THE PROJECT

November 4 -15, 2009  @ Performance Works on Granville Island

What happens when Hollywood North takes on starvation in Africa? A dark comedy on how not to make a documentary. The world premiere of The Project a dark comedy by award-winning playwright Aaron Bushkowsky, directed by Rachel Peake and featuring Andrew McNee, Sarah Rodgers, Alvin Sanders, Maiko Bae Yamamoto, and Lindsey Angell.

http://www.solocollective.ca/

BEYOND EDEN

January 16th to Febuary 6th @ Vancouver Playhouse

February 16th to March 7th, 2010  @ Theatre Calgary

Beyond Eden is an account of the 1957 expedition that saw a group of anthropologists and archaeologists travel to a cluster of remote islands in the North Pacific Ocean known as Haida Gwaii (Queen Charlotte Islands) to remove the last remaining ancient Totem Poles from the deserted Haida village known as Ninstints. It is a story of struggle, love, loss, redemption and transformation all triggered by the harsh clash of European cultures and the ancient arts and culture of the Haida Nation. The universal and timeless themes of the story will resonate with people around the planet.

www.vancouverplayhouse.com

www.theatrecalgary.com

SPINE

February 4th to February 10th @ Timms Theatre in Edmonton

March 10 to 20th @ SFU Woodwords Theatre in Vancouver

At your very core, who are you? While traveling the universe of avatars, inhabiting online realities and identities, a man discovers the intriguing possibility of reinventing his physical body through a blend of ambitious, cutting-edge technologies and ethically questionable experiments. With bold physicality and spectacular imagery, Spine is a modern exploration of our changing relationship with our bodies and our notions of identity, truth, and love in an increasingly mediated world.

www.realwheals.com

I’M SO CLOSE IT’S NOT EVEN FUNNY

March 23rd to April 5th @ Theatre Centre in Toronto

April 8th to 11th @ Performance Works in Vancouver

Hailed by NOW Magazine as “artists to watch,” Why Not Theatre takes you into a universe where the fabric of space and relationships tears and repairs itself, and all matter—from the smallest quacks to the most gargantuan silences—is generated by the vibrations of microscopically tiny loops of time.

www.theatrewhynot.org

It’s been a while since my last post, and to be honest I thought about dropping this whole blogging thing. But as I sit in my hotel room looking over the snow dusted roads of Edmonton I thought I would continue. Plane travel is a strange phenomenon, one moment we’re drinking cheap scotch in a Toronto bar, and the next we’re looking out our 9th floor window in –10 degree, very flat, grey Edmonton. I actually felt like I was stepping into Edmonton when I was walking down the plane isle, all those farmer hats gingerly sitting high on top of men’s heads. All the random old T shirts and jeans combinations. It was a breath of fresh cold Alberta air. It’s nice when people aren’t ‘dressed to impress’ all the time.

I haven’t blogged for a while because the last two weeks of tech have been insane. I’ve never had so many technical things go wrong with one show. At one point all three projectors, my video switcher, and my playback computer weren’t working. But that’s when a hard working crew comes in handy. In the end we got every thing working and the show looked beautiful.

It’s funny to think back on the thoughts that cross one’s mind when absolutely nothing is working. I think at one point I was convinced I was going to start a theatre company that abided by film dogma rules. Honest. I was dreaming up plays where no technology was going to be used. A flashlight would be considered crossing the line. Amish people would be our board of governors. Then every thing started working again, and I was sending my resume to Cirque de Soleil.

Now I’m in Edmonton: weird. I’m here for the first workshop of Spine, which is a massively ambitious project spearheaded by Real Wheels productions in Vancouver. This show will begin it’s run at the University of Alberta in Febuary of 2010, and then travel to Vancouver for the Paralympics in March 2010.

Okay so things have hit a strange note. This is, as they say, an understatement. I arrived in Toronto on Thursday and have just now gotten over mild culture shock in my own country. My living situation, or so I thought, was great. I’m living in Queen East, in a my own bachelor pad, which comes fully equipped. The house is divided into three apartments with me acting as the PB and J in the middle. Downstairs is my sweet landlord, and upstairs is my dedicated friend the opera singer. Now as I describe the scene here one would think that I would now begin to describe the opera singer’s morning vocal warmups, which show his impressive octave range, and is therefore limiting my sleep in the morning. Alas this would be much better than the warmups this opera singer does in the morning. Now my friend the opera singer has lived upstairs for a couple of months now, and it was his understanding that he would get unfettered access to my apartment to use the bathtub. You see his apartment has shower and a shower does not work for his perscribed back exercises that are to be done in water (I’ll get to my puzzlement around how exercises in a small coffin of water helps one’s back later. )

So I arrive on the scene, jetlagged, and fresh off a crazy tech week in Whitehorse. Sleep has never been more necessary. My landlord’s son, who’s as kind as his landlord mother, shows me the apartment, and tells me how the opera singer usptairs has been using my place for baths. He asks ‘ Can we work something out?’ I say sure, I’ll leave my door open and he can come in whenever he wants (not thinking that this would turn into what has become the disaster it is today.) So the first night goes off without a hitch. The second night I get a note on my door explaining his ‘bath times’ of 830 in the morning on Sunday and Monday (my day off.) I knock on his door to see if we can work out a time that works for the both of us. My friend the opera singer will not budge. It’s 830 am, period. I say fine, but I will be remaining in my bed, while you do your bathtub yoga ( I didn’t actually call it bathtub yoga.)

