#CDNTimes

Canadian theatre gets its Anglo-cultural exchange on in this volume as Australia's Back to Back theatre comes back to Canada ,while Canada's NAC heads...

I looked closer to home and came back to a theme that I use a lot. Even in my tattoos. That my life is enveloped by the work of my ancestors and my descendants. Our naming system is based on the idea that souls transfer with names. All the children in that picture are named after beloved elders, including my father and his friends and the oldest of my mother's cousins. So these kids who are exploring the world as if for the first time again, are actually our elders as well.

ur Leboldus students were blown away by the experience – both the high of performing on the Edinburgh stage and the incredible arts feast that is the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. What they originally thought was going to be a good opportunity to go shopping became a desperate fight to see as much theatre as they could.

What I have noted recently, is a number of shows that are not performed by ‘characters’, but the actual people who created or are creating the narrative.

In this edition, things get personal. With high school students discovering a personal connection with theatre at The Edinburgh Fringe, pieces from across Canada finding...

I’d been warned it would happen. That it was inevitable. That the anglophone communities in Montreal were temporary and transient. I’d been based there for 11 years resisting that notion, but that morning when I realized almost my entire posse had packed up for Toronto, I put down my weapon and gave myself a year to make the shift.

over the last weeks, as we have re-rehearsed our remount of THE RESISTIBLE RISE OF ARTURO UI, the parallels seem less and less allegorical. on the one hand, its timeliness makes for a great promotional opportunities—retweeting bob rae’s comparison of the play to the ford saga can only help our ticket sales—but on the other, it has risked shrinking the distance between the satire and its subject, a distance (or strangeness—verfremdung) that brecht’s dramaturgical mechanics rely heavily upon.

I want Canada’s theatre-makers to use the theatres and the other tools at SpiderWebShow to communicate who we are to one another. I want work to get created and presented in our show. In a still unresolved opposition, I see the SpiderWebShow as a place, and as a show. A disconnect remains; yet our show is fuelled by connection. The SpiderWebShow needs creative minds to bridge the gap.

What is 'the new theatre'? This week's contributors all wrestle with the challenges and contradictions of creating work that is relevant, reacts to our era,...

Amy: I am more thoughtful in winter. I study things more: faces, reactions. In Fall I slow down and am tired, but I get out of it. Laakkuluk: I'm the same - I need a bit of a lull after summer before I pick up again. Matthew: Ditto Amy: Summer is exhausting!