Posts

Showing posts from 2016

Failing Hands

Image
by Marilyn Anne Campbell Stage play: Theatre for Young Audiences; two-act, 3W/1M Two young nursing home volunteers – one who is truly dedicated and one who is only doing mandatory volunteer hours to graduate high school – discover that one of the home's dementia patients served as a Nursing Sister during World War II. As the teens get to know more about the veteran's experiences at war and her current challenges with memory loss, one of them becomes dangerously obsessed with the past while the other begins to reconsider the future. See all blog posts tagged "Failing Hands" Public Presentation As one of the winners in  Storybook Theatre's National TYA Playwriting Competition , Failing Hands  will receive one week of workshopping with Storybook Theatre in Calgary, AB then be presented in a public reading on Friday September 9th at 7pm at the Beddington Heights Community Arts Centre (375 Bermuda Drive NW). The link is now live for you to book your free ...

Results of the Storybook Theatre National TYA Playwriting Competition

Image
Sunday August 7th, 2016 I really thought my return to the blog was going to be to share the amazing time I had visiting with the talented and welcoming people of Storybook Land Theatre in Aberdeen, South Dakota and seeing their production of The Knight's Errand . And I WILL still post about that, because it really was fantastic. But I have to interrupt my own very loose editorial calendar with some exciting news... My long-in-development play Failing Hands was selected as one of three winners in Calgary-based StoryBook Theatre 's first ever National TYA Playwriting Competition! I'll be flown out to Calgary at some point over the Labour Day weekend to spend a week with SBT staff and artists and the other two winners, Jeremy Mason and Kiel Fredrickson, as the three scripts are developed for public readings on September 9th and 10th. The first draft of Failing Hands  was supported by the Toronto Arts Council and the script has been through two different writers ...

Kids Movies: See "Paper Planes" and More at TIFF this Easter Weekend

Image
Thursday March 24, 2016 I've been busy pouring over the programming for TIFF Kids 2016, which starts on April 8. There are a ton of great-sounding new films I'm excited about seeing, but I'm also thrilled to see that Toronto families will get two more chances to see one of my favourite films from last year's festival. Paper Planes  is a 2014 Australian film directed by Robert Connolly and starring Ed Oxenbould as Dylan, an 11-year-old dealing not only with his mother's death, but with his father's debilitating grief. Discovering competitive paper plane flying gives Dylan somewhere to focus his energy and a way to to make new friends; which at first only drives he and his dad (Sam Worthington) further apart. I usually only take Steve to two or three TIFF Kids movies a year, so I always hope they'll turn out to be good ones. He came with me to Paper Planes  and we both thought it was a wonderful family film. I highly recommend checking it out this ...

Little Free Libraries: Share What You Love, Or Give Away What You Don't Want?

Image
Sunday March 20th, 2016 Yesterday I read a fun article on The Varsity Newspaper website that reviews the contents of several Little Free Library boxes in Toronto . Writer Lisa Power wonders what the box contents tell us about Torontonians, but of course as Power herself admits, the contents could really just indicate which books the locals most wanted to get rid of. So when we took a nice Sunday walk in the park (this was the International Day of Happiness, after all), we checked in at a local Little Free Library  to see what the contents had to say. Which was mostly that it's time for me to round up a few contributions! Maybe this says we love our books too much to give away? I don't know if most people really do use Little Free Libraries to read-and-return, or if they tend to keep what they like and leave other books to replace them (or maybe never return OR replace, based on these shelves). We do a little mix of both - I've definitely read and returned, and r...

Introducing the Wobbly Cats

Image
Tuesday March 01, 2016 In November we adopted two kittens from the North Toronto Cat Rescue , bringing our household cat total to three. This is Charlotte: And this is her brother Rubin: They both have cerebellar hypoplasia (CH), aka Wobbly Cat Syndrome, as described in Charlotte's video. Expect them to make occasional appearances here on the blog, especially as we learn more about CH or I get more video of them being adorable and/or ridiculous. (For the record, 16-year old tuxedo cat Gadget retains his seniority around this place, and is so far tolerating his new companions with only mild annoyance and even fleeting affection.) Connect Online: Facebook | Twitter | YouTube | Tumblr | Wattpad | Goodreads | Google+

The New X-Files: Marilyn & Steve Spot the Stoner

Image
Saturday January 30, 2016 I have below-average facial recognition skills. Frequently Steve and I will be watching TV and Steve will say "Look who it is!" and I will look, and look, and finally say "Who is it?" because I have no idea. That's not what this post is about, but it's helpful to know for this story... When the new X-Files was about to start, the Space Channel aired a best-of marathon over two days. We watched it on and off, sharing X-Files memories, and at some point on that first day I remembered hearing that Canadian Tyler Labine, who has been one of my favourite actors since Dead Last , appeared in not one but two X-Files episodes as "Stoner." I went on IMDB to confirm and there it was in Labine's credits - bit parts in  Quagmire and War of the Coprophages . I excitedly blurted my trivia to Steve, hoping that we'd catch a glimpse of Labine in the marathon. "Hope he shows up in the new one," said Steve. ...