Worm-Hole (The Adventure)
Niki's North American Adventure
ARCHIVE EDITOR'S NOTE --- Niki kept a diary of much of her 2002 Worm-Hole Tour of Fringe Festivals in western North America in order to report periodically on her and Production Manager Catherine Skinner's adventures to the folks back home in South West England. She wrote three installments which were published originally on her since-disbanded Yahoo! Group Site.
By Niki McCretton
PART ONE (July 15, 2002) --- For those of you who don’t know the background, I am at the beginning of a three-month tour of Canada and the USA with my solo show Worm-Hole. This came about from invitations by promoters here who saw the show in Edinburgh last year and I have pieced together a larger tour around these.
I am travelling with Catherine Skinner, a musician and theatre graduate, whom I met at the Edinburgh Festival. She is a true gem and has come with me in the capacity of Stage Manager, although she is busy working on ideas for her own solo show while we are here. She is a wonderful soul with a slightly weird sense of humour - which is apt for this trip!
We flew from Gatwick to Minnesota on Sunday 7th July to get our connector to Thunder Bay, Ontario. After 24 hours of being awake and slipping through time zones, we arrived to be greeted by Dalton, the Festival Director, and his mum, who gave us a whistle stop and slightly surreal, by this point, tour of the city. It didn’t take long - it's about the size of Taunton!
Our first day consisted of getting to our ‘billet’ and settling in. For all the Fringes here, kind folk offer up their spare rooms to house-weary performers - our first billet is a dream. We have our own kitchen and a wonderful garden - we live and eat outside - it is so nice to have good weather. Heather, our host, is an actress and very understanding of the needs of performers. She has a great sense of humour and reminds me of Judy, the Director of Worm-Hole. (It’s a compliment, Judy, have no fear!)
We have landed on our feet at this festival and are performing at the brand-new Magnus Theatre, the main venue. It is 400 seats, air-conditioned and has lovely staff who offer constant help and support.
Many of my anxieties are now over; my freight arrived on time and intact, the pieces of set I had built here are the right sizes, and we had no problems through USA or Canadian Customs - in fact, one immigration officer was rather charming.
Our first technical rehearsal went well and the space is lovely to play in - large yet intimate. Just perfect for Worm-Hole. I managed to get myself on the radio and our first show opened to a good house. It went down really well. We have done the show nearly every day here and have spent the time in between catching up on administration and planning for the rest of this big tour - we go on to Winnipeg, Minnesota, Edmonton, Victoria, Vancouver and finally Seattle. Look on a map - and you will appreciate the enormity of it.
Audiences here have grown steadily and the show continues to impress. I have seen some fabulous solo shows here - and am learning a lot. The Thunder Bay Festival was a good one to start the trip with. It is small enough to not feel isolated, is supported well by the community and is artist-led. By that, I mean that they recognize that artists are at the hub and have needs that should be considered.
We collect our ticket sales after every show and use that to live on. It is a hand-to-mouth existence, but somehow is very real and great to have a pile of cash in your hand that you know you have just earned! We have sold enough tickets to pay our costs for hiring our truck to drive to Winnipeg, and we have covered having the set built and enough left to buy a few beers!
Tomorrow, we leave here on a two-day drive with our show in the back of the van to get to Winnipeg - which is a much bigger festival. Many of the performers here are going there, too, so we won't feel alone.
So, farewell from Thunder Bay. The next update will be from Winnipeg. Hope all is well with you.
Best wishes,
Niki & Catherine
PART TWO (August 2, 2002) --- Well, when I last wrote, we were on our way to Winnipeg. I now write to you from the USA.
Our drive to Winnipeg was beautiful. Wonderful scenery; trees, lakes, and trees and lakes, and some trees and lakes. It took only a short while to get used to driving a left-hand drive (some of the trucks out here are big and scary), but the journey was pleasant, taking two days at a leisurely pace. We stopped in a small town called Vermilion Bay where all the mosquitoes of the land congregate and await the arrival of tender British skin, which is quite delicious.
