Spur with Michael Healey

Spur Festival–Kristin’s 2 Cents

Spur with Michael Healey

About a week ago, MCT attended a new festival, SPUR, which investigates the relationship between art and politics. A group of us went to see the Theatre and Politics Conference with Canadian playwrights Hannah Moscovitch, Guillermo Verdecchia and Michael Healey.

Hannah Moscovitch discussed her process of developing a script derived from sensitive issues and the untold stories of Canadian soldiers in Afghanistan. What intrigued me about her discussion of This is War was her process of collecting these raw stories of our Canadian Soldiers and creating a fictional play. I am curious about how one can honor those stories? How works like This is War become important depictions of our political history and yet intentionally they are not accurate historical facts? On the other hand I understand the desire to steer away from creating verbatim theatre with all of the legal nightmares. What do you think about works of fiction inspired by real events? Aren’t all stories subjective?

Such interesting new seeds have been planted in my mind, thank you SPUR for a great conference I look forward to next year’s festival!

To find out more about the festival which will be in Winnipeg this weekend, check out the website: spurfestival.ca.

Voices Final Performance

Senior Production – Kristin’s 2 Cents

Voices Final Performance

What a roller coaster ride; we shared our stories; talked about who we are, where we’ve come from, what are some of our greatest achievements and some of our greatest challenges. “If you could write a letter to your older self what would it say? What kind of advice would you give yourself?” Together as an ensemble, we weaved those pieces of ourselves into the production Voices of Toronto Seniors.

Personally, I have learned that it is never too late to try new things. We can create a minefield of reasons not to, but sometimes it’s as simple as saying “Why not? What do I have to lose?”

What I appreciate the most is my new-found friendships! I am excited to hang out with Pat and whip up one of her Expert Martinis, to sit with Tom and hear more about sailing the 7 seas, to jam with Aidan, to listen to some tunes with Fred, and of course to see Maureen on the stage playing a role in a Noel Coward play!

I love you all and I am forever grateful for your hard work and dedication!

Kristin over and out… for now!

Kristin Bartlett is the Bilingual Projects & Communications Coordinator at Mixed Company Theatre. She spearheaded “Voices of Toronto Seniors”  and starred in multiple roles. Kristin was essential in creating and producing MCT’s first senior production.

Philippe’s Tales of the Great North

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BullWhat inspired me was the personal experiences of a student from our Hanmer tour whose intervention with my character was also an open confession of how he himself understood ‘Rick”s problems; because quite simply, he had lived through these issues himself. He sympathized with my character’s experiences and tried warning me of terrible pitfalls when it came to consuming drugs and alcohol. “You’ll end up regretting it. Trust me. Problems with the law, your friends, your family. Trust me. You don’t want any of that. I should know, because it’s all happened to me.” These were statements of true sincerity that made my character see the world a little differently and with a little more hope. I opened myself up to him by revealing ‘Rick’s’ feelings of depression. In this he definitely felt akin and assured ‘Rick’ that he wasn’t alone. This was incredibly encouraging to ‘Rick’ and obviously a pretty successful intervention.

Afterward, Mattawa in Ontario was nothing less then relaxing and picturesque. Having experienced beautiful views of the large river banks from the Valois Motel, we nestled our heads for the evening; but not before I indulged my taste-buds to a homemade sugar pie, a piece of true Canadiana.  We also spotted a Newfoundlander dog whose size was almost akin to a full grown bear! Yikes!

Lastly, in Mattawa we visited the birth of a school, which opened a mere 2 months ago for their inaugural scholastic year. You could smell how fresh the painted walls, the linoleum floors and the varnished gymnasium was. This beautiful bright school with an even brighter future dubbed our show the very first show performed inside the new building. Mixed Company Theatre having been chosen for this sacred spot in its future history, wishes nothing but the best for its faculty members, students and all families associated with this institution.

Enjoy our future blogs and follow us everywhere on the social media Trans-Canadian highway. YOLO! 🙂

– Philippe Poirier actor playing ‘RICK’ in Projet Actif!

Adventures up North… Janie

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In the little town of BlindRiver, on a snowy morning, we….“la gang du Projet Actif” bought our daily Tim Hortons timbits, ate and were on our way to the beautiful Jeunesse-Nord school.

The cast and I were all relieved to have survived the spooky Halloween night in this tiny unfamiliar town and to finish the week with a group of 70 students. The quiet, though attentive group reacted well to the 1st part of the presentation and one student in particular surprised me during the interventions. Improvising with the students, I’ve heard many similar phrases or tactics in order to help Shona with her eating disorder, the one student pointed out something new! Shona’s character was comparing herself to stars like Taylor Swift or models in her Seventeen Magazine and clearly stated that she NEEDED to become as slim as them. The student answered with complete confidence and simplicity saying “Well Shona, have you heard of Photoshop? Everything in your magazine is photoshoped and unrealistic!!”

It brought me great joy to know that teens out there are aware of this and this was a wonderful moment for our joker, Cassandra, to elaborate on! Later …. We listened to MJ the whole way to Sudbury, MAMA SE MAMA SA MAMA KUSA!

T’was a lovely day indeed!