Playwrights Central

Mere seconds after our Colony writers returned to their regular lives, PTC welcomed Tant per Tant’s Tom Bentley Fisher and Elisabet Rafòls from Saskatoon, and Catalan writers Marta Buchaca, Pau Miró, and Pere Riera from Barcelona. The Catalan Connection is now in full swing, with seventeen actors joining the writing, translating and dramaturgical teams to explore the translation of three Catalan plays. You can see the pieces in progress at our readings with Pi Theatre Saturday and Sunday this week. The gang moves on to Playwrights Workshop Montreal for a final stop on the Canadian tour next week.

Meanwhile, we have 15 PTC members attending the GVPTA Making a Scene Conference, taking their questions and inspirations to the wider community. I look forward to posting reports from the conference in the coming weeks.

The scripts are still flying over the transom for Flying Start. With 3 hours to go until the deadline, we already have over 25 local writers in the selection pool for this Touchstone Theatre/PTC partnership that brings emerging playwrights to professional production.

On Monday November 29th, PTC-affiliated dramaturgs will join the dance community for a pair of workshops with Guy Cools, a dramaturg of international reputation who will be discussing ideas of Open Dramaturgy and the Intercultural Body. As part of our commitment to research and innovation, we look forward to more partnerships with development centres across the disciplines, and extend our thanks to the Dance Centre for inviting us to this session.

To round out 2010, I look forward to seeing as many of you in person as possible on Monday December 13^th, at 7 pm, when PTC joins forces with The Only Animal for our joint Annual General Meetings. It will be a particularly exciting night for me, as I get to share the work of eight writers with you, writers who inspire me on a daily basis and contribute so much to the dynamic energy here at our headquarters on Granville Island. Eric Rhys Miller, whose play SOS will be produced by The Only Animal, in summer 2011, will give us a sneak preview. PTC has supported the development of the project for over two years, and will be invested in the development right up to opening night. Colony writer Andrew Templeton will read from one of his recent works – if you lobby him, it might even be from The Last Occupant of Troy, which he transformed during the 10 days of the Colony (without losing its Python-esque sense of humour). And it will be my great pleasure to finally introduce in person our PTC Associates, who are in residence with us for three years. Tim Carlson, Jan Derbyshire, Jenn Griffin, Jordan Hall, Lisa C. Ravensbergen, and Jeremy Waller will bring a diverse, compelling range of (short) pieces to life (you’ll notice there are some superb actors in the bunch!).

Back I go to making script notes...

Heidi Taylor

Dramaturg & Acting Executive Director

Interview with two Colony writers...

Brian Fidler and Andrew Templeton are two of the four writers participating in PTC’s fifth annual Writers Colony. Dramaturg Heidi Taylor spoke with them on the eve of the Colony to take a look under the hood at the mechanics of playwriting. 

HT: Something I’ve been curious about, not having worked with either of you as a dramaturg, is how you move from source material to script? Is it a repeatable process? How did that happen for your Colony play? 

BF: This is a new one for me for source material in terms of making it into a script. I often write the script after. I write the script for the SM and Lighting designer. It’s always been developed physically. For this one I’ve been trying something new  - to be more of a playwright. Because the source material is so close to me. The original source is from my grandma who lived with us when I was a kid – my mom was an only child, so we were her only grandchildren. When I started, it was almost too close – theatre as therapy. So I had to ask, is it a story that I really want to tell. So I made the grandma the grandpa – so I could look at the source material without breaking down – it’s so raw. The switch worked,  I could still source it but I didn’t have to cry every time I read it.

AT: Sometimes you know where you’re going with a piece – you have an outline you’re following – but The Last Occupant of Troy started as a simple writing exercise, a fun break, about two characters standing next to a door. 

