First Contact

I've been away from for the past week on a lovely and much needed vacation for my cousin's wedding and wrote this post before I left. Quite some time ago, while I was having drinks the incredible Julia Mackey, I asked her what I could do next. As my tour was done and I didn't expect to take Roller Derby Saved My Soul on the Fringe again, I wanted to know how to get it to that next level. As the creative force behind the wildly successful Jake's Gift, she had one word for me: Contact.

No, not a movie with Jodie Foster. She meant a Contact event. There is one in almost every province and, according to this article that explains it better than I ever could:

Contact events bring together performing arts presenters, festival and talent buyers, community arts councils, concert promoters, agents, and cultural organizations from across their region to take in showcases from a wide variety of artists and performers, and offering those artists the opportunity to books shows and even tours.

Unfortunately, I was well pass the deadline to submit myself to the one happening in Vancouver, so I did the next best thing. With one random day off from in the middle of my Little Prince tour that coincided with the second day of Pacific Contact, I bought a day pass and showed up.

Best. Decision. Ever.

Similar in some ways to the Industry Series through the Magnetic North Theatre Festival, which I attended in Ottawa in 2013 and will again this year, Pacific Contact was a whirlwind of activity. I attended table talks on relevant industry issues, enjoyed networking meals, saw showcases that taught me how to create my own and explored the Contact Room, where various artists, agents and producers had set up booths selling their wares. Armed with business cards and a one-pager about RDSMS, I made many a new connection (and a re-connection with plenty a pal) and as luck would have it was actually approached by a few presenters who had seen the show at the Vancouver Fringe. Not bad for a gal who was just there for a day in the middle of touring another show.

Now, having seen how it's done, I feel ready to take part. I spent quite a bit of time on the handy "I Want To Showcase" website submitting for all the upcoming Canadian contact sessions.

I should know more in the next few months. Stay tuned!

Back in the Groove... Sort Of

I've had a fairly long break this past month from The Little Prince and my regular blogging schedule definitely suffered for it. It's not like I didn't have anything else on the go, but my creative drive to write was sapped by various admin work and tax prep. last week, we started performing again and it's been great! Better than great, actually. You'd think that after a month off we'd be a bit lost and shaky, but the show is actually better than its ever been. We know it so well now that we can have way more fun. In my case, I'm also able to sharpen many of my character transitions; something that I have always had trouble mastering. I've heard from multiple sources that it takes at least 50 performances of a piece before it really hits its stride and I believe it.

And now... we're done.

What? Already? I don't believe it! Four months have just flown by. I'm so thrilled to have been working on this show with the awesome team from Monster Theatre. Not to mention Winter in Vancouver has been such a treat.

Well, we're not completely done quite yet. In early June, we're being flown out to Saskatoon for the Potash Corp Children's Festival of Saskatchewan and the company is already in talks for another tour next Winter. The future tour will be happening thanks in part to a great event called "Pacific Contact".

More on that in my next post!

Have YOU Hugged a Germy Moppet Today?

Photo Credit: notanartist via Compfight cc I may have spoken too soon about enjoying my "much-needed" day off. I had gone to the gym earlier that day and assumed the soreness in my body was from that, but when I laid in bed and felt that familiar tickle in the back of my throat, I knew I was in trouble. By morning, it was official: I was sick.

Now, the last time I got sick was at the end of the Victoria Fringe, but this was due to sheer exhaustion and I was over it within two days. But this was different. This was probably the worst cold I'd ever had in my adult life. My body was sore, I got chills, my nose was runny, I was coughing up a storm and would intermittently lose my voice completely. Oh and Aunt Flo decided to pop by for a visit just for good measure. Because timing.

And because the Universe is a HI-larious, this all happened on back-to-back 3-show days.

How could this have happened? Where in the world could I have caught this cold? I haven't been around any sick people. Only hundreds and hundreds of tiny, adorable little children who love to high five and surprise you with hugs... Oh.

Note to self: buy hand sanitizer.

The thing about being an independent artist is that you don't get sick days. There is no understudy waiting in the wings. If we can't do the show, that's it. There is no performance and we don't get paid. So, you suck it up, dope yourself up with meds, and pray adrenaline pulls you through just one more show. It, after all, must go on.

I've been lucky. We do have microphones so I haven't had to throw out my voice in echo-y gyms and we've had some nice accommodations so I could rest up in the evening. But it's been an incredibly frustrating experience. I'm a perfectionist and I hate not being able to give my 100%. I reached my breaking point yesterday when I tried to sing during soundcheck and could barely squeak out the words - did I mention we also have to sing in the show? The sounds coming out of my mouth are alien and weird. My ears have been plugged up so I'm not hearing things properly either. It's infuriating to feel like your body isn't cooperating.

