January 5, 2019

4 Questions: Gillian Gallow

This article is part of our series 50 Years of Disruption, in celebration of the Department of Theatre’s 50th Anniversary. In it, we’ll ask each participant four questions about themselves and their time at York.

1. Who are you?

I am Gillian Gallow (BFA 2004), and I am a Toronto-based Set and Costume designer for theatre and opera. I was lucky enough to discover set design in high school, and so I entered the York theatre program with an immediate focus on production. In my first year there was a strike at York and this actually changed my life for the best. Once we got the news that the strike would not be resolved before Christmas I used the extra time to volunteer at the theatre in my home town of Oakville. While working backstage I met Jennifer Jansen who recommended I apply to the Blyth Festival as a Production Assistant. With her support I got the job and spent the summer there as a P.A. Carpenter. I met established theatre professionals who helped me begin my theatre career, and I also met my partner, Christopher Morris, who I now have a 4 year old daughter with. So while at York I began assisting designers who I had met at Blyth, and right after graduating I went to the Stratford Festival as an Assistant Designer. After spending a lot of time assisting, a few directors and theatre companies began to take a chance on me and I was able to slowly build my design career. I worked for many seasons at The Grand Theatre and with many independent companies around Toronto. Now I’ve designed at theatres across Canada, including Shaw Festival, Stratford Festival, Citadel, Royal Manitoba Theatre Centre, Theatre Calgary, National Arts Centre, COC and Soulpepper. I also love developing new works and I’ve had the great fortune to travel to Georgia, Pakistan, Nunavut, Israel and China to research and develop new scripts from a design perspective. I’m currently designing the costumes for Hadrian with the Canadian Opera Company, and coming up I’m designing The Runner with Human Cargo as well as productions at The Factory Theatre, Soulepper and The Shaw Festival. This year I was awarded The Virginia and Myrtle Cooper Award for Costume Design which was a lovely honour and will allow me to travel!

2. What was your favourite moment during your time in the Theatre Department, and why?

Honestly, graduation.  I was ready to get out there and work full time.  

3. What comment, quotation, statement, or action that a professor—or classmate—offered had the greatest impact on you?

I was very tense and worried about my costume sketches for my fourth year practical design.  I expressed my frustration to my professor, Teresa Przybylski, and she gave me the best advice: “What you need to do Gillian, is go into a room with a bottle of wine and draw.”  I still remind myself of this all the time because I realized I was taking myself too seriously and I really just needed to relax.  

4. Is there a way you incorporate a particular aspect of your theatre training in your current work?

I chose to go to university and not a conservatory style of school because I wanted a broader education. I think this is crucial for all artists. You need to engage with and think about the world outside of art and life experience is the most valuable thing you can get. Meet people with other interests and ways of thinking, travel, challenge yourself and your assumptions.

December 29, 2018

4 Questions: Jim Millan

This article is part of our series 50 Years of Disruption, in celebration of the Department of Theatre’s 50th Anniversary. In it, we’ll ask each participant four questions about themselves and their time at York.

1. Who are you?

Jim Millan (BFA Acting 1993) has a long series of innovative creations in theatre, comedy, magic and variety that has taken him from Canada to the West End to Radio City Music Hall, Las Vegas, Broadway and beyond.  His unique talent is in demand as director of diverse and unique new entertainments built on his decades of experience in the traditional and less traditional theatre.

After founding Crow’s Theatre in Toronto it quickly became one of Canada’s new play innovators and incubators.  During this period Jim made his reputation directing such daring plays as Unidentified Human Remains and the True Nature of Love, High Life, The Chet Baker Project, Dali and others.  He is proud of the numerous artists whose careers were launched by Crows and the work it continues till this day on its 35^thanniversary. As USA Today said “everything theatre should be, dangerous, daring and disturbing.”

Outside of his company he was sought out by all kinds of innovators to collaborate.  He began a decades long collaboration directing the Kids in the Hall comedy group. He worked alongside Teller and Todd Robbins on Play Dead off Broadway and at the Geffen in LA.  Among his more explosive creations Jim teamed with Adam Savage and Jamie Hynneman to create Mythbusters Live which sold out across North America and toured Australia and New Zealand. As Creative Director, The Illusionists opened in New York City in December 2014 and set an all time record for a magic show on Broadway. It continues touring till this day in numerous incarnations. Jim is also in demand as a creative consultant having stepped in on Spiderman: Turn off the Dark on Broadway working with Bono, Edge, writer Glen Berger and the creative team to help save the biggest musical in Broadway history.

