Lisa Marie DiLiberto – Education and Audience Development Coordinator, Canadian Stage

When I make lists on sheets of paper, I usually loose them.  The white board is my favourite and most effective place to keep lists, provided I can find the white board markers.  The best part about the white board list is actually erasing the list items.  I get so much satisfaction from the erasing process that sometimes I put things on my list that I’ve already done, just so I can wipe them off.   I think that this list is typical of an independent theatre artist director – final reports, the question of incorporation, grants, database creation, newsletters… etc.  Also lumped in here are my personal list items, such as planning for my upcoming wedding, cleaning out my studio basement full of costumes and props and buying a baby present for my neighbourhood friend.  The most exciting thing on my list is labelled gaulier – which is about a masterclass that my company is presenting in December taught by French clown master, Philippe Gaulier who trained many of our Toronto clowns.  For more info, go to our website at www.fixtpoint.com.  Once an item is on my list, I feel relief that the task is out of my head and in a place where I can’t forget it, even if I want to…

Ashley Westlake – Apprentice Stage Manager for THE LIST

if you put a piece of paper in front of me i’m probably going to write some kind of list on it. it’s not that i forget to do things if i don’t write them down or that i have some innate need to be hyper organized. for me, writing a list is all about the moment when the jotted down task in complete and i’m able to find a bright coloured marker and cross said task off accomplished.

i tend to keep three types of lists and i do really write them down on anything and everything daily list – dated things to accomplish that day project list – currently my List list and what i like to call my big list, the more daunting tasks i need to / or want to achieve.

Tanya Greve – THE LIST Stage Manager

I’m a bit of a crazy person when it comes to lists. It probably makes complete sense that I’m a stage manager. A stage manager’s work world is lists of lists. We have lists for props, lists for scenes in the script, lists of scenic elements. And everyday in rehearsal we write lists of things that happen in rehearsal. Being a new mom and just starting back into the work world I’ve realized how even more important lists are. My brain is now like a sieve and my lists help retain everything my brain can’t hold.

Samantha Zimmerman – Nightwood Bookkeeper

Lists are a source of calmness for me. Getting things out of my head and into a list gives me room to think about things other than just ‘what I need to do’. I’ve been known to hop out of bed in the middle of the night to put things on my list just so I can stop thinking and sleep. I am never in the same place two days in a row so my IPhone has become my office. While I was a slave to the paper list for years, I have now moved into the virtual world of lists. I’ve tried a few list apps, but seem to always get frustrated with the bells and whistles, and end up back with the simple ‘notes’ app. Like most days my list is a mixture of personal and work. I have some client related items to check off, and some personal things like making a vet appointment for my cat (he’s lost his voice), and prepping for rehearsal of a production of Oliver! that I’m choreographing.

Caitlin Weld – THE LIST production manager shares her list!

I found this gem from when I was doing props on a show last year.   

Most of the items listed are pretty standard (preset gold coin; set up props table) but I particularly enjoy the random comments made on this

one: “What’s the deal with the dagger?” and “Are we using that stick?”  Oh, so vague.

Lisa Li – Marketing Associate

lists are my anchor. they’re the key to my sanity. i try to start each item with the verb associated with that task. it helps me decide later what it is i actually feel like doing.  i try to get through that list in a day, or a week and then when that time is up, i toss the old list and make a new one. even if i haven’t gotten through everything. the things that are still left to do are shifted onto the new list and i start again. i like fresh lists. it’s interesting noticing the things i contiunously neglect, it makes me wonder why i never want to do it. after a few weeks of transfering those things from one list to the next, i just drop it. if i wanted to do it, i would have done it by now.

Kelly Thornton – Artistic Director

As I combed my notebook I realized how a banal arrangement of reminders can extend like a complex network of roots. This list is a snapshot of play development this fall. The Metcalf Foundation awarded us a 3 year Strategic Initiatives grant to overhaul our play creation model so we are a bustle of activity planning workshops, commissions and researching play development centres of interest. Some of my favorites include Soho Rep in New York whose FEED program is a brilliant way to engage their audience in discourse inspired by the work. I also regularly visit Soho Theatre in London, Playwrights Foundation in San Francisco and Playwrights Studio, Scotland. All have unique programs engaging their artists and audiences alike. Another intiative is the Spill Feast which came to Magnetic North this year and has inspired us to organize a Groundswell Feast in February.

Our newest play in development is The Usher Project helmed by Josette Bushell-Mingo of Tyst Theatre in Sweden. The work examines women in the gothic era and we hope to take it to the International Women Playwrights Conference hosted by Riksteatern in Stockholm in 2012.  Our new dramaturg Erica Kopyto is exploring how we can build stronger ties with LMDA and reconnect with The Banff Colony where both China Doll and Cast Iron enjoyed development. Florence Gibson’s Augury is in workshop in November and we hope to secure Kate Hennig, for whom the role of Dr. Emily Stowe was written, though she’s been cast in the Toronto production of Billy Elliot after enjoying a wonderful run on Broadway. It’s an action packed Fall for sure!

Hilary Green – Associate Producer

As you can see, I think about food and wine a lot!  My friends Amber and Allan are getting married this fall and I am helping to coordinate their wedding (hence the special occasion permit note). The quote at the end is something I want to have made into a card for them; I am going to ask my friend Kinnon if she can make it. 

The food and wine were for a dinner party I was having that night, I always organize my grocery lists by where the items are located in the store.  Sad but true, I know the layout of most major grocery stores in walking distance.  My parents are coming up on Saturday to see my brother’s band play, he plays the drums; I had to remember to call her and tell her about traffic.  We are also celebrating my mom’s birthday this weekend, but being the good daughter that I am, I already got her present so that is off my list!

Denyse Karn – Producer and General Manager

I’ve been carrying around this piece of paper that I ripped off a brochure for a British Marketing company called Morris Hargreaves McIntryre, using it as a bookmark in my daybook….and it became a list. Finished items: our first newsletter of the season is being sent off to everyone today and I dealt with my emails! Unfinished items: I have to make an appointment to take my car into Logan Motors (must do that tomorrow), pay my hydro bill…lol and buy some blackboard paint for the office (should be fun when we have a big wall to draw on). The biggest thing and the last on my list is search for video clips. I am designing the first show of our season, The List, which incorporates projection. The play deals with memory. Through the use of projection we plan to make the world of the play become unhinged, as in the unconscious, turning the environment on it’s head as in a dream. So the creative search begins! Let’s hope it is a success. See you at the theatre!

Rebecca Peirson – Director of Marketing & Audience Development

My lists are many and varied and take on a life of their own. It’s in my blood. My father is a supreme list-maker. This particular list has been plucked from my dining room table and is a snapshot of my life of late. I have specific ‘to-do’ lists at the office but my household lists cover all aspects of my life. So, on this one, there’s a note that I need to visit my favourite grocery store, Fiesta Farms , that I managed to get my friends’ Jack and Carrie a gift (they just got married), that I need to do some Cocktail Shakers work (a new jazz trio I am helping out) and that I started the Nightwood blog for THE LIST! There are inevitably a few things on my lists that either don’t get crossed off or get transferred onto a new list.