 By all the books and Jessica who is down there, so it should wave wave higher Jessica. Yay Okay, let's get to the books The first book we'll be talking about today is Q2Q a queer Canadian theater performance and Q2Q Queer Canadian performance texts both are edited by Peter Dickinson Chris Gachalian Kathleen Oliver and Delbeer Singh Unfortunately, none of the editors could be here today So we've asked Roberta Barker who is the general editor of the new Canadian or sorry new essays on Canadian theater series To come up and speak as well as art by Beyonce one of the contributors and they're gonna come up and introduce these books to you So Roberta is an associate professor of theater at Dalhousie University and the University of Kings College She's the author of early modern tragedy gender and performance 1984 to 2000 the destined livery her work on early modern and modern drama in performance has been published in early theater Modern drama Shakespeare quarterly and Shakespeare survey among other journals and essay collections Well, her articles on contemporary Atlantic Canadian theater have appeared in Canadian theater review and theater Atlantic Canada I think that sentence had the words Canada and theater in it in like more than anything I've ever read Okay, sorry Art is a Toronto based theater artist educator and researcher his research looks at the phenomenology of multi-lingual acting and spectating as well as the concept of multi-lingual Dramaturgy art co-edited theater and learning which focuses on contemporary applied theater practices in Canada and abroad and the first issue theater research in Canada fully dedicated to stage multi-lingual is Multilingualism and multilingual as a theater practitioner art has presented his work at various festivals including the Toronto Fringe Festival summerworks and we Blanche Since 1997 art has been developing theater projects integrating acting and second language teaching So, please welcome Roberta and art. Do you want to come up? Should we stand? together as one I I'm so very glad and grateful that art is here today because I'm feeling like a huge fraud to be presenting this beautiful volume edited with a tremendous amount of effort and love and dedication By the four wonderful editors Peter Dickinson see Gechallian Kathleen Oliver and Dalbeer sing. We're very sorry that none of them could be with us today I'm going to do my lame best to get you excited about this this volume Luckily, it's not a hard volume to get excited about as I'm sure Is is well known to many of you here the series new essays in Canadian theater was founded by Rick Knowles um to To help to bring forward new fields in Canadian theater studies And also to look at under explored or underrepresented topics, and I think that this volume Is doing that in a very very stellar way coming out of the Q2Q symposium held in Vancouver in July 2016 There's a number of people here who are at that symposium a number of people who are contributors to this volume It brings together the voices of many members of the lgbt2q plus community the artistic community the scholarly community We have 22 artists administrators and thinkers in this volume whose work is Constantly in the process of redefining what we mean by queer performance on Turtle Island today The Q2Q symposium brought together folks from across this landmass and across a huge spectrum of Identifications and ways of thinking about queer identity and queer performance And it's a volume that showcases the intersection of the question of queer theater and performance with other major questions that we're thinking about in theater and performance studies today It's intersections with questions of indigeneity and settler colonialism Race and ethnicity gender identity gender embodiment class Regionality and also humor and pain And I think those questions are really deep In the volume among the contributors that you'll have a chance to Read from if as I hope you will you buy this volume Are many people who are here today. Maybe you could like briefly wave as I mentioned your name if you feel so inspired T Berto Kim Bird Yuri Colin Chang Cameron Crookston Ryan Cunningham spy Denome Welsh Peter Dickinson see you got Charlie and we've got some of the editors clumped together there by last name sky Gilbert Durk gint moin and king Who you'll hear from in just a minute Steven Lowe who I saw just a couple minutes ago Sean Metzger John O'Hara Jean O'Hara Kathleen Oliver Evelyn Perry Cordula Quint Dalber sing Sara Garten Stanley who are going to have the opportunity to honor later in this in this conference Jay Whitehead Richie Wilcrox and Lanez thisman Newman who I think is also here I don't know if we've seen her So it's a really exciting group of contributors And to quote the words of Sara Garten Stanley the contributor one of the key contributors It reflects a moment when For she says what felt like the first time in Canadian history queer performing artists from across the land were gathering to attempt To take one another seriously And she says that is a tough job And it's not it's it's it's a very it's a funny volume It's also a volume that explores really difficult issues and whose contributors don't let anyone off lightly including themselves And certainly not this this mass land mass that we Sometimes call Canada I think that it's a must read volume about a body of work that's constantly transformative and constantly Transforming I hope you all have a chance to look at it many many thanks to the editors and to the contributors And it's now my great pleasure to hand it over to art to talk about the accompanying play anthology So about six years ago. I was at a party at massive college if you know massive college is the Last