Workshop Reading of The Selfsame Hour at TPM

open heart surgery invites you to a workshop reading of The Selfsame Hour by Coleen MacPherson, a new play inspired by Ovid's story of Philemon and Baucis.

We are pleased to announce an exciting theatrical event, and we hope you can take part! The Selfsame Hour is a play inspired by the questions of faith, love and the reconcilement of death in a world that seems to be moving too fast; a world that is constantly changing like Ovid's Metamorphoses. With poetic text and rich images we are taken into the world of an elderly couple, Katie and Phil, who live in a tiny corner of the world. In this world the rain has forgotten how to stop, and Death himself arrives early for his appointment ... After much success and positive feedback at the 2011 HOTscrawls Festival (theatrekairos), Coleen MacPherson has further developed the piece. We are pleased to be holding a culminating workshop reading of this full-length play, open to theatre practitioners and the public. So please join us for a reading of this play-in-development. We are interested in gaining audience feedback for the continual growth of this new play.

Directed by Sarah Warren

Featuring new up-and-coming talent: David Christo, Kate Kudelka, Viktor Lukawski, Alexandra Draghici ...

"The piece is grounded in a truth that is brought into theatrical life by streaks of absurdity, pockets of poetry and currents of magic" (Aviva Armour-Ostroff)

When? Tuesday January 3rd, 2012 at 7:30 pm

Where? Theatre Passe Muraille Backspace (16 Ryerson Ave. Toronto, ON)

Please RSVP by Thursday December 29th to coleen.macpherson@gmail.com if you plan to attend.

Limited seating so please RSVP Looking forward to seeing you there!

Shangai International Contemporary Theater Festival

Piles of oranges fill a cart along Anfu Lu, in the French Concession of Shangai ... I walk the cobblestone streets lignted with French imported trees, and dream up a new play
Learning Mandarin is like learning a new instrument, it is a song. The sweepers-rhythm plays well against the sing-song voices of the Chinese,
while ex-pats crowd into more-than-western cafes sipping their lattes with their babies in carriages ...

The theatre fills up at night to see shows from all over the world, and men outside play cards leaning over benches with cigarettes in hand ... the dogs bark and chase each other, and wrap their leashes around our feet.
Next week I will perform as Anais Nin and a nurse in TheatreRUN's French play about Antonin Artaud's life and letters. Bur right now, I curl into Divisadero by Michael Ondaatje, at Cafe Merianbad, where I smoke cigarettes indoors and listen to the sounds ... Shangai's air is filled with a pulsating energy; sky scrapers pierce the sky beside the image of an older world ... Change is something that happens overnight here. There is an area that has never been developed because it is cursed. An old couple died because they refused to leave their home. I listen to these stories and the sounds, and I realize I am part of the music of the city now, my pen taps on the desk, my coffee cup clinks on its saucer as I look up ...

Tourte au Potiron

The Parisian Pumpkin Pie

85 grams (3 ounces) unsalted butter
1.4 kilos / 3lbs pumpkin (potiron) seeded, cored and cut into 1/2 inch dices
2 granny smith apples, peeled, cored and cut into 1/2 inch dices
3/4 cup light brown sugar
1 vanilla bean, split in half, lengthwise
1/4 cup coarsely chopped pecans
2 1-to-10 inch square sheets frozen puff pastry
1 large egg, lightly beaten

1. In a large skillet over medium heat, melt the butter. Add the pumpkin or squash and apples and cook 8-10 minutes
2. Reduce heat to low, add the light brown sugar and vanilla bean, scraping to include bits of fruit from the bottom of the skillet.
3. cover and cook for 30 minutes or until fruit is very soft but still holding its shape.
4. set aside to cool discard vanilla bean
5. when the mixture is completely cooked, add chopped pecans
6. cover and refridgerate or freeze before serving

Rue de la Roquette

On Rue de la Roquette the sun intimidates the cafes. The light piercing the street like a laser. A man screams, as a child runs through the streets with "Algeria" on his back. We leave the theatre to a gunshot -- the final note of the play, we leave dizzy because life is like that -- a gunshot and it's all over. But the air is so sweet in Paris today, and I smile, affected as I descend Voltaire Metro ...

