Tag: theatre

A Christmas Carol by James Hutchison at Piper’s Opera House

Posted on by James Hutchison

A Christmas Carol at Pipers Opera House: If there’s a ghost of a chance that the spirit of Charles Dickens will turn up at a production of one of my adaptations of A Christmas Carol this year then I’d have to say that the most likely place will be the Piper’s Opera House in Virginia City Nevada. Which would be fitting considering that A Christmas Carol is not only a story of redemption but it’s also a ghost story and in some ways even a time-travelling story. And those storytelling elements along with its central message of redemption are some of the reasons I think it remains popular today.

The Piper’s Players Production of A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens at the Piper’s Opera House in Virginia City, Nevada. Melody Hoover Photography.

Last spring, I was contacted by Jennifer Hunt who asked if she could customize my adaptation of a Christmas Carol to reflect the history and real-life characters from Virginia City around the time of the gold and silver rush back in 1860. I said sure why don’t we give it a try and see how it works and some months later A Comstock Christmas Carol with a Scrooge named William Sharon hit the stage at the Piper’s Opera House. I connected with Jennifer the first week of December to talk with her about Virginia City, spirits and the production of the play.

JAMES HUTCHISON

Tell me a little bit about Virginia City.

JENNIFER HUNT

Virginia City is about forty minutes south of Reno Nevada and is an incredibly small community with a population of five hundred. However, in the summer months, it can easily swell to 8000 people depending on what activity the town has going on such as our Rocky Mountain Oyster Festival. I don’t know if you know what Rocky Mountain oysters are.

JAMES

We call them prairie oysters here.

  • Virginia City, Nevada – Photo Courtesy of Visit Virginia City
  • Virginia City, Nevada 1920 – Photo Courtesy of Visit Virginia City
  • Outhouse Races – Virginia City, Nevada – Photo courtesy of Visit Virginia City
  • Chili on the Comstock – Virginia City, Nevada – Photo Courtesy of Visit Virginia City
  • Wahoe Club – Virginia City, Nevada – Photo Courtesy of Visit Virginia City
  • Chili on the Comstock – Virginia City, Nevada – Photo courtesy of Visit Virginia City
  • Rocky Mountain Oyster Festival – Virginia City, Nevada – Photo Courtesy of Visit Virginia City
  • Rocky Mountain Oyster Fry Parade – Virginia City, Nevada – Photo Courtesy of Visit Virginia City
  • Virginia Truckee Railroad – Virginia City, Nevada – Photo Courtesy of Vist Virginia City
  • Chollar Mine – Virginia City, Nevada – Photo Courtesy of Visit Virginia City
  • Virginia City Mining Co. – Virginia City, Nevada – Photo Courtesy of Visit Virginia City
  • Gold Stamp Mill – Virginia City, Nevada – Photo Courtesy of Visit Virginia City
  • Virginia City Fiesta Del Charro at the Virginia City Fairgrounds on Sunday, Aug. 19, 2018. Photo by Candice Vivien/Nevada Momentum
  • Firehouse BBQ – Virginia City, Nevada – Photo Courtesy of Visit Virginia City
  • Red Dog Bar and Grill – Virginia City, Nevada – Photo Courtesy of Visit Virginia City
  • Red Dog Saloon – Virginia City, Nevada – Photo Courtesy of Visit Virginia City
  • Merchant Sidewalk – Virginia City, Nevada – Photo Courtesy of Visit Virginia City
  • Virginia City Living Legends – Virginia City Nevada – Photo Courtesy of Visit Virginia City

JENNIFER

There you go. Yeah, I’ve heard they’re called all sorts of things. Virginia City has been able to crawl out of obscurity because of tourism. Tourism is our life’s blood. And we are very good at tourism. In fact, I believe Virginia City has more parades than any other small town in the United States. I joke that if someone sneezes on the north end, we have a parade on the south end.

We’re also an old mining town. The whole town looks very Western when you drive through it. We still have the western storefronts and the wooden boardwalks. Any improvements that are done have to be done in a historical fashion. We’re very proud of our little historical town. In fact, the mantra is, “Come to Virginia City and come to the past.”

JAMES

Pipers Opera house is where you perform and that’s a historic site. Tell me a little bit about that.

JENNIFER

Piper’s Opera House was built in 1863. It burnt down in 1875 during the great fire that ravaged Virginia City. There have been a couple of fires that have threatened the town, but the 1875 fire was the major one. It destroyed 80 percent of the buildings in the town. The opera house was rebuilt in 1878 and it burned down again in 1883 and then was rebuilt in 1885.

Piper’s Opera House – Virginia City, Nevada – Photo Asa Gilmore

JAMES

I imagining you’ve had some interesting historical folks perform in Virginia City over the years.

JENNIFER

If a theatre company was touring the circuit which included San Francisco, Sacramento, and Carson City then Virginia City was one of the stops. Some of the big names that have been here include Mark Twain, Houdini, Lillie Langtry, and Maude Adams. All of the actors or actresses of that era would have stopped and performed on our stage.

JAMES

Well then, I have to ask. You’ve got an old opera house here, so…

JENNIFER

Is it haunted? (Laughs) I get that question every day. I have worked at the opera house for three years now and I’ve seen some weird things but everything I’ve seen could easily be explained logically. I used to tell people that if you want to see ghosts then you will probably see something.

The actors and the people that are backstage at the opera house and pouring their emotions into the stage and the show they’re doing I have found more susceptible to seeing things than I am. For example, I was walking a group of actors out at the end of their show last season, and I was locking up the building and it was dark and just as I was about to lock the door a little girl, I think she was four at the time, said, “Don’t lock the door, there is a guy trying to get out.”

And I looked at the door and there’s no one there so what do you say to a four-year-old? I said, “Well you need to tell that man to come back during operating hours.” And she looked at the door and then she looked away from the door and she said, “Oh, you can close it now. He already left.” I’m like, “Oh, okay, I’ll just close the door.”

We had a school tour that was going through the opera house about a month ago and one of the kids got a picture of an apparition up on the third floor. But that’s so random. In November, we had a paranormal group that went through the building and they tried for hours and they couldn’t get a whisper.

Built in 1885 and still in use, Piper’s Opera House stage once welcomed President Grant, Buffalo Bill, Al Jolson, Lotta Crabtree, Mark Twain, and more recently Hal Holbrook. Phot Courtesy of Visit Virginia City

JAMES

Did they have any kids with them?

JENNIFER

No, I don’t believe they had any children. They were all adults. But I tried to tell them that what I’ve found is that most people will experience activity when the opera house is full because there is life in the opera house and when everyone leaves and you turn off the lights it’s almost like blowing out a candle and the life of the opera house is put on hold until it’s full of people again.

JAMES

So, you’ve adjusted the play a little bit to reflect some of the historical figures in Virginia City. Tell me a little bit about who the Scrooge character is based on now.

  • The Piper’s Players Production of A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens at the Piper’s Opera House in Virginia City, Nevada. Melody Hoover Photography.
  • The Piper’s Players Production of A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens at the Piper’s Opera House in Virginia City, Nevada. Melody Hoover Photography.
  • The Piper’s Players Production of A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens at the Piper’s Opera House in Virginia City, Nevada. Melody Hoover Photography.
  • The Piper’s Players Production of A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens at the Piper’s Opera House in Virginia City, Nevada. Melody Hoover Photography.
  • The Piper’s Players Production of A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens at the Piper’s Opera House in Virginia City, Nevada. Melody Hoover Photography.
  • The Piper’s Players Production of A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens at the Piper’s Opera House in Virginia City, Nevada. Melody Hoover Photography.
  • The Piper’s Players Production of A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens at the Piper’s Opera House in Virginia City, Nevada. Melody Hoover Photography.
  • The Piper’s Players Production of A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens at the Piper’s Opera House in Virginia City, Nevada. Melody Hoover Photography.

JENNIFER

Last season we incorporated the notion of mining and saloon girls in our last show. And I thought that’s what made the show special. It was very centralized around Virginia City. And people have a connection with Virginia City. When people come into town, I can’t tell you how often I hear people say, “This town is so special. I feel a connection here. I can see why you love it. It’s like coming home.” And that’s the allure of our town. I don’t believe in reincarnation, but many people feel a very strong emotional connection to our town.

