Download Conceived and Directed by Allen MacInnis Music Arranged by Greg

Conceived and Directed by Allen MacInnis
Music Arranged by Greg Lowe
Study Guide prepared by Kate Pinkerton, Education Coordinator, The Grand Theatre
Contents
Joni Mitchell: River - A Theatrical Concert
A Brief Background on Joni Mitchell
Joni’s Unique Tuning
Meet the Creative Team
Cast Biographies
Directors Notes
Themes
Synopsis
Interesting Facts
Classroom Activities
Resources
Joni Mitchell: River - A Theatrical Concert
Creator and Director Allen MacInnis wanted to make something new by taking Joni Mitchell's
songs and linking them together for a performance, something he called a theatrical concert.
He did not want to make a tribute nor a biography. The production has no dialogue. Instead,
the narrative is told by the song's lyrics – the music of Joni Mitchell.
This show features 28 of Mitchell's soul-baring and vulnerable songs, broken up into eight
chapters tracing the arc of a love affair, from the giddy first moments to the ensuing power
struggles and then to the insight that follows all with great deal of emotion and character.
Joni Mitchell: River was first performed at the Prairie Theatre Exchange in Winnipeg in 2002 and
later Vancouver Playhouse in B.C. The production at The Grand Theatre plays October 18November 5, 2016.
A Brief Background on Joni Mitchell
Canadian Grammy award winning singer-songwriter and visual artist Roberta Joan "Joni"
Mitchell, was born Roberta Joan Anderson on November 7, 1943, in Fort Macleod, Alberta to a
Royal Canadian Airforce Officer father, and schoolteacher mother. Joni grew up in the wide
open spaces of the Canadian prairie. After the end of World War II, the family moved to North
Battleford, Saskatchewan and then a few years later to Saskatoon, Saskatchewan or the "city of
bridges," which Joni has since referred to her hometown.
Joni used to be drawn to active games and wanted to play with the boys in her neighbourhood
rather than spend time with the girls and their dolls. However, at age 9, Joni contracted Joni,
along with many other children at that time. There was no available vaccine or cure for polio
when she became infected with the disease. When she found herself lying in a hospital bed
with a potentially debilitating and possibly fatal disease and the threat of never walking again,
she refused to give in. Joni remembers a pact that she made “when I got out of the hospital, I
kind of made a pact with my Christmas tree, or maybe it was God, that if I could get my legs
back...”.
After many painful treatments, she did recover the use of her legs but any athletic potential
was severely limited. Joni felt she needed to keep up her end of the bargain by joining the
church choir. However, her tendency to ask provocative questions made her a problematic
Sunday school attendee.
Over the course of her hospitalization and recovery, Joni developed an artistic sensitivity; "A
great sorrow hath humanized me." At this time, Joni also started smoking cigarettes. Joni could
observe the world around her and turn her focus inward to question, and to analyze her heart
and mind. Joni began to express her visions and perceptions through her many talents.
As a girl, she was inspired by her friend and piano prodigy, Frankie McKitrick, who introduced
her to classical composers. Joni begged her parents for piano lessons. Her music lessons lasted
a year and a half. Joni felt stifled by her strict teacher, wanting instead to play the melodies she
heard in her head.
She also had strong drawing skills and a passion for fine art. At the end of her year in Grade 7,
Joni met Mr. Kratzman, an English teacher who would have a great effect on her direction. He
was hanging her paintings at school and he told her, "If you can paint with a brush, you can
paint with words."
The next year in his class she wrote a poem about stallions and he circled the paper over and
over with "cliche". He told her to write about things she knew. He started her on the path to
describe her feelings and observations. In the credits for her first album, Joni wrote: "This
album is dedicated to Mr. Kratzman, who taught me to love words."
Joni enrolled at the Alberta College of Art in Calgary to study painting but found she spend
more time at the coffee houses and focusing on music. She left the program after one year to
move to Toronto, Ontario to become a ‘folk singer’. Joni still maintains that painting was her
first love and that music was more or less incidental. Joni continues to paint and play with
visual art mediums like photography and film. She has made over 300 works of art in her life.
It was not easy for Joni as a young, new musician in Toronto at first. Joni was also faced with
another challenge. She found out that she was pregnant by her college ex-boyfriend. A few
weeks after the birth, Joni married folk-singer Chuck Mitchell in spring of 1965. He promised to
help raiser her child but even so, Joni gave up her daughter for adoption a few weeks later. The
marriage dissolved in a year and a half.