We arrived in Winnipeg, which seemed a bit daunting - somehow, it was just too clean and ordered to feel comfortable. The Festival was well organised and the show was playing at the MTC Warehouse which is one of the loveliest theatres in the city. As in Thunder Bay, the technical team were genuinely helpful. I am pleased to say that the show was well attended and well received. I had a few nice reviews online and in the press. (Ed. Note: For 2002 Winnipeg reviews of Worm-Hole, please click here to visit our webpage, Worm-Hole: Winnipeg Reviews.)
The weather was far too hot for pastey English folk, so we struggled a bit here and got tired very easily. This was the festival of avoiding people, as we were just too tired to participate in the whole Fringe-partying thing this time. We did manage to catch one or two shows, in particular a show called Sleeping Beauties which had followed my show slot when I took Worm-Hole to the Edinburgh Festival last year. I had heard the show 30 times whilst warming up in the wings, so it was good to finally see it - although it conjured up some peculiar memories of Edinburgh!
In Winnipeg, I received my first standing ovation - ever. It was a good feeling as Worm-Hole is not really a crowd-raiser due to being so thought-provoking. I could tell I was performing well, but it was still a surprise to experience this.
So we left Winnipeg with some good shows and reviews under our belt, and began the adventure to the USA. We drove our truck through prairie land this time - not as beautiful as the north, but I've been reading Little House on the Prairie as a piece of Fringe-Festival escapism, so the landscape was apt and my Laura Ingalls fantasy helped pass some time.
We had problems with our truck overheating, so the journey was not entirely stress-free. We arrived at the U.S. border armed with information from the Minnesota Fringe Festival which stated our status and that we did not need a visa. This Festival had not done its homework and we soon found ourselves on the end of a thousand questions from people with guns! We had been warned that we would be held up for a few hours here, but we did not expect to get refused entry and sent back to Canada. Fortunately, both Catherine and I were so shocked that the immigration folk then realised that we were genuine and began to look more favourably. Well, it’s a long story, but the outcome was this: The Festival had misinformed us and we should never have been allowed into Canada via the U.S. as we had done when we arrived.
They asked what the immigration officer at the airport had asked me and I said that he had said, "Is this your first visit to Canada?" and "It’s a shame you are travelling on as I would have liked to take you out to dinner." This seemed to lighten the mood and I had to give a description of him. So, we returned the next day and were allowed through, having been responsible for the sacking of one immigration officer and despite the USA really not wanting to let us in - but having to because it wouldn’t look good to leave two helpless British women hanging around the border crossings getting asked out on dates by other officials.
So I write to you from wonderful Minneapolis - home of Prince and land of a thousand nightclubs. It has the highest arts activity other than New York City and 30 per cent of the taxes are spent on the arts. There are theatres everywhere and great support in terms of rehearsal studios for artists, and a true love of anything slightly avant-garde. I have found my second home. It is slightly more happening than Bridgwater and the Mississippi is cleaner than the river Parrett. We are playing at the Old Arizona Studios - an arts complex run, owned and indeed lived in by two women, and it is a lovely studio space for Worm-Hole. I have managed to create a short preview snippet of the show now - which for those of you who have seen the show will appreciate that this is not an easy task. I have performed it twice - once for the TV folk in a shopping mall and last night in a fabulous visual arts space: an old warehouse transformed into loft apartments and art studios - like something from a movie.
It is great to meet other artists and there are some really wonderful shows here. We still have the company of a couple of UK companies which is nice, but mostly new people as the U.S. and Canada fringes are two separate circuits, and those we met in Winnipeg and Thunder Bay have gone on to perform at Saskatoon. We will rendezvous with them again in Edmonton.
I am enjoying a day of administration for the forthcoming festivals and it is nice to be settled in such a funky city. We are staying near our venue in a lovely apartment belonging to one of the festival directors who is great fun and a wonderful host. I’m glad that one of their people saw Worm-Hole in Edinburgh as this was the first invitation I received and the catalyst for the whole tour. Let’s hope the show is well-received.
The Minnesota Fringe is doing a great deal of work to promote dance to the locals - they have recognised the need to audience-build and I am taking part in several discussion forums hosted by Dance Today to try to help folk understand the art form. Worm-Hole should confuse them totally!
