full circle theatre Archives

Off Book with FCT

April 27, 2025 No Comments

Okay, sure. Maybe this post should be a Theatre Thursday. It’s vaguely theatre related. But this is my blog and I do what I want, even when it flies in the face of everything I should be doing based on conventional wisdom. It’s gotten me this far… which I’ve learned to celebrate. So this is a new little thing that I’m going to do when I feel like it and I have the bandwidth. The series will be called… Full Circles? Full Circle Diaries? I haven’t figured that out yet. It’ll be about writing about Full Circle Theatre type things. And today… today it’s going to be thinking about… thinking around… thinking on Off Book.

Right now we’re in this weird twitchy space between projects. Doing both nothing and everything. Planning and prepping and building up energy for the next month.

Porcelain Dolls closed a few weeks ago.

It was beautiful and raw and overwhelming. It was the type of show that some people hated. However, many people deeply, viscerally saw themselves in it. We had people practically vibrating with excitement to talk to us about it.

And now we’re suddenly doing something completely different.

Much Ado About Nothing is Shakespeare, and with that comes Expectations. In fact, this play comes with a lot of capital letters. Love, Wit, Miscommunication… The Shakespeare Company.

A whole other factor that we wouldn’t have ever imagined a year ago. And it is utterly amazing and terrifying at the same time.

So, yeah. We’re between big projects. And between a lot of big emotions. We live in extremes, baby! (Which you know if you’ve been following our company for any period of time and have seen what kind of work we put out. Or if you’ve been following me personally.)

I feel like something that we don’t often talk about in theatre – especially when you run a theatre company – is this space. We definitely don’t show it to our audiences.

You know. The Blurry space. The space where we are between projects but we definitely aren’t on a break.

(But also we sort of are?)

This is publicity planning season.

Annual retreat season.

This is getting-thing- together-for-the-next-season season.

And this is also… reflection season.

Which brings us to the point of this post. I’m trying something new in this blurry half-break time.

A little digital storytelling project.

I want to show you what we are thinking about when no one is watching.

What I’m unpacking.

What we’re fighting to carry forward.

And even what we’re willing to leave behind.

This is the first post in what might become a podcast, a stream, a blog series, a little bit of it all… who can say? (You can say! By weighing in on what elements you like, how you like to consume your digital storytelling, all of it. Your clicks will tell me what to carry on with.)

It might be a mess. It will definitely be a little scrappy. But it’s a place to share the parts of theatre-making that don’t always fit into a rehearsal photo or a classic reel.

If you want to come along, we’re here.

Between the bathroom and the Bard.

Between the glitter and the war.

We’re calling it “Off Book” and a podcast to go along with this post will be here before you know it.

Have questions about how we made Dolls?

Or what we’re doing with Much Ado?

Drop them in the comments and we might turn them into future episodes.

Culture, Stuff About Me

ShakesPeers Holiday Bash

December 8, 2024 No Comments

One of the hallmarks of this blog, ever since it started, was “fun things I do in Calgary”. And slowly – sloooooowly – I’ve moved into creating fun things to do in Calgary for other people. I mean, I’ve produced theatre on and off for over a decade, so that counts as something. But over this past year, Full Circle Theatre has started putting on community building Shakespeare-inspired salon events. And that is definitely creating “fun things to do in Calgary”. Tonight was our most recent event, the ShakesPeers Holiday Bash and it was everything I needed it to be.

First, What is ShakesPeers?

Great question! It is, obviously, a pun on Shakespeare. And the fact that we get together with our peers. And shake, I guess?

Basically, we wanted to make something that would bring theatre people together, but wouldn’t be a class or a performance. It would just be an opportunity to nerd out with other cool theatre people and potentially practice our craft a little bit in a low stakes environment. Our first event was a Roles in a Bowl reading of Much Ado (which was exactly what it sounds like) and our second was a Scene Exploration (where we just selected scenes, messed around, and talked about them). We’ve met new people and gotten comfortable with Shakespeare. And more importantly, for my sanity, they’ve been really easy to plan.

What About the ShakesPeers Holiday Bash?

