Jem Rolls’ The Kid Was a Spy is part of this year’s Vancouver Fringe Festival, which runs Sept 5-15. Other Jewish community members with shows include Rita Sheena, with Everybody Knows: Leonard Cohen Dance Theatre, and Theatre Terrific artistic director Laen Hershler and Susan Bertoia co-direct Proximity: The Space Between Us, which was co-created by an all-abilities cast. For the full festival lineup and tickets, visit vancouverfringe.com.
Category: Performing Arts
Plays offer understanding, release
Dromio in The Comedy of Errors. Bard on the Beach runs into September. (photo by Tim Matheson)
Every day, we are bombarded with news about war, hate, crime, inflation, the list goes on. How to make sense of it all? Often, good theatre can provide deeper meaning and understanding of the world, or at least offer us a break from the world. Cue Shakespeare and his 400-year-old lens that is remarkably accurate in contemporary times…. And that takes us to Bard on the Beach.
Last issue, I reviewed Bard’s productions of Twelfth Night and Hamlet (jewishindependent.ca/bard-plays-with-tradition). This issue, I start with Measure for Measure, then move to The Comedy of Errors.
In Shakespeare’s Measure for Measure, the Duke of Vienna has enacted laws outlawing sex between unmarried couples. He then leaves the city in the control of puritanical Angelo and disguises himself as a friar to observe what happens. A young man, Claudio, is prosecuted for the crime of impregnating his girlfriend and is sentenced to death. When the condemned man’s virginal sister, Isabella, a novitiate in a local nunnery, comes to plead for his life, Angelo is smitten. He offers to save Claudio’s life if Isabella will sleep with him. What a great platform to explore the male hierarchy, corruption, sexual predators, coercion and authoritarian control.
In the Bard production, director Jivesh Parasram has taken the story and, in an absurdist twist, made premarital dancing the offence punishable by death. The setting: the disco-crazed 1970s and ’80s, in the glitzy Club Europa. Act 1 opens with hooded monks frenetically dancing on a neon-lit dance floor replete with a disco ball, presided over by a silver-clad, fox-head-wearing DJ (Jewish community member Tal Shulman, who later does duty as the black-hooded executioner, Abhorson). The Duke (a superb Scott Bellis) rips off his monk robes to reveal a sparkly suit as he dances his way over to Angelo (a staid, suspendered Craig Erickson) and hands him authority over the city. The edict is given – tansen verboten (dancing forbidden) – but that does not stop an erotic pas de deux between Claudio (Jeremy Lewis) and Julietta (Tess Degenstein), leading to Claudio’s arrest and imprisonment.
When Isabella (Meaghan Chenosky) is told of her brother’s fate by Lucio (Karthik Kadam), she rushes to Angelo’s office. At first, she is rebuffed but then Angelo offers her Claudio’s life in return for a dance. She grapples with the request, wanting to save her brother’s life, but refuses, threatening to expose Angelo’s hypocrisy. His response: no one will believe her. Sound familiar?
To save Claudio’s life and retain Isabella’s chastity, a plan is hatched to switch Mariana (Leslie Dos Remdios), Angelo’s previous lover, to dance with the cad. A huge panda bear head is part of the subterfuge.
Meanwhile, there is a side story of two “dance hall workers,” who are worried about the morality laws and the impact they will have on their “business.” The pair become involved in the plot to free Claudio. For how it all ends, you’ll have to see the play.
Throughout the production, the foxy DJ pops up to play the hit tunes as the cast busts out into various, often raunchy, dance moves. Kadam also plays Master Kevin Bacon and performs some impressive footwork to the theme song from the movie Footloose.
The set is fab (thanks to designer Ryan Cormack), the costumes hip (credit to Alaia Hamer), the dancing energetic (kudos to choreographer Krystal Kiran) and the oldies but goodies nostalgia-inducing. If the opening night audience reaction is any measure of its success, Bard’s take on Shakespeare’s “problem play” is destined to be the hit of the season. It certainly will bring in a younger crowd.
***
Playing on alternate nights with Measure for Measure (and with the same cast) is Shakespeare’s shortest work, The Comedy of Errors, about two sets of identical twins separated at birth in a shipwreck. Egeon (Bellis), a merchant from Syracuse and father of one of the sets of twins, has been arrested and sentenced to death in Ephesus for breaking a law that prevents people from traveling between the two cities. Seeking leniency, he tells the Duke (Degenstein) why he is there. Many years before, he had a wife and identical twin sons (both named Antipholus), who had identical twin servants (both named Dromio). During the shipwreck, he saved one son and his servant while his wife and the other son and servant were washed away. His Syracusean son, Antipholous, has taken Dromio to look for his lost brother. Now Egeon is looking for both his sons. A 24-hour reprieve is granted. Conveniently and unbeknownst to anyone, both sets of identical twins are in Ephesus. Of course, that sets the scene for confusion, mistaken identities, slapstick humour and hilarious miscues. There even is a goofy exorcism.
Director Rebecca Northan (who helmed last year’s Goblin Macbeth) has set the play in its proper period, ancient Greece. Once in the tent, you feel like you are in an open Mediterranean market with colourfully decked out vendors hawking their wares – silks, carpets, gold – mingling with the audience as they take their seats.
