Tag: Caroline Russell-King

Selma Burke: Interview with Playwrights Maria Crooks & Caroline Russell-King

Posted on by James Hutchison
(l to r) Christopher Hunt, Norma Lewis. Photo: Trudie Lee.
Christopher Hunt and Norma Lewis in the Theatre Calgary – ATP Production of Selma Burke. Photo: Trudie Lee.

Theatre Calgary and Alberta Theatre Projects have teamed up to premiere the imaginative and highly entertaining play Selma Burke by Calgary playwrights Maria Crooks and Caroline Russell-King.

Sculptor Selma Burke with her portrait bust of Booker T. Washington.
Selma Hortense Burke with her portrait bust of Booker T. Washington, 1930s. Smithsonian Archive of American Art. Photography by Pinchos Horn.

Selma Burke was an African American sculptor who played a major role in the Harlem Renaissance movement of the 1920s and 30s which was an intellectual and cultural revival of African American music, dance, art, fashion, literature, theatre, politics, and scholarship.

Burke used her talent to immortalize such historic figures as author and African-American civil rights leader Booker T. Washington, philanthropist, humanitarian and civil rights activist Dr. Mary McLeod Bethune, composer, songwriter, conductor and Jazz musician Duke Ellington, and Civil Rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr. who advanced civil rights for people of colour in the United States through the use of nonviolent resistance and nonviolent civil disobedience.

Among her more famous works is a bas-relief bronze plaque honouring President Franklin D. Roosevelt and the Four Freedoms which he outlined in his State of the Union speech to Congress in 1941 as Freedom of speech; Freedom of worship; Freedom from want; and Freedom from fear. Burke’s portrait of FDR is recognized by many as the inspiration behind the design of Roosevelt’s portrait on the American dime, which was something she never received credit for in her lifetime.

Caroline and Maria have written a rich and thought-provoking play about the life of Selma Burke that also explores the meaning of art, the Civil Rights Movement, racism, and censorship. I asked Maria and Caroline what sort of experience they hope audiences are going to have when they come to see the play.

CAROLINE RUSSELL-KING

Our goal is to entertain. Our play is not a lecture on art or a biography, it’s a flight of fancy. Selma lived nearly a century – these are ninety minutes of fun.

MARIA CROOKS

An entertaining, stimulating and very humorous one. We hope the audience will find the use of actors playing statues and other objects to be innovative and clever. We also hope that they enjoy getting to know this feisty, intelligent, gifted artist who deserves to be recognized and remembered as a one-of-a-kind artist and human being.

JAMES HUTCHISON

What was your process like working on the play together and what do you think are the key elements that make for a successful writing partnership?

CAROLINE

I think complementary strengths are important. I’m obviously not from Jamaica like Claude McKay is in the play and Maria is. Maria brings her knowledge of French as I am sadly unilingual. Maria is also a great editor. When I am creating plays in my head form and from can often look the same on the page.

MARIA

It was indeed a very stimulating, interesting process for both of us. We brainstormed together, wrote scenes individually then compared the writing and chose sections that best conveyed what we wished to express. We argued, we laughed, we fought to convince the other person of the merit of our ideas. For me, the most important elements that made for our successful partnership were the respect and trust that I have for Caroline’s extensive knowledge and experience as a playwright. She has written numerous award-winning plays, she is also a dramaturg, a critic, and a playwriting instructor. In fact, she was my playwriting instructor and has done the dramaturgy on all my plays.

JAMES

There’s a note in the script before the play begins where you say, “Selma Burke lived from 1900 to 1995 which is approximately 49,932,000 minutes – here imagined are 90 of them.” I loved that because it’s a humorous observation that illustrates the challenge of trying to tell a life story in the span of a play. So, how do you do that? How do you go about distilling the essence of a person’s life into an evening of theatre?