As a comedy writer/director he created SPANK: the 50 Shades parody which played over 400 cities in N. America and it has been produced in Australia and Poland grossing over 10 million dollars.

Recently he directed a world premiere, ACTS OF A GENTRIFIED OJIBWAY REBELLION by Drew Hayden Taylor at the National Arts Centre that is slated for a national tour in 2019/20 season and has begun development on a stage adaptation of Col. Chris Hadfield’s book The Darkest Dark.  Jim also is directing a new project in Jan. 2019 for Disney and continues in his role as creative producer for the Governor General Performing Arts Award Gala.

He has directed comedy, dramas, spectacles, magic and musicals on 5 continents in 35 countries in 17 languages and premiered over 170 new works in his career seen by tens of millions of people.

2. What was your favourite moment during your time in the Theatre Department, and why?

Studying with Dean Gilmour whose teaching of the Lecoq School’s approach upturned my ideas about what made theatre. Previously I didn’t understand how to approach new styles of theatre as a performer or creator. It seemed a place I could begin my own journey more than the naturalism of other classes. It also brought me out of myself. I also understood then theatre was a broad spectrum of live communication of many, many practices.

3. What comment, quotation, statement, or action that a professor—or classmate—offered had the greatest impact on you?

I was a punk rocker and very opinionated about what was cool.  Whatever talent I had as an actor and young creator was mixed up in that mask.  A teacher once said that the mask we are presenting is the least interesting part of who we are.

4. Is there a way you incorporate a particular aspect of your theatre training in your current work?

My career has been described to me as eclectic. The smorgasbord of techniques and ideas I was exposed to gave me a place to begin my own research and journey.  I think I have a spirit of experimentation from those years and a willingness to challenge the boring choice that might be the easier route. Also I began to understand that creating new work was a process and what the alchemy of ideas, methods, personalities and hard work meant.  That led me to founding a company that would be devoted to doing something different.

December 16, 2018

4 Questions: Emilio Vieira

This article is part of our series 50 Years of Disruption, in celebration of the Department of Theatre’s 50th Anniversary. In it, we’ll ask each participant four questions about themselves and their time at York.

1. Who are you?

My name is Emilio Vieira (BFA Acting 2014) and I am a disruptor. Not to be confused with a sh*t disturber, which I suppose I have also been. During my time at York University, I was scolded for frequent rides on the infamous rocking horse, until it was hidden away – that was being a sh*t disturber. I also spent the time becoming a critical thinker, challenging the “way things have always been” and honing my craft. I used to say that I was lucky to be a working actor; that I was lucky to have had very few periods of unemployment since graduating university, but that was until I encountered this quote by Peter Dinklage, “ I hate that word – ‘lucky.’ It cheapens a lot of hard work. Saying I was lucky negates the hard work I put in and spits on that guy who’s freezing his ass off back in Brooklyn. So I won’t say I’m lucky. I’m fortunate enough to find or attract very talented people. For some reason I found them, and they found me.” Having developed a passion for Shakespeare’s works in university, I was fortunate enough to find opportunities to do Shakespeare in Toronto with companies like Shakespeare in Action, Canadian Stage and The Guild Festival Theatre. While bartending on the side, I also did a fair bit of auditioning for film and television which was not kind to me – and then I got the call that I was accepted into the Birmingham Conservatory for Classical Theatre at the Stratford Festival. That was in 2015. Since then, I’ve trained under the direction of Martha Henry and Stephen Ouimette, participated in master classes they assembled for the program with some of the world’s best teachers, and been a part of three seasons at the Festival. It has been an incredible experience not only to work on Shakespeare but to have also been a part of the creation of new work, and to learn and share with a very talented group of artists.  You can catch me in Tartuffe at Canadian Stage and Towards Youth at The Crow’s Theatre in early 2019.

