ALL STAGES mAGAZINE ThIS ISSUE: T h EATRE IN ALBERTA | SPRING 2010 LEARNING and ThE EcoLoGy of A Theatre community Artstrek 2008 students in a scene from The Importance of Being Earnest, instructed by David Wilson. of d an S k k Cover Photo by Sui-Fan Wong. Sui-Fan by Photo Cover ears R wo 50 y A rtstrem A Dra contents [4] [15] [10] dream play artstrek & after grad Grande Prairie Regional College develops dramaworks at 50 What happens after you get your piece an important young aboriginal voice with of paper? Sonny’s Song. Venerable arts education programs have indelibly shaped the careers of Alberta’s culture makers. [1]Check in [2]Community Profile [2]Curious Ground [3]Tales from the Stacks [3]Tim Ryan [4]Dream Play [6]The Real Thing [7]Educational Uproar [9]Getting It, Liking It [10]Artstrek & Dramaworks at 50 [12]Sides [15]After Grad [16]Woodpaths checkin Theatre Alberta is a Provincial Arts Service Organization (PASO) committed to encouraging the growth of theatre On a very snowy night in Calgary a few weeks before Christmas in Alberta. I sprinted through the drifts in order to get to a theatre All Stages is a publication of Theatre Alberta issued three times a year. Contribution of letters and ideas in time for curtain. I just made it—I was still sweating in for articles about the Alberta theatre community are welcome. my coat as the play began. The show was a particularly The opinions and views expressed in All Stages are raucous version of Peter Weiss’s Marat/Sade, performed those of the writers and do not necessarily reflect those of Theatre Alberta. by the students at Western Canada High School under Library hours Monday to Saturday, 10:00 am – 3:00 pm the direction of my friend Caitlin Gallichan-Lowe. It Summer Hours: June 1 to September 10 seemed to me to be the perfect choice for a high school Monday to Friday, 10:00 am – 3:00 pm Holidays production—the young performers downright wallowed in the play’s Office and library closed: April 2 – 5 (Easter break) joyful anarchy, and by the end of the show I felt challenged and inspired to May 22 – 24 (Victoria Day) provide the conditions for that kind of joy in my own work. July 31 – August 2 (Heritage Day) All Stages Magazine EDITOR I keep coming back to the word ‘community’ in these editorials. A community isn’t just a David van Belle [email protected] gathering of people—it’s also a kind of ecology, a biological organism, if you’ll let me stretch DESIGnER Jeff Weber [email protected] a point a bit. This issue focuses on the role of learning in our community. I don’t have as deep Submission deadlines and publication dates an engagement with the educational community as I’d like these days. But I recognize that July 9 for August 27, 2010 October 15 for December 3, 2010 what happens in educational programs has a tremendous impact on the provincial theatre January 14 for March 4, 2011 ecology as a whole. Advertising rates Back Cover (colour, 11” high x 6.5” wide) $500 Full Page (colour, 9.5” high x 7” wide) $400 In an ideal theatre ecology there should be continual opportunities for crossovers between Full Page (b&w, 9.5” high x 7” wide) $225 Half Page (colour, 4.625” high x 7” wide) $225 educational worlds, community theatre worlds and professional worlds. I get depressed Half Page (b&w, 4.625” high x 7” wide) $140 when I realize that there are professors from my MFA program that I simply haven’t seen at Quarter Page (b&w, 2.25” high x 7” wide) $100 Ads are booked at the discretion of Theatre Alberta. the theatre since I graduated nine years ago, despite the fact that we continue to work in See website for details. the same theatre community. And I imagine they get a little depressed too when alumni Theatre Alberta Board of Directors If you have questions or concerns regarding Theatre Alberta, walk out the door and are never seen again at departmental productions. you are welcome to contact Theatre Alberta Board members at [email protected]. But it’s important to keep that dialogue going. It’s vital for the theatre makers to see OfficeRS PRESIDEnT what’s coming up on the horizon—the younger people in educational programs aren’t Mary-Ellen Perley ~ Edmonton just going to ‘fit in’ with the professional community. They’re going to bring their own VICE PRESIDEnT Karen Johnson-Diamond ~ Calgary aesthetics and the specific concerns of their generation with them and change the way TREASURER theatre is going to be made in the future. Similarly, educators need to stay in touch Russell Thomas ~ Fort McMurray SECRETARY with what’s happening in professional and community theatre worlds to ensure that David Owen ~ Calgary the graduates they produce come out with skills and minds that are useful to the Directors Michele Brown ~ Edmonton contemporary theatre environment, a scene that