Today, I finally feel slightly better. It's not great, but it's better. And I've been finding ways to sing around my normal register so I can at least hit the notes without cracking.

We had a show this morning in a lovely bilingual school and it was probably my favorite performance of the run so far. Now we're all packed up and on our way to Red Deer. One performance there this afternoon and another tomorrow morning and we'll finally be on our way back to Vancouver for a few days of rest. Hopefully it will be enough time for me to shake this thing.

If anyone has any vocal tips, I'd be happy to hear all about them in the comment section.

On the Road Again

Written a few days ago, just posting it now. Today I am enjoying a much needed day of rest in Calgary, AB. No show and no driving. Just some glamorous glamorous laundry and catching up on bills. Ahhhhh, the life of a touring performer! Enjoying the rest while I can since tomorrow is a 3 show day. Fortunately the performances are all at the same school so we won't have to pack up in between shows.

Our first week of shows for The Little Prince was in the Vancouver area. It was pretty nice to be able to go back home, especially after a two show day. Early on I hit what Tara Travis affectionately dubbed TYA-lag. For those who are unfamiliar with the term, TYA stands for Theatre for Young Audiences. The lag part refers to jet lag.

As if getting over the New Brunswick to British Columbia jet lag wasn't enough, here I was feeling loopy for a completely different reason. On show days, my alarm goes off at 5:30 a.m. to get ready for a 7:30 local pick-up. Then we head to a school, set up, perform, pack up, have lunch, drive to another school and do it all over again. While this gets me home by 3-3:30, it means I'm already passing out by dinner time. I'm not much of a morning person, so this has been quite the adjustment.

On Friday, as we left a school in Langley, we officially started the "touring" portion for this production. We arrived in Vernon for our first community show and here's where I discovered some major differences between the school performances and our public ones.

School shows typically take place in a gym. We have about half an hour of set-up time and our lighting design consists of finding a guy with keys to turn off a bank of fluorescents. Community shows normally take place in a theatre. We get a proper tech time (usually around 11 a.m. Which is downright civilized) dressing room and they put us up in hotels. In Vernon, we got an incredible fruit basket that we took with us to munch on the road. In Nelson, we got chocolate and wine.

You'd think the perks would make the community shows my favorite, but that's not necessarily so. I like the energy that emanates from the school shows. Community shows are filled with parents and kids, so they tend to be a bit more reserved. School shows have a bit of rowdiness that I enjoy. They're also more intimate since the kids sit on the floor and we're not separated by any kind of stage.

All that said, my favorite part of any show is the Q & A we have at the end. I love hearing all the questions the kids have and hate that we have such a short time we can't get to them all. But that is a blog post for another day.

The Kids Are Alright

Photo Credit: UV Fedor via Compfight cc Sidenote: I'm going to apologize now for all the swearing. As I can't really swear on tour, I'm using this as my fucking outlet. Ya dig?

Don't tell the gang at Monster Theatre, but I think performing for children is the most fucking terrifying type of work any actor can do - and if anyone from Monster Theatre is reading this, you already hired me so you're stuck with me. Suckers! No takebacksies!

While I have done a school tour in the past, twice actually, with A Company of Fools, it was for high school kids, who are already way too cool for this shit. It wasn't unusual, especially at 8:30 in the morning, to see tired and cranky teens rolling their eyes at four grown ups in pantaloons. I can deal with that because I expected it. And we always won them over in the end.

But this production is for the kindergarden to Grade 7 set. These are children. Scary, impulse-driven children. While teenagers are too cool for your shit, children just won't take your shit. Worse yet, they will be VOCAL about it. Are you boring? They will tell you. Are you mean? They will tell you. Did some technical function just fuck up? Oh you bet ya they will tell you. It's what I imagine doing theatre in Shakespeare's day must have been like except no one is passing around rotten tomatoes for them to throw at you. (Thank Jeebus!) We've even had, in the past 4 days, one child drop his pants and pee on the floor as we were setting up and another burst into uncontrollable sobs as soon as the show began. Because critics.

You might be asking yourselves why I would put myself through this? Well, that's a pretty easy question to answer. In my day-to-day life, I am a control-freak. I love planning and knowing exactly what's going to happen next. But as an actor, I need to listen to my impulses, go from moment to moment, and enjoy this crazy ride of life without a safety net. The real reason performing for children scares me so is that they truly are the greatest actors. They somehow know how to do all those things and society hasn't beaten it out of them just yet, though you can already see it happening with the older kids. Basically, children are just fucking rocking at this game of life because they innately get that it's all a game.

