Drop-In spots available at $15/Pay What You Can. Drop in performers are invited to be in the final show if they are prepared.
In this creation lab, performers will co-create physical theatre vignettes in solos and as an ensemble. Play Play’s artistic method is based on the actor as clown and creator.
The Clown: following your joy and pleasure, connection to your true spirit, being connected to your audience.
The Creator: using our body as our instrument, our lives as our story archive from which we draw inspiration. Performers will be pushed to explore at the edges of their practice. Performers will improvise, use their bodies, their voices, write their own text, learn blocking and movement choreography. As an ensemble, we will experiment, stretch, and flop and arrive at listening and trust, where we move as one.
As storytellers, we will put up a mirror to our times, explore the beauty, absurdity and hypocrisy we are living through. We will create a show connected by theme, with scenes both stupidly profound and visually stunning.
REGISTRATION
Registration is limited to 10 performers at a sliding scale of $100-150. A few registration spots are reserved for Pay What You Can / Financial accessibility. 5 additional spots will always remain available for Drop-In performers at $15/Pay What You Can. Drop in performers are invited to be in the final show if they are prepared. Performers who are racialized and/or 2SLGBTQI+ are encouraged to register.
ABOUT THE DIRECTOR, JANICE JO LEE
“Lee has a mischievous twinkle in her eye and a marvellous spontaneity”–Now Toronto
“An iron fist in a slowly-removed velvet glove.”–Mooney on Theatre
Janice Jo Lee (she/they) is an award-winning queer multidisciplinary artist based in Tkaronto, Ontario. She is a second generation Canadian settler and twenty-seventh generation Korean. She is a folk-soul-jazz singer, songwriter, composer, sound designer, spoken word poet, actor, clown, satirist, and educator. She has facilitated Play Play since fall of 2022 at Sweet Action Theatre.
Janice is a hard femme, queer, radical, comedian, truth-teller and satirist. She is interested in using art to build flourishing communities based in justice and joy. Her work explores gender justice, antiracism, friendship, community, ancestry and the Earth. She has created theatre with MT Space, Green Light Arts, Theatre Passe Muraille, fu-GEN, lemonTree Creations, Randolph Kids, Le Project N’we Jinan, Theatre MADA and Cosmic Fishing Theatre. Recently she completed the Musical Stage Company’s Noteworthy Program for Composers and Lyricists.
Janice composed the book and music for her critically-acclaimed one-woman musical titled Will You Be My Friend (Dir. Matt White, Green Light Arts) a searing satire on cultural assimilation in Canada. She composed original music and sound for: This Is How We Got Here (Green Light Arts 2022), Shaded by Nada Abousaleh (Cosmic Fishing Theatre 2021), I Don’t Know (Theatre MADA/MT Space 2021) Dora-nominated Suitcase (Theatre MADA/Theatre Passe Muraille 2020), both by Ahmad Meree. Lee has released three albums of original music.
Janice has spoken word training with d’bi young anitafrika, Lillian Allen, bouffon/clown training with Adam Lazarus, Nathaniel Justiniano, and Deanna Fleysher, and physical theatre training with MT Space, and Fadhel Jaibi. Janice has worked as an educator for 12 years facilitating arts, anti-oppression and leadership workshops across Canada. She has facilitated anti-oppression workshops for University of Waterloo, Laurier Student Public Interest Research, Laurier Faculty of Social Work, University of Toronto Faculty of Social Work, Folk Alliance International and Vancouver Poetry House. Janice has directed theatre creation programs for racialized youth with MT Space, Le Project N’we Jinan, and Randolph Kids.
In Waterloo Region, Janice Jo Lee was voted Best Performance Artist five years running from 2016 to 2020 (The Community Edition Newspaper.) Currently she is working on a new musical satire titled Man Baby and the Earth.
TESTIMONIALS
“Janice speaks with precision and kindness -- her instruction is always clear, yet she somehow finds a way to leave room for exploration and discovery in all of her lessons. She is attuned with what an individual performer needs and is willing to spend the time to push people to their best. She makes class fun, yet has a dynamic approach to teaching that promotes curiosity and play within her students!”
“She’s great at bringing out each participants’ unique strengths and helps them grow with insightful suggestions.”
“Janice makes training content extremely accessible for people of different learning styles, ways of life and performance backgrounds. How the content of each session applies to performance techniques is very clear and nothing seems too abstract or generalized. Play Play is always a safe, valuable and memorable time that I trust to continually elevate me as an artist.”