One Little Goat in 2022

While the pandemic may not provide the ideal conditions for theatrical gatherings (!), One Little Goat is still finding ways to bring people together, safely, through dynamic, poetic theatre. We did it in 2021 and will continue to do so in 2022. Read on to learn how. And if you can, please support One Little Goat's programming with a tax-deductible donation — as a registered charity, we depend on individual donations to realize productions, and we want to thank you for helping us make them happen. See you next year! In the meantime, wishing happy holidays and a healthy year ahead, -Adam Seelig, Artistic Director

“A WAY A LONE A LAST A LOVED A LONG THE RIVERRUN..."

Constantin Brancusi's "portrait" of Joyce (1929)

The Embassy of Ireland in Canada has awarded One Little Goat a grant to record James Joyce’s final work, Finnegans Wake. Intended to be heard as much as read, Joyce’s 628-page dreamlike novel of mind-blowing virtuosity is essentially impossible to read, and yet Dublin-born Richard Harte (One Little Goat’s Ubu Mayor, Music Music Life Death Music) has a remarkable knack for it, partly attributable to his two decades as a leading member of Toronto’s Annalivia Players, who perform Joyce’s Ulysses annually.

Andrew Moodie in Talking Masks: Oedipussy

Together with Artistic Director Adam Seelig, Harte is teaming up with celebrated actor-playwright-filmmaker Andrew Moodie (Talking Masks, Like the First Time) to capture the enrapturing cadences of Joyce’s text. In the meantime, if you’re looking for a way into the world of Joyce’s surreal book, Anthony Burgess’s introduction is an excellent place to start.

Rembrandt’s “Belshazzar's Feast,” p.18 of Finnegans Wake

Whack fol the dah now dance to your partner,
Welt the flure, your trotters shake,
Wasn't it the truth I told you,
Lots of fun at Finnegan's wake!

— 19th-century Irish American folk song

One Little Goat’s PLAY outdoors, fall 2021

PLAY REACHES 36,000 KIDS IN 140 SCHOOLS

Thanks to your support and the perseverance of actors Rochelle Bulmer, Jessica Salgueiro and Richard Harte, One Little Goat brought PLAY: A (Mini) History of Theatre for Kids to 4,500 elementary students and educators across Toronto this fall, live and in person.

Having performed PLAY for over 120 school gyms before the pandemic, we moved our performances outdoors this fall to ensure students could still experience the performing arts in person in a pandemic-safe environment. This outdoor tour fulfilled One Little Goat's goal, with support from the Ontario Trillium Foundation, of bringing dynamic theatre to 36,000 kids in over 140 Toronto schools, primarily schools with greater need, free of charge. For most of the youngest kids, this was their first live performance ever.

One Little Goat’s PLAY outdoors, fall 2021

The play was fantastic! The kids were excited during and after. In our School Council meeting that evening a parent mentioned that her kindergarten daughter was talking about Antigone [Greek Tragedy included in PLAY] after the play. How amazing is that? The students got the opportunity to experience theatre under the sky (outside) which was such a treat in light of the ban on co-curriculars due to the pandemic. The troupe was funny, and relatable. We are so appreciative of this opportunity that was given to us, at no cost.

—Cathy Chumfong, Principal, Carleton Village Public School

From One Little Goat’s Report on PLAY and Performing Arts in Schools

For more, please visit our Report on PLAY and Performing Arts in Schools:

  • nearly 60% of schools attend no (“Ø”) live performances in a given year

  • cost is the biggest barrier to performances for nearly 70% of schools

THE VAMPIRE AND THE NYMPHOMANIAC

Chants Libre, "Le Vampire," Montréal 1996

—"Ainsi la vie s’étend comme une tente de confiserie, comme un étang de liqueur mauve où le lys d’eau recueilli enflamme les joncs bleuisseurs."
—"Thus, life extends like a confectionery tent, like a pond of mauve liqueur where the contemplative water lily inflames the blueblushing bullrush."

Claude Gauvreau, paintings by Pierre Gauvreau, Montréal, 1954 (photo by Gregori)

Ray Ellenwood has nearly completed his English translation of Claude Gauvreau’s extraordinary libretto, The Vampire and the Nymphomaniac, with support from a Canada Council grant secured by One Little Goat. Although the pandemic has slowed the publication process, we are working with colleagues in Quebec to issue a beautiful bilingual edition of this “explorean” script from 1949, introducing new audiences to Gauvreau’s revolutionary writing. As Le Devoir succinctly put it, “Gauvreau is a giant!”

