Thought Residencies

The shift key on the left side of my keyboard - so the main one - is currently jammed, which makes it difficult to uh type with capital letters unless you use 'capital…lock'—I've never—wow, 'caps lock'. I've never called it 'capital lock' before but I guess—you know what I mean. Or, you use the other shift key which just feels weird. So, you really need to find those key moments for capital letter...

When my sister and I were were uh 5 and 8 years old we watched a show called Life's Animal Miracles. It was just actually called Animal Miracles, but it was on the Life Network, and uh it had aired for three years and hosted by Alan Thicke, and it showed stories of animals being miraculous, saving lives, helping people get through tough times situations. But it's pretty intense for an eight-year-o...

Some people like to call attention to the fact that I am a Toronto Raptor's fan even more so than I do. I think part of that is because it's somehow looked upon as a strange thing that as a theater creator that I enjoy sports. I've been playing sports all my life and that because of that I am a passionate sports fan. And I think that there are things to be learned from the way that sports bring pe...

Today I made a comment about a high ceiling, I said "You could fly a helicopter in here", and then someone challenged whether or not the propellers would actually fit. It's nice to have people call into question your hyperboles when it's just a little too plausible. Also, today I learned that it's easy to stop overextending yourself when there is nothing left to extend. Uhh not on the same topic-...

So the Raps lost by three points to the Denver Nuggets this evening. I was happily in a theatre at the time, but when I came out of the theatre I learned that they uhh they missed 9 free throws, and lost by three. So, you know, you don't have to know basketball you just need to know math to figure that one out. Umm I learned some new things about Pokémon Go tonight. There is an app that you can us...

Just when you thought nothing else could happen your creative team and you decide to radically alter the production and your cat keeps you up til 5am with sudden health failure. I started this month thinking about risk, and I return to it now. My creative team and I, less than a week before opening, are shifting to a new gesture. Radically strange, totally unknown. All I know is it feels imperativ...

This week feels like the calm before the storm. Quiet but intense. I'm having a hard time getting things done. I'm pacing, disorganized, unable to focus, feel on high alert, bitten all my nails. It took me about 3 hours to get dressed today. I have the strong desire to flee. Brendan Healy recently talked to me about a Vincent Miller book, "A Crisis of Presence" I haven't read it yet, the title is...

Unpopular tension. I will fight for labour reform in the arts making sector. It's an important fight that will benefit a lot of people. But I'm not sure it will change the culture of labour we live in. And I'm pretty sure it won't change me. I started out with certain privileges, and then continued to make some pretty hard life choices and large sacrifices-- that support my ability to funnel addit...

Content Warning: Pessimism. Whereas yesterday I was trying to task myself with the meditation "What if where I am is what I need?" today I feel like if one more person brings up the idea of structuring a work/life balance I'm gonna punch them in the face because ultimately our arts sector, and the whole--really all the sectors--exist within neo-liberalism which has already completely destroyed and...

Challenging myself to remember Deborah Hay, I challenge everyone to remember Deborah Hay, this morning, and always, with the question (ask yourself, as she would ask you - perhaps) "What if where I am, is what I need?" What if where I am, is what I need? What if where I am, is what I need.

I'm currently pan frying eggs because to be an independent artist means multi-tasking every minute of the day, or at least it does for me, and I'm thinking of the old proverb ...when the student is ready the teacher arrives. When I think about the massive, total upheaval just about every aspect of my life is going through right now: personal risk, artistic risk, family upheaval, sense of self, emo...

When was the last time you saw a dangerous piece of art? ted witzel, a long-time collaborator of mine, was asked this yesterday and then he asked me. It's pretty rare in my experience. I want processes of making art to be safe but I don't want art to be "safe". A lot of people have called my work triggering. I write about power and its abuses, so this comes with the territory. I write towards recl...

Capacity. What is it, where do you find it, and how much do you have? What do you do when you need more? What do you do when you blow out the gas tank? What's the connection between capacity and forgiveness? Capacity and sustainability? Capacity and self awareness? Capacity and threshold? Capacity and adrenaline? I've lived most of my life (and all of my career) over capacity. I know my reasons, I...

