New Ideas Week One recap; Week Two opens today!

Week One of the 25^th anniversary New Ideas Festival wrapped on Sunday (March 10).  Barely had the audience cleared out of the Studio after the Sunday matinee, when the Week Two groups started arriving for the tech times.   The Festival is very efficiently scheduled by Artistic Directors Pat McCarthy and Carolyn Zapf.  Ladies, I salute you!

So, Week One.   Because I had a play in this week, I saw all 6 performances.  Go ahead, call me a geek.  It’s theatre – I like to see how it grows and changes.   And one play sure did:  Shirley Barrie’s Revelation.  It was a retrospective remount from 2001, and for the first three performances, all went smoothly.  The New Orleans-style funeral music made me smile every time, as did the thunder crash that greeted actor Steven Burley’s exclamation of “I’ll be damned!”.  Then actor Patricia Hawk was unable to perform on Saturday or Sunday, due to a nasty virus.  She told me afterwards that the queasy dizziness actually started on Friday night – she had to hang on to Steven’s hand at the curtain call, or she would have fallen.  So an hour before matinee showtime on Saturday, Pat McCarthy pressed Jane Carnwath (most recently the director of Così, but she has acted in If We Were Women and Amy’s View, among others) into service.  With just one cold read under her belt (and that involved first finding Pat Hawk’s script!), Jane and Steven took to the stage in their street clothes, and performed Revelation.  It was pretty darn impressive.  For the Saturday evening show, Jane and Steven wore costumes, and Jane’s performance was lovely – she even organically did most of the blocking – they did not rehearse that, Steven assured me.

At the Sunday matinee,the play’s director Molly Thom (who’d been unavailable on Saturday) played the role, wearing Pat’s costume, as they are much the same size.  Of course, Molly knew the blocking perfectly, and most of the time did not need to refer to her script for the lines.  So in the space of a week, I got to see three different actors play the same role, AND observe how the unflappable Steven Burley expertly shaded his own performance, depending on what his scene partner threw at him.  See, live theatre: it’ll constantly surprise you!

Play #2 in the lineup, Suzanne Gauthier’s Still Waters, was written last fall for Write Now!, a writing challenge devised by Alumnae Theatre’s New Play Development Group (NPD) – the theme this year was running water.  Also, Suzanne mentioned at Saturday’s Talkback that she wanted to write roles for older actors.  One of my favourite  laugh-out-loud moments was Frank’s (John Illingworth) demonstration of the water wheel he’s built to help wife Monica (Sandra Burley – yes, she’s distantly related to Steven, through her husband!)  sleep:  “Uuup and over.  Uuup and over…”.   Cracked me up every time.  And there’s this lovely exchange: Monica remarks that at this stage in their lives, it’s the beginning of the end.  Frank responds, “Then let’s not spend it in separate beds.”

I can’t really be objective about my own piece, Say The Words.  My main concern was not to bore the audience with such a bare-bones piece (an 8-minute monologue about love, loss, and words unsaid), but various audience members praised actor Alexandra Manea and director Kim Radmacher, and seemed to like the script.  I’d loved Kim’s initial ideas about projections, but it wasn’t possible due to technical difficulties.  Instead, she and Alex worked on dissecting the text and trying out abstract movement before paring it down.  The final result was very minimalist, but it worked for the audience.

Stalled was just delightful.  New Ideas co-founder Kerri MacDonald directed the piece, which New York playwright Eugenie Carabatsos told the Talkback audience was inspired by her own car getting demolished in an accident.  “I was surprised how devastated I was,” she said.  Kerri’s staging, with actors sporting black T-shirts with tire tracks playing real characters as well as humanizing the car (which provides running commentary of noises) was so innovative.  Jillian Welsh as the car radio was hysterical, blaring French talk as well as snippets of 1980s and ‘90s hits like Ace of Base’s “The Sign”, Hanson’s “MMMBop” and Madonna’s “Material Girl” when her dial was spun.  Best line came from Maggie’s (Julie Cohn) dad (Rob Candy):  “You had sex with BOTH my daughters?!”

 The staged reading in Week One (noon on Sat. March 9) was Falling , a lyrical and magical 35-minute play written by Jamie Johnson, dramaturged by Diane Forrest, and directed by Ed Rosing.  It featured Ruth Miller as Lou, mother of a troubled girl named Constance, who was played at different ages by four actors:  Carys Lewis as the child who doesn’t yet realize that her life isn’t perfect; Cora Matheson as the rebellious and somewhat dangerous teen; Kristen Scott as the unhappily married 20-something; and Cathy McKim as the present-day Constance in her 40s. The play begins with Lou telling a fairytale story about the moon protecting a little girl named Constance, who would ever after “be at home in the night”.  Gradually each character reveals a story from her own version of the past, and the audience gets the full picture of Constance’s life.