best year of the British Empire At the University of Toronto Maybe not the last one. I actually don't know But one of the biggest ones and There was this woman who came up to me and and she was very nice and and she said So where are you from and I said I'm from Toronto and and she said no Where are you really from? So I said I'm of Armenian origin. She said oh Armenian. I know another Armenian So she grabs me like this and drags me to another room to another Armenian Armenian And So I talked to that Armenian for 10 seconds and we couldn't find any anything interesting about each other So we kind of moved on to talk into other people And so then two years ago. I received a call from dull beer and He's like I have this queer Armenian play And I have this reminiscence of the scene at massive college. I'm like, okay. Here we go You're Armenian. You're queer. You can write about queer Armenian plays, right? So So I was kind of cautious when I said yes, I'll I'll I'll write an introduction to the play called dear armen Um, and then he sent me the play. Oh, actually I said send me the play first So he sent me the play And as I was reading the play I I was quite surprised to see The level of queering happening in the play on so many levels. It was um Queering the Armenian identity queering queering queering theater And I happened to know certain people in Yerevan Armenia where this play was also presented where local artists were invited to participate with their own art there is a Place in in the play where they can present their own work. So it kind of um We're not even talking about the fourth wall. It doesn't exist in this play so it's it was a wonderful read and very very enjoyable and the best part about it that I learned about the history of The hidden history or the hidden her story of Armenia because Armenia happens to be I don't know if you're following the news but Armenia just had a revolution about a month ago and In that country it's a new country. It's 25 years old, but it's also 3 000 years old and it's Allegedly the first Christian nation on the planet So being the first Christian nation on the planet. There's a lot of patriarchy and so reading about this woman who Changed her name to a male name in the early 20th century while living in the russian empire in the persian empire in the in the ottoman empire and looking at at that incredible queer Persona Was revelatory to me because those stories are not part of the Traditional Armenian and I would argue many other diasporic discourses. So it was a wonderful learning experience So I encourage you to buy this book not only because there are lots of wonderful plays and and relatively okay introductions like mine Um But but also because you will learn a lot of history that you don't know about By the book I feel like everyone should end their speech with buy the book. That's you know So I'd now like to introduce moin and king. She's going to come up and speak to you about queer play um originally from east farnham kebek moin and is a toronto-based performer Director curator writer and scholar as an actor. She has over 40 professional film theater and tv credits to her name She is the author of six plays the creator of performance installations and was the co-creator and director of trace She has been an artist in residence at studio 303 in montreal and nakai theater in white horse She was the co-founder and director of the hysteria festival Co-director of the rhubarb festival and has curated many a cabaret a phd candidate at york university Is that still correct? Awesome. I was like I was like you're so close to being finished, right? um Academic writing has been published in journals and books. She was the editor of canadian theater review issue 149 Queer performance women and trans artists and is currently working on n-13 a hybrid verbatim play about the toronto housing crisis moin and king So I just i'm wondering if this is like the most times You hear the word queer in the history of the canadian association of theater research. Is it? And that is thanks to playwrights canada press Like I really just have to say like annie and jessica and blake really like the work that you guys do Keeping us keeping it real for us. Thank you. And this super queer year, especially, right? um So this book is called queer play and uh, this is kind of a love project of mine That was sort of a companion to my dissertation, which is this close to being finished. I promise laura laura's finished And I was writing about contemporary queer performance in canada now And so and and really looking at what that means Not just to do the performance, but to live that performance to live that identity to be these queer Feminists artists living and the and that I find for myself and for many of my colleagues that the The boundary between life and art is very porous and then we cross over and so I wanted to Create a book that kind of addressed that and spoke to that and um, and so I created this book that I kind of modeled after a variety show or uh, or like a queer feminist performance festival because um, as you know From my bio. That's my background and so um There are 10 plays and each of them is followed by what I call a talk back in print So the idea is you you read the play and then rather than having an introduction If you you know your interest is peaked you just go on and you stay for the talk back right like you do in in live theater Um, and it's uh, I'm super proud of it as you can probably tell It's it I it's extremely diverse both culturally and formally So there's uh, you know, I think it's the first time anybody's ever tried to publish a a queer cabaret So there's actually a cabaret printed here in text spoken word traditional