When we started working on this edition, it was about activism and the ongoing question posed by those who use theatre for social change: does this even work? Then this funny thing happened. The discussions about making positive social change converged with conversations about the body. Sex.
The body is a political site. We know this. But how politics play out in relationship to the body — and what the body even means — changes depending on the community you are in. Who one has sex with, that one might receive money to have sex, or that one even has sexual desire are, arguably, private details of one’s life. But these private aspects can be publicly leveraged to access resources, challenge legislation, or change assumptions of ability or capacity.
Each of the artists writing for this edition are engaged with how elements of their own or others’ sexuality. They consider how the act of staging aspects of sexuality, sex work or dating proposes alternatives to conventional narratives. Because this is often connected to who they are as people, does it then mean that they are in fact activists by staging this work?
In this edition Darrah Teitel explores her relationship to her sexuality and her past in her writing, Alan Shain discusses how theatre can upend conventional narratives about disability, and Marisa Smith recounts how a show about sex work in impacted her own artistic practice. Cumulatively they allude to how much bravery and honesty this work requires.
Adrienne Wong and Michael Wheeler
Co-Editors: #CdnCult V7
Recently, I was asked to be a speaker at a queer theatre conference in Vancouver on a panel called: The Queer Playwright. Not for the first time, the facts of who I sleep crashed against the theatre I write. Maybe this time I actually had to deal with it? Maybe not.
The truth is I’m a feminist bi-poly slut and my primary partner is a bi-poly sis dude. Or maybe not.
The truth is I’m the mother of a three-year-old in a mostly monogamous heterosexual marriage. Or maybe not.
The truth is I’m a survivor of sexual assault. Or maybe not.
The truth is I was raped. Was it rape? If I don’t tell people, can I not be raped?
The truth is I’m having a hard time writing this because I don’t tell all these truths to the people I am close to. Especially to the people I am close to.
In my mind, I keep ledgers and tallies and important notes. Who have I confessed what to? How many people have I told? Too many? Who can I never tell? Who am I lying to? I’m lying to myself. This record keeping makes me anxious.
So I write to keep myself honest and sane. (Who doesn’t?) Sometimes my work is queer as fuck. In fiction, I explore my desires and fantasies. I work through abuse in my plays and my politics. Since I was a kid, it was queer theatre that mentored me and reflected my persistent obsession with sex and gender. I went to Buddies to learn how to be a playwright and I’ve never written a single thing that doesn’t have queer characters in it, even the Holocaust play. But I’m not a queer playwright because I am not a queer person. Am I?
Shrouded in the armor of “allyship”, I do what I can to participate in the conversations that obsess me – without discussing who I am. In this way, I don’t require the permission and acceptance of any person or community. Is this all about a childish fear that my gorgeous, cool queer friends won’t want to play with me at recess? Probably. That sounds like me.
I’m someone who has enough conventional signifiers in place that I get all the privileges that a straight, white, married, procreative, able-bodied professional woman can get in this racist, hetero-patriarchal world, Although I know how to accuse the world of hetero-patriarchy, I still benefit from that oppression every day. I feel like I just don’t deserve to call myself stuff. Stuff like queer. Stuff like survivor. I am so straight-seeming that sometimes people forget that I’ve told them I do gay things, like fuck women.
Sometimes, because my traumas are so unprocessed and so private people forget – lovers even forget that I once told them I was raped. I guess that’s fair because I don’t wear it or own it or talk about any of it very much.
Except when it behooves me to do so for my career?
Ah. Here we go.
The truth is that I’m writing this now, hoping it will serve as the basis for what I can speak to at this damn queer theatre conference I’m attending. They’re flying me to Vancouver! The truth is that I wonder if, after I write this, I can apply for a few more grants, or try to get Buddies to support my next play, which is about rape and bisexuality. The truth is that, bolstered by the possibility of economic reward and career success, I may be brave enough to come out at this point.
Doesn’t that make you mad? If I were gay or trans and working in the theatre, that admission would make me mad. Here I am with all the privileges of my cute little straight family and now I am exploiting the few transgressive fucks I’ve had in order to share in the meager privileges that genuinely oppressed people have gained for themselves.
