Curtains Up Winnipeg

It’s almost June and the main seasons of most theatre companies have been put to rest. Shakespeare in the Ruins is amping up to start, and you are beginning to hear the whispers of Fringe festival in the air. It’s a liminal time, where some work has had a chance to flourish but now lives in scrapbooks, it’s in between grant deadlines, and there is suddenly a chance to catch your breath. To anticipate. To obsess over next year’s seasons and think nostalgically about the ones you got to see – mostly great, but sometimes infuriating productions.

It’s been an intense year for me, and one where “theatre’ has been the overarching theme. With that in mind I wanted to reflect a little on my relationship with the craft. What brought me to it. Why do I so badly want to be in this world. What makes it matter to me so much to keep going with a project like this blog which is unpaid but requires a fairly substantial commitment of time and energy.

This year I not only started this blog, but I also began writing seriously for theatre for the first time in my life. Now my fringe play is being presented in July and I get to go to media calls where I get to ask about artistic choices and character motivations and I feel like I’ve won the lottery. I’ll talk more about writing another day. For now, I want to talk about what brought me here.

I have always loved theatre. My grandfather took me to an MTC production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream when I was seven and I’ve been hooked ever since. I love the ceremony of it. I get heart palpitations sitting looking at those red velvet curtains waiting to open up and reveal the new world. 

Then there was the production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream my cousin Brynne and my sister Dréa put on with our plastic horses. There were costumes, props, rehearsals, and not one single attempt to abridge the text. (Sorry mom)

Then I fell for Greek tragedy in junior high when I played the role of Hecuba in The Trojan Women. At no point did I ever feel the pull to be an actor, but this world felt incredibly… right.

Cue years of theatre classes. Obsessive volunteering for fringe one year as a teenager. Finding a first year theatre textbook used at Fringe festival for $15 and thinking it was the single greatest book I’d ever found. I read it from cover to cover, throughout the shifts of theatre history and the different movements. The more absurd the better. It blew my mind how much emotion you could embed in a conversation.

The ceremony of performance has always left me ecstatic. I loved the power of oral words. I loved the feel of language on your tongue. I feel a deep reverence for the craft no matter how lacklustre a single play might be. It’s why I love oral poetry and storytelling. There is something inherently sacred about the spoken word said with intention. I have always loved having conversations about what other people’s experiences of art have been. I genuinely enjoy reading arts coverage.

This is what brought me to reviewing back in 2009-2010 when I started to write for The Manitoban. I wanted to review the Black Hole Theatre Company season because no one else was doing it. It seemed important that a student newspaper cover student performances. Also, I felt then, as I still do, that I have enough love and respect for the art form that I could be constructive. My philosophy is that the least interesting part of a review is whether or not the reviewer liked it; ideally there should be enough to the text to interest anyone. More importantly, this was a way to be involved in theatre without being an actor. I could hear about and talk about the stage without needing to be on it. It gave me a way of participating in the world I had loved from a distance.

When I lived in Montreal, theatre was where I lived for a long time. Mainline Theatre and the Montreal fringe festival gave me a sense of community I hadn’t yet found in the university circles. I lived to bartend and do venue management. I adored those late nights where you’d stay up and go to the Main Deli or St Viateur bagels and keep talking. I made props and costumes and did some reviewing. Burlesque became a part of my life. I made things, so many things. For a while I thought I’d be a costume designer… there were a few chapters of that story when I moved back to Winnipeg I won’t get into.

This year has been a milestone, a point in time different than what came before it. What changed is that I decided to be involved with theatre on my own terms.For years I would sigh dramatically and wish that I could find somewhere to review again. Or that I could dabble around the edges of someone else’s production and be around theatre that way.

Like I was waiting for my crush to notice me.

And then one day, I stopped waiting. I realized that no one was gate keeping me away from theatre. No one was saying that I didn’t have a right to an opinion about productions. Even more amazingly, there is absolutely nothing to stop absolutely anyone from writing a play. Also, nothing to stop you from producing one either. Nothing. To be fair, to be a good writer you should probably read a lot, but it’s not like there is a magic formula of plays seen to plays written. Anyone can do it, if they just reach out and take the plunge and persevere.

The amazing thing is that this blog has enabled me to connect with all kinds of people in the theatre world from the screens of my own devices. A few days ago someone asked me how many followers I had, and I had no idea because I don’t check. I get excited when theatre companies share my reviews. I love being blurbed. And I feel special because almost every time I open my Instagram or Facebook I have new friend requests with people I didn’t add myself. When I think of growing the blog, I think of adding other writers, particularly francophone ones, and adding articles on theatre topics as well as the usual play reviews.

To me, that is an abundance I have only ever dreamed of.

Every time someone tells me they read my review, that means something to me. That is a small moment of meaningful connection we made to really process the art that we saw. We are paying for the performance with our undivided attention, our deliberate consideration, our emotional openness. A few times someone has said that a review of mine meant something to them personally – that’s even more amazing. We’re engaging in this conversation about this thing that we love, theatre.

It turns out that theatre was meant to be a crush. It is actually a deep and profound love. It is somewhere that I find a deep sense of belonging. It is somewhere I will continue to work, hopefully writing more plays, reviewing more shows, and even building more costumes and props. It is something that nourishes me, and also that is bigger than all the many small experiences I have had.

This life long love will evolve, and I am looking forward to find out how.

Thank you for being part of my journey.