Author: parker

 An interview with Bruce Horak

Some of you may recall Bruce Horak from his brilliantly comic show This is CANCER!

This multi-talented visual and performance artist opens his new show Assassinating Thomson, on Wednesday October 9 at the Firehall. Bruce is legally blind (a childhood illness left him with 9% of his vision) and Assassinating Thomson interweaves his story with the controversial tale of famous Canadian painter Tom Thomson’s unsolved murder. We chatted to Bruce Horak about what inspired his latest show, chasing the ghost of Tom Thomson and meeting the man himself.

What first attracted you to the idea of doing a show about Tom Thomson?

I was commissioned several years ago to write a “complete history of Canadian art” and learned the story of Tom Thomson.  I was intrigued by the mystery surrounding his death and felt that it would make a great show.  The various theories about who may or may not have done the deed are fantastic.

What is your favourite Thomson painting?

My favourite Thomson painting is called Northern River.  I love the colour and the feeling he captures.

This show is well traveled, where else have you toured it?

The show began rehearsing here in Vancouver and then previewed in Calgary in June.

The summer tour began in Ottawa (where it won Outstanding Concept) and then went to Toronto, (Outstanding Performance, Production, and Direction) Winnipeg (Audience Favourite) Edmonton and Victoria (Best new play).

What kind of reactions have you had from audiences to the show?

I have had more than a few audience members who are so fascinated by the story that they rush out to buy books about Thomson, his work, his life, and his death.  That’s the biggest compliment I could get. That, and they buy my paintings after the show (which is a big bonus as an artist).

I hear Mr. Thomson himself attended your show. Is that true?!

There is a gentlemen who Blogs as Thomson.  He came to my opening show in Ottawa, introduced himself as Tom Thomson and refused to tell me his real name.  It was quite an honour to meet him:  he told me that I got the story exactly right!

How long have you been painting for? What inspired you to take it up?

I began painting seriously a few years ago.  As a Visually impaired person, many of my friends have asked me how I see… Painting is an attempt to share my vision and capture the way I see.

Can you tell me a little about the portraits that will be on display in the Firehall lobby gallery during your show?

The portraits in the lobby are all a part of my ongoing series: The Way I See It. Each one begins with a base tone, which is influenced by the auras I see.  The distortions in them are a result of the floaters that I have proliferating my visual field.

Each one is meant to be viewed through my glasses at close range in order to replicate my severe tunnel-vision.  It’s quite a challenge to capture how I see, and I’m enjoying the attempt!

 Assassinating Thomson is produced by Monster Theatre and runs October 8-19 at the Firehall Arts Centre. Tickets are available online here or by calling 604-689-0926. You can read more about Bruce here.

Civil Liberties, Activism and Surveillance Panel

On Thursday October 3, we are excited to announce we will be hosting a post-show discussion panel after the 8pm performance of You Should Have Stayed Home. This talkback about Civil Liberties, Activism and Surveillance will feature:

About the Panelists

Micheal Vonn is a lawyer and has been the Policy Director of the BC Civil Liberties Association since 2004.  She has been an Adjunct Professor at the University of British Columbia (UBC) in the Faculty of Law and in the School of Library, Archival and Information Studies where she has taught civil liberties and information ethics. She is a regular guest instructor for UBC’s College of Health Disciplines Interdisciplinary Elective in HIV/AIDS Care and was honoured as a recipient of the 2010 AccolAIDS award for social and political advocacy benefitting communities affected by HIV/AIDS.  Ms. Vonn is a frequent speaker on a variety of civil liberties topics including privacy, national security, policing, surveillance and free speech.  She is an Advisory Board Member of Privacy International. bccla.org

Harsha Walia is a South Asian activist, writer, and researcher based in Vancouver, Coast Salish Territories. She has been active in grassroots social movements for over a decade, including with No One Is Illegal, Women’s Memorial March Committee for Missing and Murdered Women, Radical Desis and more. She was one of the many leading upto both the Anti-Olympics Convergence and the G20 Protests in 2010, facing arrests and trumped charges at both. Harsha has been named one of the most influential South Asians in BC by the Vancouver Sun and Naomi Klein has called Harsha “one of Canada’s most brilliant and effective political organizers.” Her first book Undoing Border Imperialism is forthcoming in November 2013 by AK Press. Find her @HarshaWalia.