That kind of pure, innocent self-actualization is powerful and fucking scary to me.

While they will be direct when they don't like something, I should also add that they will be just as loud when they love it too. Is your character sad? They will try to cheer you up. Are you saying goodbye and going offstage? They will scream at you not to leave. And man, let me tell you that there is nothing quite like a room of 600 kids in stitches at something you did or said to make you feel like the funniest fucking person in the whole fucking world.

In one post-show talkback, as I was taking one last question, a little girl looked me right in the eye and said: "I love you." No pretence. Just love. On another day, a little boy was following us around as we packed up. I remembered him since he had sat in the front row and I had chosen him for a question. He told us it was his birthday, so Tara pulled out one of our puppets and had it sing him happy birthday. A teacher who was watching then offered us a birthday cupcake. I may never see that kid again, but he is for sure going to remember us. And I will remember him.

I can only hope my presence in these shows will have some kind of impact. That I will inspire a few kids do to something or other. But at the end of the day, I think I have way more to learn from them then they do from me.

Ready or Not

I was hoping my next post would be about all my new projects coming up in 2015, but for the past two weeks I have been absolutely swamped with rehearsals for Monster Theatre's adaptation of The Little Prince, a family show that we will be touring in schools and communities across Alberta and British Columbia. It's been a quick learning curve. My days are spent at rehearsals, my nights are filled with learning lines and songs. Even my day off was taken up with a costume/props shopping trip. As it's been months since I last performed on a regular basis, I feel out of shape doing such a physically demanding show - you try running around a gym 6 or 7 times with a bushel of birds. And I still feel shaky with the text.

Trust me, I'm not complaining. I am thrilled to be working with such amazing people on a fun show that will make people happy. But I simply cannot believe that we are already previewing the show tomorrow and opening the next day.

I find myself falling into that silly "if only" trap that I am sure many theatre practitioners fall into: If only I had one more week to rehearse. If only I had one more day. If on I had a few more hours!

Well, no point in worrying about that, I guess. We are professionals. We will make it work.

This show is going to be beautiful. It's incredibly tech heavy with lots of projections and music. My partner Tara Travis is an absolute gem and I love working with Ryan Gladstone as a director because he has such a strong vision for what he wants to see onstage. It's all going to fall into place. It always does.

Now to get used to those early morning school shows...

The Little Prince

I'm not a fan of winter. Scratch that. I'm not a fan of cold. I'm the kind of person who will grab her hair dryer and blast it under the covers to warm up the blankets before going to bed. In July. Though I got to work on some fun projects last winter in Ottawa (like Lucy in You're a Dead Man, Charlie Brown! and an alien in Pop Fiction), they did not make up for the bitter bitter cold.

So when the opportunity to head out to Vancouver for an entire winter doing children's theatre presented itself, I jumped at the chance. And the fact that I would get to work with some of my favourite Fringe folk was just icing on the cake.

At the end of this month, I fly off to the aptly named Terminal City to start rehearsals and a tour of a new adaptation of Antoine de Saint-Exupéry's The Little Prince with the fabulously funny folks at Monster Theatre.

I'm very excited for a variety of reasons. For one, Monster Shows are always a ton of fun and I look forward to getting an inside look at their creation process with Ryan Gladstone at the helm as our director. For another, it will be nice to do a show where I actually get to talk to someone else on stage. And what a someone else! I will be playing the Little Prince and the incredible Tara Travis will be playing everyone else. I remember the first time I saw Tara on stage, a few years ago, at the Toronto Fringe in The Shakespeare Show. I was just blown away by her ability to transition seamlessly from character to character. Now I get the best seat in the house to see how it's done! And if that wasn't enough, our touring duo is actually going to be a touring trio with Fringe veteran Jon Paterson as our stage manager. This is going to be such a good time! Oh and I've been told that I will actually get to stay true to my own roots, as well as the book's by doing some of the show in French. If you're a long time reader of this blog, you know how important that is to me.

But it's not all stars and roses (see what I did there?) The company wants to up the production values and build some new puppets for the show and they can't do that without your help.

Click on the widget to watch the video - see how I totally beat out an old lady for the role of the Little Prince - and find out how you can help. If you haven't finished your Holiday shopping (and I know you haven't), your donation could leave you with some pretty cool gifts to give away, like a custom puppet video for your loved ones.

In the meantime, check out this up-to-date tour schedule to see if we're coming to a community near you.