Alice’s Adventures in an Arts Career

Hmmmm…. it seems I’ve slipped into another one of my blogging dry spells.  I know usually when this happens I say it’s not because I don’t have anything to write about.  But this time it’s closer to the truth.  Since being accepted at Memorial for my masters program, most of my “artsy” activities have taken a backseat to all the packing and organizing as I prepare to leave London at the end of the month.

I’m moving back to Toronto for the summer to spend some time with my family and the many friends whom I haven’t been able to see every much of for the past 5 years.  So now I’m sifting through five years of accumulated stuff trying to sort out what I’m bringing back and what I’m getting rid of.  When I moved in to my townhouse 4 years ago (I spent 1st year in residence), it took two car loads to bring all my stuff.  Moving out, there is only going to be one car, so you see I have my work cut out for me.  I’ve already reduced my clothing collection by at least half and much of my furniture I’m leaving behind for my roommates.  However, I have never been so aware of the number of books I have collected after 4 years of university education, never mind those I’ve collected just for my owe sake.  I have a lot of books and books are one thing I will never get rid of.  I’m rather proud of my little library, no matter how irritating it is to move. Oh, and besides packing, I’m also wrapping up my various responsibilities in London and saying good-bye to the many friends here.

So, I guess I am busy, but these recent activities clearly have nothing to do with anything remotely artsy. So, what’s the point of this post then?  Well, you know I’ve been thinking.  I’m leaving London.  And I’m really excited about it.  I love Toronto.  I miss my family and my friends back home.  I can’t wait to spend the summer camping and seeing old friends.  My Nana turns 90 in August and we’re having another epic family reunion to celebrate.  I’m looking forward to temporarily dropping my worldly responsibilities and just relaxing.  And above all, I’m really looking forward to moving out to St. John’s and starting my masters program. But… to do all that means I leave London.

I’ve lived here for 5 years.  In that time, I have had many of the most significant experiences of my life.  I got my undergraduate degree in music here.  I discovered my passion for conducting here.  I rediscovered my passion for theatre here.  I was published here.  I met the friends, teachers and colleagues here who have had profound effects on my artistic development.  I have a network of friends and fellow artists here to draw upon for support.  I am a part of a community and it will be sad to leave it all.

It has been hard to watch that community continue on without me.  It’s hard to see the audition notices for summer productions by the same crews who produced The Gondoliers or UWO Shakespeare shows.  It makes me nostalgic, sad and slightly envious to hear which roles my friends just landed or read giddy rehearsal updates on Facebook and not be able to be a part of it all.  I wish I could join them. A part of me wants to stay just so I can do another wild whirl on the stage again.

But 5 years is enough.  It is time for me to move on and try something new and St. John’s will certainly be something new.  I still can’t believe I’m actually going.  And, I suppose I’ll have the same opportunity to become a member of a new community.  Or rather, I’ll be adding another branch to this already existent network of artists.

Still… it’s sad to be saying good-bye and there are just so many people to say it too.

It seems I’m on the list for this year’s Brickenden Awards.  For those of you not familiar with the Brickendens, they are London’s local independent theatre award committee. Through their award nomination process, the London community is given the opportunity to vote for and recognize the wealth of talent in this city.

I’ve been listed under the best actress category for The Gondoliers and for best supporting actress for The Taming of the Shrew.  Now, this is the very beginning of the nomination process, so the lists of candidates under each category is quite extensive and covers pretty much every show that has been produced on any kind of stage in London since January.  But still, it is flattering and exciting.

If you’re interested, head over to their site.  Voting ends December 28th, so take a look at the candidates and vote.  A short list of nominees will be released in January.

Well, this is definitely a first.  I just turned down a lead role because I’m already in a show and can’t manage the two schedules.  This is a very strange feeling.  It’s frustrating, but also kind of flattering.

Before every performance, when I’m in costume, my make-up and hair is all done and everyone is waiting for our five minute call, I find a quite corner and I speak these words aloud.

When Burbadge played, the stage was bare
Of fount and temple, tower and stair;
Two backswords eked a battle out;
Two supers made a rabble rout;
The throne of Denmark was a chair!

This is the Actor’s gift: to share
All moods, all passions, nor to care
One whit for scene, so he without
Can lead men’s minds the roundabout
Stirred as of old those hearers were,
When Burbadge played!

Austin Dobson

It brings me a moment of clarity and purpose.  In three simple stanzas, my whole reason for doing what I do is summed up and I am reminded that above all the trapping like sets, costumes, make-up, lights, grand theatres, huge audiences and glowing reviews, it is the art that is at the core and it is the art that must be served first.

I received a call yesterday about the audition I did for that production of Company in the fall.  As I expected, I did not get into the show.  But that’s fine.  It was more important to me that I did the audition rather than the results.  I did it just to get myself out of a slump and be a little more proactive about the things I want to achieve.  I never excepted to get in.  So, that’s one more audition under my belt and some good experience and lessons learned to take to the next one.  Beside, as it stand I’ve got plenty going on in my life right now to keep me busy and artistically engaged.  I’ll worry about the fall when it arrives.  Until then, I’ll just revel in the things I’m doing right now.