And so, we decided to continue bringing those elements into our productions to make them special to Virginia City and when I started thinking about the Scrooge character I started thinking about who would be a good Scrooge.

Scrooge is that character that really makes it all pivotal. At first, I thought, well, one of our big icons is William Mackey. He was one of the silver barons and I thought I should use Mackey because everyone knows his name. But historically speaking, Mackey was a philanthropist and he treated his workers better and he paid them more and he tried to take care of them and that didn’t really make him a good Scrooge character.

JAMES

I think that’s good of you to consider the real legacy of a person and not just use them because their name has recognition especially if they don’t fit.

JENNIFER

You’re right. It needed to mean something. So, I went online, and I put Virginia City into Wikipedia, and I just started looking for names. And finally, I found the name of William Sharon. Apparently, William Sharon owned the Bank of California branch in Virginia City.

And Adolph Sutro who was building this amazing tunnel system underneath all the mines so he could funnel out hot water to them always blamed the failure of his project on William Sharon because Sharon wouldn’t give him the loans he needed. When Sutro wrote about Sharon it was horrible. It was nasty. Apparently, Sharon gave out loans to miners and then upped the interest rates and then took their mines when they couldn’t pay back the loans. Sharon was an awful guy and that got my brain going.

And I started looking into Sharon and he had a partner in San Francisco named William Ralston. And he was the bank Manger in San Franciso and Sharon was the bank manager in Virginia City. And Ralston was not the best of guys. He did so much internal dealings with the bank that he threw himself into San Franciso Bay when he was found out. And I’m like wow that kind of fits you know. And so, Ralston became our Marley and Sharon became our Scrooge.

JAMES

You’re calling the play a Comstock Christmas Carol. Where does the word Comstock come from?

JENNIFER

It comes from Henry Comstock. Apparently, he was one of those slimy car dealership type of guys. When a mine was booming, he’d say he owned part of it and he should be getting some money for it. Because at the time they didn’t keep very good records of who owned what mines and he was able to finagle his way into owning parts of these mines even though he had never owned them or put any money into them. He actually died in obscurity but somehow his name, Comstock, stuck to that booming era of the 1860s to the 1880s. When you drive into Virginia City Comstock is everywhere.

JAMES

Tell me a little bit about the actor you’ve got playing Scrooge.

JENNIFER

Jerry Reyes is our Scrooge and has been on the stage before and he’s also been an extra in films including being one of Jack Sparrow’s crew in the first Pirates of the Caribbean movie. He moved back to Nevada and he wanted to start doing some live theater again. He’s very charismatic. He comes with all his own costumes and props, which is great and he’s excited to be up there and he’s doing a fantastic job.

Jerry Reyes as Scrooge in the Piper’s Players Production of A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens at the Piper’s Opera House in Virginia City, Nevada. Melody Hoover Photography.

JAMES

As the playwright, I’m curious about why you picked my particular play. There’s no shortage of adaptations.

JENNIFER

What I started looking for was Christmas Carol scripts and I found yours and I was looking through the pages and I really enjoyed how you adapted it. I liked how you brought the characters in and I just thought it was so classic and so memorable. And it brought in enough of Dickens but made it easy to understand. And that’s what I loved about your script. And that’s why I was so thankful you were willing to work with us and allow us to make it more local because it has been a blessing. This script is so easy. The scenes are short. The actors are really loving all the energy that you pulled in with your words. It’s just phenomenal.

JAMES

Thanks, I appreciate hearing that and I appreciate you sharing my adaptation with your audience. So, why do you think the story of Scrooge and his redemption is still so popular?

JENNIFER

Scrooge is so focused on his needs that he’s forgotten other people’s needs. And we do that in our everyday lives, whether it’s Christmas or whether it’s spring or whether it’s summer we sometimes get these blinders on and we forget about everyone else.

And I think as we watch the story we see ourselves in every character. We can be that selfish Scrooge sometimes in our lives. We can be the regretful Marley where we wish we could have said and done things differently. And we see ourselves in the love and hope of the Cratchits where you’re always hoping for the best regardless of what’s going on. And in my opinion, I think that’s what makes it special. We get to sit back and see ourselves in everything.

And Scourge is so dynamic he goes through so many changes that there’s always empathy for this character. He grovels and he’s a miser and then he’s scared and then he’s worried and then he’s sad and then he’s happy. I mean, how often do you see a character go through such a metamorphosis? And as we watch him go through it, we are also going through it. The audience gets to go through it with him especially when it’s a really good actor.

JAMES

Yes. And it sounds to me like you’ve got a really good actor playing Scrooge.

JENNIFER

I do. I’m very blessed with everyone. I’ve met friends in the theatre that started as acquaintances and turned into something special. And during the season, while we’re working on a play, it’s tough. The lines are tough, and the blocking is tough and learning all these things is tough, but there’s that moment of magic when you get on stage that makes the last three or four months you’ve been working on it mean something. And it makes it special. And it’s a joy to see them on stage. And the best part about theatre is sharing that joy with other people.

Interview with Barb Mitchell – Do What You Love

Posted on by James Hutchison

You might know Barb Mitchell as the cohost of Calgary’s first morning show for Global back in the early nineties. Or you might remember her as Miss Calgary back in the early eighties. Or more recently you might have seen her on television as a judgmental church lady in the gritty Depression-era drama Damnation. I sat down with Barb, just after this year’s Calgary Stampede, to talk with her about her experiences as a broadcaster and her career as a stage and television actor.

JAMES HUTCHISON

So, your first experience on stage was playing Piglet from Winnie the Pooh in Junior High – certainly one of the more complex characters in the hundred-acre wood.

BARB MITCHELL

Yes, I did a deep dive into Piglet.

JAMES

Was there anything from that performance that ignited your love for the stage?

BARB

Well, I loved my drama teacher, Miss Main. She was incredible and fun, and we got to escape and experiment and I loved it – so when they didn’t have enough kids turn out for the play and she asked me to be in it I jumped in and did it.

Barb takes a “deep dive into Piglet” from the Hundred Acre Wood

JAMES

It’s nice to be in demand.

BARB

Yeah.

Continue reading “Interview with Barb Mitchell – Do What You Love”

Newmarket National 10 Minute Play Festival Celebrates Canadian Theatre

Posted on by James Hutchison

I’m very excited to announce that my play, Valentine’s Day, is one of twenty-four plays being produced at the 2018 Newmarket National 10 Minute Play Festival. The NNPF is a festival dedicated to Canadian plays and the diverse voices of this country and takes place forty minutes north of Toronto in Newmarket Ontario. 

The plays are grouped into four themed Pods with six plays being presented in each Pod. Tickets are just twenty bucks per Pod and each Pod is presented four times during the festival. Valentine’s Day which is part of the “off BALANCE” Pod is about Tom who remembers the day fifty years ago when he met the love of his life, Heather. The production is being directed by Dale Sheldrake and stars Dan Karpenchuk as Old Tom, Tiffany Deobald as Heather, Kyra Van Den Enden as Karen, and Ilya Iyashyk as Young Tom.

Other plays in the “off BALANCE” Pod include Hero by Peter Cavell a sweet romantic comedy where even heroes need a hero and Funeral Sandwiches by Greg White where a grieving Barbara learns the truth about her husband and another woman. This pod is suitable for most audiences and is described as: “In life’s ledger, what we lose and what we gain always affects the balance.”

If your tastes run a little more mature you might want to see the “side KICKS” Pod which deals with mature themes, coarse language and sexuality and includes If the Shoe Fits by Genevieve Adam where a loyal knight, a glass slipper, and a pig farmer provide a new twist on an old tale and The Kiss by Janet Kish where Panda learns about the give and take of love in an innocent clown-like world. This Pod is definitely meant for a mature audience and is described as: “Best Buddies. Sidekicks? Boon companion or boot the companion? Relationships are so complex!”

The third Pod called “social ORDERS” includes a story about two unlikely refugees who encounter unanticipated obstacles when they try to cross the border in a play by Guy Newsham called The Other Side. This Pod is suitable for most ages and its description reads: “Independence. Interdependence. When there’s no comfort in conformity, something’s out of order.”

