A native Vancouverite, Max returns to the West Coast from a 12-year stint as the Artistic Director of Hamilton’s Theatre Aquarius to take on the newly created role of the Playhouse’s Artistic Managing Director, a hybrid of two previous administrative tent poles. He will rely on his varied history as a theatre artist – as actor, choreographer, director – and his academic training in sociology and economics – which includes an honours degree from SFU – to oversee operations and to move the Playhouse forward.

I can’t imagine how busy this man must be right now, and we thank him for taking the time to answer 11 questions…

1. In one word, describe your present condition.

Huh?

2. In as many words as you’d like, describe the present condition of the Vancouver theatre scene.

Vibrant, diverse, smart. Much of it atomic but some of it atomized – powerful work, but in some cases, the activity is dispersed across the spectrum of practice and geography to its credit and sometimes detriment. Exciting theatre, especially when produced and presented in combination with other artists and groups, or when able to carve an audience out of the landscape. Audience-building when one doesn’t have a building is still the biggest challenge for many.

3. What do you see as the great strengths of your hybrid position of both managing and artistic director? What do you see as the biggest challenge of such a position?

I see the mission with two eyes. Metaphorically, depth perception is created in the parallax of two eyes reconciling two views into a single image. I do this in my own brain. At large theatres, the two views are normally provided by at least two people and reconciled in conversation. The advantage of a hybrid is speed and resolve. The advantage of two or more heads, is wider perspective and “bounce”. I have to go find people to bounce with. The bounce in the two-headed model is built in.

4. What criteria do you look at when considering a play from outside of Vancouver for Playhouse production?

The Playhouse, when at its best, is a portal to the world of theatre, providing voice to our playwrights on a bigger playing platform, and providing a window to the world for Vancouver to see what’s going on across our country and around the world. This second part is as important as the first and is part of our founding purpose. Since I have the whole world to pull from, I must find the very best from the classic and contemporary world on which our theatre artists can chew and our audiences find engaging.

5. What can we be doing better to cultivate the next generation of theatre-goers?

Early life experiences are key to patronage. And we are social beings wired to especially seek and enjoy shared experiences. Young people like classics too. The material has to be good and crisp.

6. What was your impetus in removing the Playhouse restriction of only producing plays from 1950 on?

The Playhouse has to also provide graduate opportunities for actors and the ancient and 20th century classics often provide those opportunities. The Playhouse has also historically developed an audience with an appetite for those plays and themes.

7. What do you see as the relationship between the regional theatres and the independent theatre companies of Vancouver?

We’re part of an ecology. Just imagine only one of those types. We feed each other whether we co-produce or not.

8. What is your proudest career moment to date?

The Drowsy Chaperone being of such high interest to Vancouver.

9. What would it take to get you to crack the boards again in a Playhouse production?

Hmmm… I’d have to be right for it. I’m too good at casting to put myself in things.

10. What are your top 3 theatre reads?

I can’t tell you!!! I’m thinking of doing them in my next seasons.

11. What’s next?

Look for a new physical impression downtown in the facility. Star power in the next season soon to be announced. I’m working on the 2010-2011 season already with the National Arts Centre already interested! More activity in a more animated Playhouse. See you there.

Photo courtesy of The Playhouse and photographer David Cooper.

Casting Call

Shotgun:

• A 45-minute comedy for the Vancouver Fringe Festival seeks a male actor (late 20’s-late 30’s)
• The play is based on the experiences of four teachers in a carpool.
• Performance Location/dates: Pacific Theatre (Sept. 11–20th, 2009)
• Rehearsal dates:  July/August, evenings & some weekends (specific schedule TBD by cast)

Jody Parasiers & Kari Marken (Russian Undies Theatre Co.)

Please contact rushinundies@gmail.com as soon as possible to arrange a one-on-one audition.

Random tweet from Rebecca on Tuesday morning:

Off to have breakfast with @cynnamons. Vancouver theatre publicists unite!

To which I responded with a flippant:

@rebeccacoleman @cynnamons Hi girls! If you figure out how to fix #theatre today, let me know?

To which Travis responded with a considered:

@thenextstagemag Give a leading indie company in each city a budget half as large as the largest company for three years.

