Halloween

Hey Abyss,

Thanks for staying with me through my strange photo uploads of late, which include pictures of (my now healed) athletes foot and my cats modelling portfolios.

Hopefully I can provide something more entertaining this time.

These last few weeks have been super intense working with Maiko Yamamoto and Antoine Bedard on Archipelagos, which went really well. The experience has left a lasting impression on me as a performer. The basic structure of the piece was each actor had a specific, self created movement score that they repeated for one roatating audience member 11 times over the course of 45 minutes. It was a combination of ensemble and solo work, providing for a very intimate and diverse journey for each audience member depending on which actor they start with.

As an actor it was just as intimate and diverse, because each audience member who came to your "island" reacted completely differently, which in turn altered your performance slightly. The day of the show we performed out individual pieces 44 times for 44 different people. I was initially intimidated by the number of rotations but found that the stamina training we have been working on for the last year came into effect heavily in this project. It's amazing how much energy is in the human body, and when you harness it how much of an asset it is.

Maiko and Antoine were pleasures to work with and I hope to see them again, whether it be within the school or the industry.

This week we are back to working with Nina Lee Aquino and David Yee, the last few days have been great and I am stoked to see how the rest goes.

Honestly, I am still really exhausted from all the physical work we have been doing and am wanting 2 days rest and a massage from a pro, none of these feeble "theatre school" massages. Due to our intense schedule at the school (12 hours a day, 6 days a week) we barely have time to do laundry so it gets tiring very quick, especially with little recovery time. I am not looking for pity, just expressing my fatigue.

Nothing else has been going on... I was excessively pumped about getting my Eggplant Coloured tie clip today in the mail (http://www.thetiebar.com/).

Sad, I know.

Simple Pleasures.

Blackbird is currently in Poland, which is cool (http://www.wff.pl/en/filmy/blackbird/).

I had myself a gluten free pizza tonight and am currently burning my cat's nostrils with the intensity of my continuous flatulence.

I'm off to watch Hocus Pocus.

Night Abyss

Fast and Slow

Hey Abyss,

It has been intense at school over the last few weeks so I haven't found much time to write unfortunately.

We finished up with Weyni last week and we all went to see Invisible Atom with Anthony Black, after the show it was great to talk to him (seeing as he is from Halifax) and the rest of the team involved. They have been touring the show on and off for about 6 years, which is really impressive. They have taken it all over the world and played to many different audiences over that time. It was inspiring to know that there is potential to have a successful tour of your own work. Of course, it has to be good enough to have the following, but none the less still very encouraging.

Getting to talk to Weyni's husband Eion Bailey (http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0047248/) was a pleasure. He is so knowledgeable and positive about the business of Film & Tv and gave some great insight and tips. I was truly grateful to the both of them for providing us with such support and reassurance about the field some of us are planning to traverse into.

We started work this week with sound designer/composer Antoine Bedard who also goes by the mononym Montag as a recording artist (http://www.montag.ca). He is super chill and has so much knowledge about his art and gets so impassioned by the ideas of sound and how they affect the human psyche, which is really sparking my interests currently. At the end of this week Maiko Yamamoto came in and is working together with Antoine to develop and original piece for us called Archipelagos. It is a physical theatre piece with original compositions worked in. I am stoked to see where the two of them take us over the next two weeks.

This week on thursday we had an optional workshop and I am so glad that I went. Myself and 7 other of my classmates worked with a woman named Rhiannon from Hawaii and she was mind blowing (http://www.rhiannonmusic.com/home.cfm). Her and her group of vocal improvisers were so generous and talented. They rejuvenated me as an artist with the work that we did. It is difficult to describe the experience but if you check out her website, there is more details on the work that they do. The memory of that night is one that will remain with me for a long time.

Friday was a big day for me, as it was the Montreal premiere of Blackbird! I was so stoked to finally see the film in its entirety and it did not disappoint. I knew working with Jason Buxton (the director) that it was going to be a solid film, but it was great to finally see it and what the final product was. The film has been sweeping a lot of awards as well, Friday night we found out that it took Best Canadian Feature at the Vancouver Film Festival. It has garnered 5 awards in total.

I feel so blessed to have been part of something so wonderful and appealing to audiences. I feel very proud of the film and only hope that it continues to do well. It is playing again here in Montreal on the 20th and I am trying to convince my classmates to go.

I will post some links about the film below and I encourage you to follow me on twitter @wayne_burns for more consistent updates on what is happening.

And check out my IMDB: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm4517763/

VIFF press: http://www.vancouversun.com/entertainment/movie-guide/Blackbird+wins+crowing+rights/7386480/story.html

More: http://www.theprovince.com/entertainment/movie-guide/Blackbird+wins+best+Canadian+feature+Vancouver+International+Film+Festival/7384433/story.html

FNC: http://www.montrealgazette.com/entertainment/festival-central/Director+Jason+Buxton+Blackbird+keeps/7375729/story.html

Night Abyss

Sunny Days are for Sitting in Bed

Hey Abyss,

It's Wednesday and I am thinking that this may be a good day to get into the habit of writing on. At least for the rest of the summer, which is going by so quickly!

Not much has changed since my last post, I am still doing the readings for Mr. D which has been awesome. Hanging out with the cast and just being treated so equally has been really encouraging.

Not that I have been rejected my whole life, just its nice to feel like part of the team.  There is really no way I can make what I said sound less pathetic so lets just leave it as that...It has been a really wonderful experience.

I went into see my agents yesterday and I potentially have a feature film audition coming up, it just depends whether I can get into audition before I leave for Guysborugh, which is where I am teaching next week. So, that is good news, It would be a day player spot, which is perfect because I am not in the position to have anymore than a few days on set. I say this only because after my frugal two months of living off my girlfriend I will finally have a surplus of money from teaching for the last half of the summer, so I don't want to have to bail on the kids.

I am really looking forward to teaching again this year, I feel after being away at school and just coming into my own a little but more I have a clearer image of how I want to teach and what things to start instilling in the talented rascals that give me company every year for four weeks. Kids really teach me so much about my own craft, they are so true to their emotions and provide such a blunt and unfazed view of reality. They tell you straight up if you are bad or good, or funny or stupid and its with this honesty that you learn as an adult to stop being in your head so much and just let life move through you.

Teaching them truly is a continual inspiration.

Yesterday we received out tentative itinerary for the upcoming school year and I am beyond excited to work with the people we are which includes: Nina Lee Aquino, David Yee, Adam Lazarus, Jodi Essery, Wenyi Mengesha, Maiko Bae Yamamoto, Antoine Bedard AKA Montag, AndrewWade, Jill Kiely and Many others.

I feel so blessed to be attending a school that gives me such opportunity to explore so many facets of this profession.

Last week I went to see a show called She Has A Name, and I was rather disappointed with it. I paid 27 dollars for the show which had an amazing premise so I felt I was going to be blown away. The opposite happened and I was continually distracted by the moving fabric of the set pieces, instead of the text. The show is currently touring Canada and the company is based out of Red Deer. The piece is about sex trafficking in Bangkok, but never really delves into the sheer madness of what occurs there. They raise awareness with the piece but does not leave me with nightmares about what the poor boys and girls go through everyday. And in my opinion, if you are going to do something controversial I expect to see controversy. But perhaps that is just me. The text was written by Andrew Kooman and was produced by Burnt Thicket Theatre.

Then I went to see Shakepeare by the Sea here in Halifax and I was blown away. Perhaps it was due to the disappointment of the last show, or perhaps the cast was just phenomenal. I think it was bit of both.


Thats it for now,

Night Abyss.