The reading was followed by a Talkback, and playwright Jamie Johnson noted that Falling – based on concepts of time and memory: how we remember and react at different stages in life – was originally a story that he wanted to turn into a play. He churned out five or six drafts, including 3 “major” revisions in the past four months.  The original submission last September to the New Ideas Festival didn’t have Constance split into ages/voices, and her two husbands (who are only mentioned now) were actual on-stage characters until the third draft.  Johnson joked that the descriptions of the moon and the night, which an audience member commented were “magical”, were maybe the only things left from the original script!

The genesis of the story was a conversation Johnson had with his own mother, who endured a pattern of abusive relationships.  To a question about what triggered the reconciliation between Constance and her mother in the play, Johnson responded that Lou (the mother) recognizes that Constance has taken control and done what Lou could not: killed her abuser.  This sensitive topic was delicately treated, and it was interesting to note that five such pitch-perfect female voices were produced by a male writer.

 

At the Saturday matinee Talkback, the Festival ADs Pat and Carolyn confirmed that they had tried to group the plays thematically each week.  For Week One, the clear theme was feelings not expressed.   Hmm – I wonder what the theme is for Week Two?  Check out the details of the March 13-17 lineup at http://www.alumnaetheatre.com/ideas2013-2.html.  Tickets ($15) can be purchased by clicking on the arrow-shaped TICKETS icon on that page, or make a reservation by phone at 416-364-4170 box 1, and pay cash at the Box Office on arrival.

New Ideas Festival 2013: The ‘Creative Exchange’ – aka writers meet directors in a Speed Dating event!

On Saturday Nov 17, Pat McCarthy and Carolyn Zapf, Artistic Directors of the New Ideas Festival, held a ‘ Creative Exchange’ for writers whose scripts had been selected and the directors who had applied. During the first part of the event, the playwrights (13 new and two returning – though only 9 of the new writers were present, some being from out of town) introduced themselves to the others; the directors had not yet arrived.  Included in the writers’ circle were Diane Forrest, a member of the NIF reading committee that selected the plays; and Shirley Barrie, also on the reading committee, and one of the “returning” writers.  Her short play Revelation was a hit at the 2001 Festival.  As part of the   salute to NIF’s 25^th anniversary, two favourites from past years – Revelation, and Flora Stohr-Danziger’s My Red Feather Boa (2004) – will be reprised at the 2013 Festival, helmed by the original directors: Molly Thom (NIF co-founder!) and Nancy Bradshaw.  Another reading committee member, Neale Kimmel (herself a playwright – the first act of Frances and Marybeth premiered at NIF 2011, and an expanded version played at the Factory Theatre a year later) dropped by later.

Here are the selected plays, which will be seen at the New Ideas Festival, March 6-24, 2013.  Some plays are as short as 10 minutes; some run up to 35.  The readings may be 60 minutes or so.  There’s a different lineup of plays in each week of the Festival.

Revelation by Shirley Barrie (re-mount from 2001)

Dinner Date by Jessica Moss – two couples have dinner.  A comedy.

Say the Words by Tina McCulloch – monologue (for man or woman) about love and loss.

 Stalled by Eugenie Carabatsos – this New York writer’s play In Their Glory was a reading in NIF 2012.

SATURDAY READING (Week 1):  Everything but the Cat by Adrianna Prosser – a “not-so-one-woman show”.

Pieces of Penelope by Gina Femia – a writer from New York.

Over the Edge by Cate Frid – didn’t get a synopsis.

Two Actresses by R.J. Downes – formerly based in Toronto; now in Kingston.  His circus play Tightrope was in NIF 2010.

The Deepest Trench by Chloë Whitehorn – originally written for Fringe’s 24hr playwriting contest!

SATURDAY READING (Week 2):  Falling by Jamie Johnson – this play was stashed in a drawer for 18 yrs…

Dead French Philosophers and What We Mean When We Talk About Love by James Papoutsis – a professor talks to his class about wildly inappropriate stuff.

My Friend’s Best Friend’s Boyfriend by Wesley J. Colford – a “sort-of comedy” about abuse; written 2 yrs ago and put away.

Eglinton by Anthony MacMahon – part of what (hopefully) will be a 3-play cycle.

My Red Feather Boa by Flora Stohr-Danziger  (re-mount from 2004)

SATURDAY READING (Week 3):  Lullaby for the Abandoned by Rain Chan – not present; I know nothing!

DISCLAIMER: The synopses above are my very brief notes extracted from what each writer said about their play, and should not be construed as necessarily accurate or complete!  Will have a better feel for the plays after the cold readings in the week of Dec 3, when playwrights and directors get to hear actors read their words cold.  And I mean ICE cold: recruited actors are literally handed a script when they walk in the door!  But since these cold readings are not the auditions, there’s absolutely no pressure.  The real auditions will happen the first week of January.