Nuit blanche commence

And the sun is setting in Paris right now, there is a certain slant of light across the rooftops on Rue Oberkampf ... soon Nuit Blanche Paris will begin, including starlight filling Sacre Coeur.

Nuit Blanche Paris - Toronto

Please come to an exciting project by Coleen MacPherson and Nina Gilmour:

si vous etiez la ou seriez vous

3:00 am Toronto Nuit Blanche

as part of Canada's Smallest Theatre's TELL YOUR STORY

Artscape Wychwood Barns

601 Christie Street

Toronto

Barn #2 - sign up

Performed live from Paris. A film capturing the crowds and camera flashes in front of the Mona Lisa (Louvre), music by Stockhaussen, poetry by Bukowski ....

The Pasolini Project at Canadian Stage

TheatreRUN invites you to ...

THE PASOLINI PROJECT at Canadian Stage's Spotlight.Italy Festival!!
Join us in a presentation of excerpts from our play-in-development
Saturday March 19, 2011
3:00 - 4:00 pm
Canadian Stage, Berkeley Street Theatre (Downstairs)
26 Berkeley Street
FREE!

Led by Artists Adam Paolozza and Coleen MacPherson
Music by Matt Smith
Performed by Miranda Calderon, Julian De Zotti*, Lisa Marie Diliberto*, Fabio Fabri, Dean Gilmour*, Rebecca Singh, Michele Smith*, Dan Watson

*Appearing with permission from Canadian Actors' Equity Association
This project is made possible by the generous support of The Canada Council for the Arts and Canadian Stage

Some Dreams ...

I had a dream I was taming a snake. That's all I remember of that one. The next day I dreamt of a huge boar, with massive horns eating a piece of plastic in the desert. Then a few nights ago I had a dream of a prestigious man giving a lecture/play to a large audience, to which, I was an audience member. I call it a lecture/play because it was boring and horrible in the sense that a lecture is boring and a play can be horrible. I was there in the audience with my mother, my aunt, boyfriend, sister, cousin and Dad with his wife. After a lot of monotonous droning on and on, on a topic I could not follow, the lecturer came up to me, took off his belt and wrapped it around my head ! "She has a round head!" he exclaimed emphatically, and I replied "I do!" Even though I do not (have a round head). We continued to watch the performance, and my Mom kept making sounds of "hmmm" "ohhh" "ahh ..." And so, I shushed her politely. She began to cry and I felt ashamed for having silenced her. I looked behind and there sat the rest of the audience: statues erected to Zeus. Stone faced gaze. Then I woke up. Last night I spoke in my sleep saying "the sheets are washed, I washed the sheets !" My unconscious life is finding it's way into my conscious life.

Quote du Jour

If what Proust said is true, that happiness is the absence of fever, then I will never know happiness. For I am possessed by a fever for knowledge, experience and creation. - Anais Nin

