bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Surviving the Ice Age
Authors: Fowler Richard
Published: June 2023

Since the members of PRIMUS THEATRE are full-time professional actors, why do they not belong to the Canadian Actors Equity Association and why is the company for which they work not an Equity company?

The answer to this question lies in an examina tion of th e terms used to phrase it. The members of PRIMUS THEATRE are precisely th at, members, the articulating limbs of a living organism; the thea tre of which they are members is not a building, not an admi nistra tive infrastructure, but the social unit which is the manifestation of their collective relationship; they are actors, but they are also musicians and dancers, choreographers and designers and directors, stage managers and technicians, publicists and managers; they alread y, by the very nature of their relationship, ha ve an “association” which defines and protects them; they do not work for a company which employs them but are themselves the company.
Learning From McLuhan A New Play Story
Authors: Gardner Jane
Published: June 2023

It’s not an easy thing running a theatre company, balancing artistic and financial needs. Planning is essential to the process – establishing artistic goals, creating a realistic budget that fosters the artistic director’s vision, and maximizing revenues while bringing expenses in under budget. Of course, things do change and it’s the test of the staff, the artistic team and other decision-makers to respond to change without seriously compromising the process of page to stage.
Colin Taylor: situating the artist
Authors: Lee Angela
Published: June 2023

CT: I cannot access this concept on a personal level. I can access it intellectually in the sense that these are sociological constructions. When you are looking at a vast terrain and you feel the need to categorize, which I think is important at certain points, then, by virtue of the fact that I am a person of African descent (I am Black),and by virtue of the fact that the vast majority of the stuff I do happens to employ/involve Black actors and Black writers, I suppose you could say that it is Black theatre. But I think in all fairness, for that to escape the trap of racism, there has to be a concept, a conceptual space, created for the notion of “White” theatre.
Stratford Tribute to Nicholas Pennell
Authors: Monette Richard
Published: June 2023

My dear friend Nicholas Pennell was a much loved Stratford Festival company member for 23 years. His dedication, talent and generosity were an inspiration to us all. To Nicholas the theatre was a vocation, and in a letter he wrote to the acting company, crew and stage management of the 1995 season, which I read aloud to them on the first day of rehearsals, February 20, he spoke of the redemptive power of art:
Dora, a Case of Hysteria
Authors: Morrissey Kim , Much Rita
Published: June 2023

As Lizbeth Goodman writes in her lengthy and very useful introduction, Dora, a Case of Hysteria is a dramatic “case study” of one of Freud’s most well-known case studies, an incisive and often hilarious analysis of the unconscious impulses and not-so-unconscious sexual longings inscribed in Freud’s theorizing about his own behaviour towards his patient, whose real name was Ida Bauer. Goodman points out that Morrissey’s play (an earlier version of which appeared in CTR in Winter 1990) is a natural companion piece to Portrait de Dora, Helen Cixous’ 1976 feminist decoding of Bauer’s fictionalization by her famous doctor in his publication Fragment of an Analysis of a Case of Hysteria (published in 1905).
Only Prostitutes Marry in May
Authors: Maraini Dacia , Much Rita
Published: June 2023

This is a collection of four plays written in the ’70s and ’80s by Italy’s foremost feminist playwright, as well as poet, critic and political activist. Editor Rhoda Helfman Kaufman states in her introduction that the volume is the first publication of plays by Maraini in English but this isn’t quite accurate. Maraini wrote a half-hour drama called Mussomeli-Düsseldorf, translated by Margaret Hollingsworth, for a collection of radio plays (Airborn, Blizzard Publishing, 1991), commissioned by CBC Radio to celebrate the Second International Women Playwrights’ Conference held in Toronto in 1991.
What is Real in Theatre
Authors: Coulter Clare
Published: June 2023

Although I was born a Canadian I went to school in England as a child and received training in classical dancing, acting and singing. It wasn’t until I was part of the process of Theatre Passe Muraille’s collectives that I learned about “making theatre from real life”. We used tapes – recorded people talking to us about their life and made them into plays: The Farm Show (although I played in the touring Farm Show, I was not one of its pioneers), Under the Greywacke, 1837. This was when I learned that life at home (in Canada) could be theatre.
Once upon a Poop … Tiddly Pom Tiddly Pom
Authors: Bulmer Alex
Published: June 2023

I remember a story my grandmother told me of a man who is eaten by a bear. The bear had been terrorizing him night after night and after many attempts to beat the furry creature away he allows himself to be gobbled up. Three days later he emerges from the other end as poop. The poop fertilizes the ground and out springs a fruit-bearing tree.
Home Thoughts From Broad(Way): Performance Studies Conference in New York
Authors: Hoffman James
Published: June 2023