Sculptor Selma Burke with her relief plague of FDR.
Selma Hortense Burke with her relief plaque of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. From the Archives of American Art Federal Art Project, Photographic Division Collection.

MARIA

We wanted to demonstrate some very salient points about Selma: how gifted an artist she was, her determination to succeed as a sculptor despite having been born Black, poor, and female in the southern US. The obstacles she faced, and the triumphs and accolades that she garnered, the people she knew, including a veritable Who’s Who of the Harlem Renaissance, presidents, and artist she studied with in Europe, the remarkable events that she witnessed, participated in and chronicled of the tempestuous era that was the 20th century. We wanted to do so dramatically but also with humour.

CAROLINE

It’s all about peaks and valleys. I always tell my playwriting students you want to see characters on their best days and their worst days not a Wednesday.

JAMES

One aspect of the play that works really well that you mentioned is that you have actors on stage being the art – the sculptures – that Selma creates. It’s an effective and theatrical way to bring the art alive and to tell Selma’s story. Tell me about how you came up with that idea and what it adds to the play.

CAROLINE

Having her work come to life is very important. In plays there are three types of conflict – person vs person, person vs environment, and person vs self. In Shakespeare’s time characters had soliloquies to express internal conflict. Today people who speak out loud to themselves are either on the phone with earbuds or mentally unwell. So, her relationship with her art is a mechanism to show internal conflict. Secondly, we so often see plays on the stage that could be screenplays or done in other media like TV – I wanted the play to be theatrical. What theatre does really well – is theatre.

MARIA

Caroline had the brilliant idea to have actors portray the artwork and other inanimate objects. This idea is not only dramatic, but as the audience will see, hilarious at times.

(l to r) Christopher Clare, Norma Lewis, Heather Pattengale. Photo: Trudie Lee.
Christopher Clare, Norma Lewis, and Heather Pattengale in the Theatre Calgary – ATP Production of Selma Burke. Photo: Trudie Lee.

JAMES

As you got to know Selma from doing your research and writing your play what sort of person was she do you think and what do you think her hopes would be in regards to her legacy and the art she created during her lifetime?

MARIA

She wanted, I believe, to be remembered as an African American artist who created important works and who wanted to uplift her people though her art.

CAROLINE

I think she had a strong vision for her work and the confidence to pull it off – her art speaks for itself. The language of her art is deep and rich – I’m totally in love with her.

JAMES

A couple of the topics touched on in the play are artistic freedom and censorship. Artistic freedom is defined by the UN as “the freedom to imagine, create and distribute diverse cultural expressions free of government censorship, political interference or the pressures of non-state actors.” In Canada the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms protects artistic expression. And yet in many countries artists are not free to express opinions that differ from those in power and these days there’s the new phenomena of the online mob attacking artists and their work if it doesn’t agree with their particular point of view. The idea isn’t to engage in an exchange and to challenge the art. The idea seems to be to stop the artist and their work. What are your own thoughts about artistic freedom and the kinds of censorship we’re seeing in the world today and what does that mean for the world in which we live? Why is art and artistic freedom important?

CAROLINE

The play is topical because firstly the struggle to create art is always an issue in hard economic times. More importantly the play is about not only those who get to create art but who has the right to destroy it. In Victoria BC two plays have been shut down, one before opening and one mid run. This is outrageous. It used to be the right that censored artist work now it is the left.

MARIA

We both find this trend alarming and offensive. It stymes creativity and will have artists second-guessing their ideas and their work. Unfortunately, today everyone with a computer, cell phone or tablet can disseminate their ideas to a wide audience no matter how unpleasant they may be and find receptive audiences who go along just to be provoking. Unfortunately, both of us have noticed that this kind of behaviour is not limited to right-leaning people or groups, the left, it seems, wants in on it too.

(l to r) Christopher Hunt, Norma Lewis. Photo: Trudie Lee.
Christopher Hunt and Norma Lewis in the Theatre Calgary – ATP Production of Selma Burke. Photo: Trudie Lee.

