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Newsletter
October/November
2001
How Did We Get to Be Thirty?
By
Jane Gardner
Only thirty years ago, Theatre Ontario was incorporated
with goals "to encourage and promote theatre throughout Ontario; sponsor
theatre arts festivals, conferences, workshops and educational and
training programmes; and to create and maintain channels of communication
and act as a resource centre to co-ordinate and improve the quality of
information on theatre arts." We thank the first directors of
Theatre Ontario for their dedication and vision: Michael Spence (Toronto),
Cicely Thomson (Richmond Hill), James Costley (Burlington), Ron Payne
(North Bay), Arno Gotthardt (Toronto), Margaret MacAulay (Toronto), Pat
Beharriell (Kingston) and Joan (Dusty) Miller (Thunder Bay).
At a
special celebration on September 22nd at Factory Theatre, Theatre Ontario
announced the winner of this year's Maggie Bassett Award, announced the
creation of the Dean Ott and Debbie Boult Technical Theatre Award and
unveiled two special 30th anniversary projects. A new one-act play
anthology will be published in partnership with Playwrights Canada Press
(more information inside this newsletter). The anthology will be launched
at Theatre Ontario Festival held in Sarnia May 15-19, 2002. Another 30th
anniversary project, "To Act In Safety" is a bold new program orchestrated
by Theatre Ontario and funded by Ontario Trillium Foundation that provides
health and safety workshops, training and tools for hundreds of volunteers
involved in community theatre all over Ontario. One of eleven
organizations in Ontario who received this special grant, it recognizes
the International Year of Volunteers through the "Enhancing Volunteerism
in the Province of Ontario" program. At the 30th anniversary party,
Theatre Ontario also honoured mentors from the Professional Theatre
Training Program - senior artists that encompass every aspect of theatre
who have volunteered their time to mentor emerging artists and provided
them with a career-building experience. Theatre Ontario also thanked the
Ontario Arts Council for their sustained support for this training
program.
Sandra Tulloch (former Executive Director of Theatre Ontario)
received this year's Maggie Bassett Award. For two decades, as a dedicated
professional and a committed volunteer, Sandra Tulloch has been actively
involved in community, educational and professional theatre, earning her
the respect of people from all walks of theatrical life. The Maggie
Bassett Award is presented annually to an individual who, over a number of
years, has made a sustained and significant contribution to the
development of theatre in Ontario. As Theatre Ontario's first employee,
the late Maggie Bassett created a solid foundation for the organization by
launching the Professional Theatre Training Program, the Summer Courses
and the newsletter that later grew into Scene Changes.
"Those of us
who have had the pleasure of working with Sandy Tulloch, as a colleague
and a friend, came to rely on her astute judgement, her sense of humour,
her loyalty and dedication - and her love of theatre," said nominators
Cathy Smalley and Colette Naubert. "True to form, she has continued to
work on special projects and to volunteer, despite her "retirement".
Sandra Tulloch was involved for many years with the theatre community in
North Bay. With the Gateway Theatre Guild, and as President of QUONTA, she
contributed to countless productions and Festivals until her move to
Toronto. She became a Theatre Ontario Board member in 1979. She worked in
fundraising and marketing for the Capital Centre in North Bay. During her
years in North Bay, she coordinated both a touring conference and a
community arts conference in cooperation with the Ontario Arts Council. In
1984, she became the first Community Theatre Coordinator of Theatre
Ontario. For over 10 years as Executive Director, she provided
exemplary leadership at Theatre Ontario, devoting her considerable talents
to the professional, community and educational theatre sectors it
supports. Since stepping down from Theatre Ontario in 1998, Sandy has
taken on a number of special projects, most recently co-writing a new
report on the facility needs of small and mid-sized performing and visual
arts organizations in Ontario. Over and above these responsibilities, she
has been a tireless volunteer in support of the political efforts of the
theatre community. She was a leader in several ArtsVote campaigns, The
Ontario Arts Network and the community consultations for the Ontario Arts
Report. She is an eloquent and effective advocate for theatre in this
province. She has an amazing ability to work cooperatively and creatively
with government, while never losing sight of the community's goals. There
is no question that her efforts have made a difference in many battles
waged for the arts in Ontario.
