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Of all the words that mean “beginning” in the English language, “Ignite!” is the most apt for Sage Theatre’s emerging artists festival. Ignition starts combustion — a constant process that continues well beyond the first spark — and Sage hopes that the festival will set the fire under many new artists’ careers (in an equally figurative way). The exclamation mark is presumably there to annoy anyone who gets prissy about hard punctuation in the middle of sentences.
“What the Ignite! festival does is provide a small budget, a rehearsal space, and we take care of the production stuff so that the artists involved can just focus on creating,” says festival director Adrienne Smook. “A lot of the artists involved in this festival self-produce — they do their own shows at Fringes and different spaces throughout the city. think it’s really fantastic that they do that, but it’s also really important for them to have an opportunity to work in a supportive environment where they can work on that stuff and not have to worry about anything else.”
With submission statistics doubling every year, this fourth festival is Sage’s biggest yet. In addition to the usual surfeit of dramatic productions, Smook and company have arranged for a number of live musical performances, a full-fledged dance production and the transformation of the Pumphouse Theatre lobby into an art gallery. “I think that was kind of our original vision: To have a multidisciplinary arts festival,” says Smook. “We wanted to give all artists from the visual arts world, music, theatre and dance a voice at this festival.”
Despite its increasing eclecticism, the primary focus and appeal of Ignite! is likely to remain its theatrical productions. This year, Sage will stage: Die Mrs. Veenstra, Because You Are Old by Jeff Kubik, Fire Ally by Georgina Beaty, Unknown Pleasures by Jonathan Seinen, The Year of Falling Down by Meg Braem, Molly by Andrea Boyd, The Truth About Fairytales by Kristy Lannan and the god of ordinary things by Jonathan Chapman. All the submissions Sage receives are read by a committee, and the seven best-written, most challenging works are selected for production, then handed off to emerging directors, designers, etc.
“This year, we have close to 100 artists involved in the festival, and they are all emerging, aspiring professional artists,” says Kelly Reay, Sage’s artistic director. “For many of them, this will be their first show outside of an educational setting. We’re investing in the future of our community because we’re helping to foster the development of these artists.”
Chapman’s play, the god of ordinary things, is set in a semi-mystical 1930s-that-never-was, and follows a failing prop actor through his attempts to salvage his career. Chapman’s first draft of the show came from yet another emerging artists’ community staple, Alberta Theatre Projects’ 24 Hour Playwriting Competition. Chapman received second place for his play at the 2007 contest. “It was funny, because when we were doing the readings here and Jeff Kubik [who took first place in 2007] was there, I was like, ‘Ooh! My nemesis!’” Chapman laughs. “He had beat me in the contest, but I don’t think the play he’s doing is the one he wrote that year. It’s also a comedy, and is this kind of crazy, weird teacher-student thing that’s sort of surreal and hard to describe.
The prize for placing in the 24 Hour Playwriting Competition includes getting dramaturgical work with the Alberta Playwrights Network. “The play had another version, and I kind of cleaned it up — obviously in a 24-hour contest it’s a little rough around the edges. So that was the birth of it, but then taking it to Ignite! was the logical next step for me.”
More than a venue for plays, Ignite! is a platform for artists to launch themselves into the theatrical community. Openly influenced by Edmonton’s NextFest, the founders of Ignite! found that the Edmonton festival had no real equivalent in Calgary, and decided this was a wrong that needed righting. “When we first got the idea to found the Ignite! festival, we took our inspiration from Edmonton’s NextFest, which myself, Adrienne Smook and Geoff Ewert had all been a part of earlier in our careers,” says Reay. “It was a very valuable experience for us. It was that gig that gave us something we really enjoyed doing, but it also let us network, let us meet new contacts and really let us kick-start our careers.”
“This is a practical opportunity for me more than it is for this play,” says Chapman. “I think this production will pretty much be the life of the play, unless I randomly become famous and someone is like, ‘Let’s produce an old Chapman.’”
Though Chapman’s sentiment is admittedly idealistic, it is, of course, exactly what drives festivals like Ignite!.
