Sara Masters, Theatre for Young People in Canada

Transcription

Sara Masters, Theatre for Young People in Canada 2009
Winston Churchill Memorial Trust
Fellowship 2009
Sara Masters
Theatre for Young People, Canada
st
th
31 August – 9 October
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Contents
p.3
Itinerary
p.4
Introduction
p.5-6
Montreal
p.7-8
Toronto
p.9
Calgary
p.10-11
Vancouver
p.12-13
Conclusions
p.14-15
Blogs
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Travel Itinerary
August 31st – September 2nd: Montreal
•
•
Youtheatre
Geordie Theatre
September 2nd – 5th: Toronto
•
Lorraine Kimsa Theatre for Young People
September 5th – 8th: Train from Toronto to Edmonton; Coach from Edmonton to Calgary
September 9th: Calgary
•
Quest Theatre
September 10th – 11th: Train from Calgary to Vancouver
September 14th – October 2nd: Vancouver
•
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Green Thumb Theatre
New World Theatre
October 3rd – 9th: British Columbia
•
Independent travel around the province
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Theatre for Young People
In 2007 I wrote my first play for young people and since that time I have become increasingly
interested in work made for young audiences. Although there are many theatres
and companies of note in the UK making this type of work it still has a lower
profile than that of theatre made for adults, particularly work that tours schools.
Given the umbrella term of ‘Theatre in Education’ (TIE), expectations are that it
will be didactic, with an educational message. There are many companies doing
valuable TIE work, supporting the curriculum with plays clearly relevant to
students’ lives e.g bullying, isolation, family breakdown. While these productions
have an important role, more ‘imaginative’ work that transcends the everyday
and utilises the magic of theatre has more difficulty getting in to schools as the
‘message’ is not as clear.
The company I run in the UK, iceandfire, explores human rights stories through performance
creating work which investigates complex and often contentious issues. With our plays for young
people we endeavour to create work that pushes boundaries not only in content but in form, finding
exciting techniques to create a new world within a school environment.
Why Canada?
I wanted to find out how theatre companies dealt with the complexities of touring plays in schools
and believed that Canada would be a good comparison to the UK
because of its range of work for young audiences, its lack of language
barriers and a similar funding environment and school system.
I also believed that visiting Canada would provide an insight in to
bilingual work; the logistics of traversing great distances;
communication between companies working thousands of miles apart;
how the existence two distinct populations (the indigenous First Nations
and the settlers) informed the work that was being made.
One privilege of the trip was the opportunity to have frank and open
conversations with companies creating work for young audiences in a
range of scenarios: professional theatre venues, schools, village halls and another was the time to
really reflect on those conversations. This was aided by the vast distance that I had to travel
(4872km) to traverse the country from East to West, spending five solid days on trains. It was
fascinating to see how attitudes and work changed. Coming from the UK this emptiness and vastness
was new to me and it became clear that Canada was not a country that could be easily defined or
packaged.
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Montreal
My first stop and the most European of the cities I visited so a good transition place. Having dusted
off my GCSE French (which came in much handier than I anticipated) I made my way to my first
meeting with bilingual company, Youtheatre.
Youtheatre
Youtheatre’s aim is to engage its audience through compelling
theatre which provokes, questions, challenges and entertains. The
major area of focus is the creation, development and production of
new works for young people by the finest Canadian playwrights.
Meeting with Michel Lefebvre, the Artistic Director of the company, was a great way to start my trip.
Enthused, energetic and passionate about work for young audiences, the range and breadth of the
company’s work was inspiring. At the time I was there Youtheatre had three shows in
production/development exploring issues of climate change, racial politics and violence in schools.
This encompassed work for very young audiences, a new script commission and a devised, music
based piece.
Michel felt that on the whole Canadian theatre was very safe and very conservative (an attitude that
I found myself agreeing with after seeing a number of mainstage productions across the country and
that was backed up by a number of other theatre practitioners I met) and that those companies
making theatre for young audiences were doing some of the most provocative work in Canada.