Theatre Ontario will administer and
coordinate the selection process for the newly established Dean Ott and
Debbie Boult Technical Theatre Award which is given to an individual with
a serious interest in becoming a Technical Director in a professional
theatre. Applicants may have professional theatre experience or extensive
experience in community or educational theatres. The first winner of this
year's Dean Ott and Debbie Boult Award will work as the Apprentice
Technical Director on the premiere production of Merlin by Paul Ledoux,
which is directed by Pierre Tetrault in Toronto in the New Year. The
winner will be mentored for six weeks by the technical team of the
Lorraine Kimsa Theatre for Young People (formerly known as Young People's
Theatre). Deadline for applications is November 9, 2001.
To
honour Toronto theatre professionals, the late Dean Ott and Debbie Boult,
a special trust fund was created in 1998. Annual contributions from the
trust fund and other donations will pay the wages for the candidate to
work on a project as Assistant Technical Director at a not-for-profit
theatre in Ontario. The winner of the annual Dean Ott and Debbie
Boult Technical Theatre Award will work for a minimum of 6 weeks on this
specially created apprenticeship position with mentoring by the theatre
company's production manager and/or technical director. Each year a
different mentor and theatre in Ontario will be selected to host the
winner of the Dean Ott and Debbie Boult Technical Theatre
Award.
Beginning this fall, To Act In Safety - a bold new initiative
orchestrated by Theatre Ontario and funded by Ontario Trillium Foundation
will instill a new health and safety awareness in hundreds of volunteers
involved in community theatre all over Ontario. Helping us to steer this
2-year program is Theatre Ontario's Community Theatre Committee and
advisors from the St. John Ambulance program, Ontario Service & Safety
Alliance, Ontario Advisory Committee for Health and Safety in Live
Performance and Theatre Ontario's Talent Bank. Here's what we're planning
to deliver over two years:
· 360 theatre volunteers will receive first
aid training in communities around Ontario. 100 community theatres and 20
summer theatres (ASTRO members) will select 3 volunteers to participate in
a one-day course delivered through one of the 60 branches of St. John
Ambulance program. Priority will be given to volunteers who serve as
"front of house" managers, head ushers, stage managers or are responsible
for stage or building safety at their theatre.
· 220 community
theatres will receive a survey with questions about health and safety
practices, training programs, co-op student placements, insurance
coverage, volunteer shortages and other related issues. Theatre Ontario
will collect and analyze results with a goal of 100 responses. Overall
results will be shared with 4 community theatre regional associations:
Association of Community Theatres - Central Ontario (ACT-CO),
Eastern Ontario Drama League (EODL), Quonta (northern Ontario
theatres) and Western Ontario Drama League (WODL). The project steering
committee will also work with Ontario Service Safety Alliance (OSSA),
Ontario Advisory Committee for Health and Safety in Live Performance and
other theatre partners to share our research findings.
· 5 to 7 health
and safety theatre consultants will join Theatre Ontario's Talent Bank of
consultants to deliver health and safety training on an ongoing basis
across Ontario. Appropriate selection, orientation and training will be
coordinated by Theatre Ontario.
· 50 community theatres and 20 summer
theatres (ASTRO members) will work directly with a designated health and
safety theatre consultant to create and implement health and safety
policies and procedures specific to their theatre's needs and activities.
Theatres will be selected with a priority given to theatres that own and
operate their own spaces. Our community theatre outreach will include 5
theatres from northern Ontario, 18 from western Ontario, 10 from eastern
Ontario and 17 from central Ontario and Toronto.
· Theatre Ontario
will contact the theatre programs at Ontario colleges and universities to
research the curriculum tools being used for health and safety training
programs being used by their students.
· Theatre Ontario will develop
new resource materials (print and web-based resources) on health and
safety policies that focus on the health and safety of theatre audiences
by drawing upon "best practices" of other theatre companies and St. John
Ambulance program. We will develop sample job descriptions and volunteer
orientation materials that incorporate health and safety "best practices"
that can be used by theatre production staff as training tools.
