"Isn’t he soooooo cute? Adorable and sassy, all in one holiday-themed package! The bear to end all bears."

"Nobody loves you. Nobody will love you – they’ll always just be actors in your eyes, reading the same predictable lines."

Nobody Loves You

Nobody Loves You was my second, and final, entry in the Laurier FR!NGE Festival. Largely based around a predetermined cast, I wrote many parts with a specific actor in mind - most of whom I had worked with or seen before. Now don't get me wrong: I don't think that Tessa and Amy are bitches, I just had an inkling that they would be exceptionally good at playing bitches. And I was right.

I also wanted to do something with this play that could arguably be seen as pushing the bar a bit, and that's where the PowerPoint came in. I originally flirted with the idea of playing a full length movie behind the action on stage until I realized that coordinating the movie with the actors would be immensely difficult... perhaps even infinitely difficult. That's pretty difficult, if you ask me. Slides presented themselves as a reasonable alternative and thus Microsoft PowerPoint was given an integral role in the action (unknown to Bill Gates).

One thing that I will always remember about writing this play is running my idea past Meegan, my co-director from last year. When I started gushing about the PowerPoint, she just looked at me. "What is its PURPOSE?" she asked. "Why does it need to be there?" It was then that I realized that maybe I was just being superfluous with the idea and needed to beef it up. Thus the screen's integration with the plot was born and I was saved from looking like a jackass using technology for technology's sake (although some might say that I'm still a jackass). Meegan's lesson can be applied to any number of creative outlets: whenever you add something innovative to a work, always - always - make sure that it's integral to the story/theme/whatever in some way.

I will miss this year's cast, perhaps more than I ever expected. Sometimes Sunday afternoons roll around and I start to get an itch at the back of my neck, a hint that I should be somewhere else. And I know that I am missing 1E1 and our little warm-up exercises and the hilarious improv that oh-so-often forced its way into our rehearsals. We made decisions together. When Dan or Katie or Kyle or Tessa or Amy or Billie would spontaneously change a line or add a lewd gesture during a run-through, I would grin. Because as much as I like to think of this as my play, it was equally theirs - their dedication to the project, their creative input. And really, I wouldn't have wanted it any other way.

I don't think theatre is ever supposed to be unilateral.