Youtheatre was the only bilingual company I visited and I felt that this really informed their work. It
gave them the benefit of two distinct cultures to draw on and play with. It provided a foundation for
their openness and ambition and enabled them to work with practitioners from both the
Francophone and Anglophone populations of Canada and two audiences to work with. They had
also toured internationally which opened them up to influences from other countries. The feeling I
got from other people I spoke to in Montreal was that the Francophone community supported the
theatre more with a belief that it was important and part of the culture further helped by increased
funding for work in French.
One aspect of the company’s work I found really interesting was the balance they struck between
taking work directly in to schools and also producing it in mainstream venues. This gave young
audiences the opportunity to see a familiar environment e.g their classroom transformed but also
the opportunity to visit a theatre and experience all the magic that a performance in a venue can
bring in terms of light, sound etc.
www.youtheatre.ca
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Geordie Theatre
Geordie Productions aims to entertain, to provoke thought, to fire up the imagination and to
challenge audiences of all ages. Geordie is committed to giving new life to existing Canadian plays as
well as developing and adding new great works to the Canadian Canon.
Geordie is an Anglophone company headed by the very friendly Dean Patrick Fleming who had just
taken over from the founder Elsa Bolam (an English woman from Newcastle, hence the company’s
name!) with a more traditional approach than Youtheatre, mixing mainstage and schools touring
going to very remote communities. Some of these are only accessible by boat meaning that the
productions are designed in such a way that they can be pared back to the very minimum allowing
the most important items of set to be carried in bags and suitcases. For some communities it may be
the only theatre that they see all year resulting in the work being seen by all ages, not just young
people.
I met the team working on Once Upon a Home, a new piece which emerged from the question ‘What
does “Home” mean to you?’ which the
company asked to primary school students
from 5 different schools in and around
Montreal, as part of a collaborative creation
process called “From You to Us to You”.
With their responses, Geordie created Once
Upon a Home which is a collation of the real voices of children in Quebec and reflecting their diverse
histories, families and imaginations.
This is a project that has many parallels with the work that I do at iceandfire, much of which
originates from individual’s real stories. I was really interested in the process, which rather than
verbatim, was set as a written task with the young people sending their responses in to the
company. I wondered how measured this made the young peoples’s responses and how authentic
the team felt they were but unfortunately the break was very short and they had to get back to
work!
www.geordie.ca
Other Companies
I also met with Teesri Duniya (www.teesriduniya.com) whose mission is: ‘Changing the world, one
play at a time.’ They are dedicated to producing socially and politically relevant theatre that
supports a multicultural vision of society, promoting interculturality and creating theatrical styles
based on the cultural experiences of visible minorities. As well as productions they have a
publication, Alt.Theatre, Canada’s only journal exploring cultural diversity and the theatre. I met with
Rahul Varma, the Artistic Director and Ted Little, the Associate Artistic Director and Editor of Alt.
Theatre who strongly felt that theatre in Canada was moribund and that the work being made was
directed to a bourgeoisie who also are the people who fund the work. Their concern therefore was
to get other faces on stage and different stories told. They gave the statistic that only 1% of
Canadians go to the theatre and the arts are definitely seen as second class.
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. Toronto
Toronto felt very corporate compared to Montreal and it definitely felt like a money oriented city.
Lots of skyscrapers, office buildings, factory refurbishments now luxury apartments. This was all
underscored by the screech of planes performing at the two day long airshow. It also houses
Canada’s largest TYA company and other fantastic arts organisations, including a beautiful Museum
of Modern Art.
Lorraine Kimsa Theatre for Young People
LKTYP is the largest TYA company in Canada and over their 44-year
history they have produced many of the most important works that
now form the canon of plays for young audiences in Canada. The
aesthetic vision of LKTYP is one where three streams of performance
are given importance. Firstly, the classics of children’s literature from
around the world offer children membership in an ancient childhood;
secondly, contemporary works and new Canadian play development
ensure continuing relevance to the real lives of young people. Finally,
the Drama School creates theatre for youth by youth.