Tommy Taylor is a theatre artist, activist and NGO fundraiser living in Toronto. Recently Tommy was assistant director / video designer on Keystone Theatre’s Dora award-winning silent film meets stage project, The Belle of Winnipeg, adaptor/director of Dear Everybody at the CanStage 2009 Festival of Ideas and Creation and winner of the 2010 InspiraTO 10-minute playwriting competition for Sandwich. He was the director of Vancouver based playwright Jordan Hall’s award-winning Kayak at its North American premiere in the 2010 SummerWorks Festival (CBC and NOW critics pick). He is a graduate of the Centre for Cultural Management (University of Waterloo/ CCCO), The Vancouver Film School and Humber College’s Community Arts Development Program.

Tommy was arrested (but never charged) and detained during the 2010 G20 Summit in Toronto. He has since turned his account of the experience into You Should Have Stayed Home, one of the top shows at the 2011 SummerWorks Festival, produced by The Original Norwegian and Praxis Theatre. The show is on a cross-Canada tour for Fall 2013, playing in Whitehorse, Vancouver, Toronto, Montreal and Ottawa.

Greg McMullen is a litigation associate with Branch MacMaster. He focuses on class action work concerning privacy and access to information. Greg is the Legislative Liaison for the Class Actions Subsection of the CBA BC Branch. He is also on the Board of Directors of the BC Civil Liberties Association, and authored the BCCLA’s Electronic Devices Privacy Handbook.

PANEL HOST – Camyar Chai 

Camyar Chai has worked in theatre and film for over twenty years. He is the founder of Vancouver’s acclaimed NeWorld Theatre. He has worked as a freelance actor, director, and writer as well as engaging in Arts Education. In addition to writing plays, Camyar has also written librettos for opera. An award winning theatre maker, he received his Master of Fine Arts in Directing from the University of British Columbia.

This September, the Firehall is bringing innovative Toronto company Praxis Theatre to Vancouver with their true story about the largest mass arrest in Canadian history, You Should Have Stayed Home: A G20 Romp!

Like any good protest, this moving account of writer Tommy Taylor’s experience getting arrested at G20 depends heavily on involvement of the local community to have an impact.

We are seeking participants to help to recreate the cramped conditions in which Tommy was imprisoned in a tiny holding cage with 40 other prisoners. Each performance 20-30 people will join him briefly on stage for a 10 minute scene at the detention centre.

This is an essential and powerful portion of the play and requires the participation of concerned citizens of the Vancouver community to be fully realized. This is a volunteer opportunity but free tickets will be given out by way of thank you.

On opening night (Sep 25), we are aiming to get 40 well-known Vancouverites – artists, writers, politicians to join Tommy on stage.

WE’RE HOPING YOU WON’T STAY HOME.

Actors and non-actors welcome! If you would like to join the show, or just learn more about the opportunity, email: participate@praxistheatre.com

Read more about You Should Have Stayed Home

“The rich people have their lobbyists and the poor people have their feet.”

– Nathalie Des Rosiers, General Counsel of Canadian Civil Liberties Association speaking at a post-show panel at after You Should Have Stayed Home at the 2011 SummerWorks Festival.

Over the last few months a crew of artists have been working away to transform the Firehall’s courtyard and bring it to life with a stunning mural on the back wall. This towering piece of art is part of the City of Vancouver’s ‘Year of Reconciliation’ project and is based on the cultural links and connectivity of three distinct cultures that all converge in Vancouver’s historic heart: Aboriginal, Chinese and Japanese. The convergence of these groups is portrayed in a woven design with symbols, narratives and text from each culture. The mural was conceived with input from each of the three communities.

The mural artists are Jerry Whitehead, June Yun, Eri Ishii and Gerald Pedros, with mentored artists Marissa Nahanee, Christine Cheng and Mayuka Hisata (pictured to the right).
–

Coordinators for the mural were Richard Tetrault and Esther Rausenberg (Creative Cultural Collaborations Society). This project was generously supported with funds from the City of Vancouver.

This coming Saturday afternoon we will be hosting a special public event in the courtyard to launch the mural. We hope you can join us to see the full mural in its glory and find out more about what went into its collaborative creation!

.

RADIUS MURAL LAUNCH

You can read more about the network of Eastside murals here: www.vancouvermurals.ca

A talented team of young creators on a whim set out to create a new all-Canadian musical that uses an all-American comic book as its genesis. In a conversation with Stewart Yu, who co-wrote, RIVERVIEW HIGH (now playing at the Firehall) with Angela Wong and Mike MacKenzie, Firehall Artistic Producer Donna Spencer asks him why they did it?  She thought they would be musical theatre addicts and that this passion had spilled over into a need to create something of their own, but it turns out that a casual conversation between friends who like to dream crazy dreams led to a commitment to create a new Canadian musical.

Donna Spencer:  Whose idea was it to do this?