2. What was your favourite moment during your time in the Theatre Department, and why?

It’s so hard to pick a favourite moment. Those were four of the most formative years of my life, and every now and again memories from my time at York will drop back into my mind and provide insight, laughter, an a-ha moment or regret. If I had to pick one moment to crown them all it would be opening night of our final show of 2014: ROAD by Jim Cartwright. Our director, the inimitable Mark Wilson, had cast me as Scullery, a man living on the street who acts as a kind of narrator or rather guide through the world of the play. On top of Scullery’s scripted moments, Mark encouraged me to have as much fun as possible with the audience; to erase entirely the line between where the audience ends and the action begins. These improvised beats were the toughest to rehearse, mostly because we didn’t have an audience in rehearsal for me to play off. On top of all that, we were doing Manchester accents. After weeks of feeling like a failure, certain I was never meant to be an actor, something changed. Opening night, as the house opened and people started to flood the space, my increasing nerves gave way to a mischievous sense of play and that night I felt that all of the work Mark had put me through wasn’t to help a flailing actor create something satisfactory for the play, but was to stretch, hone and welcome that sense of play into my process. I have been ever thankful to him since that day for kindling that bright flame, and have tasked myself with the responsibility of keeping it alive.

3. What comment, quotation, statement, or action that a professor—or classmate—offered had the greatest impact on you?

What first comes to mind, as a moment of great impact, is during my first year, first day in Peter McKinnon’s class: I was 18 years old, fresh out of high school and super aware that I was likely one of the youngest in the class of about 140 students. I sat off to one side, up against the wall about halfway up the room. I had twisted my ankle the week before so I wasn’t able to frosh as much as the others and the din of new friendships roared behind me as a taunting reminder I didn’t know anyone yet. Peter said two things that day that changed everything for me. First he said, “Early is on time. On time is late. And late is fired.” That sent a chuckle through the room, until his perfectly constructed and rehearsed straight face sent a hush up the seats. Then he said that he would treat us as working professionals from this moment onwards and the best part was he meant it. He showed me a level of respect that was rarely given in high school and it engendered in me a respect for myself as a professional artist. We continue to keep in touch. It was years later that he also gave me this nugget, “the longer you do it, the more other people give up; so don’t give up and you’ll keep doing it.”

4. Is there a way you incorporate a particular aspect of your theatre training in your current work?

Some of the most practical training I received at York was in Eric Armstrong’s voice classes. I still carry sheets of his warm-ups and tools to break down the text with me wherever I work. His classes on the International Phonetic Alphabet were particularly interesting for a accent nerd like me, and continue to make for good cheat sheet notes when auditioning in a dialect or scribbling down a quick pronunciation note for an obscure word or name. He also taught me how to use the Oxford English Dictionary and Schmidt’s Shakespeare Lexicons, as a treasure hunter uses a map, to navigate my way through Shakespeare, break down the thoughts and make sure I understand the total meaning of the line so the audience can follow as well. He really helped me develop an arsenal of tactics and approaches to better understanding the text, which has always been of use to me since then, especially as I continue to work in classical theatre.

December 9, 2018

4 Questions: Lilie Zendel

This article is part of our series 50 Years of Disruption, in celebration of the Department of Theatre’s 50th Anniversary. In it, we’ll ask each participant four questions about themselves and their time at York.

1. Who are you?

I’m Lilie Zendel. Since graduating from York University (Theatre Performance 1982), I’ve enjoyed several different careers all centred on translating artistic vision into action. Thanks to my theatre degree, I soon landed my first full-time job as Harbourfront’s Community and Special Events programmer. Proving I had the chops to spot nascent talent when I put the Canada Day spotlight on an emerging singer by the name of k.d. lang., I was promoted to my dream position – Harbourfront’s Performing Arts programmer. My assignment was to figure out how to make Toronto’s waterfront park a destination for theatre. With no roadmap, my prime goal was to champion new opportunities and funding sources for cutting-edge artists and companies. Those efforts resulted in launching several large-scale programs. Serving as the Artistic Director of the International Children’s Festival, Founding Artistic Director of the du Maurier World Stage and Quay Works, a multi-disciplinary arts festival of innovative works and artists from around the world required enormous discipline and dedication. Globe trotting in search of emerging talent opened my eyes to so much exceptional artistry. Most rewarding was the ability to commission numerous artists early in their career. I’m proud to have exposed audiences to so much innovative work and help put the city on the map as a great place to discover world theatre. I’m also grateful for learning the value of collaboration. No artistic director succeeds without a dedicated support team.

