“Breakfast” rises again…

I’m knee deep in rehearsals for “Breakfast”, the Independent Auntie’s (triple-Dora nominated) production which is being remounted at Buddies in Bad Times Theatre in just a few weeks!

For those who saw our first production at the Theatre Centre in 2008, this time you’ll witness a whole new ending…which we’re hard at work on right now….for those who didn’t see it last time, here’s your chance to catch what critics called “one of the top 10 shows of 2008″… a fascinating, surreal trip through one woman’s psyche; an examination of our cultural obsession with self-help and personal transformation.    Get your tickets now!

Spin video

Check out the little teaser video for SPIN!
tell me what you think….

and hey, nice news. Not only are we taking the show out to Newfoundland in July 2010, but SPIN will be produced in Toronto at Buddies in Bad Times Theatre in March 2011. More to come between now and then….

what’s new in the new year

Good things are coming up in 2010.  Here are some highlights i’m looking forward to.

#1:  a play that I wrote and act in:  the remount of the Independent Auntie’s critically acclaimed show “Breakfast” runs for three weeks at Buddies in Bad Times Theatre, March 17-April 4.

#2:  SPIN goes to Newfoundland, for the Sound Symposium, July 2010!  With some stops on the way, to be announced…

#3.  I return to the Banff Centre this April,  this time to teach at the 2010 Spoken Word program. While I”m out there, also performing in a couple great events as part of the Calgary International Spoken Word Festival.

This month and next, i will be busy directing projects with the Young Creators Unit at Buddies, to be presented at the 2010 Rhubarb Festival.    Rhubarb is an amazing three week festival of contemporary performance – my favorite theatre event of the year in Toronto, where you’ll see an array of new work unlike any your likely to see anywhere else.  We’ve got a great group of Young Creators this year, and I’m very excited for their presentations.   I’m also helping get Fishbowl back up on its feet: Mark is going to New York with the newly abridged version of the show which will play at New York City’s FRIGID Festival this March.

regretfully

Evalyn was bitten by a dog this weekend.  Her mouth has a lot of stitches in it, and although she is recovering well, it is with great regret she has to cancel her participation in the Toronto Bike Awards this evening.

Igor Kenk gets 4 months?!

Unbelievable.  Igor Kenk, the man who stole 3000 bicycles from Torontonians…gets sentanced to only 30 months, and those are reduced by the time he has already spent in pre-trial custody, so we’re talking only 4 months in jail.  He pleaded guilty to stealing 10 bikes.  That’s freakin hilarious.    Now it’s not that i’m a big believer in jail as a good solution to anything.  But it’s outrageous that his crimes don’t constitute something far more serious.   If that was 10 cars he’d stolen (not to mention if it was 3000 cars)….perhaps the punishment might be a little more harsh?

As someone who has had 3 bikes stolen in the last decade in this city…i take the whole thing kind of personal-like.

read the coverage here:

CBC story

Toronto Star story

20th anniversay of L’Ecole Polytechnique massacre

December 6th is a dark building that haunts me…
a number i can’t erase from my memory….

14 reasons to remember: 14 reasons to mourn:
14 reasons to be strong and proud you were born a woman

you can download a free copy of my piece “14 (for Dec 6)” from Borealis Records, available for a few days only, to mark the occasion of the 20th anniversary of this tragic event.   Dec 6th is now designated in Canada as a National Day of Rememberance and Action on Violence Against Women.

from an island

I’m in the heaven of a west-coast gulf island,  at the Poetry Gabriola Festival...played to a lovely, packed-house of islanders and poetry lovers last night, sharing the evening with the marvelous Sheila Norgate, and her “Timeless Tips for Girls Who Have Let Themselves Go” presentation.   Hilary Peach performed her inspiring folk opera “Suitcase Local” on Friday night.   Then took me and Tanya Evanson for a motorboat ride yesterday afternoon, where we communed with the seals sunning on the rocks off Gabriola.  Another highlight of the weekend has to be arriving by float plane on the island on Thursday – the smallest plane i’ve ever flown in (held 3, plus pilot), taking off and landing on water on a shockingly beautiful November day, with an incredible view of the coast, the mountains and the water.    i’ve never been out west in November when it rained so little.

here is me getting off the float plane!

gabriola float plane - girl almost lands in the water! pic courtesy of festival photographer Victor Anthony

Looking forward to the show with Alexis O’Hara, Christian Bok and Paul Dutton tonight.   And then back to the mainland, to play in Vancouver on Sunday evening.

triumph!

