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Ghost River Theatre has been blessed with a full year of connecting, recentring, and art making. As we’re approaching the end of our “season” (we’re using the term loosely because we don’t follow a typical theatre season schedule), we wanted to update you all on where we’ve been, where we’re at, and where we’re going. There’s been a lot of talk with words like “unprecedented” and “these challenging times” and although we agree that these words are suitable to describe the last 12 months, something a bit different resonates for us here at Ghost River Theatre. To be honest, we’re still doing what we always do. Yes, we’re wearing masks. Yes, we’ve been working from home. Yes, we’re grappling with systemic changes. But we’re still doing our best to make theatre and art for our community. We’re supporting and paying local artists. We’re striving to fulfill our mission and we’re sticking to our values, the things that matter most to us. Mostly, we’re flowing down the river of these strange times. And we’re happy you’ve been along with us for the ride.
So, what have we been doing in the last year?
Where has the last year gone? It’s seemed to have flown by! Last summer we shot a proof of concept for our upcoming climate thriller So Dark the Sky, which received funding from the Canada Council for the Arts and CBC. More on this very exciting project below.
Because of decreases in COVID-19 restrictions at the time, we were able to present SensoryBox, the most recent installment in our Six Senses Series, as a hybrid in-theatre and online experience in September and October 2020 at the West Village Theatre. You can read our wrap up from that show on our website: www.ghostrivertheatre.com/news/wrapping-up-sensorybox
Last November, we needed to cancel our regular education intensive but instead were able to meet for a week with local Black, Indigenous, POC, and Trans artists to explore new devising methodology. It was a rejuvenating, enlightening, and inspiring experience and we’re grateful to have been able to hold that space in our theatre. To wrap up 2020, we were also very pleased to have our Executive Director, Kate Stadel, recognized as one of Avenue Magazine’s Top 40 Under 40!
In early 2021 we began workshopping our upcoming production of STRUCK, written and directed by Artistic Director Eric Rose. The full workshop was, unfortunately, cancelled due to COVID-19 restrictions, so we pivoted to present a reading of the in-progress work to a small group online. In the spring of 2021 we began to develop a new deaf-led devised theatre production with deaf artist Landon Krentz and continued our ongoing development of Laura Anzola’s Blue Borders project, which explores how whale communication and migration studies can create a path to understanding the complexity of immigration, the concept of borders, and our relationship to the world that we inhabit.
SensoryBox was translated and produced in French at L’Uni Theatre in Edmonton while, simultaneously, a TYA version of the show was being developed through Toronto Young People’s Theatre’s Shifting Stages program. We’re so excited our little sensory boxes are being experienced all around the world and in so many different ways and by so many different people!
Where are we now?
This month (June 2021) we’ve been deep into phase two of the workshop development of our upcoming show Makambe Speaks, collaborating with Dora-Award-Winning artist Makambe K. Simamba. The show is continuing to grow and we’re excited to explore the new direction it evolves in.
A Black Woman. A prairie sky. The Ponoka County Fair. An adventure. A fantasy. A WHOLE LOTTA JOKES. Makambe Speaks is an exploration, a provocation, and a deconstruction of the age old question, “Where are you from?”
We’ve also hired a new administrative assistant, Grace Donner, who is going to be joining us in our home at the West Village Theatre to help support our administrative work this summer. She’s been hired through the Canada Summer Jobs program and we’re very pleased to have her with the GRT family. We’re also going to be hiring another position, an artistic associate and we’re looking forward to that as well.
GRT has also been doing some strategic planning over the last few months as well and during that we’ve updated our values a bit. If you haven’t seen them already, we recommend you check them out: www.ghostrivertheatre.com/company.
We have a lot of exciting projects coming up in the next year. And we mean a lot. First, the staff are going to be taking some time off in the summer to take a breath, reconnect, and spend time with family. Then in August we are jumping right back into things by workshopping some new works and developing new collaborations. We’re very pleased to have reached so many new audience members and collaborated with so many new artists this year. And we’re looking forward to doing the same for the rest of 2021 and into 2022 as well. The future is coming and we are delighted to dive into it!
What’s coming up?
We have a special surprise planned for September and October that we aren’t ready to announce yet. So keep your eyes and ears peeled for that! In the meantime, there are more projects we have coming down the river.
In January, we have our rescheduled development time of STRUCK, which is an examination of our Artistic Director Eric Rose’s true story of being struck by lightning as a teenager and the ripples of that event into his adult life. We’re going to be exploring ways to combine in-person audiences and live-feed video capturing with livestreaming for a digital audience in a new hybrid, multimedia artistic style.