February 4, 2011

I went to the TIFF Lightbox to see Incendies two nights ago. It was 9:00 pm and my hands were frozen from the icy Toronto air. Rubbing them together I went up the huge escalator around the cafe to cinema number 1. A few people dotted the theatre, but essentially I was alone. It is at times like this, sitting in this immense silence, listening to my breath, feeling anticipation; I am transported into the deepest parts of myself. Perhaps this moment's awareness was sparked by what I've been reading. I had Anais Nin's diary with me, something I've been carrying around lately regardless of its hardcover-heaviness (I kind of like this idea of carrying the weight of the words rather than buying an e-reader). Just to side-track: In her last journals there is this tremendous feeling of a woman nearing the end of her life, but also living each moment to the brim, questioning and being aware of her surroundings and especially honesty with her writing. "I live for this journal" she writes, and writing transformed her experience of the world. Her later journals turned into a dialogue with the world itself.
Then the theatre went dark and the movie began. (I really appreciate at TIFF you are not bombarded by commercials, music, and technological garbage that make us unable to feel a sense of calm. Who knew I could find a sense of solace in a movie theatre!!) So the movie started ...
Just to catch some of you up ...
Incendies is a play by Wajdi Mouawad, I saw the English translation (by Linda Gaboriau) Scorched in 2007 at Tarragon, and have never seen a more fully realized, poetic, politically subversive, masterpiece of a play in Canada. Denis Villeneuve was so inspired by this play, calling it a masterpiece, that he decided to make a film by the same name. I've been following Villeneuve for the past while with all of the hype over his oscar nomination, and the opening of the movie to mainstream theatres. Check out Jian Ghomeshi's interview with him on Q: www.cbc.ca/arts/film/story/2010/12/14/denis-villeneuve.html
He speaks about how in order to make the film, he had to let go of a lot of poetry in the play. The story can be told through image. The story is about twins dealing with the death of their mother, and given the task of having to find their father and brother (they did not know they had a brother until the notary gave them a letter from their mother to go and find him). The play brings them to a fictional country, with a warring past. Villeneuve was inspired to make the film because of what it was talking about: finding a liberation from the cycles of violence that encroach on a family. As the film began, I was immediately drawn in, it has a style and an authenticity that is rare in cinema, and is unlike anything I have seen before.
My heart was pounding and it was a painfully beautiful account of the search for origin and truth. Even though the film does stay true to this idea of letting go of the cycles of violence - facing the hard truth, it was lacking in something the play gave me. The play left me with a different feeling when it was over, a release, something light swept over when I left the theatre. This lightness is embodied in the final lines of the play when the mother, Nawal, speaks through a letter to her children:
Why didn't I tell you?
There are truths that can only be revealed when they have been
discovered.
You opened the envelope, you broke the silence
Engrave my name on the stone
And place the stone on my grave.
your mother.

Simon: Janine, let me hear her silence.

JANINE and SIMON listen to their mother's silence.
Torrential rain.
The end.
(Wajdi Mouawad p83 "Scorched")

Rain pours on the stage in the moment that the twins are now given permission to bury their mother and place her body facing the sun. This moment that happened in the theatre is one of the reasons that I have devoted my life to making theatre and working in the theatre. When you are surrounded by an audience, waiting for the final words to be spoken live on the stage there is a sense of urgency, immediacy, and truth. This moment at the end of Scorched can never be recaptured in film because it is a moment that involves a communal cleansing for the audience and for the characters themselves. It is a release for us all. So when I left the movie Incendies I felt blessed to have been a witness to this incredible adaptation of an epic story, but I yearned to have some kind of release like I did in the theatre while the rain poured from the skies of the Tarragon ...

The last words of Anais Nin ...

I am currently working with Adam Paolozza and Michele Smith on Artaud, Un Portrait En Decomposition at Le Theatre Francais de Toronto. So I have been reading the journals of Anais Nin voraciously, and of course I skip to her last entry, the final entry of her life.

During the last months she decided to make her diary a diary of music:

I will only write in it when the musicians come, when I hear music. And it will be a separate part of my life.

snow falling

grace street at two p.m.
the snow falls thick,
tormenting me like a never-ending dispute between lovers
what happens to us as we walk looking down?
my thoughts interrupted ...
far off
small colourful marbles float
down the snowy slope
with faint and fearful laughter ...
like my dream last night aboard a tall-ship
sailing out towards a familiar feeling.

Coming to Writing ...

And so when you have lost everything, no more roads, no direction, no fixed signs, no ground, no thoughts able to resist other thoughts, when you are lost, beside yourself, and you continue getting lost, when you become the panicky movement of getting lost, then, that's when, where you are unwoven weft, flesh that lets strangeness come through, defenseless being, without resistance, without batten, without skin, inundated with otherness, it's in these breathless times that writings traverse you, songs of an unheard-of purity flow through you, addressed to no one, they well up, surge forth, from the throats of your unknown inhabitants, these are the cries that death and life hurl in combat. ("Coming to Writing" and other essays, Helene Cixous)

New Beginnings

tea cup full, sitting like a patient
I approach my desk
and begin ...