I met with Artistic Director, Allen MacInnis, who felt that most new work being created in Canada
was work for young audiences. He believed that there was more freedom in Canada to do risk taking
work with young people than the U.S because there is not so much emphasis on making safe choices
informed by money. Allen was very emotionally engaged with the work the theatre created and
even broke down whilst telling me the history of Hana’s Suitcase, a very moving play about the
discovery of the owner of a suitcase found in a Holocaust museum.
He underlined the theatre’s focus on child development through theatre: what kind of contribution
does the play make to that young person emotionally, intellectually, spiritually. He was happy to
tackle difficult topics but with the caveat that ‘if we go into a dark alley we’ll always come out’, i.e
they won’t make a play completely ambiguous but neither will it be definitive.
This conversation gave me a lot to think about in terms of the responsibility theatre makers have to
young people and finding the right balance between patronising young people by making work that
is too blunt or crass in its ‘message’ as opposed to being so oblique that there is no clarity to the
narrative they are following. If a play advocates something that clearly butts up against what is
taught as ‘wrong’ e.g smoking, dropping out of school, violence then the company has to be able to
strongly justify that to the educators who bring their young people to see their performance.
www.lktyp.ca
Other Companies
I met with two other companies whilst in Toronto, Necessary Angel (www.necessaryangel.com) and
Volcano (www.volcano.ca). Both companies make innovative work for adults and I was interested to
meet them to have a comparison between the work being made for young people and that for
adults. Both Artistic Directors, Daniel Brooks (Necessary Angel) and Ross Manson (Volcano), are
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heavyweight players in the Canadian theatre scene and have won numerous awards for their work.
Both were articulate, driven and focussed on the work they create but also seemed very tired and
overworked. Daniel cited the battle between running a company and creating work as a major cause
of stress and has recently instigated an Associate Artist scheme to bring high profile, international
artists in to the company to create new work.
In addition to meeting Daniel and Ross I went to see a production of Whose Afraid of Virginia Woolf,
produced by Soulpepper (www.soulpepper.ca) who are housed in a new performing arts centre in
the very spruced up Distillery District. They are heavily funded and have a beautiful building and
beautiful marketing. Having spent time with people who really did create exciting, dynamic theatre it
was frustrating to see so much money being spent on very safe programming leading to very safe
interpretations of plays. The 2009/10 season was mostly classics or English farces with no modern
work at all. It was staid and polite and clearly illustrated Rahul and Ted from Teesri Duniya’s view of
the Canadian theatre scene.
.
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Calgary
Calgary is a fascinating city in the flats of Alberta. For a city with a population of a million they had an
impressive number of theatre companies operating for the 1% of citizens who attend performance.
Unfortunately I missed the stampede and only saw one semi-cowboy (hat but no boots). I spent the
day there with Nikki Loach, the new Artistic Director of Quest Theatre.
Quest Theatre
Quest develops and produces theatrical
experiences that are relevant and important to
young people. The Quest experience enhances
ones sense of self, engages individuals with
issues in their communities and fosters ongoing
connections to the performing arts.
Quest had two plays for young people touring in to schools: The Invisible Girl and Night Light of
which the former (like Youtheatre’s work) will also be seen in a few mainstream theatres. The play is
a one woman show with integrated filmed backdrop. I saw some of the initial work that the designer
and video designer had done on this and was very impressed by the high quality of the work and the
dedication of the team. It was a really ambitious use of technology that will definitely enhance the
experience of the students and felt completely embedded in the piece.
As well as productions Quest also operate school residencies which last a week and are done on a
set number of themes. These keep the company sustainable although there was a sense from staff
that the balance between the residencies and the artistic work was tipped too far towards the
workshops in schools with not enough emphasis on the production work. I think this is a common
problem for companies who offer work to young audiences as workshops are much easier to mount,
more portable and directly offer something to schools that neatly fit in to their curriculum.
Productions are much more of a risk both financially and in terms of fitting the needs of a school.
