Hey everyone,
This week’s podplay, Five Meditations on the Future City, premiered as part of The Quartet at the 2011 PuSh Festival. If you missed that series the first time round, you are now in luck. We received a lot of great feedback on the event. Below is an excerpt from an email sent by Joel Stephanson, an artist associated with Pacific Theatre. Joel is working on his own podplay event that will come out later in September. His email gives you a sense of the serendipitous events and magical coincidences that help to make podplays such a unique experience.
Hi Adrienne,
I had a truly amazing time with your PodPlays last week! I wonder if any other key lessons have come to you in the execution of it, from the artistic or production side of things. I definitely learned valuable stuff during my walk.
I couldn’t believe how many serendipitous moments there were. At times I just stood there and said, “you’ve gotta be kidding me”. There was this strange confluence of your work and my truly random circumstances….
I really loved the variation in the route. It was so quick to get from Woodwards down to the street in the middle of Gastown – the space of the city seemed to shrink. Then (and pardon my indulgence here… there was just so much that was curious about my experience), I ran into old faces I haven’t seen in ages. Two on Water street alone. But they smiled, nodded and let me pass by, immersed in my soundscape. Further down I heard about the wine bottle breaking, and some few steps later my shoes were walking ON BROKEN GLASS. Perfect timing, glass! I saw an enigmatic smile (or a smirk?) from someone when I paused outside the Alibi Room, and started to gain this sense that the whole downtown was choreographed for my benefit. There’s more which felt significant while the audio was running through my head, but which now in the black & white of an email would not seem so remarkable…
A homeless guy who was having a (hallucinatory?) episode wandered ahead of me at Main & Alexander, and would stay in the vicinity for the next 25-30 minutes of my route. He even took on a role at a couple points. Standing on the beach facing the water, I think the voice told me to face my palm forward in a waving gesture. I looked over at Homeless Guy to find he, too, was looking at his own hand out in front of himself. Both of us in our own worlds, likely both hearing voices in our heads. At the moment the play mentioned “Sean Connery standing on the bridge,” he was standing over on the pier, arms up in majestic, if drug-induced, gesture. Another occasion, the voice speaks of how we are each individual agents, as a flock of runners passes me by, as if to illustrate the point.
Near the end, I walked out onto the corner facing Georgia Street, and when the voice described “the sun shining a little brighter”, it was. I had just come out from the shade of an awning at that instant. 
I guess I describe all this because my experience allowed for this remarkable interaction with the outside world. It made me want to ensure that I let the surroundings do their work in my own podplay, and work with them as much as I tell stories about them. Thanks again.
Joel
Joel Stephanson is an actor and writer. His own podplays project, Corridors, will be running on Fridays from late September, in a century-old church building. Tickets available through Pacific Theatre.
Podplays podcast subscriptions are still available. You will receive all the podplays issued up until now (that’s eight, including this week’s podplay) PLUS three more plays and one bonus track delivered weekly between now and Sep 19. Go to www.neworldtheatre.com to subscribe before Sept 30.
