Stratford in September

The first play I ever saw – on a school trip to the Stratford Festival when I was a scrawny kid of about thirteen – was Henry V, with Richard Monette and Diana Leblanc. (Long before that, I'd been writing little plays and somehow persuading my classmates to help me present them, in our two-room country school in Plainville, ON. We had music I'd written for my friend Shelley to bang out on the old piano; a stage fashioned from a cardboard box; and paper puppets I'd hand-drawn, coloured, and stuck onto popsicle sticks. In my experience, theatre is what you make because you have to.) I adored the rigour and the glamour and also the sense of artistic community that I saw in classical rep, and as a university student I went to London for a time and took a lowly ushering job at the RSC, just to observe the life of another great company, and learn. 

In those early years, as a young actor with a blindingly Eurocentric education who fancied that she understood Shakespeare, of course I felt that one of the classical festivals – Shaw or Stratford – was my destiny. Full of dreams and hope and hubris, I saw myself as Margaret and Juliet, as Isabella defying Angelo on the thrust stage... look out, Martha Henry, here I come! As it turned out, in the course of a career focused squarely on new and independent and inclusive theatre that I wouldn't have traded for the world, my Stratford dream melted into compost a long time ago... until Bob White wrote to invite Jovanni and me to a writing residency at the Festival this September, to work on our play Salesman in China.

Dreams have two things in common with children: they don't often turn out the way you expect them to; and after years spent trying to mould and shape and nurture them, you sometimes have to be ready to meet them on their own terms. At my stage of the game, I'm most excited about getting a chance to work on Salesman in China with Jovanni, because time away from our other commitments is in itself a great gift; because it'll be wonderful to draw on Bob White's perspective...  and because I've learned in the end to focus on the work, rather than the idea of the work. But I also have to admit: somewhere inside this solidly middle-aged body of mine, a skinny little dreamer girl is jumping around, squealing.

Congratulations, Olivier Sylvestre!!!

Hurrah for The Paradise Arms, which just won the annual national playwriting competition held by safeword theatre! Thanks again to Eric Benson and his cast, who read this script at the Tarragon Theatre in Toronto on June 1 as part of the public showcase for the four finalists... clearly you hit it out of the park! Thank you, Brandon Crone and SafeWords Theatre. Thanks to the Glassco Residency and the Cole Foundation for supporting our translation, and to Bobby Theodore for dramaturging it. Thanks to Richard Wolfe and Pi Theatre for commissioning and holding the first reading. Et merci, Olivier, mon auteur, mon ami, de ta collaboration précieuse. Now, who wants to snap up this beautiful piece for its English-language premiere?!

The Paradise Arms at Safewords

As of this moment, I have no idea who won this weekend's Safewords competition for which The Paradise Arms was a finalist: the winner will be announced tomorrow. But come what may, I wanted to express my gratitude to the organizers and jury...  and especially to the insanely busy Eric Benson and all of these brave performers for pouring themselves into Olivier Sylvestre's strange and beautiful world of dogs and drugs and doppelgangers, of crisis and transformation. Thank you, all of you. I wish I could meet you, my collaborators... but if you ever make it to Vancouver, there's a convertible day-bed, a beat-up blue bike, and a Xinjiang halal meal with your name on them.

Safewords and Coups de Théâtre

Congratulations to Rébecca Déraspe and Théâtre le Clou on Je suis William being chosen as the  "Coup de coeur [favourite]" by the youth jury of the TYA festival Les Coups de Théâtre! I look forward to working with you on the English version, I Am WIlliam, in the fall of this year. And thanks times a million to Emma Tibaldo and Playwrights Workshop Montreal for holding an extremely helpful workshop of the play while I was in Montreal in May. The cast was superb, and we learned so much about the rhythms and tone of the piece in English. Thank you, Kym Dominique-Ferguson, Patrick Keeler, and Sarah Segal-Lazar for your commitment and generosity. You had to cold-read everything from rap to Britpop to iambic pentameter, and you did it with heart and panache.

Also, good luck to director Eric Benson and his cast, who will be presenting a reading of The Paradise Arms [my translation of Olivier Sylvestre's La beauté du monde] this Friday June 1 at the Tarragon Theatre. Olivier is in France and I am here in Vancouver, but we are both honoured and excited to be among 4 finalists in the nation-wide "Safe Words" competition held by Safewords Theatre.  Merde, and go, team!

The Humanity Bureau is out!

