It's something to do.

Quite a ways away, in the distance, I can see the shape of a pennant suspended on a flagpole on top of some kind of structure built on a landscape all shrouded in mist. All I can see is the pennant, really, and even then I cannot see the details on the flag. Far, far, far too far away. Everything in front of me is some shade of grey except that pennant which, right now, seems vaguely red.

That's my next personal project. Not sure why, in my mind, it's a fortress in the wilderness but there you are. Right now, I am contemplating the journey across the fog-laden ground between there and here. Just having finished a show I produced and directed, I am a little weary. And it's safe here -- this sweet little cottage we built. There's food, water, good company, with my feet up and healing from the last trek; the light of a merry fire dancing on our faces. It's cold out there, clammy, a little drizzly, dark. Unknown.

And this, this castle I am going work toward is exponentially larger in vision and in scope and, right this second, it seems too daunting a task for me to even take the first step. Or, really, make the first decision which will, like a warm, gentle breeze, chase off a bit of the grey mist and reveal a something of the structure behind. And as I get closer, details will become plain.  But the journey will be long and hard. Often lonely. And I wonder, as I often do, what the fuck I do it for. Because it's difficult. It costs me.

I think it's because that building has always been there; sitting there, waiting. Waiting for me or someone like me to come along and take notice. And, it beckons and teases and dares me like something forbidden to be the one to show its beauty to the world. It's a temptation that's too hard to resist. So, I will get up from this fire and leave these friends and go out into the cold....

And, what the hell.  It's something to do.

Jacqui Burke is a freelance director, writer, and theatrical teacher living in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.  She is currently directing Love Letters for Encore Entertainment, and is looking forward to directing Lend Me A Tenor for Scarborough Theatre Guild.  She is, also, serializing The Pretender, her first novel, online at http://thepretender-amarcienoelnovel.blogspot.ca/.  


Jacqui Burke
talk/text: 647-292-0210
twitter: @jaybird01
skype: Jacquiburkecell, jacqui.burke
www.wordsnimages.com
www.jaybirdproductions.ca
www.shakespeareisboffo.ca
http://jacquiburke.blogspot.ca
http://thepretender-amarcienoelnovel.blogspot.ca/
http://jaybirdproductions.blogspot.ca/



Ask me about Shakespeare is Boffo! Premium Summer Camp for Kids. The Homeschoolers` Version: 11:00 am – 3:30 pm, August 13-17, 2012 for only $150. Quiet supervision available from 8:30 am for only an extra $50 a week. Spots are going fast. Register, now at www.shakespeareisboffo.ca 

It could happen.

Well, as one embarks on a new endeavour, there are those dark moments in which one contemplates the pure, utter disaster that a failure could be.  Whoosh.  Super-not-so-fun.  I know about his because I have failed before -- it's embarrasing, to say the least.  Usually costs a lot of money.  But...I've also managed a few wins.  

I often want to get up and have a gander at the world.  As short as I am, I will pile things up, climb on top and and have a good look around.  Makes me quite the target.  So, with Oleanna, my latest project, I am pretty much up as high as I can go and whosoever might be gunning for me (fate, circumstance, plain bad luck) should be able to take me out without too much trouble -- as I have gone ahead and piled up what could be considered some rickety stuff to stand on this time out.

Not that Oleanna is, in any way, a bad play or that I am unsure of being able to a great job of it but more this:  We are living in interesting times, as the old proverb goes, and most theatres are doing shows that are easier and more fun to go and see. They want as many bums in the seats as they can get. Oleanna is many things, including a riveting piece of work, but it is not easy. It's not fun. And, of course, theatre is supposed to be dying.... Yikes!

Well, I am pretty sure theatre isn't dying but I do think our audience is no longer aware of the innate benefits of seeing live theatre. I was shocked a year or so back when a woman in her late thirties confessed that she had never seen a live theatre production in her life. Never. Wow. And I am thinking there are more people in her shoes than I would have previously believed. Of course, there are a lot of folks for whom live theatre is only the last touring production of Beauty and the Beast.  Hmmmmm....

