OSSD & OTS are here to stay!

A message from Randy McIntyre, OSSD Board Chair

On behalf of the Board of Directors, I am pleased to announce that the Ottawa School of Speech and Drama has reached an agreement with the City of Ottawa that addresses our current cash-flow crisis.

The combination of City support and private assistance will keep OSSD open!

 Read more about the agreement (http://www.ossd.com/public_html/html/support/support_fundraising.html))

 We have been overwhelmed by your letters of support, which made all the difference in our negotiations, but we still need your help.

OSSD must still fundraise $50,000 by August 31.  Please donate today (http://www.ossd.com/public_html/html/support/support_donations.html).  Your support will ensure that OSSD can continue to offer the best in theatre education programming to the entire community including children at risk through our scholarship program.

OSSD is powered by people, an immensely dedicated team of instructors and staff who have faced tremendous uncertainty in recent days.  Your donation (http://www.ossd.com/public_html/html/support/support_donations.html).  will strengthen the school and ensure that OSSD continues as one of the major cultural employers in Ottawa, helping to keep and grow exceptional talent here in our city.

We count on your support, please donate today!

Randy McIntyre

Please donate or the crazy kids will eat us up!

NEW AT OSSD

OTTAWA SCHOOL OF SPEECH & DRAMA ANNOUNCES INTERIM ARTISTIC DIRECTOR

The Ottawa School of Speech & Drama, Ottawa’s premiere theatre education organization, has announced the appointment of Erin Downie Silcoff as Interim Artistic Director for the 2011/2012 program year. Ms. Downie Silcoff is replacing current Executive Director Amanda Lewis, who will be taking a leave of absence for the year.

“I am very happy to have Erin joining our team,” said Ms. Lewis. “She brings with her a wealth of experience and a passion for theatre education that fits in perfectly with OSSD’s vision. It is going to be hard to be away for a year, but I know I am leaving OSSD in great hands.”

Erin Downie Silcoff was most recently the well respected Director of The Montreal Children’s Theatre. Her background includes work as documentary researcher for a variety of television companies in Montreal and Toronto and work as a producer for TVO.

“I am thrilled by the opportunity to work with the talented students and teachers at The Ottawa School of Speech & Drama and The Ottawa Theatre School. I can’t think of a more exciting environment to work in!”, said Ms. Downie Silcoff.

While on leave of absence, Executive Director Amanda Lewis will be taking some time to write and visit theatre schools in England. She will continue to develop the programming for OSSD throughout the year.

Erin Downie Silcoff lives in Chelsea with her husband and children.

Last day of January

Last day of January. Finally! What a long and hard month it has been. January is a time of grant writing at OSSD, as well as starting a new term and getting to some serious production meetings. There are so many beginnings it is pretty exciting. And as hard as the grant writing is, there is a strong element of reflection that is always healthy. It gives me a chance to remember what we’ve done in the past year and to make some important choices about our direction. The big grant, the City 3-year application, asks us to state our artistic goals and any new initiatives. So it has been exciting to put that all into words.

Some of the big things to look forward to over the next 3-years:

• Refinement of the curriculum
• Development of the TYA touring show
• Development of programming for students on the autistic spectrum and developmentally delayed adults
• Expansion of the adult program to include a summer production
• Expansion of the corporate program
• The Ottawa Theatre School is now a private career college, so we can look forward to begin able to offer OASP funding for our students.
• More new instructors, more new theatre explorations.

But as always, my focus is on the day to day. Long terms plans will happen as we keep on paying attention to the daily excitement.

We’ve started off the semester really well, although still with a decline in the number of young children attending OSSD. Not sure what is going on there, but people tell me it is the same everywhere. Our youth and adult populations have increased, which is gratifying, and I’ve been hearing some great things about the adult courses especially. I’ve been reading people’s blogs about what they are discovering in those classes and it’s great to see them on that journey.

Watched the first year conservatory students doing “Playback Theatre” with Brie Barker last week – really exciting to get to know this group and to see the discipline and focus they are learning. I am fascinated to see how they apply Playback Theatre to working with seniors at Rideau Perley Veteran’s Health Centre and Lynwood Park Lodge. It takes theatre out of the box and makes it very immediate and engaging.

I’m busy getting our February fundraiser going. “If Music be the Food of Love” will star our instructors, alumni, senior students and guests singing and dancing about love. There are going to be some great numbers and I am especially looking forward to Tim Wynne-Jones singing “Finishing the Hat” from “Sunday in the Park with George”, and Maddie Stephens and friends doing “My Junk” from “Spring Awakening”. With Emmanuelle & David’s move to Toronto, we are really lucky to have them back to sing “Getting Married” from Company. What a great night it is going to be!

