Tag: Mindy Parfitt

The joys of connection

Actor Kerry Sandomirsky – who has more than 130 stage and screen credits – is making her producing debut with the Vancouver première of The Sound Inside, written by Adam Rapp, which was nominated for six Tony Awards in 2020, including best play. The Nov. 14-24 performances at Vancity Culture Lab represent two other milestones – the first production of Sandomirksy’s newly established company, all day breakfast theatre, and the launch of the Search Party’s New Cartography initiative.

photo - Actor Kerry Sandomirsky produces her first play – the Vancouver première of The Sound Inside, by Adam Rapp – and launches her new company, all day breakfast theatre
Actor Kerry Sandomirsky produces her first play – the Vancouver première of The Sound Inside, by Adam Rapp – and launches her new company, all day breakfast theatre. (photo from the Cultch)

“I was looking for something to produce, so I was reading a lot of scripts,” Sandomirsky, who is Jewish, told the Independent. “There was something about The Sound Inside that kept pulling me back. Adam Rapp describes it as haunting, and I think I was haunted by it. My aunt and uncle who live in LA are avid theatre-goers. On two previous occasions they have suggested work I should consider. Coincidently, those pieces became important touchstones in my career. When I was in the middle of negotiating rights for The Sound Inside, they contacted me once again about this compelling show they had just seen. I hung up and bought the rights.”

Being a producer comprises multiple responsibilities.

“Producing involves raising money, putting a team together, creating a budget, getting insurance, finding a theatre, organizing and initiating publicity and marketing campaigns, and ensuring the production is created in a supportive environment,” said Sandomirsky. “So often in life we are in a state of reactive business, and producing was a way for me to take agency.”

Sandomirsky not only produces The Sound Inside, but co-stars in it with Jacob Leonard; Mindy Parfitt, founding artistic director of the Search Party, directs.

Sandomirsky portrays the character of Bella Baird, “an under-appreciated novelist and tenured creative writing professor who forms an unlikely bond with a mysterious yet talented student, Christopher Dunn,” played by Leonard, who happens to have been a student of Sandomirsky’s when she taught at Studio 58. “Brimming with suspense, Rapp’s riveting play explores the limits of what one person can ask of another,” reads one description of the 90-minute play.

“The Sound Inside is about two people who have isolated themselves from the world, but, to their great surprise, find in each other a reprieve from loneliness,” said Sandomirsky of the play’s appeal. “It is about the delight of connection, the joy of a shared sense of humour, and the power of being seen.”

“The Search Party created New Cartography as a response to Kerry’s desire to produce The Sound Inside,” Parfitt told the Independent. “It has been a way for us to expand how we create theatre and to identify ways we can support and encourage artists to develop themselves.”

photo - Mindy Parfitt, founding artistic director of the Search Party, whose New Cartography initiative offered Kerry Sandomirsky support in her first producing role
Mindy Parfitt, founding artistic director of the Search Party, whose New Cartography initiative offered Kerry Sandomirsky support in her first producing role. (photo from the Cultch)

The Search Party’s website notes that the initiative’s purpose is “to provide mid-career and established artists an opportunity to develop new aspects of their practice. Initiated by the artist, it provides hands-on practical experience in a previously unexplored area of their own creative landscape. Through the New Cartography program, artists receive mentorship, resources, tools and systems in theatre production.”

An application process for the initiative isn’t in place yet, said Parfitt. But, if artists are interested, they can contact her through the company’s website, searchpartyproductions.com.

“There are many aspects to this process which are new for me,” Parfitt said. “Kerry brought me the script. She and Jacob had done considerable work on it before I got involved and so there was some catching up for me to do. This is unusual as a director. Usually that process is completely reversed.

“We have been rehearsing part-time over several weeks, which also is different from the complete immersion that all of us are used to,” she continued. “The Search Party is dedicated to marrying a strong design with a compelling script. Kerry’s company – all day breakfast theatre – prioritizes actor-driven theatre.  is an exploration in uniting our two visions.”