JAMES

A script is words on a page. It takes actors to bring the story to life. A director to guide it. A set designer and costume designer and sound designer to build the world of the play. Tell me a little bit about the cast and crew that’s been assembled to tell the story of Selma Burke and what they bring to the story.

MARIA

There are four actors Norma Lewis, Christopher Clare, Heather Pattengale and Christopher Hunt. All very talented Calgarians. Between them they play over 55 characters, art pieces, inanimate objects and even a plaster-of-Paris leg. The director is Delicia Turner Sonnenberg who hails from California and the stage manager is Meredith Johnson. Javier Vilalta is the movement and choreography coordinator. There are of course many other brilliant, artistic crew members who are creating magic in the background to allow this play to shine.

CAROLINE

We are so lucky to have Delicia as our director. Besides a phenomenal cast the designers are great especially Hanne Loosen who has sculped our set and Adejoké Taiwo who sculpted our costumes.

Heather Pattengale, Christopher Hunt, and Norma Lewis in the Theatre Calgary – ATP Production of Selma Burke. Photo: Trudie Lee.

JAMES

Every artist needs their champions. Someone who believes in and loves their work. So, I’m curious to know who has supported you in the making of your art?

MARIA

We have been supported by every artist at Theatre Calgary and especially the Artistic Director of Theatre Calgary Stafford Arima who has taken an artistic risk on this new piece of art.

CAROLINE

No artist is an island. In addition to what Maria said, I think it’s important to recognize the support that we get from friends and family. A play is such an abstract concept before all of the thousands of hours it takes to realize it on the stage. In the early stages it’s very fragile. Every play starts with the thought “Maybe I could write about that….” Every human has the impetus to make art whether it’s a painting, a garden, or a rebuilt motorcycle… it’s the leap into follow-through that’s difficult. I am grateful that my friends and family have supported me for decades through all of the downs, more downs and the occasional up!

JAMES

Having a production on the professional stage is certainly one of those ups and definitely something to celebrate. Who should come to see the play? Is it a play for everyone?

CAROLINE

No, art cannot possibly be for everyone, that’s part of what makes it valuable. Art which is created as mass production is not art. Everyone has their own set of unique tastes in art. This play is for adults who are curious and love to be entertained in the theatre, in the dark with other aficionados. It’s for people who like me get a thrill out of live theatre and love visual art as well.

MARIA

This play is for audiences who enjoy innovative, fascinating theatre with a big dollop of humour mixed in with theatricality.

***

Interview with Playwright Caroline Russell-King – High and Splendid Braveries

Posted on by James Hutchison
Tara Laberge as Emily Murphy in the Drama on a Dime and Urban Stories Theatre Production of High and Splendid Braveries by playwright Caroline Russell-King. Photograph by Benjamin Laird.

Playwright Caroline Russell-King has been writing plays and entertaining audiences for more than forty years. Her Palliser Suite trilogy of one-act comedies which all take place at the Palliser Hotel in Calgary was shortlisted for the National Steven Leacock Award for humour. Her play Selma Burke, which she co-wrote with Maria Crooks, and is about the life and work of African American sculptress Selma Burke was shortlisted for this year’s Sharon Pollock Award. And her most recent play High and Splendid Braveries explores addiction, women’s rights, and prohibition all told through the life and times of Emily Murphy one of The Famous Five. Not only is Caroline a gifted playwright but she’s also a dramaturg, theatre critic, and ghostwriter. You can find out more information about her plays and professional services by visiting her website at www.carolinerusselking.com.

