Lab Cab

Sunday afternoon between shows, I madly rushed over to Factory Theatre to take in a bit of the second annual Lab Cab Festival. The multi-disciplinary festival takes place over two days in every nook and cranny of the theatre property, with all events free. It's definitely inspired by Tarragon Theatre's Spring Arts Fair, which I believe is now dead, leaving its offspring to carry on. Lab Cab started out as a monthly cabaret format but migrated to the weekend format last year and it works really well. It's a wonderful place for people to test out short works.

Since I had about 40 minutes, I didn't think I'd have time to catch anything but the art installations and catch up with some people but I did manage to see two pieces: one of the Critic Series, created by Belltower Theatre and performed in the Green Room; and Binder Twine, a wild west dance piece by Company Blonde Dance Projects, performed in the Parking Lot - they were kicking up some gravel near the end. Very different but both wonderful.

I also had a chance to talk to Jon Kaplan. What was nice was that I had no problems talking to him now. I guess enough time has passed. I thanked him for providing me with additional feedback by answering the email I had sent him about his review of Kingship de Facto. He told me that it had been a good learning experience for him too, since he'd never been asked for feedback in the way I did and that it was nice to be able to expand past the 75 words he's allowed in his reviews. So all is well and it feels really good.

I came back to work exhilarated, both by the work and seeing some of my colleagues. It was a mad rush (and I had to postpone dinner until my break later on) but totally worth it.


On another note, in talking about High School Musical yesterday, I forgot to give props to the director, Jeff Calhoun. I found out from this blog that it was his idea to structure the number to provide more narrative. Honestly, as a fellow director, I should know better.

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