CREATING A SOLO SHOW WITH TJ & MEGAN - SPEAKER SERIES!
In this series, we go over everything you need to know to self-produce on every level... from small-scale Fringe to larger-scale tour!
SPEAKER SERIES
***Dec 11***
NOTE: DATE CHANGE!
How to Fringe Your Show
Instructors:
TJ Dawe &
Megan Phillips
So you're ready to give your show to the world. You've seen Fringe God TJ Dawe, your next door neighbo(u)r, and/or bajillions of others do it on a Fringe stage. Or maybe you've only heard the word "Fringe" to describe the dangling leather on your mom's Flower Power hippie jacket. Either way, you'll walk away from this jam-packed hour with the latest tips 'n tricks on how to go from application to closing night, self-producing through the Fringe Festival Circuit!
Oct 23
How to Sound Your Show
Instructors:
TJ Dawe &
Megan Phillips
Even if you don’t want any sound cues within your show, you’ll probably want some songs playing as the audience filters in and for your curtain call. And you very well may want to include sound cues within the show, whether it’s musical or atmospheric underscoring, or sound effects to help bring the world you’re creating to life, or excerpts of songs to punctuate different moments. We’ll look at how to get files of the sounds you want to use, how to edit them, and how to bring all of this to your technician to make their job as easy as possible.
Oct 30
How to Projection Your Show
Instructors:
TJ Dawe &
Megan Phillips
More and more shows include projections, and many venues have mounted projectors. It’s easier than ever to include slides and videos in your show, but it still takes some learning to know how to do it, and what the possibilities are. In this session we’ll look at how to find the images and videos you want to use, how to edit them, how to load them, and how to play them. And again, how to give all of this to your technician so they can do what you want them to do.
Nov 6
How to QLab Your Show
Instructors:
TJ Dawe &
Megan Phillips
Every venue technician loves the program QLab, and if you show up for your technical rehearsal with your sound and projection cues loaded into a QLab file and ready to go, they’ll love and respect you. Even more importantly, they’ll be able to load your files quickly and running your show will be a snap. QLab is extremely user friendly, but it does take some time to learn its language. We’ll get you started on that, showing you how to load and edit sound cues, including fade-ins and fade-outs.
Nov 13
How to Light Your Show
Instructors:
TJ Dawe &
Megan Phillips
Let's face it. Folks can see you on stage, so "Lights On, Lights Off" should be sufficient, right?
Sure, but there's a whole other world you can create with stage lights. No matter how simple your show is, you’re going to have a few lighting cues. In this session we’ll cover the basics on how to create a simple, functional lighting design, with room to expand into more complicated stuff if that suits what you’d like to do for your
show.
We’ll teach you the basic jargon, how to write cues into your script, and how to prepare yourself for your technical rehearsal so you can maximize your time and set up everything you need.
Nov 20
How to Market Your Show:
Social Media & Beyond
Instructor:
Joanna Rannelli
Q: If a show is made, but no one is there to see it, is it even a show?
A: Well, absolutely, but you certainly won't make a profit on it.
Joanna Rannelli, who created sell-out runs across North America with her first solo show Private Parts: the Secrets We Keep will be sharing her... well... secrets on how to market pre, mid, and post-Fringe to get those valuable butts in seats.
See Joanna's full bio here!
Nov 27
How to Grow Your Show, Pt 1
Instructor:
Erika Conway
OK, so your show has hit the Fringe circuit, maybe even crushed it. Now you're thinking, "What's next?"
In this two-part series, we will speak with two wildly successful artists who'll share their own stories as to how they took their self-produced, seasonal tour, to generating a longer-length, professional tours. Spoiler alert: it's not as difficult as you think.
In Part 1, Erika Conway, the director/dramaturg/producer of Tomatoes Tried to Kill Me But Banjos Saved My Life, will speak about how their show went from a handful of summer festivals to a fully-booked 2023 tour.
See Erika's full bio here!
Dec 4
How to Grow Your Show, Pt 2
Instructor:
Heidi Taylor
So we've heard how to grow independently... but what support is there?
Well, enter the Playwrights Theatre Centre!
PTC is a dramaturgically-focused theatre company that finds, nurtures, and advances the Canadian playwright, supporting new plays from creation to performance. .
See Heidi's full bio here.