Well, until next time, that’s it from me. Do let me know if you don’t want to receive these newsletters and I will take you off the list. If you like getting them, then do send me an e-mail if you get a chance - it is so good to hear from home and is really encouraging as, despite how it may sound, this is bloody hard work!
With best wishes,
Until next time,
From Minneapolis,
Niki x
PART THREE (August 29, 2002) --- Well folks, if you could see where I write to you from, you would hate me. We are now on Vancouver Island, just outside of Victoria - but let me first catch you up on the news since my last bulletin.
We have travelled and travelled and travelled since my last news. We were in Minneapolis where the show was a sell-out and Mayor R. T. Rybak said it was the highlight of the Minnesota Fringe Festival and hopes to see us there next year. We were invited also by the theatre we played in - Old Arizona Studios - to come over each year with a new piece for a run at the venue. The work they do is not just as a receiving house, but they run a successful outreach programme for girls who are in poverty and have had little or no education. The programme enables them to access skills training via the arts and offers them a home away from home to become the person that they dream of becoming. I am really excited, as it would be great to become involved in some way.
So, we left Minneapolis with our heads held high, with good reviews as one of the top five fringe shows and having made some wonderful friendships.
I had a slight battle with the van-hire company, U-Haul, who are not the most organised of companies, and through my frustration at them, I discovered that I had an ally - one of the employees was a mole! He was there to research why the company was losing money and customers, so I am now rich in inside knowledge of their running procedures, which certainly makes for easier dealings with them.
After much faffing, we were able to begin another journey across the prairies. We drove for three days, seeing fields of sunflowers and corn and not much else, but the light and the vastness was beautiful. We drove each day until we were too tired, would fall into bed to repeat the process the next day until finally, after eyes becoming accustomed to seeing only fields, we pulled into the hurly-burly of one of the most northerly cities, Edmonton - home of the largest Fringe Festival outside of Edinburgh and, after the heat of Minnesota, a damned chilly place.
Our host for the week was a theatre producer and performer who kindly gave up half of her downtown apartment to house two wide-eyed and tired women, incapable of speech due to the stillness of our long drive. We were not sociable at this festival at all - although we had been aware that we would feel like this on week seven of the tour, so it was no surprise.
Our venue, again, was one of the nicest of this Fringe: the Walterdale Playhouse, a converted fire hall. The Fringe here is centred around a village of stalls and market traders, outdoor stages and lots of street performers. It was quite overwhelming - why anyone would want to spend time in such a hubbub of people and falafels is beyond me - we just wanted to get away from it - I began to want to kill anyone who plays the pan pipes.
The show went well in Edmonton with some good houses and interesting press responses. We were the subject of a battle between the two major publications. One gave us a great review about the content of the piece, and how it was intelligent and thought-provoking theatre, followed by the quip: "not recommended for Edmonton Sun readers" (the local tabloid). This spawned our worst review to date a few days later, in the Edmonton Sun, which had decided that the piece was incomprehensible. Actually, they didn’t use a word with that many syllables; they said, "don’t get it." I must admit we were glad to leave this festival. It had an Edinburgh vibe and not really anything of its own to shout about. Most of the discussion was not about theatre, rather how good the noodles were from the Indian stall on the corner.
We did a show every day and then picked up our next truck, and had two days to get to Victoria in time for our opening show. We drove, in one day, across the Rocky Mountains. The water went from turquoise to purple depending on the depth and the mountains were vast. It was truly great and feels like the place where God would choose to live. Just wonderful. The weather was bright sunshine and you could not ask for a more awe-inspiring experience.
We finally had to stop and swung into a town called Kamloops in a desert area of the countryside and, low and behold, I spotted a sign for a genuine rodeo. I begged Catherine’s indulgence of a childhood fantasy, we followed the trail of pickup trucks and five minutes later, were sitting watching real cowboys and cowgirls lassoing things and trying to ride bulls. Just bizarre. Wide-eyed, we were. What was really wonderful was that this was a local event not really aimed at tourists, which made it all the more surreal for us. The landscape was like those you see in old cowboy movies where Indians hide in the hills, and men are men and women wait home with gingham curtains and a pancake pan at the ready - either to bake with or to hit cattle thieves with while the men folk are away. I would have loved to stay here longer as the land was stunning and there are several Indian reserves in the area. Strangely, in the winter, the focus switches from horses to skiing.
