Volume 4

The Lounge is really a reincarnated version of my experience at the Tarragon. It is intended as a geographical manifestation of the amorphous concept “Canadian Theatre community”.

For PuSh as a Festival, we now have physical space, a home of our own, to invite more interaction with our audiences and guests during the Festival. It’s as simple as the ability to have a place where pass holders can meet with audience services staff in person, where visiting artists and presenters can be welcomed and pick up materials without being in the middle of a bullpen.

Cuts to cultural organizations, censorship of the systematic dismantling of the public broadcaster: the conservative revolt against cultural institutions represents a frontal assault on democracy itself, which can only be based on the sharing of knowledge.

All art is political, and, in a world that has tilted towards the unconscionable concept of profit at any price, we need be reminded that human beings, along with all living creatures, have a shared right to the air we breathe and the water we drink, that we have an enduring interest in the generosity of the societies we create, that we have a continuing obligation to extend compassion one to another.

When I was 13 I wrote my first play: a somewhat melodramatic rip-off of On Golden Pond. I asked my mother if I could borrow some money to rent a theatre here in Ottawa to stage it. I will never forget how she calmly wrote the cheque and handed it over to me, possessed by some immense and, as of then, totally unproven faith in her son.

What happens when you document the creative process of a show on Instagram?

Making art is easy. The only difficulty is trying to make money from it.The history of art is intricately connected to the history of capitalism. Is it even possible to have one without the other?

A week of 'best of' Facebook posts from my heavily theatre-biased news stream.

But in moments of great need, such as now, traditions change. The theatre reconstructs itself. Today it becomes a civilizing square where true citizen engagement and discourse can occur. Troubling times breed Citizen Story Theatre.

We lost the fight, and now we fight each other. I’m willing to take my share of the responsibility for losing that fight. The revolution that theatre makers of the 60’s and 70’s made seem so real and available shuddered and stopped around the time I was hitting my stride.