After spending so long away from artists in our community we’re eager to return to our educational and outreach initiatives. After our Artists-in-Residence project was delayed because of health restrictions, we decided to carry the same project forward into 2022. So we’ll be working with Janelle Cooper and the Ellipsis Tree Collective to host a project during Black History Month in February 2022.
In the fall we’re going to be returning to our in-person intensives! We have our 4-day Devised Theatre Intensive in November. And looking farther forward we have our famous 3-Week National Devised Theatre Intensive happening in June 2022. We can’t wait to see all you artists back under our roof at the West Village Theatre. Honestly, it’s going to be such a joy to have the creativity and energy of artists working in our space again after it’s been empty for so long.
What else? We’re still developing other shows including Blue Borders with Colombian artist Laura Anzola, Extinction Song with Downstage Theatre and Bucket Club (UK), and Boxes with Montreal’s Jon Lachlan Stewart. It will be quite a while until they’ll be seen on stages here in Calgary, but if you know us you know this is part of our M.O. We develop and mount original productions through a significant investment in imaginative research and development. We know things take time, and we’re okay with that.
Last but not least in our upcoming projects is our climate thriller So Dark the Sky. You thought we were just a theatre company, didn’t you? Well, thanks to funding from the Canada Council for the Arts and CBC, we’re going to be producing an episodic short-form series being developed for an online streaming service. We know we’ve been saying we’re excited about a lot of things but we are really excited about this project!
We have so many projects in development right now! It’s an exhilarating time. We’re looking forward to reconnecting with all of you in person soon. Whether you’re artists, audience members, community folks, family, or friends, we want to see you soon. We want to gather with you in an audience. We want to play with you and make art. We want to share. We want to learn. We want to grow. Together. And that’s all going to happen in this upcoming year. Thank you for being part of the Ghost River Theatre family. So buckle up, stay tuned, and let’s get going on this crazy adventure together.
Here we go!
As we approach the end of the year, we are looking back at our most recent endeavours as a company. This past fall, with the support of the Rozsa Foundation’s Online Programming Grant, we at Ghost River Theatre were able to launch a hybrid presentation of the newly-crafted pandemic production SensoryBox, which was presented both live at the West Village Theatre for a physically distanced audience and streamed online across the world.
The project brought the sense of touch into focus, which was already at the top of mind for many people both at home and abroad. Due to COVID-19, everything we touch is part of our consciousness. This production examined this phenomenon and also what touch means in the midst of a pandemic. We are sitting in the discomfort of the unknown, weathering the storm, waiting out what seems like an eternity. There are so many variables overwhelming all of us so we thought it would be wonderful to just sit down and focus on something joyful. The Rozsa Foundation believed in this idea and gave us the funding and resources to take it on. We, in turn, brought the idea to you, our audience members.
Photo Credit: SensoryBox 2020. Photo by Jaime Vedres
SensoryBox is an exploration of the unknown. It is a positive reframing of something that feels daunting to all of us. The experience took this time of isolation and separation, and offered a sense of connectivity, discovery, and delight from afar. We may be apart, but we’re in this together. That is why it was so important for us to be jumping into hybrid-style productions, where we have audiences in-person at the theatre and watching live online. After experimenting with this new form during SensoryBox, we’re eager to continue developing new productions with similar models in the future. By presenting objects to the viewers, especially those at home, we’re creating a bridge to the immediacy of live performance. Artistic Director Eric Rose said, “It is our intention to celebrate and examine our relationship to touch at this particular moment in time. We are experimenting with how visceral touch can be in a live performance and through an online medium.”
SensoryBox is the latest instalment in our celebrated six-senses series of performances including Tomorrow’s Child, The Intuition Project, and Scent Bar. The series is a rigorous exploration of what happens to the boundaries of narrative when you focus on stimulating the audience's senses. When you take away sight—our primary gateway in the world— how do our imaginations open up to narrative? The performance, which featured one storyteller, Mike Tan, and a mysterious box for each audience member, was performed for sold out audiences here in Calgary and was also viewed by people in Vancouver, Charlottetown, Kingston, Toronto, Pittsburgh, New York, Jacksonville, Amsterdam, New Zealand, and Serbia. As Mike said to the audience during the shows, “The contents of the box in front of you originated here...they passed through this place on the way to you.” It’s a profound connection, a physical and tangible connection, that this experience provided for audience members no matter where they were in the world. This is a global pandemic, it is a holistic human experience, and we’re extremely pleased to have been able to connect with people all across the globe with this fantastic and imaginative project. We look forward to connecting with you all again soon.