· For
seven years, the Ontario Ministry of Labour has worked with leading
professionals from the live performance industry to develop technical
safety guidelines through the Ontario Advisory Committee for Health and
Safety in Live Performance. Our research indicates that few community
theatres are aware of this publication. A new and expanded edition of the
Advisory Committee's research and work will be published in 2002 - Safety
Guidelines for the Live Performance Industry in Ontario. It is our goal to
distribute this new publication to community theatres so they can use this
information at their theatres in a practical way.
The Ontario
Trillium Foundation, an agency of the Ministry of Tourism, Culture and
Recreation, receives annually $100 million of government funding generated
through Ontario's charity casino initiative. It allocates grants in
arts, culture, sports, recreation, environment and social
services.
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MEMBER PROFILE
Member Profile: Marian Doucette
by Kilby
Smith-McGregor
Marian Doucette is a professional library technician. She
is also a fundraiser, stage manager, props mistress, Website developer,
teacher and lecturer, not to mention puppeteer and storyteller. She has
been a member of Theatre Ontario since 1994, serving on the Board of
Directors for seven years including President from 1998-2000. Marian
strongly believes in the importance of an organization like Theatre
Ontario where three theatre sectors - professional, community and
educational - are brought together and supported. Theatre is about more
than professional actors and this organization has a deep appreciation of
that. The training, funding and development opportunities provided by
Theatre Ontario benefit many different kinds of artists across the
Province.
The arts, particularly drama and literature, have always
played a role in Marian's life. She vividly remembers the puppets and
storybooks her Grandmother would send home from her travels abroad. Her
high school job began as a page in a local library, but soon turned into
something more. Being put in charge of the under-attended story hour
sessions at the branch, she was encouraged to pursue any means necessary
to entice kids into the world of literature. Marian convinced her father,
a building contractor, to construct a stage and then persuaded the boy
next door to provide the two extra hands and deep voice she would need to
mount her first puppet show at the library. Kids certainly began to pay
attention. Everyone paid attention. And the rest, as they say, is
history.
Marian's puppetry and storytelling career has had many facets
and many incarnations- from early work with Toronto's Frog Print Theatre,
through lecturing and in-service workshops at York and Western
Universities and boards of education around the Province, plus long
associations with the Blyth Festival and, more recently, Stratford
Festivals in youth training or development. During her tenure on the Board
at the Blyth Festival she was a guest director for the three puppet
characters in Richard Rose's production of Lilly Alta. and led many
workshops with their Young Company. She is currently developing a special
puppet presentation with an Elizabethan theme for the Stratford Festival's
fiftieth anniversary on July 13, 2002. Recently as guest artist, working
with a local high school drama group's Sears Drama Festival entry, Marian
constructed a female Louis XVI chair and a male 1920s pseudo-leather
office chair puppet characters for their production entitled Seating
Arrangements. This unique show, which imagined the perspective of
inanimate objects, namely the chairs we sit on every day, appealed to
Marian's sense of finding dramatic possibilities in new places.
Marian
balances her passions as a puppeteer and storyteller with her library
career and development work in cyberspace, and she sees connections
between the arts and information delivery modes. She cites Paul Thompson's
recent production of The Outdoor Donnellys at the Blyth Festival as an
event inspired by the same structure as the Internet. The mainstage
performance served as a homepage, while the mini-performances taking place
around the village of Blyth served as links. It became an interactive
experience, involving audience participation and many community members as
performers and venue volunteers.
Known for her eclectic talents, Marian
is often asked to produce and perform at special events to benefit arts
organizations. She contributes by constantly changing her many creative
'hats' and stepping in wherever she is most needed. Her advice to those
who would pursue lifelong learning and teaching in this fashion: "Be
there. Be involved. Volunteer. As an usher… In an office… Backstage…
Opportunities will present themselves. Be around people, their passion for
the arts is infectious." If you're like Marian, your own passion will
infect people right back. In schools, in the community, in the
professional world, we need to celebrate the people who celebrate the
arts.
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