Also, kind of what it sounds like! It was our holiday party for people we wouldn’t normally be able to attend a holiday party with! We rented a basement events room at The Joyce on 4th, and they were fantastic. Very attentive, gave us access to their full menu, and decorated the room in a cute festive manner… What more can you ask for in a private room!?

Kevin put together six rounds of Shakespeare inspired trivia and I learned I don’t know nearly as much about Shakespeare as I think I do. We did a classic White Elephant gift exchange. I brought some local bitters and fancy tonic water, and walked with a nice bottle of wine. (There were also gifts that weren’t beverages, but beverages is my brand, as we know.)

We did Burt Reynolds shots, which I certainly have not done since I worked at Earls.

Now, I will say that the one challenge with putting on events is that you never quite get to socialize as much as you want to. There are always small things that you need to attend to that pull you away from being fully involved with the event. But it’s so worth it when you know you’re creating something great for other people.

And, hey, maybe it’s just a good excuse to get back together with my friends again and again and again.

So tell me, what holiday party plans do you have on the menu?

YYCEats

Beer Exchange Day 2

December 3, 2024 No Comments

Another day, another beer exchange bevvy to write about!

I say that like this is already routine and boring, which it absolutely is not. Look, it still feels so good to be writing and I absolutely did an exciting thing while drinking Beer 2.

We had our first readthrough of our upcoming Full Circle Theatre play, Porcelain Dolls! Yes, I know if you clicked through to the link, you saw that the play is in March and this might seem early. And that is because it is.

We had a couple reasons to want to do this read early. One – we wanted to engage the cast early, get them hyped, allow them to get to know each other. The other reason was that Porcelain Dolls is a new script that recently went through rewrites and we wanted to hear the new script in the actors’ voices. It was incredible to hear out loud and our cast is outrageously talented. After the reading, we have a few little tweaks to do, but I already know that this production is going to be one that cannot be missed.

Also, you must know that this play takes place in the women’s washroom at a bar, so of course we had bevvies for the read. And I had to drink the Day 2 beer! It was wrapped in penis wrapping paper. Extremely necessary. (Long story, very relevant.)

Culture

Talking About Writing

August 15, 2024 No Comments

Lights Up! poster with session details
(Aug 16, 5pm in the Acadia room)

Play With Us poster with session details
(Aug 18, 2pm in the Acadia room)

I am writing this blog post on the eve of the 2024 incarnation of the When Words Collide writing and reading festival, and there is nothing else I could possibly write about tonight. It is filling about 90% of my mind. Some of what is filling my mind is bubbly anticipation of talking about writing and theatre, but most of it is kind of nonsense. In fact, the thought that is currently at the top of my mind is that I actually didn’t realize that it was called a “festival”, not a “conference”. Was it once called a conference and it changed? Who can say?

It’s probably on the internet somewhere. But that’s not important right now.

Hey Erin, what are you doing at WWC? And how is this relevant to theatre?

I mean, what I’m doing at WWC is going to lots of fun panels and readings to get me inspired to write, competing with other artists and intellectuals in game shows and Quiplash games to entertain the general conference public, staying up way too late with other cool nerds, and generally immersing myself in the world of writing and reading for 72 hours.

Perhaps more importantly, I’m presenting two interactive sessions with blog favourites, Claire and Megan, on the very important topic of writing theatre. We are, in fact, the only scripted theatre related sessions during the weekend. (The Kinkonauts are doing a very cool improv thing, but improv is a whole other art form, thank you very much.) We’re doing one classic presentation on writing/putting on your own play, which we’ve been presenting in one form or another since 2018, and a newer hands-on workshop where we introduce people to our collaborative creation process. As discussed in last week’s Theatre Thursday, collaborative creation is FCT’s bread and butter, you know we’re going to bring that to a writing event.

This year, When Words Collide has quite a few active sessions on writing, which is great. There’s even a drop-down space where attendees can write and decompress whenever inspiration strikes!

I’m also doing a few other little things. Like I said, I’m competing in a trivia based game show that Kevin has created/hosted. I won last year, so I need to defend my fancy pumpkin trophy. Also, I need to be a woman forcing my way into nerd spaces in a bubbly and cute way. I’m also participating in Kevin’s Quiplash session for *entertainment*. And, finally, I’m speaking on a panel for fanfiction writers, which I am psyched about. Writing Riverona made me legally qualified to speak on it, but my years of writing Newsies, Rent, and The Babysitter’s Club fanfiction made me spiritually qualified. (Don’t go looking for it.)