PURCHASE SPEAKER TICKETS
To keep this cost-effective, we use a PWYC model - pick what suits your needs!
**Please note - there is NO prerequisite for individual speakers! Come lollygag with us!**
PER SESSION
Tier 1 - $15
Tier 2 - $30
Tier 3 - $45
WHOLE SESSION SERIES - includes all 8 speakers
Tier 1 - $100 (saves $20)
Tier 2 - $215 (saves $25)
Tier 3 - $315 (saves $30)
Here are the steps to buy your ticket!
1) Pick your dates! (We suggest all of them!)
2) Fill out THIS FORM
2) Pay us your monies!
3) Once we've received that sweet sweet dough, you'll receive all the Zoom log-in info.
Payment can be made via the following:
E-Transfer: info@soloshowcourse.com (no password)
Venmo: @TJ-Dawe-1
**Please note: we're committed to keeping tickets and admissions accessible. If funds are a barrier, please email info@soloshowcourse.com for scholarship information**
TJ DAWE
TJ Dawe has been been writing, performing, directing and touring solo shows since the late 90s. He’s participated in more than one hundred theatre festivals across Canada and abroad. He’s worked on shows that have toured the world, won awards, been on TV and had off-Broadway runs in New York. He’s worked with movie stars and high school students. He’s got published scripts he hocks after performances. You can find his solo show Medicine on YouTube, in full. He teaches a course on solo show creation at Langara College in Vancouver, and has lead workshops in cities ranging from Charleston, South Carolina to Winnipeg.
MEGAN PHILLIPS
Megan Phillips is an award-winning singer, actor, comedian, songwriter and vocal coach based in Vancouver, BC, Canada. She has written and toured shows across North America (Periscope, Not Enough, Strapless Comedy). Perhaps her fanciest accomplishment is the musical song cycle People Suck – co-written with Peter Cavell, winner of Best of Toronto Fringe, Patron's Pick, and optioned by Second City Theatricals, it has been produced by Salty Theatre at Theatre Works St Kilda in Melbourne, AUS. A Vancouver, Canada-raised human and wombat-lover, she uses her BA in Music and MA in Musical Theatre to teach musical theatre, singing, and drama from her home studio (Zoom). You can sing, she promises. She does stand-up, improv and sketch, most notably as the creator and show runner of The Anxiety Show, a comedy show where she can be seen calling feelings and supporting others to turn their personal demons into ha-has and lolz. Her creative wheelhouse is taking big feelings and making beautiful art and comedy out of them. Because otherwise, what's it all for?
ERIKA
CONWAY
Erika Conway, a Canadian actress, writer, director and producer is no stranger to the stage. Her 30-year performance career has included acting in multiple roles both on stage and in film/TV, as well as creating and producing her own one woman show which had sold out performances at the Edmonton Fringe Festival.
The desire to connect with more authentic and meaningful stories ultimately lead her to expand her work on the internationally toured and highly awarded show Tomatoes Tried To Kill Me But Banjos Saved My Life.
Erika deeply believes our stories change us, challenge us, and define us and sharing them in community can be transformative. She continues her passion of creativity in building a coaching business helping people unlock their passions and discover their authentic voice through storytelling.
JOANNA
RANNELLI
A graduate of the BFA Acting Program at UBC and Douglas College Theatre Program.
Joanna is no stranger to Fringe: she has been performing and producing for several years. In 2022 she co-wrote a sketch comedy show that toured to 5 Canadian cities, her biggest tour to date. This past summer Joanna wrote, performed and produced her first storytelling show Private Parts: The Secrets We Keep; it toured to Orlando, Winnipeg, Calgary and Vancouver. She worked on the show for months, flying to New York and working on Zoom with her amazing dramaturg and director Kerry Ipema. Private Parts: The Secrets We Keep, sold out multiple shows in Winnipeg, almost the entire run in Calgary and had a complete sell-out run in Vancouver. She won “Artist Choice Award” in Vancouver and was nominated for “Outstanding Fringe Production” from the Theatre Critic’s in Calgary for Private Parts: The Secrets We Keep.
When Joanna is not working in theatre she is working in Film/TV, Voice-Over and privately coaching acting.
