Monica Dottor, Michele Smith, Patricia Marceau, Dean Gilmour - Chekhov's Shorts (2004)

In February, Chekhov’s Shorts returns to British Columbia for a limited time engagement at the Rotary Centre for the Arts in Kelowna, B.C.  Click here for details.

In 1999-2001, Theatre Smith-Gilmour’s Chekhov’s Shorts played to sold-out audiences, with rave reviews at the Factory Theatre in Toronto.   Based on a selection of short stories by Anton Chekhov and adapted by Dean Gilmour and Michele Smith with the company, this first installment of the Chekhov Cycle also toured successfully to Vancouver, Edmonton, Hong Kong, Dartmouth and Montreal.  The show has won three Dora Mavor Moore Awards: Outstanding Actor, Outstanding Director, and Outstanding Production.

What the critics have said about Chekhov’s Shorts:

“****! A perfect gem! 24 karat charmer…a marvel” – Toronto Star

“Astonishing…one of the best shows of the year”  – NOW Magazine

“****! Comic magic!”  – Globe & Mail

“A theatrical voyage to remember!”  – Toronto Sun

“True to the gentle and ruthless Chekhov!”  – National Post

This year, our work with emerging artists has taken us to the 2011 Luminato Festival with Lu Xun blossoms, a co-production with the Shanghai Dramatic Arts Centre. It was the culminating point of a four-year collaboration with three young Chinese actors that had toured to Beijing, Hong Kong, Macau, Shanghai and Guangzhou.

Here in Canada, we continue to work with theatre students at the Humber College Theatre Performance Program, York University, the University of Alberta and Ryerson University.  Each summer, we offer a two-week master class that opens up our process to the wider arts community– this program is also an open invitation to a new generation of artists who can familiarize themselves with the process of our company.

We are exceptionally proud to have nurtured, as co-writers and directors, the work of Adam Paolozza and Ravi Jain in our co-production of the Dora Award-winning SPENT, which played a sold out run at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival this past summer.  In the New Year, we will continue our work on adapting William Faulkner’s As I Lay Dying with a new group of young actors.

For us, the actor’s imagination is at the centre of the process and our young actors must risk failing in order to find a new freedom. We encourage them to be more humane, more compassionate, more vulnerable, and more refined; to find a dialogue of feelings with the audience; to write with their bodies and ask audiences to listen, see and feel with the heart.

Your investment in Theatre Smith-Gilmour can ensure that we continue to provide opportunities for emerging Canadian theatre artists in workshops, master classes and on stage.   Donations of any amount are welcome: Please give during this Holiday Season whatever you can afford. Every dollar goes towards supporting our vision to create an environment that supports a younger generation of theatre artists.  Click here to learn more about how you can help support our youth mentorship initiatives.

With best wishes for this Holiday Season and the New Year,

Michele Smith & Dean Gilmour, Co-Artistic Directors

We accept applications from individual artists and informal collectives based in Ontario who are seeking assistance in the development of new work that reflects our cultural diversity, celebrates collective creation, and inspires unique theatrical investigations.

Each application will be reviewed individually based on its own merits and needs by Dean Gilmour and Michele Smith, Co-Artistic Directors of Theatre Smith-Gilmour.

Submission Details:  To apply, artists will be asked to prepare the following:

1.       A letter or statement of intent that includes artistic goals and objectives relating to the work, and any other information about the project such as previous workshops or readings.  Also, include a brief statement describing how the project contributes to the development of the artist (3 pages max.)

2.       A project proposal and /or script excerpt (2 pages max. for proposal / 15 pages max. for script excerpt).

3.       An up-to-date CV or resume

4.       A budget listing expenses that clearly shows how the artist plans to allocate the funds

5.       Video/audio support if applicable

6.       3 copies of the form available from the OAC website

7.       A self-addressed stamped envelope if you wish your support material to be returned.

Applicants may request between $1,000 and $5,000.  Full Theatre Creators’ Reserve Program Guidelines can be found on the OAC website

Deadline for submissions is January 16, 2012 by 5:00pm.

