The segment of the Playwrights Colony that Natasha Greenblatt and I were at Banff for is called "The Retreat". No readings, no actors, just a cabin to yourself for two weeks and one friendly non-judgmental visit from the Colony's director, the magical Brian Quirt. Plus as many of the Centre's activities - concerts, exhibits, readings - as you want to take in. Or not. And people taking care of all the cooking and cleaning and everything that takes time and energy away from your work... And artists from all over the world to break bread with. I made massive progress on my play Turbulence, and I hope to have something to show you all shortly.
There are 8 studio/cabins altogether in the Leighton Artists Colony at the Banff Centre, and each is named after the architect who designed it. My guy, Michael Evamy, was an Alberta star. He designed the Calgary International Airport. Everything here is angles: triangles, diamonds, even a sort of pyramid base. And absolute rivers of light.
I never used the desktop computer except in the evenings, to play a ridiculous but very comforting Youtube video of a crackling fireplace. Mr. Evamy designed my studio with a fireplace, but the Banff National Park bureaucracy overruled him, so I feel confident that the architect would approve.
In the background of the photo above, you can see my writing partners. I also had whiskeyjacks, ravens, squirrels, a pair of elk, and one woodpecker manically concussing himself against a nearby birch tree. Some days I felt like (a very old) Snow White. Hard to believe the rest of the Centre for the Arts is just a little bit over that ridge. In here, I felt like I was in an alpine Arcadia.
At the very end of my residency, I was deeply moved to learn that I was there as the recipient of the George Ryga Playwright Scholarship. George Ryga was, in many ways, the father of English-Canadian playwriting. In 1967, he took a prestigious, big-ass play commission – in Canada's rah-rah boosterish centennial year – and, with the brave, poetic, and stunning THE ECSTASY OF RITA JOE, turned his outraged spotlight on the travesty happening down the street from the theatre: First Nations women being tossed onto the colonial garbage-heap of society. Relevant much? He then followed up with CAPTIVES OF THE FACELESS DRUMMER, a sympathetic look at the FLQ: so controversial at the time that it got the wonderful David Gardiner booted from the AD's office at the Vancouver Playhouse. And Ryga was effectively blacklisted for years. This was a man whose courage, empathy, and sense of social justice knew no bounds. It's a lot to live up to.
L-R: Mieko Ouchi, Natasha Greenblatt, Jovanni Sy, and me.