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Stageworks has a new Show!

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Hey, thanks for visiting the Stageworks Blog! For much of this year the company has been working on a new show – Heirlooms & Baggage – a theatrical adaptation of written stories from the My Mother’s Story for Diverse Voices workshops we’ve held over the course of 2021-2022.

In this blog we’re talking with Marilyn Norry, founder of www.mymothersstory.org who has been the guiding light for our company members writing processes. She and fellow  @deltastageworks associate artist Cory Haas have been leading the script development workshops with devised theatre and storytelling techniques from their art practices.

Marilyn: “It’s so exciting working with Delta Stageworks on a stage show telling the stories of Delta mothers. We are using these stories in a very different way than how I’ve created My Mother’s Story shows in the past. I think audiences will really enjoy what we’re making here. 

Since 2006 we created nine My Mother’s Story shows in Vancouver and North Vancouver and in all cases, the focus was on the mothers with the writer/actors telling their stories. We knew nothing about the writers except that they were the daughters of our primary focus.

In the Delta show we are focusing on the process the daughters (and one son) take in discovering the story of their mothers’ lives. They will be telling the facts of their actual mothers’ lives but we will be witnesses to the frustrations, fears, surprise and sorrow they feel as their eyes and hearts are opened through the research they do. This realization is a common aspect to this project that we have never been able to dramatize: How someone so close to you, someone you thought you knew, could have such a mysterious past.  Through this process they gradually see their mothers as human beings rather than child-centric care givers. (Check out the Stageworks collaborators on this show at  facebook.com/deltastageworks )

I have been asking people to write the stories of their mothers’ lives since 2004 and have worked with hundreds of people in unearthing the facts about their mothers. In all that time I’ve never seen the same story twice: every story is of a unique woman facing unique challenges. This goes against the commonly held wisdom that all mothers have the same life (“She’s just a mom!”) but our connection to our mothers is unique. Nothing could be further from the truth!

The mothers in Heirlooms & Baggage have lived full and interesting lives. Their birthdates range from 1924 to 1969 so their experiences cover the 20th century. Either through birthplaces (Figi, Port Albernie, Saskatoon, Bellingham and Russia) or extensive travel, they bring awareness of the whole world to the stage. But it is their adult children who tell their stories mixed with insights into their own changing relationships to the woman they call Mom. “

Heirlooms & Baggage (My Mother’s Story) will open in spring 2023! Follow Stageworks on instagram.com/deltastageworks to get all the deets on the show’s presentation dates.

Cooking in the Writing Kitchen with Marilyn Norry

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One of the really exciting aspects of creating the Then and Now project – Delta Stageworks’ look at living through the pandemic this past 16 months – has been reconnecting with my colleague Marilyn Norry from my early days working in the theatre in Toronto in the 1980s. I have huge admiration for Marilyn as an actor, a writer and as a story editor. She has been fearless and mesmerizing on stage and has made enormous contributions to the growth of young playwrights in Vancouver as a dramaturge and editor. She is also the founder of an important women’s history/storytelling project: My Mother’s Story. If you’re reading this, take a detour over to her mymothersstory.org website to see the scope of this almost 2 decades- long project! This summer Marilyn and I are (with input from other company members) constructing a second draft of the Then & Now script. It’s a bit like getting into a kitchen with an old friend and making up a recipe for a one pot meal that’s going to serve a big crowd; we’re going through the ingredients we have on hand and thinking about what flavours are going to work together to get to the savoury, memorable whole. It’s not unusual for a new play to take many months and many drafts to arrive at the ready-for-production form, but it is unusual to write a play from the vantage of being in an unfolding event. It’s also unusual – for us at least – to be writing for a multi-media structure. Getting to where we are now has been a completely out-of-the-box workshop process of filtering interviews, personal stories, news stories and the whole zeitgeist of pandemic life through devised theatre workshops (often using Zoom) and writing sessions. So it’s exciting – and maybe a little daunting – to now be collectively shaping up a second draft, and with a lot of big questions still in the air: What’s our big takeaway for audiences? How do we weave together personal narratives and stories from others that we’ve gathered that resonate with us? How much of the play should be digitally mediated? And a really big unknown: how are we going to end this show? Cooking in the writing kitchen with Marilyn: working with an old colleague has some rich rewards.

