publication - Jumblies Theatre

I see her full face for the first time that evening. “Yes, yes, that is right.” She seems pleased withthe word, and turns back around.The last word is from Sheila, a young woman from Newfoundland who has survived homelessnesswith her family and is now fighting the barriers of literacy, and proving to be a quick learner.She imagines children on their way to school cheering away and performs withtheir cry with aplomb, it is a wonderful endingto this celebration:Inthe effort to link oursounds into an order, we make a quicknarrative that imagines a character manoeuvring through the city,woken by a rooster, hearing a car starting, a roommate walking down the stairs to call inhis cat, the cat coming in, waking up with tea from the kettle, the enigmatic turtle, the sirenfrom outside, and the celebration of children at the end.Eric is ready with the recorder. The stakes of recorded performance make everyone feel likethe moment is a bit special, and a quiet comes to the room. It is late, nearly nine o’clock atnight; now we are the only souls in the building, performing our secret creation. Eric givesus the nod, and we begin, while I silently conduct with ridiculous physical enthusiasm,pointing to the moments, encouraging everyone as they try to sound out in unison all ourcreations, one after the other. Their composure is exceptional given the strangeness of ourcollective behaviour, until, of course, the turtle moment, where Fatima has to place her faceon the table to contain her giggles. We all smile and persevere through to the end, when allour nervous containment explodes into YIPPIE! Everyone spontaneously applaudsthemselves and cheers and laughs, Eric clicks the record button off, and our one-shot take isa keeper!Liz Rucker is an actor and writer. She is a graduate of York University (B.F.A. Playwrighting, 1995), andhas also trained under director Richard Folwer of Primus Theatre, and apprenticed with Theatre Labyrinth ofCleveland under director Raymond Bobgan. After graduating, she co-founded Theatre Fugue, a women’scollective with who she wrote and directed several plays and, in 1998, she co-founded Number ElevenTheatre, a theatre collective with which she performed and taught across Canada and in the U.S. until 2004.She has also worked for 8 years as Artist Animator at Bloorview Kids Rehab in Toronto. Liz has been aJumblies Associate Artist since 2004, taking part in the Jumblies Studio internship program in 2007-08 (partlythanks to a Theatre Ontario grant), collaborating with other artists, creating and facilitating many experimentalcommunity writing activities, and, most recently, developing and writing the script for We Live Here,performed at Pelham Park Gardens in June 2009. As of Sept. 2009, Liz is the Artistic Director of Arts4All, aJumblies Theatre Offshoot project based at Davenport Perth Neighbourhood Centre.19