Alas, my co-op placement has come to an end. After 4 months of a cozy snuggle with the greatest children’s theatre ever, I have no choice but to crawl out of its comforting arms. I had some really memorable moments at the LKTYP theatre.
I remember the first week, where I actually cried reading the Hana’s Suitcase script. One of the reasons why I love theatre is because of the talented playwrights that can tell stories so effectively and leave the reader feeling like something suddenly clicked inside of them.
As a coop student, I had the pleasure of being able to roam around the theatre and poke my head into interesting workspaces. Watching the process of bringing plays to life was really awesome. To be able to see a theatre space go from dull and lifeless, to a stunning visual work of art was quite exciting. The artists at LKTYP are really amazing at what they do. It seems to be that everyone at the theatre is hand selected from the most elite pool of talent or something. They all play such vital roles to making the theatre so worthwhile.
I really do believe that my purpose in life is to be involved in the arts. I may not know exactly what my focus in life will be, but I have a general idea of the things that make me happy, and will continue to seek opportunities that fulfill that desire. As long as I am exposed to creativity, I think I’m going to be just fine.
I wouldn’t change my decision for one second to have done coop at LKTYP. I learned so much about myself, and what I need to do in order to be the greatest me that I can be.
I LOVE LKTYP.
Lily
PS. Dead Mao Five is pretty cool too.
Wednesday, January 27, 2010
Friday, January 22, 2010
El Numero Uno: How this little piggie came to the stage
EL NUMERO UNO is a community affair, a play of other people’s doing. It’s been an international undertaking from the start, for the people who have made it happen come from all over the world. In both these respects, it’s like DE MAN, a verse play I wrote many years ago, so first I’ll say a bit about DE MAN: A PERFORMANCE POEM.
One Good Friday after church, Fr. Ollie Nickerson, my parish priest and a Jesuit from New England, said to me, “Why don’t you write something for Good Friday?” DE MAN was the thing that I hurried to write when Lent had already begun the next year. I finished a first draft in time for Good Friday and the play was performed as part of the service that day. But if Fr. Ollie hadn’t asked, I’d never have written it, so it was truly a Jah-meri-can creation.
EL NUMERO UNO took a bit longer to come about, but happened in much the same ‘lots-of-people-crossing-borders-to-come-together’ way. Some time in 1994-5, IBBY (the International Board of Books for Young People) asked a gentleman from Holland, a Dutch author and illustrator, Max Velthuijs, to draw a series of illustrations. IBBY sent them to me, (I’d recently moved to Canada), as well as two other storytellers, one Chinese and one African.
“Shuffle these around, put them in any order, and make up your own story,” the organizers said, “then come to our conference and tell that tale to everyone. We’ll show Max’s pictures on the wide screen as you narrate.”
So the three of us did. I named the hero of my story El Numero Uno, and he was a huge hit at the Conference, at which were gathered people from all over the world.
Then some time in about 2001, Vivienne James (originally from Grenada), who succeeded Dr Rita Cox, (originally from Trinidad), as head of the Parkdale branch of the TPL, sent around word that the Young People’s Theatre were looking for treatments. Playwrights would receive funding, if their treatments were selected. I thought of Uno’s story and wrote it up, the treatment was one of those selected, and by 2002, I had written and presented the first draft of EL NUMERO UNO to Pierre Tetrault, a French Canadian who was then Artistic Director.
Folks from all kinds of backgrounds took part in the workshops over the next few years and make up the current cast: First nations, Jamaican heritage, Barbadian heritage, Trinidadian heritage, British born, Asian heritage, along with Canadian folks who hail from Northern, Eastern, Western and mid-Western Canada. Our director was born in Jamaica; our dramaturg is a German/Italian/Polish/British heritage American from Philly.
The playwright is herself of Asian, African, British, Scottish, Haitian and Jewish heritages. (Those are the ones she knows about!)
It’s a big mix-up mix-up, just like the play itself, which uses all kinds of languages – French, Spanish, English, Jamaican creole, Trinidadian creole, Rasta talk – and ‘tiefs’ from many cultural traditions to create the play. It’s “A multifarious mash-up! A cultural conglomeration! A pepperpot of peoples!” as Uno would say. And it’s a fantasy that’s very, very funny.
