Hey all!

I just stopped by the board and, as I was catching up on my reading (awesome stuff lately, everyone!), I came across the lovely post about my recent appearance in the news! Thanks so much for the kind words, they're greatly appreciated. I'm really excited for the project; it's a big step for my company and for me as an artist.

That got me thinking - you might be interested to hear an update on all the things that are keeping me busy and away from the PVB these days!

For starters, as you may have gathered, I now run a small theatre company. It's called Swallow-a-Bicycle Theatre, and we've been around for about four years. We mostly create and produce original work, and often our shows are site-specific - so, rather than doing them in a theatre space, we do them in churches, community halls, art galleries or (for our upcoming show) an abandoned fish warehouse.

Our upcoming show is called i-ROBOT Theatre, based on a book called i-ROBOT Poetry. We're currently in full-time rehearsals to get the show ready for its opening on May 5, and it's going to be a really fun show. It's set in a world where every piece of machinery has a personality, emotions and sentience. Actually, it explores a lot of themes that we've seen in the Parodyverse - definitions of humanity, robot rights, self-determination, etc.

My day job is in the office for another theatre company, One Yellow Rabbit, which produces an annual festival called the High Performance Rodeo. It's a really incredible festival which combines all genres of live performance, and brings some of the most innovative productions from around the world to Calgary. Swallow-a-Bicycle is lucky enough to have a show that has become an annual fixture in the festival, called Freak Show. (Every January I end up feeling fairly schizophrenic, as I try to balance my "administrator brain" with my "artist brain", especially since a lot of the site-specific work we do isn't exactly, um, legal when it comes to zoning bylaws.)

For the past couple years, I've also been holding events called "We Should Know Each Other", which is exactly what it sounds like - an opportunity for people to meet. It's a simple concept, but it's proven to be really powerful. So often, we become comfortably sheltered inside a prescribed social circle, and it's incredibly powerful to step outside of that comfort zone every once in a while. I recently celebrated my 50th WSKEO event with a giant warehouse party, where I had a dozen live bands, a LEGO room, cupcakes and over 450 attendees. (Usually the events aren't nearly so sweeping; they take place in my living room.)

Another annual event I run is called Markapalooza which, in addition to being a lovely ego-trip, is a fundraiser for the ALS Society of Alberta. My father died of ALS a few years ago, and there's a strong chance that I will eventually get the disease myself... which seems like a good reason to throw a giant party, if I've ever heard one! Each of the first two editions raised over $10,000, and I'm hoping to make the next one even bigger.

I've got a lot of other cool things coming up on the horizon, too. In June, Swallow-a-Bicycle will be doing a show in a small town of 2,000 people in Southern Alberta called Vulcan, best known for its Star Trek tourist centre. Also in June, a play that I co-wrote with my friend Charles Netto was selected by Lunchbox Theatre for its "Stage One" play development series. Then, in September, we're co-producing a burlesque show with the Garter Girls Burly-Q Revue. So yeah, lots of excitement in the near future!

In short, those are the reasons I haven't been as active on the board as I would like to be, but I'm delighted to see that you guys are still churning out stories and keeping our shared universe alive. I try to keep up as much as I can!

How 'bout you guys? What's keeping you busy in real life?