“Sometimes we get what we’ve longed for. Sometimes, what we get, is long overdue.” That’s the description of Pod number four: “past DUE.” Plays include Daphne of Evora by Samantha Machado which is about Daphne who faces a forced marriage to an English duke after being stolen from her homeland and Cataloguing the Stars by Andrew Lee where Agnes and Alex’s relationship is catalogued in notes that reach across the chasm of space and time. This Pod contains mature themes and is therefore intended for a mature audience.

Interview with Michael Halfin Artistic Director of the Newmarket National 10 Minute Play Festival

“We’ve received submissions from every province in Canada and from Canadians from around the world. We’ve received scripts from China, Tasmania, Australia, Ireland, many states throughout the U.S., and so on, and I think that Canadians are catching on to the idea that this is their festival.”

Michael Halfin, Artistic & Executive Director NNPF

Michael Halfin, Artistic & Executive Director NewMarket National Play Festival

I talked with founder and Artistic Director of the NNPF Michael Halfin and to Dale Sheldrake the director of my play about this year’s festival.

JAMES HUTCHISON

Michael, I understand you had retired and when we think of retirement most of us think of golf courses and trips to Europe and working in the garden, but after eight months of retirement, you decided to create a national festival of ten-minute plays. Where did the idea for the festival come from, and why did you take on the challenge of putting the festival together?

MICHAEL HALFIN

I’ve always been fascinated by the ten-minute play format, and as a drama teacher, I’d found it to be a great format to teach students dramatic structure, acting process, characterization…really the whole package that full length plays offer, without having to deal with pages and pages of text that kids are resistant to reading. Moreover, I’d read these plays and sometimes find myself weeping at the end – and they were only 10 pages long! It wasn’t long before I was getting kids to write their own ten-minute scripts and inviting professional playwrights into my classroom to dramaturge with them. The results were outstanding. I knew this was a format for writers, actors, and audience, and so the opportunity to create a national play festival exclusively for Canadian writers would be so inviting to playwrights because of the format’s tight structure and huge dramatic pay off just seemed logical to me.

As for retirement, I felt after 35 years it was time to leave teaching and apply all I’d learned in a different way. I’ve always been a creator, and I guess, it’s just impossible for me to stop.

JAMES

One of the things I really like about the festival is the fact that people have a chance to see twenty-four original Canadian plays. What has been the response from the playwriting community across the country, and why do you feel it’s important to showcase so many plays?

MICHAEL

I think what’s been most delightful to see in these first two years is where people are submitting scripts from. We’ve received submissions from every province in Canada and from Canadians from around the world. We’ve received scripts from China, Tasmania, Australia, Ireland, many states throughout the U.S., and so on, and I think that Canadians are catching on to the idea that this is their festival. We don’t “theme” the festival. People can write whatever they want, and what we consistently find, is that Canadians are attuned to the Zeitgeist and have a kind of “collective unconsciousness” and tend to write scripts on the same themes in a given year. So, we select twenty-four and they just naturally fall into the six-pack pods we build around themes that are common in those six scripts.

Breanne Dietrich, Jake Wilkinson, in A Little Reservation. Book & Lyrics by Trevor Curran; Music by JaeMoon Lee. Directed by Mandy Roveda. Photo: Jason Wighton – Newmarket National 10 Minute Play Festival

JAMES

The first year was very successful and in its second year, the festival is getting bigger and better having expanded from two days to five. What is your ultimate vision of what the festival can become?

MICHAEL

Ultimately, I’d like to see us expand into divisions of the festival that would be ten-minute, one act, full-length, and even full-length musicals, but for now, the most important thing is establishing that we are a credible, committed organization that respects creative artists and wants to open the door to the diverse voices of our country. And just as importantly, honour that ten-minute format that appeals to every generation–especially the i-generation people who want information fast and to the point. If we want theatre to be viable, we have to get the youngest generations into our houses.

JAMES

How is the community of Newmarket involved in the production and running of the festival?

MICHAEL

At the board level, all of us are volunteers. We don’t take a single cent from gate receipts for ourselves. Last year, we were overwhelmed by volunteers and we couldn’t find enough work for them to do. This year, we’ve identified our areas of need more clearly to make the best use of people’s time during festival week. We’ve also had tremendous buy-in by the restaurateurs and merchants in the downtown core who are giving ticket holders discounts on their meals and purchases. Just incredible validation from small business owners! And I can’t say enough about the Town of Newmarket itself. Without their support, this festival simply couldn’t happen. Lastly, we have a number of people in town who are billeting a number of our artists for the month of July. You can’t ask for better community support than that.

JAMES

Why should someone come to the festival?

MICHAEL

First, I think they should come for the plays! This is theatre for people who’ve never liked theatre. My 22-year-old son hates theatre, but even he likes this format. He said, “Dad, I know if five minutes in I don’t like the play, at least I know a new one is coming five minutes later. I don’t have to sit there being bored for two hours!” For experienced theatre-goers, the themed pods of six plays give them a full diet of what they’ve come for. We also build the festival around the plays. Last year, local visual artists curated an entire exhibition around our four pod themes, and we’ll be doing that again. We have 14 playwrights coming to do readings of some of their other work before the audience engages the performance of their ten-minute play. We have director and actor talkback sessions, historical tours, and have built Buskerfest into our program so people have lots of live performances to see on the streets. It’s fun. It’s great theatre and it tells us who we are as Canadians. All of these activities are free. The only thing you pay for is your theatre ticket. Somebody tell me where you can get more bang for twenty bucks?

***

Artistic Director Michael Halfin watches a rehearsal of actors Ilya Ilysshyk and Meghan de Chastelain in For the Love of Austen by Stefanie Curran, directed by Dale Sheldrake. Newmarket National 10 Minute Play Festival

Interview with Dale Sheldrake Newmarket National 10 Minute Play Festival

“Telling and hearing stories keeps us in the emotional and intellectual company of one another. I think deep down, people desire to know they can rely on other people, and stories and theatre can offer that by creating a like-minded culture.”

Dale Sheldrake, Director Valentines’ Day

***

One of the exciting things about having your plays produced at festivals is the chance to connect with the artists who are producing your play. I’ve made connections in England, and Australia and now in Newmarket Ontario.  A few weeks ago I connected with the director of my play Dale Sheldrake.

JAMES HUTCHISON

Dale, you’re directing four plays in this year’s festival. Which plays are you directing and what attracted you to each particular play?

DALE SHELDRAKE

I’m directing Hero by Peter Cavell, For the Love of Austen by Stefanie Curran, Pausing At The Fringe by David Healey, and Valentine’s Day. Each play has aspects of love involved in its story: the need for love, lost and found love, new love, old love, restricting love, freeing love. These aspects of love shift and evolve in each play and reveal how present and important love is to every person’s day, existence and lifetime.

I was drawn to these plays because they’re well told but also because three of them have messages of hope in them regarding love. That’s a theme I like to share with audiences when possible. Valentine’s Day is different because of its context, but still, the main character, Tom, reflects on how his life was more meaningful than he could have ever hoped for because of his love for his wife Heather. So his hope is in reflecting on the love he had which comforts him in his current lonely life. That’s a nice twist.

JAMES

You’ve had a rich and successful career working in film and television on lots of different shows including The Handmaids Tale and Penny Dreadful. You’re a playwright and published poet, screenwriter, documentary filmmaker, a singer and a musician, and apparently make a mean Tex-Mex chili. You’ve worked in a lot of different mediums and have experience in a lot of different areas of production. With all these various skills what in particular do you use as a theatre director to help bring a story to life on the stage?

DALE

Everything, really. I love storytelling and can’t get it out of my system. Having experience in different entertainment mediums and settings has been valuable for staging a performance and helpful with directing. As a starting point, I read the play and visualize it, considering what is connecting with me emotionally, in regards to the characters and what’s happening between them. This opens up aspects of presentation that can be applied to the story. The purpose, of course, is to figure out what will make the audience best able to relate personally to these characters, feel the emotions the story conveys and understand the underlying lesson? I think most stories try to teach a lesson of some kind or offer a perspective on one.

JAMES

As a person deeply involved with the creation and telling of stories why do you think people have this deep desire to hear and tell stories?

DALE

People need and want social interaction, whether it’s in person or not. Stories tell us about each other and give us a lens to look at ourselves and our behaviour. Live storytelling, like theatre, brings groups of people together, entertains us, and lets us share in emotional experiences without being personally involved. It’s safe and it feels good to laugh with others, and shed a tear with these sudden communities and friendships. Telling and hearing stories keeps us in the emotional and intellectual company of one another. I think deep down, people desire to know they can rely on other people, and stories and theatre can offer that by creating a like-minded culture.

