YOU CAN BUY TICKETS ONLINE, THROUGH THE NAC BOX OFFICE OR BY PHONING 613-755-1111
INDUSTRY SERIES ANNOUNCEMENT
Magnetic North’s Industry Series has released its compelling programming!
Magnetic North draws theatre professionals from across Canada and around the world, to share work and facilitate dialogue, networking, collaboration and exchange. The Industry Series is a professional symposium dedicated to building networks and sharing the wealth of knowledge amongst festival delegates from all levels of experience, tapping the gathering's expertise, and adding depth, relevance, value and provocation to the festival experience. Click here for full Industry Series line-up.
IS IT TIME TO TOUR? Magnetic North is offering Ottawa theatre professionals a touring and producing workshop with Naomi Campbell and Judi Pearl. They will address the realities of touring in Canada and abroad, and how to start making that happen for your company. They will also introduce Magnetic North's Industry Series and share some tips on how to make the most of it. FRIDAY, MAY 15 from 1PM - 4PM at the NAC Rehearsal Hall A. Fee: $25
To further serve the local theatre community, follow up our workshop with a mixer at 4pm, hosted by Theatre Ontario in the Micaela Fitch Board Room at Arts Court (2 Daly Avenue). They are interested in discussing how both Theatre Ontario and Equity Showcase Theatre can better serve Ottawa's professional theatre community.
Following the mixer, from 5pm-7pm, Theatre Ontario is offering a workshop on the basics of producing. Unlike Magnetic North’s touring workshop from 1pm-4pm, it’s for emerging theatre-makers not quite ready to tour nationally and internationally, but ready to start producing. Click here for more information.
LETTERS TO MY GRANDMA AND PYAASA Theatre Jones Roy was formed in the spring of 2007, when Thomas Morgan Jones, Anusree Roy, and David DeGrow, three M.A. students at the University of Toronto’s Graduate Centre for Study of Drama came together to stage the first performance of Anusree Roy's Pyaasa as a fundraiser for Theatre Passe Muraille.
This spring, Theatre Jones Roy will tour Pyaasa to the Uno Festival in Victoria, BC, and, in association with Theatre Passe Muraille, take both Pyaasa and Letters to my Grandma to Magnetic North in June, the Vancouver East Cultural Centre in November, and be part of Theatre Passe Muraille's 2009-2010 season.
Here David DeGrow shares his thoughts on this exciting two year rise to national prominence.
To be honest, I have never seen Pyaasa from anywhere but behind a production table. I was the stage manager for the one-off that brought the three of us together. I was the stage manager and lighting designer for the one week run at Theatre Passe Muraille, and I was (and still am) the house tech at Passe Muraille when they brought the show back for their first season. So, this festival might be the first time I will get to sit with an audience to watch it. But what I have lost in audience experience, I have gained a thousand times over in being able to take part in the process that created the show, in learning, in full-time employment in professional theatre, and in gaining two of my best friends.
It’s still difficult to believe how we came to this place from where we started. When Thom, Anusree and I met, we were in class together in the depths of post-grad, reading thousands of pages a week, writing hundreds of words a day, and only very occasionally doing any theatre, very little of which we found satisfying. The first theatre of any sort we worked on together was on an obscure turn of the century Russian Symbolist play set in a circus that the program was putting on. Thom was the assistant director, and playing the circus’ stunt rider. Anusree was repatching lighting circuits, while I was doing tech notes as one of the program’s technical assistants, and playing a clown. It was a strange show. Anyway, we got to know each other and see each other work over the course of the ordeal, and shortly afterwards Thom and I saw Anusree perform Letters to my Grandma in a festival of work in progress. Shortly after that, Thom and Anusree started work on Pyaasa, and when they felt it was time for a public performance, they asked me to stage manage and light it.
It was certainly a difficult show to create. We all came to it with our own reservations about our ability to tell this story. The very concept of an untouchable caste, a group of people whose existence is so offensive to those who live above them that the touch of their shadow is enough to defile an entire body or an entire building, is one that many here in Canada have a very difficult time dealing with. Even more difficult, at least for us, was the burden of attempting to tell this story, especially from our particular perspectives: one Indian woman who lived for the first half of her life as one of their oppressors; and two white middle-class Canadian men who have never been to India or knew anything about the untouchables until they met her. But we embarked none the less, with Anusree carrying the guilt of her past, and with Thom and I knowing we were about to create a very negative representation of a culture not our own. But Anusree’s powerful writing, her talents as a performer, and Thom’s ability to load every motion and breath with meaning have given the piece some element of truth that bridge the gap between our audience and our subject matter.
Pyaasa seems to have catapulted us into the view of Canadian theatre. Suddenly it’s touring the country, it’s at Magnetic North, and we’re still trying to catch up. Letters is only our second show. But we are unbelievably grateful for the chance to show our work to those coming to this festival, and to get their feedback.
HOW CAN I SUPPORT MAGNETIC NORTH?
A few weeks ago we asked for your support during these trying times, which we have nicknamed ED because we are tired of using the phrase "economic downturn". We have had some great feedback from our donors, all of whom understand that our friend ED is no laughing matter and is having an impact on our ability to raise support.
Our supporters tell us that Canada is a very large country and that Magnetic North makes our national theatre community just a little smaller. Without the festival, there would be a giant hole in Canada's cultural landscape.
We've also had a few questions. We have included the top three questions and their answers for you here:
Q: Can I get a tax receipt?
A: Yes. Magnetic North is a registered charitable organization (# 85685 2934 RR0001).
Q: How much are you aiming to raise?
A: Our goal for this year is to raise $40,000 through donations. This means that if 200 people were to each give a $200 donation we would make our target.
It is also possible to spread your donation over the year, like a magazine subscription. For instance, if you were to give $25 a month, that would result in a tax receipt at the end of the year of $300. The subscription idea is kind of appealing: Magnetic North is an anthology of theatre after all...
Q: How can I make a donation?
A: Well, this would have been convenient information to include last week! (But it gives us a great excuse to follow up with you this week). Here are three convenient ways you can make your donation:
2) Mail your cheque to us at 53 Elgin Street, P.O. Box 1534, Station B, Ottawa, ON K1P 5W1.
3) Give Gayle a call at (613) 947-7000 ext. 738 and she will be happy to help you with a credit card donation. We accept VISA and Mastercard.
Thank you for taking the time to read this and for helping us create a great festival for everyone to enjoy!
BECOME A VOLUNTEER
Click here to find out how.
Come and join our energetic volunteer team and connect with other like-minded theatre lovers from across the country. You might end up driving an award winning director to their opening night, welcoming an international theatre presenter to your home town, or hob-knobbing at the festival bar with the actors whom you just saw onstage.
Volunteer Orientation is this Wednesday, May 13 at 1PM and 6PM.
Phone 613-947-7000 ext. 849 or email volunteer@magneticnorthfestival.ca
to confirm which orientation you will be attending.
DATES TO REMEMBER
MAY 13 | Volunteer Orientation MAY 15 | Is it Time to Tour? Workshop JUNE 3-13 | Magnetic North Theatre Festival JUNE 6 -10 | Presenter's Window JUNE 7-10| Industry Series JUNE 8-12 | Compass Points Student & Emerging Artist Symposium