I will make another excuse: it’s the industry that made me do it. More and more throughout the time that I’ve been alive and making art, I am asked to exploit and explain the social or political value of my writing beyond the obvious. Because I write about sexuality, someone evaluating that work wants to know that I am a queer playwright. It will help them legitimize the work, it will help them feel better about what they fund, it will help them feel better about themselves. Right? That makes me uncomfortable. I’m going back in the closet.
Here’s the thing about the closet that contains my bisexuality and polyamory: there is assault in there too. I keep conflating the rape and the sexuality here, and it’s not because these are the same thing. That comparison is downright offensive, actually. Homosexuality is not a sex crime that happened to me. But they go together here, because with both, I am suppressing experiences from becoming who I am in public.
This isn’t an act of privacy; it’s an act of compartmentalization that has come at a psychological cost. Because I’m invisible as a queer person, I erase the traces of these experiences from my body and language. Because I have learned to forbid myself from including rape in my personal narrative, I’ve actually made myself vulnerable to abuse.
I was in a terribly exploitative and discriminatory work situation and didn’t acknowledge it. I was in a relationship where sex was always painful and I never once said anything to my friends or my boyfriend. No, rape and bisexuality are not the same thing, but for me, refusing to tell the truth about one has made it difficult for me to celebrate the other. Denial is a fortress surrounding the sacred truth of my sexual desire and my sexual history.
The irony is that I am great at naming and confronting injustice and abuse in every way when it has nothing to do with me. I have written literally dozens of formal political speeches about women who are not me and the feminist problems they face. In these texts, I am bold and I accuse perpetrators while vindicating victims. Couching stories of what’s happened to me in statistics, politics or even the lives of fictional friends is a conversational skill of mine. I’m good at it but it might be ruining my brain.
I have a mix CD that was made for me by my friend Jonathan about a decade ago. He’s an austere Albertan of Dutch ancestry and he’s gay. In the front cover of the CD he wrote: “To my queer but straight friend, Darrah. Love your gay but heteronormative pal, Jonathan.”
For years that clever little line made me proud because I felt like my strange contradictions were acceptable to my out gay friend. It made me feel like I was getting away with this closeted thing I do even though some of my desires bled out around the seams once in a while. These days, it’s making me anxious. I wonder if Jonathan, who is also a theatre maker, would be happy for me if I go to Vancouver in a few weeks and declare to a crowd: I am a queer playwright.
In this bonus episode, Laura Mullin and Chris Tolley of Expect Theatre interview the award-winning spoken word artist behind “Grade 8″, Dwayne Morgan. Dwayne speaks about becoming a poet, his struggle to overcome being an “extreme introvert”, and how the birth of his daughter inspired his play.
The conclusion of Grade 8. Puberty, training bras and sexting boys. What’s a single dad to do?
Grade 8 is a heartwarming story of a father’s love. Told with charm, wit, and vulnerability, Grade 8 is a roller coaster of emotions, that will leave you holding on tightly to those you love the most.
A Toronto Fringe Festival hit, Grade 8 looks at what it means to be a black father today, and the role men play in young girls lives as they grow up and become woman.
Told through spoken word, this one-man show is part beat poetry and part urban lyricism.
Grade 8: Written and performed by Up From The Roots founder, Dwayne Morgan.
Grade 8 is a heartwarming story of a father’s love. Told with charm, wit, and vulnerability, Grade 8 is a roller coaster of emotions, that will leave you holding on tightly to those you love the most.
A Toronto Fringe Festival hit, Grade 8 looks at what it means to be a black father today, and the role men play in young girls lives as they grow up and become woman.
Told through spoken word, this one-man show is part beat poetry and part urban lyricism.
Grade 8: written and performed by Up From The Roots founder, Dwayne Morgan.
Banff Centre, April, 2016 Photo credit: James Long
Niall McNeil and I have been co-writing, since 2009, when Lois Anderson, then of Leaky Heaven, proposed a commission that would respond to Niall’s long held desire to write an adaptation of Peter Pan. Lois’ idea was that a way to achieve that might be he and I writing together, because among many other things, Niall’s life experience includes Down syndrome, which limits his ability to write in the traditional sense. The result was the 2011 Leaky Heaven/Neworld co-production, Peter Panties, which was, for me, the single most challenging and gratifying creative collaboration I have ever experienced.