To celebrate the release of The Humanity Bureau in US theatres and on iTunes, my clever brother-in-law Peter Liepa made me this lovely GIF, in which I oppose online piracy while looking like a pirate. Thanks, Peter!

The Vic in Kingston: "Jump on in and live it..."

About twenty years ago, I'd had enough. 

Enough of being an out-of-work actress sitting around with other out-of-work actresses, kvetching about how, once we visibly hit 25, no one seemed to think we were important to the stories they wanted to tell.

Enough of seeing plays about Toronto, one of the most diverse and progressive cities in the world, foregrounding only actors who were straight and white and mostly male.

Enough of murdered and assaulted women, and of events like the Bernardo trial where every ugly stupid myth about women, sexuality, and power seemed to be at the service of a couple of predators (one male, one female).

Enough of young women's sexual power over men being the only kind that they were ever supposed to explore, admire, or even depict. 

So I wrote a play where eight very different women played out many different aspects of power, in their relationships with each other and with (offstage, for a change) men. I wanted to write women I knew, and women I hadn't seen before. I wanted to let us be fully human... which includes being mad, bad, and dangerous to know. I wanted to acknowledge that sometimes we are powerless, but that victimhood is circumstantial, not essential. I wanted this story to be about women and also about/for everybody... the way men's stories were supposed to be about men but also for me.

Writing made me feel small, but at long last not powerless. The play I wrote was very far from perfect, but it was – in some ways – enough.

That's why I am always particularly moved when this piece is taken up by young women creators. From Sarah Szloboda of Vancouver's Terminal Theatre to Annie Valentina of Halifax's Walking Tall Theatre Collective, they have seen past its first-play flaws to its authentic heart: they have approached its thematic and narrative ambition as something to be celebrated, and found that this multi-layered story touched something of continuing relevance to their lives.

Tonight, Amanda Lin of Kingston's 5th Company Lane opens her production. I've had a chance to briefly meet this passionate young woman, and I can see how much love, hope, and creativity is being poured into this project by the whole artistic team. Amanda, to you and your company – as to everyone who breathes further life into my life's work in the theatre – I send all my best wishes, all my strength, and all my gratitude.

Directing: The Art of Stepping Up

I haven't directed since the nineties.

Buddies in Bad Times' Rhubarb! Festival is a legendary kick-starter of artists, shows, and collaborations. Everyone gets a half-hour slot, repeated over several nights, to make a brand-new performance happen. No critics, no boundaries, and an audience up for anything. Performing there is always a joy.

When I expressed interest in directing, Buddies paired me with a novice playwright who was really a visual artist. She came to the first rehearsal and was so terrified by everything about the theatre that she went completely AWOL for the rest of the process. She was from another province, so no one knew where to reach her about her script, which – though promising – desperately needed rewrites and clarifications, even for a Rhubarb! play. Yet I had to hide all of my own panic from the cast (who were brave and good through all of it). On opening day I felt too scared to get out of bed... until my wise partner Jovanni gently reminded me: "Your actors need you to go in there and reassure them that everything is going to be okay. This is just not a good day to fall apart." I learned something about the job of a director that day, and have confirmed it many times since: that it's not so much about being fearless, and more about putting your fears in a safety deposit box while you go take care of your company's. Making decisions, serving your playwright/the writing, communicating with your design and production teams, giving everyone a strong sense of clear and shared purpose, encouraging and heeding your actors, shielding them as much as possible during the period when they are most vulnerable. Until they don't need you to do that anymore. Which is, traditionally, opening night.

SInce then, I have never sought (or been offered) a chance to put those lessons into practice. But when Toronto's own Emma Mackenzie Hillier personally asked me some months ago to direct a little workshop of a play she was developing, I couldn't say no. Firstly because I adore Emma, and if she's behind a piece, I trust that. Secondly because it was just a reading, so how badly could I muck it up? Lastly and most of all, because Ruby Slippers Theatre's Advance Series – curated by Vancouver powerhouse Diane Brown – is all about women creators stepping up. Changing the dismal statistics about women in leadership roles in theatre, changing the equation... just like the women in Go, No Go, Natalie Frijia's exciting story about the Mercury 13, who fought for a place in the early days of space exploration.  When someone you respect gives you an opportunity to lead, when someone has faith in you, you really have two options: run away, or deliver. I've tried running away for long enough that I'm ready to try the other thing. After all, improving the status of women in the arts is going to take a lot of risk, a lot of failure, a lot of stepping up.  So I assembled an extraordinary cast of women and gender non-conforming artists, and did my level best. In the course of directing that reading, I realized that I've picked up a thing or two over the years about how to put a play together. Maybe it's time to own that, and pass it on. Furthermore, when I look around at what's going on for women in the world, this much seems clear: for those of us who have some choice in the matter, today is still not a good day to fall apart.