Why Do You Love When Words Collide? (Or Specifically Talking About Writing, I Guess?)

I feel like this maybe might have come through above? But there is something that is just so inspiring and comforting about being around people who like the things you like. I remember the first year I “attended” WWC (aka, I visited Kevin at the hotel and crashed a few parties), I was so surprised that it was a place for me. But it truly was. It’s kind of a place for everyone I’ve ever invited there.

I’ve also never walked away from WWC and not been inspired to immediately get to work on a project. A ton of great work has come as a result of being in this great place.

I want to go to this place!

Of course you do. A few logistics:

WWC is a Calgary based festival, which takes place in the Delta South in the August of each year.
Conference passes are very affordable. (Like, less than $100.)
That said, you usually need to buy your pass early. Like, before the release of all the session details. You go to this festival for the vibes, not necessarily for the speaker line-up. But the cool thing about art is that it’s subjective, so you will absolutely learn things no matter who ends up presenting. Plus, the conversations with your fellow attendees! That also gives you a lot.
Presenters really run the gamut. Writers, editors, agents, book designers, book sellers, theatre artists, industry specialists. Widely published commercial writers, wildly published indie writers, poets, people who have just gotten their first book deal, former English teachers. However, session blurbs and presenter bios are available when you arrive, so you can make the choice that is right for you.
There is a Merchant’s Room where many of the presenters have their books and even some other merch on sale. It’s nice to support your favs.
Interact with people. Socialize. Take advantage of the experiences outside of the formal learning opportunities, that’s where this adult educator feels like the learning really takes place.

Now, I’ll be completely honest. This year’s When Words Collide is 100% sold out. However, I’ll be sharing a lot of the experience over my stories on Instagram and I’ll post a recap here. If you’re a writer or just writer-curious, I hope I’ll be able to convince you to join next year! Let’s get to work talking about writing, my friends!

Culture

A New Season (Theatre Thursday)

August 8, 2024 No Comments

Man, what a full year it’s been so far, my friends. So much Riverona and building my relationship with people and growing my career and reading not nearly enough books. And now suddenly it’s been 6 months since I wrote here and I have the most intense imposter syndrome known to man. I wrote that really fun post about my 50 favorite things and then bounced, you know? I feel like I don’t even know where to start and that’s part of why I haven’t been writing at all. The less you start, the less you start, you know?

So I’m just starting!

What I thought might be cool on Theatre Thursdays this year is to write about all the different things that I’m doing in theatre, week-by-week. Of course, I’ll still write about shows that I see when the mood strikes me, but a documentation of the actual things I’m doing in close to real time feels good to me.

Why the Change?

Good question, self! (And by extension, you, gentle reader. I’m sure.) A few reasons for the change.

Recently I’ve been looking for blogs and vlogs and podcasts about the day-to-day reality of making theatre and art. I’ve stumbled backwards into a few blogs that have documented the process of creating a production and I think that’s really cool. I love hearing about other artists’ thought and decision-making processes. So I should create the thing I want to find in the world!
Full Circle Theatre is actually producing a full season for 2024-2025. (Well, a full season for us. We’re a little indie company.) That means that I’ll have a lot of organic inspiration for things to write about, rather than just trying to pull post ideas out of the ether.
I always enjoy blogging more when I’m a little bit more personal while I write. A little bit more real, as it were. Not a diary or anything like that, I’ll still be professional, but I like to throw myself in there.

So all in all, this seems like a solid plan to navigate through the Sunday scaries when it comes back to writing. Maybe a way to make my blog a bit more of a priority, perhaps?

Excellent sweeping declaration. Now what are you going to write about first?

Ha! Did you really think I wouldn’t have a plan coming back into this? I feed on plans, my friend. This blog is called A Flimsy Plan, after all. (I just don’t always follow through on them. Or they’re flimsy. Don’t worry about it.) I even revealed what I was going to write about up above…

Full Circle Theatre has announced our new season!

Like, we literally dropped the reel on Instagram yesterday. This is hot news!