Northan has chosen to have one actor play both twins in a set, which can be confusing and will keep you on your toes. Lanky Antipholus (Lewis) wears a red and blue shoulder sash. When the red side is showing, he is from Syracuse; the blue, Ephesus. Meanwhile, diminutive Dromio (Shulman) also uses red/blue swatches to signal his identity. Shulman is very funny and his talent is evident as he frantically races around the stage, and in and out of the tent.
The main confusion surrounds the purchase of a gold chain that has yet to be paid for although money has been tendered. Where is the necklace? Who has the money? Who paid for what?
The second area of confusion is the relationship between Ariana (Chenosky), the wife the Ephesian Antipholus and her husband, who likes to “go out with the boys.” When she sends her servant to fetch him home and finds that he does not recognize her (wrong twin) and that he has fallen for her sister, Luciana (Cynthia Yusuf), she explodes. In all of this, Kadam, playing both a coquettish courtesan and an Urdu-speaking merchant, steals the show. I wish he had been on stage more.
As usual in any Bard comedy, all’s well that ends well and all becomes clear. Tying everything together is great behind-the-scenes work: the set (Cormack), costuming (Christine Reimer), sound design (Ben Elliott) and lighting design (Hina Nisihoka). My only complaint is that, as the actors did not have microphones, some of the dialogue is lost. And some of the shtick works and some does not, but it is in the name after all – a comedy of errors. Come early to take advantage of the artisan market set outside the performance venue.
For tickets to any of the four Bard productions, visit bardonthebeach.org or call 604-739-0559.
Tova Kornfeld is a Vancouver freelance writer and lawyer.
Grateful to do what she loves
Advah Soudack (photo courtesy)
I watched Hallmark’s Love, Lights, Hanukkah! on television but never imagined that I would meet the actress who played Becky Berman, the lead character’s half-sister. But Advah Soudack lives right here in East Vancouver.
This spring, I organized a series of Playback theatre classes for people with lived experiences of mental health challenges and addictions, which was funded by the Consumer Initiative Fund. Laen Hershler, a member of Vancouver Playback Theatre, recommended Soudack to teach the classes.
Soudack taught with enthusiasm, determination and emotional honesty. She gained the trust of the students quickly and soon they were leaping up on stage to improvise one another’s stories and emotions.
“I had a wonderful time teaching Playback these past few weeks,” she said. “I was amazed and inspired by the bravery I witnessed in the class. I loved working with a group of artists coming from all walks of life, some with years of theatre and improv experience and others with very little.
“I think the thing I enjoyed most about teaching Playback … with this specific group of individuals, was witnessing a group of people who didn’t know each other at first, come together, play, explore, trust, allow themselves to be vulnerable, share with open hearts, let go and create together as if they had been working as a troupe for a long time.”
Soudack’s enthusiasm for the theatre began when she was a child.
“I grew up with a lot of music in my home. My dad was very musical and played the piano, and my mom was always singing around the house,” she said.
“In elementary school, I had a music teacher named Donna Piper and she saw my flair for performing and told my parents to take me to audition for The Music Man with a company called Greater Vancouver Opera Society,” she added. “At 8 years old, in leggings my mom had bought me in France, a fitted T-shirt and a funky baseball hat, I sang ‘Wadda Wadda Wadda’ and played the air trumpet. I got the part!”
Soudack regularly teaches improv to children. For several years, she took her considerable talent to Perry Ehrlich’s Gotta Sing! Gotta Dance! performing arts summer camp at the Jewish Community Centre of Greater Vancouver. There, she taught improv and ensemble-building exercises and assisted director Chris McGregor. She also “created and ran the finishing school program, which taught kids audition skills, from entering the audition room to character creation, and how to prepare monologues and songs.”
Soudack recently completed two seasons at Bard on the Beach with A Midsummer Night’s Dream and Henry V. Other recent theatre credits include Courage Now, The House at Pooh Corner and a touring production of Glory. You may have seen her on television in Blockbuster and/or The Christmas Contest. She is also known for her work as an actor in animated films, including My Little Pony, Polly Pocket, Lego Friends, Beyblade Burst Evolution and Adventures of Ayuma.
She says that all the roles she has played have been challenging and fulfilling.
“I feel like I have grown and learned from every role I have played and every theatre project I have been part of,” she said. “I guess one role that sticks out for me is the role of Lucille Frank from Parade, which I portrayed about six years ago with Fighting Chance Productions. This was one of the first roles back from a hiatus I had taken from theatre. I had been forcing myself to audition again, anything that came my way, even if I was scared sh*tless.”
When she got the role, she began a journey into the world of Leo and Lucille Frank. Leo Frank was wrongfully convicted of murdering a young girl in 1913, and was lynched by a mob who broke into the prison when his death sentence was commuted to life imprisonment. Lucille Frank defended her husband through everything, dying in 1957, long before Leo Frank was posthumously pardoned in 1986.
“I was at the downtown library for days and spent many hours reading old, archived newspaper articles about the case, reading books and looking up everything I could find that had information about the young, Jewish couple living in Atlanta, Ga.,” said Soudack, adding that the roles she finds most exciting are the ones based on real people and events. When the research involves history, she is always extra excited.
