Adventure Time!

This post was originally sent out through my monthly newsletter. I won't also post the content here so if you are interested in getting additional insights on my adventures, feel free to sign-up!  

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

The Start of Something

Yesterday, my producing partner, Natalie Watson, and I sat in a darkened room and watched, not the work we had created, but people's reaction to it. And it was pretty fucking cool. The Vancouver Fringe Festival had generously put together an event for a select group of people in order for us to preview our upcoming documentary, On the Fringe. So far, no one outside of the production team had seen what we had been cooking up. While I'm confident in and incredible proud of the work Natalie and director Cory Thibert have been doing, I was still a little nervous showing anything for the first time. There was no need to worry, however, because the reactions were incredible. People loved it and were excited to see more.

And now, I am ready to share that with the rest of you. Click on the image below to see our preview!

This preview is a rough cut of the film's introduction. It is still a work in progress but it should give you an idea of where things are going. It is our hope to have a finished film by the Fall. Are you as excited as I am yet?

You may also have noticed, once you clicked on the image, that it takes you to our Indiegogo page. Thanks to a new program from the crowdfunding platform, past successful campaigns are able to re-open. Until we've built a proper website, this is a great place for you to pre-order the film, get updates on how things are going and help us raise funds for post-production.

If you already contributed to our previous campaign, THANK YOU! We wouldn't have been able get this far without you! You will still be getting your selected film perks once they are ready. If you can contribute again that would, of course, be amazing, but you can also majorly help us out by being our ambassadors and distributing it through your social networks.

We're also looking for some additional help behind the scenes. I need someone with experience in branding, marketing, graphic design and web building who can work within our Fringe budgets. If this is you or someone you know, please contact us.

So check out the video & the campaign, tell us what you think, and share share share with everyone you know.

A year ago, this documentary was just a pipe dream and now we are closer than ever to making it a reality.

Featured image in header "Waiting for Hulot" by blondinrikard licensed under CC-BY.

Documentary Sneak Peek

From May to September 2014, Natalie Watson, Cory Thibert and I travelled from across the country in our sponsored Volkswagen Passat to gather footage for what will eventually become On the Fringe, a documentary about life on the Fringe Festival circuit.

After 10 cities, over 18 000 kilometres, and countless hours of footage, we are finally ready to give you a sneak peak of what we have so far.

...

Tomorrow that is. We are ready to give you a sneak peak, as well as an opportunity to pre-order the movie, tomorrow night.

Stay tuned!

(And be sure to sign up for our newsletter if you would like this preview to be sent directly to your inbox.)

Looking Back on 2014

Feature image credit: Takashi(aes256) via Compfight cc I usually try to get my year-end recaps out by the end of December, but my December 29th was spent on planes to Vancouver where I had to jump into rehearsals for The Little Prince the very next day. With rehearsals, New Year's and settling in, things have been pretty hectic, so blogging had to, once again, take a back seat. But on one of my few days off, I find myself enjoying the sun and mild weather as I reminisce on the past year.

Dear 2014, you were really good to me. Crazy, crazy good. It started with a shot-ski bang after a closing performance of You're a Dead Man, Charlie Brown and a massive hangover cured by a delicious breakfast from a generous roommate. Then there were rehearsals and the run of Pop Fiction in Ottawa where I got to wear the coolest costume of my entire acting career so far.

Experiencing one of the biggest cold snaps ever in Ottawa, I was thrilled to head out on vacation to Thailand with a close pal. It was an absolutely life-changing experience and opened my heart and mind in ways I still feel affecting me to this day. It also gave me a major travel bug. Which is a good thing considering how the rest of the year went.

From March to May, I was back in Ottawa getting ready for the biggest project of my life thus far. If you've been any kind of regular follower of mine, you know I'm talking about the cross-country tour of Roller Derby Saved My Soul, as well as the accompanying feature-length documentary, On the Fringe.

I had to get back into shape for the show and I found the best outlet for that was through the Ottawa Stilt Union. Their acro sessions were just the kind of fun workout and training I was looking for and it's one of the biggest things I miss about Ottawa these days. If you ever have the chance to work with them, I highly recommend it.

Creatively, while I was working on rewrites for Roller Derby Saved My Soul, I took some classes early in the year with the incredible Alix Sideris, the same pal I traveled with to Thailand, in Laban work. I'd never tried this type of work before and it really opened up new possibilities for me as a performer. Oh and I finally took my violin out of storage and buckled down with some classes. Though I by no means became an expert, I can muddle through a passable 'twinkle twinkle little star' that would make the parent of any 8 year old proud.

Spring also a period of massive fundraising, where we managed to not only raise over $10,000 through an Indiegogo campaign, but also create a wonderful partnership with Hunt Club Volkswagen in Ottawa who became our official travel sponsor for the tour.

I never would have been able to accomplish this without the incredible team I had assembled. Yes, 2014 was the year I put on my big girl pants and expanded my operations by hiring staff. Best decision I ever made.

And then there was the tour!

From the end of May until the end of September, I found myself of the road, hitting up a different city every 10 days or so, documentary team in tow. It was an unbelievable adventure and an incredible opportunity.There were plenty of sold-out houses, good reviews and awards (including a Canadian Comedy Award nomination for Best One Person Show), but there was also some heartbreak, tough notes to take and a few health concerns. It wasn't always easy, but it was definitely worthwhile. If you want to know more about all that, please feel free to check out the play-by-play in the blog archives.

By September, I was in Vancouver, finishing up the tour and taking acting classes with my favourite teacher. Then in October I hopped in the car and took a mostly solo trip back across the country where I returned the keys to VW Passat *sniff* and headed to the family home back East for some quality downtime.

In November, I took my first trip to Los Angeles to once again study with my acting teacher and her incredible team, before settling my affairs up in Toronto and heading back to the family home. At this point, I was pretty burnt out and looking forward to the comforts of home before the craziness know as the "Holidays" began.

Once there, I was finally able to sit with all my administrative work from the summer and gear up for the next chapter in my journey, which brought me back to Vancouver on December 29th.

Though this year may have started with a bang, it ended in a quiet night with friends and colleagues influenced by jet-lag and wine. The perfect way to end a year filled with so much movement and excitement.

Goodbye 2014! You were a gooder, that's for sure. Hey, 2015! Tag. You're it.

Up next, What's Up 2015!

Experiencing Technical Difficulties with Mump and Smoot

Back when the thought about doing a documentary about Fringe Festivals was just in the conception phase (those were the days!), a number of folks told me one thing: You have to interview Mump and Smoot.

Mump and Smoot is (are?) a Canadian clown duo who got their start in the very early days of Fringe. In fact, they performed at many inaugural Fringes like Toronto, Saskatoon and Orlando. The team and I were incredibly excited to meet with them and, as luck would have it, the Gods of Timing would be in our favour as both John Turner & Mike Kennard would be together, at what was once known as the "clown farm" on Manitoulin Island, in the brief window we had between the Toronto and Winnipeg Fringes.

We left Toronto on the Saturday afternoon following my last performance and drove well into the night, arriving at our Cabin in the Woods™ well after midnight. Considering not getting murdered by evil spirits or escaped convicts a victory, we woke up to a beautiful sight before us.