Newsletter
Spring 2005
by Andrea Emmerton
Theatre Ontario, Domino Theatre in Kingston, the Eastern Ontario Drama League, and the theatre community across the province lost a true friend and supporter with the passing of Patricia (Pat) Beharriell on February 26, 2005. Pat was born in London, Ontario
and began her association with theatre by performing with the London
Little Theatre. She was the first woman graduate of the Pasadena
Playhouse in California in Technical Design Production. She worked
professionally as Technical Director and Stage Manager with companies in
California, Wisconsin, Indiana and New York State. She taught stage
management and technical design for two summers at the University of
Western Ontario.
When Pat and her family moved to Kingston, she became actively
involved with the theatre groups in the city. For more than forty
years, Pat was a driving force in the city’s arts community and worked
with such groups as Domino Theatre, the Eastern Ontario Drama League, the
Kingston Symphony Association, and the Kingston Regional Arts Council, as
well as the Dominion Drama Festival/Theatre Canada.
Pat was a founding member and past president of Theatre Ontario,
and represented Canada through the North American Regional Alliance for
Theatre, the International Amateur Theatre Association and was a guest
speaker at community theatre conferences around the world.
In 1992, Pat was the recipient of Theatre Ontario’s "Maggie Bassett
Award." Pat was chosen for her many years of dedicated involvement
in theatre and her willingness to share her time, expertise, and love of
theatre in her community and across the province. In 1995, Pat was
appointed a Member of the Order of Canada.
Patricia Beharriell’s involvement and deep commitment to theatre
has helped to increase awareness and enjoyment of theatre in Ontario.
Our deepest sympathy is extended to the Beharriell family. We will all miss her!
by Jim Betts
Guest
Columnist
[ I asked Jim Betts to write a guest column for many reasons, but
not the least of them is his talent. Jim has worked in the Canadian
Musical Theatre -– as a performer, writer and director –- for over thirty
years. He was the founding Artistic Director of Theatre Orangeville
and The Group Of Several, served as Resident Director of The Lion
King in Toronto, has contributed words and/or music to many original
musicals (including Little Women with Nancy Early, The
Shooting Of Dan McGrew with John Bertram, Thin Ice with Doug
Ellis and On A Summer’s Night) and is currently working on over a
dozen separate Canadian Musical Theatre initiatives. Many of his own
musicals, including Colours In The Storm and Jacob Two-Two
Meets The Hooded Fang (Richler, Lee, Balsam, Betts), have been
produced extensively by school and community theatres. He has made a
huge contribution to Canadian theatre already, and he’s not done
yet. As the new Artistic Director of ScriptLab (www.scriptlab.ca), as the publisher of
Field Of Stars: Songs Of The Canadian Musical Theatre, Volume 1
and as the webmaster for www.northernriver.com, Jim hopes
to widen the awareness of both the quantity and quality of available
Canadian Musicals. Hooray for Jim! –- Vinetta Strombergs ]
We know what Nathan Detroit sounds like when he sings, but
what about Louis Riel? We’ve heard Curly sing "Oh, What A Beautiful
Morning" many (many, many) times, but how often have you heard Dan Farrow
sing "Field Of Stars"?
Those of us who love musical theatre love classics like Guys
And Dolls, Oklahoma and The Music Man. And it's great that schools and community theatres get a
chance to offer these shows to their audiences and their local performers.
But there are those of us who also love The
Growing Season (the Dan Farrow story I mentioned above) by Joey
Miller & James Saar, Something’s Rockin'
by Cliff Jones and Johnny Belinda by Mavor Moore and
John Fenwick. And how often are these musicals seen in our school
and community theatres? The answer to this, of course, is all too
obvious–almost never.
Because these are Canadian Musicals, largely unknown and too often
completely unavailable to non-professional companies.
It's time we changed that.
There are literally hundreds of exciting, beautiful and (most
importantly) extremely entertaining musicals that have been written in
Canada over the last fifty years. Unfortunately, the history of too
many of these shows is that they get a few productions and are then
forgotten–not because they don’t still have the potential to speak to an
audience, but because we as a community haven’t worked hard enough to make
them accessible to that wider audience.
Charlotte Moore has taken an important first
step in addressing this situation by releasing Friends Of Mine,
her CD of songs exclusively from Canadian Musicals. Then came
Field Of Stars, the first ever Sheet Music collection of Canadian
Musical Theatre songs. (Field Of Stars
includes the sheet music to 17 Canadian Musical Theatre songs, a CD
of piano/vocal performances of each song, and a bonus CD of the individual
piano accompaniments. Available at Theatrebooks in Toronto or go to
the website www.northernriver.com.)
Now ScriptLab, a Toronto based not-for-profit development company,
has made a three-year commitment to developing and showcasing Canadian
Musicals–past, present and future.