I'm thinking about how one way or another pain must find a way to express. I just spent 7 and a half hours in a psychiatric emergency ward with someone I love very much who is currently experiencing psychosis. His pain ...forced its way to the surface. He needed to go somewhere where he could scream and rant in order to birth this pain, and I realize that's why I make theatre.

I'm thinking about feeling feelings. I became displaced this summer -- I lost my home & most of my possessions over a 3 month period of ...well...hell. I haven't had time to feel the feelings that come with this - grief and rage - the way I normally would...by writing.  Looking back, I think I became a writer because I didn't know how to feel my feelings and writing created a space where I could e...

I'm currently rehearsing a text I began 8 years ago after marathon watching dog training shows. What struck me was that the people needed more training that the dogs. Anxious people, anxious dogs. Inactive people, hyper-active dogs. I watched the owner's discomfort when told they'd need to assert themselves and create a social hierarchy so the dogs know who is in charge. Dogs don't want democracy...

Like many people, most of my life I wanted to believe I was taking risks without having to experience any of the pretty horrifying emotions that come with actual risk. I was a full blown perfectionist til I was 29 and perfectionism doesn't allow for risk because it doesn't allow for failure. Like mass culture, I was all about the rhetoric of risk, but not the practice. Lately there's a lot of coun...

There was a textile work on the ceiling of the drama room at my highschool that showed a group of people encircling the words "THE KEY IS RISK". I remember staring at that wanting to be really good at taking risks – especially if they were KEY -- but not really knowing what that meant or if I was. Right now I'm currently taking the biggest artistic and personal risks of my life – and what I'm thin...

Day 14 (Malmö) Yesterday I was worrying I needed praise from an audience in order to keep me going. But today I think there might be another way of looking at it: that maybe the work we're doing is useful and valuable to at least a few people, and therefore the situation is not so much about me, but mainly about them. It feels presumptuous for me to assume this, and also like there's no real way f...

Day 13 (Malmö) So this past weekend we premiered our new show. And the audience reaction was very, very positive. People said it inspired them to think about their own work, to keep going with their own work when they were thinking of quitting. I was surprised how positive the audience was about it. And it makes me wonder if that kind of praise is the main thing that keeps me going. And if there's...

Day 12 (Malmö) As I get older I'm pretty sure I'm becoming more isolated, more socially isolated. Which is strange because, in a way what I really want from art, what I need for it to be meaningful, has a lot to do with interconnectedness, in culture, in society, in life, with feeling we're all connected or that everything is connected. In a way what I'm looking for is the opposite of being isolat...

Day 11 (Malmö) So when I travel the jet lag often triggers my insomnia. And last night I was lying awake and I had something almost like an epiphany about what I've been trying to say here. And it was so simple and stupid, in a way I almost find it embarrassing, but it was something like: what I have to do is focus on why I'm making the work, and what makes it meaningful for me, and stop worrying...

Day 10 (Malmö) So now I'm in Malmö, Sweden. We arrived here today. I'm completely jetlagged, completely exhausted. We premier a new show on Friday, a show we've been working on for two years. And… it's very strange… I'm still making shows. All I do is question it, but at the same time I'm doing it anyway.

Day 9 (Montreal) And then there's this song title I remember from being a teenager. It's a song by Deja Voodoo and the song was called: How Can I Miss You If You Don't Go Away. And I've been doing project after project, one after another, for the past thirty years. Always projects on the go. Yeah and if I stop I wonder… I guess I fear that no one will miss me at all. Maybe that's what it's about.

Day 8 (Montreal) I feel the kind of regrets I've been talking about here, suggest that I think I should have made more progress, that I think there was something to get. And yet I keep telling myself, I don't think there's anything to get. I don't think money or success or praise were going to make me any happier. But still, I want to find some positive way to keep on being an artist. Something th...