Musings from across the border: What is wrong/right with the present state of Canadian theatre studies – which after energetic pioneering work of barely two decades, and I’m thinking of the mainly recuperative, historical work of the Association for Canadian Theatre History/Research, now seems tired and lifeless? Is it adequately constituting theatrical Canada in all its places? Why hasn’t the recent attention to “research”, rather than history, produced more change and excitement? Does Canadian theatre have a future as a field? Attending a recent theatre conference in New York gave me moments to reflect on such home issues.
The Stage is All the World: The Theatrical Designs of Tanya Moiseiwitsch, Shakespeare’s World of War: The Early Histories, Shakespeare’s World of Love: The Middle Comedies
Authors: Davies Robertson , Courtney Richard , Leggatt Alexander
Published: June 2023

The Stage is All the World is the catalogue of an exhibition of the stage designs of Tanya Moiseiwitsch that toured North America in 1994 and 1995. It includes drawings and photographs representing all periods of her career (including her work at Stratford, Ontario, whose famous thrust stage she designed), essays on her life and art by a variety of authors, and selections from interviews with the artist herself. This material allow us to reflect on not just a distinguished career but a whole philosophy of theatre.
Whale Riding Weather, Serpent Kills
Authors: MacDonald Bryden , Millan Jim , Brooker Blake , Gilbert Reid
Published: June 2023

Published after a successful stage history, the text of Bryden MacDonald’s Whale Riding Weather allows readers to examine this writerly play in more detail. In production, the emotion that underlies every speech by the interdependent characters carries audiences. In print, this highly charged dialogue takes on a poetic resonance, and even a poetic form. Passages of dialogue such as “Well. / Well this. This is. / Well this is wonderful” (93), or “Nova Scotia. / I stumbled off the train in Nova Scotia. / Obviously / this was around the time when they drove the last spike” (101) sit on the page like blank verse and invite readings that invest the diction and rhythm with the poetics of breath and with multiple meanings. They also encourage readings which go beyond the clichés of the narrative situation while allowing a reader to experience the power which audiences find.
Sharing Cultures: an ABC/CBC Radio Drama Exchange
Authors: Roy James
Published: June 2023

On an unseasonably hot day of 28° C late in September, 1994, the National Executive Producer of Radio Drama for the Australian Broadcasting Corporation arrived in Toronto. I could not help pointing out that his first visit to Canada was beginning with superb weather. David Britton was here to direct Judith Thompson’s new radio drama, Stop Talking Like That, the Canadian half of a double co-commission project that cbc Radio Drama had initiated with its counterpart at abc. On the way in from the airport he informed me gently that Perth, where he lives in Western Australia, had already experienced several days of more than 30°C, although September is their seasonal equivalent of March. Even though Canada is regularly beat out by the glorious Australian climate, this friendly rivalry over the weather has continued to be a theme scattered through the discussions of radio dramas and air dates in the frequent fax and telephone contacts since our first meeting.
Theatre for Young Audiences in Japan – A Canadian Perspective
Authors: Beauchamp Hélène
Published: June 2023

It was hot and humid in Tokyo between the 20th of July and the 4th of August 1995 – usual weather, it seems, for that time of year – but this didn’t prevent 17,000 spectators from coming to see 70 Japanese companies perform 76 different productions during the Festival organized by jienkyo – the Japan Union of Theatre Companies for Children and Young People – on the occasion of the 20th anniversary of its foundation. Four companies were also invited from abroad – from Sweden, Germany, the US and Quebec/Canada. Dynamo Theatre from Quebec presented Mur Mur to appreciative and amused publics. I was given the opportunity to participate in this important event by Hijikata Yohei and his company Seinen Gekijo. Founded in 1964, it produces work for young and adult audiences. As the guest of Seinen Gekijo, I had the opportunity to meet with local representatives of the All Japan Association of Children’s Theatre Spectators in Sakura, one hour by train away from the centre of Tokyo. Founded in 1974, the association is active in all of the 47 urban and rural prefectures of Japan. Its membership, exceeding 500,000, is comprised of parents (mainly mothers) and children. It exists “to contribute to the sound growth of children through their appreciation of excellent live theatre arts and through the development of a children’s independent and creative cultural movement.” I was also welcomed by Enkyoren – the Japan Educational Drama Association – with some of whose members I discussed the state of the teaching of theatre and drama in primary and high schools.
Vancouver & Victoria: On the Fringes of the West Coast
Authors: Gilbert Reid
Published: June 2023

Fringing has reached a turning point in both Vancouver and Victoria, although the corner each Festival has turned is markedly different – one holds lessons for the other. Such change points suggest 1995 is a good time to review the development of Fringes on the West Coast.
The f-Word: To Use or Not to Use, Playwriting Women: Female Voices in English Canada
Authors: Goodwin Jill Tomasson , Zimmerman Cynthia , Herst Beth
Published: June 2023

There is an anecdote currently popular on the gender studies circuit which runs like this: Twenty years ago, if you gathered a group of women together, sooner or later someone was bound to say “I don’t consider myself a feminist, but …”. Twenty years later, assemble a comparable group and you will hear “I consider myself a feminist, but …”. In the circles I frequent, this never fails to raise a rueful smile, acknowledgment that, decades after the emergence of the feminist movement into public consciousness, and even among the converted, the F-word remains as contentious, and as emotive, as ever.
Canada on the Pacific Rim
Authors: Rave Katalie
Published: June 2023