I don't even have a snazzy photo, because I was one hundred percent focused on what was happening in the room. Instead, I'll just salute the heroic and generous collaboration of Natalie and the cast, my Mercury 13 (one of whom, in the time-honoured tradition of working women everywhere, even had to confront a last-minute childcare crisis... so her amazing little boy and his toys hung out quietly behind an onstage curtain during the reading!) Thank you, Emma, Natalie, and Diane, for the adventure.

A workshop and reading of Natalie Frijia's GO, NO GO took place on Sept. 10 and 11 as part of Ruby Slippers Theatre's Advance Series of new plays by women, hosted by the Vancouver Fringe Festival. The cast included Meghan Gardiner, Ming Hudson, Pippa Mackie, Katie Sly, and Agnes Tong.

July-August: Mending the Nets

For those of us not involved in the Fringe, Bard on the Beach, Caravan, or (with rare exceptions) the film industry, summer tends to be pretty quiet in Vancouver. It's like winter in the old days, when farmers fixed their horses' harnesses and fishers mended their nets.

I mainly worked away on long-term projects, including my translation of Rébecca Déraspe's Gametes for Ruby Slippers Theatre.

I was also on the jury for Branscombe House, an underappreciated Richmond residency, for artists from any country and any discipline, that allows them to live rent-free in a historic house in the Greater Vancouver Area for eleven months (these days, that has to be worth at least $25 grand). There were some strong proposals from around the world – and at least one that it cracked my heart to turn down – but I was pleased to see it go to a theatre artist for the first time... especially a local one who was about to be another victim of renoviction and thought she might have to leave BC altogether. (Note to Vancouver: if you keep driving your most creative people further and further away, I suspect it will not end well for you.) And I am pleased to see the seriously underrated City of Richmond again take the lead in finding innovative ways to make things better for artists. For example. if you missed this post about new, unbelievably cheap artist live/work housing, please at least get on the waiting list... after you've blinked away the tears, of course...

Tadoussac, and the Beauty of Hard Conversations

The Glassco Translation Residency, popularly known as "Tadoussac", is an engine of cultural exchange like no other. I've had the great good fortune to be in it (and write about it) three times. This year I want to zero in on a single remarkable discussion.

It was maybe two-thirds of the way through our ten-day retreat at the Glassco family's beautiful summer home in Tadoussac, Quebec. Playwright-translator teams were gathered round the cosy fireplace for our 5-à-7... the nightly pre-dinner confab where we discussed our specific projects, as well as the larger questions of cross-cultural work, over a bottle or two of good French wine (which is cheaper and more available in Quebec than anywhere else in Canada). With my beloved collaborator, the gifted Rébecca Déraspe, I was about to launch into a little presentation of our translation-in-progress of her vivacious and audacious feminist comedy, Gametes. I took a deep breath.

At that very moment, one of our fellow residents spoke up (in the language we had all been using pretty much non-stop for the entire residency thus far... French). "You know, it's really admirable that all of the anglophones in this group are speaking French all the time, but when it comes to talking about our artistic work, surely we should be able to express ourselves in the language in which we're most comfortable." (I'm translating, and almost certainly paraphrasing: the near-flawless voice-recorder once housed in my brain has been, I fear, the second casualty of early menopause.)

My reaction to this very reasonable and kindly-meant comment? A sort of deer-in-the-headlights freeze, mixed with an oddly familiar red rush of emotion. Suddenly, after some years of being considered reasonably proficient in my adopted language, I once again felt like the unacceptable Other. When you, as a non-native speaker, are invited to talk in "your own" language – or when the person with whom you're speaking makes the decision for you, without asking, by simply switching into your native tongue – you experience it as something worse than a mere inability to "pass" (a politically dubious goal I gave up on years ago). While I'm sure this is seldom the speaker's intention, it almost invariably feels like a verdict that you're not good enough. Too unpleasant to listen to, too incompetent to wait for. Obviously struggling to communicate. A failure. In other words, I was feeling exactly the thing that prevents most English-Canadians from ever, ever speaking the French they picked up in school. It's called shame.

