Sunday Feature: Carmen Aguirre on Theatre in the Time of Danger (Blue Box, WildSide)

“Come if you dare”
by Carmen Aguirre

Carmen Aguirre is a Vancouver-based theatre artist who has written and co-written 20 plays including Chile Con Carne, The Trigger, Blue Box, and The Refugee Hotel. Her plays have been nominated for a Dora Mavor Moore Award (Toronto), four Jessie Richardson Theatre Awards (Vancouver), and The Siminovitch Prize (national). Her first book, Something Fierce: Memoirs of a Revolutionary Daughter won CBC Canada Reads 2012 and is a national bestseller. Carmen has over 60 film, television and stage acting credits. She is the recipient of the 2002 New Play Centre's Best New Play Award, the 2011 Union of B.C. Performers' Lorena Gale Woman of Distinction Award, and Langara College's 2012 Outstanding Alumni Award. Ms Aguirre presented the keynote address below on the theme "Speaking Of Change" for the Literary Managers and Dramaturgs of the Americas Annual Conference on June 27, 2013 at Simon Fraser University.

When I was 18 years old I had the most searing theatrical experience of my life. It happened in Lima, Peru, during the civil war there. It was May, 1986, and I had just joined the Chilean resistance that was fighting Pinochet's right-wing dictatorship. 

Now if you joined the underground outside of Chile, like I did, you did so in Lima, where you would get your orders. But first you had to take the oath. 

The oath said that I would give my life to the resistance, that I agreed to be executed by the resistance if I broke under torture and gave my comrades away, and that I would always follow orders no matter what. Security was of the utmost importance; people fell all the time: Pinochet's dictatorship was considered one of the most “secure” in the world (in other words, the secret police were everywhere), and the Peruvian secret police worked with Pinochet as well. So one must never ever do anything stupid. 

creating a/broad, January 4, 2013

Cold and Lethargy
by Cameryn Moore
@camerynmoore

They say you should start your new year as you want it to go on. This is why I don’t like to listen to what 'they' say. Going on that logic, I will be cold and obsessing about show venues for 2014. Now that I think about it, this is how 2013 started, too. Guh.

Yes. As of this writing, I am back in Montreal and it is cold outside. It is not as cold as Winnipeg—that is nothing to brag about, Winnipeg—and it is probably not as cold as it was the winter of 1992-93 in St. Petersburg, Russia. I can’t say for certain, but I’d bet, because that city may be beautiful, but it is Far North, and they get a lot of winter that far north.

What they did have in Russia at that time was central heating. By 'central', I mean seriously centralized, as in someone in City Hall would decide that it was going to be cold pretty steadily from then on out until the spring, and they would turn the heat on for the whole district. Literally. So we had to open a few of the casements to cool the apartment down to comfort level. Socialists, man, what are you going to do? But we swanned around indoors wearing t-shirts all winter, and our heating was cheap on a consumer level, because my girlfriend and I were expatriates with a decent, though under-the-table, income, and when you had American dollars in 1992 Russia, everything was cheap, except when you couldn’t find it. Heat we could always find.

CharPo's Real Theatre! January 3, 2014

A Fly on the Wall, January 3, 2014

Wring out the Old : Ring in the NEW!

by Jim Murchison

@JimMurchison

So this is the time of year that we're supposed to reflect on what has gone and plan for what we need to do in the future. Now this is a process that to be an effective person you should engage in on a regular basis, but many of us do not. It is a lot easier to whine about your lot and bitch at the bastards that put you there or keep you trapped there. There is some therapeutic value to bitch sessions and I engage in them often, but this year I have actually done some advanced planning to try to participate more in the art I love. I want to write more. I want to act more, and who knows maybe I'll even direct.

I hope that one or two plans actually happen if I don't procrastinate too much, but even with effort and good intention you need luck and health. I get pissed off with sanctimonious pricks that have had little adversity in their lives that look at unfortunate people that are falling through the cracks and label them as losers. I have always found that these people have interesting and compelling stories. Life is so difficult sometimes that it is amazing that so many people survive it so long with the way the odds are stacked in favour of the house of the privileged. These are the stories I like reading and these are the stories I want to write.

News: (Toronto) Buddies announces line-up for Rhubarb Festival (Press release)

pictured: Humboldt Magnussen
photo: Tanja-Tiziana

NEWS: The Charlebois Post - Canada's Picture of the Year, 2013

News: CharPR Prize 2013, winners

Kaleb Alexander, Lauren Brotman, Beryl Bain in Dirty Butterfly (photo by Joe Bucci)

CharPR Prize Winners, 2013

The Charlebois Post, ltd. is very proud to announce the winners of the CharPR Prize for theatre public relations for 2013. However, before we get to that we must restate our profound thanks to all the publicists, photographers and PR departments across the country without whom we would have very little to share with our readers. Here's to a brilliant 2014. (In passing, if you would like to see our Picture of the Year, come back tomorrow!)