2020 PuSh Festival: Monday Nights makes basketball heroes out of us all
Credit to Author: Shawn Conner| Date: Mon, 03 Feb 2020 19:00:21 +0000
When: Feb. 6-9
Where: Anvil Centre, New Westminster
Tickets: $39 at pushfestival.ca
What began as weekly basketball game between theatre pals has become Monday Nights, an interactive theatrical experience from Toronto’s 6th Man Collective.
“There was this camaraderie built among this group of artists who were coming to play basketball,” said Jeff Yung, an actor who joined 6th Man after the group had already formed in the summer of 2008.
“They didn’t know each other, and they didn’t have any intention to create art. It just so happened that they were linked together because they all work in the arts community. It was those original members who saw that there was potential in what happened that summer, where everyone kept showing up to play basketball.”
The personal experiences of those players provide the narrative meat of Monday Nights, named after the night of the games. Mondays are typically dark at the theatre.
In the first half of the show, the performers divide the audience into four teams, with the performers serving as captains. The audience members are given iPods to listen to stories about their team captain while the five-man collective demonstrate their skills on a makeshift basketball court. Their actions, however, don’t necessarily sync up with what the audience hears, except by accident.
“What’s magical is that sometimes the action on the court matches up with what you’re hearing on the headphones,” Yung said. “But we haven’t choreographed it that way.”
For the show’s second half, the captains lead their teams onto the court for a game while one of the collective members serves as a ref.
Owing to the nature of the show, audiences are limited in size to 100 or less. “The piece lends itself to having a smaller audience. With any more than 100, the experience isn’t as personal as we want it to be.”
So how do Yung and his cohorts get the average theatregoer, who may not be known for their on-court skills, into a pickup game? Don’t worry, 6th Man Collective has you covered.
“What’s interesting for us is that we do get a very mixed crowd of people who are very experienced theatre people, who have no history or interest in sport, and then we get people who are very interested in sports but have no theatrical experience,” Yung said. “In terms of who we’re trying to draw, it’s more the people who haven’t a history of sport than those who have.”
In fact it’s probably more difficult for the collective to entice sports fans out to the show than theatre enthusiasts.
“Sometimes people are just interested in watching professionals play. But we’re trying different ways. Every time I feel like it’s a learning experience to get those audience members into the crowd.”
Before getting picked up for Toronto’s Luminato Festival last spring, Monday Nights had last been performed in 2015. Unfortunately, the show’s Luminato run coincided with the Raptors’ historic NBA championship run.
“The city was in a basketball craze, but at the same time it was difficult to get people out to a basketball show because they were saving their nights out to go to the bar and watch the game,” Yung said.
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