You there, with the computer. I want to give you a chance to look swanky and meet some truly wild personalities. Just because I like you. All you have to do is answer a question. Are you in?
I’m on the board of Punctuate! Theatre, right? We’re pretty new, but we’re trying to create heart-palpitating, brainwave-inducing, challenging work. And next Friday, we’re taking over Edmonton’s Rutherford House for our first annual fundraiser to let you have a peek into the process and meet the minds behind the performances. You’ll get to see excerpts from the plays, costumes, the scripts we’ve worked through, and partake in some wining and dining. I want you to come. And lucky you, even if you can’t afford a ticket, I happen to have one to give away. You see, my lovely mother has asked me to purchase one on her behalf and find a good home for it. So in her honour (today is her birthday!), I am giving it away to the first person who can answer this skill-testing question, which will mostly test your skills of research:
Who was in the cast of the first show that Punctuate! produced? No hints which show it was. The first person to name at least two of the cast members in the comments below wins!
Vivek Shraya will be in town to lead a discussion after the screening of What I LOVE About Being QUEER
For a community with so much to celebrate, queer folks sure don’t spend enough time talking about what makes our identity and sexuality great. I have story in The Wanderer this week about a documentary that tries to cover some of the joy of the fluid gender roles and “the doin’ it.”
You can read my story on Vivek Shraya’s What I LOVE About Being QUEER here, or meet him in person at the film screening tonight. It’s at 6:30 at Edmonton’s Idylwylde Library.
This has been a bit of an action-packed week, so I just wanted to reflect on some recent successes and thank the people who’ve contributed to them.
First is that thanks to you guys, we reached our fundraising goal on indiegogo to send An Evening With Satan on tour! On behalf of everyone at Punctuate! Theatre, thank you to everyone who chipped in. For a new, small theatre company, $1000 is a great boon to our performers, and will definitely make life easier this week as they bring the show to the Vancouver Fringe Festival.
Second, last weekend’s Shareable Neighbourhood walk on Streetcars had far and away the best turnout so far. It was really inspiring to see so many people with such zeal for learning more about Old Strathcona, especially on a chilly Saturday morning. This time it was led by Earl Grotzki, a local history buff who’s been volunteering with the Edmonton Radial Railway Society for about a decade. You can check out the pictures on the Facebook group.
We had some comedians in the crowd for the streetcar ride with last weekend’s Shareable Neighbourhood.
Did you know that when the North Saskatchewan River flooded in 1915, they put a train on the Low Level Bridge to keep it from being torn away by the current? I do now.
Third, Terra Informa has just been picked up on a new station in BC: Kootenay Co-op Radio on CJLY 93.5 FM in Nelson. Sure, it’s just one more slot on one community radio station, but I take it as a big vote of confidence for the show. Not only is Kootenay Co-op Radio the station that produced the highly listenable Deconstructing Dinner, Terra Informa has gone through some dramatic transitions lately.
Relentlessly positive long-time producer Steve Andersen left this summer, as did a bevy of other great interviewers, so Kathryn Lennon, Matt Hirji and I have stepped in to take on some of his work in cultivating new voices for the show. Every week, I go back and listen to stories from the old team to understand how they made thoughtful, engaging radio out of everything from garbage sorting to the worst coal plants in the world. It’s a testament to the hard work of the new contributors like Annie Banks, Morgana Folkmann and Hamdi Assawi that a station like Kootenay Co-op has added us to their lineup.
Last but not least, I’ve been scooped up as the Alberta Council for Global Cooperation’s new communications officer. I’ve been a fan of ACGC for many years (and were a fan of mine earlier this year with the Top 30 Under 30 profile). Starting at the office today, I was even more excited to see that they take international development and cooperation as seriously and critically as Trent University does.
So from a rich new intellectual environment to the efforts of my colleagues being recognized, this has been a pretty good week. Thanks to everyone who’s made these things possible.
Chris Chang-Yen Phillips: Storyteller and People Weaver 