“I feel very honoured that I have had the opportunities that I have had to work in the arts in Vancouver,” she said. “I feel very grateful to be able to do what I love and what inspires me and makes my heart feel full. It is also a gift to be a vessel for others’ stories and bring them to life for this community.”
Soudack spent time in Israel about 10 years ago.
“When Oct. 7 happened, I felt very strongly about going. I am still wanting to go and plan to make a trip in the near future,” she said. “I have so many family members in Israel and it feels like a second home. Whenever I am there I always think, ‘OK, this is home, I feel like I belong here.’ There is something about the energy of the country and the people that makes me feel alive and vibrant.”
Soudack is a proud graduate of the University of Alberta’s bachelor of fine arts’ acting program. In Hebrew, Advah means “little wave” or “crest of the wave.”
Cassandra Freeman is a journalist and improviser who lives in East Vancouver.
Bard plays with tradition
Nathan Kay as Sir Andrew in Bard on the Beach’s production of Twelfth Night. (photo by Tim Matheson)
Summer is here again and with it comes that perennial favourite, Bard on the Beach. This year, the BMO Main Stage hosts Twelfth Night and Hamlet, well into September.
First up, Twelfth Night, from Shakespeare’s later period, was written to provide light entertainment for the close of the 12 days of Christmas. Director Diana Donnelly’s adaptation for this comedy is to set it in a carnival-like atmosphere in Illyria, to take advantage of the chaotic shenanigans served up in the narrative (including a fight scene using table tennis paddles). As stated in the show notes, “Illyria is peopled with a bizarre mix of characters: a ringmaster, strongman, rocketman, clowns, pirates and several fortune tellers.”
In Twelfth Night, twins Viola (Kate Besworth) and Sebastian (Charlie Gallant) are separated after a shipwreck. Viola washes up on the shores of Illyria into the midst of the circus. Thinking that her brother has perished, she disguises herself as a man (Cesario) to work for magician Count Orsino (Aidan Correia). Meanwhile, the Count is trying to woo circus star Countess Olivia (Olivia Hutt) and sends Cesario out to do the deed. However, Olivia is not interested in the Count, being preoccupied with other tragic events in her life, and falls for the messenger while the messenger falls for the Count, making for an interesting love triangle.
Add to the mix Olivia’s drunk-but-well-meaning uncle Sir Toby Belch (Marcus Youssef) and his foolish sidekick Sir Andrew Aguecheek (Nathan Kay), cunning maid Maria (Evelyn Chew), the Fool (Anton Lipovetsky, doing double duty as musical director) and, in a gender reversal, the Countess’s puritanical, let-there-be-no-fun manager Malvolia (Dawn Petten), who secretly pines for the Countess, and the mayhem takes off. Amid all this, Sebastian reappears on the Illyrian scene, leading to comical mistaken identity scenarios.
You might as well call this Bard iteration Twelfth Night: The Musical, as cast members often burst into song – terrific original ones by local composer Veda Hille – giving credence to a famous line in the play, “If music be the food of love, play on.” While I found the first act somewhat disjointed and confusing, trying to figure out what was going on when and with whom, the second act saved the day and the enthusiastic cast/music made up for any shortcomings in this adaptation.
To that end, kudos to understudy Besworth, who got the call a day before opening night to step into the shoes of Camille Legg and, without the benefit of rehearsal, gave a sublime performance. Hutt is charming as the Countess, Youssef is as good-humoured as you can get and Gallant does able double duty for the musical bits with guitar and drum work. Bard veteran Andrew Wheeler is the Ringmaster and controls the pace of the circus (when he can). Petten is a standout and takes the concept of emoting to new heights in a sparkly yellow cat suit when she is spun around on the “Wheel of Misfortune,” while being punished by Belch and his cronies for her kill-joy attitude. Very much an ensemble cast, special mention has to be made of the two Jewish community cast members, Kay and Lipovetsky, whose comedic timing and antics will keep you in stitches.
Costumer Mara Gottler has scored a home run with costumes that can only be described as fabulous – particularly Hutt’s colourful sequined frock and a flowing, white, asymmetrically hemmed wedding dress (I want this dress!) complemented with black suede stiletto boots. All the costumes are suggestive of a carnival and set designer Pam Johnson gives the audience a multi-hued circus with colourful games, ladders, balls and banners.
Purists may wince at the liberties taken with the original script but this production will be a hit with those in the summer crowd who are looking for a Shakespeare Lite experience.
For something completely different, there’s Hamlet. I loved, loved, loved it! I have seen many productions of Hamlet but this one is by far the one that gave me the most clarity in understanding the story. This is Shakespeare at his finest.
Stephen Drover, adapter and director, in a brilliant twist of chronology, starts the play off with Hamlet on stage orating the suicide soliloquy (usually in the third act). Right away, we see the angst of the prince as he grapples with life and death (“to be or not to be”). His life is a mess – his uncle Claudius kills his father, the king of Denmark, and takes the throne; his mother, Queen Gertrude, marries Claudius; his best friends from university, uildenstern and Rosencrantz, betray him; and his girlfriend, Ophelia, kills herself. What’s left to live for? It is the dread of what might come after death that “makes cowards of us all” and so Hamlet chooses life on this “mortal coil.”
