Unjustly: Local History Told Through Shadow Puppetry

It’s one of the most infamous stories of Prince Edward County; that of a murder and bungled criminal investigation, followed by a swift trial and botched hanging of two men. The crime took place in 1883 just outside the village of Bloomfield, about a 15 minute drive from Small Pond; the trial and hanging took place just down the road from us at the Picton courthouse and jail. No one had ever written a play about this troubling incident of local history, and never one to shy away from the macabre, I decided that I should. It's a fascinating story well worth retelling.

The Picton Courthouse, where the 1884 trial took place.
The jail and gallows are at the rear of the building.

The superb book by Robert J. Sharpe, The Lazier Murder, was a great start to my research. I consulted many other sources, and discovered some of the historical accounts were contradictory, even as told by people who claimed to have first-hand information. I always take historical sources with a grain of salt, and I certainly claim my fair share of artistic license while writing.

It was a challenging play to write. I had to make sense of 1800’s judicial processes and try to make them interesting for an audience. I decided early on that there would be two narrators: Margaret Jones, the only living eyewitness to the crime, and William, a local shoemaker, a character of my invention. 

Margaret Jones, eyewitness to the murder

Margaret was a Quaker, and William was a working class man. I had to create distinct voices for the two of them with period-appropriate language. I’d also decided from the beginning that it would be a shadow puppetry play, as I thought this would be a great device to skip around in time and location, as well as a good way to deal with some rather grisly subject matter. Plus I would get to work with some of my favourite collaborators; I’ve been making shadow shows with Guy Doucette and Craig Morrison since 2008; we call ourselves Shadow of a Doubt Collective.

My telling of events suggests quite plainly that
George Lowder and Joseph Thomset were hanged unjustly.

Writing the first draft of anything is the hardest. Somehow, I slogged through it, and in the summer of 2014 we had a public reading. Lots of people came. Even more astonishing, they liked it! After the reading I did a few revisions, and then I met with Craig, designer extraordinaire, to plan how we should proceed. We decided to make a video trailer for the play to help get some funding to produce the show. When, eventually, we staged the play, I edited the ending so we could use the same video for promotional purposes. Here it is:

I’ve worked on and off with Festival Players of Prince Edward County over the last 6 years, and they agreed to come on as a co-producer, which was huge for our little puppetry company. We applied for funding and got it. This puppet show was going full-steam ahead!

Craig and I went through the script and broke it down scene by scene, deciding on what shadow puppet imagery we would use to tell the story. The puppets were built by Craig and Guy at Small Pond Arts. The puppet factory, a.k.a. The Shadowlands, is always an intensely productive time, with hour after hour hunched over cutting mats as characters and backgrounds spring to life from black bristol board.

Guy Doucette and Craig Morrison

Once the puppets were made, everything was taken away to be laminated. Back from the print shop, puppets were assembled and gels and sticks added. Let the rehearsals begin!

Puppetry rehearsal at Small Pond Arts

In addition to being a great puppeteer, Guy is also a terrific actor, and I’d cast him in the role of William. 

Guy Doucette as William in Unjustly

New-to-Picton actor Joan McBride joined us in the role of Margaret; she gave a tremendous performance. 

Joan McBride as Margaret Jones in Unjustly

We rehearsed at Small Pond for a little more than a week before loading into our venue, the beautiful Macaulay Church Museum in Picton. Our puppeteers and stage manager were the Festival Players’ Young Company, and Toronto puppeteer Andrew Young mentored the new puppeteers and ran the show backstage. Check out this time-lapse video of them in action:

The show ran for ten nights and was whole-heartedly embraced by the community, with full houses and standing ovations. This enthusiasm from the audience was the true pay-off for two years of work invested in creating the play.

Poster by Milé Murtanovski

Following each performance, Joan, Guy and myself led the audience on a tour of the jail and gallows, just a block away from our venue. It was really rewarding to have this opportunity to engage in a dialogue with the audience each evening, and a creepy and powerful experience for them.

Jail courtyard where spectators would have watched the hanging.
With both doors open, the condemned would have been visible
through the upper door, and after hanging,
 visible through the lower door.