Student review of PLAY outdoors (Fall 2021)

PLEASE SUPPORT ONE LITTLE GOAT

As an official charity, One Little Goat Theatre Company, North America’s only company dedicated to poetic theatre, depends on individual donations to make productions possible. Your financial support is tax-deductible and greatly appreciated! Our office is volunteer-run, so 100% of your donation goes directly to programming.

How to donate:

  1. Online through Canada Helps

  2. E-transfer to onelittlegoattc@gmail.com

  3. Cheque to One Little Goat Theatre Company, 422 Brunswick Ave, Toronto, ON, M5R 2Z4, CANADA

THANK YOU!
WISHING HAPPY HOLIDAYS & A HEALTHY 2022

Report on PLAY & Performing Arts in Schools

Note from the Artistic Director

From grades five to seven (1985-88), I went to Osler Elementary School in Vancouver, where, on a couple of occasions, a small opera troupe visited and performed in our school gym. I can’t remember the ‘take-home messages’ of those performances, if they even had one, but I definitely remember their energy and spirit. Here, very much alive in front of me, was a group of people singing, moving and playing together dynamically and, in every sense of the word, harmoniously. They made an impression on me, and for all the theatres I’ve attended since, the gym floor of Sir William Osler might remain the most influential. It is with those experiences in mind, and thinking of my own children, that I wrote PLAY: A (Mini) History of Theatre for Kids.

— Adam Seelig

Two Highlights from the Report

One Little Goat prepared a version of this report for the Ontario Trillium Foundation in December of 2021. Two highlights from the 99 schools we surveyed:

1. Nearly 60% of schools attend no (“Ø”) live performances in a given year.

2. Cost is the biggest barrier to performances for nearly 70% of schools.






Background

From 2018 to 2021 — with a break from spring 2019 to fall 2021 due to the pandemic — One Little Goat Theatre Company presented PLAY: A (Mini) History of Theatre for Kids in 99 elementary schools in the Toronto District School Board, covering Etobicoke, North York, Scarborough and Toronto and reaching nearly 27,000 students and educators at no cost to the schools (thanks to support from the Ontario Trillium Foundation and Friends of One Little Goat Theatre Company). The majority of these elementary schools were schools “with the greatest level of external challenges” (as assessed by the TDSB), known as Model Schools for Inner Cities. The majority of students were in Grades 1-6, with many performances also including Kindergarten and the occasional performance including Grade 7.

Since 2015, actors Rochelle Bulmer, Richard Harte and Jessica Salgueiro and writer-director Adam Seelig worked in production with One Little Goat to bring PLAY to over 36,000 students and educators in 140 schools. This report addresses the nearly 27,000 in 99 schools since 2018, the year we began collecting surveys from teachers.

Written, composed and directed by One Little Goat’s Artistic Director Adam Seelig, PLAY makes the case that dramatic play is rooted in childhood games, empowering children as natural-born play-makers. Through PLAY, actors Richard Harte and “Mavis-the-Sometimes-Cat” (Rochelle Bulmer alternating with Jessica Salgueiro) introduce elementary students to some of the world’s most enduring games we call “plays.” For more on PLAY, including the script and guide for educators, please visit the PLAY page.

One Little Goat distributed a pen-and-paper survey to teachers and principals at the conclusion of each presentation. We received over 500 responses and collected the data for this report. The evaluation helped us measure the effectiveness of our program along the way. For example, after our first quarter of performances, we noticed — from teacher evaluation comments and from our own observations during performances — that students were especially responsive to the songs in PLAY, so we added more music to the presentation for the second quarter onward.

The evaluation also demonstrates:

(A) the access PLAY provides to elementary student and teacher/educator populations, primarily in Model Schools;

(B) the level of engagement PLAY engenders in students.