She began her professional musical career in 1964 by playing clubs and festivals around Canada.
Her repertoire consisted mostly of standard folk songs, many recorded by her idols, Judy Collins
and Buffy Sainte-Marie. After a year, she began writing her own songs, starting with "Day After
Day", which she wrote while on her way to a Folk Festival in 1965.
While performing at a club in Florida, Joni met ex-Byrds member David Crosby, who liked Joni
and helped convince a record company to agree to Joni recording a solo acoustic album without
all the popular folk-rock overdubs. In March 1968, Reprise records released her debut album.
Joni continued touring to promote the LP, plus the performers who were covering her songs,
exposing her to bigger audiences, earned her credit as a major "songwriter".
Joni has collaborated and sang with artists including Bob Dylan, Neil Young, Gordon Lightfoot,
Bryan Adams, Carole King, James Taylor and respected jazz artists Charles Mingus, Pat
Metheny, and Jaco Pastorius, B.B. King (something none of her peers accomplished), and Anne
Murray.
Her lyrics are noted for their developed poetics, addressing social and environmental ideals
alongside personal feelings of romantic longing, confusion, disillusion, and joy making her songs
soul-baring and vulnerable. No female artist better typified the singer/songwriter movement
than Joni Mitchell.
Joni had an expectation of her audiences. If they were rude – she would get angry and walk off
the stage. She preferred to solitude to write and be an artist instead of touring around. She
liked performing in intimate venues and club over big stages with huge crowds. She once said
that she writes for her friends whose opinions she respects. “They're really my audience."
Through the 1980s, Joni played a number of benefit concerts: including at an all-day benefit
concert against the reckless use of nuclear energy in front of the Capitol in Washington, D.C.;
The Farm Aid concert in 1985 in Champaign, Illinois; The "Free Leonard Peltier Benefit" at the
Pacific Ampitheater in Costa Mesa, Ca in October 1987 which also featured Willie Nelson,
Jackson Browne, and other socially-conscious musicians.
Joni has lived in a number of places across Canada and in the States. She has played musical
tours across Canada, America, Europe, Japan, and Australia. She is decorated with Grammy
awards and was inducted into the Canadian Music Hall of Fame, and presenting the award to
her was Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau in 1981.
Her public image has been a serious, sensitive woman with a guitar but her abilities, ambitions,
and accomplishments are great. Joni has a gift for writing personal, folk-inspired songs, but she
also brought the same smarts and eloquence to pop songs with on her commercial
breakthrough, and she was incorporating jazz and world music into her work long before her
contemporaries. Joni was an adventurous artist who refused to be hemmed in by boundaries of
genre or gender.
Joni’s Unique Tuning
Joni Mitchell was known for her unique ‘open’ guitar tunings. So unique, she used many
acoustic guitars, each tuned for different songs. In her repertoire, Mitchell has more than 50
unique tunings for her songs.
She began to learn about alternate guitar tunings from fellow performers Eric Anderson and
Tom Rush. Joni took to alternate guitar tunings as a way to expand her musical palette and also
as a solution to a physical limitation that hampered her ability to play a standardly tuned guitar.
Her bout with polio robbed her of the strength and agility from her left hand. This hampered
Joni's ability to move the hand and its fingers to the strings and frets necessary to form chords
in the standard guitar tuning. But what seemed to be a hindrance led her to a different method
of playing guitar. By tuning the strings to notes different from the standard EADGBE, Joni found
that she could more easily play a wider variety of chords. She also discovered that she could
make sounds come out of the guitar that were more interesting to her than what could be
played in standard tuning. Alternate guitar tunings would eventually form a key element in the
composition of the unique melodies and chords that would be one of the hallmarks of her
musical brilliance.
One of the major technical challenges for River has to do with Joni Mitchell's music as the
tuning is integral to each song. Trying to tune guitars during the show would have been too
time consuming and distracting. As a result River uses 18 pre-tuned acoustic guitars during the
show.
In this production, Music Director, Greg Lowe auditioned guitars from the London region.
Musicians, collectors, and enthusiasts were invited to drop off their acoustic guitars to The
Grand Theatre for the chance at a starring role in River. After the audition, there was a Learn to
Tune like Joni and Big Yellow Taxi jam session with Greg, Brendan Wall and Emm Gryner in June
2016. 18 guitars were selected from the many incredible instruments that were brought in for
the guitar audition. The owners of these 18 selected guitars generously loaned their
instruments for the rehearsals and performances of Joni Mitchell: River.