The workshop presentation of Spin was a sold-out, standing-o night of excitement!  The audience response was all I could have hoped for, and  I am very pleased, as well as being full of ideas and thoughts, edits and improvements and more layers to add for round two…we hope to present it again in Toronto in the spring during Bike Month, and to take it on the road thereafter…more to report before long…in the meantime, check out some images from the technical rehearsal (photos by Omer Yuseker).

SPIN

This will be the first official WORKSHOP PRODUCTION of the bicycle show.  OCTOBER 25th, 8 pm at the Hysteria Festival, at Buddies in Bad Times Theatre, 12 Alexander St, Toronto www.artsexy.ca.    We are excited, to say the least.    This workshop is directed by the marvelous Ruth Madoc-Jones.

Click here, or on the poster image to get to more info on the SPIN page!

Anna and Brad and I began rehearsals this week.  Many exciting discoveries with the cello bow and the spokes!   Also the digital delay and reverb pedal is working it’s charms.  So is Anna’s Moog ring modulator.  This Sunday Oct 11th, at my monthly Tranzac cocktail hour show, 5 to 7 pm, we’ll be trying out a little preview of some of the music from the show.

Big thanks are in order to the funding bodies that have made the development and upcoming presentation possible:   the Ontario Arts Council (for support through both the Multi-Arts Program and the Word of Mouth program), the Toronto Arts Council (Music Composition grant), The Canada Council for the Arts (Career Development) and Buddies (where I developed the show through the Ante Chamber playwrights unit, and presenters of the Hysteria Festival) and the Banff Centre Spoken Word residency.

bikes and buddies

It’s been an eventful few days.  Mostly with good news, with a little bit o’ bad news in the mix.   The bad is that my bike was stolen on Monday evening.  I had been to see a good show, the Cave Singers, at the Horseshoe.   I came out and found a busted lock (no more kryptonite ulocks garbage after this), left in two pieces along with my helmet.  I’m glad they didn’t take my helmet, since i really like it a lot.  A friend of mine sent me this link, which although perhaps a little extreme, does the job of expressing the feeling you get when your bike is stolen.   The lowest of the low crimes.

The next day, in my slightly crazed state, i bought a new bike:  a Batavus dutch commuter bike that I have been lusting after for some time.  I also bought a super-industrial lock.   So  I am back to riding happily around town, now with super-excellent posture on my super-upright, euro-styles cycle.   I have named her Stein.

Yesterday afternoon, i took Stein for her first trip across town, from Parkdale to the village, for a meeting at Buddies where, after weeks of deliberations, the Board of Directors were announcing our new artistic director.

So it is good new is that Buddies in Bad Times Theatre has a new artistic director, my esteemed colleague Brendan Healy. This is the beginning of a new chapter in the history of a pretty extraordinary theatre.  It feels like a significant moment.  An exciting and bold decision, which i believe is going to have important and exciting implications not only for Buddies, but for theatre in Toronto and across the country.   Brendan is very articulate, passionate man with a big vision.

Other than these dramatic events….last weekend went to see one of the best lives shows i’ve seen in ages,  The Ex and Getachew Mukuria.   Also played the first of my monthly Sunday shows at the Tranzac, and it was great. Tried out a bunch of new material, which was nerve-wracking but pleasing.  Next month will be me with special guest Kate Reid, and also Brad Hart and Anna Friz, performing some of the music from Spin with me.   The workshop of Spin is coming up on October 25th at Buddies.

more summer adventures

Oh Owen Sound, SummerFolk!  Sweet festival of my childhood.  Pretty fun to get to be a grown up, playing the mainstage on Sunday night; even more fun to get to share a stage with Peggy Seeger (!) and Susan Werner on Saturday afternoon at the “Images of Women” workshop.   Also the “Bicycles!” workshop with Coco Love Alcorn.   We had some good times.    Oh, and taking a yoga class on Saturday morning before the festival began with Clare at Priya Yoga- lucky Owen Sound that they have her for a teacher, that was some hell ya! yoga.