Photo Credit: Mike Tan featured in SensoryBox 2020. Photo by Jaime Vedres
PRODUCTION INFORMATION FOR STRUCK:
Written and Directed by Eric Rose
Blissfully ignorant, a young man at the tipping point between adolescence and adulthood is struck by lightning, shocking him into a free fall of survival, atonement and search for self knowledge. STRUCK is based on playwright Eric Rose’s true story surviving a lightning strike while camping with friends on Sudbury’s Long Lake during the summer of 1999. The show explores the lightning strike as both physical and psychic mapping: fractured friendships, leaving home, losing loved ones - looking backward and forward in time from a point of view that can only be perceived in the electrified filament of one's mortality.
This show explores male relationships and deals with trauma and near-death experiences. The engaged performer will need to take part in discussions around trauma, personal experience, and PTSD. The workshop will be an exploration of theatre, film, and streaming hybrid performance styles, culminating in public, in-progress performances. The performer will need the ability to handle heightened text, movement, singing, and live filming.
Character Breakdown:
Eric (Male, early 20s) – A young man on the tipping point between adolescence and adulthood. Eric is a quick-witted but stubborn spirit, ready to adventure beyond his working-class roots yet unable to escape being defined by Sudbury’s harsh yet breathtaking landscape.
AUDITION DATES:
November 18th, 2020 - Auditions will be held both in-person in Calgary and over Zoom. Video submissions may also be accommodated on request.
DEADLINE TO SUBMIT:
November 15th, 2020 at 5:00 pm MST
PRODUCTION DATES:
January 11 - 26, 2021 - workshop at the West Village Theatre in Calgary
January 27 - 30, 2021 - workshop presentation at the West Village Theatre in Calgary
More information about the production can be found on our website at www.ghostrivertheatre.com/struck.
AUDITION INFORMATION:
To submit your interest, please email your performing resume and headshot to Andrew G. Cooper at producer@ghostrivertheatre.com with the subject line “STRUCK AUDITION.” Please indicate if you’re interested in in-person or zoom auditions. If you have a preferred time or scheduling conflicts with the auditions date, please indicate this in your email.
We will provide a side to prepare for successful applicants. Please highlight on your resume any devised theatre experience. Only successful applicants will be contacted to arrange an audition.
The performer engaged for STRUCK will receive payment at CAEA workshop rates. We are seeking submissions from Calgary-based artists or artists that have secure accommodation in Calgary. Accommodations and travel will not be provided.
ABOUT GHOST RIVER THEATRE:
Led by Artistic Director Eric Rose and Executive Director Kate Stadel, GRT is an award winning devised theatre company that creates, develops and mounts original productions through a significant investment in imaginative research and development. We make our work in a rigorous, supportive collaborative-creation environment that recognizes and utilizes the unique abilities of all participants, premiering our work in Calgary and then touring it nationally and internationally. Our work embraces a hybrid of high tech visual spectacle with low-fi theatrical magic.
Ghost River Theatre encourages submissions from diverse artists of all backgrounds, regardless of race, color, national origin, age, religion, creed, disability, sexual orientation, sex, or gender identity.
Ghost River Theatre would like to recognize the following lands in which we have been able to create, work and play on: Ghost River Theatre calls Treaty 7 Territory our home base, which is the traditional territory of the Blackfoot Confederacy which includes the Kainai, Siksika and Piikani Nations, Tsuu T'ina (Dene) Nation and the Stoney/Nakoda Nation which include the Bearspaw, Chiniki, Wesley Nations and the Metis Nation Region 3.
Congratulations to our Executive Director Kate Stadel who is one of Avenue Magazine's Top 40 Under 40 for 2020! We're so proud of Kate for all the amazing work she does for our company and for the important advocating she does for the arts community.
https://www.avenuecalgary.com/top-40-under-40/2020/kate-stadel/
Ghost River Theatre would like to publicly acknowledge the receipt of The 35//50 Initiative letter and thank its contributors Thomas Geddes, Steve Gin, Kunji Mark Ikeda, Gina Puntil, Jenna Rodgers, Makambe K. Simamba, Michelle Thrush, Pamela Tzeng, and Kiana Wu for this call to action.
Our company currently has two full-time employees, Artistic Director Eric Rose and Executive Director Kate Stadel, and one part-time employee, Producer Andrew G. Cooper. The staff and Board of Directors believe strongly in uplifting and upholding the principles and guidelines of The 35//50 Initiative.