I am only one of many artists Niall has collaborated with over the course of his life. He was more or less raised on the Caravan Farm Theatre, and has lived, breathed and eaten theatre from pretty much the moment he could speak, a history that led to his long association and collaboration with the now defunct Leaky Heaven Circus.
Niall’s friends and collaborators include some of this country’s great avant-garde and/or populist theatre makers: Steven Hill, Lois Anderson, Paula Jardine, Peter Hinton, James Fagan Tait, Paul Braunstein, Ajineen Sagal, Kelly Barker, Nick Hutchison (etc. etc., the list goes on and on). You’d be hard pressed to name a person in Canada who is more a true person of theatre. It is in his bones, it is his DNA.
You’d also be hard pressed to find any other artist who, on the second day of a workshop of his new play at the Banff Centre, is being lied to by some of his best friends and collaborators, who are telling him that they are going back to their rooms by themselves to “chill out”. They are doing this – lying to their colleague, and pretending not to exclude him – for what feel like absolutely legitimate reasons. Talking about structure is often hard for Niall, especially when it’s director Jamie Long and I moving quickly about how maybe to re-order, or cut something.
Our experience has been that it’s best to jam about this aspect of our work on our own, and then bounce what we’re thinking off Niall later – trying to do it moment by moment in the same room is too stressful for all of us, because of our different cognitive perspectives. So when we found ourselves living together at the Colony, I became quite anxious about how to find time alone with Jamie, so that we could do some of this work, especially because our time-frame – as always in theatre – felt limited.
“I’m going to my room,” I said, as we walked across the pedestrian bridge from the dining room towards our rooms in Lloyd Hall. “Me, too,” said Jamie. “Are you going to be ok?” I asked Niall, knowing that I didn’t actually want to know the answer. “Yes,” Niall said, looking confused, and headed back to his room on his own.
Reading of King Arthur, Banff Centre, April, 2016 Veda Hille, Marcus Youssef, James Long, Niall McNeil, Kris Joseph, Pedro Chamale Photo credit: Brian Quirt
It was Jamie who acted on the shitty feeling we both had. He called Niall later, and Niall told him that he wasn’t happy and wanted to go home. Jamie and I then met with Niall’s friend and sometimes paid companion, Lucy Cairns.
“I understand,” she said. “You guys have work you have to get done. But I also think you have to remember that being at a place like Banff is also about the time you all get to hang out, and just be excited about being at a place like Banff. That’s really important, too.”
“Yes,” we said. “We agree.”
And we did. And over the next few nights we worked less and hung out more, and all started to have a really good time.
What’s interesting: the next day, one of us (Jamie, or Lucy, I can’t remember) had a conversation with Niall where he explained that sometimes it’s really important for the play that Jamie and I be able to talk a little about structure on our own, just like sometimes Veda goes away and composes music by herself. And so the next time we hit a place where we needed to deal with that, Niall was, I wouldn’t say happy, but more than willing to let us do a bit of work on our own.
I’ve been working with my friend and colleague Niall for 8 or 9 years, more or less. And somehow, because of me, or my conditioning, or the challenge of communicating across certain kinds of difference, it never occurred to me to first try explaining to my friend and colleague what I wanted, and why. My first instinct after almost a decade of work with him was to lie, and obfuscate, and hide. Because – I thought to myself – I need to do this work. Because – I thought to myself – I don’t want to hurt him. Because, I don’t know what else to do.
For me there’s something important in that – about inclusion, and exclusion, and what our work actually is. Recently, Niall’s mom Joan told me that Niall had coined a new word for inclusion. “I know exactly what it is,” he told her. “Confusion.” We laughed for a while after she told me that. And I told her that’s exactly why I love working with Niall so much.
With thanks to Lucy Cairns, who I consider a deeply gifted and loving friend and companion, to Niall, to the project, and to us.
Our project is called King Arthur and His Knights, or King Arthur’s Night, or Lay Down Your Hearts. We’ll see which one sticks. It’s co-written by myself and my longtime friend and colleague, Niall McNeil, and collaborator Lucy Cairns, and created in collaboration with director James Long and composer/musical director Veda Hille, and it’s been commissioned by the Luminato Festival in Toronto. We just concluded a week in workshop at the Banff Centre Playwrights Colony.