Please send submissions by mail to:

Theatre Smith-Gilmour
RE: Theatre Creators’ Reserve
c/o STAF

192 Spadina Ave., Suite 201
Toronto, ON M5T 2C2

Submissions by email or fax will not be considered.

Rebecca Singh moderating a conversation with Michele Smith, Dean Gilmour, Zhao Sihan and Wang Yangmeizi as part of the Luminato Lunchtime Conversation Series.

The Isabel Bader Theatre plays host to the North American Premiere of Lu Xun Blossoms

Click here for a map to the theatre

Click here to buy tickets in advance *

Click here to learn more about the show

Click here for the Facebook event page

*$25 tickets available at the door or sameday at David Pecaut Square box office. Maximum of 2 and subject to availability

(l-r) Dean Gilmour, Guo Hongbo, Zhao Sihan and Adam Paolozza

(l-r) Wang Yangmeizi , Dean Gilmour, Guo Hongbo Adam Paolozza and Zhao Sihan,

Rehearsing under direction of Theatre Smith-Gilmour Co-AD Michele Smith

Company in motion

Zhao Sihan and Adam Paolozza

Warming up - (l-r) Zhao Sihan, Guo Hongbo, Wang Yangmeizi and Dean Gilmour,

All photos by Xie Jingying

1 How did you end up working on Lu Xun Blossoms?

Guo Hongbo: I had seen Theatre Smith Gilmour’s production “Chekhov’s Longs”  in 2006.It struck me immediately as the type of drama that interests me.  When they suggested adapting stories about Lu Xun with our theatre, I knew I had to be involved.

Wang Yangmeizi: I love this style of performance. It includes image, language and body language. I am very interested in work where performers play a multiplicity of roles. I had limited exposure to theses techniques during my training as a performer.This made me want to be involved in the production to improve in this way.

Zhao Sihan: I hadn’t seen any of Theatre Smith-Gilmour’s work previously, but my best friend Zhen Ping attended the Chinese premiere of Lu Xun Blossoms in 2007. She recommended me to Michele Smith and Dean Gilmour, as well as the theatre and it worked out great.

2 How did working with a translator impact the rehearsal process?

Guo Hongbo: I don’t think the impact of using a translator was very important. It was reduced because we found a number common points of communication that were cross-cultural. We could discuss with each other what inspired us about the main themes of the texts, and explain it. No matter whether the director and actors are from Canada or China, we always start from the human nature. In this way it is easy for us to understand each other, and it is the best way to communicate with director, translator and script.

Wang Yangmeizi: Maybe there was less impact because of the type of drama we were creating. working creatively with our bodies to tell a story. From the beginning, we didn’t have a script, only the stories written by Lu Xun. We talked about the stories one by one, and one by one until we all had a clear understanding of their meaning. After that, we attempted to express it with our body language. We try to use our imagination separate from a translation of words.

Zhao Sihan: I can speak English, so it wasn’t a problem for me.

3 What surprised you most about working with a Canadian theatre company?

Guo Hongbo: Even though my English is not very good and Mimi and Dean don’t know Chinese, we usually seem to share the same understanding. There are no borders in art. For example, the beginning of our adaptation of  the story ‘New Year Sacrifice’, the shadow is a wonderfully creative idea that transcends language to tell a story.

Wang Yangmeizi: I was surprised by the physical style of performance.  We have only a little training in this form. There is no props on the stage, actors are the props. Actors don’t need to think a lot, they only need to use their expression and body language to tell audiences a story. I think it shares something with cartoon, full of artistic exaggeration. This allows audiences to engage with a sense of humour, not just follow a story.

Zhao Sihan: We try to take advantage of working with our Canadian collaborators throughout the rehearsal process. The director encourages all of our ideas. They don’t say no, but just say ‘Give it a try’. All the people in the play are earnest, and respect each other. Dean and Mimi have many wonderful original ideas.

