Blog Post Number 1: Away We Go

I never wanted to start a theatre company. Not seriously. I mean sure, I spent my share of time in the Fringe Beer Tent expounding loudly about how I would do it, but I always came to my senses on the walk home. Then after a one-week workshop last June the idea that is The Free Theatre wouldn’t let me go.

I was the dramaturg for a workshop of a Scott Douglas play (Forgive/Forget) at the Manitoba Association of Playwrights. It turned out to be one of those magical weeks. Some theatre contracts are like that. The play was terrific, the questions it raised were “chewy,” the team was gifted and delightful and willing to try anything. I worked with a couple of old friends and some artists I hadn’t met before. Artistic sparks flew. On the last afternoon a few people were invited in to listen to a reading. They had a good time too, and they had a chance to see (or at least hear) a good play they might have had to wait years for otherwise. The whole week hadn’t cost much more than the artists’ fees, and everyone involved left feeling inspired and energized. Why can’t it be like that all the time?

I tried to think about other things. As some of you know, I had a case of COVID last winter that precipitated a stroke. While being treated for all that they discovered I need a pacemaker. Lying around in hospitals you have a lot of time for thinking.

A stroke and a pacemaker is a one-two punch to the body, mind and spirit. I lost my left side for a while there. Also: creamed corn is an abomination. In the aftermath of this experience, nothing is the same. I could have taken my health crisis as a sign that it’s time for me to retire, but I still have things I want to do, and things I want to say. I want to work with all my brilliant and beloved fellow artists again, and meet new ones. The youngsters I meet lately are super smart and I’d love to know where they want to take the art form. I’m feeling better than I have for years and I don’t want to wait. I want to make contact NOW.

Lately I’ve heard a number of colleagues say they miss getting to play like we used to in theatre school. I do too. Once in a while my teen students come up with an idea on the fly, in the course of a simple exercise, that’s so brilliant it makes me think if we worked on it for a week we’d really have something. Actors I’ve toured with have created brilliant bits while sitting in the backs of vans; characters and worlds that sadly, will never be seen on a stage. When I used to do Improv I’d feel sad when we did a great scene, because we never wrote it down and rehearsed it until it was even better. I’m also feeling badly that going to theatre is out of reach for so many Winnipeggers, and that we the creators don’t know those people well enough to know what they might like to see.

So here I am making a website and getting ready to launch the Free Theatre. Luckily I’ll have help because despite my Beer Tent Bravado, there’s a lot I don’t know and many crucial skills I lack. I was grateful to receive Winnipeg Arts Council funding, and then Theatre Projects stepped up to make it happen as part of their Live Arts Trade Route. My friends Lindsay Nance and Aaron Pridham are helping me get the whole thing off the ground, and Andrew Davidson at the Gargoyle offered the use of the hall. Away we go.

I don’t want to talk too much about the state of the world or the state of the industry. Some of it’s distressing, and I got stuff to do. To quote a button I have that I don’t wear on my backpack because I teach young people: “what a f-d up time to be alive.” This is no time to try to do things the same old way. My pacemaker is ticking and so is the clock. We better get up on the stage and have some fun and say what we need to say and give the people a show.

Yours as ever,

Ellen