Encyclopedia News - Dec 7

[Gaetan Charlebois]

Hello All

Well, this was not the greatest week in the short history of the
Encyclopedia. The Canada Council's Millenium Arts Fund refused my request
for a grant and upon further discussion with a CC rep I was told that there
is no program in the CC which would fund this project (I had been shuttled
from "Writing" to "Theatre" and then to the "Millenium Fund" in the last 18
months to find this out...) This is particularly discouraging as it follows
two near-sure-things in sponsorships and the continuing deterioration in
the computer I use (and where the Encyclopedia is stored...it sometimes
refuses to read the diskettes on which the information is saved...Yikes!).

Well, whatever...after a half-day of complete depression when I was sorely
tempted to burn the unreadable diskettes and the archives of the project, I
realized that I enjoy this work too much and am learning too much to chuck
it. (Indeed, it is because of the mail generated by all of you on the very
day of the CC refusal that I realized I ENJOYED and was not ENDURING the
work.) So for the time being, I'll continue to subsidize the work which is
not such a great hardship as I made some major cuts in costs before I
launched the thing in beta format. I've been saying in my columns for years
that the biggest subsidizers for arts in this country are the artists
themselves so I think I can support this little tithe of my own.

Bless all of you for keeping my upper lip stiff. Meanwhile, I will be
working towards the official launch of January 12 and toward that end there
will be a slight decrease in the number of new profiles and updates in the
next month.

New Profiles:
Suburban Motel (six-play cycle, George F. Walker)
Hill-Land (play, Herman Voaden)
Still Stands The House (play, Gwen Pharis Ringwood)

Updates:
Banff Centre; Mouawad, W.; Theatre du Nouvel-Ontario; Sources; Ringwood,
GP; Sherwood, A.; Latulippe, G.; Theatre des Varietes; Canada Council;
Greene, L.; Mallette, N; Northern Light Theatre; Drabinsky, G.; Walker, G.;
Factory Theatre; Warda, M.; Theatre de Quat'Sous; Thompson, K.; Coleman,
L.; Bernard, P.; Voaden, H.; Maheu, G.; Carbone 14; History; Dominion Drama
Festival; Leblanc, D.; Greene, G.; Davies, R.; Coulter, J.; Herbert, J.;
"Fortune and Men's Eyes"; Bolt, C.; "Jacob's Wake"; Cook, M.; French, D.;
"Of The Fields, Lately"; Ravel, A.;  "Doc"; "Blood Relations"; Pollock, S.;
Reaney, J.; "The Donnellys"; "Balconville"; Fennario, D.; Macleod, J.;

Cheers.

Gaetan L. Charlebois (editor, The Encyclopedia of Canadian Theatre on the WWW)
http://www.canadiantheatre.com