This past Monday I returned from a gig up in Port Elgin which is where the CAW (that’s right, that’s the Canadian Auto Workers) have their conference centre.  I had the immense pleasure of performing for the opening night of their annual women’s conference, where female CAW leaders and members from across the country join together for a several-day intensive.  Those are some incredible, powerful women.   This is the second time I’ve been up to the conference, and next time I go, I am going to be taking my little recording device, and getting some of these ladies stories on tape.  That is a songwriting project just begging to be undertaken.  These women have some amazing stories and experiences to share about their work and lives.   A highlight was getting to meet one of my political-sheros, Peggy Nash (who used to be my MP in Parkdale-Highpark).

Hey, check out the latest issue of Dandyhorse, the very fine, Toronto-based magazine dedicated to cycling culture.  It’s a great publication.   And this issue is all about musicians who love to ride.   There’s a little interview with me about SPIN, the bike show (coming up…October 25th).

This weekend, off to Shelter Valley Folk Festival.    Can’t wait.

onward summer

It’s almost a week later and i’m still recovering from a great (sleepless) weekend at Blue Skies festival in Clarendon Ont.  Clarendon is a town of a few houses down a dirt road off Highway 509 sorta near Sharbot Lake, which is kinda near Perth, which is in Lanark County, sort of on the way to Ottawa if you were taking highway 7.   Blue Skies is the amazing festival that has been going for over 35 years which takes place on this beautiful, rolling piece of land in the middle of nowhere: the festival sprouts up every summer over the August long weekend, a little village of tents, music and 3000 good souls and amazing musicians jamming around camp fires all night long.   The weather was great, Magoo was the magical presiding MC ( and he once again blew me away with his unbelievable hosting skillz and incredible costume changes – i have a serious case of costume-closet-envy – and there were a bunch of fantastic acts on the mainstage every evening.  My personal highlights being  CR Avery, who just about blew my head off with his closing performance to the festival on Sunday night – lifting spoken word to whole new heights -  and killer ukulele player James Hill with Anne Davison on cello.  Also listening to Jaren Freeman Fox and Emilyn Stamm and Ben Whiteley, aka Goatnote…also dancing to Vancouver’s red hot Deli to Dublin.   My set Saturday night on the mainstage was fun…(check out a couple nice pics here by my friend Jake Morrison) got a load of kids up on stage to play water bottle with me (and please note, no bottled water was sold or available at Blue Skies…a movement is truly happening, friends!)… even more fun than the mainstage for me was the all-acoustic, unamplified spoken word workshop session under the Meadow Tent on Sunday.

About all i’ve managed to do this week, besides sleeping and putting my things away, is get a haircut.   oooo…shaved up the sides…i feel like i’ve gone back to montreal in the late ’90’s.

Oh, as per my stat about bottled water sales being down 3.3%, check out this encouraging article in the Huffington Post.

midsummer

Even if the weather isn’t exactly the best indicator,  it does appear that summer is in full swing:  I have returned from two weeks at a family cottage, full of swimming (sometimes in the rain) and reading, relaxing and rejuvenating…a bit of songwriting, and also i learned to knit while i was there (to date, I have completed one arm warmer, colour: eggplant.  Very good looking).

Now I’m getting ready with the band for upcoming weekend music festivals:  Blue Skies (in Clarendon ON), followed by Summerfolk (in Owen Sound ON) and then Shelter Valley, with a few other stops in between (see the full calendar for details).  Who’s playing in the band this time around, you ask?  This coming weekend at Blue Skies, we’ve got Brad Hart on percussion, Trevor Mills on bass, Dave Celia on guitar and Beth Washburn on the alto tuba.  Summerfolk will be Dave and Brad with Suzie Vinnick on bass.  Shelter Valley, it’ll just be me, and my lovely blue Gretsch guitar.  Can’t wait: music festivals have been part of my summer’s since I was a kid,  I feel lucky to get to now add my music and stories into the mix of these unique gatherings of people and music.   Hope to see some of you out there…

This photo was taken in Whitehorse, Yukon at Arts in the Park – I was up there in the Yukon Territory for two glorious weeks this June (in the glory of the midnight sun).   Thanks to my lovely host Cathrine Morginn for the photo.