Just for context: my French is the product of a unilingual small-town kid's immersion in a French-speaking Toronto high school with a very international teaching staff, curriculum, and student body. Add to this a lifetime of slowly, painfully acquiring something my education never gave me: a working knowledge of Canadian French. I'm not particularly proud of my French, but I'm extremely grateful for it. There's a difference.

Back to our evening circle. I was about to stammer out some reasons why I wanted to discuss my work in French – while trying not to sound defensive or hurt – when something wonderful happened. Everyone else spoke up instead. In French.

One colleague said simply: "You know what? I'm an anglo. I live in Toronto now. I have a strong accent, and I used to be very self-conscious about that... but I'm also a Montrealer, and a Quebecker, born and raised. And I'm bilingual. And this is my language, too. And I'm going to speak it."

One of the francophones, meanwhile, talked about how she had been involved in multiple artistic residencies and environments that were supposedly bilingual, but wherein everyone defaulted to English within a few short days. "This is the first so-called bilingual residency I've been in where the working language is French, where the anglophones and allophones consistently make the effort to express themselves in French... and personally, I find it very moving," she said. "Ça me touche." 

"Well yes," said the original speaker – who is a wonderful artist and a supportive colleague and friend. "I was just trying to make things easier for everybody. And I'm just... surprised, that you [English-speakers and allophones] are all sticking with it. In all my years of working in the theatre, I've never seen anything like it."

We all agreed. And carried on. In French.

This was, for many reasons, an extraordinary conversation to be having in Quebec, where language and culture have long been inseparable from politics and power (and from a bitter and still-recent history when rich bosses all spoke English... while their impoverished workers spoke French). It was a conversation I could not have imagined taking place twelve years ago, when I first came to Tadoussac and was taught so much about Quebec language, culture, and politics by the great Linda Gaboriau. It was a conversation that made me proud of us all – francophone, anglophone, and allophone – for being open to each other, really speaking, really listening, really willing to forgive each other's missteps and misfires on the way to a deeper understanding. It is, IMHO, why we truly need Tadoussac.

June: Salesman in China

In June, actor, director, playwright, and Artistic Director (and my husband) Jovanni Sy and I travelled to Beijing to research our first major collaboration, Salesman in China, accompanied by our dramaturg, Kathleen Flaherty of PTC. It was a phenomenally productive trip: we saw a dress rehearsal for perhaps the most famous Chinese play of the 20th century as well as a sold-out production of possibly the most popular Chinese play of the 21st century.. We talked to emerging and established stars of a vibrant and impassioned theatre community. We haunted the museum of a large classical theatre and picked up many pounds of books. And despite a packed schedule, we eked out a little time to marvel at the Forbidden City... and eat street food fit for kings.

We were also able to interview two of the surviving cast members from Arthur Miller's seminal 1983 Beijing People's Art Theatre production of Death of a Salesman, both of whom were humble, dedicated, generous men who described that show as one of the greatest experiences of their lives.

This trip was crucial to our research for Salesman in China, and excited us immensely about the path we are on with this project. And while we have already benefitted from the support of the City of Richmond, PTC Associates, and the Canada Council for the Arts, we could not have accomplished 1/10th of what we did in a mere 6 days without the extraordinary help of Claire Conceison, who managed (thanks to her status in China as a pre-eminent scholar of modern Chinese theatre... and thanks to her mastery of WeChat) to introduce us to some of the most interesting artists in China without leaving her home in Boston!

April-May 2017: "The Beauty of the World"

The highlights in brief:

• I am now the Playwright-in-Residence at the Gateway Theatre, thanks to the generous support of the Arts Council of the City of Richmond.

• I also began my three-year commitment to the Playwrights Theatre Centre's Associates programme... or more accurately, we all began our three-year commitment to each other. I am already at work on the initial research for our project, Salesman in China, with my co-writer Jovanni Sy and our extremely generous dramaturg Kathleen Flaherty. This has so far included a lightning-fast trip to Boston, an upcoming one to Toronto, and a June trip to Beijing... all of which I will be blogging about when I get back in July.

• Pi Theatre had a jam-packed and enthusiastically-received reading of The Paradise Arms (my translation of Olivier Sylvestre's Governor-General's Award-nominated play, La Beauté du monde), which was developed with the help of Playwrights Workshop Montreal's Glassco Translation Residency in Tadoussac.

