“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

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.

SPIN

OCTOBER 25th, 8 pm

Outspoke Productions and the Hysteria Festival

proudly present

the workshop production of

SPIN

Written and performed by Evalyn Parry

With  Anna Friz and Brad Hart
Directed by Ruth Madoc Jones

Buddies in Bad Times Theatre

SUNDAY OCTOBER 25^th , 2009, at 8 pm

Tickets:  $10
reserve on line or call by telephone 416-975-8555

****

Starring

The BICYCLE

As muse, musical instrument, and instrument of social change

*****

The Safety Bicycle:  Amplified!
Using modern effects Pedals and contact Microphones, the players manipulate the acoustic sounds of the Bicycle to make Music

*

The 1890’s:  The Golden Age of the Bicycle!
Exposing the Bicycle as a Dangerous Agent of Women’s Emancipation

*

Tales of High Adventure!
The First woman to travel  Around the World on Two Wheels!
Bloomers!
Theft, Heartbreak, Bicycle-Auto Collision and the Urban Rider!

*

A Two-Wheeled evening of Music, Spoken Word and Theatrical Entertainment

****

Presented as part of The HYSTERIA Festival

We gratefully acknowledge the generous support of
The Ontario Arts Council, The Toronto Arts Council, The Banff Centre
and Buddies in Bad Times Theatre

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.

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.

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

Leni Riefenstahl vs the 20th Century

Some images from Ecce Homo’s show “Leni Riefenstahl vs the 20th Century” at Rhubarb, in which i played Susan Sontag. Do you recognize me?  I love my wig.

Check out the new Notes on “Camp” song. More stories of what’s up… coming soon.

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.

Spin

My new show “SPIN” is in the works. Also known as “Two Wheeled Words”,  this show is still a work in progress, but it’s starting to take shape.  Brad Hart plays the bicycle and other percussion, Dave Celia on guitar and “pedals”, and me on the mic with a spoken word / song “cycle”:   a series of pieces that riff on bicycling, cycles and “spin”:  as in advertising and consumerising and how gender and fashion and resistance and bike thieves and the first woman to cycle around the world in 1894 all fit together…

On Saturday Sept 20, I performed excerpts from it, as part of the amazing Bicycle Powered Dance Party with Mr. Something Something, at the Evergreen Brickworks Sustainablity Fair.   It was awesome:  we had 10 bike generators set up, and people peddled to power the sound system, and it worked like a dream.

I gave the material a second spin on Wednesday, Sept 24, in Toronto at the Tranzac Club, as part of the Girls with Glasses series of Wednesday’s-in-September variety shows we hosted.

Next up:  The Ottawa Storytelling Festival, on November 8th at 4 pm at the National Library.

After that, I will spending some more time developing the piece as part of the Buddies in Bad Times Theatre playwrights unit;  the show will definitely get a spin at several music festivals this summer, and hopefully have a proper run at Buddies next year.     Stay tuned!   If you’re interested in knowing more about it, or having this show come to your town or event…send an email to bookings@evalynparry.com

thanks to the Ontario Arts Council Word of Mouth Program, and the Toronto Arts Council Music section for their financial assistance in helping me develop this project