Breakfast returns to Buddies 2010

Buddies in Bad Times Theatre presents The Independent Aunties in our play Breakfast, March 17 to April 4 2010.   Find the Aunties below in the super-sexy Buddies Season brochure photo (Anna Chatterton, Evalyn Parry and Karin Randoja lurk among the other fabulous lady creators featured as part of the 2009 / 10 Buddies season, which has just been unveiled: more info at www.artsexy.ca

Ken McDougall Award

So on Monday night, May 25, I was duped into attending the Harold Awards in Toronto, having been told by Anna Chatterton (one third of the Aunties) that Karin Randoja (the other third of the Aunties) was getting an award, and we had to be there to help in the ceremony.   Turns out, I was the one who was begin given an award – and it was a total and complete surprise to me up until the very moment it was being given.  The Ken McDougall Award is given out at the Harolds every year by Theatre Passe Muraille, Buddies and Platform 9 Theatre, to a “promising emerging director”.  In it’s 15th year for this award (16 for the Harolds), and I have to say, it feels like quite an honour to be in the company of the list of past recipients.

As David Oiye was introducing the awardee, before he said who it was for, he gave a list of descriptors and then of accomplishments and projects, and it literally took me several moments of thinking, “now that’s a kind of strange thing to say about Karin…” until it dawned on me that it wasn’t Karn… it was me.   Seems the whole night of the Harolds is all about duping:  the challenge being to get the people being “Harolded” to the party without them knowing that’s why they have to be there.  The prizes (with the exception of the McDougall award) are handed down peer to peer:  basically if you get Harolded one year, you pass it on the next, to a colleague who you want to acknowledge.  It’s a really personal and really generous and really beautiful (and quite druken) event / tradition that only the theatre community could pull off.   I loved being part of it.

As a super-grass-roots affair, doesn’t seem the Harolds or the Ken McDougall Award have any official website, but you can get the gist by looking at the Facebook page, or Praxis Theatre also has some entertaining stuff to describe.

Next up directing projects, you ask?  Well…the 5th Annual PrideCab youth project at Buddies gets on stage June 17th at Buddies in Bad Times, and myself and Chy Ryan Spain are in the midst of putting that on it’s feet.   Then I’m off to the Yukon, to work with Sour Brides on a new project.  Also, the Emergency Monologues, by Morgan Phillips (which i “directed” last year at SummerWorks..I say “directed” because mostly I just laughed and said “do it again!”) plays again several times in the coming weeks as fundraisers, and then again at the Toronto Fringe.  That show is really excellent and hilarious- which has little to do with me, and everything to do with Morgan’s genius as a storyteller (and paramedic).  There’s a nice article in the EYE about it, check it out.

biking weather is back

and biking weather means that I am a happy camper. Because i don’t stop biking when it’s not really biking weather, but oh, is it ever so much more blissful to cycle when the breeze is warm and sun is shining and there are leaves on the branches.

I returned at the end of April from the Calgary International Spoken Word festival, followed by two amazing weeks at the Banff Centre spoken word program where it was all you can eat poetry for two weeks, plus also that crazy buffet and ridiculous desserts and incredible inspiration from the mountains and from the proliferation of amazing artists of all flavours. Lots of new writing bubbling.

Now I am back home in Toronto for the month.  A couple weeks ago, i stumbled upon the most amazing music store, which is located in the marvelous 401 Richmond Building.  Musideum is truly a unique and fabulous discovery…check it out, all you lovers of unusual and curious musical instruments. For my birthday i bought myself a shruti box: it is so awesome sounding and so good looking – another stylish free-reed for the collection.

There is a major commuter train project which is of great concern to people in my Parkdale Toronto neighbourhood.  A new commuter train is ostensibly a very good thing…however, if we don’t act to stop the bizarely old-fashioned and backward thinking plan of Metrolinx to put some 300 additional DIESEL trains a day on the tracks (up from the 50 a day currently running) that run from Union station all the way up to the airport and Georgetown, things are going to get noisy and polluted pretty quick and it’s not going to be a good scene.  Metrolinx need to act like they are living in the 21st century, and spend the money needed to invest in electric trains. The current plan is unthinkable.   If you agree, then make your voice heard before June.  Write a letter.  The Clean Train coalition website is very useful and well-researched and thorough site, with lots of info.

In June I head up to the Yukon to do some work with Sour Brides theatre company, under that amazing midsummer, midnight sun.  Then back to Ontario for some fantastic music festivals.    xo

Fishbowl: a concise, expansive theory of everything

I directed Fishbowl, a one man show currently playing at Buddies, written and performed by Mark Shyzer. Opens April 1, plays until April 12 2009.  Extremely hilarious. Check it out.

Some fun images from the show can be viewed here.

www.shyzer.ca has a couple hilarious little trailers for your viewing pleasure.