So, if a lot of my potential audience are in these boats, how would they know that intimate, live theatre is a fantastic, visceral experience shared between artist and audience? That there's nothing like it? Well. They wouldn't.

So, I am going to have to sell this one. And I will. As well as contacting the theatre lovers, since Oleanna is an altercation between college professor and student, I have a marketing plan that includes reaching out to the (how many?) college and university level students and faculty in the fine city of Toronto. Hopefully, I can intrigue some of them to try something that may be completely new to them.

Other than that, I have my fundraiser on the go and getting all my other ducks lined up nicely. All I wish is this: That I will do everything in my power to make Oleanna a success. If I do it all and still fail, then I will actually be proud of myself even though it will look a lot like failure to other folks. I am thinking that we only really fail in life by not trying, by not doing what we imagine, or by not trying hard enough when the opportunity comes along.

And maybe, just maybe, all that work will add up to a win this time out. It could happen.


 
Make a donation to Raising Oleanna, a fundraiser in support of Jacqui's production of Oleanna by David Mamet.


Jacqui Burke is a freelance director, writer, and theatrical teacher living in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.  She is currently directing and producing Oleanna by David Mamet for a two week run at the Red Sandcastle Theatre, prepping and leading her Shakespeare is Boffo! theatre arts camps for active kids, directing Love Letters for Encore Entertainment, and directing Lend Me A Tenor for Scarborough Theatre Guild.  She is, also, serializing The Pretender, her first novel, online at http://thepretender-amarcienoelnovel.blogspot.ca/.  



Jacqui Burke
talk/text: 647-292-0210
twitter: @jaybird01
skype: Jacquiburkecell, jacqui.burke
www.wordsnimages.com
www.jaybirdproductions.ca
www.shakespeareisboffo.ca
http://jacquiburke.blogspot.ca
http://thepretender-amarcienoelnovel.blogspot.ca/
http://jaybirdproductions.blogspot.ca/



Ask me about Shakespeare is Boffo! Premium Summer Camp for Kids. The Homeschoolers` Version: 11:00 am – 3:30 pm, August 13-17, 2012 for only $150. Quiet supervision available from 8:30 am for only an extra $50 a week. Spots are going fast. Register, now at www.shakespeareisboffo.ca 

Skipping to the End

Have you ever looked back at yourself a few years earlier and wondered: "Who the heck was I?  I would never do that today!"  Or:  "I cannot believe I was so green."  It is a natural part of life that we live and grow constantly and that what we become, sometimes, is so different to what we were that we can hardly acknowledge that the you-now and the you-then are even the same person.  Some folks actively pursue change through self-improvement but most of us, without realizing it, are learning all the time, changing constantly, and becoming something new, something wiser, not always better, but always evolving.

Plays can be viewed as microcosms rife with change.  Something is happening here: something very important; something by which absolutely everyone will be affected.  Every character, from the chorus boy to the leading lady, will be touched in some way by the prominent story arc and, because of it, will change and will evolve into something new.  In some cases, that evolution will entail the individual literally changing her mind or actions completely.  In some cases, the change will involve the person becoming more rigid or justified in his beliefs.  But, something will happen in that character's head out of the process of the show that will require or force that character to grow - for the good or the bad.

And it is that growth, that dawning understanding, that realization of caring or hatred, that ownership of need that we, as an audience, recognize in our bones, identify with, and makes us love that character.  It's the journey that makes us care about them - whether they triumph in the end or no.  It's the journey.

So, I invite all my gentle readers, when preparing to present a character onstage or in scene study, to ask yourself two questions:

1. Who is this person at the beginning of the play/scene?
2. Who is this person at the end of the play/scene?

When you know where the character starts and where the character ends, much will become clear.  How did the person behave at the beginning?  Is she flippant and fun?  Is he morose and brooding?  How does this person behave at the end?  Does she become serious and forthright?  Does he lighten and open his heart?  Answers to these questions will give you clues on general character body work, energy, pitch of voice.  Answers to these questions will tell you how the character moves, talks, holds her head even, and especially, if the character seems not to change.