Contemporary playwrights were the reason I first fell in love with the theatre. Little surprise serving as Executive Director of The Playwrights Union of Canada seemed the next good fit. To advocate on behalf of playwrights I admired was an enriching experience. Thanks to time-budgeting skills, I managed to handle a steep learning curve which included running a publishing house. The Department of Foreign Affairs was responsible for my next career move. In recognition of my work, I was asked to move to New York to lead the Cultural Affairs section at the Canadian Consulate. Never dreaming I’d be working in the world of diplomacy, the job proved to be a high profile, high-wire act that tested my ability to pitch, predict, forecast and orchestrate multiple projects. To serve as a tireless advocate for Canada’s entire creative sector meant being an accomplished relationship builder. Asking movers and shakers to take a moment from their busy day to listen to your “elevator pitch” is not for the faint of heart. It requires grit, patience and humour. Imagine preparing for a new audition each day of the week and you get the picture.

When I finally returned to Canada, I joined the City of Toronto’s Cultural Services team at a time when the city was witnessing unprecedented creative growth. It proved the perfect moment to re-connect with my hometown and help it flourish. Five years later, I transferred to the Public Realm Section of Transportation where I launched StreetARToronto (StART), a program I was asked to design to combat graffiti vandalism while making Toronto’s streets more eye-catching. Often relying on my theatre and set design knowledge, it turned out to be a thrilling adventure that allowed me to move in fresh and fascinating directions. I recently left the City to become an arts consultant. My first major client is The Shoe Project, a women-led, non-profit initiative initiated by novelist Katherine Govier. Led by senior Canadian writers and theatre artists, TSP workshops, performances and publications lift the voices of women and refugees into Canada’s national conversation on immigration and integration. As a child of immigrants, an issue close to my heart.

2. What was your favourite moment during your time in the Theatre Department, and why?

In 1976 our theatre class was hired to work as extras for the film NETWORK. Distinguished screenwriter Paddy Chayefsky wrote the seminal and Academy award-winning script. Its director was Sidney Lumet and the film featured Peter Finch and Faye Dunaway. As extras, we were playing the role of audience members invited to watch Peter Finch’s chilling and famous studio on-air rant. Despite repeated takes, Mr. Finch kept flubbing his lines. Lumet finally told the crew to put his monologue on cue cards and scatter them around the audience members. Once in place, Mr. Finch delivered what eventually became a posthumous Academy award-winning performance. I learned two lessons that week. Even if you think you know your lines, study more. Witnessing Lumet’s taut direction and Finch’s electric performance, I sharpened my artistic and critical sense.

3. What comment, quotation, statement, or action that a professor—or classmate—offered had the greatest impact on you?

In third year, my acting professor Malcolm Black told me I was one of those rare students who possessed particularly expressive eyes. He told me it would serve me well as a character actor since it was doubtful I’d ever be cast as the ingenue. Despite his confidence in my acting chops, he wasn’t convinced I was prepared for the patience required for the craft. In his opinion, my kind of looks meant meaty roles wouldn’t be available till I was a more mature actress. While it felt as if my dreams had been dashed, I appreciated his candidness. Since there’s no better way to change your perception of the world – and maybe yourself – than travel, I chose to leave the program after third year for a two-year odyssey that allowed me to experience different cultures and informed my future direction. Once back, I completed my final year of studies and began to look for work behind the curtain.

4. Is there a way you incorporate a particular aspect of your theatre training in your current work?

Theatre performance studies gave me several invaluable lessons I still apply to all my work. First, be prompt. Always worried I’d be locked out of class, my biggest phobia remains arriving late. I’m equally grateful for character study classes. I never attend a meeting without considering the personalities around the table. Thanks to practising observational skills as an actor, I can often pick out the chatterboxes from the achievers in a New York minute. Finally, I’ve always maintained the work ethic required for theatre. For most of us simply “getting it done” isn’t enough. Yes, life in the arts is about adaptability and flexibility but it also means taking the vow to do your absolute best.