“Mindy has been instrumental in demystifying the many logistics of producing,” said Sandomirsky. “She has provided practical advice and infrastructural support. The experience has given both of us an opportunity to make theatre in a new way.”

For tickets to The Sound Inside, visit thecultch.com/ticket/the-sound-inside. 

Actors’ journey to catharsis in This Stays in the Room

The cast of This Stays in the Room. (photo from horseshoesandhandgrenades.ca)

Baring one’s soul is always difficult. Imagine how it would be to share your angst and pain with a room full of strangers. This is exactly what four brave actors undertake in the world première of This Stays in the Room.

Horseshoes and Hand Grenades Theatre has partnered with PTC and Radix Theatre to bring this innovative mix of text, song, photography, video projections and choreography to the Downtown Eastside’s Gallery Gachet.

The company, as its press material states, “is a provocative and political group who are not content with holding a mirror up to society – they would rather conduct an autopsy on it.” This is the company’s first site-specific production and, by using a gallery venue, the audience is invited into a non-theatre space, removing the main barrier between the audience and the performers. To allow this intersection of theatre and visual art, the production set will remain as an installation during the run of the play for the general public to explore. The gallery is a collectively run space whose mandate is to encourage dialogue and promote social and economic justice.

The setting is intimate, rows of chairs on either side of a corridor with four decorated ones within the audience for the cast. The actors appear, two men, two women, each carrying a basket full of props. They sit among the viewers – you can reach out and touch them – and, one at a time, tell all. Four stories, four people, all very different and yet, in some strange way, hauntingly similar. An intense one hour takes you through the actors’ personal journeys, from trauma to the triumph of acceptance and forgiveness.

Part of the experience is the actors’ self-description as they draw themselves on a blackboard. Something visceral happens watching these four draw images of themselves on the board. They start off with simple stick people and then add layer upon layer of shape, form and color as they pictorially lay out their self-perceptions. The sound of the chalk scratching against the board picks up speed as they reach their finished images.

We meet Allan Morgan, 59 years old, gay, grappling with his sexuality and society’s homophobia, who puts a pink triangle over his face – he tells of his shame as a “chubby little boy” and his first homosexual experience. Then there is 30ish Robert Salvador, alcoholic, full of guilt over cheating on his wife and small daughter: he shares the story about a sex-free summer game he and his pals played in his teens, where falling off the wagon brought the punishment of being pelted with raw eggs. Next up, petite Manami Hara watching her elderly father deteriorate mentally and physically, feeling she abandoned him in his time of need, and, finally, pregnant Alexa Devine, harried mother of two, abused as a child.

Added to the mix are three stories of members of the creative team, whose talking heads are projected onto white lanterns hanging from the ceiling and the blackboards on either side of the audience. The poignancy and emotion of the disclosures are almost overwhelming at times. This is raw, in your face, reality theatre. It resonates with the audience because we have all been there, done that, and understand the feelings so openly expressed by this talented cast. At the end of the show, the faces of all of the audience members are projected onto the walls of the tiny room, each in a little circle – a reminder that we are all one.

With sound design by Noah Drew (whose Tiny Music was part of this year’s Chutzpah! Festival), lighting design by Andreas Kahre, video projection design by Cande Andrade and choreography by Amber Funk Barton, this multi-media mix comes together under the steady hand of director Mindy Parfitt.

This show is not for all: it is not a feel good, laugh-out-loud production but, as Parfitt notes, “It’s really about how we as individuals face the challenges in our lives, how we move forward and find some kind of forgiveness with ourselves and others.”

This Stays in the Room runs to March 30. Due to the adult content and language, it is not suitable for anyone under 18.

Gallery Gachet is located at 88 East Cordova St. Seating is limited. More information can be found at 604-729-5395 and horseshoesandhandgrenades.ca.

Tova Kornfeld is a Vancouver freelance writer and lawyer.