offering it because not enough teacher interest/teachers qualified; • There are jobs for qualified drama teachers, not enough that are qualified. In district there are no more available qualified people, all hired; • Material - www.bcdramateachers.com have links to some university programs, please send information to [email protected]; • ABCDE not allowed to give access to list of drama teachers online. Issue was confidentiality. Gordon has list of all drama teachers in province; • ABCDE has membership of over 200, used to have over 400, people aren’t joining PSA, some belong to English or Math PSA, and not all join drama PSA; • The festival at Douglas offers possible scholarship for those who come to festival. Sears - donated over 22k to support festival - Douglas doesn’t pay for facilities during those 3 days. Sears started scholarship fund. They give out over 10k in scholarships. Students can apply for $5k scholarship. Can help with financial aid; • Always need help and support during the festival - seeing some of the top actors from the schools. A university representative could benefit universities by getting the school name out. $150 for table, or can barter for

service and have presence; • Capilano commented that some programs have offered to have teachers come and talk to students about becoming drama teachers - none took them up on the offer; • Next ABCDE conference in Vernon, trying to reach out and get interest. It’s expensive coming down for conference, can only do so much for $100. Different districts allotted different amounts for pro-d. Vancouver school district does Dramarama - doesn’t come to conference. Conference will be October 25 or 26; • When looking at regional festival looking for a space is an issue, looking at either public space - belongs to community, possible charges. Try to minimize cost for schools. Douglas held on to provincial festival; • Regional festivals from November to March. Minimum of 4 participating schools in the zone to put on festival. Sears had roaming adjudicator, pitching for interior - offering to pay for roaming adjudicator. Need just one venue, have a regional rep. for each zone. Usually try for someone in every zone; • TRU reported they tried to set up meeting for a festival but no one would meet with them. Outlying areas seem very interested, but in Kamloops no interest; • UBC noted that lack of notice is an issue, all know what recruitment possibilities are, should collaborate more together, work on ways to support; • Gordon noted that provincial festival happens first week in May - open invitation to faculty members to watch performances. Invitation to set up booths for Universities; • Sharon Conrad is in contact with reps for regionals, can get information out [email protected]; • Important for universities to contact them with information, bring people out. If have someone teaching drama education please forward so teachers can get free membership; • UFV sends out students to talk to kids in high school drama classes locally, it’s someone who can relate to kids, have been in program, can tell what program is about and what can be offered. Need contact with school and drama teacher in the area; • Suggestion to have post-secondary liaison day to talk about theatre programs, and invite 5/6 schools to come out.

2012 Theatre Articulation Minutes • Motion to approve, Stuart Aikins, seconded Heidi Verwey; approved.

Round-table Reports

Langara College, Kathryn Shaw • Last season: 6 productions 500 Days to Mars; Attempts on Her Life; Government Inspector; Spring Awakening; How Should You Be; Balm in Gilead (Dir. Bob Fraser) surprise hit, completely transformed studio into

café; overall had a good season, did well at box office; • Next season - Midsummer Night’s Dream; Risky Nights; Grease; Innocence Lost; • Making best of working in basement. Building new building at Langara, new theatre was first in line, but decision was to build for sciences. Ministry won’t fund it, so have to fund raise. Now need to self-fund a building they were told would be funded by province. Department chronically underfunded. What they’re doing with students is fantastic.

Trinity Western University, Lloyd Arnett • Drama program at TWU was also first on building list, but have fallen off again; • Trinity, had a good year: Go Back for Murder, Picture This!, New Generations, Emma; also had play readings from playwriting class, theatre sports; • Next season: Never Can Tell, Crimes of the Heart, New Generations, Much Ado About Nothing; • New president at TWU, current unable to continue; • More students accepted to grad schools; • Current building is being rehabilitated; • One thing hoping to find time to talk about: restoring better relationships with professional theatres; Pacific Theatre allows students to usher and see shows for free. Cost of live theatre getting higher and higher.

UFV Directors’ Festival, Ian Fenwick • Record breaking festival with over 4100 tickets sold; • Wonderful work from all universities participating; exceptional number of student written work this year; • 2 productions going to Harrison Festival of the Arts; • UFV alumni brought 2 productions to festival; • Supported by Friends of the Theatre community group, Student Union Society, and Criminology Department; • Invitation to everyone to encourage students to bring shows to next year’s festival.

UBC, Tom Scholte/Robert Gardiner • Enrolments: 35 BA Majors, Design 55 Majors, 10 PhD candidates; • Season: The Duchess, sales 99%; Sorrows of Young Werther, sales 62%; Dancing at Lugnasa, sales 39%; Rhinoceros; Blood Relations, sales 39%; last year had 55% overall capacity, this year 66.2%; • Moved to 3 week runs, (Thurs-Sat; Wed-Sat; Wed-Sat). Trying to build up word of mouth. Seeing if upward trend in sales continues; • BFA acting auditions turnout low - usually 60-80, only had 30-40. Not sure why there’s been a drop off, and especially not sure why not a gradual drop – still managed to put together good first year class; • Ongoing struggle to address teaching staff/resources, a lot of challenges;

• Next season: The Caucasian Chalk Circle, Pride and Prejudice, Seeds, The Seagull, Ubu Roi; series of conferences with Punjabi groups and 2 Punjabi plays; • Working on 1st year admittance, need to get through process of senate; • Pressure from UBC President to recruit international students; • 50th anniversary of Freddy Wood Theatre next year.

