Eat!

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One of our brainstorming and brunching meetings. We are working, honestly! It always amazes me how we can go our separate ways, bring back little sparks of ideas and end up having hours and hours of discussion as a result. Training/Rehearsal starts in a little over a week. That's when we'll begin our focused exploration with mind, body and voice. I'm so looking forward to that. Garry always makes it challenging and interesting. Also, anything we have collected or written to that point will still be possible material and over the course of the month of October, a show will come to being.

We've set the previews tentatively for the first weekend in November. Space is still a fuzzy issue. Steven is talking to some people, I'm looking at some different things as well. Of course, money is an object and we're holding off on booking tickets still. I try to take my cues from Garry who seems able not to stress about any of these things. It all works out, somehow, in the end.

Other natterings about sponsorship, fundraisers, publicity, school tours... so much. This is my denial phase regarding about the amount of work ahead of us. Soon I'll want to get in the box with Pushkin!

Life, Afterlife and...

We had another meeting today, this time at Garry and Eric's house. Pushkin (aka Kitten) kept things light although the topics of conversation delved into some very weighty subjects. Among them: Revelations, the four horsemen of the Apocalypse, the existence of a heaven and/or a hell, hell-on-earth, rock-bottom, personal apocalypses (apocalypsi?), black capes and boots, the Tower of Babel, Icarus and Cassandra, an essay comparing the world to a semi-flooded basement with 16 occupants, goodness/wickedness, youth hopelessness, anarchy, social codes, moral codes. And such.

One particularly interesting point that Garry raised was how people tend to look at the Apocalypse as the end, as doomsday, and yet it could be seen as a new beginning, a better world.


Stev has started a bit of research locally, posting this sign around town. I've had fun imagining the responses and suspect there will be a lot of "Quit my jobs" in the mix. He's already received several email responses from his own contacts and had a couple of girls scrawl "Give back to the community" on the sign outside his apartment. They also scratched out the email address and wrote in "Revise your project." Whatever that means.

You Want Me to What?

So, a couple of days ago, the boyz and I found ourselves alone together after one of our Fringe show performances. I suggested we catch a show together or get a drink and Garry said, "Maybe we should talk about November." Oh, right! November.

So we headed to Uncommon Grounds on Argyle (UnCommon Grounds) for a cuppa-cuppa. I had the Numi Lemongrass tea, yum yum; Eric had coffee. Have we established that Eric loves coffee yet? I think Garry had coffee too and Shtev had tea? Or maybe the other way around. Not important, really.

We sat at the sidewalk cafe under an overcast sky. A November sky? I let my thoughts meander about November skies in Berlin and how cold it might be then and which coat...

What? Oh, yes. That show we're creating. Right. Globalization. Transatlantic prejudice. And the... Apocalypse? Yes. He said apocalypse.

Woohoo... heavy but tasty. Lots of grist for the mill as it were. Random thoughts about "Einstein's Dreams" (Review), how people treat people, attitudes about life, the world, living and ending. It's a bit of a blur now but it was all pretty exciting.

So then, Garry casually asks how we all would feel about doing it as a musical. Both he and Eric are amazing vocalists with great musical abilities. Shtev says he's game though he warned us of some potential "pitch problems" which he is certain a skilled singing coach will be able to smooth out.

Happy coincidence, Garry happens to be a skilled singing coach.

And then there's me. Ah, me. Musical theatre. Oy. I have...erm... some issues. I mean, I enjoy singing and I can riff off a bar or two or belt out a part of a song just for fun and feel pretty confident. And most of the time it sounds and feels good. But only when it isn't serious. So when it's serious? Well, it takes the wind right out of my lungs, almost literally.

Therefore, my response to Garry's oh-so-casual-he-knows-damn-well-what-I-feel query was, shall we say, measured.

"Well, Garry," I start, "If that is the way the project goes, then I will certainly go with it. But! As you know, that's out of my comfort zone."

And he laughs, the kind of laugh that is the physical equivalent of mussing someone's hair affectionately, and says, "Kim, when have you ever been in your comfort zone with DaPoPo?"

And it's true. Each project has presented new challenges for me, so why should this one be any different?

Life lesson: I learned to downhill ski at the ripe old age of 13. My cousins learned earlier than me and were much more advanced and more daring. If I didn't want to ski alone, I had to go with them come hell or high moguls. I never would have pushed myself from green to blue to black trails by myself. And if I hadn't had that push I never would have become a better skiier.

So, OK. Bring it on! La la la la la la!!!!

And God save us all!(She says smiling and shaking her head)

The "Just Say It!" DaPoPo Gang

Hey Hey Hey!

Here we are, ready for another DaPoPo project. And the folks involved this time are (drumroll please):

Eric Benson: Actor, philosopher, passionate ideologist. Posting as... Eric.








Steven Bourque: Actor, circus performer, epicurean, quiet strongman. Alias: Shtev. Posting as Stev.

Kim Parkhill: Actor, sometime writer, pragmatist-cum-cynic, recovering perfectionist. Posting as KaPer.







Garry Williams: Actor, DaPoPo artistic director/founder, eternal optimist, challenger.
(pictured with Kitten)






We'll all be posting to this site as time goes on. It is now approximately 11 weeks until we'll be at the FEZ, and it seems we're all excited and full of ideas. Stay with us as we go through the ups and (possibly) downs of bringing those ideas to life.

A Bit of Background

DaPoPo is heading to Berlin again to participate in the Just Say It! 2006 Festival at the FEZ-Berlin. FEZ-Berlin is the largest non-profit children, youth and family centre in Europe.(FEZ-Berlin)

Just Say It! is a bi-annual festival featuring the English-language countries of the world: Australia, Great Britain, India, Canada, South Africa and the USA. Young people in Berlin grow up more strongly ever under the influence of the English language. It surrounds them in everyday life, they use it in daily communication and it is the most learned foreign language in school. The multi-cultural family celebration presents the English-language countries and gives an idea of the various cultural spectrum to this - with stage shows, project presentations, going through offers, exhibitions, culinary specialities and so on.

This will be DaPoPo's second time participating in the festival. In 2004, artistic director Garry Williams together with Steph Berntson, Chris Cohoon and Amanda Jernigan created the show Four Actors in Search of a Nation for the festival. Each actor also taught a workshop to smaller groups of the youth attendees.

Our task this time around is similar. Prepare a show to perform to hundreds of kids. Make it interactive, fun and hopefully pedagogic. The theme of the festival is "globalization" with a special focus for us on "transatlantic prejudice." Prepare a workshop to teach and also be involved in the daily introduction to the festival day.

Hey! No sweat.

We (minus Eric who was home taking care of Kitten) had a meeting with Michael Raj Kunsmann, of the FEZ-Berlin, when we were in Berlin this summer touring "13 Ways of Looking at a Madman" (Tour Blog) so we had a chance to hear right from the horse's mouth what was desired and to get a jump on thinking about it.

Of course, in the interim, we also had to finish up that Berlin tour and remount "13 Ways" for the Atlantic Fringe Festival in Halifax, NS, our base of operations. Between people travelling, teaching theatre intensives and other work, we have managed to meet a couple of times to start tumbling over ideas.