HEIDI TAYLOR
Heidi Taylor (she/her) is a dramaturg, director and performance maker, and Artistic and Executive Director at PTC. She makes sited, devised, and interdisciplinary work, developing performances from first idea through production. Recent projects with rice & beans theatre include Derek Chan’s yellow objects and Pedro Chamale’s Peace Country. She dramaturged for VACT’s MSG Lab from 2016-2020, including Zahida Rahemtulla’s The Wrong Bashir. She has also dramaturged for dance, most recently Amber Funk Barton’s How to Say Goodbye. Recent projects include world premieres of Carmen Aguirre’s Anywhere But Here, Kuroko and 1 Hour Photo by Tetsuro Shigematsu (Governor General Award nominee), Public and Private by choreographer Ziyian Kwan, and am a by Amber Funk Barton and Mindy Parfitt. Current PTC projects include process dramaturgy with The Public Swoon on Mermaid Spring, and Tanya Marquardt’s Some Must Watch While Some Must Sleep at PuSh OFF. Heidi received her MFA in Interdisciplinary Contemporary Art from SFU, where she taught acting for 15 years. Her collective, Proximity Arts, created cross-disciplinary projects including podplays, sited dance performance, a community-run side show, chamber opera, cabarets, sound installation and a digital gardening project, from 2003 – 2011. Heidi served as Board Treasurer of the Literary Managers and Dramaturgs of the Americas 2017-20, and was the founding president of LMDA Canada. She is currently Secretary of the board for C-Space.
TESTIMONIALS
TJ’s creativity and seemingly boundless curiosity are matched only by his willingness to move forward into further creative endeavours. We’ve taken our love for Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, and Batman and transformed it into theatrical expressions that embody truth and love. These solo shows have transcended borders and won over the confidence of Lucasfilm and the Lord of the Rings people. TJ was the key to this success. He helped me confront my concerns and doubts surrounding my own limitations (both as actor and writer), and he walked through the many doors with me. As an actor, writer and director, TJ continuously challenges his own self-doubts and sees a production to its fruition. He does not give up and because of that I refuse to. - Charlie Ross (creator/performer: One Man Star Wars Trilogy, One Man Lord of the Rings, One Man Stranger Things)
Working with TJ has made me a writer with guts. That is to say his encouragement, guidance and teaching has helped me to trust my gut, and write with a sense of abandon. He has also helped me to find humour through exploring the truth, and poetry through writing with honesty. - Alice Nelson
TJ Dawe makes a jungle gym of his expertise and experience: you climb through and discover your own instincts, fears, and fascinations. His teaching process focused on finding my own voice for my own show. - Devon More (writer/performer: Berlin Waltz)
From the first day, TJ (without any obvious effort) created such a safe place - to say whatever, try anything and open myself up to honest feedback. What emerged from the experience was unexpected and wonderful:
• I found a creative community - now, months later, we still meet to create, collaborate, attend each other's shows and readings
• I found my voice, started a blog and performed several times at storytelling events
-Maia Gibb
TJ’s teaching style is highly supportive, accepting, and non-judgmental, allowing we the students to relax, as much as possible, given the degree of self-exposure each of us feels with our personal material. But his exercises also usefully allow and challenge us to express and reveal our stories, to experience different ways of presenting the material, and to find our own personal ‘voices.' - Falcon O’Hara
TJ has an empathy for the story like no other dramaturge I know. He inspired a belief in me that my story needed to be told. He freed the words from my grasp, held them to the light and then gently handed them back to me. - Richard Lett (creator/performer: Sober but Never Clean)
TJ has helped me develop four solo plays. He is a joy to work with as he is always positive and always looking to improve the work. He draws on more than twenty years of experience and has an exceptional career as a solo artist himself. - Keir Cutler (creator/performer: Shakespeare Crackpot)
TJ has this magical way of guiding you to push through your fluff and find your truth, but in such a way that he guides you to authenticity for you to find it for yourself. He creates an extremely safe and fertile environment that supports deeper and deeper creative growth, and gently nudges you into mining your own experiences to alchemize into creative gold. I already have years of writing and performing under my belt, and my confidence as a writer, performer, and human skyrocketed under TJ's supportive, nurturing wing. - Megan Phillips (creator/performer: Breaking Velocity, Not Enough, Periscope)
SCHOLARSHIPS
I know, I know. Times are messing with all of us. We have a limited number of scholarships available for those in financial need. If this pertains to you, please email us at info@soloshowcourse.com to apply!