Now I should describe my bed’s close proximity to the bathtub: two tubby Americans sitting on either side of me in coach would seem further away than this bathtub is to my bed. So yesterday I get a loud knock on my door at 830 in the morning. I tell him that’s it’s open. I then hear him rattle the door knob, and then knock even louder. I say you’ve got to push a little bit. He does and barges into my apartment, swearing underneath his breathe, practically jumps over my bed, a slams the bathroom door right by my head. I say this unacceptable. He says nothing as the bath water begins to pour from the faucet. I can only laugh to myself now. I turn on my computer to watch the tv show Arrested Development, only to turn it off realizing that I am actually living Arrested Development right now.

The faucet turns off, and then the real theatrics start. I can only describe the sounds of bathtub yoga, but I can assure when he does them I feel like I’m doing them with him. The sounds will only be understood by those who have experienced the sounds of bathtub sex because if you hadn’t seen one man jump over my bed 1 minute early, you would swear he’s with his co-star right now doing their best attempt to re-create the entire blocking for Carmen. And how excercises in a bath tub helps a back is beyond me. I really can’t understand it. I would think you would have a better chance healing a back in a washing machine. When I have a back pain, I bed over and touch my toes, this guy attempts to wrap his toes around his head like he’s magician trying to escape from a straight jacket while stuck underwater.

Since my first experience of bathtub yoga I have had one horribly uncomfortable house meeting, and another rather subdued session. I’ll stop now. I’ve been writing in my bed for a while now, and I’m back is hurting a bit. I think I’ll roll over and have a bath.

Some times there are moments when I have no doubt that I’m doing the right thing in life. Opening night was one of those moments. and it wasn’t because the show was great, which it was, but it was the opening night party. And it the debauchery wasn’t particularly strong that night, it was more than that. it felt like I was with my people. We sang songs all night. Everyone had worked so hard, and we all came together and laughed and sang songs. Loud, like only theater people can .

So on that wonderfully cliched note goodbye Whitehorse and hello Toronto (right now that contrast seems absurd.)

(Note that the Projection Design tour has grown to 5 cities. I will now be finishing the tour in Montreal to load in Studies in Motion. oui!)

A Day in the Yukon

i’ve left the comfort of Gangland (ie. Vancouver) and I’ve headed off to design 3 shows and 1 workshop in 4 different Canadian cities. I’m going to attempt a travel blog. I plan on using the blog when I feel intense anxiety from all the work I have to do, or if I feel lonely. Lonely enough to think that the blog can serve as friend while I’m sitting in a theater late at night.

It’s 10 pm in Whitehorse, and I’m sitting the beautiful Yukon Arts Center, hiding from the -35 degree weather waiting for me outside. Not that the Whitehorse nightlife has much waiting for me, except for karoke of course, which runs 6 nights a week here. I guess if my winter was filled with snow, and 20 hour nights, I would have the desire to sing a few bars of ”Don’t worry be happy’ at least a couple nights a week.

I’m up here working on Studies in Motion by the Electric Company. This was my very first show, and the nostalgia and fear filled memories are running deep. I say fear because this is a Wooly Mammoth of a show. Hundreds of projection cues. I’m the Assistant Designer, and Robert Gardiner is the lead designer. His concept is to light actors with projectors. The end result the first time was mesmerizing, so who knows what happens this time.

All I know is that I should get home to my dorm room soon. For anyone who thinks that the life of a Projection designer is glamorous they’re slightly misguided. Unless you think sharing a dorm with 18 year old college students is glamorous. No offense to 18 year olds, I’m just saying that I was 18, ten years ago, I had little sense of anyone beyond myself. Kind of like the guy who slams his door 5 times every morning in the room beside me. It’s okay though, all I do is turn up my meditation rain storm playing out of my itunes. I don’t blame him, I didn’t start meditating until I was 21.

well I’ve done it, I’m officially on the interweb. I wondered wether I needed this blog, but my adoring fans (ie. my mother) felt that it was imperative to know my whereabouts at all times. More importantly my work is now for everyone to see. I’ve done my best to credit all the other creative types who I’ve worked with. To reveal this information simply place the mouse cursor over the image.

My first post is from Victoria. I’m currently re-designing The Electric Company’s Brilliant at the beautiful Belfry Theatre. The show explodes with a multitude of theatrical forms. It contains everything from projections to silent film acting to a snappy tap routine. The Electric Company has long been a leader in Vancouver’s independant theatre scene, and this show, their first originally created 15 years ago, is a facanating look into the life of inventor Nikola Tesla. If you haven’t seen it, and would like to, the show runs from November 13th to December 14th at the Belfry.

If you haven’t seen a show at the Belfry, you should. Its actually an old church that’s been renovated into a real intimate, charming space. They also produce some great work and always sell out.

So if you have any questions or comments about my site or my work please feel free to contact me. I’d love to hear from people I’ve never met before.

Jamie