And then is was game on, in < 140 characters.

thenextstagemag: Who’s got some ideas on how to #fixtheatre?

hummingbird604: Create targeted socmed campaign to influence funding organizations 4 theatre

thenextstagemag: Convince each large civic theatre to foster one indie company on a side stage per year, as many productions as they can fit

autoblot: Develop resources to help small companies learn how to reach beyond the ‘family and friends’ audience.

walt828: teach artists entrepreneurial skills. REAL entrepreneurial skills

thenextstagemag: Take one non-theatre friend to a play/month, and stick around afterward to meet the cast

brovermania: Small, affordable venues, cheap tickets, short plays, beer.

performaddict: Integrate video games with theatre and open the shows explicitly to gamers.

IanAMartin: What about free booze during performances? Or even ‘drinking in the seats’ being ok?

miketobias: @DallasTheater: Michael Kaiser says arts orgs need federal policy, not just fed funding: http://bit.ly/10hnfc

theatre_20: foster a new generation of theatre-goer’s by creating theatre that is about them rather than their ancestors

happierman: make it affordable. make it often. make it interactive.

nyneofuturists: be willing to change start times, audience/stage layout, and allow beer

foyee: compromise less. Don’t give up on an idea because someone tells you it can’t be done.

halcyontony: don’t be scared to try something new?

foyee: Longer rehearsal/workshop time. Venue rent subsidies.

performaddict: Figure out how to make it cheaper. I’m all for a living wage, but most theatre is prohibitively expensive

foyee: Be inclusive, not exclusive and stop being pretentious about our art.

lacouvee: non traditional venues, non traditional times, make it relevant, exciting & dangerous also affordable

lacouvee: Talk about everybody who works in theatre, not just the actors & directors

lacouvee: reach out to minorities, help theatre to reflect our diverse cultural mosaic

thenextstagemag: Get loud and blog.

getrealtheatre: Getting them young means teaching drama, stagecraft in schools – this fosters a lifelong love of the art

DaveCharest: Set a regular schedule of emailing subscribers. Show them WHY they should be excited about theatre.

theatre_20: training institutions that make learning the “biz” side of “show biz” as important as the art.

DaveCharest: Enable fans to spread the word.

judithsthoughts: ticket prices are a huge deal, but i also think theatre has to stop being so commercialized.

judithsthoughts: i miss the days when bdwy was full of special shows, and not disney movies made into shows.

christinequinty: recognize that the relationship between large theatre and independent theatre can be one of mutualism, not competition

DaveCharest: Use a combination of text and HTML emails. Start building connections with the audience.

judithsthoughts: when teaching its important to get everyone involved – that way kids that arent “actors’ or “singers” feel included.

DaveCharest: Make it easy for people to get involved

FacesofWayne: build a community, put a quality product on the stage, promote the high quality product within and outside the community.

christinequinty: break down the perception that theatre is, as was described to me by a prof in an academic class at UBC, a ‘bourgeois art form’

travisbedard: Stop whining about what everyone else isn’t doing. It’s not a problem – you just found your niche.

gladyssantiago: Utilize Twitter & other social media platforms for ticket giveaways. Generates buzz, great WOM

DaveCharest: Why should audiences get it? Start educating.

thenextstagemag: Separate indie theatre from classical theatre in the public’s perception. Re-brand as sexy and relevant.

rebeccacoleman: I would love a vibrant online arts hub with photos/video/blog where everyone can promote their stuff.

FilmguyWon: Theatre will never thrive unless you raise a generation of Writers of plays. Otherwise it’s just the same old stuff.

macwrites: Playwrights: write plays that you yourself would honestly set aside an evening to go out & see (even if no friends are in it).

VanMusicals: Incorporate non-traditional (colour-blind) casting whenever possible

TheatreSmart: Have talk-backs after every show!

KurtDaw: If you want to #fixtheatre you have to look at British models that drive down ticket prices and bring in new, younger audiences.

FacesofWayne: http://bit.ly/D0ki8 (Ottawa) The ideas here are applicable everywhere.

FacesofWayne: @TheatreSmart I am not a big fan of talkbacks. Actors are not authorities on the play. They are just performers.

nyneofuturists: here’s something to add to @thenextstagemag’s discussion about theater from yesterday: (via @TDFNYC)

Now that’s a great way to kick start a week. My admiration and thanks to all who dropped a #fixtheatre tweet, commented and re-tweeted.