UBC Okanagan, Neil Cadger • Very small, have 2 ½ faculty for interdisciplinary program, one faculty cross pointed, have sessional instructors, students work on devised shows; • Theatre is a 200 seat lecture theatre, huge stage, enlarged when moved in, booked completely by lectures. If show at 7:30, only able to move into space at 7:20. As a consequence, doing shows everywhere, creating site specific theatre; • Program has no technicians. Students run theatre, students do everything, works primarily on mentoring system - students who ran last year’s shows mentor new students. Students also doing marketing, social media. Work study students run everything; • Whole year was experimenting with what people want to see. Experimental music night attracted 3 people. Some successes, some failures; • Students come to UBCO because they can’t get into UBCV. Start in management, don’t like it, change to acting. Creative studies department selling selves as management training program; • Operating with multiple dissemination platforms - train students to create and market devised theatre performances; visual arts program trying to provide dissemination online, running art gallery; creative writing program; • UBCO now trying to link with industry, trying to get high tech companies who want creativity; • Enrolments doing well, numbers up, thinking of going to second year entry • Graduated first cohort of 3 BFA’s - 2 graduated with minor, 12 new BFA students coming in; • Grad students toured theatre show; • Going into program review next year; • Theatre has been renovated. As of last year have had theatre much more, upcoming year only one lecture a week; • Have funding for eco-art incubator - socially engaged performances with environment.

Capilano University, Stuart Aikins/Gillian Barber • Successful season: Dancing at Lugnasa, Twelfth Night, Sly Fox, The Boyfriend; • Graduation at Stanley, all students across both programs out to agents and casting directors; • Capilano budget situation strained: possibility losing all of textiles and interactive design. As of last night board agreed to delay action while they explore other possibilities. BC moving towards Alberta system - can’t be

everything to all people. 20 million budget cut to post-secondary, but system underfunded. Capilano never got bump up to university. Dealing with 1.3 million cut, potential for program cuts. 207 sections at risk across University; • Past year was good, hard at work with Bachelor of Performing Arts, good final production at Push festival, made significant changes by becoming partners with Push, performing at Roundhouse, people coming in to talk to students about how to work in festival; • FUSE at Vancouver Art Gallery proved to be a challenging undertaking for students, people move through installations done by students, had to come up with non-narrative ideas. Students go through 8 months of work, final month doing equity hours, by the end students were wiped. Starting to look for ideas/material for next year, will be about art in the street of Vancouver. 22 students in the BPA program; • Saw a 50% drop in applicants this year, arts world suffering. Full, but instead of 150 applicants had 75. Successful grad showcase, a lot of agents signed on students, 80% involved in productions over summer; • Revised Bachelor of Arts program: a year away, trying to create degree umbrella including various areas, refurbishing courses, looking at a lot more guided independent work in 4th year. Looking positive, lots of good feedback, committee working to get up and running; • Musical theatre program 10 year anniversary next year, want to do alumni event in spring. Following year will be 10 year anniversary for acting/stage/screen.

Lunch Break - 12:27 - back at 1:00

Thompson Rivers University, Heidi Verwey/Robin Nichol • Search underway for new dean; • Season: Village of Idiots, The Good Soul of Szechuan, Curse of Starving Class, Director’s Festival; • Enrolments stable, slightly up; • Working with Special Olympics on improv; devising show for High-Wire Festival; • Down to 4 faculty, 1 sessional; technical director position reconfigured; • Hosted high school drama festival; • Started new classes on acting for camera and selected topics; students most excited about business of acting, new design; • Next season: Gossip, Enemy of the People; • Attempted to organize co-production with Western Canadian Theatre for next season, but process held up at Equity, not sure whether it will happen next year.

Vancouver Island University, Mike Taugher • Mainstage show: Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead, The Rimers of Eldritch;

• Working with music students; involved with Nerd Festival; • Second year enrolment small, hold out from 5 week job action, next year looks better, almost full, enrolment not up, but at least full; • Planned minor might be cut, suspended this year, did not accept any new applicants to program; • Two year diploma: classes were full but budget still cut; • Running theatre as rental facility to community, related costs all wrapped into theatre budget, but costs not recognized by administration; • Sent out email requesting feedback on policies and procedures manual in other departments; • Two questions for group: How many department meetings per year? What’s procedure for picking a season? Will come back to questions later in the agenda.

Douglas College, Danica West • Doing program review this year; • Auditions for Theatre program: filled 22 seats, need to take in more; students not coming back to second year for financial reasons; usually start with 24 or 25 students in first year, and 15 in second year; • Facing same financial issue as VIU. Still want to increase FTE’s. Want to add upper level courses, 3 for Stagecraft, 3 for Theatre; • Will be offering upper level courses in the fall; • International students and students from outside program don’t count in calculation of FTE’s; students have to be enrolled in Stagecraft department for courses to count Hopeful numbers will improve; • Season: Rez Sisters, Dangerous Corner, Blue Window, Top Girls; studio shows very well received.