plays musical um and short short pieces longer pieces across a variety of You know put like identitarian and cultural interests Um, and then the final in the final part of the book is um a round table with comedians comedians talking about gay comedy. I called it and um One of the things about this is it's those that thing of like comedy is so important to the queer feminist performance community But it's so that kind of comedy that sort of stand up me You know not comedy within the place But it's so hard to publish because so much of it has to do with the delivery right has to do with the performance So rather than trying to publish those works I got those women in a room to discuss it And so there are 10 plays that each of them followed by a talk back And then this really I think really great round table at the end Um featuring some of our superstar Canadian queer women carol and taylor alvira kurt sabrina jalees and don whitwell and um, yeah, so So but in the plays we've got shahiz the latif natalie clode alex tickler nari to be young Uh, just stop can hope thompson flair to penya gene wong evelin parry and all those guys I just talked about So thank you very much for listening by the book Thank you All right Definitely by the book and I also now because I don't know how to use iPads. I've done something terrible to my notes. Okay Next up is len falconstein who's here to read to us from lack at the baska This play won second prize in the herman voden national playwriting competition right here at queen's university And it's how I came across the play is I came to the readings and saw the play read and was like, oh, oh, that's really good Um, so yeah, that's how we published it. Uh, so len is director of drama at the university of new brunswick in fredericton Where he teaches theater and playwriting and directs productions for theater unb He's also the artistic director of bard in the barracks fredericton's outdoor shakespeare company and notable ax a developmental theater company That stages an annual festival of new plays by new brunswick playwrights or just dramatists His plays which have been staged with his company theater free radical at summer works and fringe festivals and other locations across excuse me across canada includes soft-target utopia doppelganger and freefall. Please welcome len Thanks very much any and thanks to jesca blake everybody at the press. Uh, thanks to all of you for being here. Um Yeah, it's a great be back at back at queens. Uh, I think that The circumstances under which under which the play Is here today Were that after the after the week-long workshop for the vote in a prize And he said she was interested in publishing the play and I think I said something embarrassing like he just made my year or something like that, so so, um Lack Athabasca is a play that was inspired by the train derailment disaster that took place in lack megan tic kebec in 2013 that killed 47 people Um in the play the events of lack megan tic have been reimagined and relocated to lack matta wasca a fictional town in northern new brunswick Uh, which is incidentally not too far from where another oil train headed to the same refinery to refinery new brunswick derailed and exploded in 2014 But there were no victims in that case, which is why you probably never heard about it At the time lack megan tic happened. I had been thinking of writing another play about the Athabasca river in alberta Which has its origins at the Athabasca glacier in the rockies and runs north to fort McMurray before emptying into lake Athabasca Uh, the Athabasca was once traveled heavily by fur traders and is now used in another form of resource extraction As the water from the river is used extensively by the oil sands industry Has become polluted down river from the city as a result um as I thought about Which of these two plays to write occurred to me that uh, although the The oil on the train that devastated lack megan tic was not from canada or the oil sands It could have been and uh without realization my two plays became one play So partly in new brunswick and partly in alberta in which events story lines and characters intersect and echo And which I see is a work that is about canada as a nation that has been built from its settlement beginnings on the extraction and exploitation of natural resources And about the price we have paid both as a nation and in terms of individual lives as a consequence So i'm going to read an excerpt from it in the course of the play we meet a number of the residents of lack matawasca Who tell their stories about the disaster? In this scene we meet you get an older akkadian woman Advanced disclosure. I'm not actually an older akkadian woman So bear with me She's the mayor of the town and she introduces us in this section to henry the engineer who was driving the train That was involved in the disaster Um as a staging note of relevance to the scene over the course of the play A model train town and train track are gradually built piece by piece on the stage Even today I still don't know why louise coming to me with that suggestion I don't know why he's thinking I could do something like that But there he was standing in the lobby of my hotel saying you get You're gonna let me sign your paper for you to run to be mayor of lack matawasca Me I don't got another four years in me of an affair I guess it's from all the times we're having coffee on wednesday morning in cafe blue And i'm always talking about how we need to do something to make this town a better place for the young ones To keep them here keep them from going out west So I said to louis hey, voila We're at the my fair shea Because what do I know about being mayor? But then my oldest daughter francine she