The gallows

I am so proud of this production and I hope to stage it again some time in the future. A heartfelt thanks to all the talented artists for their contributions, to Festival Players of Prince Edward County, The Ontario Arts Council, Museums of Prince Edward County, and everyone who came to see the show. Theatre needs an audience, and we really appreciate your support! 

L to R: Guy Doucette, Scott Kuipers, Krista Dalby, Andrew Young,
Gabrielle Graham-Stevens, Leah Snyder, Joan McBride (front row),
Braelyn Guppy (back row), Gabrielle Kaduc-Stojsic

2015 Resident Artists

As 2015 draws to a close, it's time for us to take a deep breath and look back on an incredible year. Small Pond wouldn't be here without the scores of artists who have invested in themselves through our residency program. The presence of these wonderfully diverse creators has enriched our lives beyond measure. A huge thank you to everyone who joined us in 2015!

Suzanna Lebec's residency was focused on writing. Hard work deserves to be rewarded, and we went on some spectacular outings, including cocktails at the Al Purdy A-Frame with writer-in-residence Kathryn Maclean.

Kath and Suzy at the A-Frame

Pamela Schuller had a productive residency making and painting masks.

Peter Paylor worked on a large sculpture carved from old cedar rails he found around the property, and demonstrated his carving at a Creative Rural Minds gathering.

Ginna Wilkerson joined us from Florida to work on some writing and a host of visual art projects. We went to an art opening at Blizzmax Gallery and she enjoyed getting to know the community through attending many local yoga classes.

Ginna at Blizzmax Gallery

Zach Van Horn came to us from Ohio and successfully completed a whole series of paintings.

Mieke Van Geest visited us for the second time to work on her book of photos.

Photo by Mieke Van Geest, taken during her 2014 residency

Alison Broverman and Katie Swift called Small Pond home while working on The Tale of a Town - Canada. I was thrilled to collaborate with them on this beautiful endeavour. We interviewed 60+ people about their memories of Main Streets in Prince Edward County, culminating in a theatrical presentation and podcast, which you can listen to here.

Katie and Alison in the Wellington Times, photo by Alison Broverman

Liane Décary-Chen came from Montreal to work on some graphic design, and learned how to play Kubb, the Swedish game of champions.

Animators Ruth Taylor and Auke de Vries came to us all the way from Amsterdam, but Small Pond was just one stop on their 'round-the-world residency adventure. 

Auke at Point Petre

Ruth tries her hand at axe-throwing on Jobs' Island

Some of our regular puppetry collaborators stayed with us while working on our latest shadow puppetry play, Unjustly. 

Guy Doucette and Craig Morrison, puppet designers

Andrew Young, head puppeteer and woodsman

Thank you to all these wonderful artists for making this a summer to remember.

If you're interested in joining us for a residency in 2016, we're now accepting applications. Please visit our website for details.

A 'SPARC' of Inspiration

I spent last weekend in Ontario's Haliburton Highlands for SPARC: Symposium for Performing Arts in Rural Communities. 

The event centered on the Haliburton School of the Arts, a gorgeous facility set amongst beautiful wilderness and peppered with outdoor sculptures.

Upon arrival, we were warmly welcomed and directed towards a rack of costumes and a photographer. Yeah, I think I'm going to like it here.

Devil meets hula cape meets Hamlet.... whaaa?

Next we were guided over to a wall where we put a pin on the map to show where we'd come from - a great representation across Ontario, Canada, and even a few international guests.

We were given index cards on which we each wrote what we were seeking and what we were offering. Mini versions of our costumed photos went on the cards, too, helping people find each other and make connections. It's easy to feel awkward about networking, but these few fun icebreakers really helped set the stage for meeting one another.

There were three stirring plenary sessions that were held in the Great Hall...

And numerous smaller sessions, including mine! I was honoured to have been chosen as a presenter, and gave a workshop called "Celebrating Local Stories With Shadow Puppetry."

How much can I possibly talk about shadow puppets...? Turns out, a whole lot!

After presenting a slide show covering my work with Shadow of a Doubt Collective, ArtsCan Circle, Puppets Without Borders and the Ontario Arts Council's Artist in Education program, it was time to offer some hands-on experience. I guided the participants into brainstorming a local story from their community, which they shared with each other. 