This issue of CTR takes up the discussion of theatrical activity from a geo-cultural premise–that of the Pacific Rim. The aim is to probe the intercultural exchanges between artists who work in Canada with their counterparts elsewhere on the Rim, to discover how, and how extensively, cultural differentiation by geography has been qualified, in terms of theatre, by the contemporary revolutions in communications . Air travel, film, video, phone, fax and other technologies of the post-postal era have enabled us to see more of each other, while international theatre festivals have provided sometimes revealing glimpses of different and overlapping cultures of performance.
Drag King Invasion: Taking Back the Throne
Authors: Shiller Romy
Published: June 2023

A sexual outlaw is a person who breaks sexual, or … gender rules. The prime directive of gender in this culture is, if you are a woman, thou shalt not be a man and if you are a man, thou shalt not be a woman. And in sex, thou shalt be heterosexual. Kate Bornstein, The Last Sex: Feminism and Outlaw Bodies
The Theatre’s Nations: The World Encyclopedia of Contemporary Theatre: Volume I: Europe
Authors: Goodwin Jill Tomasson , Rubin Don , Sidnell Michael J.
Published: June 2023

This volume is the first of a planned five that will constitute WECT, “a project implemented with the support of UNESCO”. Volume 2 is to be devoted to the theatre of “The Americas”; Volume 3 to the theatre of Africa; Volume 4 – varying the geographical definitions – to “The Arab World”; and Volume 5 to “Asia/Oceania”. Culture and language are clearly not conceived as organizing principles for a work which puts Britain, Australia and North America in three different volumes and similarly apportions francophone and hispanic theatrical manifestations according to geo-political criteria. But nor, as the definition “Arab World” indicates, is the overall organizing principle a strictly geographical one. In fact, the “Europe” of Volume 1 includes, without explanation, Israel and Turkey.
Goodbye Marianne, I Met a Bully on the Hill, Club Chernobyl
Authors: Watts Irene Kirstein , Brooks Martha , Hunter Maureen , Warren Dianne , Hengen Shannon
Published: June 2023

Kinds of love and wisdom link these three plays thematically. Goodbye Marianne, first of all, traces the events leading to the first Kindertransportes out of Nazi Germany on 2 December 1938. Kindertransportes, as the Background to the Play explains, “were the lifeline created by the British government to save Jewish children. They operated for ten months, until the start of the war. Ten thousand children were saved from almost certain death” (9). This play is the story of one of those children, the Marianne of the title, an eleven-year-old whose father has gone underground to avoid arrest for having sold a book by a Jewish author.
Dramaturgy for Radical Theatre
Authors: Gilbert Sky
Published: June 2023

The dramaturgy at Buddies in Bad Times Theatre has always been controversial. Basically because, as far back as 1983,1 have boldly come out in favour of “opportunity without interference”, and of festivals of small productions, as opposed to workshops and to readings. It has been assumed by the unenthusiastic that Buddies does not believe in (or in fact practise) any sort of dramaturgy or play development. People now seem to assume that we throw the doors open to a very eclectic bunch of new work and hope for the best. This is simply not true.
Power in the Performers’ Hands
Authors: Brown Clois
Published: June 2023

In the past ten years, Resource Centre for the Arts (RCA) Theatre Company has premiered over fifty new plays. Among them, Young Triffie’s Been Made Away With (1985), recently produced and toured by Ship’s Company; Catlover (1990), also produced by Tarragon Theatre and by the Stephenville Festival; Flux (1991), also produced by Eastern Front Company, Live Bait, and as part of the film, The Hall Trilogy; Possible Maps (1991), also produced by Tarragon and published by Coach House Press; Hanlon House (1991), also produced for film as a part of The Hall Trilogy; Time Before Thought (1991), also produced by Great Canadian Theatre Company and by CBC Radio for national broadcast; Urbanite (1993); Still Alive (1994), co-produced with Factory Theatre; The AlieNation of Lizzie Dyke (1994), and Murder at the Royal Cafe (1995).
The District of Centuries: A Modern Fable
Authors: Dixon Sean
Published: June 2023

The District of Centuries was originally produced at the Factory Studio Café in May 1995.
Claudius; Play Murder, The Arab’s Mouth
Authors: Gass Ken , Gilbert Sky , MacDonald Ann-Marie , Herst Beth
Published: June 2023

Following her appointment as Heritage Minister, Sheila Copps outlined for a Globe and Mail reporter the challenges facing Canadian cultural institutions in the aftermath of the Quebec referendum. The task for the country as a whole, Copps stated, is to find the means “to better define itself”, as a nation and a society. And she was clear on the role culture, and the arts more specifically, must play in that process.
Survivors of the Ice Age Festival and Symposium
Authors: Farfan Penny
Published: June 2023