said to me mama You know who's going to run to be mayor cecile du baix Because you know she would love that for everyone to call her madame la meres Cecile du baix So that made me think Maybe I don't know anything about being mayor, but I am good at running my hotel And I know everything there is to know about this town because my family been here for five generations And I know for sure i'm gonna make a better mayor than cecile fucking du baix So I ran And I won That was eight years ago Young people is still leaving, but we make some progress Or at least we made some progress Till it happened Henry enters and starts assembling a model train track across a map of canada that's been projected onto the floor of the stage Thing is railroad built this town, huh? Steam locomotive need water so for all them train coming here from across the country lack is perfect Perfect place to stop refill the tank So train station come first Then the town get built around that She sets down a hotel building that she has been carrying Mainline from moriaire to port in st. Jean That's where that oil was going, huh To the big refinery in st. Jean nouveau bronze week Carly's Sphonia We're sending our kids out to alberta to dig that shit out of the ground Just so they can put it on the train and send it all the way back to nouveau bronze week Only time that money train stopped in like madowasca Not exactly how we wanted to Henry has now completed his train track with the track running across a projected map from the area of northern Alberta to new brunswick the track will remain on stage for the remainder of the play light rises on Henry Me and the staff at the hotel We get to know him pretty good Because he's always making his regular run three times a week Always stop here overnight park the train up on top of the hill outside town call a taxi come to the hotel We keep a regular room for him nice guy Always smiling always happy At first there were three of them then before long just two then just him Because first the company is taken away How you call it the caboose then the brake man Then it's just him the engineer Driving that big train all by himself Even though those trains are getting longer and longer with more and more oil cutbacks, huh efficiencies Henry as a child is playing with some model train cars on the track in the area of manitoba on the map But nice guy, yeah We got to know him pretty good He's always telling us stories about when he was a kid growing up in southern manitoba I guess around there. It's completely flat though Sound of a train has heard and builds gradually in volume Me I can't imagine that somewhere all flat no trees So you can see the trains coming and going forever That's what he said Said he used to watch them all day when he was a kid Never ever wanted to be nothing but a train man. I guess he got his last wish, huh So we thought we'd change the format up a little bit this year And we were going to ask if you guys had any questions about the play So from that little little piece Comments questions. I yeah, don't forget to buy the book Maybe it would be better if you all bought the book first and then came back for questions So I don't know if yeah, if anybody has any thoughts comments questions you want to share or I could just let you go buy the book Okay, uh, thank you Len. That was wonderful. That was lovely. Uh, okay. So, uh, finally this afternoon We're going to hear from the independent aunties who will be talking about Gertrude and Alice The aunties are Anna Chatterton Evelyn Perry and Karen Randoja Anna is a librettist playwright and performer a finalist for the 2017 governor general's literary award for drama for her play within the glass Anna was named a top 10 toronto theater artist of 2016 by now magazine And has been the recipient of the city of hamilton arts award for theater Anna has been playwright in residence at nightwood theater the national theater school of canada terragon theater and tapestry Opera she lives in hamilton Evelyn is the artistic director of buddies and bad times theater in toronto her award-winning innovative and interdisciplinary Work inspired by intersections of social justice history and autobiography as a theater performer writer director and divisor Evelyn is also a singer songwriter She's the winner of the k.m. Hunter artist award for theater the ken mcdougal award for directing and the colleen peterson songwriting award And karen is a multi Or excuse me multi award-winning theater artist who has directed and dramaturg devised performance for almost 30 years She graduated from the national theater school of canada acting and went on to be a founding member of both primus theater and the independent Aunties she has also been the director or dramaturg of such plays as this is the point huff by cliff cardinal Brotherhood the hip opera my nightmares wear white and numerous other performances Her work has been seen in australia, danmark, india, italy, france, england, japan and mozan beak as a teacher director She has been a faculty member at humber college and the center for indigenous theater and a guest instructor at the national theater school of canada So please welcome the independent aunties Hello I'm karen randoja. This is anna chatterton. I'm evelyn parry. We have worked together for 15 years as the independent aunties not aunties A-u-n-t-i-a-s Our latest play took about five years to work and make come to fruition And that is Gertrude and alice based on Gertrude stein and alice b toklis Uh, actually took four years because we had one year of maternity leave while anna had a child We worked at buddies through the residency program, which we are forever grateful to Our first attempts we did so much research that