Hamlet is set on his fateful path by an eerie visit from the ghost of his father, who describes his murder most foul and importunes his son to avenge his death. Feigning madness, Hamlet sets off to right what is rotten in Denmark amid the wealth and power of the royal court.
The action includes a foray into a graveyard where actor Lipovetsky injects some moments of lightness into an otherwise dark tale with his comedic take on the gravedigger. We also are privy to the funeral of Ophelia and, in the finale, an epic fencing duel culminates in multiple deaths, including a poignant farewell for Hamlet. Kudos to fight director Jonathan Hawley Purvis for his choreography of this sequence. Choreographer Lisa Goebels also provides some stunning freeze frame dance moments showcasing some fancy footwork by the older royals.
In another interesting staging twist, the original play-within-a-play device, which mimics the king’s death (poison in his ear), becomes a song from traveling performers, played by Christine Quintana and Lipovetsky.
Pam Johnson’s set is a cavernous library with floor-to-ceiling bookshelves and secret doors that allow the actors to enter and exit the stage seamlessly. A huge crown hangs from the ceiling and plays a critical role in the final scene. Being set in the present time allows for contemporary costumes – tattered jeans, T-shirts for the young, fitted dresses and pant suits for Gertrude and double-breasted suits for the older gents, courtesy of costume designer Barbara Clayden.
While this is Hamlet’s story, it really is only made possible through the teamwork of a very skilled cast. Nadeem Phillip Umar Khitab is the quintessential Hamlet, with his physical presence and determination palpable as he undertakes his filial task of revenge. (Starting Sept. 2, Hamlet will be played by Chirag Naik.) Besworth is an ethereal Ophelia who sees no option but to take her life when both her brother, Laertes (Kay), and her father, Polonius (Wheeler), forbid her to have anything to do with Hamlet. Munish Sharma plays Claudius; Jennifer Clement, Gertrude; Ivy Charles and Aidan Correia, Guildenstern and Rosencrantz; and Youssef, the Ghost.
For tickets to any of the Bard productions, visit bardonthebeach.org or 604-739-0559. Comedy of Errors and Measure for Measure run on the smaller Howard Family Stage.
Tova Kornfeld is a Vancouver freelance writer and lawyer.
A love affair that lasts
Sarah Heyman and Jerry Callaghan co-star in Bema Productions’ Same Time, Another Year, which opens July 17 at Congregation Emanu-El’s Black Box Theatre. (photo from Bema Productions)
From July 17 to 28, Bema Productions will be staging Same Time, Another Year, the sequel to Bernard Slade’s Broadway hit Same Time, Next Year, at Congregation Emanu-El’s Black Box Theatre.
The sequel catches up with Doris and George, who, in the first instalment, have carried on a long-standing love affair – meeting each other for a weekend once a year despite being married to others. Same Time, Another Year starts on their 25th anniversary, in 1976, and continues through their subsequent February rendezvous over the next 17 years.
The pair are now in their late sixties, faced with the responsibilities and consequences of life, all the while reexamining love beyond their annual assignation and the romance contained within it. Told in six scenes, and against the backdrop of the late 20th century, their affair and their perspectives on their relationship evolve and change. Along the way, there are illnesses, career successes and setbacks, second marriages, second families, and grandchildren.
“I knew that many of our patrons would remember Same Time, Next Year and, like me, wonder what happened to George and Doris 25 years later. I have had quite a few [people] tell me this since the advertising went out,” said Zelda Dean, founder and managing artistic director of Bema. “Maybe because I am ‘that age,’ the play spoke to me, as it addresses what we all have to face as we age – the fears that everyone has about their health and about losing the ones we love.”
Doris and George form a special bond beyond the bedroom, one with its own sincerity. Further, they provide a kind of gauge for what happens in the other’s life.
Dean told the Independent that what she likes most about the play is the unique relationship that develops over the many years, although the characters only meet once a year. She feels that audiences will enjoy the continuation of their journey.
Dean added that it has been a delight to work with the two leads, Sarah Heyman and Jerry Callaghan, whom she described as two very gifted actors. Both have been in the business for several years and are also close friends, which, Dean explained, made it easier for them to portray the relationship between the couple.
“A ‘two-hander’ is always a challenge for the actors. Of course, many lines have to be learned and there is never time for a break on stage,” Dean said. “This particular play has six scenes, mostly four years apart. This means the actors have to change their costumes in two minutes or less. Much harder than one would think, especially standing in the wings.”
A Canadian playwright and actor, Slade created two popular television series in the late 1960s and early 1970s, The Flying Nun and The Partridge Family. He also wrote for Bewitched and The Courtship of Eddie’s Father, among others. He began his career as an actor, performing in more than 200 plays on stage, radio and television, in regional theatres around Toronto and on camera for the CBC. By the mid-1970s, Slade turned his comedic focus to the stage and wrote more than a dozen plays.
One of the most produced and successful two-person plays, Same Time, Next Year opened on Broadway in March 1975, originally starring Ellen Burstyn and Charles Grodin, and ran for more than 1,400 shows during the course of nearly four years. It toured across the United States, played in London and was translated into several languages. It was adapted into a film in 1978 that featured Burstyn and Alan Alda.