December 1, 2018

4 Questions: Allyson McMackon

This article is part of our series 50 Years of Disruption, in celebration of the Department of Theatre’s 50th Anniversary. In it, we’ll ask each participant four questions about themselves and their time at York.

1. Who are you?

Allyson McMackon (MFA Acting 1992)

I am a theatre creator and director and have been involved in the theatre community since completing my MFA. How I got where I am is a little circuitous. I worked as an actor for several years, auditioning hard, doing theatre and doing a lot of indie and experimental work in Toronto. It was not a pathway that made me terribly happy and I found myself more and more interested in making theatre, in making theatre that involved my body and a deeper physicality, and eventually making theatre that I wasn’t performing in. I worked as an administrator at Harbourfront Centre and was able to see so much amazing theatre and dance first hand. I also worked at STAF as a client service manager and was able to learn how to write grants and be a producer/administrator. In 1998, I founded Theatre Rusticle and mounted a little show at the San Francisco Fringe Festival (with one of my MFA classmates) called Bride’s Albatross. The show sold out and I found the confidence there to not only produce my own work, but to direct it. For the last 20 years, I have been running Theatre Rusticle and  stayed very committed to an independent, physically poetic voice in the community. We’ve deconstructed Strindberg, devised around Virginia Woolf, created an adult version of Peter and the Wolf and remounted our first show in 2007 as April 14, 1912. We’ve received 13 Dora Mavor Moore Award nominations, have been presented at The Magnetic North Theatre Festival (Vancouver 2008), Super Nova Theatre Festival (Dartmouth 2008), toured to western Canada, partnered with Harbourfront Centre, The Theatre Centre and most recently Buddies in Bad Times Theatre for three seasons. The work is always about the collision point between text and the body and in 2017, we took the process we’d been honing and applied it to a groundbreaking production of Our Town at Buddies. I sometimes direct and coach on things that are not my project; Brooke Johnson’s Trudeau Stories (Theatre Passe Muraille, NAC, Centaur, Neptune etc. direction); If We Were Birds (Tarragon Theatre, coach); Them and Us (TPM, coach); Farther West (Soulpepper, coach); and numerous projects for Blue Ceiling Dance and Zata Omm Dance Projects. I have mentored with Buddies Young Creator’s Unit, George Brown Theatre School, Paprika Festival and have been on the board of Puppetmongers Theatre and various panels, juries and steering committees. I am a founding member of The Patrick Conner Award. I teach movement, physical theatre and sometimes devising and places like York (since 2008), Sheridan College, The University of Toronto, Centre for Indigenous Theatre, George Brown Theatre School, Director’s Lab North, The Globe Theatre Conservatory (Regina), and Factory Theatre’s Foreman series. I also direct young people in pieces like The Stronger Variations (2013 Theatre@York); Anna Karenina (George Brown Theatre School) and Threepenny Opera happening now at Sheridan College Musical Theatre Programme. Upcoming are: Scott Shorts and Zelda (George Brown 2019); The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui(Fanshawe College 2019) and Theatre Rusticle will be back with a production of Midsummer Night’s Dream (aka The Dream) in late 2019. I received a Dora nomination for Outstanding Direction in 2008, have been thrice nominated for the KM Hunter Artists Award and was Harolded in 2008 by Vikki Anderson. My path has been varied, tough, artistically rich and strange. It was not what I envisioned at York, but that MFA cracked it all open.

2. What was your favourite moment during your time in the Theatre Department, and why?

Very hard to answer this question because the two years of my MFA was a remarkable time and a very different time. Movement with Paula Thomson and the show our class developed called Fragments was a profoundly wonderful experience. My eleven other comrades. My favourite time was just the work, the revelatory every day practice and all the joy and struggle and intensity that involved. I was there at a very special time I think, we performed a lot, did a kids pantomime downtown at Passe Muraille, mounted Road three times on our own before doing it in rep. My favourite moments were the work.