Artist Jan Derbyshire introduced me to the concept of inclusive design. Jan and I have been working together for almost four years, and have applied many of these principles to our own creative processes, developing a cultural practice between us that has proven to be productive, flexible and adaptive to our changing needs over the years.
Inclusive Design isn’t just about accommodating artists and audiences with disabilities. Rather, it is a design principle that places the human who will be using the object, space, process or practice that is being designed at the centre of the drive to innovate and create. At its heart, inclusive design is a profoundly human and humane philosophical approach and recognizes the uniqueness of the individual – some of whom are unique in similar ways, and others who are not.
Diversity conversations in theatre tend to cluster around addressing groups defined by identifiable traits like gender or gender preference; racial or cultural background; and indigeneity. Recently, the conversations have expanded to address engagement with artists and audiences with disabilities. Inclusive design widens the frame even more and, by doing so, levels the playing field. Each artist’s needs are considered with equal weight. You need a ramp to get your wheelchair into the room? Cool. I need to be done by 3:30pm so I can pick up my kid from daycare. These become the conditions of the work, and not only guide the design of the creative process but broaden our definition of ‘diversity’.
Who wouldn’t want to work within a process that is responsive to and supportive of the very human needs we all have outside the rehearsal room? But there are economic forces at work that support the status quo and compel theatre producers to centralize time and effort, and apply what is, essentially, an industrial approach to the processes of art-making.
For example, Canadian Actors’ Equity agreements mandate rehearsal conditions and offer limited flexibility to pro-rate hours over multiple weeks (although new agreements are in the works to address this issue). Rehearsal venues are established in spaces converted from other uses because they are affordable, but these renovated environments don’t often have adequate physical accessibility (ramps, washrooms, etc). Managers of purpose-built spaces rarely consider accessibility beyond ramps, like tactile maps and special lighting. When was the last time you went to a theatre that had room for more than two wheelchairs at the same time?
As creators, innovators and makers within arts and culture, we are all designers. We plan the processes and develop the practices by which we train for, create, produce, administrate, and disseminate our work. Diversity and inclusion are consistent and thorny considerations within the workforce that supports, fuels, and populates our stages. Applying principles of inclusive design is one way to open up existing systems and spaces, and to devise new ones.
In Between the World And Me Ta-Nehisi Coates relates how in 1957 the white residents of Levittown, Pennsylvania argued against desegregating their community because they were “moral, religious, and law-abiding citizens.” These were people who saw themselves as ‘good’, and used the qualities that defined ‘goodness’ to rationalize a stance that we see now as reprehensible. Because “it’s 2016”, looking back to 1957 we can clearly see the racism masked behind their stated virtues of morality, religion and the law. Will our economic reasoning against addressing accessibility and inclusion when designing theatre spaces and practices seem like an equally quaint and flimsy argument to our future selves and successors?
When Jan tells me about the first principle of inclusive design, diverse participation and perspectives, she says, “if the system works for you, you’re the last person who’s going to question the system. So it’s looking at all the hierarchies that we have in theatre right now cause we are complicit in a lot of segregation.”
Jan Derbyshire, “What are the conditions that we continually agree to that segregate who can make theatre, and who can’t? Who can see theatre, and who can’t?”
“The richness,” Jan says, “of going into what I like to call ‘eccentric communities’ has been that constant, really diverse way of looking at things and making things.”
I tell Jan that what excites me about the possibilities of widening the networks of creators is how the different ways of working lead to different kinds of work.
“That’s probably the most important part about all of this and why the focus isn’t just on disability. It’s asking ourselves how much of our practice, our process, our product is answering specific commercial needs.”
Inclusive design takes time, and attention – it is not the most efficient means of production.
“One size fits one,” says Jan, “It’s the idea that every time we meet we are actually two different people. Our experience changes in our lives, [and] that affects how we’re going to reach our goals and how we’re going to work.” She goes on to say, “it’s also the idea that if you design for the people the farthest out on the margins you actually develop systems that are of use for everybody.”
“What we’re working with in terms of cultural practice is really beginning to think differently about time, and how we can make that work inside the economic models that we have. Of course, it’s ‘easier for everyone’, that’s always the argument. But that thinking presupposes that you’re never going to have a change in your life, that you might not need some customization yourself, right?