PLAY during the pandemic: performing outside

Prior to the pandemic, One Little Goat performed PLAY in school gyms, completing 3/4 of our tour (fall 2018, spring 2019, fall 2019). When the pandemic hit, we postponed the last quarter of our program delivery until we could safely resume in-person performances in the fall of 2021, which we managed by performing PLAY outside in each school’s play area/schoolyard. While outdoor theatre presented significant challenges for PLAY — rain-outs, wind, cold, noise (e.g. nearby traffic and construction), wet or sandy concrete schoolyards (which we covered in tarps for students to sit more comfortably), uneven ‘stage’ for the actors, separating students by cohort in light of COVID, etc. — this fourth quarter of the PLAY tour was immensely rewarding, particularly in being each school’s first live-and-in-person event since (at least) the start of the pandemic. As several principals told us, after over a year of “remote learning” and cohorting (keeping classes separate, even at recess, to impede the spread of COVID-19), PLAY marked the first time they had seen their entire school together. It was for them, and for us, a meaningful and moving sight, and we were honoured that One Little Goat, through theatre, could facilitate such shared experiences after over a year of isolation.

Note that we opted not to “pivot” (a popular term at the height of the pandemic) to a digital delivery of PLAY, feeling that a live, in-person experience was far more engaging and beneficial to the students and teachers than a filmed version. We are grateful that the Trillium Foundation worked with us to accommodate this COVID-induced delay.

During our pandemic-era performances — held outdoors in the fall of 2021 — we did not distribute paper surveys after each performance. This helped us maintain physical distance, as encouraged by Toronto Public Health. Furthermore, the answer to one of the survey questions, “How many live theatrical performances has your school/class attended in the past 12 months?” was clearly “0” for every school in the TDSB in light of the pandemic. Still, numerous principals offered feedback for PLAY — here, for example, is the Principal of Carleton Village Public School:

“The play was fantastic! The kids were excited during and after. In our School Council meeting that evening a parent mentioned that her kindergarten daughter was talking about Antigone [the Ancient Greek Tragedy included in PLAY] after the play. How amazing is that? The students got the opportunity to experience theatre under the sky (outside) which was such a treat in light of the ban on co-curriculars due to the pandemic. The troupe was funny, and relatable. We are so appreciative of this opportunity that was given to us, at no cost.”

One Little Goat Theatre Company would like to add that sharing with young audiences some of the greatest moments in theatre, from the intensity of Ancient Greek tragedy to the absurdity of 20th-century modernism, was tremendously rewarding for us. All the learning, listening, laughing, miming and mask-wearing we did together with elementary students and educators in their gyms and schoolyards will contribute to the kids’ lifelong love of, and participation in, the arts.

REPORT ON PLAY

Aggregate data from >500 evaluation surveys by elementary school teachers and educators

A. Access PLAY Provides Students & Educators

Dates: 2018 - 2021 (Fall 2018, Spring 2019, Fall 2019, Pandemic Break, Fall 2021)

Number of Students & Educators (K-6) who Experienced PLAY

  • Total: 26,739

    • Fall 2018: 8,108

    • Spring 2019: 5,875

    • Fall 2019: 8,053

    • Fall 2021: 4,703

Number of PLAY Performances (2018-2021)

  • Total: 99

    • Fall 2018: 25

    • Spring 2019: 24

    • Fall 2019: 28

    • Fall 2021: 22



Location of Schools where One Little Goat performed PLAY

  • Total: 99

    • Etobicoke: 14

    • North York: 26

    • Scarborough: 32

    • Toronto: 27


Learning Opportunity Index (2018-2021) — Of the 99 schools where One Little Goat brought PLAY, what is the average school ranking on the Toronto District School Board’s LOI?

  • Average LOI: 170

    • The highest ranking school in the school board, #1, is considered by the school board to be “the school with the greatest level of external challenges,” while the lowest ranking school, #473, experiences the least level of external challenges

    • The majority of schools visited by PLAY are designated by the school board as Model Schools for Inner Cities, i.e. schools with a LOI ranking of 1 to 150

How many live theatrical performances has your school/class attended in the past 12 months?

  • 426 responses

    • 0: 58%

    • 1: 26%

    • 2: 12%

    • 3: 4%

What are some of the barriers to having performances like PLAY at your school?

  • 450 responses, with some teachers listing multiple barriers

  • Note: survey responses to this question were not collected during the pandemic performances, fall 2021, at which time COVID-19 was far and away the main barrier to performances in schools

    • Cost: 69%

    • Time: 22%

    • Student Attention/Behaviour: 12%

    • Age Appropriateness: 2%

    • Other: 3%

Below is a chart of barriers by number of survey responses.