After Food of Love I’ll start turning my attention to March Break and Summer camps. It will be nice to think about summer in the midst of this cold. I realize that the last blog I wrote was at the end of camp – O.K. so where did the fall go?!

End of camp 2010

Summer camp 2010 finished up with a flourish. It was an amazing summer. We had a record number of camps and more campers than ever before. We also had more floods than ever, resulting in water damage in the office and library. But being resourceful OSSD folks, used to improvising, the staff were able to continue to offer fabulous programming while working in less than ideal conditions.

We had some stellar councilors and volunteers working with us this year, and they all managed to keep going, despite the less than ideal conditions. In fact, I am not sure how much of the chaos other people were aware of — Emily McCauley (the summer office manager), Vanessa Doucet Roche (summer camp manager) and Thomas Swayne (all round assistant to everyone) became quite adept at coping with change. After the carpets in the office and library were ripped up, they moved the main office into my office and packed up all of the books in the library.

Everyone found new corners to work from. My favourite days were when I was propped up at the bookshelf, trying to maintain a professional demeanor. Emily took over my desk to respond non-stop to fall registrations, auditions and Open House organization. Vanessa took over the intern desk to managed a fleet of summer councilors, campers of all ages, and parent questions that ranged from the sublime to the ridiculous. Thomas, meanwhile, bounced from computer to computer, loving the challenges (did I mention that our General Manager Sheila had a computer blow up this summer?) Files were converted and reconfigured and Thomas’s quick fingers were the technological support for us less savvy OSSD staff.

We had a number of new instructors this year, and they were a great asset to the OSSD team. Highlights included David Bernstien’s fabulous “Actors’ Lab” camp, a high creative and motivated group of 13 – 17 year olds that devised an original piece for us; Jocelyn Ruano’s camp in which 6 year olds did amazing research on Greek drama, using it to create very clever scenes; Courtney Mason’s lovely 8 – 10 year old musical theatre camp that won our hearts as they explored grandma’s past.

All in all I would have to say it was the most creative summer we’ve had, but probably the most challenging as well. 4 floods in two weeks, coupled with some financial issues, was not ideal. But the staff never missed a beat. And when I left at the end of the last day, they were still singing and dancing in the halls, belting out the Broadway tunes as they tidied up studio D.

OSSD and The Artist Within

“Creativity is not just for artists. It’s for businesspeople looking for a new way to close a sale; it’s for engineers trying to solve a problem; it’s for parents who want their children to see the world in more than one way.” Twyla Tharp, choreographer and director.

I’ve been thinking a lot about this quote from Twyla Tharp – I have long admired her work on Broadway and have always thought of her as someone who lived just in the world of artists. But in her book called “The Creative Habit”, Tharp writes to inspire and amuse all people, regardless of their profession or craft. I am in the very privileged position of being surrounded by creative people of all ages, and I am often in the room when they are making huge creative leaps, lateral jumps in understanding. Creativity is essential to making things happen, and certainly it is essential to making a better world.

Over the last month I have watched OSSD students putting their creativity out there for all to see. I have watched exquisite devised theatre in the glass lantern of the Museum of Nature (12 Drops and 1 Moon); Gilbert & Sullivan (Pirates of Penzance with a stunning cast of female pirates); the classic musical about how speech therapy changes your life (My Fair Lady); and a heart felt musical about adoption (They Chose Me), performed by an ensemble that featured several special needs youth. My own glorious cast of “Wind in the Willows” made my heart sing every night as they flew nostalgically through the English countryside via Edwardian language that was as rich as any they have ever encountered. I have watched the casts’ tears, joy and laughter but most of all I have been witness to the incredible bonds of friendship that have been forged through this creative time. Our little corner of the world has been a good place to be living.

Backstage at OSSD and OTS

This is such a great time of year, and I feel really lucky to have such a great job. This week is Open House week, and I get to go around to see as many of the classes as I can and see what everyone has been up to. I would see every single one if I could, but of course there are sometimes 4 at a time, which makes it a bit difficult for a mere mortal.

So far this week I have seen absolutely wonderful poems, monologues and scenes by some of our youngest students. I must admit to having a special place in my heart for the tiny Alice falling down the rabbit hole, the arrogant and angry Peter Pan with the kindly and generous Wendy, and the wonderfully inventive young man with his flying machine from a play that I don’t know. Great surprises, even amongst the classics. And I saw a splendid version of the musical “You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown”, as well as a musical that included hauntings and Dracula and some very young “chorines” singing “All that Jazz”. All of this and the busy weekend is still ahead.

