Recent CPC Features

Moore

There are a few things Bill Millerd - the artistic director of The Arts Club in Vancouver - wants you to know. Things are going well, the expansion of the company is working and, despite the bad news from Vancouver Playhouse, theatre in Vancouver is doing quite well, thanks much. He is not, as the title suggest, THE LAST MAN STANDING.

It is not a role you take on lightly, but - the way actor Chris Moore tells it - he and the artistic director of Persephone, in Montreal - just asked ONE REAL QUESTION: WHY NOT? when deciding on Hamlet. In Moore fascinating first person, he talks about the very beginning of the process of prepping for this magnificent (and frightening) character.

As director Miles Potter prepares one of the most anticipated (and maybe significant) openings of the 2012-13 season, he takes us behind the scenes to prep and rehearsal for Michael Healey's Proud in THE PLAY (NOT THE CONTROVERSY) IS THE THING. His description of the process is delightful and funny and shows that even during heated debate, actors, writer and director can find their bliss. 

In FOR THE CHILD TAKEN, FOR THE PARENT LEFT BEHIND Teesri Duniya artistic director Rahul Varma explains the weight of the company's next production - Where the Blood Mixes - and the journey both work and playwright took to bring a deeper piece to the stage.

The Harvester poster

Paul Van Dyck tried out his new play, The Harvester, at the Montreal Fringe and learned a few things about the work and how it should evolve. Before he performed the work at the Atlantic Fringe, two months later, he applied his lessons. See what they are and what every writer must learn in his first-person piece THE GROWTH OF THE HARVESTER.

In BEHAVE YOURSELF, PLEASE...A MONKEY IS WATCHING YOU, Mike Czuba, a polyvalent theatre person, explains the genesis of his piece Satie et Cocteau and the theory - both musical and theatrical - which went into the creation of the work.

 In THE LITTLE FESTIVAL THAT COULD you get artistic director Ian Farthing's fascinating tale of changing his life and - yes - falling in love with a small town. Moreover, that small town took him to their hearts and developed a bond with Shakespeare that fuels both the St. Lawrence Shakespeare Festival and Prescott, Ontario too.

As director/producer Anthony Sherwood tells us, there are other stories to tell around the drama of the Titanic that James Cameron did not seem to get to. Beyond questions of class, there was the very real question of race. In his piece TAKING ON HISTORY Sherwood explains the genesis of Titanic: The Untold story.

Metachroma

INTRODUCING METACHROMA is precisely what it says - an introduction of this exciting new company by its members and - have a look - the ensemble comprises some of the best actors in the country.

Brad Fraser has always been concerned with what happened at the Tarragon - the so-called Healey Affair. In a short play, presented at Wrecking Ball in June 2012, Fraser imagines a conversation in TITLE AT END.

In a fascinating piece - CODPIECE DAUGHTERS - on shows past and present, Vile Passéist Artistic Director Dan Bray talks about using female actors in male roles and concepts of gender in early modern theatre. 

The on thing you need when you're about to launch a highly anticipated festival is a sense of humour and Sarah Segal-Lazar has that in spades as she shows in her first-person piece WHAT TO EXPECT WHEN YOU'RE EXPECTING (TO PLAN A FRINGE) - a five-step program for the hopelessly Fringe-y.

Miller in Hardsell / Vendu

You will not find many articles more fascinating than Rick Miller's first-person piece - LES DEUX SEUL-ITUDES - on going from Stratford to Le Carrefour in Quebec City, from MacHomer to Vendu, from English to French. In the journey he deals with widely varying criticism, fatigue and even a changing political landscape.

It's been a bumpy but happy ride, Greg Wanless tells us on his 30 years with Thousand Islands Playhouse in REACHING MIDDLE AGE - a wonderful first-person piece about getting and holding a theatre.

Ann-Marie Kerr began as the director and - when a happy miracle happened - ended up acting the solo role in The Debacle, which began its life in the Atlantic region but continued on to being a jewel of the Festival TransAmériques. In MUSICAL CHAIRS - MOVING FROM DIRECTOR TO ACTOR IN A SOLO SHOW, Ms. Kerr writes about the journey.

In KILLING CURIOSITY Joel Ivany is back to tell us about his new Against The Grain Theatre production, Turn of the Screw, the ambiguous, troubling Benjamin Britten adaptation of one of the most controversial novellas written. There's a governess, spooks and children who may have been through a horrific experience.  

8 Ways My Mother Was Conceived was a gorgeous little Fringe play, last year in Montreal. However, playwright/soloist Michaela di Cesare took criticisms to heart and decided to improve her work and give it a new life. In FROM ONE-WOMAN SHOW (IN EVERY SENSE OF THE WORD) FRINGE SHOW TO TRUE TEAM EFFORT she tells us how.

Guy Mignault went to Toronto for an interview, thought nothing of it, then realized that he was starting to want the job he was being offered - artistic director of a French-language company in a city IN AN OCEAN OF ENGLISH. 