JAMES

You had a table read with all the actors a few weeks ago where all twenty-four plays were read. What was that experience like for the people involved in the festival?

DALE

The full company table read was super! There are actors who would never have met each other during the festival because of different schedules so it worked as an introduction. It gave a depth and shape to what a huge commitment and undertaking it is to put this festival together. It gave an overview of all of the terrific writing and talent involved. Everyone loved it!

JAMES

What do you find most inspirational about the NNPF and want people to know about the festival?

DALE

The Newmarket play festival preparations are incredibly professional, and having everything creative in one place: rehearsals, set design, wardrobe, staging, props, it all just buzzes like a beehive on certain days. Most inspiring is the growing presence of the magic of theatre, of numerous people working together to build something visual, thought-provoking, heart-grabbing and grand from the words on the page. Excitement grows a little day by day as we near opening night.

***

The Newmarket National 10 Minute Play Festival runs from July 25 to July 29th. Tickets are just twenty bucks per show and there are four shows of six plays based on a common theme available to see. You can get tickets and check out the complete festival schedule at the Newmarket National Play Festival Website.

***

Man, I wish I could be there. I’d love to see all the plays and meet the other playwrights and actors and directors and I’d definitely be heading to the Chip+Malt for some fish and chips. The Chip+Malt is just one of the many restaurants and retailers offering discounts during the festival. But that’s what festivals are – they’re about going out with friends, making new friends, seeing some shows, talking about those shows, having something to eat, and exploring the community. And the great thing is the world wide web expands that community and it lets me offer my support to the festival and help spread the word. In fact, anyone with a Twitter, Facebook or Instagram account can help support the arts by just letting people know about the festivals they attend and the theatre they see. I have no doubt this year’s festival will be a huge success and Michael’s plans to grow the festival beyond the ten-minute format to a celebration of all theatre formats is an exciting prospect for Candian playwrights. In the meantime, I want to acknowledge the creative talent working on my show and all the actors, directors, designers, stage managers, and volunteers that make this festival possible. Bravo!

***

Cast and Director for Valentine’s Day

Dan Karpenchuk – Old Age and Treachery; The Other Side; Valentine’s Day: After spending a lifetime as a broadcast journalist in Canada and Europe, about fifteen years ago, Dan turned to his other great love, acting. His film credits include: MurdochMysteries, Taken, Forensic Factor, Mayday and Masterminds. His most recent theatre credits include; Oakes in The Prince of Naples at the Kingston Fringe Festival, Kris Kringle in Miracle on 34th Street at Upper Canada Playhouse in Morrisburg, Falstaff in the Merry Wives of Windsor the Humber River Shakespeare, Ivan in Drinking Alone at the Rose Theatre, Brampton, and Andrew Wyke in Sleuth also at the Rose. Dan’s Shakespeare credits include Othello, As You Like It, The Taming of the Shrew, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Macbeth, Much Ado About Nothing, and All’s Well That Ends Well. Dan heads back to Morrisburg this winter for the Upper Canada Playhouse production of The Christmas Express which opens on November 30. Dan is thrilled and grateful to be a part of this year’s Newmarket National 10 Minute Play Festival.

Kyra Van Den Enden: Daphne of Evora; Late Romances; Valentine’s Day: Kyra Van Den Enden is a Ryerson University Theatre Performance graduate. She is thrilled that she will be continuing her theatre education at the Ecole Internationale De Theatre Jacques Lecoq this fall. Her Acting credits include: The Rover (Dir. Banuta Rubess, 2018); Jack and the Beanstalk (dir. Andrew Lewis Smith, 2017); Eurydice (dir. Robynne Harder, 2017); The Artful Widow (dir. Adam Paolozza, 2017). She also performed in several original works as a part of the 2018 New Voices Festival including two of her own works, DINGBAT DODO DOWN DISCO! which she co-created and directed with Veronica Hortiguela, and Now Presenting the Really Cool, and Totally Awesome Girl On Fire: ANALEISE. She couldn’t be happier to be performing in the Newmarket National 10 Minute Play Festival for a second year.

Ilya lyashyk – For the Love of Austen; Valentine’s Day: Born in Poltava, Ukraine, Ilya Marvin Ilyashyk, is an actor living in Toronto. He has recently graduated with a BFA-Acting degree from the University of Windsor. Previous credits: Pete- On the Rocks (Small But Mighty Productions), Earnest- The Anger in Earnest and Earnestine (OPIA), Nick- The Plausibility of Teleportation in an Oxygen Deprived Environment (Get-Go), Man- Best Before (Hamilton Frostbites Festival). At the University of Windsor: Bill- The Driver (self-written), Gerry- Dancing at Lughnasa, Fire chief – The Bald Soprano

Tiffany Deobald – Daphne of Evora; The Pipe Test; Valentine’s Day:  Tiffany Deobald is an actor from North Battleford, Saskatchewan. She holds an advanced diploma from George Brown College’s Theatre Arts Program (2014). Theatre credits include: Sex&This (Aim for the Tangent), Much Ado About Nothing (Single Thread), The Tempest (Theatre Calgary) and The Mourning After the Night Before (Alumnae Theatre). Film credits include: A Walk in the Park (Aries 6), Outfield (York University), #R.I.P. (Eden Films), INCONTROL (Umbrella Collective Films), Cody Fitz (Umbrella Collective Films). Tiffany is very excited to be working with these new pieces in the Newmarket National 10 Minute Play Festival and she hopes you enjoy the shows!

Dale Sheldrake: Director – For the Love of Austen; Hero; Pausing at the Fringe; Valentine’s Day: An ADR Supervisor in film and television for over 30 years, Dale works closely with incredible writers and actors on productions such as Vikings, The Tudors, The Borgias, Crash, Barney’s Version, Penny Dreadful, and The Handmaid’s Tale. He’s won several awards for his work and loves that theatre direction and ADR are such compatible aspects in entertainment, both building on the importance of performance, dialogue, storytelling and emotion. He is also a playwright, published poet, author, screenwriter, documentary filmmaker (Helldrivers, OLN 2007), singer and musician, and makes a mean Tex-Mex chili. Theatre directing credits: Of Mice and Men; Standing at The Edge of the Universe of Disunity; The Author; Crazy; Day Care; Brother, Brother (InspiraTO Theatre Festival); Tuesdays With Morrie (Theatre Aurora). Dale is thrilled and inspired to be part of the 2018 Newmarket National Play Festival. He thanks Michael Halfin for the wonderful opportunity, the marvellous crew and actors for their amazing energy, professionalism and talent, but most of all, his wife, Petra, for her love, patience and keeping the fire going at the Newmarket National 10 Minute Play Festival

Urban Stories: Social Justice Issues for the Stage

Posted on by James Hutchison
Poster for Urban Stories Theatre - Just Acts Youth Edition 2018

Urban Stories Theatre supports local playwrights who write about social justice issues and helps these playwrights go from first draft to finished production. The company is made up of a core group of local artists who oversee all productions and workshops.

Urban Stories and the Knox Theatre Collective are presenting, The Just Acts Youth Edition from June 5th to 8th at Knox United Church. The Just Acts Youth Edition is a showcase for young writers to develop and present their work on stage.

Helen Young is the Artistic Director and one of the founders of Urban Stories Theatre. Her theatre, film, and television work goes back more than 30 years and includes acting, singing, dancing, stunt work, writing, teaching, and directing. I spoke to Helen about her thoughts on theatre’s place in our culture and this year’s festival. 

JAMES HUTCHISON

I’m wondering where you think theatre fits into our society and culture now that we have so many other ways of communicating ideas and engaging in conversations with others such as Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, and of course Facebook.

Photograph of Helen Young from Urban Stories Theatre

HELEN YOUNG

I think theatre will always be important and necessary, because we need to connect in person. I do and see a lot of theatre, and nothing beats an audience reacting to live theatre. Or leaving the theatre and hearing people discussing what they’ve just seen. I would rather see a live show than a movie. We need human contact, and that’s one of the things that’s driving Urban Stories Theatre to move towards a more socially aware focus starting now.

