The Short Version
The Zuppa Circus Theatre Company is a professional ensemble devoted to making original theatre works. Our creative process is collaborative, involving actors, writers and musicians working together as equals. It’s a process designed to harness the creative force produced in rehearsals; the company develops its script, musical score and physical scene work in tandem during these sessions. The final theatre piece therefore involves a meticulous layering of these multiple elements.
The company incorporated as a not-for-profit organization in January 2001 and received its status of Registered Charity in 2002. It receives funding from the Canada Council and the province of Nova Scotia.
The Long Version
Ben Stone and Sandy Gribbin started the initial peeling and frying of onions that would season the broth of many future Zuppa performances when they got together to rehearse Endgame in 1998. After that, Stone went to London, England to study under the renowned French acting teacher Philippe Gaulier . This provided more inspiration to form a company. Returning to Halifax, Stone performed The Unnameable, a one-person play written by Gaulier. The play, directed by Gribbin, was the first manifestation of the company’s new aesthetic.
From the start, soup was a metaphor for the company’s methodology. Zuppa is the Italian word for soup, more particularly, a long-simmering, stick-to-your-ribs type soup. As for the Circus element, they wanted to give the audience the childlike feeling of going to the circus for the first time: as they watched the spectacle unfold, the audience would feel fear and wonder and a sense that anything might happen.
With these two ideas in mind, it is not difficult to imagine the duo’s first conception of Zuppa Circus was as a cabaret theatre that served soup.
Our Stories
The stock, or base of any Zuppa Circus performance is a story that is either an original idea or one taken from existing stories. This year’s Zuppa Circus Open Kitchen Theatre is an original story written in conjunction with Robert Plowman, while 2004’s Radium City was written entirely by Plowman for the company. The 2003 production of Uncle Oscar’s Experiment was written with Peter McBain, after an earlier version which was inspired by D.H. Lawrence’s The Rocking Horse Winner. The Door on the Wall, was adapted from a story by H.G. Wells and of course Nosferatu was inspired by Murneau’s expressionist masterpiece and Herzog’s new wave remake.
Our Methods
Collaboration is the company’s first principle. Musicians, actors, writers, and director each provide essential ingredients to the soup. They throw a medley of music, physical action, and writing into the pot that is then stirred, left to simmer and bubble in rehearsal after rehearsal.
Creative sessions are governed by an evolving rules of play. When contributors have creative differences during this developmental period, the cardinal rule of play is the “prove me wrong†rule. Members cannot simply say NO to one another’s propositions; they must either make a counterproposal or put one other’s suggestions into play.
To keep the juices flowing after each creative session, the ensemble holds a round table discussion and enters their new ideas into a book of What Ifs. This book is a compilation of artistic suggestion. But most input is given on the rehearsal floor. Actors spend the bulk of their creative time improvising, learning music, mastering physical tasks and assiduously developing new scenes with their director, Alex McLean.
This method has proved to be very successful for the company and has attracted the attention of academics and peers. In 2006, Alex McLean co-lead a workshop on devised theatre held in Denmark, hosted by the International Theatre Institute and the Canadian Theatre Review will publish an article on the company in the near future.
Performances
With twelve shows in seven years, Zuppa Circus has been as prolific as they have been innovative. The company likes to test its shows in unique places as a way to explore configurations of the physical boundaries in the audience/performer relationship.
One of the spaces they have used repeatedly is Halifax’s North Street Church. And, like the Irondale Theatre Company, Zuppa has made use of abandoned space, such as Halifax’s old Infirmary on Queen Street.
Zuppa performed on the street many times. In 1999 they held their first Annual Street Theatre Extravaganza on the Halifax waterfront. Since then, The Zuppa Circus Open Theatre Kitchen played in open spaces across Halifax, and in parks in Ottawa and Toronto.
Outside of Halifax, Zuppa Circus has appeared at the Ross Creek Festival, hosted by Two Planks and a Passion Theatre Company, Festival Antigonish, the Ship’s Company Theatre in Parrsboro and the Osprey Theatre, Shelburne.
Those who have presented us outside of Nova Scotia, during our 2004 and 2006 tours, were: North American Cultural Laboratory (NACl), Toronto’s Stranger Theatre, St Catharine’s Suitcase in Point, Ottawa’s Company of Fools, The Four Elements on Manitoulin Island, and Boston’s Charlestown Working Theatre.
Ensemble Members
It was in the fall of 1999, with the first version of Nosferatu, that the current core ensemble took shape. Susan Leblanc-Crawford and Alex McLean joined Zuppa Circus.
McLean, the company director, worked for eight years as a member of the Number Eleven Theatre. His director and teacher at Number Eleven was Ker Wells, who currently teaches a unit each year at the National Theatre School. He also studied with Double Edge Theatre and Primus Theatre, two companies heavily influneced by the devised methods of Eugenio Barba of the Odin Teatret and Jerzy Grotowski. Performer Sue Leblanc-Crawford has studied under Phillipe Gaulier, Ker Wells and the Dalhousie University Theatre Department. She has also performed with Mermaid Theatre, Two Planks and a Passion, and Live Bait theatre.
Collaborators
The most frequent outside contributions to the Company are made by former ensemble members Sandy Gribbin (1999-2004, former Artistic Director) and Keirsten Tough (2002-2006, performer) who continue to reprise their roles in all active Zuppa Circus plays.
Two Halifax musicians, Jason MacIsaac and David Christensen of the band The Heavy Blinkers have composed music and performed Zuppa Shows, including Uncle Oscar’s Experiment, Radium City and The Zuppa Circus Open Theatre Kitchen. Robert Plowman and Peter McBain have written with the ensemble. Actor Simon Henderson, a former member of the Irondale ensemble, has participated in several productions.