I saw High and Splendid Braveries a few nights ago in The Motel at the Arts Commons and I’m happy to report that it’s a play filled with wonderful moments – funny, tragic, heartbreaking, and triumphant all brought to life by a powerful script and a terrific cast of five actors playing multiple roles. The Famous Five were five Alberta women who lead the fight to have Canadian women recognized constitutionally as persons. Emily Murphy led the battle and was supported by Irene Parlby, Louise McKinney, Henrietta Muir Edwards, and Nellie McClung. Their case was rejected by The Supreme Court of Canada in 1928, but the Judicial Committee of the British Privy Council, which was the highest court in the land at the time, decided in favour of the women on October 18, 1929.

I sat down with Caroline to talk with her about High and Splendid Braveries and the journey the play took to go from page to stage.

JAMES HUTCHISON

Initially, you wanted to write a play about The Famous Five but felt that a two-hour play simply couldn’t capture the lives of all these women, and you found that one voice above the others began to speak to you. Tell me about that process and the years it took to go from your original inspiration to a finished play.

CAROLINE RUSSELL-KING

Well, the truth of the matter is that I didn’t know anything about them. I was woefully ignorant. And so, I was reading an article in Avenue magazine, and it was about the first unveiling of the statues of The Famous Five in Calgary, and I thought, “Oh, that’s interesting.” And in the back of my head I thought, “Oh, that’s a good Alberta Foundation for the Arts grant because it’s about women’s history, and somebody will fund me to write a play about that.” And then I started researching these women and I started falling in love with these women and being awestruck by these women and being completely swayed by them. 

The Women are Persons! statue in Calgary honouring The Famous Five. Sculpted by Barbara Paterson. Photo courtesy of Frances Wright.

So, I did a lot of research. I read their books, and I went to Ottawa and put on the white gloves and looked at the original correspondence in the archives, and I had some copies of that sent to me. I did interviews with people including Frances Wright who’s the CEO of The Famous 5 Foundation, and my mother-in-law Angela Matthews was a contributor and supporter of The Famous Five, and I’m not sure exactly how it happened, but I got invited to the inner circle and unveiling of The Famous Five Statues on Parliament Hill. So, I got to meet The Prime Minister, Jean Chretien, and go into the Senate and meet the senators and have cocktails with Margaret Trudeau. And that was interesting because that’s where I first started thinking about loss. There were lots of activities going on at the time, and I fell down that whole rabbit hole of research, and then I started writing the play. 

And the play was too much. There were too many storylines and too many parts. And I thought I can’t write about The Famous Five. I have to focus on one. So, the one I was most attracted to was Emily, and a lot of people have written about Nellie. There are a lot of Nellie plays out there. But I thought of Emily because she was literally the driving force behind getting this thing done.

People think the story is about women wanting to become persons. Well, we already knew we were persons. So, what did Emily really want? I followed that thread, and I read her book, The Black Candle, which was the first seminal book of research at the turn of the 20th century about opioids in Canada. 

She went into drug dens and interviewed people and tried to make systemic change and tried to save lives. She was exposed to the idea of harm reduction. We think of harm reduction as being a new thing, but it isn’t. She would have been appalled at the closing of safe injection sites. She was really ahead of her time in a lot of ways. She was trying to save lives and stop the flow of opium. She was amazing. She was a neat broad. I liked her a lot.  

Ginette Simonot as Princess Poppy with Martina Laird-Westib and Shannon Leahy in the Drama on a Dime and Urban Stories Theatre production of High and Splendid Braveries by playwright Caroline Russell-King. Photo by Benjamin Laird

JAMES

You said in the introduction to your play that she whispered to you in the night. 

CAROLINE

You know what it’s like. You’re a playwright. You know what they do. They wake you up and they start talking to you and then you have to grab a pen and start writing it down.

JAMES 

It makes our job easier.

CAROLINE

It does.

JAMES

The play features five actors portraying multiple characters, and the play is very fluid in terms of moving between locations. And I think it’s very cinematic with short scenes, but you can follow the major narrative quite easily. Tell me about the team of people you’ve gathered together to bring High and Splendid Braveries to the stage and to life. 