An ice age is a period of prolonged climatic extremity with enormous geographical and biological consequences, including the radical transformation of terrain and the extinction of living species. As the members of primus Theatre see it, something like an ice age is currently wreaking havoc on our cultural landscape, as such chilling forces as electronic media, funding cutbacks, and censorship erode the status of the performing arts and threaten to lay waste to whatever is caught up in the glacial drift. With the “Survivors of the Ice Age” Festival and Symposium held in Winnipeg, May 1-5, 1996, primus brought together a range of theatre companies that have developed alternative artistic practices and organizational models that have enabled them to maintain their creative vitality despite adverse conditions. Over the course of five days of performances, workshops, panels, and open discussions, the members of these companies met with academics, students, and journalists to exchange ideas and techniques and to identify strategies for survival in a cultural ice age.
Training to Survive, III: Primus Theatre: Workshops in Newfoundland
Authors: Peters Helen , Chafe Robert , Draskoy Andrew , Kieley Jillian , Walsh CE Anne
Published: June 2023

In November and December of 1995 primus Theatre performed Alkoremmi, The Night Room and Far Away Home in St John’s. The singular quality of their work attracted a great deal of attention, and audiences were impressed and intrigued by the performances. On 27-29 November primus conducted two series of workshops which were attended by some 15 local theatre practitioners. The workshops ran in two series—mornings for two hours and afternoons for four—and each series could be taken as an independent entity or in combination. The morning workshops, consisting of video presentations, group discussions, and presentations by the primus actors, were geared toward participants interested in the creation and organization of original, alternative, artist-based performance. The afternoon workshops introduced the participants to the physical and vocal exercises which primus uses in their development of characters and performance material. According to Ker Wells of primus , who undertook to read a draft of this article,
Survivors of the Ice Age
Authors: Knowles Richard Paul
Published: June 2023

Over the past two decades the global climate has become increasingly chilling for artists interested in alternative or experimental forms of expression. In Canada, although the pace of this change in recent years can hardly be described as glacial, it is often forgotten that these developments are the tip of a well-established iceberg: the climate change began in the early 1970s, when Local Initiative Program (lip) and Opportunities for Youth (ofy) grants were discontinued, shortly after which the first funding freezes came into effect for arm’s-length arts organizations such as the Canada Council. It is also often forgotten or repressed that the current changes to arts funding are less the result of local or provincial election results, bad economic times, temporary “restraint”, recessions, or readjustments, than of major, long-term, and in many cases deliberately orchestrated shifts in the social, cultural, and political climate.
Writing for the Community Play Form
Authors: Fossen Rachael Van
Published: June 2023

People only slightly familiar with the community play art form often wrongly assume that these plays are written collectively with the community, or are “written by committee”, with the playwright acting more or less as an expert recorder, scripting material into dialogue and scenes as directed by the community people, or even critiquing work that the community people have themselves written for the play. I readily admit there is room in the community play art form for a process involving local people in the actual writing of the play. That process, however, is different from my own, and certainly different from the plays of the Colway Theatre Trust, on whose work the Canadian community plays are based.
Canadian Theatre History: Selected Readings
Authors: Dicenzo Maria , Rubin Don , Johnson Stephen
Published: June 2023

In our review article for this issue, Stephen Johnson assesses the contribution of Don Rubin’s recent collection of readings to the body of Canadian theatre history. He offers an account of the book in the context of larger concerns informing the role of theatre historians whose task it is to situate the documents they record, but who are themselves historically situated. Johnson reads the individual documents in the collection in this way, but also points to the role of the editorial process in “mediating” the past in this kind of history.
French Language Studies in Scenography and Stagecrafts in Quebec
Authors: Noiseux-Gurik Renée
Published: June 2023

The following was first featured in the special issue of Actualité de la scénographie on “La scénographie au Québec” published so as to coincide with the Prague Quadriennal of 1995. It was sponsored by L’Association des professionnels des arts de la scène du Québec - apasq, by the Conseil Québécois du Théâtre and by Québec’s Ministère de la culture et des communications. It also presents articles by Scéno-Plus, by Blouin et associés, and Trizart Consultations Inc., by Michel Laporte and by Yvon Sanche, and a bibliography by André-G. Bourassa.
Spaces of Scenography
Authors: Clunes Amaya
Published: June 2023

The following is a photo essay representing the recent exposition of scenography at the salle Beverly Webster Rolph, Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal, January 23 to March 2, 1997, curator: Mario Bouchard.
Rising Tide Theatre and/in the Newfoundland Cultural Scene
Authors: Jones Heather
Published: June 2023

This article is not a catalogue of theatre activity in Newfoundland, nor is it an impressionistic sketch of the interaction between the island’s theatrical and non-theatrical cultural activity. Instead I am working through my understanding of certain cultural issues involving theatre here as a context for response to the ongoing discussion in CTR and elsewhere regarding “creative economies” and Canadian theatre in general.
On-Stage and Off-Stage: English Canadian Drama in Discourse, Facets of Recent Canadian Theatre, Theatre and the Canadian Imaginary
Authors: Cenzo Maria Di , Glaap Albert-Reiner , Althof Rolf , Bennett Susan , Tompkins Joanne , Griffiths Gareth
Published: June 2023