In On collaborations, handling the spice and writing a Bollywood play à la Québécoise called Poutine Masala Stéfan Cédilot describes the happy and improbably series of events that went into making an extravaganza for one of Montreal's most popular alternative houses.

McHardy

MOVING INTO THE THEATRE AND OTHER THINGS ON MY TO DO LIST is, to our mind, a truly extraordinary first-person account about bringing Handel's Semele to the Canadian Opera Company. Mezzo-soprano Allyson McHardy, offers a blend of humour and trepidation, excitement and angst that makes for a spell-binding read.

In MOTHER AND ME Itai Erdal speaks about the moments around his mother's illness and death and about how the event nurtured his his piece How to Disappear Completely and how theatre and film helped him to cope. 

Edward Roy takes us into the heart of the matter in THE UNSPOKEN his first-person article about directing his own play, Beyond the Cuckoo's Nest at YPT. The play is reaching a young audience and discussing a problem many of us don't even think exists until adulthood: mental illness. 

Semele (photo: Karl Forster)

QUIET ON THE SET...AND...REMEMBER! is Axel Van Chee's very personal piece about going to a press conference for the first time - backstage meet-and-greet for the Canadian Opera Company's Semele - and sweating out how to do it even as he remembers his first experience at the opera. As with all of Van Chee's writing, it shows an intimate knowledge of and a joy in the world of opera.

Trevor Barrette is a very young man who had music and a story and lyrics and, finally, a musical which needed a production house. In WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO BE IN LOVE? he talks about the genesis of To Be, his work, and the happy marriage he found with Persephone Productions.

Chafe and Phillips (photo: Don Ellis)

In DRAMATURGY OF DISAPPOINTMENT writer Joseph Shragge writes about finding a path for his play, The Heretics of Bohemia, during the production's unusual rehearsal process. Think: puppets.

Robert Chafe talks about the journey his play Oil and Water took from a thrilling and heart-breaking true story to waiting for rights for the story to meeting its fascinating protagonist, Lanier Phillips. There is nothing about LANIER REMEMBERED that will leave you untouched.

Christine Jones is the Tony-Award winning set designer of American Idiot and in THE OTHER HUSBAND AND THE IDIOT she tells of the (very short) courtship process which brought her to this project and the thrill of pairing her design to the magnificent Green Day score.

Cimolino

Joel Greenberg shares his director's notes in DEPARTURES, as he prepares for the opening of one of the most highly-anticipated productions of the year: Clybourne Park. As the title suggests, this is a departure for Studio 180 Theatre - a comedy, yes, but still about serious stuff. 

OCCASIONALLY I COME UP FOR AIR is Antoni Cimolino's first person article about a day in his life right after he was appointed Artistic Director of the biggest theatre company in the country - Stratford - and as he was also directing Cymbeline, one of the Bard's most haunting and enigmatic works.

Mackenzie (r)

In FULL OF FIRE AND HOPE playwright Matthew Mackenzie writes about the artistic journey that took him into the heart of an African community, what he learned of the the gruesome history there and how theatre can be created that nevertheless sings of hope.

Michael Gianfrancesco got a plum assignment when he was tapped to design sets for You're A Good Man, Charlie Brown, slated for the 60th season of the Straford Festival. In WORKING FOR PEANUTS he brings us on a behind-the-scene tour of preparation for this show where design is key.

Joel Ivany comes back with a terrific first-person on the production of 7 Deadly Sins Against the Grain Theatre in Toronto is preparing. In HOLIER THAN THOU he talks about how the company built the production without, also, sinning themselves.

Varma

Truly one of the most sensitive of our writers, Rahul Varma nevertheless tackles the big issues and how they affect the small people tied up in them. In his first-person piece STATE OF DENIAL: IN MEMORIES OF GRANDMOTHERS WHO LIVED TO TELL he talks about the process of writing his latest play and the research - and real stories - he found.

In HAP-HAP-HAPPY actor/playwright Rose Cullis describes the joyful process of preparing The Happy woman for production at Nightwood Theatre with the company's AD Kelly Thornton. 

Rick Miller, in a first-person article, does battle with THE CRITICS as he attempts to nurture new works and also to keep works which have proven popular (and which continue to grow) alive.

It's War Horse, of course, in Dave Ross's fascinating interview with actor/puppeteer Patrick Kwok-Choon: RIDING THE HORSE TO HISTORY.

Ryshpan

In SO WHAT'S THE PROBLEM WITH REVIEWING THAT NON-EQUITY SHOWS, ANYWAY? Arden Ryshpan, Executive Director of Canadian Actors' Equity Association, returns to The Charlebois Post with a discussion on non-Equity shows, why they are becoming a problem and what Canadian theatre-goers and critics need to do.

Paul Hopkins shares his actor's notes as he deals with the preparation of a world premiere production of Morris Panych's play in WITH-IN ABSENTIA. Hopkins notes detail the shifting foci of the rehearsal period.

In DEALING WITH AN UNFORTUNATE REPUTATION Dan Bray, artistic director of Nova Scotia's Vile Passéist, returns to tell us the challenges he and his company face as they mount Christopher Marlowe's rarely performed The Jew of Malta.