Add to these initiatives the proposed establishment of a new
Canadian-based licensing company that will make Canadian Musicals
available to schools and community theatres across Canada, and suddenly
the future of Canadian Musicals on Canadian stages seems a lot brighter.
There is a web-site dedicated to information on Canadian Musical
Theatre – www.northernriver.com
– that, although it doesn’t pretend to list all Canadian Musicals, could
well be a starting point for anyone who wishes to investigate these
possibilities further. The Toronto Public Library has a collection
of Canadian Musical Theatre material, and the rights to many shows are
handled by The Playwrights Guild Of Canada (www.playwrightsguild.com).
I hope that Guys And Dolls and Oklahoma! will
continue to be on school and community stages for years to come; but I’d
also like to be a part of a community where the great Broadway Musicals
share those same stages with some equally wonderful Canadian Musicals.
Let’s work together to make that happen.
by Brandon Moore
Allan Stratton is known best as a playwright and novelist.
His plays have been performed around the world; his books have been
honoured with awards and citations. But whether he’s writing the
farcical complications facing a Harlequin writer in a house on the Bridal
Path, or recounting the pain of a girl’s struggles amid the AIDS pandemic
in Africa, his work as a writer is grounded in the actor’s process of
getting into character.
When Allan was a child, his mother enrolled him in the CBS Record
Club. Each month, he would receive a new recording of a short play
or music, and from the age of two he was amusing himself playing the
records over and over. When he was five, he went to Stratford where
he saw his first production, Twelfth Night. "I was always
fascinated by performances," Allan observes. "I was organizing kids
into little plays in the backyard for grandparents and parents to
watch. It was something I always gravitated towards."
While in high school, his play The Rusting Heart was
published in the literary magazine Alphabet. The publisher was
James Reaney, "a very big mentor" for Allan. "He taught me the
collaborative nature of theatre. He was generous of spirit, (he)
always knows what he wants and is clear about what he wants...(he’s) open
to new ideas and new stimuli."
Allan’s first professional play, 72 Under The O was
produced at the Vancouver Playhouse. "We hadn’t done workshops,
hadn’t timed it; and the first read-through lasted forty minutes.
Bit of a shock," Allan says carefully. "There was a little bit of
panic: people were paying for a full evening of theatre. But the
farce was tightly orchestrated and timed; you can’t just pad and add lines
or what you’ve got dies. What I had to do -- very quickly -- was
find out what relationships could be explored and what additional scenes
could be developed; keep the drive of the play, and also build it. I
would write all night and hand stuff to the stage manager who would come
by at seven in the morning and take it to the theatre."
Allan turned to playwriting full-time; his works include Nurse
Jane Goes To Hawaii, Rexy!, Papers, and Bag
Babies. He was head of the Drama Department at the Etobicoke
School of the Arts, teaching senior directing, acting and writing.
He became a member of the Theatre Ontario Talent Bank in 1998, and has
served as an adjudicator and workshop leader across the province.
This summer he is teaching "Playwriting: An Actor's Approach" at the
Theatre Ontario Summer Courses.
When he describes his own style as a workshop leader, the influence
of his mentor clearly shows. James Reaney "knows what he wants to
get out of a workshop session," Allan explains. "But if something
happens, he’ll incorporate and absorb that. He lets the structure
grow with what’s happening in the moment." Allan feels that’s
important for a good workshop. "Sometimes there’s chaos, or no sense
of purpose. Or, workshops can be so rigid or structured that a
thermonuclear bomb could go off, and nothing would deter the order or the
sequencing of the events."
As an instructor, Allan encourages writers to think in terms of
their goals and obstacles, their tactics and objectives. This is his
"actor’s approach"to playwriting. "I work a lot with the 'getting
inside the heads of another character,'" he explains. "Not: 'What is
that person in the corner thinking?' but 'I am that person in the corner:
What am I thinking?'" Allan gets writers to think in terms of stakes
and conflicts. "Why does this person feel compelled to say this
monologue now? What do they want to accomplish? Why would the
other characters not be impelled to say 'Oh, just shut up!'"
Allan also likes to get students as excited about re-writing, as he
is himself -- particularly when it comes time to edit. "I love
cutting," he says with a broad smile. "I don’t feel sentimental
about it at all. If a cut will make something fly, then it’s
gone. I’m concerned with the overall. There are times when you
think you need more lines than you really do. Editing helps you find
what’s key and essential, what you have to keep."
When approaching students, Allan knows the importance of a warm atmosphere. "Some instructors think they must be cruel to be kind. I think that's B.S. People are so vulnerable, if their self-confidence is destroyed, their ability to write can be hampered." That isn’t his style. "It will be a very nurturing group, they won’t be under attack. People may find approaches that will work for them. And if they find these approaches don’t work for them, find out why they don’t, and what other approaches might."
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