Nikki put a lot of emphasis, as Michel in Montreal and Allen in Toronto had done before, of young
peoples’ theatre having the same rigour and creativity (if not more) as theatre for adults,
emphasising the freedom of theatre for this audience. This was definitely a recurring theme and
certainly seemed corroborated by the range of work TYA companies were producing as opposed to
the mainstream theatres.
www.questtheatre.org
Other companies
In the evening I went to see Jake and the Kid at Theatre Calgary (www.theatrecalgary.com) which
was a whimsical take on Canadian life in the Prairies back in the day. This was a very charming
production, based on much loved stories from Canadian writer W.O Mitchell. It was obviously an
expensive production with a projected backdrop, charting the Prairie weather although in other
respects it was quite dated and clunky with lots of bringing on and off of equipment.
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Vancouver
Green Thumb Theatre
Green Thumb Theatre creates and produces plays that explore
social issues relevant to the lives of children, youth and young
adults. We provide theatre that celebrates the language and
stories of today’s generation and culture to stimulate empathy,
debate and critical thinking.
I spent three weeks with Green Thumb on rehearsals for their
production Blind Spot by Meghan Gardiner. I chose to spend this
dedicated period with Green Thumb because of the parallels
between their work and what I do in the UK. Having been
producing and creating this type of work for young people
successfully for 35 years I felt I could learn a lot from them.
The play had emerged from a previous play Meghan had written which was a one woman, semiautobiographical show based on her experience of date rape. Green Thumb found out about this
piece and commissioned her to turn it into a play for secondary school students. I liked the idea of
working with writers in this flexible way and to transform a work for adults in to a work for young
people. Blind Spot was directed by the Artistic Director of the company
Patrick Mcdonald who has been with the company for 20 years and in
2008/9 won the Jessie Richardson Award for Career Achievement.
The rehearsal experience was very interesting for me as it was entirely
different from any rehearsals that I have been in in the UK. The piece had
been performed before and Patrick had managed to secure the same cast so
everyone was very familiar with each other and the script. Meghan had
made changes and additions based on feedback from the last tour but on
the whole it seemed similar to the previous draft.
Rehearsals were very laid back, with all the actors slotting in to place very quickly. Patrick has a very
physical aesthetic, and a number of set physical comic pieces were choreographed. It definitely felt
that the process was ‘outside in’ with the physical dictating the emotional sense of the piece. A lot
of this was due to the fact that the piece was going to be performed to whole schools: 800 students
in the gym. This is very different to the work that I create in the UK which is for a maximum of 100
students and does necessitate a different way of working. Farce as a form
does seem to be popular in Canada and this definitely influenced the way
the play was directed. There was also a great emphasis on naturalness,
listening and responding in the moment. I think this is great but it
sometimes felt that this was at the sacrifice of intention, action and
specificity.
As with Geordie and Quest a set had been created which was very portable
as it needed to be foldable and moveable by 3 actors and a stage manager
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and fit in to a transit van. This consisted of two boxes which became wardrobe, bed, bar etc and a
back screen allowing the actors to cross backstage and keep the piece moving.
During rehearsal there was a lot of discussion about how tough schools can be, the different types of
audience response including a lack of respect from both students and staff and also interventions
from teachers saying how the piece ‘should’ be. All involved had been in a schools tour before so
they knew what the work involved but it provoked an interesting thought as to how ‘honest’ should
a director/company be about what might happen in schools. You want the actors to go in feeling
confident and not prejudging their audience, on the other hand you don’t want them to be
completely naive to the truth that it will not be the
same sort of quiet, respectful audience they would find
in a theatre.
Whilst with Green Thumb I also visited their production
of Wired, a play for primary school students exploring
the issue of cyber bullying. Patrick explained how
problematic it was to have a play that was really aimed
at 8-9 year olds being seen by the whole school but
because of school logistics and finances everyone had
to see it from 7 – 12 year olds. The play was very visual with three screens including a TV screen,
Blackberry screen and the screen of a mobile phone. Big characterisation was also needed to
communicate the piece to 400 children which worked well for the younger audience members but
the older children seemed less engaged.
