Executive Director's Update
Hello, fellow TAEA members, and welcome back to your classrooms, rehearsal studios and theatres, as another school year begins! We have a lot to report on from the summer, and a lot to look forward to in the coming months – including the upcoming National Drama Teachers’ Conference and the Regional STAR Festivals. Let’s start with those coming events.
The National Drama Teachers’ Conference will begin on Friday, Oct. 25, in 10 in-person hubs across Canada – Victoria, Vancouver, Kelowna, Calgary, Saskatoon, Toronto, Ottawa, Montreal, Rothesay and St. John’s – and will continue the next day, Saturday, Oct. 26, with live Zoom meetings across the country.
We’re off to an early start this year, in pursuing our goal of expanding the number of drama teachers attending across the country. You can be our biggest help, by both registering yourself, and influencing your colleagues to participate, in this amazing conference. Here is the link to our registration site, which also offers all the detailed information you need, as well as all the reasons why you owe it to yourself to attend: taeaconference.ca The site also contains links to the individual locations for the Friday in-person sessions, and a link to the Saturday Zoom workshops. Register at taeaconference.ca
As for the Regional STAR Festivals, they will take place between mid-November and mid-January, at 27 live venues in nine provinces and one territory, plus one session to take place online across Canada. A Regional Festival is a one- or two-day event where students get to perform, watch performances, attend workshops and build community with other drama students from different school troupes. The purpose of Regionals is to create an event that builds community, celebrates educational theatre, facilitates student learning, and encourages the pursuit of excellence. For more information on these festivals, go to https://taeacanada.ca/regional-star-fest/
TEACHING AND LEARNING RESOURCES AND OPPORTUNITIES
Teaching As Improvisation
By Denise Kenney,
Associate Professor, Theatre Dept.,
UBC – Okanagan / Syilx Okanagan Nation Territory,
Kelowna, B.C.
Improvisation is the foundation for all performance training. But improvisation means something different to different practitioners and for different practices – from TheatreSports to nuanced devising methodologies. The ability to improvise with objects, ideas, people, the environment, digital media and communities underpins all that I do. I will share my thoughts about improvisation and some of my favorite improvisation training strategies, but first I want to talk about what improvisation has taught me about teaching; because I believe good teaching is essentially good improvisation.
Most people are familiar with the “Yes, And…” drama game. It can be played in pairs or in a group. The game begins with one person making a simple statement. All subsequent statements made by other participants must begin with “Yes, and…” An example of the game might be,
“Jill sat on the stump and soaked up the sunshine.”
“Yes, and a mosquito landed on her arm, pulling her attention away from the sky.”
“Yes, and she lazily swatted the mosquito.”
“Yes, and…”
FUN STUFF FROM OUR MEMBERS
Welcome to Earth! Let’s Go See a Play!
By John Lazarus, playwright & retired drama professor
Reprinted from this month’s blog on John’s website at johnlazarus.ca
In honour of the start of the new theatre season, let’s engage in a thought experiment. Let’s pretend you’re an intelligent, friendly extraterrestrial, visiting Earth from another planet, in order to study humans.
We, your human hosts, are proud to introduce you to various human activities and accomplishments. You’ve found our math, sciences and engineering interesting and respectable, but it hasn’t knocked your 17 alien socks off: after all, you’ve already got to our planet while we’re still taking shots at our moon. You’re more curious about those human activities that are known as, well, the humanities: philosophy, psychology, anthropology, politics, law, history – and especially those peculiar pursuits called “art” and “culture.” You’ve sampled music, painting and sculpture; and now, we’re taking you to a building called a “theatre” to witness a human activity called a “play.” This will be your first introduction to human fiction.
DISCOVER PIONEER DRAMA’S EXCEPTIONAL CUSTOMER SERVICE
Choose from over 1,100 plays and 230 musicals, all available digitally to avoid shipping, customs, and brokerage fees
Theatre Open House at the University of Victoria - Saturday, October 26
Calling all aspiring actors, directors, designers, technicians, and theatre enthusiasts! This engaging all-day event offers students and their families or teachers a firsthand look at our outstanding facilities and the unique, comprehensive approach to theatre arts at UVic.
Two Ways About It: The Inside and Outside of Playwriting
A playwriting master class with John Lazarus
Ontario Staging Limited - Let Us Stage Your Event
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JOIN VANCOUVER FILM SCHOOL ON TOUR THIS FALL!
VFS is touring Canada in search of creative talent – offering Info Sessions, Creative Portfolio Reviews, Live Auditions, & Scholarships.
JOIN, SUBSCRIBE, AND CONTRIBUTE!
Following this September edition of Theatrics Canada, the newsletter will be coming out again on the 15th of November, January, March and May – and then, we hope, five times a year, again, next year and for the foreseeable future.
Want to see your thoughts printed in Theatrics Canada? So do we! We need your expertise, so send us stuff! We welcome news of your school’s theatre work (it is, after all, a “newsletter”), advice on teaching and theatre (like Denise Kenney’s piece in this issue), essays and humour (like John’s piece in this issue), photos – we love photos – short plays, cartoons, Letters to the Editor – anything related to theatre and teaching.
Please send your submission(s) to John Lazarus at [email protected]
Please make it up to 1,000 words long, and include name and professional title of author(s), the section of “Theatrics” you’re submitting it to, and the name and location of your school. Please send it as an attachment to your e-mail, in a commonly-used, editable word-processing format, preferably Microsoft Word. The deadline for our next issue will be November 1. The copyright to all material remains with the author(s). This is also a great opportunity for your students to get published!