“Another principle of inclusive design is the notion that disability is a mismatch. Disability is a trait, versus a condition. The medical model defines disability as something permanent and limiting. In contrast, inclusive design perceives disability as a mismatch between the needs of someone and the design features of a product, process or built environment. This is when we are absolutely complicit in this segregation.”
As practitioners, we are implicated in excluding artists with disabilities when we agree to locate our offices on the second floor of buildings that have no elevators; when our production timelines are condensed and inflexible; and when we continue to mistake busy-ness, long hours, and relentless multi-tasking as “working hard” rather than recognizing these as the unhealthy practices they are.
As we talk through the other five principles of inclusive design (see below for a summary of the all eight principles) I am, once-again, persuaded by Jan’s passion and thoughtfulness.
“I’ve met so many people that don’t get in and give up, and have voice and really interesting thoughts, but need development. But the training and the development is not happening. The highest value our schools have is endurance. If you can’t go to school for 16-hours a day and not work, you can’t do that.” Inclusive design is also about being a grown up: You must state, honestly and transparently, your needs and capacities. And theatre-making is uniquely suited to this process. Where else is such vulnerability prized? And where else is risk-taking equally valued? To design processes that elicit what Jan calls “the best of us”, we must make room for the physical, mental, and emotional needs. The vulnerability is met with generosity, the two hold each other accountable, and the work flies.
“Inclusive design,” Jan says, “is open source, sharing, generosity. Because we can’t compete in the same way that a capitalist economy does. Yes, we have to live inside it, absolutely, and there’s very necessary realities around that, I understand that. But I think we can do better, and I think everybody knows that.
“And it’s not like we’re going to be able to meet the needs of every maker or every viewer all the time. But you should think about Utopia and shoot for it knowing you’ll never get there.”
Eight Principles of Inclusive Design
Diverse Participation and Perspectives: inviting engagement from a broad range of people who have diverse needs, preferences, and interests.
One Size Fits One: developing solutions and systems in response to the specific needs of the participants.
Integrated Solutions: designing flexible processes that can incorporate and respond to changes along the way.
Interconnectedness: keeping the conversations going so that they can become part of the mainstream.
Disability is mismatch: disparity between the needs of the user or maker and the design features of the production, system or space.
Virtuous Cycles: the opposite of a vicious cycle, by considering these principles when designing systems and spaces, the ideas gather momentum and can be considered more easily by the mainstream users and decision-makers.
Autonomous Maker: educating and empowering Makers to design work conditions that address their needs.
Maker Continued Designs: including Makers in the ongoing decision-making that comes out of the current conversations.
“Diversity Is Being Invited to the Party; Inclusion Is Being Asked to Dance”
– Moving Diversity Forward: How to Go From Well-Meaning to Well-Doing byVerna Myers.
Volume 7 of #CdnCult opens by picking up a conversation we started in Volume 6 about race and representation onstage.
Any conversation about ‘diversity’ is incomplete without addressing artists and audiences with disabilities. Technologies like ASL interpretation, captioning and audio description are slowly creeping into mainstream use, making theatre-going more welcoming to audience members with disabilities. But some barriers for artists with disabilities remain unexamined.
Curating an edition on ‘inclusive design’ has forced us to acknowledge that Spiderwebshow.ca and #CdnCult are not successful examples of inclusive design. From our production timelines to online forms and website layout, we still have a lot of work to do. And it is underway.
In this edition, Camila Diaz-Varela interviews three artists about the impact of inclusive design: Wanda Fitzgerald, Adam Pottle, and Frank Hull. Marcus Youssef asks why he might lie to long-time collaborator Niall McNeil. And Adrienne Wong chats with Jan Derbyshire about some of the principles that inform inclusive design.
As with any confrontation of difference, the opportunity is to not only open up space and systems, but to change our own thinking. We’re at the party. Now it’s time to dance.
Thought #1 by Adam Pottle. Here in Canada, whenever we talk about diversity, the conversation surrounding diversity is often restricted to race. Now while race is obviously an important part of diversity, it is not the only aspect of diversity. We often have to make sure that we include Deafness and disability, homosexuality transsexuality and bisexuality as well. Diversity means everyone.
Thought number 2: For wanting to love fully and completely one must be able to empathize, to open oneself up to many different kinds of people. Otherwise, one risks that love becoming a kind of shelter or a shield for one’s prejudices, and it taints that love.