Waiting to hear back about an audition is agony.  Ugh.

It’s one of the universal problems in the arts, especially amateur arts.  There are always a thousand girls lined up to join, but never enough boys.  I went to the Summer Shakespeare auditions and of a pool of roughly 20 people, only 4 were male.  When Vox Humana did out first around of auditions, we had 12 women, but only 4 men.  In dance, theater, music, writing, women are  well represented in numbers, but hardly ever are there enough men.  There are more sopranos in any music faculty than you can shake a stick at, but finding and keeping a tenor takes an act of God.

However, what is even more frustrating is the fact that while there are plenty of women interested in and highly capable of performing, the number of roles and opportunities is almost inversely proportionate.  In most plays there are far more male roles than female.  In my experience your average play has maybe 3-4 female roles (Both leading and bit), while there are plenty for men.  Take Shakespeare for example, the male to female character ratio is never equal (though now that I’ve said that I’m sure someone can quote me a play that is).  When I do auditions I compete with 15 other women for two roles, while 4 men compete for 8 roles.

This is a frustration not only from the performer’s perspective, but also from the director’s. How does one properly cast a well balanced show under these conditions?  With so many women to choose from, one is afford the luxury of being selective and choosing those auditioners who are truly spectacular.  However, when you have a production with 8 male roles and you only get 8 men auditioning, one is left with little choice. Men are at a distinct advantage.

I think this is due in large to two reason.

1) There is still a strong social attitude that girls do art and boys to math.  Women are more encouraged to be creative and artistic.  A young girl wanting to take drama is more acceptable than a young boy.  I suspect this is in part of a reflection of our culture’s discomfort with bending rigid gender codes.  Men are not expected to be as sensitive as girls, and often it can be a problem if they are. Now, I don’t want to necessarily get into debate about social gender codes, sexuality, sex, behaviour or nature vs. nurture.  I simply find that we still have a culture that implicitly and sometime explicitly reinforces certain gender roles and expectations of behavior on our children, and I question their validity.

2) Even though “art is for girls”, the majority of the surviving and accepted artistic canon has been created by men, from a male perspective, largely telling male stories.  Yes, this is changing and the female artistic voice is louder than it has ever been, but it is not yet loud enough to match centuries of patriarchy in art.  There simply are more male opportunities, lots more, in both theater and music.  So even though the world population sits at roughly 50/50 male to female, one would never know based on what one sees on stage. Though I realize when much of the western art canon was created women were not participating and significantly as they are now or history has not recorded their participation, and this probably accounts for much of the “male dominated” perspective.

This is a problem, for all of us.  Our artistic would has become wrapped up in a conflicted ball of patriarchy and gender discomfort.  We have written stories about our men, but we do not want our men to tell them.  We have encouraged our women to express themselves, to be emotional and creative, but created a environment where they are not given equal opportunity to exercise that expression, and are forced into participate in even greater levels of competition.

I would be interested to know what the gender ratio and performance opportunities are like in the dance world, since this is something that I am not familiar with and perhaps is different.

For the sake of the stability and relevancy of our art, I would encourage us to examine our concepts of gender behaviors and examine are ideas surrounding what we value in men and what we value in women. Question whether these assumptions even true.  Art is meant to express the human experience.  As long as we are short changing ourselves with these constricting and completely arbitrary and fabricated gender assumptions and allowing them in shape our artistic institutions and endeavors, our art can not reflect our world.  The day that art can not speak to the true human experience is the day that it becomes irrelevant.

When I was in grade 6, I wrote a letter to my future self.  When I was in grade 12 and about to leave home to go to university for music, I opened that letter.  It was filled with my hopes and dreams as well as a description of my daily life in grade 6.

I described the youth band I played in.  I described the piano and viola lessons I was taking.  I descibed all the composing and improv and jazz I was doing and the choirs I sang in and the recitals and performances I was giving.  I wrote how much fun I had doing all these things.

Then, under that, I stated in bold  letters… “When I grow up, I want to be a coral reef marine biologist.” 

Funny how we sometimes can’t see what’s staring us in the face.

I’m trying out a new look for the blog.  What do you think?

I just returned from two and half hours of recording.  Ben Sajo is entering the student composition contest with a medley of his music from last fall’s Q1 Hamlet production.  Tonight was our only chance to get it recorded and it was a bit of a logistical nightmare getting the whole thing organized.   We had a lot of trouble getting the entire original band back together.  Not everyone was able to make the time since March is generally the businest month of year.  We had several stand-ins sight-reading for us, and that was no easy task for them.  Ben’s music is quite challenging to sight read and one or two players were recruited only minutes before rehearsal and recording began.   I was really impressed with how well everyone managed. 

I haven’t recorded something since high school.  I’d forgotten how tiring and tedious it can be.  The room was hot, the music was loud, it was a lot of stopping, starting and repeating, but we got it done and I think we have enough takes of each section to be able to put together a good track for Ben to submit. 

All the entries will be aired next Wednesday evening and then I think there is a voting process.  I’ll post more about that later.  But for now I need to wring my ears out and go to sleep.