The Stageworks Blog Kicks Off

June 24, 2021

In this space, we share a more in-depth look at our projects, our theatre practice and why we want to connect with you; either as an audience for a show or as a participant in one of our theatre arts activity events. 

Today I’m sharing a conversation with Cory Haas who’s been the workshop facilitator and director for THEN & NOW, the show we’ve been developing over the last 9 months about living through the pandemic. I’m one of the group of about 10 co-writers and performers working on the show.

ME:  This project feels like the very definition of ‘slow theatre’ as we’ve held writing and devising workshops at various times since the fall of 2020. From a writer’s standpoint, I’ve been glad for the time to observe and process events, but I’m wondering about your take? It seems like theatre devising practice really wants to engage with those immediate visceral experiences the artist is having. What’s this ‘slow theatre’ process been like from vantage as a theatre deviser?

CORY: One of the advantages we’ve had doing this project at various times during the pandemic is  that it’s allowed us to reflect on the different stages of the pandemic. It’s given us the dual benefit of creating portions of the show in real time and then, as we move forward, it’s giving us the perspective to understand what we want to stay about each segment of time, each phase of the pandemic. 

In turn, that’s given us a fun challenge with the form in which we want to present the project. It’s giving us the opportunity to play around with the idea of memory vs. the experience of present time. 

ME: We came at this project as a collaboration between professional theatre artists and members of the community. This isn’t a model of script development that is practiced very much that I know of.  My feeling is that it’s authentic and it’s the direction theatre that’s connected to a community should be going, but it’s challenging! Is this your first project like this? What have been some of your challenges?

CORY: What’s exciting is that we’re allowing people to be themselves on stage. It’s an extremely vulnerable place to be but at the same time, it allows for true glimpses into people’s life and a real sense of connection. It’s always challenging to start like this, especially when we are used to working from a script. It’s a longer process, but I think it’s a rewarding one, especially when it comes to seeing members of communities on stage and giving them a chance to speak what’s on their mind. 

The challenge, ironically, is trusting yourself to be yourself. That it’s interesting enough, that we you have to say is interesting. Through games and exercices, we build trust, and in turn, that unlocks a bit of that self-consciousness, it liberates performers. Professionals and members of the community alike. 

ME: To say nothing of the technical challenges of having some performers working in-person in the space and others coming in via Zoom!

At various points in the workshops over the past several months we’ve talked about how people haven’t really wanted to be candid about their experiences with Covid, or lockdowns, and how it seems like now people just want to leave it all behind –  a mass act of collective forgetting as it were. How do you think we approach this issue theatrically? 

CORY: I think we tackle it head on. We have plenty of opportunities, through our interview process and our lived experiences, to be candid about our experiences. The refusal of some people to discuss what’s been happening, or return to their experiences is just as valuable. It traces one of the ways in which people have responded. Theatrically, this might allow us to talk about this refusal from our vantage point and make us make sense of it. 

ME: Yes, it’s one of those points of investigation that I’m really interested in exploring and also connecting with audiences about. 

ME: Thanks for being on the blog today Cory! 

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Delta Stageworks Theatre Society

Delta Stageworks Theatre Society is a not-for-profit arts organization registered in British Columbia, Canada. We produce locally relevant theatre and public arts events that are inspired by the lived experiences of people in Delta’s communities. Delta Stageworks is a member of Arts BC. Registered Non-Profit # S0072632

Contact us:

354 55th Street
Delta BC, V4M 3J5

Phone: 778-384-2949