JAMES

People go to the theatre to be entertained, but they also go to be enlightened about some aspect of humanity. However, if a show isn’t entertaining it won’t draw an audience. How do you balance your desire to entertain an audience with your desire to deliver a message?

HELEN

That’s a good question. It’s a fine line to walk. We have a couple of shows that have been submitted that are very dark. They’re good plays about important issues, but a play like that has to be handled very carefully. We try to find a balance with the shows we do. The play fests are a bit easier because we can do a dark play followed by a lighter one, it allows the audience a chance to breathe. But sometimes, a very dark play can take the audience on a journey that they would never normally experience so that’s a good thing. Amanda Wheeler (my voice of reason) and I decide together what plays we will do, so we look at all sides of the play before moving forward.

JAMES

You have a play festival coming up called Just Acts Youth Edition. What is the Just Acts Youth Edition?

HELEN

Every year we do the Just Acts Play Fest in February where we invite playwrights to submit short plays on a common theme that changes each year. It has been running for about 8 years now and is very popular. So, we decided to do a Youth Edition for younger writers. UST works with the Encore Junior High Drama Fest each May and we perform the student written plays. Last year we did a show of the plays from the festival. This year we are moving to a more social justice, humanity theme. So, we looked for more socially aware plays and performance pieces.

JAMES

Where did the idea for the festival come from?

HELEN

Young voices are often taken for granted or not heard at all, so we wanted to offer a platform for them to be heard. I have been going to Youth Riot for a few years now and watching the faces of the writers and performers when an audience reacts to a piece they wrote. I wanted to offer another avenue for these creative young artists to express themselves.

JAMES

What was the response to the first year?

HELEN

Our first year we didn’t really have the advertising in place so we didn’t get as many people as we had hoped for. The feedback was very positive and the young writers were thrilled. This year we are more focused on getting the word out and getting more audience feedback.

JAMES

You have two very different offerings this year. First up is The Make Believer Project which is being created and performed by the girls in this year’s festival. What is that show about?

HELEN

The Make Believer Project is a spoken word piece that the girls have been working on with playwright Eugene Stickland over the past few months. They have been journaling and reading the pieces to each other. Eugene put all the pieces on paper and handed them to me. I gave the girls parts to read and divided the show into three parts. So, the show is about their lives and their hopes and dreams. It’s very moving and sometimes a bit hard to listen to.

Production Still from Urban Stories Theatre Production of The Make Believe Project.
The Make Believer Project: a spoken word, poetry and storytelling performance written and performed by Summer, Savannah, Nicole, Gemini, Shelby, Krisdena, Maegan, Sapphire, Aurora, Kailynn, Kiara, Tamika, Rayanna, Kaylie, Aaliyah, Brooke, Halona, Lyric and presented by The Stardale Women’s Group.

JAMES

What do you think audiences will take away from the show?

HELEN

These twelve to sixteen-year-old girls have lived through so much in their young lives. As aboriginal girls they are often stereotyped and/or ignored. But they have hopes and dreams and wants and needs just like any other girl. I want audiences to see them and hear their stories. Maybe we’ll think twice before judging someone on their appearance. That’s what I would like to happen, to have people walk away thinking about them as girls first.

JAMES

The second offering is a play you’ve written called, Touch of Grace, which deals with the teen sex trade. How did this project evolve?

HELEN

I have a degree in sociology, and my focus was woman’s correctional facilities. Many of the women I spoke with were forced to grow up too fast. That’s where Grace began, girls growing up too fast and doing whatever it takes to survive. I also focused on the people who help these girls. Social workers who burn out fast. The play doesn’t deal with facts, it deals with an almost mystical sense of love and empathy that Grace has towards others. Something that touches them and allows them to open up their hearts and souls. The people at the group Home need Grace as much as she needs them.

JAMES

What do you hope audiences will take away from this show?

HELEN

We’re all in this world together, and it’s always easier to deal with what life throws at you when you have a good support system. Many of us take our friends and families a little bit for granted. If people walk away from this show and talk about it or go hug a friend, then I’ve done my job.

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Urban Stories Theatre and the Knox Theatre Collective present The Just Acts Youth Edition from June 5th to June 8th at 7:30 pm at Knox United Church. (506 – 4th Street SW)  Tickets are just $10.00 and available at the door or can be reserved by e-mailing urbanstoriesyyc@gmail.com.

The Just Acts Youth Edition

The Make Believer Project: A 20-25 minute performance of spoken word, poetry and storytelling. The Make Believer Project gives these young aboriginal girls a much deserved and sorely lacking voice. Written and Performed by Summer 16, Savannah 17, Nicole 17, Gemini 17, Shelby 14, Krisdena 14, Maegan 15, Sapphire 12, Aurora 12, Kailynn 12, Kiara 14, Tamika 15, Rayanna 13, Kaylie 11, Aaliyah 13, Brooke 12, Halona 14, Lyric 11 and presented by The Stardale Women’s Group.

A Touch of Grace by Helen Young is a play that tackles the teen sex trade by showing how the tragedy of a 14 year old sex worker helps a case worker find a sense of hope and belonging. This is a sneak peak at a section of the play. Cast:  Belanna Internoscia, Krista Stephens, Adrianna Rabeda- Kowalczak,Emily Sharp, Ben Wild, Brandan Severtson

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Link Graphic to Old Stock: A Refugee Love Story at Alberta Theatre Projects - Review James Hutchison

An Interview with Playwright Dale Lee Kwong: Ai Yah! Sweet and Sour Secrets

Posted on by James Hutchison

“It’s been my goal to have a play at Lunchbox Theatre since 1978. I was in grade twelve when the Stage One program first started, and I don’t even know how I ended up going to all the Stage One readings but I did, and I made a mental note to myself that someday I would like to have a play at Lunchbox.” – Dale Lee Kwong

Calgary Playwright Dale Lee Kwong
Calgary Playwright Dale Lee Kwong – Photo by: Tung Bui – illusionistproductions.com

One of the things I love about Lunchbox Theatre is that many of the productions you see on their stage feature local playwrights whose work was developed through the Stage One Festival of New Canadian Work. This season alone features several plays that were developed through the festival including Book Club II: The Next Chapter by Meredith Taylor-Parry, Flight Risk by Meg Braem, and the upcoming and very funny Ai Yah! Sweet and Sour Secrets written by Dale Lee Kwong.  

Dale not only writes plays but also writes poetry, essays, and creative non-fiction. Her essays have been published in Somebody’s Child: Stories of Adoption, A Family By Any Other Name: Exploring Queer Relationships, and the Malahat Review. Her poetry has appeared in Canadian Literature, Modern Morsels, and The Calgary Project: A City Map in Verse and Visual. Dale often performs at local literary events and sometimes speaks at inclusive churches and organizations like PechaKucha, TALES and The Coming Out Monologues.

I spoke to Dale about her dream of having a play performed at Lunchbox and the journey her play, Ai Yah! Sweet and Sour Secrets, took to go from page to stage.

Jamie Matchullis as Jennifer, Chantelle Han as Lilly, Ben Wong as Charlie, and Kelsey Verzotti as Jade in the Lunchbox Theatre production of Ai Yah! Sweet and Sour Secrets – Photograph by Benjamin Laird

JAMES HUTCHISON

When did you get into writing?

DALE LEE KWONG

I’ve always been a writer. I have poems framed in cardboard and typed on Manila paper from 1971 that I gave to my family at Christmas. I wrote a community column for about ten years when I lived in Crescent Heights that was told from the point of view of my dog, Magoo. And in my family I’m always the one that gets called upon to do the toast to the bride or the speech. But my real writing career started about fourteen years ago at the end of a relationship. I went to a writing workshop in Edmonton called Women Who Write and took some introductory writing classes. Classes which didn’t actually critique your material so much as just read it back to you and say what struck them.

JAMES

So, it’s a workshop to encourage the writing process?

DALE

Yes, it’s very much for emerging writers. And I realized I had things I wanted to say and so, the first year after my break up I started enrolling in creative writing courses at the University of Calgary. I took three poetry classes with Tom Wayman, and he’s an awesome professor. During that time I won the CBC Poetry Face Off in Calgary, and that got recorded and aired nationwide, and that got voted on by listeners, where it placed third.

JAMES

What a fabulous boost for the ego.