It has been said that Slade’s strength as a writer derives from his ability to fill the characters’ lives with events of great richness and depth, and still maintain the easy lightness so important to a romantic comedy – with strong dialogue and a consistent, realistic and emotional tone. The theme of Same Time, Another Year, as well as the original, is that few (if any) relationships fit into neat boxes, and each has its own rhythm and place in people’s lives.
For more information, showtimes and tickets, visit Bema’s website, bemaproductions.com.
Sam Margolis has written for the Globe and Mail, the National Post, UPI and MSNBC.
Not-so-accessible city
Lenard Stanga as Hugh and Cadence Rush Quibell as Shiloh in Realwheels Theatre’s Disability Tour Bus podcast, which will be released July 17. (photo by Rashi Sethi)
On July 17, Realwheels Theatre releases its new production, Disability Tour Bus, as a radio play podcast available for streaming at realwheels.ca.
Written for podcast platforms by Amy Amantea and Jewish community member Rena Cohen, Disability Tour Bus follows Shiloh, a young wheelchair-user, as they navigate their first day as a guide for Funcouver Bus Tours. Working alongside longtime employee and relentless dad-joker Hugh, Shiloh struggles to stick to the Funcouver script when so much of “Canada’s most wheelchair-accessible city” is still so inaccessible. People and politics collide until a new passenger, Tess, comes aboard and offers common ground. The tour must go on! Because there’s someone special waiting for Tess at the end. At least she hopes there is.
The role of Hugh is played by Lenard Stanga, Jewish community member Cadence Rush Quibell plays Shiloh, and co-writer Amantea is Tess. The cast is rounded out by Mack Gordon, Caitlyn Bairstow, Ian Hanlin and Lauren Jackson playing multiple parts.
“As a wheelchair-user, I’ve heard that whole ‘most accessible city’ line a lot,” said Realwheels co-artistic director Adam Grant Warren. “It’s a big part of the reason I moved to Vancouver from the other side of the country. I’ve been here for 16 years now. After hundreds of busted elevators, torn-up sidewalks and too-full buses, I know Vancouver has a lot of work to do. Access-wise it means well, but it’s a mess sometimes. For me, that’s one of the most interesting tensions in this project: the attempt to create access when no one thought to ask what those of us who are looking for it actually need.”
– Courtesy Realwheels Theatre
Get ready to rock at TUTS
School of Rock cast members, left to right: Crosby Mark, Casey Trotter, Colin Sheen, Mya Forrest, Fumi Okochi and Thailey Roberge. Matthew Rossoff is choreographer of the production. (photo by Emily Cooper)
Matthew Rossoff has returned to Theatre Under the Stars – to choreograph his first production for TUTS, School of Rock. The musical, which alternates with Cats at the Malkin Bowl in Stanley Park, previews July 7-8 and opens July 11.
“Over a year ago, I responded to a posting seeking new creative team members to join the upcoming season and thought it would be a great way to reconnect with the TUTS community,” said Rossoff, who grew up in Richmond and performed in TUTS shows in his younger days. “I was actually on my honeymoon when I received the initial call and am thrilled it all worked out!”
Rossoff, who is a member of the Jewish community, has performed in two TUTS productions: South Pacific in 2000 and Joseph and the Amazing Technicolour Dreamcoat in 2002.
“For several reasons, both of these productions and experiences were huge influences in my career as an emerging artist,” Rossoff told the Independent. “After a long performing hiatus, South Pacific was my first musical after I graduated high school and it was a dream to perform at the Malkin Bowl. Joseph was directed and choreographed by my childhood idol, Jeff Hyslop, and this production catapulted me into my professional career as a dancer and actor, making my CAEA [Canadian Actors’ Equity Association] debut in Fiddler on the Roof at the Vancouver Playhouse later that fall.”
While earning his bachelor of arts at the University of British Columbia, majoring in theatre and minoring in English literature, Rossoff was also doing work in film and traveling across Canada performing in theatrical productions. In 2006, he followed through on his dream to move to New York. There, he performed in several shows, and made his Stratford Shakespeare Festival debut in Camelot and Jesus Christ Superstar.
“Jesus Christ Superstar gained critical acclaim and, eventually, the entire Canadian cast transferred to Broadway in March 2012,” Rossoff said. “I was fortunate to make my Broadway debut, as the dance captain and swing. Our production became a Tony Award nominee for best revival, which offered me a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to perform on the Tony Awards!”
And to think, Rossoff’s career began in elementary school, when he saw one of his sister’s dance classes. “I was amazed,” he said, knowing it “was something I needed to do. Very much in line with the character Mike from A Chorus Line, I told my parents, ‘I can do that!’
“Tap dancing evoked a passion and spark in my soul so bright that I continued on with it all throughout elementary school,” Rossoff said. “During high school, I decided to put up my dancing shoes for a bit and tried other sports and school activities, but it was after my first show at TUTS, South Pacific in 2000, when I bought a new pair of shoes and reignited my passion for tap dancing. Luckily I did because my career took off and I’ve been so fulfilled and blessed with such amazing dance and performance opportunities.”
He got his first theatre work about the time he started tap dancing, in Grade 3. He played an orphan and one of Fagin’s boys, Mouse, in Oliver!