CAROLINE  

I have my very good friend Elizabeth Stepkowski Tarhan directing the play. She’s a fairly new director, but she has a huge wealth of theatrical experience. She’s worked all over Canada in A houses with the best directors, and she brings with her this huge wealth and passion and rigour and care.

Director Elizabeth Stepkowski Tarhan and the cast of High and Splendid Braveries by playwright Caroline Russell-King in rehearsal.

And I wanted to do it in the Arts Commons. That was important to me. I’d heard a rumour, and I don’t know if it’s true, but I’d heard a rumour that the land opposite the Arts Commons is going to be repurposed and that there was some threat that The Famous Five statues might actually be moved away from there. And I thought, “I have to do my play before the statues get moved.” So, I wanted a theatre in close proximity to the statues, and the simplest and easiest way to make that happen in six months was to co-produce the play with Urban Stories Theatre and Helen Young, who has been producing shows in the Motel for ten years.

The cast includes my really good friend Allison Smith, whom I’ve known for forty years, and she played a pregnant clown in one of my first plays at The Glenmore Dinner Theatre. She doesn’t like to talk about that. (Laughs) So, Alison Smith and Martina Laird-Westib, Shannon Leahy, and Tara Laberge. I had seen Tara Laberge in a Fire Exit show, and I was really impressed by her work. And we have Ginette Simonot. She’s a rock star.

Playwright Caroline Russell-King in rehearsal for High and Splendid Braveries.

I couldn’t afford to put this show on with a full equity slate, so these are some of the best non-equity actors in town and what’s great about being a theatre critic is I’ve gone to a lot more theatre and seen a lot more people, and I’m always scanning for who’s out there and who is going to be somebody that I want to work with in the future. That’s how we got Tara Laberge, and then because of COVID we have an understudy – the lovely Tara Blue.

JAMES

One of the things I really liked about the play is that you let your characters speak from their particular perspective and the time in which they lived. So, we have characters voicing opinions and ideas that today we wouldn’t agree with but as an audience in 2022 we recognize the ideas as being out of step with how we think today. So, I’m curious to know your thoughts in terms of trying to be fair in presenting how these characters thought and still designing the play to reflect our modern views about some of the ideas you present.

CAROLINE

Well, it’s a conundrum, and it’s interesting because there’s been a shift towards taking those attitudes out of plays. I saw a play in the past year that was a historic piece that spoke so eloquently and so vocally about everything, but they wouldn’t have spoken like that at the time. They wouldn’t have said that.  This voice is the voice of the playwright who wants to apologize for these characters. And because you’re a playwright you understand we want our characters to be flawed. We don’t want these perfect people doing perfect things in perfect situations with no conflict. That’s boring and unrealistic.

And The Famous Five, as they’ve come to be known, the more they get scrutinized under the microscope the more flawed they seem to people, and then people concentrate on those flaws as opposed to acknowledging the incredible amount of worth that happened because of these women. They literally changed the world.

I believe the audience is smart. I don’t like the term bums in seats. I like the term brains in seats. I think sometimes playwrights want to make things safe and spell stuff out or be superior in some ways, but I think the audience is bright and there are always going to be people in the audience that are smarter than I am.

JAMES

Do you think sometimes playwrights don’t want to be taken to task by presenting a controversial idea? 

CAROLINE

Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. But you know it’s not my personality to shy away from controversy. I always say one of my worst flaws and one of my best flaws is that I’m not a people pleaser. That being said, I would like people to enjoy my art, but I don’t write thinking about pleasing certain people or certain elements of our society. That’s not where I come from.

I think we need to talk about the issues more, and I think we need to get out of our silos and talk about the things that matter. We need to build bridges. We need to be able to communicate with each other. I mean, the issue of drug addiction – how is that not bipartisan? How is it that not everybody wants to address poverty and healthcare? What kind of world are we trying to build? It’s scary when we can’t talk to each other.

JAMES

One of the things that makes your story real is that you deal with loss. Emily’s personal loss. Could you speak a little bit about including that in the play?

