Following their discoveries in the workshop, van Belle and Rose began creating text inspired by their research into the pre-astronauts and these visual and physical explorations.  This April, the group of collaborators gathered again to read the script and explore the sky with a model rocket.  

Later this May, van Belle and Rose will work on their script at the Banff Playwrights Colony and continue to create this unique piece of theatre as our Playwrights in Residence during ATP's 08/09 Season.

Laryssa Yanchak, Eric Rose, David van Belle and Vicki Stroich attempt to predict a flight pattern.  (Photo by Sandi Somers)

StudyInteractive - Sit down with Meg Roe, the star of The Syringa Tree, as she answers questions from classrooms around the city.

 
ATP:  How many hours did you spend rehearsing?

Meg Roe: For this show, we rehearsed five hours a day, six days a week for three weeks. At the end of those three weeks we went into the theatre for three days and rehearsed with lights, sound, and set. Those days we worked for ten hours.

Normally in a rehearsal process a show rehearses eight hours a day, six days a week, but when it's just one actor (and one set of vocal chords!!) the days are usually shortened to give the actor a bit of a break.

ATP: What was your favourite part about working on this show?

Meg Roe: The creative team on this show -- the lighting and set designer, the sound designer, the stage management team, and the director -- is really one of the most fun, most creative groups of people I’ve ever worked with. We all get along really well, and we had a super great time in the rehearsals. Once I get on stage, the best part is really the audience. In the shows where the audience is right there with me, laughing and stuff, it's just SO fun and so rewarding.

ATP: How did you first start acting in Calgary outside of school?

Meg Roe: When I was in high school (in Airdrie!) I worked with a company in Calgary called 'Storybook Theatre', I’m pretty sure they're still around, and did some shows with them. I went to the University of Victoria after I graduated and took a bachelor of fine arts degree in acting. I can't say enough about how great that was; it really raised the bar for me and opened my eyes to the whole Canadian arts community, the history of theatre, and just lots of great ways to work as an actor. After I left UVic, I worked with Theatre Junction here in town and they really gave me my start. I appeared in all five of their shows in one season, and really got to show the community what i was capable of as well as testing my own limits as a performer. Then I just auditioned around and got work here and there - ATP, the Vancouver Playhouse etc - and just started working.

ATP:  What is the hardest part of this show?

Meg Roe: The hardest part of the show for me is just being nice to myself night after night. I’m a bit of a perfectionist, and, obviously, when it's just me up there there's only one person to blame when things don't go PERFECTLY night to night. so I have to work hard at being able to forgive myself if I screw up a little bit and to keep going without letting you, the audience, know that anything's up. (ha!)

ATP:  How many opportunities are there in Calgary or in Canada to be a full time actor or is it usually a pass time you do along side another job?

Meg Roe: There are lots of opportunities to work as an actor exclusively in Canada, and actually in Calgary too, but to be honest it's still a job that usually needs a bit of supplementation.

I’ve been very lucky to have worked only in the theatre since I started my career (I have not had any other jobs) but lots of performers do supplement their incomes by doing other work. Most try to find jobs that still keep them in the business. For example, I work as a sound designer and I’m going to be directing for my first time this summer. This way, I can diversify my income, but I’m still being super creative and tapped into the industry, and it's still something I totally love to do.

Most actors don't just work on stage either; we work in film and TV and also as voice actors -- like in animation and stuff. A lot of performers do work at side jobs, teaching acting to students, coaching other actors etc. but to be honest, acting takes up a lot of time, and, for the most part, you never really know when the next job is going to come along, so must professional actors can't hold down a full time job and do acting on the side. It’s an in or out kind of deal.

Welcome to ATP’s StudyInteractive, an online guidebook that brings stronger educational tools to as many students as possible! A brand new part of our Classroom Connections Program, StudyInteractive is a virtual classroom, with blogs from artists, study guides, links, and online resources. A technological advancement for ATP, we’re thrilled that we can now bring the ATP experience to your classroom projector, your laptop or your desktop computer at home. Bringing together Calgary schools and the Calgary arts community, you can expect more when you experience ATP.

Our first venture into this new realm is the creation of BlogVCV, which stands for Blog Virtual Classroom Visit. A traditional ATP Classroom Visit involves the artists traveling to schools all over Calgary to answer students’ most pressing questions about acting, production and life as a professional in Canada’s fastest growing theatre community. An exciting way to learn that acting on stage professionally is a lot more than just learning lines, our ATP artists and staff take time to ensure that every student has the chance to learn more about the work that goes into a production, and BlogVCV provides the artists’ answers as a virtual resource.

