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Wild Theatre: The History of One Yellow Rabbit
Wild Theatre: The History of One Yellow Rabbit
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Author: Martin Morrow Preface by: Ronnie Burkett and Ken Gass Publisher: The Banff Centre Press Format: Softcover # of Pages: 400 Pub. Date: 2003 ISBN-10: 0920159974 ISBN-13: 9780920159972
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About
the Book:
Born in Calgary in 1982, One
Yellow Rabbit has an
impressively long history for an experimental theatre troupe. It can
boast of high-profile fans including Adrienne Clarkson.
The Kids in the Hall hang with them. Canadian
troubadour Leonard Cohen sent them flowers on opening night.
Canada's own Holocaust denier James Keegstra wanted them
locked away. They've been banned by the courts, shut down at Expo,
feted in Australia and awarded in Scotland (playing
in one Edinburgh theatre 10 times in 12 years).
How did an avant-garde theatre of international calibre emerge
from the suburbs of arch-conservative Calgary, land of ranchers, oil
barons and urban cowboys? Why does it stay there in defiance of
logic? And why does it insist on that childish name?
Wild Theatre: The History of One Yellow Rabbit is a breezy,
irreverent chronicle of the company considered by many to be English
Canada's foremost avant-garde group. In its romp through the
company's first 20 years, Wild Theatre also documents One
Yellow Rabbit's friends and tight-knit
collaborators – puppet master Ronnie Burkett,
playwrights Daniel MacIvor and Brad Fraser, and
comedians Bruce McCulloch and Mark McKinney of the Kids
in the Hall. There are also guest appearances by everyone from
Beat poet Michael McClure to New York performance artists
Karen Finley and Penny Arcade. At the heart of the
book, however, is the story of an unlikely troupe of artists with
diverse talents and shared tastes who have forged a unique style of
physical theatre away from the world's cultural centres, combining a
western entrepreneurial spirit with a creative imagination and
edginess that defy Alberta's conservative image.
"After yawning my way through a number of dry, academic
tomes and articles on Canadian theatre, I thought someone should
write a book that captured the excitement of seeing this work and the
kind of unusual personalities who create it," says author
Martin Morrow. Although Wild Theatre makes a
well-researched contribution to Canadian theatre literature, the book
is first and foremost a story, guaranteed to make you laugh out loud
as you peek behind the scenes to see the Rabbits at work and play.
What people say:
"In both its brainy wildness
and in its highly theatrical structure, Morrow's great new book
reflects, with accuracy and wonderful abandon, the dynamic,
free-wheeling, nose-thumbing and yet reverent world of creativity
which is the rare, true domain of the Rabbits and their numberless
offspring." — John Murrell
"The story of One Yellow
Rabbit tracks like a long, deep tire print through the sand. The
prose is as motivated and curious as the subjects themselves."
— Dave Bidini
About the Author:
Martin Morrow is a Canadian arts journalist who has been
reviewing theatre regularly since 1988. A two-time winner of Canada's
Nathan Cohen Award for excellence in critical writing, he began his
career in Calgary, where he was chief theatre critic of the Calgary
Herald; and since 2010 has been a regular theatre critic for The
Globe and Mail, Canada's national newspaper. His writing has also
appeared in Canadian Theatre Review, The Stage (U.K.), Toronto Life
and other publications. In addition, he is the author of Wild
Theatre: The History of One Yellow Rabbit, a popular
chronicle of the seminal avant-garde Canadian theatre company.
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