And how the heck does she get from point A to point B?  What moments affect her?  Where does she have her epiphanies?  Reading the story for moments of change is a great way to identify the character's journey and will fuel your own creativity as an artist trying to honestly portray a character in crisis.

So many shows lose the journey, somehow.  We are often presented, at the beginning, with the creature into which the character should, finally, evolve.  Sadly, so many shows skip to the end.



Jacqui Burke is a freelance director, writer, and theatrical teacher living in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.  She is currently directing Kidsplay 2012:  The Mayan Prediction opening June 20. 2012 at the Palmerston Library Theatre for one night only, and The Last Five Years for TOKL Productions running July 20-21st, 2012 at the Alum Studio.  Next year, she is looking forward to producing/directing her own show in the fall, directing Love Letters for Encore Entertainment, and directing Lend Me A Tenor for Scarborough Theatre Guild.  She is, also, serializing The Pretender, her first novel, online at http://thepretender-amarcienoelnovel.blogspot.ca/.  She is preparing for two Shakespeare is Boffo! summer camp sessions for 2012.

Want to contact me?

Jacqui Burke
Artistic Director
Jaybird Productions
talk/text:  647-292-0210
twitter:  @jaybird01
skype:   Jacquiburkecell, jacqui.burke
www.wordsnimages.com
www.jaybirdproductions.ca
www.shakespeareisboffo.ca
http://jacquiburke.blogspot.ca
http://thepretender-amarcienoelnovel.blogspot.ca/
http://jaybirdproductions.blogspot.ca/

Ask me about Shakespeare is Boffo! Premium Summer Camps for Kids.  Two installments in 2012:  The Homeschoolers` Version:  11:00 am – 3:30 pm, August 13-17, 2012 for only $155.  Premium Full Day Summer Camp:  9:00 am – 4:00 pm, July 16-20, 2012 for only $200.  Both prices hold until May 15th, 2012.  Spots are going fast.  Register, now at www.shakespeareisboffo.ca

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Clay and Dirt.

I am starting The Last Five Years in just a couple of days.  Now, just a week or so ago, at the fundraising event for the show, I was pleased to meet Toby, one of the industrious young folks producing and starring in this show.  I was dead impressed with the energy and talent at this fundraising event and was happy to have attended.  But Toby said the funniest thing when I met him and I paraphrase:  "You're the one who's going to mold me into shape, huh?"

It was and, I suppose, still is common in theatre to see a director as the only truly active artist in the room, the one who takes dumb slabs of clay, bends them and molds them and returns a work of art of which only she can conceive.  Actors are not a part of a generative artistic process and are considered vacant vessels waiting to be filled with the vision and wisdom of the director.

In my view, it's all poppycock, of course, but that's what some people believe.  I think of the process as a more collaborative one in which I have done the most thinking and research and reserve the right to final decision-making (thereby avoiding unnecessary conflict) but enjoy those fantastic moments of discovery and epiphany in rehearsal that can lead to a solid show.

I prefer to think of myself more as a kind of gardener, helping a performer grow into a role.  The performer is not a dead hunk of wet dirt but, more, a delicate plant trying to push itself up out of the ground and thrive in the sunlight.  In this way, if I think of the creative process as something quivering and young, as opposed to dead in my hands, I believe I will be less likely to ground these seedlings into the dirt before they have a chance to grow into a beautiful, majestic performance.

And, I always like to add when I am discussing this analogy, it helps this process of growth that I am so full of shit.




Jacqui Burke is a freelance director, writer, and theatrical teacher living in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.  She is currently directing Kidsplay 2012:  The Mayan Prediction opening June 20. 2012 at the Palmerston Library Theatre for one night only, and The Last Five Years for TOKL Productions running July 20-21st, 2012 at the Alum Studio.  Next year, she is looking forward to producing/directing her own show in the fall, directing Love Letters for Encore Entertainment, and directing Lend Me A Tenor for Scarborough Theatre Guild.  She is, also, serializing The Pretender, her first novel, online at http://thepretender-amarcienoelnovel.blogspot.ca/.  She is preparing for two Shakespeare is Boffo! summer camp sessions for 2012.