Participants sharing their own local stories

Then they had the opportunity to make a shadow puppet of their very own.

I love these two shadow puppets that got hung up in the Great Hall,
a nod to the history of  logging and forestry in Haliburton

There were *so many* great presentations, like this one on site-specific theatre by Kendra Fanconi of The Only Animal. Here she discusses her work "NiX," set in a geodesic dome with a set made of snow. WOW!

But it wasn't all classrooms and Powerpoint presentations. We went on field trips!

You're either on the bus, or off the bus... and we were definitely *ON*.

Who would want to come to a place like this without getting to experience some of nature's magic?

There were also tons of performances of theatre, music and dance, keeping the creativity flowing and helping us get to know each other's work.

Bi-coastal collaboration:
Newfoundland's Dan Rubin with Tina Jones from B.C.'s The Kerplunks

There were so many wonderful, like-minded people at SPARC. New friendships were forged over box lunches and bus rides, and there are great hopes of building a network of us creative rural folk to keep these conversations going.

Sadie Dixon-Spain from Scotland's The Walking Theatre with Tina Jones

To wrap up the symposium there was a presentation from the youth caucus. Some 20 or so youth were in attendance, and it was really important for all of us to hear their perspective.

All in all, it was an incredible couple of days, and I returned home to my own beautiful neck of the woods, inspired and invigorated. As a rural creator of performing arts I face particular opportunities and challenges - but now I feel like I'm not so alone. There are artists creating incredible work in the most unlikely places, and I'm going to keep on keeping on, carving out a place for myself in Prince Edward County's local culture.

Home sweet home.

Cornography

From the first time I stepped foot on the land that we now call Small Pond Arts, I saw a show happening here. 

We visited the property for the first time in the fall of 2009 while searching for the perfect place for our dream to take hold.  As we walked the paths in the woods, I saw not only myself here, but I saw future artists and audiences here.  The shape and layout of the property would be perfect for a site-specific travelling performance.  On July 24, 2011, this dream was finally realized with Cornography.  My vision was for an afternoon of art about food, where audiences would be led from location to location to discover theatre, music, puppetry, installation and visual art. 

Illustration by Milé Murtanovski

I put out a call for submissions inviting artists of any discipline to respond to the theme of “our twisted relationship with food.”  I have always been a lover of food, and the subject has been much on my mind since moving to the agricultural area of Prince Edward County.  I’ve watched too many documentaries and read too many books about our modern food system, which is so deeply dysfunctional and fragile.  Since we moved here we have grown closer to the food system; within our first year at Small Pond we started growing some of our own food, and after becoming friends with some local farmers we've gained a greater appreciation for the work that they do.  There is so much to say on the subject of food that I wasn’t too surprised when almost 40 artists responded to the call with a dazzling variety of takes on the theme.  As the months went by, the pieces of Cornography fell into place one by one, and the shape of the day took form.

A small portion of the bounty coming from the Small Pond garden

Out-of-town artists started arriving a few days before the show and Small Pond was once again a veritable hive of activity, with elaborate installations being built, rehearsals taking place, artwork being delivered, and much mowing of paths and performance areas.  Then there were the preparations for the meal; if we were going to have 40 artists doing a show about food, we obviously had to feed them, and we had to do it in style.  We planned for the day to conclude in The Great Artists’ Feast, a dinner party held in their honour.

Mary Macdonald working on her installation to make lasting

You never know how these things are going to turn out.  All you can do is be as prepared as possible and hope for the best.  The day finally arrived and the weather was glorious.  All the artists showed up.   And, rather importantly, so did the audience.  The visual art was displayed in the barn, and the show began with a dozen visual artists introducing themselves and their work.  The audience was then led to a Punch and Judy show performed by myself and Trevor Jablonowski, wherein the notorious puppet Punch falls in love with a cob of corn, much to Judy’s misfortune. The audience actually booed at one point – what a great compliment!

Punch and the Corn Cob

Everyone loves a puppet love triangle

Two artists from Florida, Rachael Kerley and Giang Pham, had arrived a few days previous on a week-long artist residency. Their sensual, interactive installation Sacrament, Wash, Passage, Altar took place in the ‘salon du silo,’ the garden area that surrounds the silo.  It was a meditation on the grains of eastern and western cultures: corn and rice.  At Sacrament people were given small bags of pop corn and Rice Krispie squares to munch on; at the Wash station they were offered (and often accepted) a corn oil and rice foot rub; in Passage they walked on a path of rice and corn; and at Altar they were met with an array of glass jars containing oil, water and grains.

