Adventure Time!

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Hi friends, did you miss me? I spent my summer time in Ottawa working on grant applications. I took a little break from this ole newsletter, since there wasn't all that much to share other than "woke up, worked on a grant, took a Netflix break, worked on a grant again, did some acrobatics (as you do in your downtime), worked on another f'n grant".

Now September has rolled around and I don't know about you but I am ready for a new adventure. On the 1st, I handed the keys to my condo over to a lovely family and literally skipped all the way to my friend's car. I'm still in Ottawa for the next few days and I can't tell you how absolutely ecstatic it makes me to be crashing on a pal's couch. While I enjoyed the downtime in my home, I think I am much better suited to life on the road.

#hobokenny

My first stop will be in Victoria to catch the last weekend of their Fringe before heading out to Vancouver for theirs. For the first time in quite a few months, the documentary team will be reunited in person in Terminal City! Lots of meetings are planned as we work towards our goal of having a rough cut of the film completed by November 1st. And while Natalie and Cory work away at all the technical elements that come with putting together a movie, I will find myself a coffee shop office and keep writing more grants...

Speaking of grants, I have to send a lot of love and special thanks to the Canada Council for the Arts for offering me an Audience and Market Development Grantso I can attend Contact East in Charlottetown to pitchRoller Derby Saved My Soul. My mother is then coming to pick me up after the conference so I can spend some quality time with the family in Moncton. Yup, from one coast to the other in September!

So excited for this!

Stay lovely,

Nancy

I acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts, which last year invested $153 million to bring the arts to Canadians throughout the country.

Je remercie le Conseil des arts du Canada de son soutien. L’an dernier, le Conseil  a investi 153 millions de dollars pour mettre de l’art dans la vie des Canadiennes et des Canadiens de tout le pays.

Feature Image Photo Credit: abdallahh via Compfight cc

Blink and You'll Miss Victoria

Hi Victoria Fringe Festival, so nice to meet you... hey, where did you go?? After our all too brief mental health day in Jasper, we hopped into our Hunt Club Volkswagen Passat and drove all the way to Victoria; arriving with just enough time to say hello to our new billets - for the first time this tour we were all being billeted separately - and head on down to Fringe grounds for the mid-week preview showcase, where all the performers who came in from Edmonton got to strut their stuff on stage.

I had my tech rehearsal the very next day and jumped right into my first performance almost immediately after... and every day after that. Phew!

I was placed in another awesome venue with a fantastic technician and, although I was further away from the main Fringe grounds, I found the audiences in Victoria to be some of the warmest on the circuit. In Edmonton, possibly due to the sheer volume of shows happening at the same time, it often felt like a struggle to, not only get people to your show, but to enjoy your show without suspicion - in the "ok, show me why I'm here and not next door" kind of way. But in Victoria, though it could take some work to get people through the door, once they were in, they were ready to have a good time with you. It felt like we were on the same team and I think my show got exponentially better because of it.

The show also got some great reviews and was nominated in 3 Pick of the Fringe categories: Favourite Solo Show, Favourite Comedy and Favourite Female Performer.  Not too shabby!

But time flies when you're having fun, and so after barely 6 days in town, we once again packed up the car and headed off to catch a boat that would take us to our final festival city. Vancouver, here we come!

Mental Health Day in Jasper

Well, the Edmonton Fringe was alright after all. Though I haven't added up my final numbers, I don't think I ended up losing any money though I didn't make as much as I did last year. I also closed the show to my biggest house of the festival, filled with an incredibly appreciative crowd of Roller Derby players, including the famed "Roxy Balboa" & "Justin (now going by Dixon) Cider". That said, knowing that we would have a brief window between the close of the Edmonton Fringe and the mid-week preview night in Victoria, I decided the best thing for us was to take a mental health day. And since I had heard amazing things about Jasper, but had never been, I knew that was exactly where I wanted to go. So, after dropping off the fabulous Randi, who joined us in Calgary and followed us to Edmonton to work on the documentary, and Cory's always awesome heterosexual lifemate Tony at the airport for 5 a.m., I packed up the car and a few hours later we were on our way to the mountains.

Now, a "mental health day" should entail no work being done whatsoever, but of course that didn't happen. On our way, we stopped a few times to film some more footage for our Hunt Club Volkswagen Road Trip Diaries, there were plenty of discussions about what/who to film in Victoria and we've started talking about post-production & distribution of the film. But when the scenery around you is so beautiful, is it still really work?

Cory and Natalie had no idea where we would be staying because I wanted to surprise them. Weeks ago I decided I would splurge a bit and ended up with a great deal on a room at the Fairmont Jasper Park Lodge. Of course, we couldn't tell anyone Cory was with us, since there was an extra charge for an additional person in the room.

The Lodge was, of course, pretty fantastic. We went swimming in their heated outdoor pool, had a great dinner and enjoyed some free smores by a campfire. It was everything I needed to relax.

The next day we woke up early, said goodbye to our awesome room and made it to Victoria in good time. For the first time, we were all being billeted separately, but fortunately all our places turned out to be really nice. Cory headed off to pick up his girlfriend (and my assistant) Emily from the airport while Natalie and I got ready for preview night.

And the next chapter of our journey continues in Victoria...

Ultimatums

I've never been a big fan of ultimatums. Not in relationships, in work or in life in general. They're just so... final. As you may know, I've been working on a one woman roller derby show that I would like to tour cross-country next year on the Canadian Fringe Festival Circuit. Applications to the majority of festivals is by lottery. To make touring a tad easier on the performer, an organization called the Canadian Association of Fringe Festivals holds their own lottery every fall for the chance to participate in every festival of your choosing. You may or may not get in, but if you do, your entire touring schedule is now secured for the summer, months ahead of most local lottery deadlines.

The only hick? You need to have the cash for every single festival you want to apply to upfront. In my case, a potential 7 city tour, that comes up to almost $5000. Now, I don't know about you, but I don't have that kind of money lying around (and if you do have that kind of money lying around, we should talk!). If I did, I wouldn't have been emptying out my cupboards of all canned goods since I've come back from China because my bills need paying and groceries seem to be a luxury at the moment.

So, I did the only thing a starving artist can do: I called my mom.

My mom was somewhat open to the idea. After all, I did get a grant from the City of Ottawa to write this piece. I talked to her about the lottery and how if I did not get in there would be no charges on her part. I would then apply individually to the various festivals and try my luck there. And of course she would be getting her money back by the end of the summer once my tour is done. However, my mom may have misunderstood my initial request. She seemed to think all I needed for the tour was $5000. After reviewing my budget plan, which brings expenses closer to the $20,000 mark, she did what all good moms would do. She kinda freaked.

And that's when the ultimatum reared it's ugly head. I've got until March to make this work. March is approximately when you can drop out of most festivals without incurring too much of a penalty.

I'm waiting to hear if I've received some grants that I've already applied for in December and there are new deadlines for other funding opportunities as well, but I'm scared. There is so much in this that involves chance and I've never really been that lucky before. This project means so much to me, but will it sell? Audiences across Canada are fickle. If I knew what they wanted, I'd be the greatest publicist on earth. But I don't know. All I can do is go about on blind faith (with a strong dash of hard work) and pray that it all pays off. My mother does not doubt that a Fringe tour would be a wonderful, soul-fulfilling experience. She just does not want me to go into a 5-digit debt load to accomplish that.

I guess there's no use in worrying about this right now. With my lotto luck, I may not get into a single festival next summer.