Program

About the play

“I actually met some of these NTS acting students at a gig where Steven’s band was playing in Toronto, a while back. They told me they wanted to work with me on something cool and sexy that would let them rip it up,” remembers Graham McLaren, who describes collaborating with students as “soul food”. NTS students are encouraged to identify roles they would like to play and directors they would like to work with while at the School and beyond. Glasgow based McLaren is currently Associate Director for the National Theatre of Scotland and Associate Artist at Toronto’s Necessary Angel Theatre Company.

Artistic Director Sherry Bie also had McLaren in her sights as someone who could enrich the students’ training through his process-driven and collaborative approach to making theatre. The “cool and sexy” part of the students’ request would come from the contemporary adaptation of LA RONDE commissioned from poet Evie Christie.

THREE SIXTY stays true to LA RONDE’s structure of short interlocking scenes between pairs of lovers from varying social backgrounds. The original play created a major scandal after its official premiere in Vienna in 1921, prompting an obscenity trial. In Christie’s adaptation, the characters are no longer soldiers, gentlemen, counts, and poets, but hookers, political aides, screenwriters, and stockbrokers. The language is raw and the dialogue acid-tongued. The structure of the play is that of a musical round—therein lies the challenge of the actors: to link independent scenes to reveal the whole.

“It’s like tag wrestling,” says Graham McLaren, who is letting the students guide him as to how racy they want this production to be. But Assistant Director Steven McCarthy is quick to point out: “Yes, every scene is a sex scene, but it’s less about the act than the dynamics of power and achieving something through having sex. All the characters have sex for different reasons; for love, for getting off, for procreation, for acquisition…”

About the Director – Graham McLaren

Graham McLaren is currently Associate Director for the National Theatre of Scotland. He is a Glasgow based theatre artist who has been making theatre for almost two decades. In that time, he has created work ranging from totally improvised and devised work to classical texts. In 1994, he established the internationally acclaimed Theatre Babel, where he remained Artistic Director until 2008. In 2005, Graham was invited to join Perth Theatre, Scotland, as Artistic and Co-Creative Director; he remained with Perth Theatre until January 2008. The following year, he began creating work for the Toronto based theatre company Necessary Angel as Associate Artist.

About the Assistant Director – Steven McCarthy

Steven McCarthy is a two-time NTS graduate (Acting, 1997 and Directing, 2010), an actor, musician, and theatre-maker whose work in various disciplines has been seen across Canada and around the world. This spring, his company, Candles are for Burning, will present their North American premiere production of Olivier Choinière’s BLISS at Buddies in Bad Times Theatre in Toronto. He can be seen in his supporting role on Ken Finkleman’s GOOD DOG this summer on HBO Canada. The feature film PICTURE DAY, in which he stars alongside his band The ElastoCitizens, will be in theatres this fall.

About the Author – Evie Christie

Evie Christie is the author of a collection of poetry, Gutted, and a novel, The Bourgeois Empire. She adapted Racine's ANDROMACHE for Graham McLaren, Necessary Angel Theatre Company, and Luminato, in 2011.