changes quickly. I challenge all of us, Amy DeFelice ~ Edmonton Amy Dettling ~ Calgary myself included, to step across perceived boundaries and to engage each other with Matt Gould ~ Red Deer Gail Hanrahan ~ Lethbridge the knowledge that we’re serving a common purpose. Kevin McKendrick ~ Calgary Steve Penman ~ High River This issue is part of that dialogue. Ryan Hughes writes about how the Drama Anne-Marie Szucs ~ Stony Plain Adrian Tanasichuk ~ Grande Prairie department at Grande Prairie Regional College is engaging the first nations Thomas Usher ~ Red Deer Staff community in the region through a new play, Sonny’s Song. Julie Sinclair eulogizes EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR Tim Ryan, the head of Grant MacEwan’s Theatre Arts department who passed away Marie Gynane-Willis [email protected] OFFICE ADMInISTRATOR this fall, as an educator who indelibly marked Edmonton’s theatre community. Gillian Campbell [email protected] Meg Braem writes about an exciting educational experiment at the University of PROGRAM COORDInATOR Jana O’Connor [email protected] Calgary in which students perform plays in the virtual world of Second Life. Karen PROGRAMMER Towsley provides some clarity in the heated debate over proposed Alberta fine arts Lora Brovold [email protected] Floor, Edmonton AB, T5M 3K6 Floor, ADMInISTRATOR rd curriculum reforms. Karen Johnson-Diamond reveals the joys and challenges of Julie Sinclair [email protected] a weeklong educational residency with Calgary’s Quest Theatre. Becky Halliday DRAMAWORKS PROGRAMMER Vanessa Sabourin [email protected] highlights fifty years of two seminal Alberta arts education programs—Artstrek LIBRARIAnS Solveig Anderson and Brenda Sutherland and Dramaworks, programs that have affected the careers of many current [email protected] working professionals. And Scott Peters, our technical editor, traces the careers FInAnCIAL ADMInISTRATOR Zenovia Adams of three graduates of Alberta’s technical theatre schools. Change of address information and undeliverable copies to: Theatre Alberta Society We’ve got a lot to teach each other. We’ve got a lot to learn. 3rd Floor Percy Page Centre 11759 Groat Road, Edmonton AB T5M 3K6 Phone: 780-422-8162 Fax: 780-422-2663 Publications Mail Agreement Number 40051164 Return undeliverable Canadian addresses to: Theatre Alberta 11759 Groat Road, 3 David van BELLE, Toll Free: 1-888-422-8160 [email protected] EdITor www.theatrealberta.com ALL STAGES 1 News Mike Unrau, international educator, co-Artistic Director of calgary’s Theatre encounter complicite Mike Unrau is a Calgary-based Play. collaborate. imagine. invent. These are the most important words in the performer, director and teacher. He vocabulary at Complicite, a theatre company in London that has been devising new work holds an M.F.A. from the University of since 1983. Influenced by teachers such as Jacques Lecoq, Philippe Gaulier and Monika Calgary focusing on physical actions Pagneux, their work is highly physical and utilizes the ensemble as a whole unit. Their and their social implications. He approach to the physicality of performance demonstrates a precision similar to the has trained with Eugenio Barba’s attention more traditional theatres pay to text. Their work is also an excellent example of odin Teatret, at the Jerzy Grotowski “Gesamtkunstwerk”, or total art work, integrating text, music, image and action to create Institute in Poland and with Milon Mela surprising, disruptive theatre. in India. He has been an International Complicite does not have a methodology. What is essential is collaboration. They Fellow Abroad heading several theatre projects do not have a permanent residence nor a permanent company. To them, theatre is in India, including working with rural communities a community. Artistic Director Simon McBurney’s primary concerns with any given and sex workers. company is to create the conditions for invention: ‘I prepare them so that they What’s the most important thing you learned in are ready—ready to change, ready to be surprised, ready to seize any opportunity india about performance? that comes their way’. Particular emphasis is placed on the establishment of a play I learned that performance is not created, it is space, with objects, materials, research revealed. Whether on a Canadian professional documentation, games and other rule stage or in a muddy street in rural India, if creation or event-based practices available for is forced it can become contrived with habitual individual and collective exploration. responses and automatisms. That’s what I love about Complicite holds a bi-annual open doing theatre in India with community members workshop for professionals in London such as the coconut farmers I worked with. There’s and has made extensive teaching tours.