Don’t hesitate to drop any more thoughts in the comments, or keep the discussion going on twitter with the #fixtheatre hash tag. The revolution will be hashed out…

Image courtesy of Flickr user Max F. Williams

I’m a total Robert Lepage fanboy. Case in point; last year while the rest of the 17-men stag party I was with in Vegas started the night with a UFC fight, I suffered their slings and arrows and tucked myself into a middle seat at Lepage’s Cirque installation Ka, alone with a box of popcorn and a Bourbon Manhattan (Vegas is a trip). Nerdy, yes. Worth it, most definitely. My gushing over the play when I joined up with the squad caused more than a few members of the actor-rich crew to express just a touch of envy. And then we got really drunk. Anyway, I’m tangenting…

I’m turning to Robert Lepage for inspiration more and more these days. The guy’s genious is no secret, but it’s something in his relentlessness of production that keeps pushing me. He’s the founder and AD of the production company Ex Machina, and I’ve been submersed in the content of their web site for a while now. Just don’t call it a theatre company:

In 1993, when Robert Lepage asked his collaborators to help find a name for his new company, he had one condition: the word theatre could not be part of the name.

Ex Machina is thus a multidisciplinary company bringing together actors, writers, set designers, technicians, opera singers, puppeteers, computer graphic designers, video artists, film producers, contortionists and musicians.

Ex Machina’s creative team believes that theatre needs new blood. That the performing arts – dance, opera, music – should be mixed with recorded arts – filmmaking, video art and multimedia. That there must be meetings between scientists and playwrights, between set painters and architects, and between artists from Québec and the rest of the world.

New artistic forms will surely emerge from these gatherings. Ex Machina wants to rise to the challenge and become a laboratory, an incubator for a form of theatre that will reach and touch audiences from this new millennium.

I wanted to share it with you, it’s a content-rich site full of video of their work. I tend to hate theatre on video, but for study/archival purposes it’s great, and most of the stuff here is prepared trailer-style, with a lot of thought given to video production. I have no idea what’s going on throughout most of this video, for example, but I know that it makes me want to make art.

The success behind Lepage and Ex Machina seems predicated on enlarging the scope of what we generally consider collaboration. It requires an unclenching of our usual control over ideas, and seems to require the development of a higher degree of tolerance for chaos. It frightens me and I love it.

How far out of our comfort zone are we willing to journey to propel theatre to where it must go?

My thanks to LSP ensemble member Steve Park for the heads up. I should be posting his interview any day now.

Looking to diversify your role base? Like making children cry?

Apparently, if you’re an actor having trouble finding work you’re just not looking hard enough. There’s some money parts waiting for you if you comb through Craigslist. From the Washington DC edition:

My deceased aunt gave my two kids a Cocker Spaniel a few months back. The dog has been a terror and become overwhelming for me. I am a single father raising two young children. I cannot face telling the kids that the dog must go. I have found a good home for the dog, and just need someone to transport the dog, and play the villain.

Premise: You will be the dog walker hired by daddy (me) to walk Skittles. I will introduce you to the kids, and you will tell them you are going to help Skittles get her exercise when Daddy is too busy to walk her. At that point you will walk Skittles to your car and take her to her new family 20 minutes from my place. Then return holding just a leash. The story will be that Skittles broke free of the leash and took off. At this point prepare for crying, things being thrown at you, and possibly cursing. My kids are young and dramatic, their girls.

Pay will be $500. The job will take roughly 2 hours at best.

This job is ideal for an actor looking to diversify their role base, or someone who genuinely likes to make children cry. Acting experience is a plus, but not necessary. Please inform me of any prior experience in this kind of situation.

Ok, now hands up all of you who would consider this job, if even for a second.

The following is a guest post by Toronto Theatre Artist, Photographer and Fringe staffer Amanda Lynne Ballard, first published in the Fringe Harold newsletter.

From the Texan Bill 2649 attack on lighting designers in May to the recent UK Equity attempt to implement mandatory minimum wage payment on all working actors to Canada’s Equity contracts – the battle of artist vs. state is once again coming to the front line on an international level.  But isn’t it always? Haven’t there always been great battles between arts and government?

