The latest offering from Cahoots Theatre, John & Waleed, is a hybrid performance: a concert that tells a narrative both musical and personal.
Co-presented by the Music Gallery, the show features John Millard, born in southern Ontario, and Waleed Abdulhamid, born in Sudan. Both music-makers, the pair are currently artists at Soulpepper Theatre. We’ve enjoyed their work in a number of cabaret evenings, and Millard also appears occasionally as an actor with the company.
The two have been working for a while on a show but weren’t quite sure where to take their musical material. Cahoots director Marjorie Chan has helped give the production a theatrical structure.
“It’s a very personal piece, constructed from songs and their own histories, that circled around where each was born,” says Chan.
“Over the course of a few workshops, I realized that a lot of my work was dramaturgical: we went to the roots of the songs, their inspiration, the times in the men’s lives when the songs were important. I see the piece as their actualization, both as musicians and people. The show is about how two such different men who have such deep respect and appreciation for each other came together and began to relate on all sorts of levels.”
The result is a concert that was built organically, with Chan helping to give a narrative thrust to the evening.
“We begin with introductions to their musical styles and learn about them through their stories. From there we build a picture of their searching, wandering and migration, as individuals and as representatives of a larger group.”
Chan emphasizes what she calls “the colonialism thread,” citing the banjo, the instrument Millard frequently plays.
“We associate it with bluegrass and music from the American South, but in fact its origins are African, where it was made from a gourd and called the banjar.
“That fact epitomizes the production. John plays the banjo in North America, though its source is African. The styles of music are different but related.
“And what better place to hold a concert like this but in Toronto, with its incredible diversity?”
See listing.
Progress moves forward
The first annual Progress festival was the kind of success that will have an effect not only on next year’s fest but also on SummerWorks 2015.
Progress 2014, an international festival of performance and ideas produced by SummerWorks Performance Festival in partnership with the Theatre Centre, ended with 86 per cent attendance, 13 out of its 18 performances sold out.
The multi-curatorial model for Progress was so successful that the selection process for August’s SummerWorks is adopting a similar format.
This year’s SummerWorks, which adds a dance series, has members of the performance community programming festival shows.
The four series are theatre (curated by Bea Pizano, Philip McKee and Rosa Laborde), dance (Amelia Ehrhardt), live art (Cathy Gordon) and music (Andrew Pulsifer and Adam Bradley).
SummerWorks also has a new general manager – Nick Hutcheson, co-founder of RARE Theatre, whose producing work includes Hooked, Borne and Complex.
SummerWorks runs August 6 to 16.
Musical Works sings solo
The reorganization of SummerWorks means another change, too. Musical Works in Concert (MWIC), which was a part of the festival, is striking out on its own as an independent, not-for-profit event.
Since 2010, MWIC has presented 14 original Canadian musical works.
MWIC is now accepting submissions for the sixth annual festival, which provides a forum for Canadian writers and composers, both emerging and established, to help develop and present original music theatre.
Organizers are looking for both traditional and non-traditional forms of music storytelling.
This year’s festival runs August 21 to 23. Those accepted into the festival, which will showcase a maximum of four productions, will have their work presented publicly in concert format. Each show may have as many as three performances over the weekend.
Applications close at midnight on April 1. Guidelines and application forms are available at musicalworksinconcert.com for questions, write inquiries@musicalworksinconcert.com.
Patrick Conner Award call
The Patrick Conner Award Committee seeks submissions for the third annual presentation honouring Conner’s memory and his work in two worlds: theatre and sustainable living, including the sustainability of food production.
The award honours two individuals from either or both of these disciplines with a cash award of $2,500 each.
Previous applicants are welcome to reapply.
Applications should include a one-page statement outlining why you are deserving of the award a single-page outline about a community engagement project, art/theatre piece or community action that has inspired you a page of personal remembrance or specific researched finding about Patrick that inspired your application or call to action a one- or two-page CV or resumé and two supporting letters.
Please do not send more material than requested.
The application must be sent by email (PDF preferred, Word document acceptable) to pconaward@gmail.com. The same address may be used for any questions the award website is patrickconneraward.com.
Deadline is April 27, with those selected notified by June 30.
The Patrick Conner Award will be presented at a ceremony at the Theatre Centre on August 10. Successful applicants must be available to attend the ceremony.
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