Want to contact me?

Jacqui Burke
Artistic Director
Jaybird Productions
talk/text:  647-292-0210
twitter:  @jaybird01
skype:   Jacquiburkecell, jacqui.burke
www.wordsnimages.com
www.jaybirdproductions.ca
www.shakespeareisboffo.ca
http://jacquiburke.blogspot.ca
http://thepretender-amarcienoelnovel.blogspot.ca/
http://jaybirdproductions.blogspot.ca/

Ask me about Shakespeare is Boffo! Premium Summer Camps for Kids.  Two installments in 2012:  The Homeschoolers` Version:  11:00 am – 3:30 pm, August 13-17, 2012 for only $155.  Premium Full Day Summer Camp:  9:00 am – 4:00 pm, July 16-20, 2012 for only $200.  Both prices hold until May 15th, 2012.  Spots are going fast.  Register, now at www.shakespeareisboffo.ca

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Balancing Fear

When I was a kid, people were still into afternoon tea parties at which foks were daintily and prettily dressed.  Everyone spoke evenly and smiled, but nobody laughed, and one spent most of one's time precariously balancing a cup of tea on one's knee. Some thirty-five years later, things change.  Now, it's definitely not afternoon parties and/or definitely not tea parties and I not only smile but, apparently, am famous for my laugh.  What remains, though, is the balancing act.

I am embarking on two new personal projects for Jaybird Productions, my own company, besides the shows I have committed to directing for other companies next year.  The first is David Mamet's Oleanna that I plan to mount in November of this year, assuming I can get the rights and a space.  The second is an all woman version of The Taming of the Shrew which I plan to do in some park, somewhere, in the summer of 2013.  Almost certainly in Leslieville or the Beaches.  And, though I have developed significant skill over the last four or five years of directing consistently and some-odd forty years of theatrical experience, every time I think about doing these things, I lose my breath.

What you may not know about me (because, folks, I come across as confident - sometimes a bit cocky) is the stress reaction - the losing my breath - is almost certainly a good sign.  But, usually, I get this reponse later in the process like, say, the day before rehearsal starts, for example.  It's a sign to me that I am personally invested in the project.  That I am committed.  If I get the reaction, I breath.  I steady myself.  It's all about balance.

Though tea is a lovely, sometimes soothing, and healthy drink, the thing about it is it's hot.  You can burn yourself if you spill it. So, too, with creative projects.  We have a burning desire to work, to do yet another show, but we don't want to get burned.  And when one is producing one's own projects, there's this wall, here.  See it?  White hot.  And there, too.  And there, another one.  Must be steady.  Navigate carefully.

Mamet's Oleanna is not usually a show that community theatres do - and, of course, in these economic times I should be doing a comedy - but I am desperate to do it and, therefore, am mounting it myself.  Why?  Well, it's not a dainty show.  Not in the least.  There's this little fight at the end.  It has to be believable and vicious.  Fun.  And don't ask me why I want to do The Taming of the Shrew with an all woman cast.  I can't articulate it (which means no Community Theatre would let me do it -- they like fast talkin' directors) but I am going to do it.  And there I go, again.  Just lost my breath.

How does one balance this fear?  Funnily enough, for me, by applying a zen-like focus on the the detail, on the doing.  By ignoring the big whys, the big picture.  It's important to be at the party.  The sun is shining.  It's a nice afternoon.  Everyone's here.  Just focus on balancing that cup of tea and you won't spill it.

Of course, I now have not one but two cups of tea.  Good thing I have a strong sense of balance, quite a bit of practice, and two knees.



Jacqui Burke is a freelance director, writer, and theatrical teacher living in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.  She is currently directing Kidsplay 2012:  The Mayan Prediction opening in June, and The Last Five Years for TOKL Productions opening in July.  She is, also, serializing The Pretender, her first novel, online at http://thepretender-amarcienoelnovel.blogspot.ca/.  She is preparing for two Shakespeare is Boffo! summer camp sessions for 2012.