So do come along and mingle wid de masqueraders between January 31 and February 25, at LKTYP at 165 Front Street. We’re expecting you…
Pam Mordecai’s poems and stories for children have appeared in textbooks and anthologies in Africa, North America, the UK and the Caribbean. Author of five books for children, four collections of poetry – Journey Poem, de man, Certifiable and The True Blue of Islands – a collection of short fiction, Pink Icing, and (with her husband, Martin) a reference work, Culture and Customs of Jamaica, Pam was born in Jamaica, and educated there and in the USA. A former teacher with a PhD in English, she has edited groundbreaking anthologies of Caribbean writing, compiled numerous language arts textbooks and written critical articles on Caribbean literature. She immigrated to Canada in 1994 and is, most famously, Zoey Rita’s grandma.
One Good Friday after church, Fr. Ollie Nickerson, my parish priest and a Jesuit from New England, said to me, “Why don’t you write something for Good Friday?” DE MAN was the thing that I hurried to write when Lent had already begun the next year. I finished a first draft in time for Good Friday and the play was performed as part of the service that day. But if Fr. Ollie hadn’t asked, I’d never have written it, so it was truly a Jah-meri-can creation.
EL NUMERO UNO took a bit longer to come about, but happened in much the same ‘lots-of-people-crossing-borders-to-come-together’ way. Some time in 1994-5, IBBY (the International Board of Books for Young People) asked a gentleman from Holland, a Dutch author and illustrator, Max Velthuijs, to draw a series of illustrations. IBBY sent them to me, (I’d recently moved to Canada), as well as two other storytellers, one Chinese and one African.
“Shuffle these around, put them in any order, and make up your own story,” the organizers said, “then come to our conference and tell that tale to everyone. We’ll show Max’s pictures on the wide screen as you narrate.”
So the three of us did. I named the hero of my story El Numero Uno, and he was a huge hit at the Conference, at which were gathered people from all over the world.
Then some time in about 2001, Vivienne James (originally from Grenada), who succeeded Dr Rita Cox, (originally from Trinidad), as head of the Parkdale branch of the TPL, sent around word that the Young People’s Theatre were looking for treatments. Playwrights would receive funding, if their treatments were selected. I thought of Uno’s story and wrote it up, the treatment was one of those selected, and by 2002, I had written and presented the first draft of EL NUMERO UNO to Pierre Tetrault, a French Canadian who was then Artistic Director.
Folks from all kinds of backgrounds took part in the workshops over the next few years and make up the current cast: First nations, Jamaican heritage, Barbadian heritage, Trinidadian heritage, British born, Asian heritage, along with Canadian folks who hail from Northern, Eastern, Western and mid-Western Canada. Our director was born in Jamaica; our dramaturg is a German/Italian/Polish/British heritage American from Philly.
The playwright is herself of Asian, African, British, Scottish, Haitian and Jewish heritages. (Those are the ones she knows about!)
It’s a big mix-up mix-up, just like the play itself, which uses all kinds of languages – French, Spanish, English, Jamaican creole, Trinidadian creole, Rasta talk – and ‘tiefs’ from many cultural traditions to create the play. It’s “A multifarious mash-up! A cultural conglomeration! A pepperpot of peoples!” as Uno would say. And it’s a fantasy that’s very, very funny.
So do come along and mingle wid de masqueraders between January 31 and February 25, at LKTYP at 165 Front Street. We’re expecting you…
Pam Mordecai’s poems and stories for children have appeared in textbooks and anthologies in Africa, North America, the UK and the Caribbean. Author of five books for children, four collections of poetry – Journey Poem, de man, Certifiable and The True Blue of Islands – a collection of short fiction, Pink Icing, and (with her husband, Martin) a reference work, Culture and Customs of Jamaica, Pam was born in Jamaica, and educated there and in the USA. A former teacher with a PhD in English, she has edited groundbreaking anthologies of Caribbean writing, compiled numerous language arts textbooks and written critical articles on Caribbean literature. She immigrated to Canada in 1994 and is, most famously, Zoey Rita’s grandma.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)