Grants and
grandstanding

Free money, a stage for your new play
and a new fest heat up Montreal theatre

FAMILY FEUD: The Bitter End

by NEIL BOYCE

Summer here can be a busy time for the acting community. While some have the dough to go on vacation, most skinny actors barely have time to recover from lifting fridges up spiral staircases on moving day—then, they’re off to pursue out-of-town jobs, prepare for a festival or summer stock, or set up work for the fall.

Now’s a good time to put together a grant application for the Cole Foundation’s Intercultural Conversations program. In 2008, the first year the grant was awarded, the foundation gave out over $160,000 to Montreal theatre groups to fund plays that might bridge Montreal’s diverse cultural communities.

Barry Cole continues the work started by his uncle, Montreal philanthropist J. N. Cole, in 1980. After his uncle’s death, Cole and the rest of the trusteeship looked at the range of grants that were given and got a sense of where J.N.’s priorities lay. “He would leave his office and be panhandled by men asking for a loonie,” says Cole. “So he gave money to the Old Brewery Mission and the Salvation Army; the Victorian Order of Nurses nursed my grandmother when she was dying—therefore they got money. We realized, here was a host of grants that paralleled his interests over a lifetime.”

To update his uncle’s philosophy, Cole thought about what could help Montreal now and was fascinated by the Bouchard-Taylor Commission and its recurring theme of “reasonable accommodation” regarding minorities. “Here seems to be a very critical problem,” he says. “In Montreal, the city is very cosmopolitan, but

we as citizens don’t participate. We’re in this small little world by ourselves.”

If the Cole Foundation could stimulate theatre showing intercultural dialogue, then audiences would be far richer, perhaps more accepting, and have a better sense of their relationship to other cultures.

What’s needed, says Cole, is a shift in thinking, “so that I don’t just live in my anglophone world and you don’t just live in your francophone world, and we don’t do anything else other than going to a Vietnamese restaurant to have their soup.”

Theatre companies can apply for 2010–’11 and 2011–’12 season grants at: The Cole Foundation (attn: Barry Cole), at barrycole@videotron.ca. Deadline is Oct. 9, 2009.

Children’s Theatre
and Just for Laughs

Altera Vitae is launching a call for submissions from playwrights interested in writing short plays for children (20–45 minutes) dealing with “Cultural diversity, identity, tolerance, insight into a new Canadian’s life” etc. Deadline is Aug. 31, 2009. Info: alteravitae.com/contact.html

In other news, Just for Laughs has repackaged the local, fringe-y acts in its line-up for a new offshoot called Zoofest, beginning July 10. The eclectic event, dedicated to “alternative programming,” includes theatre, circus, dance, comedy and music.

A few acts appearing this week (don’t bother navigating the stupid zoofest.ca Web site—pick up a flyer):

Another chapter in Alain Mercieca’s saga about the denizens of the Plateau continues with CAFé CAFé: The Asshole Magnet on My Heart (July 10–19, Théâtre de L’Esquisse, 1650 Marie-Anne E.); Paul Van Dyck’s Paradise Lost, remounted July 14–19 at Monument National (1182 St-Laurent); The Bitter End, a live and improvised sitcom about two estranged brothers with nothing in common, suddenly thrust back into each other’s lives. The troupe started last year in a weekly show at Théâtre Ste-Catherine and have a Web series online at thebitterend.tumblr.com. At le Gymnase (4177 St-Denis), July 16–26.