It is interesting to compare the claims made for the field of Canadian drama by these three very different volumes. Perhaps, too, to consider how these claims are like and unlike claims made for emerging theatres in other parts of the postcolonial world, especially other settler colonies whose ambivalent relationship with their metropoles continues to haunt both their “national psyches,” to use a phrase of one of the contributors to the first of these volumes, and their present self-constructions in the fields of textual and performative representations.
Vancouver Sath: South Asian Canadian Theatre in Vancouver
Authors: Binning Sadhu
Published: June 2023

Vancouver Sath began in 1982 as an informal discussion forum by a group of politically conscious Punjabi writers and community activists. We were actively involved in ongoing struggles such as fighting against racism and fighting for farm workers’ rights. Some of us had been struggling to keep Watno Dur, a monthly Punjabi literary and cultural magazine alive. There was a feeling of stagnation among the literary and cultural circles, and we wanted something different to happen. Moreover, we felt that numerous issues that demanded serious attention were arising as a result of the demographic growth of the community during that period.
Theatre Notes on a Bright October Morning in Montreal
Authors: Bose Rana
Published: June 2023

Sο, I am travelling on a suburban train from Kolikata to Bordhoman (precolonial name for Calcutta and Burdwan) and a thin, wiry man with a roach-like countenance (carefully cultivated to resemble Cantinflas) whips around and slaps a doleful-looking guy right behind him, smack on the face. The sound ricochets through the compartment. There is a momentary stillness in the compartment. But before anyone can intervene, the slapper tells the slappee, “disgusting, ugly-looking, nerve-racking, monstrous, blood-sucking son of a bitch....” and the slappee looks totally shaken, confused, bewildered. His jaws are locked and he is going into rigour, even foaming. The slapper turns around and addresses the rest of the compartment, “Mosquito ... big swamp monster. Just killed it and saved your life and lives of many others in the train. Now look here.” And he fishes out a brown ointment tube and starts going from passenger to passenger, hawking its merits in dealing with insect bites. “Only one rupee.” There is mirth, enjoyment, carefully cultivated disdain, as well as encouraging looks coming from different corners of the compartment. The slappee has bounced back from his near death experience and has whipped out a bag full of the same snake paste, which he too is trying to push with great enthusiasm, even though his cheek is getting increasingly rose red. This performance is unforgettable.
Five or Six Characters in Search of Toronto
Authors: Bose Rana
Published: June 2023

Five or Six Characters in Search of Toronto was first staged at the Euclid Theatre in Toronto during the Desh Pardesh Festival in March of 1993 with the following cast:

Director: Rana Bose Woman 1: Jennifer Chew/ Nilambri Ghai Woman 2: Samantha Quinn Woman 3: Lisa Foster Hockey Jock: Mark Krupa Man 1: Prasun Lala Man 2: Anirban Choudhury Lunatic/Oracle/Bus Driver : Himmat Shinhat All music composed and performed by Himmat Shinhat. Dance choreography by Ange la Seth. Song lyr ics by Rana Bose. Lighting Design by Ran a Bose. Prod uction Manager Lisa Foster.
fareWel, MotherTongue, Atlantis
Authors: Ross Ian , Quan Betty , Hunter Maureen , Derksten Celeste
Published: June 2023

When I received this trio of plays in the mail, I was immediately impressed by their quality covers, bindings and editing. This may sound trite, but as someone whose book case is littered with photocopied and spiral-bound scripts, I am appreciative of the quality of these Scirocco Drama publications - outside as well as inside. Does this mean that Canadian drama has achieved tangible legitimacy as Literature, I wonder? In the wake of such musing, I found it intriguing that each of these plays features characters struggling with language and shifting cultural definitions and that each explores the value and difficulties of building cultural bridges. While these playtexts diverge greatly in their uses of dramatic language, they provide captivating bridges between the theatre spectacle and the private reader.
Victoria’s Belfry: “The gentlest … deepest, darkest play in town”
Authors: Gilbert Reid
Published: June 2023

In 1991, the Belfry Theatre Company purchased and began to renovate the building complex which had housed it since 1974. Such a daring purchase, which incited a dynamic period for this exciting company, signals major strengths of the Belfry: its willingness to take chances, its determination to develop audiences for tough plays and its ability to attract loyal supporters.
Perfectly Normal: Queer Opera in Canada
Authors: Hepburn Allan
Published: June 2023