Green Thumb always operates a ‘talkback’ at the end of each performance where the actors come
out of character and see if the audience has any response to what they saw. During the one for
Wired one child pointed out that someone who bullies a person to their face is less cowardly than
someone who cyber bully’s as they can hide behind a hidden identity. Just shows how sophisticated
7 years old are.
Other Companies
I met a number of other companies whilst in Vancouver and also managed to attend a few
productions at the Fringe Festival which serendipitously coincided with my stay as well as a
production of Black Comedy by Peter Shaffer at the Arts Club Theatre Company. A company that
really excited me was New World Theatre headed up by Marcus Youssef and Adrienne Wong.
Political in its outlook it produces creates, develops and tours new plays. In addition, they produce a
range of events, from cabaret nights to live readings of plays and poetry, to public lectures and
interviews. I was interested in them as they primarily create work for adults but had just made their
first work for young audiences, Are We There Yet? which had won three Jessie Richardson Awards. I
met both Adrienne and Marcus and really liked their open approach and willingness to experiment
and try new ideas. I like the idea of companies creating work across audiences and New World being
able to step away from adult theatre to make work for a younger audience.
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Conclusions
My time in Canada threw up lots of different issues for me and questions that I am still mulling over.
What struck me most forcefully was the feeling from all the TYA companies that I met that the
theatre being made for young people was the work that was taking the risks and pushing the
boundaries in Canada. Although this may have been biased and countered by companies like
Necessary Angel in Toronto or New World in Vancouver it did feel that there was an ambition to the
work being made for young people that wasn’t constricted in the same way that work for adults was.
This makes sense in that people can see the import of work for young audiences as it fits in to
‘education’ and therefore funding it is not as risky as funding pure ‘artistic’ work. This does not mean
that theatre for young people is lesser, it just operates within stricter boundaries but can be equally
as inventive, creative and imaginative, constantly finding new ways to engage and stimulate young
people.
There was also a strong feeling of responsibility to the audiences, not just in terms of the message
but the quality of the work. If anything, more attention and focus had to be paid to the whole world
of the production in order to justify schools and children giving their time and money to see theatre.
There was definitely a feeling that this may be the first time that a young person had seen a piece of
theatre and it needed to be something excellent that would transport them and they would want to
come back to. The issue of responsibility to students was a very interesting one and is one of the
main thing that differentiates work for young people and work for adults. In order to sell work to a
school/parents/venue the relevance to young people has to be made clear either in content or in its
relation to the curriculum. But that does not mean it has to be clear cut or preachy. I liked Allen
Macinnis’ approach to complex and contentious work: ‘if we go into a dark alley we’ll always come
out’ and it’s important that young people are taken on a journey and are given choices, regardless of
how hard or provocative those choices seem.
I liked the balance between schools touring and venues enabling young people the opportunity to
see work in familiar spaces, often completely necessary for those students who lived in very rural
places who would have difficulty finding a theatre within a hundred miles of them but also giving
schools and children the opportunity to come to a venue and enter a new space that has all the
tricks of theatre at its fingertips. I was surprised at the number of students Green Thumb performed
to and how this affected the way the work was rehearsed. It’s problematic for writers and
companies when work which is specifically targeted at 7-9 year olds is seen by 6-12 year olds. There
are always going to be children who are too old or too young to see that work and are going to be
turned off by the performance. There is also the worry that they are going to be confronted by
things that are too difficult for them at that stage of development and the company does not have
the time and resources to prepare them or to do follow up work with them and no knowledge as to
whether the school is going to do that. This comes back to the issue of responsibility to students and
when do you have to draw the line as to who does or doesn’t see the work and the trust you put in
the school to make the best decision based on the information they’ve been given.