Toronto’s Indie Caucus started out of TAPA and is made up of 13 different artists and producers from across the city in an attempt to making art in this city more accessible to produce and create.  The ruling hand of Equity over the city’s artists is misleading and relays the message, we’d rather you get paid then create. But the artists within the community want to create a vibrant, culturally diverse artistic city – in any way they can.

The current status of the Equity agreements available to the independent theatre producers is a dizzying spell of mixed messages and irrelevant stipulations that once better represented a small producing community.

“It’s a mind field of fuckiness.” said an anonymous Caucus member. “The Equity agreement doesn’t work for the current theatre creator.”

As most of the community is creating work across disciplines and with different people, defining your work consistently under one company name is increasingly difficult. Bouncing between Fringe contracts, Indie contracts and Co-ops one can always move forward but never back.

The biggest misconception: Equity is not a Union, it is an Association.  Unions hold legal binds while associations, by definition is a group of individuals who voluntarily enter into an agreement to accomplish a purpose. Where have we been lead astray?

The Texan bill 2698, if passed, would inadvertantly put all lighting designer jobs in the hands of 1. engineers, 2. architects and/or landscape architects.  In UK the Equity attempt to legalize minimum wage payment on all artistic productions would eliminate the independent, small producing companies who are driven by their passion to create and not the fiscal outcome.

This all leaves me asking the question, why is the power to create in our world held in the hands of others and not in our own?

Images courtesy of Amanda’s Flickr page

This post has been a long time coming. It’s one I really wanted to write a few weeks ago, but I was so mad, so red-faced incensed at the time that I couldn’t dare sit down at the computer and spit out the vitriol I was gargling with. So I waited to cool down. Which I have, but not much.

My thanks to Ottawa actor/teacher/blogger Kris Joseph for writing the post that the above title is lifted from. I’m very tempted to reprint the post in its entirety here, I believe it’s that important. Instead I will urge you to head over to Kris’ place and check it out, and satisfy myself with pull quotes here.

So this is what I’m asking, Vancouver theatre: please stop mistreating your audiences. This is not by any means directed at all of you, nor even most of you. Most of you are dedicated and lovely allies in the revolution, and I’m proud to fight in the same ranks with you. I’m talking to the few theatre practitioners out there that are possessed by the kind of entitlement that makes you think you can dictate the rules of the theatre-going experience to the people that you feel should be honoured to be assembled in your presence. We’re all in the same boat here, we need to be doing everything in our power to manifest a rabid audience for our product where one does not exist right now. As hosts we need to be impeccable, nurturing, patient and above reproach. If you are working in theatre and you do not share this point of view, please stop hurting the chances of the rest of us.

In the space of that one week, I personally witnessed or heard reported a ridiculous amount of incidents involving artists vs. audience members here that just knocked the wind out of me. Offhand and flippant derogatory comments on social media sites. Actors onstage yelling insults at audience members who were talking back to them in a play constructed to have planted actors in the audience talk back to them. One actor called an audience member who was struggling to turn off an errant cell phone ringer a ‘bitch’ from the stage. And no, he didn’t do it ‘in character’. I’ve read the play, and that line isn’t in it, for his or anybody else’s character.

The cell phone complaint drives me crazy. Yes, it’s annoying. Yes, if a member of your audience pulls out a phone in the middle of the play and calls someone, they should be removed, as discreetly as possible, and made to write lines on the chalkboard. But here in 2009, small personal electronic communication devices are ubiquitous. And sometimes, they’re going to make a bit of noise. And people are going to have to sneeze and cough. And sometimes they just might be compelled into an emotional outburst. Why has this molehill turned into our biggest mountain to get over? Where did this pervasive prissy attitude about the audience being neither seen nor heard so as not to disturb the delicate geniuses on the stage originate? Isn’t the live audience integral to the very definition of the form? And should that not be glorified in? Are you sure you don’t really rather want to be acting in a movie right now? To quote Kris:

I get incensed at actors who scoff or rail against that behaviour as being unconscionable. Are you annoyed that the audience isn’t paying attention to you? Work harder. Your job is to make them pay attention. It is hard for me, sometimes, to keep from getting annoyed at audience distractions, but I am training myself to think that such occurrences represent the behaviour of someone I want to see again in the audience.  For the umpteenth time on this blog, I reiterate: our job is to serve the audience… NOT the other way around.