we fell completely under the spell of Gertrude stein and alice b toklis So there was so much to tell about them that our first iterations were much more like a biography And then we realized it wasn't you could you could read that if you wanted to read a biography of and there are many of them So we decided to we wanted to really explore how they how they Influenced affected us and how we could meet them together On stage They if you don't know Gertrude stein and alice b toklis were women Artists they were a lesbian couple. They were lovers Jews expats exiles and finally when Gertrude was Gertrude was at the ripe age of 59 They became celebrities and rich Um, our play is also really concerned with uh the question of what is a genius since Gertrude stein Many many times self-proclaimed herself as a genius um and also Why? Her name is no longer as well known as many other of her contemporaries who are also considered geniuses and who are studied and are in our lexicon Of artists nowadays her less. So so we question that also Uh, we faced a really big existing challenge because we were both excited inspired and really daunted by her literary style if you know her she's a product of modernism She's very interested in repetition and the value of words and each word being as important as another and screw punctuation And uh, so it was really fun and challenging to try and write as her but also as ourselves So again an intersection of us meeting together Uh, it's been uh, the the play was recognized with various awards and nominations and it will be remounted this fall with a completely new design In uh 2018 at buddies, um, and that will be officially announced next week And you'll hear This is the beautiful book that sorry. It's kind of the press has made And uh, you'll hear a reference in the play. They'll talk about um, there are so many facts We can't tell you all of them. So look in the back Each audience member when they come to the play gets this kayak It's like a school book lessons of gertrude stein and it tells their whole lives with pictures So we often throughout the play reference. Well, just look in your notes Yes So here we're just going to we just made a small excerpt putting together a couple of different scenes So the characters are gertrude stein She has a mid-atlantic accent a large girth and takes up plenty of space while radiating intensity and incredible charm Alice B. Toklis change smokes has a lisp and a visible mustache A reserved physicality and severe yet energetic manner The setting is a theater the continuous present The characters are aware of the audience at all times to begin with Thank you very much for everything And of course everyone is very welcome. I declare I do declare it has always been a pleasure It is a pleasure seeing you Seeing me seeing you Way, where are you? Why are you and when are you? It has always been a puzzle Because right in front of us is the whole story I am a woman and my name is gertrude gertrude is my name And why am I a woman and why is my name gertrude? And when am I a woman and when is my name gertrude? Where am I a woman and where is my name gertrude and which woman am I am I the woman gertrude which woman named gertrude All right, you know who I am Think of the bible and Homer think of shakespeare and think of me This is gertrude stein the most important literary mind of the 20th century And this Is alice b toklass She is my secretary And the one who makes life comfortable for me, but to return Do the occasion of being here with you tonight and what a pleasure it is I'm curious It is such a pleasure to have you here and I'm curious to know I'm quite curious to know How many of you here Have read all of my books All of my printed and published words. I'm sure a great many of you have read me But it would be such a pleasure to know just how many of you just how many of you have read All of me A show of hands Is there a hand is there one? Well, anyway, uh, anyway, well, uh, I did indeed write a great many great books And uh, so I will lower the bar The bar that is all of me Well, anyway, well, I uh, I want to know who here has read three of my books Two Well, anyway, anyway, uh, well, anyway, this is the eventuality we had come to expect And although it is not of course the way we would like things to be We have of course come prepared As you may have discovered there are extensive notes authored by myself and the inimitable miss topless Which will give you the autobiographical and historical context. You may be lacking since you are clearly more or less And by more or less, I obviously mean less familiar With my work then would have been desired And yet And yet you are here And that is very wonderful It takes a lot of time to be a genius You have to sit around so much doing nothing Really Doing nothing Good. I'm doing nothing Do you cook No leg of venison can compare with a leg of mutton prepared a week in advance You must cover it with our wine herb and virgin olive oil marinade. You see But the main point of the preparation is to arm yourself with a surgical syringe of a size to hold half a point. You see You must filled with cognac and fresh orange juice You must inject the mutton in three different spots three times a day for the week Do you embroider? How about a needle point? How extraordinary what do you do with your hands then? I made sure to keep my hands busy every moment in order to provide an environment in which a genius could flourish At our salon's I sat with so many wives of geniuses I sat with wives who were not wives of geniuses who were geniuses I've sat with weird wives of geniuses who were not real geniuses I have such a with wives of geniuses of near geniuses of would be geniuses In short, I have