Sacrament

Wash

Passage

Altar

Our good friends Bay Woodyard and Gavin North of Honey Pie Hives and Herbals performed a puppet-filled Travelling Medicine Show.

The Traveling Medicine Show

Children were led away to the Art Barn to make corn-husk dolls with Cynthia Dinsdale, and the DitchWitch Brigade from Toronto (Eve Wylden, Antje Budde & friends) presented an excerpt of their play called Miss Toronto Gets a Life in Parkdale.

Children of the corn

Eve Wylden in Miss Toronto Gets a Life in Parkdale

Local songstress Melissa Larkin performed next, filling the art barn with the sound of her tantalizing music and spoken word.  The audience was then led to the spot behind our house, where Guy Doucette, Pat Larkin and Koren Bellman performed a musical puppet piece called Doctor Frankornstein and the Stalking Terror.

Melissa Larkin

Dr. Frankornstein and the Stalking Terror

In the back field our audience met Mary Macdonald and her installation to make lasting.  Mary had been at Small Pond every day that week, mostly perched atop a ladder in our back field as she built a large cage of buckthorn branches.  During Cornography people were invited to write their favourite foods on recipe cards which were hung from the structure. 

Close-up of to make lasting by Mary Macdonald

I had invited local visual artist Chrissy Poitras of Sparkbox Studio to participate in Cornography, and was surprised and delighted when she told me she wanted to do a piece of performance art.  For the performance we laid down a long runway of white felt in the middle of a tall field of grass.  People were asked to take off their shoes and walk down the carpet to where Chrissy was waiting for them, wearing a white dress and blindfold.  She then proceeded to eat a pomegranate as messily as she could.  The audience fell completely silent, mesmerized by the scenario; a little bit of magic taking place under the big blue sky.

Chrissy Poitras just prior to her performance

Jeff Keary gave a lecture on the subject of salt and its insidious nature.  Then Katy McIntyre led a piece we called Cornfield of Dreams.  She passed out pens and paper corn cobs to people and asked them to finish the sentence “My dream of the future of food is…”  Once they’d written their dream, they held them aloft and were led in a procession through the woods, passing young fiddler Luke Norton.  The woods open out to a huge field where people "planted" their dreams atop stakes. 

The procession of dreams.  Photo by Phil Norton.

Luke Norton fiddles in the woods.

"My dream for the future of food is... a garden for every home."

Our final act of the day was Arlene Bishop, a musician I have admired from afar for years.   Arlene’s music is quite simply spell-binding; lucky for us, she’ll be back at Small Pond August 26, 27 and 28 as the musical guest for our shadow puppetry play The History of Shadows.

Arlene Bishop

The Cornography performances and programming may have been over, but there was still one final act: we had to eat!  Long tables were put end to end in the shade of the Manitoba Maple in the front yard, and an abundant buffet of local food (much of it from our own garden!) was laid out.  The Great Artists’ Feast began, and it was so satisfying to sit back and watch all the artists sitting shoulder to shoulder with one another, breaking bread.  The meal was put together by one of my oldest and dearest friends, Tanis De Sa Pereira and her two teenagers, Spencer and Sydnie.   Not only are they great cooks, but having them play such an integral role in the day just added to the warm feeling of being amidst family.

The Great Artists' Feast

As you can imagine, it was a full, full day – full of energy and imagery and ideas, full of friends and laughter and surprises.  Our community was incredibly receptive to Cornography; clearly we have touched on a subject matter which is vital and relevant to them.  The quality and scope of the art was undoubtedly impressive.  Therefore Milé and I have already decided that we will do it all over again; artists, start simmering your ideas and stay tuned for details about Cornography 2012, coming to Small Pond next July!

Krista and Milé give thanks.

Huge thanks to everyone who participated in Cornography, artists and audience alike.  You have shown us what is possible, and we are forever grateful for all that you brought to the table.

Impromptu dinner table art by Celeste Hill.