DALE

It was. At the same time Alberta Theatre Projects and the Alberta Playwrights’ Network ran a 24-hour playwriting competition. I entered, and my first play, which was really just a scene, was called – Is Normie Kwong Your Uncle? And it won a special merit award which gave me a free dramaturgical session with Ken Cameron at the Alberta Playwrights’ Network.

I wasn’t even sure what APN was, but after I met with Ken I sent a proposal for an as-of-yet unwritten play to Rona Waddington at Lunchbox Theatre and she commissioned the play in the fall of 2005. I wrote notes and outlines, but I didn’t actually write the play until February 2006 in another 24-hour playwriting competition, which is so well suited to me because I worked in television as a news editor. In television we don’t start cutting the news for the six o’clock show until around three in the afternoon. And then from three to six you hit the ground running, and it’s intense, and that’s the kind of scenario I love. So my writing is always last minute and rushed. I’ve tried to change that, but it’s just part of my process.

JAMES

So, was that the play that became the play being produced at Lunchbox this season?

Dale Lee Kwong Playwright, Steve Gin, Brenda Finley, Michelle Wong, Francine Wong, Pat Mac, Nicola Zylstra
Dale Lee Kwong, Steve Gin, Brenda Finley, Michelle Wong, Francine Wong, Pat Mac, Nicola Zylstra – at the Glenbow Museum for the Alberta Playwrights’ Network Discovery Prize workshop and reading, November 2006

DALE

Yes, this play has been in development since it was first commissioned in the fall of 2005 and written in February 2006. It’s taken twelve years to get to the stage. And some people think it’s autobiographical, but it’s actually not. There are elements of truth in it, and there are true stories in it.

JAMES

So, what you’ve done is taken personal experience as an inspiration and then created the play out of that. What are some of your thoughts about this twelve-year journey?

DALE

Well, when I started I didn’t know what the hell I was doing. I’d never written a play before. But one thing that worked to my benefit as a playwright was my day job as a news editor. A news editor takes the raw material that a reporter shoots with her photog (cameraman) and helps it become a better product. And one of the things that entails is taking interviews that are five to twenty minutes long and pulling out 20-second sound bites. So in a sense – I’ve been working with dialogue for twenty-six years.

I’d also taken a writing workshop at the Banff Centre from Fred Wah about a form of Japanese poetry called Utanikki. In Utanikki you take two pieces of text and chop them up and then you put them back together in some form, and just by taking two completely different subjects – for example, a recipe for making scrambled eggs and a piece about coming out to your family and mashing them together a relationship is created between these two topics that didn’t previously exist. Many of my writings employ this method. Two types of writing blended together. I have poems where there’s haiku blended with free form.

Jamie Matchullis as Jennifer and Kelsey Verzotti as Jade in the Lunchbox Theatre production of Ai Yah! Sweet and Sour Secrets By Dale Lee Kwong – Photograph by Benjamin Laird

In the play I had this story about a lesbian and her girlfriend, and eventually they decide to move to Vancouver to get away from her family. But in between those scenes I had another entire play. It was a reality game show like Survivor where the lesbian girlfriend was being forced to come out to her family through a competition. There was a character like Jeff Probst, and there was this ancient Chinese sage character named Connie-fucius who would spout out fortune cookie lines.

Over the years I worked with a lot of different directors and dramaturges who encouraged me to remove the Survivor scenes from the play, but it was honestly my favourite part. I loved it! And I loved the character of Connie-fucius.

Lunchbox Theatre – The Early Days – Bow Valley Square

Rona Waddington never scheduled it for a production, and after she left Lunchbox I resubmitted it to Pamela Halstead when she was artistic director, and she was really interested in it, but by then she had already submitted her own resignation. So she set up a meeting between me and Glenda Stirling who was the incoming artistic director. Glenda had already programmed her first season,  but she was interested in it for the following year, but then Glenda left. So I’d submitted the play to three different artistic directors and it had fallen through the cracks each time.

The other thing you need to know is that it’s been my goal to have a play at Lunchbox Theatre since 1978. I was in grade twelve when the Stage One program first started, and I don’t even know how I ended up going to all the Stage One readings but I did, and I made a mental note to myself that someday I would like to have a play at Lunchbox.

JAMES

But isn’t that fascinating – that there’s that connection from thirty years ago – no forty years ago.

DALE

78, 88, 98, 2008 – oh my God, forty years!

JAMES

Four decades.

DALE

That makes me tear up thinking about that. That’s why this play is so special to me. Lunchbox is my favourite theatre company, and I make no bones about saying that. I’ve been donating to them for years, and I’ve been volunteering there, and I think they’re one of the best treasures in Calgary.

Chantelle Han as Lilly and Ben Wong as Charlie in the Lunchbox Theatre production of Ai Yah! Sweet and Sour Secrets by Dale Lee Kwong – Photograph by Benjamin Laird

JAMES

So what happened next?

DALE

After Glenda left, in comes Mark Bellamy. I knew Mark vaguely from Vertigo Theatre – and you’d think I’d show him my script right away, but I was gun shy having experienced several disappointments. So, I got to know Mark better, and he got to know me better, and I finally said to Mark, “You know, I’ve got this script that was workshopped here, and it kind of fell through the cracks.” He asked me what it was about and after I told him he said, “Send it to me.” So then I had this opportunity to send it to him, and do you think I sent it to him? No, because by that time it had been workshopped so much I didn’t know where I was at, and I thought I should get him a clean version. So, it took me a year to revise it and send it to him and he got back to me within a month, and gave me a workshop.

At the workshop Mark gave me the choice of a couple of directors and I chose Trevor Reuger from APN whom I had prior dealings with. He had helped me with another script I had started. I told Trevor my creative process and how I’m late with everything and not to worry because I was a news editor, and I’m used to tight deadlines, but before we started the workshop, Trevor suggested, that for the sake of time, we leave the Survivor bits out for now and he said, “If you can show me how they advance the storyline then we’ll start putting them back in.” I was sort of reluctant to do that.

JAMES

Sounds like a clever strategy from your dramaturge.

DALE

Yeah, so the first day we missed two Survivor scenes, and they were funny, and I was like – how can I justify getting them in?

JAMES

So, for the whole workshop you were trying to push them back in?

DALE

Well by Thursday I knew Survivor wasn’t coming back. The play had changed. Everything was fluid. I was doing rewrites every day. But there was this fight scene between Jade and her mother which I’d always struggled with because I didn’t have that fight with my mother in real life when I came out.

Ben Wong as Charlie, Jamie Matchullis as Jennifer, Kelsey Verzotti as Jade and Chantelle Han as Lilly in the Lunchbox Theatre production of Ai Yah! Sweet and Sour Secrets – Photograph by Benjamin Laird

DALE

When I first came out it was in ’93, and I wrote the play twelve years later. I came out before Ellen Degeneres came out, and that was big news. She came out on the cover of TIME magazine. I came out to my family – all in one day – at my mom’s house. I told my cousins first, and at dinner I told everybody’s parents. The ones who had the most trouble with it were the cousins in the 50 to 70 year range, but everyone over 70 was fine with it. In my experience of coming out – senior citizens don’t care that much – you know – life’s too short – do what you want. I had one relative who was ecstatic to finally have a lesbian in the family – that was surprising too.

So, anyway, I had written the play forward to the fight scene and written the play backwards from the fight, but I couldn’t actually write the fight scene. There was just a blank page.

And we got to Friday, before the public reading, and we were reading the script, like we did every morning, and the actor basically went from the last line before the blank page to the first line after the blank page and I went, “No wait. There’s a fight scene there.” And they all went, “What?” And I said, “Well that’s what the blank space is.” And Trevor said, “Where are the words?”

And I said, “I was hoping we could workshop this and get something out.” And Trevor said, “Dale, there’s an audience coming in an hour and a half to see your play. You have to have some words there.” And I said, “Well yeah, but I’ve struggled all the way forward and all the way back – I just need some help.”

Finally Chantelle Han who was playing the mother said, “I think I would ask them to leave, but I need to say something first.” Then the actor playing Jennifer or Jade said, “Well maybe such and such could happen.” And that gave me a little bit. And I think we all worked it out together. I was scratching out lines and adding lines and telling them things. I have no idea what that page looked like on their scripts, and when they actually read it at the reading it wasn’t typed. It was just hand written notes. That script literally got written an hour before it was read.