And there’s a nice review from Toronto Sun …”Fishbowl succeeds swimmingly…an impressive bit of character writing, packaged up and beautifully performed in a delightful little show” (John Colbourne, Toronto Sun). Read the whole review here

February is RHUBARB

February is not a month known for being particularly lovely,  here in Toronto.   But one thing that makes it better than the everlasting slush and winter-not-yet-over feeling is the Rhubarb Festival at Buddies in Bad Times Theatre.   I love Rhubarb.  It’s a festival of new, experimental work by new and established theatre-makers.   Everything in it is short – 25 minutes – so if you don’t like something, it’s gonna be over soon, anyway. And there are some wonderful discoveries that leave you wanting more.   No critics are allowed to review…which makes for a special atmosphere of wild abandon and true experiment for the artists involved.  This year is the 30th Rhubarb Festival. Impressive.

So we’re now into Rhubarb 2009, week 2.  My absolute highlight of the first week of the festival was “The Be(a)st of Taylor Mac”.  This show is actually an exception to all the rules I just stated about Rhubard:  it’s  not new,  not Canadian, and not 25 minutes long.  But it was incredible.  Taylor Mac is a New York artist, and his show was a special presentation for the festival…and truly, special.  Actually one of the most wonderful performers, and most moving, hilarious and inspiring shows that I have seen in a long long time. I saw it twice.    It;s one of those shows that I want to go dancing through the streets singing about, buying a ticket for everyone that I love to go and see it.  It’s playing this week in Montreal, and if i didn’t have my hands full of three other Rhubarb productions, i’d be getting on the train to go and see it again.

But let me tell you about the other shows that I have something to do with during the remainder of the festival.

This weekend and next, the presentations of the Young Creators Unit at Buddies.  I am the director of this program, and I am super proud of the four young artists who are showing their one-person shows over the next two weeks.  They run as a pre-festival treat, 6:30 pm on Feb 14 & 15 (Rob Salerno and Tawiah M’carthy), and Feb 21 & 22 (Kim Crosby and Cole J. Alvis).  Political comedy, poetic narratives, great writing, hard-hitting personal storytelling, beautiful performances and even evangelical folk singing…all this in store, and for free if you’re 25 and under.  Regular festival price applies to everyone else!

Finally, in week 3 of the festival, Feb 18-22, i’m playing the part of Susan Sontag in Ecce Homo’s newest creation, “Leni Riefenstahl vs the 20th Century“. Brought to you by the same company that produced “The Pastor Phelps Project: A Fundamentalist Cabaret“, this newest show is also a sexy little musical…about the many faces of fascism. I’ve written a song for the show based on Sontag’s famous essay “Notes on Camp”.  There is other beautiful music written by the lovely Bryce Kulak.  Also singing and dancing by half naked dudes, and gorgeous design by Matt Jackson. I think it is going to be a provocative production-not-to-be-missed.

www.artsexy.ca gives you all the info to cheer up your february.

Happy 2009!

Sending out the good wishes for a new year with many adventures and much delight.

It’s January and I’m snotty in the cess-pool of mega-city mega-germs, with cold number three in as many months, and a runny nose that just won’t quit. Kleenex and cold FX are my constant companions.   Deep into my bicycle research and found this lovely old advertisement that i couldn’t resist sharing with you: the headline being my chief aspiration.

speaking of brains and conscience, Girls with Glasses hit a few locations around Ontario this end-of-January and early February, keep your eyes peeled (or check out the details in the calendar).

oh politics. oh anne.

Wow, what an exciting week in Canadian politics.  And now parliament is suspended.   Jeez.  It sure is good to see Harper squirming, that little weasel.   And even better, to see the Liberals and NDP (and the Bloc) getting it together and coalition building.  What will happen next?   there’s a rally tomorrow at noon in cities across the country, to show support for the coalition…in Toronto it’s at city hall.  See you there?

In other, totally unrelated news, I was in a show last weekend at Buddies called “Anne Made Me Gay; when kindred spirits get naked”!  Hosted by the awesome Rosemary Rowe - it was SO FUN, like a dream come true, really.   Special for the 100th Anniversary of Anne of Green Gables, this was a tribute that could only be imagined at Buddies.  I sang “The Anne in my mind”, and I also made a little video, documenting my “audition” for the part of Anne – giving Megan Follows a serious run for her money.     Why didn’t they cast me?  Didn’t they appreciate the Anne and Diana make-out session?

Check out some photos of the Anne night here