Director Keltie Brown Forsyth introduces the dream cast of Pi Theatre's public reading of The Paradise Arms at The Test Kitchen in Vancouver, BC, on May 18, 2017. L-R: Sarah Roa, Todd Thomson, France Perras, Nathan Barrett, and Nneka Croal. Hidden behind the director: Conor Wylie. Photo by Richard Wolfe.

• Schoolhouse continues to be a favourite with schools and theatres across Canada, having racked up dozens of productions since 2006. I love it that so many young people are tackling this challenging story, and was delighted to learn that Edmonton's MCS Theatre was nominated for 14 Cappie Awards for their recent production. I wish them all the luck at the ceremony on June 11.

* The cast of Théâtre la Seizième's Bonjour, là, Bonjour has been nominated for a Jessie Award (for Best Ensemble) as has our director Gilles Poulin-Denis. My director Sarah Rodgers and cast-mate Sarah May Redmond were also nominated, for And Bella Sang With Us. The Jessies, which honour the best of Vancouver theatre, will be handed out on June 26.

L-R: Sarah Roa, Nneka Croal, Nathan Barrett, playwright Olivier's Sylvestre, and Conor Wylie, The Paradise Arms, May 18, 2017. Photo by Richard Wolfe.

One final note about The Paradise Arms. It was my great joy to introduce Olivier, as well as his work, to Vancouver this month (and I'm so happy that they really seemed to really hit it off!) Olivier's original title, La Beauté du monde, literally translates as "the beauty of the world", a French expression immortalized in a Diane Dufresne song that warns the human race not to destroy it. In Olivier's autobiographical yet highly theatrical story, the title is both ironic and aspirational: imagine a modern young man's journal of existential crisis thrown in a Vitamix with the works of Arcade Fire, Rimbaud, and the Coen Brothers. In this play, we are imprisoned with the hero – also named Olivier – in a strange, dark basement, groping uncertainly towards the light. That resonates deeply with me right now... as does Olivier's eventual embrace of life and the possibility of love,  in defiance of all that frightens and divides us.

February-March 2017: A Blur Called Tremblay

Haven't updated in a while. That might have something to do with the all-consuming terror and exhilaration of rehearsing and performing for the first time in my second language... in a dialect I've never spoken before. During this time:

• In Ottawa, Ontario, GCTC – now led by my treasured collaborator, Eric Coates – announced that they will premier my translation of Rébecca Déraspe's You Are Happy next fall, with acclaimed Adrienne Wong directing.
• Also in Ottawa, the Kanata Theatre – my brother's favourite – produced Schoolhouse.
• Having already clocked 550+ performances, Théâtre Motus took Baobab to New York's Lincoln Centre. This month, they're at MTYP (Manitoba Theatre for Young People) in my birthplace, Winnipeg.
• OperaUpClose continued to tour Ulla's Odyssey around the UK, including the artsdepot.
• I joined the newly-formed steering committee for the Women's Caucus of the Playwrights' Guild of Canada.
• The groundbreaking queer civil rights history When We Rise aired on ABC. I had a minuscule but intense scene with beloved TV star Michael K. Williams. "Omar coming."
• I workshopped Veronique West's intriguing and passionate play, State of War, ahead of its upcoming April 9 reading at the Arts Club (They were hoping to find a Polish-speaking actress, but for now, they're stuck with me giving it my best shot. Just when I think I've heard all the world's consonants before... along comes Polish.)
• And, yes, I had the great fortune of appearing in Gilles Poulin-Denis' stunning, sold-out production of Michel Tremblay's masterpiece, Bonjour, là, bonjour, for Vancouver's Théâtre la Seizième. It took every ounce of my mental and physical abilities just to sort of keep up with the cast of 7 extraordinary francophones in this barnburner of a play... but it was worth it. I'll be posting in more details about that extraordinary experience next week.

That's all for my recent news. For upcoming work, please check here.



 

Playwrights Theatre Centre: The Associates

It's a shite day to announce anything... but that's exactly why I am so thankful that I will be working alongside these outstanding artists over the next three years, during which I will do my utmost best to create work that matters. I am also relieved as hell to be collaborating – at long last – with my ally, my friend, my sounding board, and the one artist who understands me the most. It's the right project, at the right time, and now with the right support. Holy crap, I have never been more motivated to make it count.