JAMES

But the audience didn’t know that, and I saw that reading, and it was a lot of fun. There were a lot of laughs. People loved the play, and I remember mentioning to you how much clarity had come into the play from when I had read it probably a year and a half to two years before that if not more. So now that the play is being produced are you excited about going into the rehearsal process?

DALE

Even though I’m not as much of a green horn as I was twelve years ago I’m still a newbie. This is my first big production. So, there’s a bit of a learning curve, but I’m really lucky because one of my mentors in the theatre community is Sharon Pollock whom I’ve known since 2006, and over the last few years we’ve become really good friends because we walk our dogs together.

Rehearsal for Ai Yah! Sweet and Sour Secrets
Jamie Matchullis, Kelsey Verzotti, Ben Wong, and Chantelle Han rehearse a scene from Ai Yah! Sweet and Sour Secrets

Sharon is wonderful. Last year she had her own new play Blow Wind High Water at Theatre Calgary and she had a revision happening on another play at Stratford and I was going through stuff on my end and so I could ask her questions like, “Should I go to the rehearsals?” And Sharon was the first to say, “It’s your right to go to the rehearsal. Not all playwrights do. In fact, most directors would probably discourage it, but you’re emerging – you’re a rookie – you should go to them all.” She said, “Just take a book, and be there if they need you, and listen once in a while, and see what things they struggle with, and you’ll learn.”

You know I always say to emerging artists, particularly artists in their 20s, I say, “You have age on your side. You can plead complete ignorance. You can say, I don’t know. I’ve never been to a dress rehearsal? Can I come to your dress rehearsal? I’ve never been to a first read. Can I come to your first read?”

Ben Wong as Charlie, Jamie Matchullis as Jennifer, Kelsey Verzotti as Jade, and Chantelle Han as Lilly in the Lunchbox Theatre production of Ai Yah! Sweet and Sour Secrets – Photograph by Benjamin Laird

DALE

The other thing you can do if you’re an emerging writer or artist is volunteer. I have been ushering at Calgary theatres for more than ten years. Almost every theatre company in the city uses ushers, and if you usher you get to see the play for free, and you meet the people behind the scenes. So there are all these people that I’ve met along the way, and I’ve been supporting them for ten years, and I finally have something they can come to.

JAMES

Playwright Dale Lee Kwong at Lunchbox Theatre 2017/18 Season Launch
Dale Lee Kwong at the Lunchbox Theatre 2017/18 Season Announcement with former Lunchbox Artistic Producer Mark Bellamy Photograph by Carol F. Poon

And genuine friends are happy for you.

DALE

Yes, I get that. I feel the love. At the official season announcement last February I just burst into tears. My best friend got a picture of it, and it’s one of my favourite pictures. Like you say it was a forty year journey. I didn’t even do the math. I’m bad at math. I’m not a good Asian.

JAMES

You can say that joke, I can’t.

DALE

You can credit it to me.

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Dale also wanted to take this opportunity to thank the many people who have contributed to the development of her play over the years. Here is a list of the actors, directors, and dramaturges who have offered their time, talent and support in the creation of Ai Yah! Sweet and Sour Secrets.

Lunchbox Theatre – Stage One workshop, May 2006

  • TV Host/Charlie Wong – Steve Gin
  • Lillian Wong/Connie-fucius – Jacey Ma
  • Jade Wong – Elyn Quan
  • Jennifer Smith – Karen Johnson Diamond
  • Dramaturg/Director – Ken Cameron

Alberta Playwrights’ Network – Writing in the Works excerpt, Oct 2006

  • TV Host – Grant Lunnenburg
  • Lillian Wong/Connie-fucius – Sharon Pollock
  • Jade Wong – Laura Parken
  • Jennifer Smith – Francine Wong
  • Director – Sharon Pollock

Alberta Playwrights’ Network – Discovery Prize workshop and reading, Nov 2006

  • TV Host/Charlie Wong – Steve Gin
  • Lillian Wong/Connie-fucius – Michelle Wong
  • Jade Wong – Francine Wong
  • Jennifer Smith – Nicole Zylstra
  • TV Host/Stage Manager – Patrick MacEachern
  • Dramaturg/Director – Brenda Finley

filling Station Magazine – flywheel reading for Chinese New Year, Feb 2008

  • Charlie Wong– Ben Tsui
  • Lillian Wong– Jasmin Poon
  • Jade Wong – Francine Wong
  • Jennifer Smith – Elan Pratt
  • Connie-fucius – Jade Cooper
  • TV Host – Emiko Muraki
  • Director – Dale Lee Kwong

Lunchbox Theatre – Stage One workshop, June 2016

  • Charlie Wong – Mike Tan
  • Lillian Wong – Chantelle Han
  • Jade Wong – Ali DeRegt
  • Jennifer Smith – Julie Orton
  • Dramaturg/Director – Trevor Rueger
Poster for Ai Yay! Sweet and Sour Secrets at Lunchbox Theatre

Dale Lee Kwong writes poetry, plays, and creative non-fiction. Third-generation Chinese-Canadian, her work explores Chinese-Canadian history, diversity & inclusion, adoption, and LGBTQ issues. Dale is passionate about the importance of Chinatowns across North America, and the fight to save them from gentrification. Dale plans to keep writing about the past and present, in hopes of shaping the future! 

Lunchbox Theatre is one of the most successful noon-hour theatre companies in the world and produces one-act plays that provide patrons with an engaging and entertaining theatre experience. Lunchbox produces seven plays per season, as well as the Stage One Festival of New Canadian Work where many of the plays produced by the company are developed. Lunchbox is one of Calgary’s longest-running professional theatre companies and is located in downtown Calgary at the base of the Calgary Tower.

Tung Bui is a Calgary photographer and videographer that is passionate about visual storytelling. He loves the challenge of trying to shoot outside the lines of the viewfinder. So if you’re looking to capture your memories in a unique way…let his imagination work for your vision.

This interview has been edited for length and condensed for clarity.

DOWNLOAD: James Hutchison Interviews Playwright Dale Lee Kwong – Ai Yah! Sweet and Sour Secrets

Theatre: The Original Social Media – World Theatre Day

Posted on by James Hutchison
Graphic for World Theatre Day - The Original Social Media.

Look in the Mirror

Every year on March 27th the International Theatre Institute celebrates World Theatre Day. On that day a figure of world stature is asked to share his or her reflections on the theme of Theatre and a Culture of Peace. Past contributors have included John Malkovich, Edward Albee, and Eugéne Ionesco.

Art makes us look in the mirror. It reflects who we are as a people a culture and a society. The mirror does not hide the scars and neither should our art. We should reflect on the whole: both the good and the bad.

And one of the ways we reflect on who we are as humans is through story and one of the ways we present story is on stage. And that’s why we still gather in groups to experience the comedy and tragedy of life. Theatre has a place in society. It always will. It will not die. We are social creatures and theatre is one of the original social medias.

I thought it might be interesting to dive into the archives, beginning with the first World Theatre Day message delivered by Jean Cocteau in 1962, and see whether or not these messages from the past still have relevance in today’s world.

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“It is the nature of the theatre to breed this paradox: that history, which as time goes on, becomes deformed, and mythology, which, as time goes on, becomes established, have their only true moment of reality upon the stage.”

Jean Cocteau World Theatre Day 1962

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“In a time when diplomacy and politics have such terribly short and feeble arms, the delicate but sometimes lengthy reach of art must bear the burden of holding together the human community.”

Arthur Miller World Theatre Day 1963

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“The theatre and its sister arts cannot aim high enough in their responsibility towards society. Our effectiveness is great, and transcends national boundaries. We invite people to our theatre to present to them an image of reality in an entertaining, wise and agreeable form, thus enabling them to recognize reality. We, the people of the theatre, try with our work to make our planet at last fit to live: and that still means above all, that we must create a theatre for a peaceful present and a friendly future, in which man is a helpmate to man.”

Helene Weigel World Theatre Day 1967

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“Art, as the saying goes, knows no frontiers. The theatre should have no frontiers either. Transcending ideological divergencies, caste, race, national outlook and individual countries, the theatre should be a universal country, the meeting place of all men who share the same anguish and the same hopes revealed by the imagination, and should be neither arbitrary nor realistic but an expression of our identity, our continuity and our oneness.”