3. What comment, quotation, statement, or action that a professor—or classmate—offered had the greatest impact on you?

I had two. Tom Diamond who taught our audition/monologue class told me that he suspected I might end up not doing what I thought I was going to do. I sort of scoffed at this at the time because it seemed impossible that I would not just be an actor. His words were kind and prophetic. Paula Thomson who was our movement teacher and who had a great influence on me, told me at a moment of being at a kind of crossroads to “take baby steps until every part of your body tells you, ‘this is what I do'”. They saw in me an artist that I couldn’t at the time (I was very young), but I could feel the rumblings. These two offerings gave me a lot to chew on, to push up against and to feel profoundly supported by. And I take those statements with me daily.

4. Is there a way you incorporate a particular aspect of your theatre training in your current work?

My work stands on the shoulders of much of the physical work we did with Paula, Dean Gilmour, I’ll add David Smukler to the mix even though he is “voice”. Paula’s work opened a possibility that I have run with, made my own and Theatre Rusticle has been deepening that work and gaining recognition for it for the last 20 years. I think we are also deeply influenced by our teachers and so as a teacher for a decade now, I carry my teachers with me to my students, but I also carry something that seemed really important in our training at the time, which was the need to unearth the artist in the room, to find freedom, to play in the most sophisticated of ways.

November 18, 2018

4 Questions: Andy Cheng

 

This article is part of our series 50 Years of Disruption, in celebration of the Department of Theatre’s 50th Anniversary. In it, we’ll ask each participant four questions about themselves and their time at York.

1. Who are you?

Andy Cheng, MFA Theatre—Playwriting and New Play Dramaturgy 2009, is a Toronto based dramaturg, actor, writer, and comedian. He was nominated for the 2014 Canadian Screen Award for Best Supporting Actor in a Comedy for the CBC comedy special Gavin Crawford’s Wild West (2013). As a dramaturg he currently serves as associate dramaturg for fu-GEN Asian-Canadian Theatre Company. His most recent performance was in Hot Cuts by Aurora Stewart de Peña as part of the 2018 SummerWorks Lab. He appears as a panelist on CBC Radio’s Because News, with television appearances on Letterkenny (CraveTV), Popporn, and the upcoming OUTSpoken: Drawn This Way (both for OutTV). Recently, he served as dramaturg for the Dora nominated A Man Walks into a Bar by Rachel Blair, and currently for Yellow Rabbit by the Silk Bath Collective which will premiere as part of SoulPepper’s 2018/19 season.

2. What was your favourite moment during your time in the Theatre Department, and why?

Looking back, like many emerging artists, I was very concerned about the process of others and how it compared to mine. That line of thinking will stop your creative growth, as hard and painful as smashing into a brick wall. Learning to disrupt that thought pattern, and focusing on your own growth is the only way to improve your skills and to maintain your emotional health. Realizing that bravery is presenting your perspective, that feedback is a gift, and the ultimate goal is obtaining knowledge you didn’t have a moment ago. York encouraged me to engage with artists and companies in the field. Not just to write and analyze them, but be part of their ecosystem. I was able to enjoy triumphs and some missteps, that put me on a career path even before graduating.

3. What comment, quotation, statement, or action that a professor—or classmate—offered had the greatest impact on you?

“Always be flexible and hilarious” — Judith Rudakoff. Theatre@York taught me to embrace change, and wear many hats (Even if some are a tight squeeze, or don’t necessarily suit you). In this business of theatre making, one has to adapt on a moment to moment basis both on and off stage. Life as an artist will not always be easy. Almost all theatre artists I know, are never just one thing. You aren’t just a performer, or director, or designer—in fact sometimes you are all of the above, not to mention a day job, not in the arts, that supports your work. Embrace York’s interdisciplinary opportunities, let go of labels that define you. The future will be friendlier.

4. Is there a way you incorporate a particular aspect of your theatre training in your current work?

Training as a new play dramaturg at York taught me to be curious about everything. Especially when engaging a new work, you have to let go of preconceived notions about a topic. Theatre is a unique beast that demands all those involved to question their experiences. To disrupt traditional thinking, and to actively engage with empathy. The minute you find yourself in a box, you must step out. York allowed me to embrace the terrifying.