Actually, we did give a sneak peek announcement of the upcoming season during our first week of Riverona and I’ve not been good at keeping it quiet, so some people knew, but still. It was a big moment! The reel is performing pretty well, which is all you can really ask for, as we try to grow our audience on social media, and people seem excited about the season. Which, for those of you who haven’t seen it, it is:

May-Apr 2025: Porcelain Dolls (a FCT classic, first developed in 2016-17, which we will be rewriting for this year)

Jun 2025: Much Ado About Nothing (a Shakespeare classic, one of his most popular)

Why did you pick these shows for your first new season?

Great question!

Like everything FCT does, we decided by committee. Claire and I always make the final decisions, but we take in a lot of input from our collaborators, current cast members, audience, board, and friends. Our philosophy is that one of the reasons we tell stories is to entertain, so we should consider telling stories that people want to hear.

Our mandate has always been to do brand-new works (aka shows created under the FCT umbrella) paired with classical works (aka public domain, foundational plays). When we came back after Riverona, we had no interest in changing that. But we had a few logistical things to consider.

We are burnt out after Riverona. We needed to take the summer to relax, have fun, and pursue other passions. So it likely wasn’t practical to create a new play completely from scratch in the second half of 2024. Our brains needed some time to reset.
One of our top shows that we wanted to do was Twelfth Night. We actually have the perfect Sebastian/Viola twin actors in our sphere. But in April, The Shakespeare Company announced that they would be doing Twelfth Night this fall, and to do the same show as a professional company in the same season is just inviting comparisons. So if we could avoid doing that, we would. Back to the drawing board!

There was very little drawing on the board.

Porcelain Dolls was our biggest hit to date the year that we originally produced it and it still has a lot of components that still work. (Home tacos, anyone?) It counts as a FCT original creation and, most importantly, it would give our core team a bit of a break after two years of writing without breaks. In the future, we plan to write a new work in the fall of each season, but not this year.

Much Ado was another show on our short list and is a Shakespearean banger. It’s like bringing Bugles to a party – everyone is going to want to be your friend. Since we are still newly re-emerged, still rebuilding our audience and performer base, we wanted to do a show that will bring people in. If you want to attract a good director, designer, actors, and audience, you do a show they love. I mean, you have to pair it with a good production, buuuut… Local theatre company, Untold Stories, has figured this formula out all too well and has truly exploded onto the scene over the past three seasons. (They also mastered the art of co-pros early on, which we haven’t yet, but that’s a conversation for a different day.)

Anyway. That’s our new season and how we announced it and why we picked it.

And I wrote a post. What a good day.

Full Circle Theatre Season Announcement Image

What do you think about our new season?

Culture, Stuff About Me

Riverona – Nov 12

November 15, 2023 No Comments

Another Sunday, another Riverona rehearsal.

This day was a bit of a unique day because we actually started out by having a production meeting between myself, Claire, Megan, Hans, and Kevin. (The team that writes the Riverona script.) There are many forms a production meeting can take and most of them are significantly more professional than what ours look like. (I assume. Because we meet in a place with great food and drinks then proceed to discuss every element of the production and make sure someone has every element in hand. Or we decide we don’t care about that element anymore. haha.)

We spend most of our writing or production meetings at First Street Market, by the way. If we’re not currently in production, catch us there on a Tuesday evening, y’all.

Image of FCT working on Riverona at First Street Market — Yes, Feb 28 was a Tuesday.

Culture, Stuff About Me

Riverona – Nov 8

November 9, 2023 No Comments

Hello Riverona friends and fans! I’m here with another recap of a rehearsal that will maybe make theatre purists lose their minds about our process. So before I share what we did on Nov 8… just know that we had a very talented cast who is very familiar with our weird vibes. Look at how cool Hans Wackershauser, Sarah Nearing, and Joel Taylor all look in this show photo from Riverona Ep 1: Two Households by Hannah Anson and also know that all three of them are in Episode 2.

Riverona Ep 1 Production Photo of Joel Taylor, Hans Wackershauser and Sarah Nearing — Joel (Benvolio) is definitely saying “seeeeeee”(x). IYKYK.

So anyway. Controversially, maybe… on Nov 8, our fifth rehearsal, we did a stumblethrough of the entire show.