Tag Archives: Directors Lab North

So Where Did November Go?

Posted on by
Reply

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Here I am at the end of November saying, “Huh?!? Where did all the time go?”

Last week I taught a workshop on  How to Write a 10 Minute Play.  As an experiment, every activity in the workshop lasted exactly ten minutes (and yes, I used my timer on my iPhone 5 to ensure exactly ten minutes).  The students did a 10 minute warm-up, I gave a 10 minute intro,the 24 of them pitched their play ideas 10 times to 10 directors (60 seconds each), followed by a 10 minute writing session of their opening scene, 10 minutes to rehearse, 10 minutes of performances, and finally 10 minutes of debriefing after each activity.  The point was to feel how short and how long 10 minutes can be.  As expected some of these 10 minute segments were far too short, and others were painfully long.

It’s been almost 10 months since I retired.  Since then I trekked through jungles and cloud forests, rappelled down waterfalls, and drank beer while sitting in hot springs in Costa Rica.  I dog-sat three chihuahuas in San Francisco, made friends with tattooed ex-cons at the Delancy Street Project, and did a Thelma and Louise road trip around the rest of the state of California.  Our textbook entitled Rattling the Stage, was published.  I attended four days of intense workshops at Directors Lab North.  I joined a company of transmedia story-tellers via The Mission Business and performed with them in an extended five month theatrical adventure including at the Toronto Fringe, Nuit Blanche and the Evergreen Brickworks.  I was a caretaker-turned-chief-of-a-militia in an end-of-the world-apocalyptic-pandemic-with-interactive-audience-and-online-followers scenario.  That was fun.   I wrote a play.  I met at a speed-dating match up with new playwrights in order to direct a show for the New Ideas Festival next March.  I got my website (www.janetkish.ca) set up.  I started this blog.  I designed and now have my very own business cards and I guess my own freelance business as an independent artist.  I am writing a curriculum support document for our book that will be finished by the next few week (hallelujah for that!)  I got my NEXUS card and drove to Buffalo just to have lunch.  I adjudicated a Canadian play festival and have agreed to adjudicate for Sears Drama Festival in early 2013.  I started teaching master class workshops. I joined Eclat-Arts to be a guest artist next July.   I began privately coaching young actors who plan to audition for post-secondary theatre schools.  I’ve reconnected with many former students who are all grown up, long lost friends and relatives who I hadn’t seen in years. I’m taking pottery classes and went to a firing range with real live zombie hunters to learn how to shoot guns. Huzzah! I’ve applied for multiple opportunities to participate in theatre festivals and labs across North America and have begun to receive my “Thank you, but no thank you letters.” I went to a wedding of the daughter of a good friend of I’ve known since she was a baby and watched proudly as her mother and her father walked her down the aisle.  Last week, I attended a memorial of another friend who died unexpectedly and far too young.

I’m alive. I’m living.  Time is precious.

 

 

The Mission Business Creates a Brave New World

Posted on by
1

I believe if we put our energy out to the universe, gateways to new realms will open up to us.  So it was with this mind I attended four intensive days at the Director’s Lab North http://www.directorslabnorth.com/ in June with over thirty inspiring stage directors from across North America.

Among those people was a dynamic and impressive theatre artist by the name of Elenna Mosoff.  Elenna is the Associate Producer of the award-winning Acting Up Stage Company as well as co-founder of a bold new artistic company, called The Mission Business http://www.themission.biz/

At the Lab, Elenna introduced us to the Mission Biz’s first initiative: ZED.TO.  This was designed to be an “immersive, interactive laboratory-based narrative adventure” about the impending 2012 apocalypse.  It was marrying live event theatre with on-line gaming, media, social media and science.

Elenna explained that this project was spawned because contemporary theatre in Toronto was staid, if not even archaic and in order to thrive, it needed to be bolder, more experimental, more media savvy, and more inclusive. So…. The Mission Biz’s intention was to create the beginning of a narrative about Byologyc – a fictional lifestyle pharmaceutical company.  Then, they would let the narrative unfold itself with the help of the audience and online participants in three phases (the Toronto Fringe, Nuit Blanche and the Grand Finale in November).  I remember thinking that the project was courageous and ambitious, but also perhaps a little mad.  I saw images of role-playing gamers who couldn’t distinguish the game from reality going postal.  It sounded more like a script for Hollywood than actual theatre in Toronto.
A week later I got an invitation to become a member of the cast at the Toronto Fringe Festival. Thankfully, I was intrigued enough to say yes.  The next thing I knew instead of attending traditional rehearsals, I was being sent on “character dates” in order to establish relationships with the other staff members of Byologyc and to develop my own back-story.  It didn’t take long before I began to question what was real and what was fiction (such as, did a stranger really find my iphone on the street or was it set up as part of the mission????).
The Mission Business wanted the story to develop as organically as possible and it has.
Performing at the Fringe turned out to be a blast and much to my delight the “live event” was a huge success. In the production, the pharmaceutical company Byologyc released its newest product – “ByoRenew” but things went terribly wrong before the end of launch. Sirens blasted while audience were swabbed for DNA, and then forcefully evacuated from the club only to be screamed at by a crazy EXE protester on Bathurst St.
The production did extremely well, and was awarded with numerous awards and accolades, including:
My rather staunch and uptight character so far has survived.  Last night, we had our first rehearsal for Nuit Blanche http://www.scotiabanknuitblanche.ca/project.html?project_id=1048.  For this event, the performance installation is titled Byologyc: Patient Zero and the narrative will continue.  Much of the story has been developed since the Fringe, through Twitter and live forums, and the plot has indeed thickened. From what I learned about the new director of SCD is that power corrupts. At Nuit Blanche, she will be there, along with a mob of  EXE occupiers and armed security to protect the company and the nasty Chet Getram.
All this leads up to the Grand Finale – ByoRetreat on November 2 and 3rd when the world as we know it will end.  Busloads of VIP members (and perhaps a few saboteurs – wink, wink) will be taken to a secret location for a two and a half hour interactive survival retreat.  Tickets will be available online within the next few days at www.zed.to
Without doubt, this is one of the most original and intelligent artistic projects I’ve ever known and I’m thrilled to be part of it.  Indeed, the universe has opened doors for me.
I invite you to enter our story, either as a volunteer performer or an audience participant.  I’m confident it will be one of the most creative things you will do this fall.  Please join us and I hope to see you at the end of the world as we know it.