sat very often and very long with many wives and wives of many geniuses I will always remember The day I arrived in Paris in 1907 because It was the day I met Gertrude Stein It was to be a holiday away from the terrible earthquake in san francisco. You see but I never returned On a very first night in Paris my traveling companion Harriet Levi had been an intimate friend of Gertrude's sister-in-law Sarah Stein and Harriet said we should go see the Steins at the saturday night salon And we arrived And Gertrude was there She was a golden brown presence burned by the Tuscan sun And with a golden glint in her warm brown hair She was wearing a warm brown corduroy suit Clashes Her eyelids droop The corners of her red mouth and the lobes of her ears droop Weighted down with long oriental earrings It was like anyone else's or unlike anyone else's voice Deep full velvety like a great control tools like two voices She's a gypsy her blues and browns and oyster whites Her heavy black hebraic hair Her barbaric chains and jewels her melancholy nose I marvel at her beauty I marvel at her perfection I marvel at her charms. I marvel at her delicacy Gertrude Stein Alice Vitovich I asked her if she wanted to go for a walk the next day at the Palais Royal Gardens No, baby. It was the Luxembourg Gardens. Oh, yes, that's right boss the Luxembourg Gardens It was the most important walk of my life I must say I only three times in my life have I met a genius and a bell within me rang And I was not mistaken In no way Was I mistaken? That was the beginning of 39 years together 39 years and seven months. Yes, that's right birdie 39 and seven With never a day apart or even more than a few hours. Yes, lover. You are correct Behind the book and I think we have time for Questions as well. I a note that I wanted to make Earlier is is that because both Stein and toklets are in the public domain We were able to play fast and free with their original text So the book is about 50 we're not quite sure of the percentage maybe 40 percent original writing from a wide variety of Source material from primarily Gertrude, but also Alice who was a writer herself as well. And so the book the play is a real Meeting ground of their text with ours and are sort of assuming their voices as writers And you can see in the book everything that is Italicized is their original work. So you get a sense of how the two meet each other in print There's a question in the back Well, I mean for certainly her work which has been sort of classified as difficult Is it is a challenge her work is a real challenge so perhaps Not as accessible as some of her contemporaries like Hemingway being a Somebody that she mentored and is really associated with who obviously has a kind of best-selling fame that Gertrude never achieved Her most famous book the autobiography of Alice B. Toklas Written in the assumed voice of Alice in a metaphysical Mindfuck Kind of a thing was it was a bestseller And it is actually I recommend to people as a way in if you haven't read Stein before like super accessible in its style I mean we're forced to conclude over and over again that it's inside of the sort of Erasure of female voices and especially non conforming female voices Probably I don't need to say more in a way like that that that Seems evident inside of their lives and the sort of stature that they had as Celebrities they were very very well known, but it's like what we've remembered about Stein is how famous she was rather than the work that she did And that was one of the main reasons We wanted to write the play was that as we were Researching and starting to begin the play, you know people will say what are you up to and so we'd say we're writing play About Gertrude Stein Alice B. Toklas and the younger generation younger than us Nobody had heard of her a lot of you know older generation our generation kind of heard of her most people hadn't read her Maybe they had read one thing didn't really understand it So it just became this mission of ours for people to Know who she was and love her the way we began to love her work her and Alice and to like us Assert her influence because I think that's a big piece like that She was such an somebody who mentored people not only and she's also well known and possibly the the way many people know her Is as an art collector which she was and and also propped up the emerging careers of people like Picasso as one of her more famous Artists in her collection But that influence that she exerted through the Saturday night salons the gatherings of artists at their house And the kind of literary experiment that she was up to you in terms of language Like had a very profound Profound influence and and that was part of the connection for us through time was the sense of like excitement about her project and her Breaking down of literary tradition and I think we all connected more as theater artists who have spent our careers breaking with theatrical Convention and looking you know being excited by these ways Acknowledging foremothers and people who have gone before us Getting deep inside of their like her mind and her practice and what motivated her I also think that when you read Some of the less hard to read texts um You kind of fall in love with her voice because she really understood what it was to live in the present Which i'm sort of slightly obsessed with and how to live a good life Which is like a meal a conversation a cigar Look at a painting Sing a song together go to bed And uh, so she's really an inspiring life guru in some ways If you really begin to read through her her Ideas about life. Um, so I think that's really that really inspired me personally She also only wrote for half hour a day and then Alice B. Toklas