Volume 1

When people said, “What’s new?” they weren’t making small talk. It was a real question. Embedded in the question was the assumption the person being asked had been online recently and may have salient facts to report. The online world held all the secrets about what had occurred in reality.

I have had the experience of watching an actress - who I think is very talented - become extremely talented. Her capacities were always evident but her ability to employ them, to follow through, to fulfill her promise were somehow just out of reach. Then she became a runner and all that began to change. It was a mesmerizing transformation

My question “why theatre?”, however, has NOTHING to do with validating the worthiness of an artistic response to anti-humanist political agendas. I refuse to engage in discourse around issues such as “the economic and social values” of art, the “creative economy”, and so on. I ask myself “why theatre?” because the attempt to answer that question always connects me to the core human impulse behind what we do.

The city seemed like a paradise; rent was way cheaper, there were more bike lanes then anywhere else in Canada, tons of incredible programming for dance and performance and a ton of more spaces for rehearsing and creating. My wife had grown up and lived in Toronto her entire life so was also in need of a change and we both felt that if we didn’t leave in 2009, we never would.

Laakkuluk: You do work politics in, but you said you are not a protester? Amy: I feel if we are aware of what is happening in our community we can't help but bring it in into our work. It is top of mind when we create. Matthew: Yes. Maybe I am a protestor. Amy: We can protest without placards and signs...the mighty pen and the act!

Now I will shake my money maker. This here – my gut - is how I make a living. I watch hundreds of shows a year with my education, professional experience, eyes and ears backing up my analysis of a production. But my most important tool is the one I cursed this morning trying to put on last fall’s jeans.

The motivation for this approach to staging and touring a show about police actions at the G20 Summit in Toronto is to broaden the discussion of civil liberties and in particular, Charter rights, in an era when they are being whittled away.

Who the hell are we? Why can’t a Canadian National Theatre help us better understand ourselves?

This is the problem with the post-racial, post-cultural impulse. “Post” refers not to your culture and race and value system, but to mine. If I cannot become like you, then I am clinging to my ruinous history, and it is a barrier to me becoming like you. And if I refuse to become like you, you can, like the magistrate, just erase me from your view.

Three or four days in one city in a country of 5 or 10 million on continent of 750 million and suddenly I feel preternaturally qualified to tell everyone in Canada what it’s like in Iceland or Italy or Denmark. Of course, I’m too much of an intelligentsia chardonnay-sipper to say, “And the people – they’re just so nice!” but frankly it doesn’t feel that far off. So with that in mind here’s a couple things I remember …