November 11, 2018

4 Questions: Shawna Dempsey

This article is part of our series 50 Years of Disruption, in celebration of the Department of Theatre’s 50th Anniversary. In it, we’ll ask each participant four questions about themselves and their time at York.

Shawna Dempsey (Fine Art Studies, 1986) is one of Canada’s best-known performance artists. She and collaborator Lorri Millan have created works such as We’re Talking Vulva, Lesbian National Parks and Services and Wild Ride(a carnival midway on Toronto’s Bay Street). They have been featured in women’s centres in Sri Lanka and the Museum of Modern Art, NYC. They have also published books and curated exhibitions. Dempsey is Co-Executive Director of MAWA, Mentoring Artists for Women’s Art.

1. Who are you?

I am a performance artist who has been impacted by two pivotal decisions in my life.

One was to work collaboratively with Lorri Millan for the past 30+ years. Although I knew her brother casually while we were both in theatre at York, it wasn’t until we were both working as technicians in Toronto’s small theatres that Lorri and I met, bailing out an alternative performance space that had flooded on the first day of rehearsals. I stole her ideas for awhile, we became friends, became lovers, formalized our collaboration, broke up … and still everything we create, we create together.

For 16 years, all of our income came from our artist creation. It was harrowing. Surviving as freelancers was the hardest, bravest and most bonding thing we have done. These days because of my job at MAWA and her family responsibilities, we only have 2 days a week in the studio. But still: scheming with her, imagining with her, making her laugh … it is golden. The work is better because we bring both of our skills to it. Plus doing it together is way less lonely.

The other life-event that shaped me was moving to Winnipeg. Rents were super high in Toronto. Lorri and I wanted to have time to create, and we found it! At the time we left, many people felt leaving the centre of the art world was suicide, but we found another centre where rent is cheap and artists have the time and space to help each other. The point isn’t “where” you create, but “what”, and Winnipeg has enabled our long and diverse careers. People have given us opportunities here that wouldn’t have been available in a larger centre. We always say we are one phone call away from being able to produce an opera. It is crazy the things this community helps each other do!

As Lorri says, “We like to put on shows.” And that sums it up. Whether a performance, a video, an interactive event, a curated exhibition, or even my work doing programming at MAWA, I like to connect ideas and images with audience, to change us all, to make us all a little smarter and more compassionate.

I also take the long view. If I can create something that I consider great every decade or so, I’m doing OK. Not everything Lorri and I make resonates the same way. That’s OK and is part of the process.

2. What was your favourite moment during your time in the Theatre Department, and why?

I loved having the opportunity to work with the York graduate theatre program as a technician. I learned so much from them as creators and was inspired to create my first public performance piece, Breasts. Controversy ensued and I ended up on page two of the Globe and Mail, but I was ultimately able to perform my fledgling work at Stong College and the Theatre Centre.

3. What comment, quotation, statement, or action that a professor—or classmate—offered had the greatest impact on you?

I had some great professors, but probably performance artist Toby MacLennan was the most influential. She was my role model: a strong feminist and an awesome artist. She quietly made every student feel valuable. Her line of questioning opened up the world. I felt like she believed in me, so I should, too. I can’t remember direct quotes, but interwoven into conversations was the message, “You can and you should.”

4. Is there a way you incorporate a particular aspect of your theatre training in your current work?

I believe that all performative traditions employ tools that can be used by the performance artist to create stronger images and better articulate ideas. My theatrical training gave me a foundation in body work, taught me presence and opened me to technical disciplines that enhance presentation. It also taught me how to collaborate, how to work with others. Whether it was doing props for the York production of the musical Grease or giving notes to grad students as they rehearsed their one-person shows, we worked together towards a common goal and cared about each other throughout the process. That is a lesson that transcends art.

November 4, 2018

4 Questions: Rachel Kennedy

This article is part of our series 50 Years of Disruption, in celebration of the Department of Theatre’s 50th Anniversary. In it, we’ll ask each participant four questions about themselves and their time at York.