In the 1991 movie Perfectly Normal, a quiet, opera-loving Italian-Canadian named Renzo works in a beer factory by day and drives his father’s cab by night. For fun, he plays goal for a hockey team. One night he picks up Alonzo Turner, chef and entrepreneur, as a cab fare, and subsequently the two enter into a business arrangement. Alonzo opens a theme restaurant: servers dress as opera characters, and Renzo, in drag, sings the role of Bellini’s Norma in a quavering falsetto. Renzo rushes from rink to stage, shedding goalie pads for Druid gear. Two kinds of performance overlap in Perfectly Normal: athletic and operatic. This film has no specifically gay content, but the collision of unlikely spheres of cultural activity is campy and comic. Hockey may just be opera on ice. Opera, like hockey, requires highly skilled physical feats executed on demand in front of attentive, ticket-buying audiences in large venues. Opera, like hockey, is a form of performed theatre, with star turns, teamwork, rehearsals, curtain calls. Opera, like hockey, inspires in its fans Herculean labours of statistical memory: debut season, best repertory, highest high notes, nights of unforgettable excellence, grandiosity. Nevertheless, similarities between hockey and opera should not screen the enormous differences between these undertakings, especially their encoding of gender stereotypes. Hockey is “rough-and-tumble”; opera is “effeminate.” To speak of “queer” opera may seem redundant to hockey-sweater-wearing Canadians. At the end of the day, a locker room is not a green room; Siegfried’s sword is not a hockey stick.
Life Beyond the Premiere: Process and Purpose at Tapestry Music Theatre
Authors: Lane Harry , Hopkinson Claire , Strongman Wayne
Published: June 2023

When Elsewhereless, the new opera by Atom Egoyan and Rodney Sharman (originally presented at Toronto’s Buddies in Bad Times Theatre in April-May 1998), reopened at the National Arts Centre in Ottawa in July, it was said to be the first Canadian opera to be performed in the Centre since the 1960s. The same production of Elsewhereless will also be presented in Vancouver in early 1999 and is scheduled for several European festivals. At a time when new operas and music theatre works all too easily disappear from view after their premieres, the already assured life of this work is salutary. While Elsewhereless undoubtedly owes much to the renown of its librettist and director (Egoyan) and its composer (Sharman), its continuing stage-life is very much part of the avowed strategy of Tapestry Music Theatre, which nurtured its development along with Vancouver New Music. Since its founding in 1985 (as a transformation of Tapestry Singers), Tapestry Music Theatre has committed itself not only to the development of new Canadian music theatre and opera, but also to its continued performance life beyond the premiere. Thus its day-to-day focus is divided between work in development, new work in current production, and continuing production of earlier work. One of its outstanding successes, Nigredo Hotel by Nic Gotham and Ann-Marie MacDonald, was first presented by Tapestry and Tarragon in Toronto in 1992 and subsequently toured to Britain in 1993, and then to Victoria and Vancouver, before returning to Toronto in 1995. Tapestry premiered Theresa Tova’s Still the Night in Toronto in 1996, launched its first national tour in Calgary in 1997 and has plans for a further tour in 1999. In May 1998, during the final week of the Toronto run of Elsewhereless, with the phone ringing incessantly, Harry Lane talked to Tapestry’s general manager and producer, Claire Hopkinson, and its artistic director, Wayne Strongman, about their mandate and their process. The interview was transcribed by Christopher Tracy.
Beatrice Chancy: A Libretto in Four Acts
Authors: Clarke George Elliott
Published: June 2023

Copyright George Elliott Clarke. This libretto is fully protected under the copyright laws of Canada and all other countries of the Copyright Union. Changes to the script are expressly forbidden without the written consent of the author. Rights to produce, film, or record in any medium, in any language, by any group, are retained by the author. The moral right of the author has been asserted. For copyright information contact George Elliott Clarke, Department of English, Duke University, Box 90015, Durham, NC 27708-0015 USA. Music copyright James Rolfe.
Gogmagogs, Galpao, Corcadorca and the Gate: Nation, Representation, and Women in Shorts
Authors: Knowles Ric
Published: June 2023

In his “Greetings from the Artistic Director,” published in every program for the 1998 du Maurier World Stage in Toronto, Don Shipley accurately characterized the 1998 edition of the Festival as “incredibly diverse.” That diversity, however, tended towards diversity of form and style – which ranged from the respectful performance of a contemporary classic through the premiere of a new Canadian opera, from the recontextualization from rural Brazil to Queen’s Quay Terminal of Brazilian folk street theatre, renewed rural naturalism, and new urban realism to stand-up comedy, a classical-music variety act, and a floating improvisational “theatre jukebox” – rather than towards other kinds of far-ranging representation of (say) women or of racial or sexual difference. This is perhaps not surprising at an international theatre festival, where the only kinds of community that can easily be constructed tend to be communities of interest in theatre as a form, where the festive element derives from theatre-bar and ticket-line conversations about technical accomplishments and formal innovations, and where productions that may have considerable site-specific social relevance at home tend to be read nationalistically, as representing their countries of origin as sites of expatriate pride.
The Drug of Alive: A Playwright’s Personal Perspective on Publication
Authors: Wade Byran
Published: June 2023