Meet the Creative Team behind The Grand Theatre’s Production of Joni Mitchell: River
Allen MacInnis - Director and Creator
For The Grand Theatre: Schippel, the Plumber. Theatre Credits (Selected): Director: Hana’s
Suitcase (world premiere plus 4 revivals), Blue Planet, Seussical, To Kill a Mockingbird, Touch the
Sky, The Wizard of Oz (Young People’s Theatre); In Good King Charles’s Golden Days, Nymph
Errant, The Millionairess, Ubu Rex (Shaw Festival); fareWel, Jacques Brel, The Importance of
Being Earnest, Marvin’s Room; (Prairie Theatre Exchange); 1949, Shirley Valentine, Little Shop of
Horrors, Major Barbara (Neptune Theatre); My Fair Lady (Neptune and Centaur Theatres); The
Stone Angel (Centaur); The Rez Sisters, Panther and Jaguar, Penumbra (Alberta Theatre
Projects). Other: Artistic Director of Young People’s Theatre; former Artistic Director of Prairie
Theatre Exchange; graduate of the Vancouver Playhouse Acting School and the University of
Alberta.
Thom Allison - Assistant Director
For The Grand Theatre: Dreamgirls, Annie, My Way. Theatre Credits (Selected): Romeo and
Juliet, King Henry VIII, Hello, Dolly!, Into The Woods (Stratford Festival); A Little Night Music,
Ragtime, Guys and Dolls (Shaw Festival); Drowsy Chaperone (MTC, National Arts Centre,
Vancouver Playhouse); Evita (MTC, Theatre Calgary); Cabaret (Theatre Calgary). Assistant
Director: Hard Hearts (CanStage); Major Barbara (Shaw Festival). Film and TV
Credits: Killjoys (Space Channel/Syfy); Kim's Convenience, Murdoch Mysteries (CBC); Private
Eyes (eOne). Other: Upcoming: directing Seussical at Young People's Theatre in Toronto, Nov.
14 to Dec. 31.
Greg Lowe -Musical Director
For The Grand Theatre: Debut. Theatre Credits (Selected): Composed, performed, produced by
Greg Lowe: Iceland (Theatre Projects Manitoba); Vigil, Small Things, Harvest, Social Studies, The
Dishwashers, Till It Hurts (Prairie Theatre Exchange); and The Miser, The Moonlight Sonata of
Beethoven Blatz (Theatre Projects Manitoba).
Other: Greg has been composing and performing for over 30 years, and his work includes
orchestra, chamber ensembles, theatre, television, dance, radio musicals, and dramas. He has
released seven CDs featuring original music in both electric and acoustic formats. He performs
often with Woody Holler, the Ministers of Cool, the Mini Ministers, and with the Chess Club –
Greg Lowe & Jack Semple. www.greglowe.com
Cast Biographies
Emm Gryner - Performer
For The Grand Theatre: Debut. Theatre Credits: Annie (Huron Country Playhouse). Music
Credits (Selected): 3 time Juno Award nominee, 2-time Canadian Folk Music Award nominee.
Vocalist and bass player in Canadiana trio, Trent Severn. Sang backing vocals with the late David
Bowie. Collaborated with Chris Hadfield on Space Oddity, recorded partially aboard the
International Space Station. Film and TV Credits: One Week (feature film). Other: As a teenager,
was a 3-time winner of The Grand Theatre's Young Playwright's Competition. Emm also
attended Fanshawe College.
Louise Pitre - Performer
For The Grand Theatre: Could You Wait?, For The Pleasure of Seeing Her Again. Theatre Credits
(Selected): Mamma Mia! (Broadway/US tour/Toronto); A Year With Frog and Toad (YPT
Toronto); Gypsy (Chicago Shakespeare Theatre); Mame (Goodspeed Opera House); Les
Misérables (Toronto/Montreal/Paris); Piaf (Penetang/Toronto/Ottawa); Company (Theatre20);
Jacques Brel is Alive and Well (Massey Hall/Ottawa/Vancouver); Blood Brothers (Canadian
Stage). Film and TV Credits (Selected): Flashpoint; Star Portraits (Bravo!); Merry Matrimony, A
Christmas Wedding, Recipe for a Perfect Christmas(Lifetime). Other: Graduate from University
of Western Ontario, Humber College and the Royal Conservatory of Music. 5 solo recordings.