Part of my job this week is to select students to perform in Awards Night at the NAC — always a daunting task as there is so much talent in the school. But it’s a real pleasure, and a thrill, to see so much creative work. Our teachers really pour their hearts and souls into what they are doing, and the students really benefit from that.

On the Ottawa Theatre School side, I got to see the first year students’ 20 minute vocal masques on Tuesday. For the masques, students work in pairs, decide on a theme, and pick at least 3 different scenes to connect together on that theme. There was some wonderfully inventive work, and a huge range of texts and sources. Everything from George F. Walker to Edward Albee, from Ibsen to Shakespeare. This is a fabulously talented group of young actors and I was very pleased to see how much they have grown in their year with us.

Smorgasbord 2 is an evening in which all of the vocal masques are mixed, deconstructed and re-consturcted under Bruce Bissonnette’s direction. Bruce finds overarching themes, and builds a show in 3 days from the pieces of the masques. It takes on a whole other life of its own and is a really exciting creative process. I am really looking forward to seeing that on Saturday night (April 17, 8:00pm)

So OSSD is literally buzzing with creative energy this week. I am looking forward to sharing it with folks.

Programming the Fall

It’s hard to believe that Bruce & I are planning our fall courses already. And yet we’ve been working away on scheduling for the last month. Of course, scheduling is a bit of a nightmare — we must juggle the needs of the child and youth, the adult and the Conservatory programming. There are only so many hours in which the studios are available and we are sometimes in competition for the space.
But great thing about planning is that we can really review what it is we are doing artistically. It is a time to get excited about the creative possibilities.
I’ve been mulling over the Trinity program. Trinity is a bit of an anomaly for most people. Yet we are the only school east of Toronto to offer this programming. It is based on a syllabus that is offered in 80 countries, and which has been enormously successful in teaching people how to work with language on stage.
So this year, as I write up my course descriptions, I want to find a way to celebrate the uniqueness of this program. The students who are doing the Trinity program are learning about poetry (understanding the differences between lyric and narrative poems); about the use of pace, phrasing, emphasis, intonation; they are learning literary references; how to develop character; how to do a cold read, to mime, to do an improvisation based on a character. The diploma level of the program (ATCL) is considered (in the UK and USA) to be the equivalent of an undergraduate degree.
No other school in Ottawa is offering this kind of rigorous approach to acting training and education. Yes, we are exploring and encouraging creativity. But we are also teaching craft. Learning a craft involves discipline, hard work and commitment.The Trinity program gives us a chance to meet international standards and it is exciting to see our students do so well. It is a thrill that OSSD does this work. It is one of the truly unique parts of our programming.

Creative solutions

The inside door hasn’t been working for quite some time. Or rather, when you press the button to open it using the handicap switch, it shudders, but doesn’t open. This seems to drive little children crazy on the weekends — they push and push the button and nothing happens.
Now while I personally like people to use the nano amount of calories that it takes to actually push open a door, we do have these devices for people who are not able to open doors. We like to have them working.
So today, when our repair guy Steve was in on a different matter (parking issues — but that’s another story), I asked him if he could take a look at it. He did, but said, “It’s a steel door. I can’t do steel doors. If it was wood, I could plane it.” He and Bruce thought it was something to do with the mechanism, which was also beyond his area of expertise. I kept looking at the door, and looking at the scraping marks on the door jamb, and I really thought that it just was a friction problem.
This being a theatre school, we don’t have a ready supply of 3 in 1 oil. But we do have a ton of vaseline. For making masks with, for getting makeup off. So I smeared vaseline on the door jamb and voila! It now opens smoothly, with the touch of a button.
And who says being an arts administrator isn’t a creative job!

Posting by the Fire

The great thing about starting an OSSD Blog is that I can do it sitting by the fire at home in the woods, my old cat by the fire and my wonderful husband reading beside me.
My vision for this blog is that I will have a chance to jot down some of the things that are going on at OSSD, so that you can get a sense of our inner workings. Quite honestly there are so many things that go on, that I really would love to just take a few moments now and then to track them. The school sometime vibrates with creative energy and ideas. If I can give you a snapshot now and then, I hope it will inspire you in the same way that being there inspires me.
And if I can reflect on everything while sitting quietly by the fire, then I am giving myself a chance to let that creativity seep into my bones.

Welcome to OSSD’s Blog

Just starting out and still under construction. Exciting stuff to come!