National President Ferne Downey, Cayle
and Tabby Johnson
CAYLE
for
ACTRA Council
Hello Out There, (to invoke a little Saroyan)
I am enthusiastically running for Actra Council. I have spent the last two
years getting a real education in the workings of Actra by participating as an
alternate for Council Members unable to attend a monthly meeting. I was thrilled
at the brilliance and awareness of the actra councillors. No one sitting in on
those sessions would ever say again that actors are children who don't have the
capacity to make strong and informed decisions.
I had the pleasure of serving on numerous committees:
Actra Awards with Karen Ivany, we screened between us all the entries, and
please do send in your candidates for exceptional performances this year. (You
can include your own brilliant performances) This celebration of our Toronto
Actors is an important way to recognize our work and built not a star system a
la Americana but an appreciation of fine work and our place as actors in the
voice and face of our Country. I chair and select the Awards Juries, so let me
know if you are interested in serving. Karen produces the greatest party of the
year when the Actra Awards hits the Carlu on February 19th.
Maybe you attended some of the panels and workshops I helped to create as
part of David Gale's fantastic Conference Committee: TIP films and Successes,
celebrating This Beautiful City; Crossing Over to Producing, Ingrid Venniger,
Jennifer Jonas, Anne Tait and her Iron Road, Casting For Film; the super casting
team of Jenny Lewis and Sara Kay, Tina Gerussi. Workshops with loving
teacher/directors who nurture and develop us: Cold(Reads) with Miriam Laurence
and the recent Gender bending scene study with Bernadette Jones, We were
thrilled at the number of male actors who came along and participated in this
experiment and joined in spirited discussion. Speaking of SPIRIT, who there at
Spirit Synott's performance for us at the recent Actra Conference will ever
forget the magic of her dance, or the discussion with the delightful Women Fully
Clothed.
It was a joy to work with Theresa Tova, whose recent performance in the Diary
of Anne Frank was superb! with the Act Your Age group... we actors never retire
and the tireless energy of our older actors is an inspiration.
As co-Chair, with the inimitable Tabby Johnson, of TAWC Toronto Actra Women's
Committee, newly reconstituted, we kicked off the amazing first ever 3 day
conference with a three hour session and an opening unique ceremony. We now have
two amazing women leaders in Heather Allin our new Actra President, from whom I
inherited the TAWC Chair and the elegant, eloquent Ferne Downey, Actra National
president. With TAWC, we want to change things up, create new avenues for
success for Women, but as I always like to say when I say women, I include men,
because of course woman embraces man! a variation on a saying used by Patrick
Sinclair who some of you may remember as a beautiful actor in Toronto years ago.
I want to focus on making things happen, encouraging actra members to put
their work out there, even if we have to do it ourselves. Always a proponent of
"if you build it..." I have never gotten anything easily, have always worked
against the odds... even Going Down The Road, when Don Shebib told me I didn't
have the part of Selina because I had an American accent (the result of living
next to Earnest Harmon Air Force Base as a child in Newfoundland. I went to
vocal coach Charles Jordan, worked on the scenes to eliminate any Americanisms
(how times have changed) and asked Don to let me re-audition. He did and I got
the part!
Nothing is easy or regular in our business... but we are in it for the
duration. I have enormous respect for actors and acting and I am proud to be
part of a community that struggles to create life under imaginary circumstances
and has the potential to change the 'real' world. Film is the new universal
language, so let us tawc....
If elected I will continue to work to facilitate independent production, and
work to make the independent production agreements more actor/user friendly and
so that Toronto actors not only survive but THRIVE!
We are at a frontier of new connection to our audiences, marketing and
distribution. New ideas, new ways and opportunities to make it happen and we are
ready, because Toronto actors never stop working at our craft... and living the
life of the actor, the life of the imagination!
Your fellow thespian,
Cayle
Three fabulous days of workshops, panels, lunches, cocktails, film festival,
Plenary...
I was involved in the following events: |
Biography
Pride Play
Reading