1. Who are you?

Well hey! I’m Rachel Kennedy (BFA Theatre 2014). I came to York University back in 2010 for their Devised Theatre program, which I took alongside two-year additional courses in both playwriting and directing—because at that point in my life I had apparently decided that sleep was optional. I explored my love for storytelling with every opportunity that I could find, whether it meant waxing poetic at EWAG’s Word Nights, devising new pieces for PlayGround, or doing nearly-nude performance art for a sociology course (and a follow-up essay justifying why we had thought it was a good idea). By graduation, I had stage managed my first Toronto Fringe production (Invisible City, 2013), stepped in as Volunteer Coordinator for World Stage Design & Scenofest 2013 in Cardiff, Wales and had the pleasure of acting in the inaugural Emerging Artists Project by Little Black Afro Productions (Veronica Appia’s Muse, 2014).

After completing my degree, I joined Playwrights Guild of Canada (PGC) as their Outreach and Development Coordinator. In my time at PGC we expanded the Tom Hendry Awards to include a new, national prize for emerging playwrights, re-vamped their paid mentorship programs, and launched the CASA Award; a prize honouring female-identifying playwrights in South Africa and providing them with financial support and mentorship opportunities. After PGC I jumped aboard the team at Theatre Ontario, where I am the Professional Theatre & Education Manager. In this role I lead workshops for early career actors and producers, run grants for professional mentorships and youth training initiatives, and spearhead annual events like our Next Generation Showcase. I am thrilled to be filling my days with work that excites and continually educates me. On top of this, I have had the pleasure of producing and directing for House of Rebels Theatre, Deadman’s Tale Podcast, Epigraph Collective, Filament Incubator, Breakin’ Ground Productions, Prairie Fire Please, and Truesight Collective as well as co-founding Unmarked Theatre and their Creme De La Femme Cabaret which recently held its third-edition event as part of Buddies in Bad Times’ Pride Programming.

2. What was your favourite moment during your time in the Theatre Department, and why?

One event that really changed things for me was when I was given the opportunity to assistant direct for Allyson McMackon on the Theatre@York mounted production of The Stronger Variations. Allyson’s process and vision was absolutely inspiring and showed me that it is possible to not only continue working in physical, devised theatre outside of school, but also for companies like this to thrive and build devoted audiences. I have continued to follow Theatre Rusticle (Allyson’s Toronto-based company) since graduation and they are consistently leaving me inspired and hopeful.

Apart from the directing itself, this show also gave me the opportunity to work more closely with the production and acting departments; something not available through the Devised Theatre courses. It was great to work with my peers in a new capacity, and I wound up making connections which I still keep very close to both my professional work and my heart today… Ok, ok too sentimental… sorry. But it really was an incredible experience and I’m very thankful!

3. What comment, quotation, statement, or action that a professor—or classmate—offered had the greatest impact on you?

Every week our small playwriting course would meet for class and have our work read aloud by peers around the table. It was an incredible experience to be able to not only hear your own writing through various other voices, but also to hear our classmates experiment and eventually firm up their work into consistent artistic voices. Over time both myself and our professor, Judith Rudakoff, started to notice my passion shifting from my own writing and onto the work of my classmates. Judith’s support and urging for me to follow what fulfills me is absolutely what has led me to a career in arts management and producing. I think that she saw this passion in me for helping others share their voices before I even did. I am so thankful for her encouragement, and it has motivated me to pass the same type of support on to every artist that I encounter in my professional work.

4. Is there a way you incorporate a particular aspect of your theatre training in your current work?

The most valuable thing that I learned in my time at York was the ability to craft shows from the ground up, without any pre-existing budget or materials. Through the Devised Theatre stream I developed strategies to take a production or an idea, identify its challenges, and work toward them head-on to find a solution. This lesson has shaped my approach to managing, directing, and producing theatre as well as just generally functioning as a human being. I bring this up in almost every job interview that I have when I am inevitably asked about my strengths. Not only does it help me to lay out a ground-plan for projects, but it also allows me to manage my own stress and internal to-do lists.

… I like to explain it like that movie The Martian... every producer is Matt Damon stranded on Mars. They know what needs to be done and they know that there will be challenges ahead, but if they approach each task head-on before it becomes an issue, there’s always a good chance that they will make it back in one piece.

… That makes sense…. right?