Cast recordings: Les Misérables (Paris) and Kristina (Carnegie Hall). www.louisepitre.com
Brendan Wall - Performer
For The Grand Theatre: Real Estate. Theatre Credits (Selected): 12 shows over 5 seasons at
Soulpepper Theatre including Spoon River, Marat/Sade, Midsummer Night's Dream, Cherry
Orchard; Once (Mirvish Productions); Warhorse (Mirvish Productions and on the West End for
the National Theatre of Great Britain); Death of a Salesman, Rainmaker (Theatre Aquarius). Film
and TV Credits: Murdoch Mysteries, Flashpont, Reign, Suits, Chicago, Boondock Saints II.
Other: Graduate of the Soulpepper Academy and York University's BFA theatre program.
Directors Notes by Allen MacInnis
The idea for Joni Mitchell: RIVER came from seeing a group of actors perform songs of Leonard
Cohen. I was struck by how actable Cohen’s songs were, how well they suited what actors do. I
immediately wondered if I could do the same with songs by Joni Mitchell, who happens to be
my favourite songwriter. In 2001, I felt I’d found the framework in which I could create a show
but I was still uncertain about it working as theatre.
A few months before rehearsals for the original Winnipeg production, I attended the World
Leaders Festival in Toronto to see a tribute to Joni Mitchell. In an onstage interview during the
event, Joni remarked that she sometimes writes her songs from movies in her head. She
suggested her songs might best be performed by actors, since each song is like a little film-story
told in music. “Well, I have heard all I need to hear” I thought to myself. I felt like I had all the
instruction for my show that I needed.
I call RIVER a ‘theatrical concert’ because it has no dialogue, yet we are creating a kind of
narrative with the songs. Like the theme of Joni’s 2001 orchestral album of jazz standards
called Both Sides Now, I have chosen songs for this show to paint the arc of a love affair. From
the giddy beginnings to the petty doubts; through relationship breakdown to, finally the
wisdom that comes from hard experience, Joni has written many insightful and intimate songs
that express the various stages of finding and losing love. Many of her fans have commented on
Joni’s uncanny ability to frame and phrase the crazy things we say do, think, and feel when
we’re in love. There’s a great line spoken by Emma Thompson in the film Love, Actually where
she reminds her philandering husband that Joni Mitchell is the woman who taught your cold,
English wife how to feel.
To contrast the personal journey expressed in the arc of a love affair, I have also included other
songs that express Joni’s more ‘public’ gaze. These songs reflect some of her observations
about the state of our world and human development. Even when we are in the throes of a
love affair, we live in the world that continues around us.
What I haven’t done with this production is try to tell Joni Mitchell’s personal story. This is not a
biography. Joni Mitchell: River is inspired by the remarkable insight contained within the poetry
of her songs. If you want to know more about Joni’s life, there is a very good fan website, a
couple of unauthorized biographies, and a television special or two that reveal bit and pieces
about her personal history.
River was apparently the original title of Joni’s seminal and influential, 1971 album Blue. I think
it fits our show -- humans seem as equally compelled to fight the river’s flow as they are
content to be carried by it. I also chose the title because it contains one of the best lyrics ever
written (and you couldn’t find a more Canadian image): “I wish I had a river I could skate away
on.”
Themes
Love -feelings of romantic longing, confusion, disillusion, and joy.
Sexual politics
Social and environmental ideals – opposition to the war, nuclear weapons, big business, and
advocacy for world peace.
Synopsis
The show is structured in eight chapters following a theme. The arc of a love affair tracks the
journey from thrilling attraction through edgy discontent; from relationship breakdown to
recovery and wisdom. And since the world continues even though we may be preoccupied with
love, three chapters are about other human issues – militarization, the impact of capitalism,
and sexual politics.
ACT ONE
Chapter One: I think I’m falling in love … again
Help Me - trio
Chelsea Morning – Brendan Wall
My Old Man – Louise Pitre
Carey – Emm Gryner
Chapter Two: Madmen sit up building bombs
The Three Great Stimulants – Louise Pitre
The Fiddle and the Drum – Emm Gryner, Louise Pitre
Woodstock – Brendan Wall
Chapter Three: Why do you dream flat tires?