It never seems to bother anyone when a member of the audience is laughing so hard they can’t continue for a beat.

Most of our audience, if we’re doing our job as marketers, don’t know the pre-set rules of behaviour for good little audiences. They just know that they’re at a hip live event, in a room with some electricity running through it, and they’re excited. So when you call an audience member a bitch for making the crucifiable mistake of forgetting to push a small button, it’s not just her that you’ve embarrassed. It’s everyone else in the theatre that had to squirm through not only her shame at this – let’s just face it – inevitable faux pas, but also at her being subjected to a misogynistic sniper attack. And as for all the other people in attendance that thought that was funny, and that she got hers, karma is going to guarantee that the same thing happens to them one day. And believe me, it will.

More KJ:

When a production is doing well, and has good word-of-mouth (which is forever and always the best form of publicity), it attracts patrons of immense, incalculable value: those who do not normally attend the theatre. These are the only people, by definition, that can grow the theatrical audience.  And these patrons, in large part, are unaware of theatrical etiquette.  How dare we expect them to know all the rules?  If these patrons behave ‘badly’ in the theatre, they do it out of naivete, not malice.  To respond to this innocence with punishment is to drive them away again, in the same way that one bad experience in a retail store is enough to make a customer vow to never return.

We wonder endlessly why theatre is struggling and why people aren’t flocking to our fabulously intense and uniquely visceral smorgasbord of cultural insight. I’ve talked to a lot of people about this that do not go to the theatre. Constantly, actually, as it’s my job to convince them otherwise. And most of them are united by one glaring commonality: they don’t look for us because they think we’re stuffy and no fun.

My entire mission statement is based around proving them utterly wrong. And if they take a chance on your production, please, I’m begging you, be nice to them. Because I want them to love the experience that you offer so much that the next show that they pay money to see is mine.

A great company web site.

Somewhere on it you’ll find a set of posted rules.

The first rule is:

In the room, things are being made.

The fourth rule is:

In The Room no one can say for sure what these things will be until they are done, because making things is a kind of magic, and magic can’t always be controlled.

I like the sound of this already.

Congratulations to Brendan, Christopher, Geoffrey, Natasha and Ian. Welcome to the world. We’ll be watching for your uncontrollable magic from the left side of the country.

Sally is an award-winning playwright and teacher-director of theatre with, by and for young people and a performer who loves to clown. She is completing a graduate degree in writing at the University of Victoria with master playwright Joan MacLeod. Hers is a strong local voice, and a proud addition to the interview series.

1. In one word, describe your present condition.

Immersed.

2. In as many words as you’d like, describe the present condition of the Vancouver theatre scene.

Way back I made a choice to work with young people as a theatre educator. It meant I did my own theatre work when and how I could and, for the most part, stood on the edge of the Vancouver theatre scene. It’s been exciting in the last few years to begin to insert myself slooooowly into the community. From my slightly skewed and isolated angle, here are some words that hit home for me when I think about Vancouver’s independent theatre scene: devised, collaborative, thriving, spectacle-heavy, often spectacular, innovative, interdisciplinary, imagistic, physical, site-specific, and, too often, in my humble opinion, script-light or even anti-script. I love stories. I believe our most potent theatre is rooted in the marriage of thoughtful and innovative interpretation to strong text-based drama. It’s happening on our stages, but not as often as it should.

3. What does your work as a teacher/director of young people tell you about the future of theatre here?

I’ve been working mainly at the post-secondary level for the last few years, but before that I worked with kids from every imaginable background, including at-risk teens in an inner city alternative program, ESL, special needs, and gifted students. The best thing about teaching was being able to work and learn with the kids as we created, interpreted, and watched theatre. Honestly, we did some amazing work together—original plays, devised pieces, the classics, movement-based theatre, interdisciplinary productions, clown—you name it. The kids were passionate and hungry for just about everything we did and saw. They worked their butts off, took risks, mentored one another, and had a blast. Year after year they just kept setting the bar higher. It was a privilege working and learning with them.

I guess what I’m saying is, I’m pretty sure the future of theatre is safe if it rests with our youth. Too often though, I had parents come to thank me and tell me how great it was that their children were so involved and happy doing theatre, but then…‘no offense, Sally, they wouldn’t be taking theatre next year because they had to get serious about the important stuff: math, science, final exams’. Hmmm.