I confess: I have an addiction. I write plays for the stage. I have for the past twenty-five years – in spite of all the forays into other genres like television, film, radio drama and short fiction – in spite of all the bullshit, all the incompetents who wield power, all the weird and wonderful components that make up theatre in this country. I guess once you’ve tasted the thrill, the excitement, the sheer energy of seeing, hearing your words, your lines, your ideas conveyed through the mouths, hands, eyes, souls of actors on a stage in front of an audience sitting in the dark – well, there’s no turning back. Once the theatre needle has slid into your vein and the drug of alive punches into your system, the high of playwriting never leaves you.
Does It Matter if Plays Get Published?
Authors: Hamill Tony
Published: June 2023

Is it really all that important for playwrights to have their plays published? Does it make any discernible difference in the number of future productions and incoming revenue? There is a great deal of debate about this, and while some, including a few published playwrights, will say it’s not terribly important – that a good play will get productions whether it’s in manuscript or trade paperback form, others will say it makes a great deal of difference.
Writing and Publishing: Four Newfoundland Playwrights in Conversation
Authors: Lynde Denyse
Published: June 2023

When Ann Wilson asked me to write a piece about Newfoundland publishing for this issue on “Publishing in Canada,” I considered various approaches. None seemed particularly useful until I determined what, for me, was the heart of the issue: the playwright. The people to reflect on and consider publishing plays in Newfoundland should be the playwrights. To give me a loosely defined field of experience, I invited playwrights from Voices from the Landwash who live in the St. John’s area to get together and discuss publishing. All practising (and hence extremely busy) artists, I felt fortunate that four were able to attend. Tom Cahill, Brian Hennessy, Pete Soucy and Janis Spence joined me around my dining room table where we shared thoughts on playwriting and the arts in Newfoundland. Our discussion ran over two hours, and we occasionally wandered from our topic. Consequently, I have edited our discussion. The full transcript of this interview is available at the Centre for Newfoundland Studies as part of the growing archival material presently being collected by STAGE (SSHRC Theatre Archives Grant Enterprise). I would like to acknowledge the work of undergraduate student Mike O’Toole who taped our conversation and the work of undergraduate students Craig Stowe and Mike O’Toole who transcribed the full interview.
Charismatic Death Scenes
Authors: Chafe Robert
Published: June 2023

Caution: Copyright held by Robert Chafe. This play is protected fully under the copyright laws of Canada and all other countries of the Copyright Union. Changes to the script are expressly forbidden without the written consent of the author. For copyright information, please contact Robert Chafe, 172 Gower St., St. John’s, nf, A1C 1P8.
Insomnia
Authors: Brooks Daniel
Published: June 2023

I remember a very pivotal moment from my York University days. My playwrighting teacher, Angus Braid (where is he now?), taught me, Sally Clark and Daniel David Moses, all in the same year (I won’t tell you what year that was!). I remember that he was particularly critical of my work on one project. He did not have one good thing to say about my play, in fact. I was deeply hurt. I asked him to say something nice to me about my work. “Oh Sky,” he said “you should just assume that you’re very talented. All my criticisms start with that assumption. So, I’m not going to bother praising you.” For me, that moment was an epiphany. I was, from that moment on, to start treating myself as a working artist. I was to stop begging for praise and to begin the all-important work itself. To this day, I remind myself of that moment whenever I’m feeling too sensitive and bitter and hurt.
The Working Body / The Working Gaze
Authors: Filewod Alan
Published: June 2023

The convergence of working-class theatre with labour activism produces a set of theoretical problems that have been in a constant state of reformulation ever since theatre artists aligned their art with class struggle. If political theatre workers can often be heard to complain that they are reinventing the wheel, it is because the act of producing theatre for and in the labouring classes raises recurring questions that find specific solutions only in local practice.
George Luscombe 1926-1999: The Virtue of Intolerance
Authors: Bush Stephen
Published: June 2023

George Luscombe was co-founder and for almost three decades Artistic Director of Toronto Workshop Productions. Among the many productions he directed, and helped to create, were Hey, Rube!, The Mechanic, Mr. Bones, Chicago 70, Ten Lost Years, You Can’t Get Here from There, Summer 76, Les Canadiens and The Mac Paps. Although he was not fond of the term, George was, effectively, the dramaturg and, sometimes, the (usually unacknowledged) co-author of several productions. In addition to his inspirational teaching at the University of Guelph and other institutions, George served as mentor, rival and infuriator to many theatre practitioners who subsequently formed, or came to head up, their own companies.
Correlation relationship between biomechanical links and the result of competitive exercises in powerlifting
Authors: Babenko S. , Tykhorskyi O.
Published: June 2023