B. Student Engagement with PLAY

On a scale of 1-5, how engaged were your students by PLAY? (1 = not engaged; 5 = very engaged)

  • 519 responses

  • Note: survey responses to this question were not collected during the pandemic performances, fall 2021

    • 1: 0 (0%)

    • 2: 10 (2%)

    • 3: 138 (27%)

    • 4: 224 (43%)

    • 5: 147 (28%)

Enhancing student engagement:

  • pre-performance introduction by One Little Goat

  • post-performance student mask and mime exercise conducted by One Little Goat

  • post-performance Q&A led by One Little Goat

  • music & songs

  • high calibre of the performers

  • PLAY resource/learning guide (incl. activities, vocabulary, etc.) freely accessible to teachers

  • PLAY published script freely accessible online for educators

What was a moment from PLAY that stuck with you and/or your students?

  • 451 responses

  • Top words:

    • music (89), singing (60), safe/free (49), songs (45), mask (38), play (38) cat (28), guitar (26), students (26), playing (24), enjoyed (17), old woman (17), Antigone (16), miming (16), freedom (15), instruments (14), comedy (12), ukulele (12), actors (11), musical (11), Godot (10), acting (10), character (10), mime (10) …

 

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The writing of PLAY was supported by an Ontario Arts Council Theatre Creators’ Reserve grant recommended by Theatre Direct in 2015.

Thank you to the organizations that supported One Little Goat Theatre Company’s development and production of PLAY: A (Mini) History of Theatre for Kids: Toronto Arts Council, Ontario Arts Council, Canada Council for the Arts, TD Bank, Embassy of Ireland in Ottawa, Irish Cultural Society of Toronto and the Ontario Trillium Foundation and Friends of One Little Goat, the last two of which deserve special thanks for enabling One Little Goat to bring PLAY to elementary schools, particularly Model Schools for Inner Cities, throughout Toronto, Etobicoke, North York and Scarborough from 2016-2021 at no cost to the schools.

Thank you to the many principals, teachers and students who have welcomed PLAY into your school.

Op-Ed in Toronto Star by Artistic Director Adam Seelig

Dear Ontario COVID-19 Science Advisory: Bring Music to the (Picnic) Table

“Slumping in their cells like wet dishrags.” This is how Dr. Alfred Tomatis described the monks of Abbaye d’En-Calcat in France in the late 1960s. Why had the whole monastery become depressed? Other doctors couldn’t figure it out, but the musically minded Tomatis intuited that it was because of recent restrictions imposed on the monks’ chanting by the Vatican. Let them sing again, Tomatis told the abbot, and they’ll be fine. The abbot agreed, and the monastery sprang back to life.

Worried that my two teenage sons would suffer a similar slump when COVID-19 first swept across Toronto...

Read the full article here.

Free Staged Reading, Sunday, January 26: LABOUR OF LIFE by Hanoch Levin

Hanoch Levin

Hanoch Levin

Please join us for a staged reading of
LABOUR OF LIFE
by Israeli poet-playwright Hanoch Levin

A play with three songs
Direction and Music by Adam Seelig
Cast, in order of appearance:
Daniel Kash – Yona Popukh
Theresa Tova – Leviva Popukh
Cyrus Faird – Gunkel

2:30pm, Sunday, January 26, 2020 in Toronto
Meridian Arts Centre (Toronto Centre for the Arts), 5040 Yonge Street, Toronto (map)
Produced by the Harold Green Jewish Theatre
In association with One Little Goat

Free. By reservation — to reserve call: 416.932.9995 x224

Sasson Gabai (left), Yithak Hizkiyahu and Liora Rivlin in the 2012 Tel Aviv production.

Sasson Gabai (left), Yithak Hizkiyahu and Liora Rivlin in the 2012 Tel Aviv production.

SYNOPSIS

In Labour of Life (Melechet Hachaim, 1989, translated from the Hebrew), married couple Yona and Leviva Popukh argue through the night and are briefly visited by their acquaintance Gunkel. A misanthropic comedy, Labour of Life explores the pains and pleasures of living both alone and together.