Stewart:  Angela and I came up with the concept together in April, 2011.   We weren’t very serious about it at first, but thought “Wouldn’t it be fun if there was an Archie musical”?   But I had never written any music before and Angela didn’t have any experience in theatre so we didn’t think the idea would ever go anywhere.    We’re the type of friends who love talking about ideas so when we would get together we would talk and laugh about the potential show off and on and eventually we found ourselves with a basic plot outline for the musical.   And that’s when we realized we were actually getting serious about doing this and if she was on board, so was I.

DS:  So you followed that dream!   I think that is one of the reasons people love musicals.  In a musical anything seems possible and usually the good guy gets the girl. Or in this case, maybe the good girl gets the guy?   Why this story?

Stewart:  Although we both loved Archie Comics, we soon realized that some of the things that happened in them did not make a lot of sense to us now.  How could two girls be okay with sharing this boy?  It didn’t make sense from a 21^st century perspective so even though the characters were inspired by the comics, RIVERVIEW HIGH, is not the story of the Archie Comics.

DS:  Okay so what is it about then?  Teenage angst?

Stewart:    Yes, but in a fun teenage angst way.  It is a story about a clueless teenage boy who is forced to grow up whether he is ready to or not when he is given the ultimatum by the two girls he has been dating – sweet blonde Cathy and sexy brunette Erica.  It is a story about love and whether or not you should follow your heart or your head.

DS:   What can audiences expect?

Stewart:  It is a ninety minute show that will make people laugh, perhaps, they will even recognize themselves from their teenage years and they will see some of their favorite Archie characters in a whole new light.  With a cast of twenty-three of some of Vancouver’s best young musical theatre performers and a band of four talented musicians playing the show nightly, people are going to tap their toes and hopefully go out of the theatre humming a few of the twenty musical numbers in the show.

DS:   After having this great idea, how difficult was it to actually write the musical?

Stewart:   We worked on the show on and off for just over two years as we had jobs and school and life so finding the time was difficult and there were many months when nothing happened.   And even though we had a plot-line it was difficult to write.  After getting my feet wet by writing some of my first-ever songs for the show, I got to the point where I just couldn’t get words onto the page.  At that point, we invited Mike Mackenzie to get involved and lend a hand.  Mike is the director but he, also, has written lyrics for the show and given us insight into producing musical theatre.    We applied to the Firehall in 2012 to produce the work as part of the Fringe Bring Your Own Venue program and when we were accepted were terrified as we hadn’t finished the show yet.   And the rest is history!

DS:  Yes, audiences loved the show during the Fringe and it sold out every performance at the Firehall and at the Pick of the Fringe.  And you won an Outstanding Production Award at the Ovation Awards!    Have you made any changes since then or will those audiences who saw it at the Fringe see the same show?

Stewart:   That’s one of the great things about getting to do the show again. The show is essentially the same but since the Fringe we have continued to develop and strengthen the work.  There are some changes to the script along with a couple of new songs which I think help clarify a few of the story arcs.

DS:  Testing new works in front of audiences is so important, isn’t it?  And having an opportunity to go back into a work after you have experienced the audiences’ response to an initial production is so important.   I know that creating a new musical is not an easy task – there are so many components that most people don’t even think about.   Thanks Stewart for your time.  Welcome back RIVERVIEW HIGH and thanks for following through on that original crazy conversation!

RIVERVIEW HIGH opens tonight and runs through til August 24. Tickets ($18-$20) are sold out for tonight, but still available for the rest of the run. Click here for more information or to buy tickets.

Having just returned from the annual Professional Association of Canadian Theatres conference held in Victoria last week, I am pleased and encouraged that theatre is still  high on the list of many Canadians when making their choices about what to do with their diminishing spare time and much in demand disposable income.   Is any income really “disposable” and can time really “diminish”?  But not to get off track here – one hundred and sixty plus theatre professionals representing theatres of all shapes and sizes producing work for Canadians from a broad range of demographics convened to discuss topics as far ranging as getting your head in the clouds (Cloud computing) to connecting the dots with our audiences and community partners; from working sustainably to recognizing the early warning signs of when your organization is in trouble to discussions on labour agreements and human resources.   It was great to share with colleagues the successes and challenges of the Firehall’s past season and to speak proudly about what a great audience we have here, about what talented and passionate artists we have had the privilege to work with and about how our generous  donors and volunteers help make it all happen.   We were, also,  pretty excited to tell them about the Firehall’s  2013-2014 season when we will bring back some favorites from last season and introduce some works to Vancouver.   Early Bird Passes for the season will go on sale on June 3^rd.   We hope you will join us – going to the theatre is a great way to use your “disposable income” and your “diminishing spare time”!!

-Donna Spencer,  Artistic Producer