Over 1200 students from across Calgary will have had the chance in April to see Meg Roe’s dynamic performance in our Cornerstone Production The Syringa Tree by Pamela Gien. Due to the incredible demands this role places on Meg’s vocal and physical energy to perform this play (she rarely talks offstage for the entire run so as to preserve her voice!), Classroom Visits were just not possible. Thanks to our new website and new program, students not only get to discuss the play and its themes as a class and then ask Meg their questions, but are also able see what other students all over the city are asking as well!

Another interesting aspect to Meg’s work on The Syringa Tree is her connection to Education without Borders, a not-for-profit organization that funds the development of educational institutions in South Africa. Students and teachers may wish to discuss this aspect of the play as well. To learn more about Meg’s involvement with Education without Borders, click here. To learn more about Education without Borders itself, visit www.educationwithoutborders.ca

On the set of August, An Afternoon in the Country, Director Brian Dooley chats with translator Maureen Labonté about how each of them came to work on the show. Accompanied by ATP Assistant Dramaturg Amy Lynn Strilchuk, the two discuss the challenges of the play, as well as the difficulties of maintaining a Francophone perspective in a translated piece.

David van Belle laughs as he describes his unique creative partnership with Eric Rose; van Belle and Rose are ATP’s Playwrights in Residence for the 2007-2008 Season.

“We really appreciate that ATP asked us what we needed first and wanted to support us in our own process.” Rose says.

These two artists have a diverse background in Calgary’s theatre scene. After 7 years as a member of One Yellow Rabbit Performance Theatre’s ensemble, van Belle’s freelance career has included an Alberta Playwrights’ Network commission to write the new play Everything Is Terribly Nice Here and directing a range of projects for companies like the Calgary Philharmonic Orchestra, Ground Zero Theatre and One Yellow Rabbit's High Performance Rodeo. ATP audiences will recognize van Belle as a member of the ensemble of Why Freud Fainted at the 21st Annual Enbridge playRites Festival. After leaving his position as Artistic Associate at Theatre Calgary, Rose has worked on a variety of projects from an immersive workshop with his company Invisible Elephant Performance to develop a show inspired by Sergio Leone’s work called Something to do with Death to directing Thornton Wilder’s iconic Our Town at Theatre Calgary.

The project van Belle and Rose are working on as Playwrights in Residence is indeed unique. The Highest Step in the World is a solo show inspired by the pre-astronauts in the late 1950s who went up into the atmosphere in balloons and then jumped off from an altitude of over 100,000 ft. into a freefall to test a parachute system that was later used in space travel. Van Belle, a self described “space buff with a NASA fetish” was intrigued by the parallels between this enormous freefall and the nature of risk. Van Belle and Rose’s creation process includes working with a filmmaker and an aerialist to explore the relationship the audience may have to the performer.

It is a rare opportunity for artists to have this support so early in a process. ATP is proud to take the leap into the unknown with this inventive project at the very start of its life when the artists are exploring, experimenting and risking. Van Belle, who has been involved in many a creation process knows the value of this early support, “A good idea, well supported is how bold and innovative theatre gets made.”

Van Belle and Rose will be working on The Highest Step in the World during the Enbridge playRites Festival and will present an excerpt of this work in progress as part of ATP’s Creation Cabaret on Saturday March 8 at 4:30 on the BD&P Stage 2 (in the Big Secret Theatre.)

If you are reading this, you are probably one of those people.

One way we look forward to engaging with you all is through the interactive content you will find here over the course of the Enbridge playRites Festival.  You'll have the opportunity to get a glipse behind the scenes in video content and hear from the artists that are creating the work in this year's Festival in podcasts.  You'll be able to read how audiences felt about the shows on our feedback pages and throw in your own two cents!  And you can even exercise your own creativity by contributing to wikiplayRites, a special thread of writing celebrating the Enbridge playRites Festival on The WikiPlay Project, a theatrical experiment in global collective creation hosted by Toronto's UnSpun Theatre.

So drop by here often and get involved!

But not too often...turn the computer off sometime and come see the amazing new work at the 22nd Annual Enbridge playRites Festival of New Canadian Plays!

Vicki Stroich, Dramaturg