All I Want – Louise Pitre
You Turn Me On I'm A Radio – Emm Gryner
Be Cool – Brendan Wall
Chapter Four: The grind is so ungrateful
Free Man In Paris – Brendan Wall
Dog Eat Dog – Emm Gryner
Passion Play – Louise Pitre
Big Yellow Taxi – Trio
Chapter Five: This time you went too far
Woman of Heart and Mind – Louise Pitre
Cactus Tree – Brendan Wall
River- Emm Gryner
ACT TWO
Chapter Six: Down, down, down the dark ladder
Trouble Child - Trio
Down to You – Brendan Wall
Coyote – Emm Gryner
A Case of You – Louise Pitre
Chapter Seven: Some bad dreams even love can’t erase
Sex Kills – Brendan Wall
Not to Blame – Louise Pitre
The Magdalene Laundries – Emm Gryner
Shadows and Light – Brendan Wall and company
Chapter Eight: It’s life’s illusions I recall
Come In From The Cold – Louise Pitre
Hejira – Emm Gryner
Both Sides Now - Trio
Interesting Facts
-In her teenage years, Joni could not afford a guitar so instead she bought a baritone ukulele to
play at parties and coffee houses.
-Joni's soprano voice which had a range of three to four octaves was well-suited to folk music
and she began to perform in small, intimate venues.
-Joni was scheduled to perform at Woodstock on Sunday of that weekend of love, but when the
traffic jams were seen by all of America on TV that Friday, her manager advised her not to go.
He was concerned that she might have trouble getting back to the city in time for a major TV
appearance on the Dick Cavett Show that Monday. Still, she did create the definitive chronicle
of the festival with her song "Woodstock," which was a hit the next year.
-Director Martin Scorsese filmed a concert in San Francsico in November 1976. Of the 3 songs
that Joni performed at that concert, alongside Bob Dylan, Van Morrison, Neil Young, Eric
Clapton - only "Coyote" made the cut into the film "The Last Waltz" that was released in April
1978.
Classroom Activities
-Write a response to Joni’s feelings about touring or song-writing.
On touring: "I was being isolated, starting to feel like a bird in a gilded cage. I wasn't
getting a chance to meet people. A certain amount of success cuts you off in a lot of
ways."
On her songwriting she said "I do a lot of night-writing. I need solitude to write. I used to
be able to write under almost any condition but not anymore because I have to go
inside myself so far, to search through a theme.
-Select a Joni Mitchell album – recreate the album artwork
-Try a painting or sketching a self-portrait and then journal about the ease/challenge of that
experience.
-Write a poem about a current political or environmental issue
-Brainstorm: If you were creating a theatrical concert, what artist would you choose and why?
-Write a review of the performance you attended at The Grand Theatre. Consider all the
elements: the script and structure of show, the live performances of the performers and
musicians, casting, blocking, set and lighting design, and costume choices. Include your
expectations and knowledge prior to the show, your experience at the theatre, and feelings
about moments in the production.
-In groups, select a Joni song from River and study the piece. Examine and analyze the musical
elements: the lyrics, melody, key, tempo, etc. Consider what Joni was trying to convey, express,
evoke, capture, or communicate in the song. Present your analysis to the class.
-Learn and perform a song by Joni Mitchell.
-Make a music video to one of Joni’s songs.
-Choose a year in Joni’s life and research the local, national and global issues of the time.
-Write a letter to your local Member of Parliament about a local issue you would like to see
addressed or resolved.
-Examine the lyrics in the song Sex Kills or Big Yellow Taxi and journal you’re a response if you
agree or disagree with the lyrics.
-As a class, brainstorm other artists who are multi-talented.
-If you were a set and costume designer, how would you design the show?
-Create a poster design for the next production of Joni Mitchell: River.
-Discuss some major differences between the choices and options for expectant single mothers
in 1960s vs. now.
-Write a response on ambition: Joni once said to painter Georgia O’Keefe "Yes, you can [have it
all]. I have my painting AND my music." Consider Joni’s brush with death as a child and how
much that may have affected her outlook and attitude to pursue her dreams.
Resources
Online. April 4, 2016. http://jonimitchell.com/library/view.cfm?id=1413. Arts: Joni Mitchell:
River by Kevin Griffin, Vancouver Sun, October 14, 2004
Online. April 4, 2016. http://jonimitchell.com/library./cr_play.cfm?id=233Joni Mitchell: River
From the Vancouver Sun
Joining Joni's River, Shawn Conner, October 5, 2004
Online. April 4, 2016. http://www.gaycalgary.com/magazine.aspx?id=13&article=852. Joni
Mitchell: River. A Fitting Tribute to one of Canada’s Best. Theatre Review by Jason Clevett (From
GayCalgary® Magazine, November 2004, page 39)
Online. September, 2016. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joni_Mitchell
Online. September, 2016. JoniMitchell.com
Print. September, 2016. he Grand Theatre Joni Mitchell: River House Program.