An important issue was raised at Quest with the difficult balance between becoming a purely
educational company offering workshops and a theatre company that supports productions through
some more indepth, practical work with young people. As soon as the balance tips too far towards
the former the mission of the company has changed and this also affects motivation of staff and the
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drive and focus as to why they are there. It is so tricky because a company has to be sustainable and
ensure they have a healthy turnover but not at the detriment of the creative work that stands at the
heart of the company. This is often an issue I face in the UK, with funders keen to support direct face
to face work with students that fits a specific theme and will have easily tickable outcomes and
objectives but this is not what I want the company’s main activity to be.
Overall it proved to be a really absorbing, provocative experience. There were lots of things I saw
that I found surprising or difficult but also many things that were inspiring and exciting. The
experience definitely gave me a real insight in to how TYA companies in Canada operate and view
their audiences and the range of ways they approach their work, with lots of ideas to take back to
the UK. I have just finished rehearsals for iceandfire’s new work for young audiences and I carried a
lot of what I learnt into that which I feel really benefitted the production. I tried to think more
physically and commissioned a cellist to compose an original score to underpin the text. I believe
that targeting the work to a specific age group is the right way to approach theatre in schools but
not to be rigid and to trust the school when they say an older or younger age group would
appreciate it. Ultimately it let me view the work more objectively and in a wider context, seeing it
with new eyes which was a massive privilege. I don’t know another time in my life when I have had
the time and freedom just to observe, ask questions and absorb.
My thanks go to:
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The Winston Churchill Memorial Foundation for enabling me to take this wonderful trip and
particularly Julia Weston for making it all so simple and easy!
Rahul Varma and Ted Little at Teesri Duniya
Michel Lefebvre at Youtheatre
Dean Patrick Fleming and the cast of Once Upon a Home at Geordie Productions
Allen Macinnis at Lorraine Kimsa Theatre for Young People
Ross Manson and the cast of Goodness from Volcano
Daniel Brooks from Necessary Angel
Ruth Madoc-Jones from The Wrecking Ball
Nikki Loach from Quest Theatre
Patrick McDonald, Rachael King, Meghan Gardiner and the entire team at Green Thumb
Craig Hall at Rumble Productions
Marcus Youssef and Adrienne Wong at New World Theatre
David Bloom at Felix Culpa
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Blogs
Two blogs published on www.iceandfire.co.uk
Sara’s Adventures in Canada: 18th September 2009
What have I learnt so far during my Canadian odyssey researching theatre for young people? First
and foremost that Canada is big! Very, very big. I have been with the francophones in Montreal,
the city slickers in Toronto, the oil barons in Calgary and now with laid back West Coast hipsters in
Vancouver. This range is reflected in the work with a huge diversity in style, form, audience,
content. You name it, they pretty much got it.
The Winston Churchill Memorial Trust has enabled me to be here as part of a fellowship to help
develop arts in schools and city academies. My aim is to take what I discover and feed it in to
iceandfire’s programme of work for young people, particularly the plays which we take in to
schools. The rehearsal of Bind is imminent, starting three weeks after I get back, so everything will
be very fresh in my mind.
So far I have met over 15 companies, mostly those making work for young audiences, but I have
also tried to meet other companies to see what context the TYA companies are operating in and to
try and gauge the breadth and depth of contemporary Canadian theatre. Of those Volcano and
Necessary Angel in Toronto have stood out both because of the content and quality of their work.
Volcano are currently performing their play examining the Rwandan Genocide, Goodness, in
Toronto before taking it to Rwanda later in the year. Necessary Angel are currently working with
British director, Graham Mclaren, on a ‘radical revisioning of one of the world’s greatest plays’,
The Hamlet Project.
I am currently working with Green Thumb theatre in Vancouver on Blind Spot by Meghan
Gardiner. The play, which Meghan adapted for younger audiences from a one woman show, looks
at the impact of date rape on a 16 year old girl. It kicks off its tour on the 28th September, visiting
schools throughout British Columbia before transferring to the Lorraine Kimsa Theatre For Young
People in Toronto who are the biggest TYA company in the country, producing work for the last
40+ years. I met with their lovely Artistic Director, Allen Mackinnis, during my 3 day stay in the city
who talked me through their upcoming programme which also includes In This World by Hannah
Moscovitch, produced by Youtheatre. Based in Montreal, the only bilingual company I’ve met, the
company’s aim is to engage its audience through compelling theatre which provokes, questions,
challenges and entertains mostly through new writing. Check out this clip of Simon and the Egg, an
environmental play for 6-12 year olds.