would type all her work And they also lived off the trust fund they did this is a thing which was an important question for us Important realization, you know partway through the the beginning of the research was that thing of like how did they live? This magical charmed life like what was the secret? And then of course that realization of the the luxury that they had of not being upper class But of being very well supported by their families to live as artists at that time in paris morning. You had a question um Design of all aspects. I think I think we've always wanted the design to reflect more Artfulness to match Gertrude's artfulness and also to make it a little more less traditional Because she was so not traditional and we ended up making a design that was pretty traditional on some levels So now we have hired an artist who's sherry hay who is mostly an An artist who lives in new york city And she's designing a whole landscape and structure. It's almost like being in a playground And the look of it is based on the constellations Constellation paintings that Picasso made early on so there are all these strange Long tubes and little balls and that will be in our play And activated by sand So each structure will move throughout the play because time is a really interesting Concept to Gertrude and the way she speaks about it So we wanted time something to happen with time And so you experience it viscerally so the set will move it will be much more abstract And yet much more in the world of Gertrude's time honestly There was also modernism There was an impulse like to it with the chance to remount to work It it felt like an opportunity to continue to explore and very much in the spirit of Gertrude's Explorations in literature It feels very rare inside of our Contemporary canadian theater practice to get a second chance to approach a work and to do it as the original creation team It seemed like an opportunity That was very exciting to get to Re conceive What was essentially a first draft the first production, you know was a first It was the first draft of the play or I mean we'd gone through many many drafts But the production draft was arrived at the same time as the design under that three week rehearsal Kind of structure that we so often work in and so this was a chance to To go back with the script that was finished And and reimagine where and how we might set the play Yeah, it's also going to be an all-female team now I mean we had lovely men that we were working with but we're excited with this idea that We're actually doing a full female team all the designers all the creators stage manager everything And one of the iterations for a long time We had a third character called the maid and she uh at one point it became a musical And I was writing the music and the maid was singing about Gertrude and Alice and she was sort of an outside eye About their lives. So now we're going to take take some of that music And I'm going to try to compose something very like a soundscape through underneath the play. So it'll be quite different Yeah, there was another question here Yes, well that was I would say actually her plays were less of a source for us in terms of the work like the their biographies Certainly their relationship was the starting point of our interest in them as uh as creators and but but Wonderful, you would bring up that point because it was the first sort of point of engagement with sherry the new director was the idea of landscape Yeah Play as landscape That didn't really answer your question, but And circles she's very into circles. So we're going to be into circles, too And this the idea of like the continuous present is the setting that we have chosen for the play and the idea inside of uh the new design is one that Where it shifts but doesn't actually change in a way or like Yeah, there's there's a rapid the potential for repetition inside of the elements of set that we're going to play with this time And we're also like we played we we relied heavily on video inside of the production last time and For me, I I was really interested in the idea of what what it would happen if we stripped away video Which I think is you know can be such a Wonderful tool inside of theater, but it's so rarely wonderful in my opinion like so There are rare. I I see a practitioner sitting in the front row That kates who's a total exception to that rule like when design when when um when video artists get to be really involved In the making of and when there is time and resource to make that Uh a theatrical element not not a wallpaper element and it felt like We were we were playing with video in a in A traditional in a very traditional way and and again like it's been over and over with this play that we we come to some conclusion some draft a showing and have to realize like To honor our subject. We can't approach this in a linear or traditional Form and we have to break again with that form to honor the spirit of what she's up to I think we're at the end of time. I have to go teach a libretto workshop Thank you playwrights canada press We are done for the day. Uh or well for this for this session I know you all have other things to do at 2 30 But we'll be here until five o'clock and did I mention the discount? Which everything is 30 off and if you buy three or more it's 50 off um do come by the book booth We have many copies of all sorts of wonderful things and we'll be here through the end of friday Thank you so much for coming out and enjoy the rest of the conference Just because there's a microphone and I can I want to say thank you so much to annie and playwrights canada press for sponsoring the very delicious lunch And for this wonderful reading Next sessions are at 2 30