The Playwrights Theatre Centre Associates will be exploring large-scale projects over the next three years. Jovanni and I will be collaborating on Salesman in China, inspired by Arthur Miller and Ying Ruocheng's seminal 1983 production of Death of a Salesman at the Beijing People's Art Theatre.

And Bella Sang With Us rides again!

I was very glad to have another kick at Sally Stubbs' Vancouver Fringe hit And Bella Sang With Us – the story of Minnie Miller and Lurancy Harris, the first policewomen in Canada – thanks to the Firehall Arts Centre. Particularly enjoyed meeting these modern-day police officers who work the same beat that my character did: The Downtown East Side. Plus ça change...

Filming The Humanity Bureau with Nicolas Cage

Apparently, I'm not allowed to say much about this film, except that I was in it (in a small but satisfying role) and that everyone was really lovely, including Nicolas Cage: filming with him, I would have to say, was a career highlight. I hope I acquitted myself well... at least I managed not to burble about Adaptation and Leaving Las Vegas and Raising Arizona (although, personally, if I had given even one performance that good at any time in my life, I could die a happy Canadian). The Humanity Bureau is due out next year.

When We Rise

The trailer for the Gus Van Sant/Dustin Lance Black mini-series about the queer civil rights movement has dropped, and it's stunning. Even more shock-inducing than its exquisite timing is the fact that it's being produced by ABC/Disney. Which brings me to my left elbow.

Screen acting has never been my mainstay, for whatever reason. However, my left elbow, long a bit player on the Hollywood scene, is having a bit of a moment. It was first seen onscreen in David Cronenberg's M. Butterfly:

My left elbow's screen début.

Now it's going to be featured (along with the rest of me) in at least sixty seconds of this groundbreaking, star-studded masterpiece. I can't talk about which sixty seconds, because I'm under a terrifying 5-page confidentiality contract (and here I'm not exaggerating) with Disney. Suffice it to say that fans of The Wire are going to want to cuddle up to my left elbow... and even more so, my left hand.

In the midst of my post-election Trumpence despair, for the USA and for the future of the world, I take comfort in the certain knowledge that my left elbow is going to make a difference... or at least, that it's going to take a stand, by bearing witness to the ongoing struggle for justice for the American LGBTQ+ community... whose hard-won gains are now being threatened, like those of so many others, by people who never accepted their integration into the mainstream of society, and who merely bided their time to kick them back into the closet/across the border/to the back of the bus. From the script I read and the images I've seen, it's clear that this story bears witness to the free and courageous and accepting and hopeful America that so many of us used to believe in. That we hope will rise again.

So, way to go, Left Elbow. The rest of me'd better get busy, because it now has a lot to live up to.

Bella is back!

After being voted Pick of the Fringe, And Bella Sang With Us – Sally Stubbs' buddy-cop tale of Canada's first policewomen – is hitting the Firehall Arts Centre January 4th-14th. I'll be happy to regreet Constables Miller and Harris, and an ace team led by director Sarah Rodgers. Some of our wonderful company has had to answer the call of previous commitments... so welcome aboard, Beatrice Zeilinger, Agnes Tong, Patrick Courtin, and SM Breanne Harmon!

"H__l" and "B_____d", or, When Good People Use Bad Language

A Christian school in Alberta recently contacted me to ask if they could cut certain words from their upcoming production of my play Schoolhouse, "simply to adhere to what our community prefers." I was pretty startled by this, as this play has been done in some of the most conservative communities in Canada without incident. Furthermore – although I've fought hard my whole life to reach out to those who think differently than I do – at the time when they wrote to me, the campaign (and eventual victory) of Donald Trump had made me viscerally alarmed for the future of social justice and artistic liberty in my own society. And, perhaps unfairly, I was mentally equating the kinds of people who would complain about the word "bastards" in a play set in rural 1938, with Trump supporters. In other words – to put it mildly – I was NOT in the mood.

On the other hand, this is exactly the kind of community where I most want the story of Schoolhouse to be told. And they were ethical enough to come to me rather than just trying to make their changes in secret. Moreover, when asking if they could substitute "buggers" for "bastards", they also said: "We are absolutely open to other alternatives if there are some." (At which I thought: my preferred "alternative" is for you to just do the darn play.) So, I gave them a choice. They could either bowdlerize the offending language, or else post a language warning, as well as the following letter. I strongly urged them toward the latter.

