Finster Finds

Tonight I am heading out to Spruce Grove to catch Horizon Player's Ordinary People. The other half of Finally Sauces is in this one and I am excited to see her work. I like to see what other directors get out of the actors I work with because then it pushes me to get more out of them (since I see what they can do!). Last week I caught two very different shows, This is What Happens Next (Citadel) and Howl ! (ABBEDAM). Both were very well done and very different. I loved the MacIvor show. The first 10 minutes I wasn't sure what it was going to be but then all of a sudden BAM! I was in. The last 10 minutes were so beautiful I got all teary eyed. Lovely, lovely performance and script. It runs for another week so I would highly advise catching it if you can! Howl! was a dramatization of Alan Ginsburg's poem. It was very well done, with phenomenal movement and attack. It is over now - it was the ABBEDAM show at the University and only had 4 shows. I saw both shows in the sam...

Re: Traffic Issues – Dunluce School 2011-2012 School Year I have been growing more and more upset by the way parents and caregivers have been behaving when they come to pick up their children after school this year. I have never seen it this bad and I have been picking my kids up after school for the last 4 ½ years (I did take one year off where they rode the bus – so 3 ½ of the last 4 ½ years). I have observed rampant jaywalking, with and without children, often done by darting out between parked cars (when visibility is poor) or by making oncoming traffic stop. Remember, because of where the crosswalks are located this means people had less than ½ a block to walk to a marked crosswalk no matter where they were. So not only are these people acting unsafe and illegal, but they are also lazy. The driving and parking habits that I have observed also concern me. Every single day there are people parking in the no parking areas surrounding the crosswalk. I fear for the crossing guards ...

Funny how the weather can change your perspective on the week. It looked busy on the page but then the snow came and made everything more challenging! It's swirling around out there and that's what the week felt like! Sunday Night I started off the week with a bang! Caught The Rocky Horror Show at the Citadel and had a BLAST! It's not my favorite show, because it's hard to do 'right', but they certainly did it up proper! I love Camp when it's done well and everyone was on top of their Camp Game! To do the show you can't show fear, you can't apologize for it's ridiculous, you just go for it and they certainly did. It was enhanced with the controlled audience participation. Just enough to keep us all in the game but not too much that it got annoying. We could get up and Time Warp and sit back down for the show (everyone was so well behaved - but having fun!). There were a few people who really know the shout-outs and they kept it up in just the ri...

Last weekend I journeyed south to Calgary for Playworks Ink (you can read about that weekend in my previous post). The whole weekend was wonderful, but Saturday I got to spend the day with Daniel MacIvor and that was indeed a great day for me. There were a lot of other people there, but still, it was good. Who is Daniel MacIvor? Well, if you know anything about Canadian Theatre - you know. He is one of the most prolific and most successful Canadian theatre playwrights we have. "We" - it's nice to have ownership of him, isn't it? His plays vary from multi-cast pieces like Marion Bridge , A Beautiful View and This is a Play to his solo-shows like Monster , Cul-de-sac and his upcoming This is What Happens Next . The day played out as follows: The Session - Play Finding Eleven of us were lucky enough to take this session with Daniel. We walk into the room and meet Daniel and Buddy, Daniel's incredibly well-behaved and occasionally focus-stealing dog. First, each...

This past weekend I had the wonderful experience of partaking in Playworks Ink, a drama conference with a particular focus on playwrighting as well as other theatre related skills. There were sessions directly related to playwrighting as well as movement, breath control, directing, and (from what I heard) a phenomenal workshop where you could learn the Catalyst Theatre process from the inside. This conference is run by Theatre Alberta and Alberta Playwright's Network and they managed to bring in world-class instructors who worked with the many participants of backgrounds ranging from enthusiasts, to drama educators, to emerging professionals to full-fledged professionals. I cannot speak to anyone else's experience but mine was fantastic and everything I needed to get me recharged. My first session was with Karen Hines and in a jam-packed session on Friday afternoon I discovered 2 major things that will help me with my in-process script Girls in White Dresses . The activiti...