Editors past and present reflect on Calgary’s stage community
My three years as arts editor and theatre critic at Fast Forward Weekly can be summed up succinctly with the name of one of the little companies that emerged at the time: Theatreboom.
When I took up my post in 2003 Vertigo Mystery Theatre was snipping the ribbon on its classy $7-million venue under the Calgary Tower. When I departed in 2006 Theatre Junction was putting the finishing touches to its $10-million “culture house” in the Grand.
In between those real-estate highlights there were all kinds of young Calgary companies to keep track of. The aforementioned Theatreboom Mob Hit Maple Salsa Blacklist Bubonic Tourist Company of Rogues Ghost River a revitalized Sage a growing Ground Zero… never mind Vertigo Junction Lunchbox Quest and the big three: Theatre Calgary Alberta Theatre Projects and One Yellow Rabbit. Oh yes and the new festivals – Random Acts Ignite! Solocentric Animated Objects — that sprang up in the long shadow of ATP’s playRites and OYR’s High Performance Rodeo.
The quantity was accompanied by quality. My countless nights (and afternoons) at the theatre left me with many vivid memories. Cue the montage: Theatre Junction premiering The Optimists Morwyn Brebner’s hilariously astute comedy about low-rent lives. Discovering the multi-layered writing of U.S. playwright Rebecca Gilman via two excellent productions: Theatre Junction’s version of her stalking thriller Boy Gets Girl and Ground Zero’s take on her rueful cops-and-whores comedy Blue Surge . OYR’s inimitable Denise Clarke battling a forest fire in a paper suit in her timely tour de force A Fabulous Disaster . Meg Roe jaw-droppingly wonderful in the tear-jerking apartheid-era memoir The Syringa Tree at ATP. Evan Rothery as a teenager awakening with a Zach Galifianakis-sized hangover in Theatreboom’s wry high-school elegy The Drop . Valerie Planche every inch a queen in Mob Hit’s accomplished staging of Timothy Findley’s Elizabeth Rex . Rodeo regulars Daniel MacIvor darker than ever in Cul-de-sac and Compagnie Marie Chouinard sexier than ever in Chorale . Theatre Calgary’s Ian Prinsloo cramming what looked like the city’s entire professional acting community onstage for his massive (and massively enjoyable) revival of Elmer Rice’s Counsellor-at-Law .
There was also plenty of upheaval on my watch. Prinsloo left Theatre Calgary to be replaced by Dennis Garnum. Vertigo boss John Paul Fischbach spent one season in the venue he’d campaigned so hard to build then departed. Johanne Deleeuw heir to Bartley and Margaret Bard’s venerable Lunchbox Theatre was rudely turfed by her board (I see the job has since become a revolving door). And popular playwright Eugene Stickland whom Fast Forward Weekly had anointed “king of playRites” ended his long reign as ATP’s resident writer. Most puzzling was Mark Lawes’s decision to turn his successful Theatre Junction into some sort of navel-gazing pseudo-European collective. I didn’t stick around to see how that panned out. In the winter of 2006 after one last Rodeo-and-playRites marathon I bid Fast Forward Weekly — and Calgary — adieu.
MARTIN MORROW
Calgary’s theatre scene has remained in many ways the most tightly-knit cultural community in the city. Those who stay seem to stay for good: folks like the One Yellow Rabbit (OYR) crew who continue to challenge audiences while adding a welcome sense of history to the city’s cultural environment. Of course this entrenchment has often led to relying on antiquated entertainments to draw audiences though even Theatre Calgary recently transformed its hoary A Christmas Carol into something fresh and inviting.
When I became Fast Forward Weekly’s arts and lifestyle editor in 2006 I wasn’t prepared for how steeped in history Calgary’s theatre scene was and the expectations it carried from artists and audiences alike. OYR’s High Performance Rodeo was a must-see festival; Shakespeare in the Park was the critic’s punching bag. Though I saw some duds over those years what continues to stand out for me are those performances that began to draw bigger audiences into Calgary theatre.
Or I should say theatre companies. Theatre Junction’s return sought to add a touch of cosmopolitan class to the scene and though its Resident Company of Artist shows seemed to alienate everyone who saw them it brought some amazing artists (Peter Brook Marie Chouinard) to the city. Alberta Theatre Projects’ playRites series became one the season’s sure-bet events; Theatre Calgary began to create more ambitious and challenging shows ( The Wars ) for its loyal audience.
Most exciting however was watching the indie companies take over. (The word “indie” is a bit of a misnomer here; I only use it to differentiate in size between say Ghost River Theatre and Theatre Calgary.) Urban Curvz drew audiences looking for intelligent feminist theatre; Ghost River found success with personally driven shows like the Alan Parkinson’s Project . Ground Zero and Hit and Myth produced a bunch of crowd-pleasers like the raunchy Urinetown ; Sage Theatre created the closest thing to a theatre blockbuster with Hedwig and the Angry Inch . I’ll be curious to see which one(s) becomes part of Calgary’s theatre dynasty. All told it was a privilege and a blast.
BRYN EVANS