But we got in the truck and travelled the spectacular roads to Vancouver, drove on to the ferry and crossed to Vancouver Island at sunset - another amazing few hours. Victoria is about as English as you can get without being in England. There are familiar buildings, and it is covered in flowers and is so clean. It was great to see and smell the sea again after being in the middle of such a big land mass.
We always have this slightly nerve-wracking time when we arrive somewhere new as we don’t know where or with whom we are staying until we arrive. We had directions to our host’s home, which we diligently followed. Picture this - it is pitch black and you find yourself driving back out of the town on the interstate, wondering why on earth the festival would arrange for you to stay so far out of town. We drive, looking for the right-hand turn we are expecting, to find it several more miles away, just when we are at the point of turning back.
We follow this smaller road through a small village and down through the middle of a quarry. We find an even smaller road - Happy Valley Lane - which we dutifully follow, now casting nervous glances at each other, both wanting to admit that we are now quite scared, but trying not to say anything to make the situation worse. I finally had to drop in the line from the Rocky Horror Picture Show - "I suppose you’d both better come inside" - in a spooky voice at which point Catherine tells me in a steely voice that that is just not funny at this point in time and would I kindly shut my face.
Eventually, after nearly an hour, we find the house number and turn left onto a gravel track heading towards the sky with trees squeezing up against it. The U-Haul truck is not happy to climb such a thing and barely fits as we drive another mile vertically. I pull in at the nearest flat space and we walk, in the pitch-black windiness up the hill where we can just make out a light. It is a huge log cabin and we chap in the door, and are invited in to a serene room and fed English tea and tarts, and cannot believe our luck - luck that we are not in the home of some mad person and luck that we are staying in heaven. As I type this to you, I am sitting on a balcony that runs around the whole house. We are on top of a wooded mountain of cedar trees and from this floor, we can see the sea and the snow-capped Whistler Mountain. The wind blows wildly, but is refreshing as it is so hot here, and the smell of pine and cedar is delicious. There are no other houses here. I’m so glad that I re-read Little House on the Prairie on the way here, as Laura described how Pa built their log cabin and I feel full of knowledge. My bed has a patchwork quilt and this morning, I cooked cherry pancakes in a freak moment of domesticity.
Back to the show: We had a stressful day yesterday to tech the show in only two hours and then do the show immediately. It is no fun to still be plotting the lights as your audience arrives and to do a show with no warm-up. However, we did have a full house! Absolutely packed out. Apparently, we had a preview in the local rag. One of the reviewers came to the Winnipeg Fringe, and had billed us as one of the top five shows with the caption: "Worm-Hole - Just two words: freakin’ brilliant". It obviously hit the mark and bodes well for previews in Vancouver where we travel next. We have one show today, and then three days to rest and see the lovely scenery. We are in the perfect place for resting. After the show last night, we came home and used up several hours sitting in a hot tub outside surrounded by the woods, watching the clouds race past the stars and the bright moon, incredulous at such perfection.
This trip has some real ups and downs, and at the moment, we are on an "up". Definitely. In a whim of bravery, I approached a local motorbike-hire company who have now sponsored us a motorbike for our stay in Victoria and Vancouver. This makes the trip much easier as we only have our truck in-between festivals and it is such a car culture over here, making it very difficult if you are without transport.
Another pleasing bit of news is that I have made a kind and generous friend from Winnipeg, Robin Chase, who has put together a great Internet site for me, containing all my reviews and information. He has contacted all the press for me which is a godsend, as it's hard when on the road and in the midst of it all, to find space and time to do this. Thanks, Robin.
I will be home on the 2nd of October and am having a big welcome-home party on the evening of Friday 4th October - so you are welcome - keep the date free. It will be at my folk’s house near Bridgwater. Lastly, out of the blue, has come an audition for Cirque du Soleil. In London. The irony of it - I fly from here to Gatwick and then have to go into London to audition for a Canadian company who saw my show in Edinburgh. The world is a crazy place.
Hope all is well at home. Let me know your news if you have a minute or two.
Niki
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Webpage Last Updated 15 May 2007
