20K Collective saw "Mission Blue" at the Hot Docs Film Festival!

Last night I accompanied passionate water issues activist and Sci-Fi author Kaz Lefave to the Hot Docs premiere of Mission Blue. Mission Blue is a film about ground-breaking scientist (or should that be water-breaking scientist) Dr. Sylvia Earle. 

Dr. Earle is an inspiration for our own Dr. Aronnax in Twenty Thousand Leagues Under Tne Sea!

An aquanaut, marine botanist, submersible designer, and the former head of the NOAA - National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration - Dr. Earle is a ground-breaking (water-breaking?) pioneer in ocean exploration.  Dr. Earle's passion is to map the ocean and develop protected areas, just as we do with parks and reserves on land.

Dr.Earle was present with the codirector Robert Nixon and HotDocs programmer Heather Haynes, and answered questions from the audience incredibly well: evidence-based, realistically, but always with hope and making the audience feel our own agency to effect change.

MISSION BLUE SCREENS AGAIN AT HOT DOCS.
Highly recommended.
http://mission-blue.org/mission-blue-film/

You can find out more about Kaz Lefave at:
www.nemecene.com

You can support Mission Blue
www.missionblue.org

 

20K team gearing up for its first invited workshop presentation!

Week 2 of a two-week Toronto workshop for 20K (Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea). The incredible team of creators are trying to pull it all together for the 100 or so lucky people who will get a sneak preview of our show, Sat April 26th at 8pm. Led by director Rick Miller and co-creator Craig Francis, the 20K Collective of actors, designers and technicians are building props, sound, video, lighting, set pieces... anything to push the concept and make it fly (well, float, in this case).

Part of our concept is to explore how a stage show can be supported and augmented by online properties that not only support the themes of the play, but actually engage with the audience during the play itself! The 20K Collective is pleased to be working with the team at Logograph to create this online content, and these innovative, immersive digital experiences.

Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea is commissioned by the
TORONTO 2015 Pan Am /
Parapan Am Games
Arts and Cultural festival
PANAMANIA
 


http://ls4.co/8W1

20K collective workshop week 2: Happy Easter Monday

Happy Easter Monday!

Lots of work being done with our incredible creative team and talented actors to create something innvative and visually unique for 2015.

1) Is this the tempest?...

2) ...or are our actors under water?  (Maybe... lots of lines to learn!)

3) ...or is the whole stage an aquarium?

4) Whaler Ned Land (Gil Garratt) finds the brig of The Nautilus is a lonely place.

5) Director Rick Miller blocks Land (Gil Garratt) Professor Aronnax (Stephanie Baptist) and Jules (Toby Hughes).
 

20K update, April 23 2014

Here's what 20K co-creator and director Rick Miller was doing at 12:30am on April 23rd...
Hint: it wasn't sleeping!

Rick Miller and Équipe Verte GEC - Earth Day

Since I will be in rehearsal for the 20K Project on Earth Day (how fitting!), the Équipe Verte GEC decided this year to move some of our Earth Day activities to April 11th.

On a beautiful Spring day in Toronto, as part of an annual tradition, we had parents, teachers and students come to the local ravine for the Great Canadian Shoreline Cleanup, a national initiative spearheaded by the Vancouver Aquarium and  WWF-Canada.

Over the course of the day, over 400 participants collected 9 bags of garbage and 2 bags of recycling - all in all, 150 pounds of stuff that doesn't belong in a ravine!  Upon arrival, I gave a short welcome to each class (ages 5-12), showing them some of the trash we had already picked up. The goal was to show how individual actions have an enormous effect: for better (picking up trash) or worse (throwing the trash in the ravine). I also spoke about how this ravine was connected to Lake Ontario, which in turn flows into the Fleuve St. Laurent, and then on to the Atlantic. All waterways are deeply connected, which not only relates to our previous World Water Day activities (see photo of our message board), but to our work on 20K!

Other Earth Day activities will be undertaken by the rest of the team on April 22nd, including a litterless lunch picnic, outdoor classroom activities, and electronics-recycling station.

Have a very happy Earth Day!
Rick Miller

20K collective workshop week 1: Monday

1) Craig Francis here, doing some rewriting on the play after our actors' read-through... while lights being hung above my head!

2) Assistant Director Andrea Sartison has set up her iOffice near the plug hole - smart.

3) Sound Designer Richard Feren has a whole table: the sound design is an exciting part of this project.

4) Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea getting the frame set up for the workshop at the great Theatre Passe-Muraille in Toronto.  

Rick hosts PANAMANIA launch, announces commission of 20K show!

After a late night hosting the Glenn Gould Prize at Rideau Hall, Rick flew back to Toronto to host the morning launch of PANAMANIA, the Arts & Culture Program of the TORONTO 2015 Pan Am/Parapan Am Games.

The event, held at fabulous El Catrin restaurant, was a jam-packed launch of 27 new commissions for the upcoming Games in July-Aug 2015. Rick was delighted, among other things, to once again share the stage with Robert Lepage, who he had fêted the previous night. One of the commissions is the 20K Collective's new adaptation of Twenty Thousand Leagues Under The Sea, co-created by Rick and Craig Francis.

Toronto Star article
Globe and Mail article
CBC article