Powerlifting is a strength sport, in which competitions are held based on the sum of exercises - squats, bench presses and dead lift. Competition in high performance sports in general and in powerlifting in particular prompts coaches and athletes to search for optimal training programs. Anthropometric indicators of athletes can affect the result in powerlifting in several ways. For example, athletes with higher muscle mass and a lower percentage of body fat have a strength advantage within their category over athletes with a lower level of muscle mass development. Another way is the ratio of the length of the body links. The purpose of the article was to study the influence of the length of body links in qualified and highly qualified powerlifters on performance in competitive exercises. The research was carried out on the basis of the Kharkiv State Academy of Physical Culture. A total of 23 powerlifting athletes took part in the study. The athletes were divided into groups of qualified and highly qualified powerlifters. Statistically significant differences were found in thigh length (t=2.32, p<0.05), leg length (t=2.29, p<0.05), Brugsch index (t=2.40, p< 0.05). A statistically significant inverse relationship was found between standing body length indicators and squats (r=-0.42, p<0.05), deadlift (r=-0.43, p<0.05) and sum (r =-0.42, p<0.05). The length of the thigh and lower leg has an inverse statistically significant relationship with the squat, deadlift, and total sum. The length of the shoulder and forearm are correlated with the bench press (r=0.43, p<0.05) and (r=0.41, p<0.05), respectively. The Brugsch index is statistically significantly correlated with squats (r=0.43, p<0.05), bench press (r=0.54, p<0.01), deadlifts (r=0.44, p<0.05 ), and the amount of sum (r=0.46, p<0.05).
Reasons for performance in athletic hammer that: the results of the studies, the structural development of the training of the hammer, the perspectives of the outer development
Authors: Bobrovnick V.I. , Tkachenko M.L. , Danyluk D.S.
Published: June 2023

Ukraine has always been famous for outstanding hammer throwing coaches who trained Olympic champions, world record holders, winners of the World and European Athletics Forums, and scientists whose scientific research gave the coaching staff the opportunity to properly study and improve not only technical skills and methods of arranging training process, but also the development all types of athletes’ training.

The hammer throw in athletics is a complex system of purposeful movements. It combines a number of simple and complex movements. Currently, most elite-class athletes throw the hammer in four turns.

One of the main areas of the training process in hammer throw and improving technique elements is to find the optimal amount of acceleration of the movements rhythm, the number of turns, the nature of the first turn as well as the others, which are necessary to determine the most rational technique option for each athlete, which requires quite a long time for its improvement.

The predominant focus on improving athletes’ technical actions and physical fitness should include exercises similar to the

main elements of technical actions in hammer throwing for integral improvement of necessary qualities and elements of technique.

The decrease of sports results in this area of athletics, in our opinion, presupposes failure of coaches to follow the sequence of necessary physical abilities and technical skills development at certain stages of long-term training (initial training, preliminary basic training, specialized basic training, preparation for high achievements), where they should achieve individual maximums of their development and meet previously developed criteria and their values.

One of the reasons for this problem is refusal from the well-established training system of "throwing schools" during the last decades. During the Olympic Games in Tokyo, the hammer thrower from Ukraine M. Kokhan took fourth place with a rather high result of

80.39 m, which indicates the revival of "throwing schools" in various regions of the country. The results of hammer throwing performances of Ukrainian athletes from different regions of Ukraine makes us believe that a new era in the revival of "throwing schools" is on its launch.

A new stage of results manifestation and the appearance of a new generation of coaches in hammer throwing is approaching, which indicates the revival of "throwing schools" in different regions of Ukraine.

The revival of women's high performance in hammer throwing can be considered by focusing attention in the training system on both female body features and the related methodologies of forming new areas of development and improving its main systems.
Theoretical aspects of self-control training in younger teenagers in the process of practicing martial arts
Authors: Hetman M.O. , Tymchyk M.V.
Published: June 2023

The article examines the content of self-control training in younger teenagers in the process of practicing martial arts. It is emphasized that in the conditions of the development of Ukrainian society and the reformation of the educational environment, the problem of educating the self-control of student youth through the means of physical culture and sports is insufficiently developed and requires the careful attention of scientists. Psychological-pedagogical studies devoted to aspects of solving the problems of education of moral and volitional qualities of student youth in the process of physical education and martial arts are highlighted. It has been revealed what knowledge and skills we try to form in younger teenagers during the education of self-control in the process of practicing martial arts. The content of the four stages of the experimental research is described (the first stage is the deepening of knowledge in younger teenagers about self-control as a necessary moral and volitional quality during martial arts training and in the educational process as a whole; the second stage is the formation of the desire to engage in physical culture and martial arts, to be communicative, self-organized, observe discipline, be interested in the sports history of Ukraine, school traditions); the third stage is to form in younger teenagers the ability to make meaningful, volitional decisions; the desire to show self-control (act of will) during martial arts classes; be responsible for the assignments of teachers and trainers). It has been found that the moral and volitional qualities of self- control, endurance, self-confidence and others) are fundamental in the formation of the personality of a younger teenager, and their features of manifestation are: balance between external and internal factors to curb the excess of emotions and impulses; responsibility, a sense of duty, the ability to manage one's actions and deeds, internal organization, the ability to consciously subordinate one's actions to generally accepted rules and norms, and others. It is noted that the conducted research on self-control training in younger teenagers in the process of practicing martial arts does not cover all aspects of the problem. It is promising to study: pedagogical conditions for the education of self-control among students; peculiarities of education of self-control of younger teenagers by means of other types of sports and mass activities.