Ghost River Theatre is co-led by Kate Stadel and Eric Rose, with the ED and AD sharing the decision-making power equally. Currently, all of GRT’s staff is white. The board is 44% female and 30% BIPOC. As the company and staff continue to grow, we are committed to actively supporting anti-racism and anti-oppression (ARAO) and work against systems of oppression. The following are steps we are currently taking and are committing to in the future.
NEXT STEPS:
During our 2020/2021 season, we have begun and will continue the development of projects that centre BIPOC voices. This includes a residency we’ve created for BIPOC individuals and companies and raising funds for a BIPOC artistic apprentice.
We will continue to expand and grow our diversity and inclusivity in programming. This means we will have more BIPOC artists in the room and we will dedicate existing program space for projects created with BIPOC artists in our programming starting in fall 2021.
Working with our board of directors, we will change the title of our current HR committee to an HR Action Committee, and ensure it includes a focus on anti-racism and anti-oppression within our company, in addition to the standard operational HR function, by June 2021.
As Board positions become available, we will actively recruit with a goal of increasing board representation from our current state of 30% BIPOC to at least 35% BIPOC representation by the end of 2022, with a particular emphasis on inviting at least one Indigneous person to join the Board.
Over the course of the 2020/21 season, Ghost River Theatre’s staff and Board of Directors will create a comprehensive succession plan for the Artistic Director and Executive Director roles with the goal of explicitly creating an environment that welcomes BIPOC leaders to fill these roles in the future.
We will review and update our Values Statement and our Code of Conduct to reflect our growing education and awareness by the end of 2021. We will continue to do this on a regular basis as we learn and grow in the future.
We will continue anti-racism and anti-oppression training for all staff and will begin this training for board members in 2021. Both staff and board members will engage in ongoing anti-racism workshops and paid consultations. We will add time to discuss ARAO in all weekly staff meetings, no matter how busy we are.
We will track the number of self-identified BIPOC, female, and non-binary members of our company at all levels and make this information public with the team members’ consent at the end of each season starting with the 2020/2021 season.
Ghost River Theatre’s Company Values states, “Collaboration is both process and purpose. Devised material can only arise out of a commingling of minds. Accordingly, a plurality of perspectives is integral: The more diverse the ensemble, the more rich and reflective the output.” We believe this wholeheartedly and will continue working with this philosophy at all levels of our organization. We’re aware we’ve made mistakes in the past and are committed to grow and to move forward into a better future.
Ghost River Theatre is excited about taking the next steps on this journey. We know that this is a marathon, not a sprint. We have a lot of work to accomplish both as an organization and as individuals. We are committed to taking action by moving forward mindfully, sustainably, and with great empathy. We’re eager to support lasting change in our community. If you have any questions or would like more details on any of these steps, please get in touch with Kate Stadel at ed@ghostrivertheatre.com.
Ghost River Theatre is hiring an apprentice technical director. We encourage submissions from Calgary-based BIPOC applicants. The core duties of this position will be to assist with the technical aspects of the company’s upcoming production Sensory Box, while aiding in other technical projects with the company as needed. The ideal candidate is:
capable of working independently and with a small team
organized and self-reliant
familiar with technical equipment (lights, speakers, costumes, props, etc.)
knowledgeable in digital theatre, streaming, or online dissemination.
experienced in technical direction and/or production management is a bonus.
Employment will be 8 weeks, and we’re seeking to start August 17th and finish October 10th, 2020. The position will be 35 hours per week at $17/hour for a total of $4,760. Ghost River Theatre will hire a professional Technical Director to coach and work alongside the successful applicant. In addition, we will also set-up mentorship check-ins with seasoned professional Technical Director Eugenio Sáenz.
This position is funded through Canada Summer Jobs, so the applicants must meet the following criteria to be eligible to apply:
be between 15 and 30 years of age at the start of the employment
be a Canadian citizen, permanent resident, or person to whom refugee protection has been conferred under the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act for the duration of the employment; and
have a valid Social Insurance Number at the start of employment and be legally entitled to work in Canada.
Ghost River Theatre encourages submissions from diverse applicants regardless of gender, national origin, age, religion, creed, disability, sexual orientation, gender identity, or gender expression. Ghost River Theatre is committed to the health and safety of their employees and will take all necessary measures during the COVID-19 pandemic.
To apply, please email your relevant resume and a cover letter expressing your interest and why you are a good candidate to Andrew G. Cooper, Producer, at producer@ghostrivertheatre.com. We will be accepting applications until August 14, 2020 or until the position is filled.
Eric Rose talks with Business/Arts about Tomorrow’s Child and online theatre.