Although I’m often classified as a “literary” playwright, my scripts have at their core a founding image, a visual that inspires the work. For Troy, it was two Beckett-like tramps, standing next to a door. The door was to be the only prop on stage and the actors were meant to move it around to create entrances – doorways – to different worlds. Once I had the image, I just wrote, and the characters and situations grew out of that process. My characters tend to sound an awful like me in the first draft but as I refine them, they become more and more distinct. Despite the visual keystone that underpins the work, ultimately my creative process is auditory. I’m interested in the musicality of the human voice. All of my plays have an inherent musical score and a great deal of the crafting process is refining that score, finding those rhythms.

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HT: Both of you have produced your own work in other Canadian cities. What’s the best part about producing your own work? 

BF: It’s always funny the perception that people have when you do one person shows. So people have the perception that “you like to do things by yourself.” It couldn’t be further from the truth. This idea that you like to make things on your own, or don’t like to be on stage with other people. I like working with other people! And there’s so many other people involved in making the work. It’s a dialogue with the lighting designer, the sound designer… The sound designer is such a huge player in this show. It’s not a one person show, it’s me and the sound. And the army. The Whole Army.

The reason it has been the way it is – it’s cheaper – when I want to rehearse, there’s less overhead to do it myself. I can call my meetings whenever. On the other side it’s the touring – as little gear as possible and as cheaply as possible. I’m always asking how to get out of the Territory. I do larger cast stuff in the Yukon.

AT: The best part has to be creative control. Instead of your personal contribution ending at the rehearsal room door, you remain immersed in all aspects that go into a production; you remain engaged in the various dialogues. Even if you aren’t directly leading them, you’re at the table. It also impacts on the director/playwright relationship as well. It does mean having a clear sense of roles and responsibilities, so that there are no confusions. I do enjoy producing – although it can be exhausting.
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HT: Any surprises? 

AT: About Toronto? Probably the biggest is that despite having a healthy ecology, the same concentric circles of engagement exist there as they do here in Vancouver: theatre professionals at the centre, theatre-devotees in the next circle and then, on the outside, the general public. Toronto theatre faces the same problems we do in Vancouver in terms of reaching out to that final, wider circle – although the inner circles are naturally that much bigger and more sustaining.
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HT: Where do you find inspiration for writing for the theatre? What makes live performance relevant for you? 

BF: I think it’s similar to so many people where I had early theatre experiences that were so close to magic. Every once in a while a film comes along that is magical, but it’s never quite the same.

I like shifting perspective – something I took from Mermaid theatre – I learned from making shows for kids 2-4 years old. One of the things that keeps it alive – you change perspective on them – as long as people understand it, they really enjoy it.

AT: Although I love film – and would like to try writing for film – when I reach the end of my life and think of the top experiences I had as an audience member, I’ve no doubt the list will be dominated by theatre. And the reasons are all the clichés we hear about the performing arts: that you’re sharing time with the performers, breathing the same air, existing in a rare moment. When you see something magical happen in a film, you know it’s been digitally mastered, created in a laboratory. When you see, say, a Lepage or a Castelluci, the images that are the most affecting, the most lasting, are those that are created with bodies and concrete things: it’s ancient and visceral, it’s a form of real magic. The catharsis you experience in the performing arts is more profound because the identification is somehow more intimate and immediate. What happens on a screen always feels colder, more distant (and, of course, infinitely repeatable – it lives in our memories differently).

Although I rarely consider what I’m doing in any sort of macro way, I also feel as if my work forms a sort dialogue with all the playwrights that have gone before.

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PTC hosts Brian Fidler, Andrew Templeton, Elaine Avila, and Elyne Quan at our fifth annual Writers Colony November 15-23, 2010. To meet Elyne and Elaine and hear readings from their work, join us at a PGC/Canada Council sponsored free reading, Friday, November 19, 2010, 4-5 pm at SFU Woodwards, Room 4390, 149 West Hasting, (Atrium entrance, 4th floor).

Brian Fidler (top), Andrew Templeton (bottom):