 

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Hanoch Levin (1943-1999) was the great poet among Israeli playwrights… Like Harold Pinter, Levin could delve deep into a family's dysfunctionality; like Tom Stoppard, he could take form and make it the essence of the play…. Levin wrote theatre of the absurd without becoming absurd. His plays do not provide any answers: he just posed questions…

To read the complete obituary in The Guardian, click here

PLAY, Claude Gauvreau, Hanoch Levin & 2020

Thank you to all for making 2019 a great year for One Little Goat Theatre Company. I'm delighted to share the news below and am looking forward to seeing you in 2020!

-Adam Seelig, Artistic Director

PLAY REACHES 14,000 KIDS

For all the theatres and venues I’ve attended, the most influential of all might still be the gym floor of Osler Elementary School in Vancouver, where, as a kid, I saw some of my first theatrical performances. It is with those performances in mind that I wrote PLAY: A (Mini) History of Theatre for Kids, which reached 14,000 elementary students and teachers in over 50 Model Schools for Inner Cities throughout Toronto in 2019, at no cost to the schools, with support from the Ontario Trillium Foundation and individuals like you.

PLAY will be published in a special edition printed at the Coach House Press in Toronto. It will also be available through One Little Goat’s website (January 2020).

yd_20130509_1130459-Edit.jpg

CLAUDE GAUVREAU LIBRETTO

One Little Goat just received a grant from the Canada Council for the Arts to translate and publish Claude Gauvreau’s extraordinary libretto, The Vampire and the Nymphomaniac. In 2013, One Little Goat staged the English-language world premiere of Gauvreau’s revolutionary The Charge of the Expormidable Moose, and we are thrilled, along with translator Ray Ellenwood, to bring more of Gauvreau’s radical theatre to the public. Le vampire et la nymphomane (1949, Montreal) is a surreal opera depicting star-crossed lovers kept apart by the oppressive forces of patriarchy. Haunting, absurd, linguistically wild and deeply rooted in emotion, it is a testament to the visceral power of Gauvreau’s poetic theatre.

Hanoch Levin laughing.jpg

HANOCH LEVIN STAGED READING

Please join us at 2:30pm on Sunday, January 26 at the Toronto Centre for the Arts, 5040 Yonge Street, for a staged reading of Labour of Life, a misanthropic comedy by one of Israel’s most celebrated and controversial poet-playwrights, Hanoch Levin (1943-1999). The reading (in English) is free to all, in association with the Harold Green Jewish Theatre.

SUPPORT ONE LITTLE GOAT

With PLAY slated to reach 7,000 more students in 25 Model Schools for Inner Cities in 2020 (bringing our cumulative outreach to 37,500 kids!), I hope you will support One Little Goat's programming. By making your generous donation today, you enable a new generation to discover the beauty and excitement of drama.

As an official charity, One Little Goat Theatre Company, North America’s only company dedicated to poetic theatre, depends on individual donations to make productions a reality. Your financial support is tax-deductible and greatly appreciated! Our office is volunteer-run, so 100% of your donation goes directly to programming.

How to donate:

  1. Online through Canada Helps

  2. E-transfer to onelittlegoattc@gmail.com

  3. Cheque to One Little Goat Theatre Company, 422 Brunswick Avenue, Toronto, Ontario, M5R 2Z4, CANADA

THANK YOU!
WISHING HAPPY HOLIDAYS & A HEALTHY 2020

Theresa Tova award nomination for MUSIC MUSIC LIFE DEATH MUSIC

Theresa Tova has been nominated for her outstanding performance in One Little Goat's MUSIC MUSIC LIFE DEATH  MUSIC: An Absurdical for the 2018 MyEntertainmentWorld Critics’ Pick Awards! Read Kelly Bedard's full review for MyEntertainmentWorld here.

L-r: (Band) Tyler Emond, Joshua Skye Engel, Lynette Gillis, Adam Seelig, (Cast) Theresa Tova, Richard Harte, Sierra Holder, Jennifer Villaverde in One Little Goat’s MUSIC MUSIC LIFE DEATH MUSIC (photo: Yuri Dojc).

L-r: (Band) Tyler Emond, Joshua Skye Engel, Lynette Gillis, Adam Seelig, (Cast) Theresa Tova, Richard Harte, Sierra Holder, Jennifer Villaverde in One Little Goat’s MUSIC MUSIC LIFE DEATH MUSIC (photo: Yuri Dojc).