“My sister was in the production with me and I remember getting bit by the theatre bug,” said Rossoff. “There was a sense of community being created with the cast that I loved being a part of and, of course, the excitement of performing and dancing under the lights.”
After 10 years living and working in New York City, Rossoff decided to follow another impulse – “to go back to school and deepen my training as a performer, artist and educator.”
He moved to Toronto to attend York University, earning a master’s of fine arts in the school’s performance (acting) program, with a specialization in teaching.
“Those two years changed me at the core of my artistry and revealed a new sense of how I wanted to move forward in my artistic journey,” he told the Independent. “Along with my long-time dance background, my focus became voice, speech and mindfulness work. I quickly became a faculty member at several post-secondary schools and universities in Toronto – teaching voice, speech and movement at York University, Randolph College, Sheridan College, Brock University and, most recently, Toronto Metropolitan University.
“Knowing that choreography and dance were at the base of my creative foundation, I stepped onto the creative team side of the table and began my director/choreographer journey. Shortly after my time at TUTS this summer, I will be returning to Toronto and stepping into the world of Disney as a resident creative team/dance supervisor for Disney Cruise Lines.”
Rossoff’s body presence, mindfulness and yoga work are at the core of his artistic practice and choreography.
“This work stemmed from my training and perhaps lack of intersection between dance and how to connect to the breath and emotional journey as an actor and storyteller,” he said. “Dance is an extraordinary universal language of embodiment, but in musical theatre you also have to put the text onto your full voice and hold space in the body to support and reveal the emotional, physical, intellectual and imaginative journey the character moves through.
“I’m always curious how can an actor lead from the internal impulses and connections to what’s happening in the scene and put it fully into their body through external gesture and movement. To play a truthful human experience, an actor must use the breath to spark the imagination, the senses and full range of expression with their whole sense of self.”
While Rossoff puts his whole self into his work, collaboration is the cornerstone of his creative process.
“Working alongside the director and honouring their vision and design of the show, a movement esthetic and point of view is cultivated,” he explained.
“In my own pre-production work, I start with the words off the page from the playwrights, composers and lyricists: the storytelling. I’m curious, What’s the primary narrative being told and how can movement from the actors elevate and further the storytelling in a compelling and exciting way?”
For productions such as School of Rock, Rossoff said, “I listen to the music over and over again and I daydream and imagine ways to bring this … story to life. Once the show is cast and we’re in the rehearsal hall, I come prepared with an overall structure of how the choreography will unfold or, if the story seeks personalized gestures or movement, bring in exercises to draw out embodied movement from the actors. For example, School of Rock has 13 incredible young performers and their energy brings out creative ideas, movements and impulses [and] I try to hold space for them to join in on the collaborative journey. They certainly inform and bring a unique point of view through their personalized storytelling.
“Choreographing a musical is not all about big production dance numbers,” he added, “but also about sorting out the transitions and the moments in between, as they become key to the flow and momentum of the story. As the show gets closer to opening night, it becomes about the details of precision, economy and relaxation in the movement so that each actor feels at ease and ready to perform with unconscious competence and joy!”
For tickets to School of Rock and Cats, which previews July 5-6 and opens July 10, visit tuts.ca. Cats runs to Aug. 21 and School of Rock to Aug. 22. For tickets, visit tuts.ca.
Chutzpah! needs your help
Chutzpah! Festival acting managing director Jessica Gutteridge. (photo by Tallulah Photography)
After nearly 25 years at the forefront of Jewish arts and culture in Western Canada, Vancouver’s international performing arts festival, Chutzpah!, faces an urgent financial crisis. And it needs your help to keep the stage lights on.
Shifting priorities in government arts funding, as well as the impacts of Oct. 7 and the war in Gaza, have created a perfect storm resulting in a dramatic drop in revenue.
How did this happen?
Chutzpah! depends significantly on government grants. Presently, the stagnant pool of arts funding, alongside a growing number of applications, means fierce competition for fewer dollars. In addition, Jewish arts programming officially falls outside of funders’ “designated priority groups.” Funders have told the festival that, this year, only 15-20% of proposals will be approved, and Chutzpah! has already been declined for several grants that it has received historically.
“The arts community, generally, is facing difficulties with sustainable government arts funding, as the funding pool has returned to pre-pandemic levels with more applicants seeking funding,” explained artistic managing director Jessica Gutteridge. “But there are compounded challenges that Jewish performing arts and artists are facing, especially as tensions escalate locally in response to the war in Israel. Jewish organizations and events require additional security and access to funding is hampered by the fact that Jewish artists are excluded from funding priority categories, due to a misunderstanding that Jews are a marginalized ethnocultural group, and not solely a religious group.”
Adding to the financial challenges, Chutzpah! opened last year within weeks of the Hamas attacks and war in Gaza, within an atmosphere of rising anti-Jewish hate that has been felt both globally and locally. Despite the festival’s efforts to ensure the safety of performers, audience and staff, ticket sales suffered dramatically. With Jewish arts organizations and events in Vancouver, across Canada and elsewhere targeted with petitions and protests, the erasure of Jewish language, art and culture is, once again, a real threat. As a community, we cannot allow this to happen.