Eugéne Ionesco World Theatre Day 1976

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“The theatre taught man to face himself honestly, with infinite scrutiny; to confront his guilt and assume responsibility for himself; it taught him to consider and rise to what he could be rather than bow to limitations he has been led to accept. It taught him equality through protest and how one man alone is an entire universe.”

Radu Beligan World Theatre Day 1977

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“…not a day goes by without learning of increasingly cruel acts of violence and terror, of dangerously tense situations and armed conflict. Every day we witness the growing hatred of one human being for another, mutual intolerance and brutal violations of human rights which, in the field of international relations become transformed into threats of catastrophe.

A self-destructive fever seems to have humanity in its grip. In our attempt to prevent these catastrophes we have resorted to a tragic and paradoxical form of therapy; struggling to maintain life we undermine its roots; declaring peace we accelerate the insane arms race, protecting people’s freedom we violate their sovereignty; solemnly proclaiming the Charter of the Rights of Man we trample human dignity underfoot. The UNESCO Constitution asserts that wars begin in the minds of men and that it is in their minds that peace must be built – a lasting peace founded on the intellectual and moral solidarity of humanity.”

Janusz Warminski World Theatre Day 1980

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“This day enables us to focus on all that unites us, that links us to one another, through our daily joys and cares. But above all, it provides an opportunity to look on the other, on another culture, at the other end of the planet. If, kindred in poetry, theatre artists often anticipate the reality of tomorrow and have a foreboding of the destiny of humanity, they also represent its memory!

The Second World War ended 40 years ago. The world of theatre remembers. Theatre, so often harassed, persecuted throughout the ages, has become the symbol of resistance to all types of oppression; theatre which identifies itself to life, for creation is life, is witness to this renascent life.

From the end of the nightmare a great hope emerged: that of mutual understanding between peoples.”

André-Louis Perinetti World Theatre Day 1985

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“Today, as in the past, Theatre must contribute to enlightening our minds, and to giving battle on all fronts against barbarity on our planet. Now, more than ever, it needs to make its presence felt in our societies, caught up as they are in a web of racist and exclusive attitudes and practices; it must make people think and arouse solidarity, all things which contribute to human dignity. Theatre must act as a precursor, illuminating people’s self-awareness and their conscience.”

Jorge Lavelli World Theatre Day 1992

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“I have been in totalitarian societies where people have been imprisoned, have died for access to the arts, and I live in a society where the self-censorship is as ruthless as any imposed from without. The paradox is uglier than we should have to consider.”

Edward Albee World Theatre Day 1993

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“Ethnic fanatics and thugs are casting the world back into its darkest past. People of the theatre who engage their audiences in dialogue about the dramas of the world of today and the dramas of the human spirit point the way to the future. There is another war going on in Sarajevo beside the one we see on television. It is an unarmed conflict between those who hate and kill others only because they are different, and people of the theatre who bring the uniqueness of human beings alive and make dialogue possible. In this war the people of theatre must win. They are the ones who point towards the future as a peaceful conversation between all human beings and societies about the mysteries of the world and Being.

These people of the theatre are serving peace and they remind us that theatre still has meaning.”

Vaclav Havel World Theatre Day 1994

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“Both the theatre and the international arena demand care and concern, but no less do they demand optimism. Without optimism, mixed with a good helping of realism, no theatre can survive. The theatre, as a microcosm of our society, reflects and sometimes reinvents what we do in the outside world. All human conflict and strife, ambitions and dreams are generously depicted there. The entire world’s a
stage, as a rather well-known English dramatist put it, and on that stage, the actor becomes the symbol of man with all his shortcomings and frailties, with all his high hopes and ideals.”

Vigdis Finnbogadottir World Theatre Day 1999

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“Theatre subtly permeates the human soul gripped by fear and suspicion, by altering the image of self – and opening a world of alternatives for the individual and hence the community. It can give meaning to daily realities while forestalling an uncertain future. It can engage in the politics of peoples’ situations in simple straightforward ways. Because it is inclusive, theatre can present an experience capable of transcending previously held misconceptions.”

Jessica A. Kaahwa World Theatre Day 2011

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“May your work be compelling and original. May it be profound, touching, contemplative, and unique. May it help us to reflect on the question of what it means to be human, and may that reflection be blessed with heart, sincerity, candor, and grace. May you overcome adversity, censorship, poverty and nihilism, as many of you will most certainly be obliged to do. May you be blessed with the talent and rigor to teach us about the beating of the human heart in all its complexity, and the humility and curiosity to make it your life’s work. And may the best of you – for it will only be the best of you, and even then only in the rarest and briefest moments – succeed in framing that most basic of questions, “how do we live?” Godspeed.”

John Malkovich World Theatre Day 2012

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“Under trees in tiny villages, and on high tech stages in global metropolis; in school halls and in fields and in temples; in slums, in urban plazas, community centres and inner-city basements, people are drawn together to commune in the ephemeral theatrical worlds that we create to express our human complexity, our diversity, our vulnerability, in living flesh, and breath, and voice.”

Brett Bailey World Theatre Day 2014

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“We need every kind of theatre.

There is only one theatre which is surely not needed by anyone – I mean a theatre of political games, a theatre of a political “mousetraps”, a theatre of politicians, a futile theatre of politics. What we certainly do not need is a theatre of daily terror – whether individual or collective, what we do not need is the theatre of corpses and blood on the streets and squares, in the capitals or in the provinces, a phony theatre of clashes between religions or ethnic groups…”

Anatoli Vassiliev World Theatre Day 2016

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“More than literature, more than cinema, the theatre —which demands the presence of human beings before other human beings— is marvellously suited to the task of saving us from becoming algorithms, pure abstractions.

Let us remove everything superfluous from the theatre. Let us strip it naked. Because the simpler theatre is, the more apt it is to remind us of the only undeniable thing: that we are, while we are in time; that we are only while we are flesh and bone and hearts beating in our breasts; that we are the here and now, and no more.

Long live the theatre. The most ancient art. The art of being in the present. The most wondrous art. Long live the theatre.”

Sabina Berman World Theatre Day 2018

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“As the world hangs by the hour and by the minute on a daily drip feed of news reportage, may I invite all of us, as creators, to enter our proper scope and sphere and perspective of epic time, epic change, epic awareness, epic reflection, and epic vision? We are living in an epic period in human history and the deep and consequential changes we are experiencing in human beings’ relations to themselves, to each other, and to nonhuman worlds are nearly beyond our abilities to grasp, to articulate, to speak of, and to express.

This is a time for deep refreshment of our minds, of our senses, of our imaginations, of our histories, and of our futures. This work cannot be done by isolated people working alone. This is work that we need to do together. Theater is the invitation to do this work together.”

Peter Sellars, World Theatre Day 2022

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“I am speaking to you today, not just to speak, or even to celebrate the father of all arts, “theatre,” on his world day. Rather, I invite you to stand together, all of us, hand in hand and shoulder to shoulder, to call out at the top of our voices, as we are accustomed to on the stages of our theatres, and to let our words come out to awaken the conscience of the entire world, to search within you for the lost essence of humanity. The free, tolerant, loving, sympathetic, gentle and accepting human. And to let you reject this vile image of brutality, racism, bloody conflicts, unilateral thinking, and extremism. Humans have walked on this earth and under this sky for thousands of years, and will continue to walk. So take your feet out of the mire of wars and bloody conflicts, and leave them at the door of the stage. Perhaps then our humanity, which has become clouded in doubt, will once again become a categorical certainty that makes us all truly qualified to be proud that we are humans and that we are all brothers and sisters in humanity.”

Samiha Ayoub, World Theatre Day 2023

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Wooden Bridge at the Nikka Yuko Japanese Garden in Lethbridge Alberta
Wooden Bridge at the Nikka Yuko Japanese Garden in Lethbridge Alberta

More than ever we need to build bridges of understanding between nations and people and theatre is one of the ways we can do that. And maybe the future of theatre is to be found not just in the performing spaces of basements and churches and theatres but in our ability to share thoughts and ideas across new forms of social media. And maybe the future of theatre, in combination with today’s social media, is one of the ways we can help to promote understanding and compassion throughout the world.

I suppose now more than sixty years after the first International Theatre Day the message is still the same. The echoes of the past reach us in the present and while we can never eliminate violence we can certainly help to reduce the amount of violence in the world.

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