4 What do you think still makes the works of Lu Xun relevant today?

Guo Hongbo: Just like Chekhov, Lu Xun belongs to the people all over the world. Maybe many people think his writing is aimed at a particular historical period. But in my eyes, his writing tell me about “human nature”, the nobility , ugly, chickenshit, devilishness… All these elements are familiar to anyone, in any country, at any time.

Wang Yangmeizi: I read Lu Xun’s writing when I was a child as part of my schoolwork. But at the time, I found some of it boring. All the stories are full of pain. I don’t like this kind of story at the time. But this time, rereading these stories again, I’m experiencing them differently. Maybe it is full of pain, but there is a  sweetness behind the pain. I am glad to work with Dean and Mimi, and have learned much from this process.

Zhao Sihan: This question is too broad to give a single answer to.

Translation by Xie Jingying

Torontoist makes Lu Xun Blossoms a “Best Bet”.

Click here to read more about Lu Xun Blossoms on Torontoist

“Smith-Gilmour has always shown great artistry in telling compelling stories with a minimum of dialogue, and we have high expectations for the blending of their style with that of the Chinese-based performers who co-created the work.”

NOW gives LU XUN blossoms a full length preview on the eve of the festival

Click here to read more about Lu Xun blossoms on NOW

“Theatre Smith-Gilmour has charmed audiences around the world with its staged versions of fiction by Chekhov, Katherine Mansfield and the Brothers Grimm. Now the company turns to an artist almost unknown in the West, Chinese writer Lu Xun, for its latest, LU XUN blossoms.“

Click here to learn more about Lu Xun Blossoms and how to but tickets on the Theatre Smith-Gilmour Website

One Thousand and One Nights director Tim Supple is just one of the internationally acclaimed artists appearing on the panel

Many of the shows at this year’s Luminato Festival are adaptions or updates of classic older texts. Obviously Lu Xun Blossoms as an adaptation of a series of short stories by early 20th Century Chinese writer Lu Xun fits into this category, but there are others:

Tim Supple is using a new translation of an ancient Arabic text to create One Thousand and One Nights, director Graham McLaren is creating Andromache – Evie Christie’s adaptation of the 17th Century French classic Racine, which is itself inspired by an ancient Greek text.

What about these stories makes them timeless? What makes them relevant? What are the challenges of bringing a new take to a modern narrative?

Tim Supple, Evie Christie, Michele Smith, Dean Gilmour and special guest Muhsin al-Musawi (Professor of Arabic Literature at Columbia University and one of the Arab world’s leading literary critics) join moderator and Canadian Stage Artistic Director Matthew Jocelyn at the Art Gallery of Ontario on June 18 to discuss these questions and more:

June 18 4:30 PM – 6:00 PM
Jackman Hall, Art Gallery of Ontario
FREE!
317 Dundas Street West, Toronto, ON M5T 1G4
View Google Map for Venue
1 hour and 30 minutes, including Q&A

Click here to learn more about Lu Xun Blossoms

Lu Xun (鲁迅) was the name that Zhou Shuren (周树人) wrote under in as a major force in early 20th Century Chinese culture. Born in 1881, he is often considered the founder of modern Chinese literature as a writer of fiction, poetry, criticism and essays. From 1927 to 1936, he was the leader of the Chinese League of the Left-Wing Writers in Shanghai, although he never joined the Communist Party.

Like Chekhov, he was also a doctor, and his works continued to be acclaimed by the Communist societies that that followed their deaths. The works of Lu Xun are still very popular in China, taught as curriculum in Japan, and because of his leftist past – were banned in Taiwan until the 1980s.

Lu Xun’s work as an artist is highly  regarded for both the breadth of works he contributed to and for his lucid yet subtle approach to prose. This style brought him great acclaim early in his career, while it became more problematic for regimes that did not promote “veiled or roundabout discussions”.

In 2007, Asteroid (233547) 2007 JR27 was named after him.