Want to contact me?

Jacqui Burke
Artistic Director
Jaybird Productions
talk/text:  647-292-0210
twitter:  @jaybird01
skype:   Jacquiburkecell, jacqui.burke
www.wordsnimages.com
www.jaybirdproductions.ca
www.shakespeareisboffo.ca
http://jacquiburke.blogspot.ca
http://thepretender-amarcienoelnovel.blogspot.ca/
http://jaybirdproductions.blogspot.ca/

Ask me about Shakespeare is Boffo! Premium Summer Camps for Kids.  Two installments in 2012:  The Homeschoolers` Version:  11:00 am – 3:30 pm, August 13-17, 2012 for only $125.  Premium Full Day Summer Camp:  9:00 am – 4:00 pm, July 16-20, 2012 for only $155.  Both prices hold until May 15th, 2012.  Spots are going fast.  Register, now at www.shakespeareisboffo.ca

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Mr. Foster, I divorce you. Until next time.

Mr. Foster, I divorce you.

Because of the protracted nature of a community theatre rehearsal schedule, I have been involved in prepping or rehearsing or watching the run of one of your shows for about nine months, now.  Don't take this badly.  These were good shows.  Good.  Affections of May was the first. Produced by Scarborough Theatre Guild, it went up in January of this year and was well received.  Great bunch of folks.  Won itself some nominations.  Nice.  And we just finished Wrong For Each Other for Encore Entertainment yesterday.  Also, well received.  Truly lovely cast.

But I divorce you.

I have new playwrights' heads to inhabit and other projects on the go.  Make no mistake; it was a marvellous love affair but I have to move on.  Call me any name you will but I, definitely, love the one I'm with.

But, listen:  If you come around again, whispering to me with these characters that feel like friends, this dialogue that trips along and volleys back and forth, these jokes that come in surprising places but are still funny not shocking....  If you come around again with your strong, established female characters, your kind male characters, with your basic, honest, believable moments....  If you come around, again....

As I have said before, you, sir, might prefer someone younger and cuter but you will never find someone more devoted.  At least for a time.  Because, when I am done, I will leave you again as flatly as I am doing today.

And, I am sure, you wouldn't have it any other way (not that I am calling you names). As Richard Bach says, "A farewell is necessary before we can meet again."


Jacqui Burke is a freelance director, writer, and theatrical teacher living in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.  She is currently directing Wrong for Each Other for Encore Productions opening in April, Kidsplay 2012:  The Mayan Prediction opening in June, and The Last Five Years for TOKL Productions opening in July.  She is, also, serializing The Pretender, her first novel, online at http://thepretender-amarcienoelnovel.blogspot.ca/.  She is preparing for two Shakespeare is Boffo! summer camp sessions for 2012.

Want to contact me?

Jacqui Burke
Artistic Director
Jaybird Productions
talk/text:  647-292-0210
twitter:  @jaybird01
skype:   Jacquiburkecell, jacqui.burke
www.wordsnimages.com
www.jaybirdproductions.ca
www.shakespeareisboffo.ca
http://jacquiburke.blogspot.ca
http://thepretender-amarcienoelnovel.blogspot.ca/
http://jaybirdproductions.blogspot.ca/

Ask me about Shakespeare is Boffo! Premium Summer Camps for Kids.  Two installments in 2012:  The Homeschoolers` Version:  11:00 am – 3:30 pm, August 13-17, 2012 for only $125.  Premium Full Day Summer Camp:  9:00 am – 4:00 pm, July 16-20, 2012 for only $155.  Both prices hold until May 15th, 2012.  Spots are going fast.  Register, now at www.shakespeareisboffo.ca

Like what you read?
Encourage me by clicking on one of these ads in this blog. 

The Ride Begins

 I have done a few shows over the years, some of my own choosing, some not.  Some in a significant capacity, some not.  Most just because I love it.  But you'd think that you might get a bit jaded over time, that some forty years on, the process would become pedestrian, normalized, maybe a little boring.  Yeah.  Well, no.  An emphatic no.