4. What are your great strengths as a playwright? What aspect of playwrighting frustrates you the most?

Great strengths?! I like that. Well, I think my greatest strengths are character and dialogue. I’ve got a pretty good imagination, too, and think visually. What I find most frustrating is structure, always structure. I tend to begin with an idea or an image or a character and then write around it, searching for the through line. I tend to complicate, and the search for that through line can take a hell of a long time. Sometimes I don’t find it.

5. What’s your best advice for the aspiring playwright?

I love Colleen Murphy’s advice: ‘A good script is like a brick shithouse. You’ve got to be able to throw your script at a wall and know the structure will hold.’ If you’re beginning though, I’d say the obvious:  put your butt in a chair and write. Trust yourself and write about what moves you, what genuinely seems to want to come out of you, especially the wild and wonderful stuff that surprises you, even shocks or shames you because maybe it says too damn much about you. That’s the stuff that’s golden, but trusting it can be tough. I know that trusting me has been the hardest lesson for me. The lesson is ongoing.

Stephanie Belding and Christine Willes in a staged reading of Herr Beckmann's People - photograph by David Hauka

6. How are you liking the academic writing route?

I’m loving the academic writing route. I get to work with Joan MacLeod and her colleagues; it’s an amazing faculty. I’ve been in this incredibly decadent situation where I’ve been writing full-time rather than grabbing moments here and there before and after work, and I adore Victoria and UVic. I grew up in Victoria, spent years at the university, and it still feels a lot like home.

7. Who are your great literary influences?

I read all the time, primarily fiction, from trash to the classics. I think everything I pick up influences me. Yes, like most of us, I love Shakespeare. I love the characters, the language, the universality, the crazy plots, the wild juxtapositions and the audacity of his writing. Right now, to name just a few influences: Tom Stoppard, Michael Ondaatje, Tomson Highway, and Colleen Murphy. I read a lot of books for young people. One author who writes beautifully for teens is David Almond; his novels are dark, poetic and rich in atmosphere.

8. What type of theatre would you like to see more of on our stages?

See question 2. I really hope to see a trend in combining the many strengths of our current theatre community—the innovation, risk taking, and spectacle–with the presentation of strong text-based work: new plays and classics. Kudos to the companies who are making it happen, but I want more please.

9. How has the Playwrights Theatre Centre affected your career trajectory?

The Playwrights Theatre Centre has been my home in the Vancouver theatre community. Without the PTC, well, I don’t know where I’d be. I took my first playwriting workshop at the PTC years ago with Gordon Armstrong. He was inspirational and continued to mentor me after the workshop came to an end. Chapelle Jaffe and then Martin Kinch had confidence in my writing when I had none. The PTC has provided me with readings, workshops, mentors, dramaturgy, and contacts in the theatre community. My plays have been in the New Play Festival twice and, because of the PTC, Wreckage was showcased at Magnetic North in Edmonton as part of the National Arts Centre’s ‘On the Verge’.   Next up is the Flying Start program with Touchstone Theatre. I absolutely recommend the PTC to emerging playwrights.

10. What are your top 3 theatre reads?

Top three theatre reads? Impossible. They change all the time. For today, however, I’ll go with  Anthony Sher’s Year of the King: An Actor’s Diary and Sketchbook; Martin McDonagh’s The Pillow Man; and Joan MacLeod’s Another Home Invasion. I was privileged to read an early draft of Joan’s beautiful play before it went into production.

11. What’s next?

I’m really excited about next year. My play, Wreckage, is being produced on the Phoenix Theatre Mainstage at UVic, directed by Fran Gebhard. I’m thrilled to say that the script’s finally being published, too, by Scirocco Drama. It should be out by September. Herr Beckmann’s People has been on a bit of a roll and was recently selected for Flying Start 2010, a collaborative program of PTC and Touchstone Theatre. It receives a full-production in Vancouver next season; Katrina Dunn directs and Martin Kinch acts as dramaturg.  For my thesis, I’m working on two inter-related one-act scripts for a teen audience. Meanwhile, I’m adapting another script, Spinning You Home, into a novel for young audiences and, in the fall, I’ll be teaching playwriting at UVic and Douglas College. Immersed.