CAROLINE

That actually came out of talking to Margaret Trudeau because I thought there’s a woman I have nothing in common with. We’ve got our little sandwiches and our drinks, and her life and my life are completely different. But she had this enamel pin on which was a rose for her late husband, and she had lost her son. And we started talking about grief. And I thought, well, that is the universal thing that joins us all together. The older we get the more we’ve encountered loss and grief and I immediately started thinking about Emily and thinking about what the loss of a child would have been like for her. I think personally there is no greater loss than the loss of a child. A spouse is hideous, brothers and sisters are hideous, and parents are bad, but they come in order. You’re a father, you know. How would you come back from that, right? That should be another bipartisan thing. Who doesn’t care about that?

Tara Laberge as Emily and Ginette Simonot as Doris in the Drama on a Dime and Urban Stories Theatre Production of High and Splendid Braveries by playwright Caroline Russell-King. Photo by Benjamin Laird.

JAMES

I’ve seen you on social media where you do a thing called Pop Up Playwright. On your website you say, “Pop Up Playwright is about creating art in public spaces. Playwrights are generally not visible. Actors are visible. Directors are. Playwrights not so much. I think we need to come out of our offices and move away from the kitchen tables and go out. Much like painters, we need to set up our easels and create in public.” Tell me about the decision to create Pop Up Playwright and what it’s been like to create art in public.

CAROLINE

Oh, it’s fascinating. It’s been a great social experiment. I’ve done Pop Up Playwright in hospitals, airports, downtown, at City Hall, libraries, and once on the street. I have my Pop Up Playwright sign I put up, but I also put up a little plexiglass sign that will say something like, “Ask me questions about plays. Feel free to interrupt me.” I invite interactions with people.

It’s very strange because you’re regarded overwhelmingly with such suspicion and one of the things that I get asked all the time is, “What are you selling?” And while I am a dramaturg, I’m not out there trying to drum up business. It’s about having discussions about theatre with people who might not even go to theatre. I love talking to people about so many things and having people come over and ask, “What are you working on?” And I can say, “I’m writing this scene. I don’t think it’s very good right now, but I think I know how to fix it.”

Allison Smith as Arthur and Tara Laberge as Emily in the Drama on a Dime and Urban Stories Theatre Production of High and Splendid Braveries by playwright Caroline Russell-King. Photo by Benjamin Laird.

JAMES

So, now that the play is finished and it’s being produced what does Emily Murphy, the Emily Murphy who spoke to you in the middle of the night and whispered in your ear, what does she think of the play, and what do you hope comes out of this?

CAROLINE

At the moment she would channel Nellie McClung and say, “Get the thing done and let them howl.” The big dream would be to have it produced at the 100th anniversary of the Persons Case, which is in 2029. I’d like to get it on at the NAC, so I’d like the play to have a bigger profile. I think that’s the only time producers would consider putting it on at that level.

But the most important thing is that people come away from the play having had an entertaining night at the theatre. That they haven’t been lectured to. It’s not an infomercial. It’s not a heritage moment. It’s not a quaint little story about Little House on the Prairie women trying to do their thing. These are real women. These are flawed women. These are women who are fighters.

***

CAST & CREW

On a Dime Productions and Urban Stories Theatre presents High and Splendid Braveries by playwright Caroline Russell-King stars Tara Laberge, Allison Smith, Martina Laird-Westib, Ginette Simonot, Shannon Leahy, Tara Blue. Co-producers Helen Young & Caroline Russell-King, Director Elizabeth Stepkowski Tarhan, Stage Manager Andrea Cortes, Assistant Stage Manager Mary Bogucka, Assistant to the director and original music AJ Tarhan, Cello Morag Northey, Lighting Concepts Elizabeth Stepkowski Tarhan, Lighting Designer Calum Maunier, Lighting Tech Support Kai Hall.