University of the Fraser Valley, Bruce Kirkley • Completed program review, strong recommendation to establish a Theatre Major. Dean and College of Arts Council have given approval to proceed with developing a Theatre Major proposal; • Received funding from administration to participate in learning outcomes project to look at how our courses align with our program learning outcomes and the larger institutional learning outcomes; • Since LO’s becoming key component of how programs are assessed, this work will help strengthen proposal for Major; • Bachelor of Media Arts degree close to being approved, should go to Ministry in Fall 2013; Theatre has been centrally involved in developing this degree program; Theatre providing one of the core courses for the program, Exploring Creativity, which uses theatre exercises and techniques to develop creative thinking and collaboration skills; • Developed new course, THEA 220 Stage Management for Live Events to build up stagecraft/design side of program, will be offered in Winter 2014; • As part of Theatre major initiative looking at some realigning of courses,

heavy in first 2 years, and so need to shift some resources to 3rd and 4th year. Strategizing how best to distribute courses that work well for students; • Enrolments: lower level enrolments down overall, but numbers reasonably good in theatre diploma, and good enrolment in upper level courses; • Graduates: 26 graduates this year, a lot of talent and knowledge graduating; • Move of Chilliwack campus to Canada Education Park with Theatre program remaining at the old campus has presented challenges; • University has plans to build a new facility including a new theatre, but process could take time; • Season: Once in a Lifetime; Ernestine Shuswap Gets Her Trout; Merchant of Venice; Directors’ Festival, overall made a modest profit on the season; used to be able to rely on 65% attendance for shows, over last few years this has dropped to 55%; • Next season: Little Mermaid; Age of Arousal; Romeo and Juliet; Directors’ Festival; • 2013 tour to Oregon Shakespeare Festival in Ashland, June 17-24; goes every other year, scholarships fund 2-3 students to go on tour; next tour in 2015, and open invitation to any who would like to go; • Box Office and Publicity Manager, Rick Mawson, retiring this year; Production Manager Sandy Tait retiring end of April 2014.

BCCAT, John Fitzgibbon • Transfer system based on student mobility, over past few years fewer students not going from 2yr to 4yr programs, last year received approval to de-designate institutions as senders and receivers of transfer requests; • Process for providing information to institutions and departments has changed, producing Transfer Guide as a PDF, not as a hard copy, days of creating paper documents and pushing to audiences has gone, clients now pull information online when they need it; news and updates will be provided online (http://bccat.ca/); • Associate degree: provincial review of associate degree, number of students has fallen to 900, requirements too rigorous for students moving after 30 credits, province looking at loosening course requirements at all universities, likely to recommend Associate of Arts for applied areas; report suggests Ministry look at credentials offered in province, diploma programs vary from 3 weeks to 3 years, need to look at framework for diploma programs; • Learning outcomes: looking at possibility for LO’s to form basis for credit transfer; • BCCATT has valuable information on student mobility across province, able to gather good information on student travel, data shows where students came from and what program, province moving forward with plans to share this information with private post-secondary institutions, 55k students per year move, not sure why, survey shows 2 groups: those who enter planning on moving, and those decide to move later, most dissatisfaction comes from students who can’t get transfer credits for courses they’ve taken at another

institution; • Marketing to high schools: all programs on education planner, worth taking a look, beginning in grade 10 students are introduced to education planner, encouraged to look at where programs are offered, prerequisites, etc., marketing strategy might include encouraging students to consider theatre in their education planners.

Equity and Educational Institutions • Katherine raised concern about hiring Equity directors to direct shows, Langara has a fund to bring in guest directors, great opportunity for students to work with a professional director, and one of the strengths of the Langara program, problem stems from interpretation of contract length, most professional contracts are 3 weeks, but post-secondary rehearsal periods are usually 6 weeks since students doing other courses; Katherine came up with arrangement to split fee in half, so one half paid as instructor, other half as director, but then discovered Langara can’t pay same person 2 separate ways for one contract; • Capilano encountered similar problem, approached Equity for permission, but have to ask permission every time; • Need to push Equity to reconsider policy on contracts with educational institutions, requesting support from other institutions, meeting with Equity end of June.

Policy and Procedure Manuals • Departments with manuals will forward to Mike at VIU.

Procedures for Play Selection • UFV has moved towards more formal process, proposal submitted, faculty and production staff have opportunity to read play, look at proposed concept, royalties, etc., play selection for next season determined by end of March at latest, will send proposal template to Mike; • Capilano has season committee, selection based on seniority basis, not connected to person who makes pitch.

Host for 2014 Articulation: Capilano University • Suggested agenda item for next year: coordination of regional festivals with ABCDE; note that zone reps and emails available on ABCDE website (http://www.bcdramateachers.com/); if want to come to conference in Vernon contact Gordon Hamilton ([email protected]).

Meeting Adjourned