When the Playwright Goes Prose: In Conversation with Haley McGee

My process with solo shows involves sharing bits of text with audiences when I don’t really know where it’s going, or how it’s going to end. I’m pivoting myself to the responses from the audience — I sniff out where I want to go, and how I want to shape the piece. Through creating solo shows, I discovered how much I love this direct, unfettered relationship with an audience.

Settlers and Indians

It was summer of 1982, and my parents had enrolled me in Camp Cabot, a day camp run by the St. John’s YMCA. Every morning I, along with the sixty other campers and a dozen teenage counsellors, travelled on rickety school buses to reach the campsite, a vast, wooded area a few kilometres outside the … Continued

All the Little Worlds: Reflections on Directing with Martha Henry, Diana Leblanc, and Marti Maraden – Part 2

Martha never thought she would be a director. As far as experience had taught her, directors were men. There were a few female directors that she was aware of, but it wasn’t the norm […] Directing jobs at The Grand and Tarragon followed, and Martha felt she always had to get over the initial hurdle of colleagues accustomed to only working with a male director. Technicians made fun of her if she asked what they felt was a stupid question, or ignored her if the question was smart

All the Little Worlds: Reflections on Acting with Martha Henry, Diana Leblanc, and Marti Maraden – Part 1

Though feminism had of course been around for years, it had become a pressing topic for their generation at that time. And as women working in the theatre. “We were trying to establish ourselves as people in an industry that usually looked upon us as less than,” says Martha, “and as adjuncts, and as supporters, and subordinates.”