After all of that you would hope that I had learnt more than just that Canada is big and I promise I
have! But the main thing that the trip has done so far is reinforce the extreme discipline that work
for young audiences demands. Not only does the writing and performance have to be of a really
high quality but to create a world in a classroom or school gym is a harder task than to create the
same world in a theatre space. The safety net of lights and props and defined audience/performer
space are gone but this is also what makes it exciting and really alive. To spend time with
practitioners who do this every day has been really invigorating and I’ve still got another 3 weeks
to go.
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Packing it in: 23rd October 2009
Back in London with a bump feeling jetlagged and decidedly cold (even after the Rockies!) but
really pleased to be back in our great capital’s crowded, polluted streets.
Travelling across the country from Montreal through Toronto and Calgary I only really caught my
breath in Vancouver where I had a three week stay. Trying to do three provinces in two weeks
(including five days on a train, brilliant but a bit Groundhog Day) left me little time to absorb what
was going on in each city beyond the superficial. Having said that, interesting areas arose: in
Montreal it was considered that the Francophone community is making the best, most exciting
work because there is increased support from that community, higher funding for French language
work and respect for theatre as an art form; Toronto (seemingly hated by all the rest of Canada) is
definitely the most corporate but also housing some incredibly exciting companies including
Necessary Angel and Volcano (who I mentioned in my last blog) and the dichotomy of Calgary, the
most conservative of all the cities (it had real life cowboys!) with a real wealth of theatre
companies buoyed by very strong local support despite only 1% of the population attending the
theatre (a real figure of 10,000).
My most complete sense came at the end of my trip in Vancouver, British Columbia where I was
resident at theatre for young audiences company Green Thumb. British Columbia has just been hit
by what amounts to a 90% cut in its arts budget which is likely to decimate the arts scene in the
province which already seemed underfunded and undersupported. Companies like New World
Theatre (Check them out – very very cool), Rumble Productions and of course Green Thumb are all
going to be hit by these cuts.
Funding aside it definitely felt, particularly after Calgary, that B.C was a much more liberal province
with TYA companies encouraged to tackle difficult issues and challenging young peoples’
perceptions. Green Thumb have just finished an international tour of Cranked, a one man show
about crystal meth addiction and as well as the play I was working on which dealt with date rape
they had a play for primary schools examining cyber bullying. Because of their longevity (they have
been around for over 30 years) and success they are funded at city, province and national level but
are still financially reliant on schools paying a significant proportion of the production costs (as
opposed to being subsidised as we are on our upcoming play Bind). Because of this the play tends
to be performed for the whole school population – 1000 11-18 year olds sitting on the bleachers in
the school gym. This is despite the fact that the play may be targeted to maybe only a quarter of
the audience e.g 12 -14 year olds. Although this means greater access it also means that there is a
big swathe of the audience who are potentially the wrong age for the material and therefore
bored and confused, resulting in the piece not having its intended impact.
We have come across some similiar problems in booking our schools tour of Bind where teachers
are keen for a whole year group (around 300 students) or more to see the play at once. Although
this is completely understandably the play, a two-hander, is designed to be played in traverse and
really only appropriate for a maximum audience number of 90. We want the play to be an
effective, high quality artistic experience and by having hundreds of students in a school hall the
performance will lose its intimacy and focus.
Having said that schools have been really enthusiastic about the piece and we are excited about
the beginning of rehearsals (14 days and counting). And with the rehearsal space on the Bethnal
Green Road beckoning, Canada is beginning to feel very far away indeed.
15 | P a g e
16 | P a g e

Sara Masters, Theatre for Young People in Canada

Transcription

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