At some point as I approach the start of a project, regardless of how burnt out I am, or tired, or stressed, I always get that tingle, that sense that something extraordinary is going to happen.  That it might be fun, or difficult, or intense but never dreary, never mundane.  I have been lucky enough to never start a show without getting that feeling and I hope I never will.  If I do, that might be the day I move on to do something else.  Could you imagine?  Jacqui without theatre?

Tonight, we audition Wrong For Each Other for Encore Entertainment.  This is the second in my Norm Foster offerings for this season and we are looking for Norah, a highly contained, fussy but surprisingly fun-loving Arts Administrator who falls in love, despite seemingly insurmountable differences, with Rudy, an entrepreneurial house painter.  The marriage fails but a chance meeting of the pair in a restaurant and  their subsequent reminiscences allows us to see the history of their relationship play out.  It's sweet, sentimental.  And despite its simple premise, it will be a challenge to do well.

Every show is.

Okay.  Hey!  What are you hanging on for?  Arms up high.  Eyes wide open.  Here we go.  Wheeeeeee!

Shut up? Hell, no! Active Listening On Stage.

One of the hardest things to do is listen well on stage.

Now, a nice thing about a blog -- no one interrupts me.  I can talk and talk and talk and, no matter how irritating that talk might be, I get to finish.  I get to play my dainty world view, spun on gossamer, all the way out, and back again.  Nice, nice.  Satisfying for folks with control issues (and if you think a former Stage Manager turned Director does not have control issues, you're insane.)

However, real life is not like that.  Real life is full of conversations, conversations we can't control. These are rarely one-sided (in the manner of the delicious blog); conversations in life are a back and forth.  And, if a conversation seems one-sided, remember it takes two to tango.  The silent one is choosing to remain silent and in conversations on stage even more so because every conversation on stage is important, taking place at an important juncture -- or we wouldn't be seeing it. A moment on stage is never another-boring-bacon-and-eggs moment, even if they're just eating bacon and eggs.  The moment presented is important to both or all characters involved, especially if the conversation seems banal.

So, I ask you, what are we often doing while another person is talking, say, at a dinner party.  We are listening to the witty banter or funny anecdote, we are smiling, responding, but we are also thinking about what we are going to say. We almost always have an idea in our head of how we are going to respond.  We have our own anecdote or witticism or story we want to tell.  We are listening (passive) but involved in creating our next contribution to the conversation (active).

Now, most actors slip into a soley passive posture  when listening on stage, especially when another character has a long monologue. I am not talking about the classic problem of 'phoning it in' (when an actor shuts down unless she is speaking) but I am talking more about the lack of forward energy when an actor is listening.  Though the actor is present, engaged, attentive, maybe with an underlying attitude, the dominant stance is one of passivity.

However, if we consider that the listener would probably not be just sitting passively, if we think that the listener would actually choose to say something if given the opportunity, the process becomes more alive, more interactive, more interesting, more true.  The long monologue, then, when more than one character is onstage, could be a kind of conversation.  The speaker is telling his/her story or feelings or doing whatever she or he is trying to do -- but the listener is constantly reacting to the monologue because she/he has a story of her/his own, has something that she or he is trying to do.  The listener is not allowed to speak -- there is no dialogue -- but her lack of speech can be as telling as speaking.  Does she choose to not speak?  Does she try to interject and get cut off by the monologuer?  Is she dismissive of what the speaker has to say?  Or is she devestated by what the speaker has to say?

Even if you have nary a line, ask yourself about your character's silence and what that character is doing with that silence.  Remember, every time you are on stage, you are doing something; you are acting.  Ask yourself basic questions for every scene, beat, moment, line, or silence:

What are you doing?
How are you doing it?
Who or what are you doing it to?

Try it next time the playwright was dumb enough not to give you something to say or do.  Because your character definitely has something to say or do.  Always.  And silence can be as telling as telling.

They often say that what is not there is more important than what is.  Except in a blog.  Jacqui likes blogs.  Blogs are yummy because they are all about me.  Plays are yummy because they are not.  Now, what do you think of that?