Before the directors arrived, I quizzed Artistic Directors Carolyn Zapf and Pat McCarthy about the process of choosing the scripts.  They told me that 114 scripts were received, and were evaluated by a 9-member reading committee.  The submission instructions (writers’ names do not appear on the scripts, only on a cover page that the committee does not see) ensured that each script was read blind.

For the first round, each script was read by a group of three – comprised (if possible) of an actor, a director and a writer to ensure a wide range of viewpoints.  If at least two committee members agreed (the options were YES, NO or ANOTHER READER), a script passed on to the second round.  At this point, around 50% of the submissions had been eliminated.  For the second round, readers were told the gender of the writer, and membership status.  (If two scripts were in contention, preference was given to the one written by an Alumnae Theatre member or by a woman, per the company mandate.)

For the third round (now down to about 20 scripts), readers were given the writers’ names and the short bio which had been sent with their submission.  From those 20, the reading committee found the lucky 13!  All of the script-reading and swapping was done online through Google Docs, which Carolyn said was efficient and interactive.

And then the directors came in!  They had all responded to the Call for Directors posted on Alumnae’s website and other places back in mid-October.   Writers were positioned around the theatre lobby in chairs labeled with their play titles, and potential directors moved from one writer to the other (I believe it was supposed to be clockwise) in a sort of Speed Dating format – 10 minutes each meeting.  Pat set the alarm on her phone to ring when time was up.  The directors had been given the password to the site to read the selected scripts a couple of days before.  They probably had favourites that particularly interested them, but were required to speak to all the writers.

After this event (which was on a Saturday) each writer and director was required to submit their top 3 picks to the Artistic Directors by the following Wednesday evening.  Then the ADs would have the difficult task of matching them up, and announce the teams by Sunday night.  It turned out to be even more difficult than anticipated (“a lot of juggling”, they said), so final matches didn’t happen until Monday night.   I’ll have a list of the matched-up writer/play/director teams to publish tomorrow.

New Ideas Festival 2012 – the script selection process

Ever sit in the theatre watching a festival like New Ideas and wonder about the process?  Such as – how did the producers select the scripts?  How were the directors chosen?  I asked one of the co-producers of New Ideas 2012, Carolyn Zapf, and this here’s what she told me.  By the way, the call for scripts went out on August 2, with a submission deadline of September 15.  The scripts – with nothing to identify the playwrights – were then read “blind” by a committee that did not learn the writers’ identities until final selection was made.

Q:  How many scripts were received this year?    How did it compare to previous years’ submissions?

A:   We received 122 submissions this year. It was about the same as last year.

Q:   This is the first year that scripts were accepted via e-mail – did that increase the number of submissions?

A:   No, email did not increase the number of submissions, but it was much easier to organize the work of the reading committee and we had more time for discussion of the scripts. We were also able to share scripts with the chosen directors using google docs before the Creative Exchange*, which facilitated the process.

Q: This is the first year that a reading fee ($10) has been charged – do you think that made a difference in the quantity and/or quality of the plays submitted?

A:  It did not make a difference in the quantity of the plays, but I think that we had a higher quality of submissions this year. I don’t think we can draw the conclusion that the quality of submissions was caused by the fee. But the fee will allow us to increase the NIF budget. We have expenses such as insurance for any Equity members, food budget for workshops, readings, and opening nights, etc.

Q:        Where did the submissions come from this year?

A:        In total, we received about 30 plays [out of a total 122] from the US — from New York and area, Boston and Cambridge area, Pittsburg, and various cities in California. We received 1 play from the UK. We received several plays from Quebec (Montreal area), from Alberta (Lethbridge and Calgary) and B.C. (Kamloops).   Of the 15 chosen scripts, (12  productions; 3 staged readings) we have chosen for NIF 2012, several are by out-of-town writers:

     Our Eliza by Megan Coles (St. John’s, Nfld).

      Lovers’ Flight by Joel Fishbane (Montreal, Quebec)

      Less Than a Second by Gerry MacBride (Peterborough, Ont.)

      In Their Glory [Reading] by Eugenie Carabastsos (New York)

      It All Leads To The Lemon Scene by Pam Winfrey (California)

     Everything Blows Away by Kelly DuMar (Massachussetts).

 

NOTE:  Another play by Kelly DuMar, ENVIA! was imaginatively staged in Alumnae Theatre’s lobby during NIF 2010.  Joel Fishbane previously wrote In The Yichud Room, produced in NIF 2004.

 

* “Creative Exchange” = the director/writer meet & greet – think Speed Dating!  I’ll cover this in a later post.