Hello, and welcome to Schoolhouse! I'm the playwright. From about 2002-2004, I read books, diaries, and archives, and interviewed the people of Cavan County about their experiences as students and teachers in one-room schools. This play is very closely based on those real people and their stories. The first production was, I'm honoured to say, a huge success. Since its premiere in 2006, Schoolhouse has been performed hundreds of times and seen by upwards of 25,000 people in schools, colleges, and theatres across Canada and the USA.

I have been told that some folks in your community will be bothered about the (few, isolated) uses of "h__l" and "b____d" in this play. I was kind of surprised by this, as there have never been any objections to the language in this play (including from several Christian academies): so rather than changing it, I thought I'd talk to you about why it is there.

1) Authenticity. Perhaps the primary goal of most playwrights (other than not boring you) is to tell the truth, as best we know how. In my play, one character at a Christmas concert uses the H-word at an especially unfortunate time. Like most of the episodes of my play, that actually happened. The fact that the man's language and behaviour were completely inappropriate is exactly why this incident stuck with witnesses fifty years later! If I softened his language, it would not only be dishonest, but it would also destroy the point of this scene... which is about how other grown-ups deal with an adult who is behaving boorishly around children. The few rough words of the few rough characters are not there for shock value: rather, they very much reflect their personalities, their situation, and their rural community in 1938.

2) Values. The central theme of Schoolhouse is about values. How do we transmit values to our children? How much does the school shape the community, and how much does the community shape the school? Audiences across this country have seen themselves in this narrative. They have heard, in Ewart's most objectionable words, the language of his suffering. They have watched Evie moving from disdain for a rural community to an almost painful level of empathy. These characters' stories invite our compassion... and challenge our moral priorities.

3) Cultural context. The words "h_ll" and "b____d" are mainstream in modern Canadian life, including in the kinds of texts that are studied in high school, from literature to current events. They are found dozens of times in the King James Bible. Shakespeare uses the word "h_ll" 160 times, and "b____d" 109. These words occur on a daily basis on the radio, in the most conservative newspapers, on the Internet, on primetime TV: they barely rate PG-13 in a movie theatre. However, if you are bothered by their use in a school context, please see under (4), Teachable Moments.

4) Teachable Moments. This play has been embraced by conservative as well as progressive, religious as well as secular communities, because it treats their values, and its characters, with respect. That being said, you don't necessarily have to like or accept everything that happens onstage, whether it's child-murder in Macbeth, or farm-boys swearing... and now you will have an opportunity to talk with your children about why. Just because someone says something onstage – whether it's Evie or Ewart or President Trump – it doesn't mean it's okay to say it in your home.

Over and over again, studies have shown that the arts are good for young people: they teach self-esteem, discipline, teamwork, creative problem-solving. Theatre in particular strengthens our abilities for quick thinking and resourcefulness, for courage, for understanding. In order for young people to engage with the arts, and with living writers, it is important for them to discover that you can have empathy and even love for characters who act in ways of which you do not approve. I also believe – and here we may disagree – that it's important for young people to address the ideas of artistic freedom and artistic truth; and to encounter the idea that you can engage with, and learn from, a writer's vision of the world, even if you don't share it.

I do hope that this addresses some of your concerns. I take note that your school's web site upholds the common values of Equity, Accountability, Collaboration, and Integrity... and I can assure you that those are my values, too. Speaking of accountability: I take full and personal responsibility for every word you hear onstage tonight, so if you are still angry about what you hear, please contact me through my web site at www.leannabrodie.com . That's the price of my freedom of speech... which has never felt more precious than it feels in these times.

Thank you so much... and now, I hope you enjoy the show!

"Parallel" Lives

Just had one very exciting day on Isaac Ezban's upcoming thriller Parallel. You can tell a lot about people by how they treat the bit players on a shoot: film sets can be the most hierarchical and unpleasant places this side of hazing week at Queen's Engineering. This, on the other hand, was hands down the nicest crew I have ever worked with, from the transport guy to the DOP to the gun wrangler. As usual, that kind of attitude starts at the top: the warm and lovely Isaac greeted me with a sweet little air-kiss, and led a round of applause when I wrapped. The American star I worked with – I'm not sure if she's meant to be a surprise, so I won't mention her yet by name – was also gracious and lovely, and it was a treat to work so closely with someone of her caliber. Everything from costumes to FX was handled with so much meticulousness, creativity, and pride... I think we're in for a real treat in 2017!