Thought Number 3. Deafness and disability are often thought of as novelties, as gimmicks and unfortunately are often treated as such in the theatre, film and on television. But Deafness and disability are multifarious subjects as complex as love, death, war, anger and any other subject that you can think of. Artist need to treat Deafness and disability that way. We need to realize the artistic possibilities.
Thought number 4
“ADAM!”
“Yessss?”
“We advertised you as a deaf writer, you prick! Why did you take the deaf off the sign!”
“Because, you twat, a writer is a writer is a writer”
“But we need the full marketing and shit!”
Stifle your labels you malodorous beast! When you label me you put me in a pen. My work is for everyone”
Thought number 5: Just because a piece of art is politically progressive doesn’t mean that it’s good. A politically charged play must balance aesthetics with politics. It must tell the story honestly, not didactically. If one wants to be merely political one can hand out pamphlets or write manifestos instead of plays
Thought number 6: It is imperative that deaf, hard of hearing and disabled actors be given the chance to represent themselves on stage on film and on television. I understand that is is an attractive artistic challenge for a hearing and able bodied actor to play such roles and that studios and producers want well-known actors to fill such roles. But, at the same time, if you are a director striving for authenticity, well how much more authentic can you get than having someone who is actually deaf, or hard of hearing or disabled?
Thought number 7. As I become more involved in the theatre I have noticed that there is little overlap between the literary community and the theatre community. I seldom see poets and novelists attend plays and I don’t often see playwrights at book launches or public readings. I find this situation strange. Have these artists become ensconced in echo chambers that reflect their own values back at them? Do they simply want more of what they are familiar with? Or do they want new work as long as it is within their chosen medium?
Thought number 8. We are only beginning to realize the potential of using sign language on stage. Its animated nature and robust expressiveness lends itself naturally to the theatre. IT is perhaps the best language for expressing profound emotions whether its anger, love, frustration, jealousy or outrage. We simply need to see more of it.
Thought number 9. Just because one is Deaf or disabled doesn’t mean that one can’t be sexy. Now when I say sexy I don’t mean freaky or kinky or exotic, I mean attractive. If you carry yourself with strength and confidence, you are sexy. And after the act of lovemaking, you can look into each other’s eyes and enjoy the connections you’ve made over the physical, intellectual, spiritual or emotional. Sex is almost a form of art in that it gives you a glimpse into another person’s world, and the Deaf and the disabled are part of that.
Thought number 10. The key source of difficulty for Deaf and disabled people is the way normalcy is conceived. Currently, normalcy is restrictive and encourages exclusion and discrimination. But if we can reconceive normalcy as open and fluid, rather than restrictive, then everyone becomes a part of normalcy, everyone is welcome. Now while such a re-conception may be difficult, it is not impossible. We can certainly do better than we are doing now.
Thought number 11. the world is a noisy place. Silence comes at a premium. Silence can often be quite discomforting for many people. The world is so noisy that people are often suspicious of silence. Silence is often understood to be the calm before the storm. But silence can be active it’s not necessarily synonymous with peace or menace or suspense. So much happens in a quiet room. The world moves but we don’t hear it. Sometimes the things we want to hear the most can’t be shaped into sound
Thought number 12. After watching Nyle DiMarco win dancing with the stars. One thought filled my head: If we use our imaginations we can communicate anything to anyone. Through the language of dance, DiMarco communicated to the world the beauty of Deaf experience. We live in a world where there are so many resources available to us. If we are not communicating we are being either ignorant or lazy
Final Thought. The theatre could be an enormously influential vehicle for positive progressive change. For me it all starts with good story telling. Begin with a good story and work your way outward. If you can smack people on the heart, if you can make their guts churn, if you can make them make them erupt with laughter, if you can make then collapse into tears, if you can open them up, and show them a new world, then you can provoke them into positive action.
Inclusive design is also about being a grown up: You must state, honestly and transparently, your needs and capacities. And theatre-making is uniquely suited to this process. Where else is such vulnerability prized? And where else is risk-taking equally valued? To design processes that elicit what Jan calls “the best of us”, we must make room for the physical, mental, and emotional needs. The vulnerability is met with generosity, the two hold each other accountable, and the work flies.