This is why Chutzpah! urgently needs support. The challenges the festival faces are serious, but not insurmountable, and organizers are taking several steps to try and secure its future.
Chutzpah! is speaking with new philanthropic foundations, exploring capacity-building needs in the short- and long-term. Increasing its capacity would give the organization more resources to diversify and grow revenue through grants, audience development plans, sponsorships, private donations, and more.
As well, the festival has established a circle of advisors – a few community members who are passionate about the arts, the Jewish community and Chutzpah! With their help, the festival hopes to strengthen its base of individual donors and identify prospective program sponsors and partners.
Chutzpah! is also reaching out directly to its community of patrons and supporters to share the challenges it is facing and ask for support.
“We’ve been so heartened by the response to our campaign to date. We’ve nearly reached 50% of our goal,” said Gutteridge.
The goal is to raise $60,000 by May 31. There are five ways people can help:
1. Contribute to the campaign. You can donate online directly and securely through CanadaHelps (or by cheque to Vancouver West Side Theatre Society).
2. Help Chutzpah! grow its network of support by sharing information about the situation with like-minded friends/colleagues. Add a brief note explaining why you support the festival and ask them if they might consider doing the same.
3. If you or your contacts donate before May 31, campaign co-chair Emet Davis will match all gifts, up to a maximum of $10,000.
4. Increase your own impact by offering a formal or informal matching gift challenge within your personal or professional networks. Simply direct friends and colleagues to the festival’s donations page, confirm gifts, then issue your matching gift. Let the festival know if you do this.
5. Be a sponsor. Sponsorships subsidize production and associated costs for festival performances. There is a range of giving levels, recognition and other benefits.
“With rising costs for artists, staff and production expenses, all needed to bring the high-quality work that Chutzpah! audiences are accustomed to, we are looking to gather a small but mighty group of philanthropists and arts lovers to support us – producer-level supporters,” said Gutteridge. “This group will help offset the challenges we’re facing with limited government arts funding and rising costs, by financing specific content for the festival and joining us to share those programs with their networks. We can match their artistic interests to our programming – for example, help produce a series of Israeli artists, or step up to support an evening of klezmer music.”
“Until several years ago, I only attended Chutzpah! occasionally,” said Davis. “To be honest, I think I took for granted that it was a permanent fixture in our community. But, when I made a decision a few years ago to engage more meaningfully in Jewish community, the festival became part of my journey – it has deepened my knowledge and my sense of pride in my identity. Chutzpah! is about something much more than entertainment – it’s about the preservation and celebration of our language, art and culture. Now more than ever, I’m reminded we can’t take that for granted.”
Donate via chutzpahfestival.com or save Chutzpah! the processing fees and give by cheque to Vancouver West Side Theatre Society, mailed to 950 West 41st Ave., Vancouver, BC, V5Z 2N7.
– Courtesy Chutzpah! Festival
DOTE happens in June
Karen Kaeja and Allen Kaeja in Lasterday. (photo by Kendra Epik)
Featuring more than 30 performances June 13-22, Dancing on the Edge audiences will see world premières, Western Canadian debuts and works-in-progress. This year’s lineup includes the Vancouver première of Lasterday, with choreography by Hanna Kiel, music by Adam Campbell, lighting by Gavin McDonald and performances by Kaeja d’Dance, Toronto Jewish community members Karen and Allen Kaeja.
Lasterday is part of EDGE 1, which also features Tiger Princess Dance Projects and Calder White. Performances are June 16 and 17, 7 p.m., at the Firehall Arts Centre.
Lasterday delves into the relationship of two individuals who carry different memories and perceptions of the same events from their past – sense of timeline, emotional impacts and interactions – revealing how they remember and interpret their shared history. Lasterday is part of the Kaeja d’Dance’s lifeDUET commissioning series. The works explore the Kaejas’ creative and personal partnership. Many duets have toured across the world through Canada and to Spain, India, England, Japan, Mexico, Venezuela and Israel. (For more, see jewishindependent.ca/life-stories-told-in-dance.)
Kiel is a Dora Award-winning artist hailing from Seoul, South Korea, who made Vancouver her home in 1996. Founder and artistic director of Human Body Expression, Kiel is also a resident choreographer at Canada’s JörgenDance.
Campbell is a sound designer, composer, percussionist and singer-songwriter. Originally from Summerside, PEI, and currently living in Stratford, Ont., he has worked as sound designer/composer with many festivals.
McDonald has designed lighting for more than 25 years, across North America and the United Kingdom, and teaches lighting and media design at York University.
Karen Kaeja is an award-winning choreographer, performer and educator. The heart of her research, creation and writing concentrates on the agency of touch. She develops platforms for collaborative relationships between dancers and everyday people, highlighted in her Porch View Dances festival and concept. She is currently co-choreographing with Roshanak Jaberi for Jaberi Dance Theatre’s international collaboration with Sweden – Architecture of Violence.
Allen Kaeja is an award-winning choreographer and dance film director. The child of a refugee and Holocaust survivor, he has created 30 years of Holocaust-inspired stage and film works. He has created more than 210 stage works and choreographed/directed 35 films. His works have been featured in commercials, films and festivals around the world. He teaches Kaeja Elevations and Dance Film master classes worldwide.
About the overall DOTE program this year, the festival’s artistic producer, Donna Spencer, said, “This year, we are pleased to honour one of Canada’s great dance and contact improvisation creators, Peter Bingham, and share his work with the presentation of EDAM’s Dead Weighting. Peter’s body of work has had such an impactful ripple on many of the artists participating in this year’s festival. We are also excited to offer what was a work-in-progress at last year’s festival as a world première this year with Company 605’s lossy; and to bring new choreographic voices such as Anya Saugstad, Clala Dance Project and Simran Sachar to the festival. Stirring things up is in DOTE’s DNA, and we can’t wait for audiences to experience this year’s lineup.”
The complete festival schedule is available at dancingontheedge.org. Tickets can be purchased online via the website or by phone at 604-689-0926.
– Courtesy Dancing on the Edge
Stand Up celebrates 20th
Stand Up for Mental Health founder David Granirer. (photo from smhcomedysociety.org)
Stand Up for Mental Health (SMH), a program started in Vancouver that teaches stand-up comedy to people with mental health issues as a form of therapy and to destigmatize mental illness, celebrated its 20th anniversary this spring.
“It feels like such an accomplishment. Helping so many people has been the highlight of my life,” said David Granirer, the founder of SMH. “One thing I am really good at is making other people into stars, and I feel like I have done that a lot. Over the past 20 years, I have trained about 700 comics. So, that’s a lot of stars.
“I had no idea what I was doing when I started out, so I had no expectations about the program being successful or not. I could never have imagined this,” he said.
Granirer, a counselor by profession, as well as a stand-up comic, told the Independent that the two-decade journey has been unforgettable. “Everything stands out,” he said. “Every show, every comic I have ever trained, every laugh we have gotten.”
When considering some of the more memorable bits over the years, he recalled writing a mental health version of the Beatles song “While My Guitar Gently Weeps.” In Granirer’s rendition, the guitar has dizziness, dry mouth and is too depressed to get out of bed.
Granirer, who is open about his own struggles with mental illness, has trained groups in more than 50 cities, in Canada, the United States and Australia, in partnership with various mental health organizations. He plans to continue the program and run it in more cities in the coming years.
The idea for SMH originated from a course Granirer has been teaching at Langara College since 1998 called Stand-Up Comedy Clinic. Occasionally, he would see people have life-changing experiences by getting on stage and using comedy to tell a club full of people who they were.
“One woman had a fear of flying and told me that the day after our event she had to get on a plane and she said, ‘My fear was gone. I felt like once I’d done stand-up I could do anything,’” Granirer said. “And I thought, wouldn’t it be amazing to be able to give this experience to people who wanted to do comedy but who also wanted to change their lives? And since I work in mental health and I also have a mental illness, I thought that would be the perfect place to start.”
For Filomena Black, a graduate of the course, SMH has been a lifeline. An introvert by nature, she said she has been able to be more comfortable around people.
“I’ve lost my self-conscious focus and become more engaged in enjoying other people’s company. I’m now looking forward to successfully meeting challenges in all aspects of my life rather than avoiding them,” Black said.
Asked to tell one of the jokes in her repertoire, Black responded, “I used to run away from home a lot, but my kids always found me.”
Another SMH graduate, April Soon, also speaks highly of the program, lauding Granirer for shining a light on what people with mental health issues can do and not letting finances be a barrier to participation.
Soon, a veteran of public speaking through Toastmasters, did not find standing up before a crowd as intimidating as others might have and, these days, she not only performs at SMH gigs but at other venues around Vancouver.
“When bad things happen to me now, I wonder how I can use it as material,” said Soon. “SMH has helped reframe my thinking and provided good resilience training.”
On a lighter note, she added, “Being involved with SMH has exposed me to many other mental illnesses I want to try out.”
Kevin Scow similarly expresses his gratitude, saying the program has given him his voice and was vital to his recovery.
“This came to me at exactly the right time,” he said. “Instead of seeming strange … now they know I am strange … and they love me all the more for it. Thanks to David and my fellow alumni for nurturing my voice and helping with making it funny. My First Nations side says thanks.”
SMH’s 20th anniversary was recognized last month with a proclamation from the Province of British Columbia declaring April 13 as Stand-Up for Mental Health Day. The proclamation reads, in part, that SMH provides a program for thousands of people “to improve their lives and combat the stigma surrounding mental health and … is an opportunity to raise awareness of and show support for people managing mental health issues or illnesses.”
Since 2004, Granirer and his comics have performed more than 500 shows for mental health organizations, government departments, corporations, universities, correctional facilities and the military. Granirer also gives “laughter in the workplace presentations” to organizations across North America, helping them use humour to lower stress, improve wellness and cope with change. Granirer, too, is the author of The Happy Neurotic: How Fear and Angst Can Lead to Happiness and Success.
SMH’s classes in Vancouver last for six months and students step on stage for two shows, a debut and a graduating performance. As Granirer says, “The comics go from knowing nothing about stand-up to killing it.”
Stand Up for Mental Health is currently recruiting for its next class, which starts July 30. For more information, visit smhcomedysociety.org.
Sam Margolis has written for the Globe and Mail, the National Post, UPI and MSNBC.