James Nicoll Reviews

To quote the FASS webpage:

What is FASS?

FASS (short for Faculty, Alumni, Staff, and Students) is an amateur theatre company at the University of Waterloo. Originally started as a variety show in 1962, FASS predates many of the modern organizations on campus, including the Federation of Students. In its current form, every year FASS produces an original script for its annual show in February. At the height of its existence in the 1980s, FASS was a major aspect of campus life, and tickets were hard to come by.

The FASS show is written every year from May through December, and then production kicks off in January with auditions held in the first week of classes. Throughout January and into February, the actors rehearse, the techies tech, and the production crew pulls their hair until, finally, everything is ready five weeks later. The shows are put on, many parties are held, and then everyone goes and collapses from exhaustion. It’s good fun. 

A detail strongly implied by the above (but not necessarily explicit) is that many of the participants are extremely amateur. Participating in FASS may be the first time that a particular person has ever tried their hand at building flats, painting backdrops, memorizing lines, creating a poster, writing a scene, or any of the other tasks need to make a show happen. While I don’t know offhand of anyone whose first role in the show was serving on committee (now called the board), it has probably happened. One of the core rules, one that has persisted over the years, is that anyone who shows up gets to participate, regardless of how much or how little aptitude they may show at auditions.

The amateur element adds an interesting challenge for committee members like the Chief Scriptwriter and technical director. All the CSW knows, for example, is that they will have some number of people interesting in writing, but not if that number will be five or twenty, or if the five or twenty will have any background in writing. The final script has to reflect a theme selected by the company shortly before writing began and it has to offer roles suitable for actors from those who can remember hundreds of lines flawlessly¹ to those unable to remember (or deliver) two lines they themselves wrote. For added fun, because auditions happen after the script is written, the writers won’t have any idea which specific actors need to have suitable roles written for them. All they know is that in previous years, aspirants averaged ?% good actors, ?% mediocre actors, and ?% poor actors. Approximately. Nor do the writers know how many aspiring thespians will turn up for auditions. One year they planned for 90 and got 120.

Similarly, the technical director has to oversee the construction of all the sets, props and what have you, supervising people who may never have used a hammer or bandsaw before. The TD must, if at all possible, ensure that all the tech crew have more or the less the same number of fingers at the end of the show as they had at the beginning. The TD is expected to do this on a modest budget and on time.

The same goes for all of the committee-level roles: each person has a set of often complex tasks that must have been nailed down by the time the show hits the stage in the first week of February. In many cases, the people responsible will only have the short time between auditions and the show to accomplish their tasks, working with people whose skillsets vary from accomplished to something a bit less than accomplished.

If the FASS participant isn’t tasked with managing people, then they are one of the people being managed. It is up to them to work out how to participate productively and cooperate with people whom they may have met for the first time in January. People skills!

It’s a lot like that scene in Apollo 13:

You may be thinking that all this sounds like a recipe for disaster. There are so many failure modes, from scripts that are not funny (or don’t exist), impromptu amputations in the shop, actors forgetting their lines in mid-performance, missed cues, non-existent props, personality conflicts (or worse, personalities so harmonious both actors keep missing their entrances), directors with ideas too brilliant for this sad, flawed world, Stage Managers not booking rehearsal space, TDs forgetting to order materials, treasurers misplacing funds, and always, the potential for the occasional self-decapitation. The director could reveal a few days before auditions that they took a job in a distant city. When you add up all the things that have to go right or at least not too wrong, and take into account many of the people responsible are developing the necessary skills on the fly, the whole affair seems doomed. 

Fifty plus shows argue otherwise. It turns out that most people, given a chance, are able to master a wide enough range of skills to put on an amateur musical show. When they cannot, other people compensate. Things always go wrong but enough goes right that the show goes on. Theatrical stone soup may sound like an odd idea, but it seems to work. 

What’s more remarkable is there is a marked beneficial effect to having participated in FASS. To quote:

“Being music director of FASS gave me the credentials I needed to do what I do now. Without that first set of credits (2011 and 2012), I would not have had the experience necessary to continue on to music teaching and I would not be teaching music professionally.”

“Before FASS I was certain I’d never act on stage. After FASS I went on to do 19 Gilbert and Sullivan performances, and more than half were patter baritone lead parts. I also played Mozart’s Impresario and Angel Street’s Inspector, and ended up in Aristophanes’ Frogs and Assemblywomen. So yeah, thanks FASS.”

“For 23 years I was the founder and Musical Dictator of Argonotes, the Toronto Argonauts Band of the Canadian Football League. Being FASS music director gave me the courage to pitch this idea to the team, to build a group from scratch and to make it a pretty intense avocation for more than two decades. Couldn’t have done it without the confidence developed in FASS.”

“I believe that there are many intangible benefits that we all obtained. Being able to pull off almost impromptu parties for 200 with free beer from a local upstart brewery being amongst those talents.”

[People have also met their life partners in FASS and while that may not be important in the general scheme of things, it was very important for their kids.]

FASS has produced professional actors, professional theatre technicians, and a lot of writers. I couldn’t begin to list the awards the various professionals have won, but I can say FASS alums have earned at least four Hugo nominations. It may be that all of these people would have found some outlet for their talents anyway … but perhaps it is also FASS’s willingness to let people experiment in a permissive context (one in which failure is just a learning experience rather than the end of a career) that explains the FASS effect. 

In late 2016, it was announced that the 2017 show had been cancelled. Presumably, this was the best solution the people responsible could manage. A year in which the opportunities turned out to be insurmountable might have been inevitable, given enough rolls of the die, but still it was a sad end for a half century plus tradition. 

Except it wasn’t. The show as originally envisioned was not staged, but fresh eyes were able to imagine a way to put something on stage with the available resources. They were able to do less than a day after the cancellation was announced. 

People really do rise to the occasion and if a few falter, others, it turns out, will step in. 

In 2016, it might have seemed reasonable to believe that there would never be another FASS show. This was not the case. Reforms were undertaken to address the issues that had led to led to the catastrophe of late 2016. FASS 2017 may have needed an asterisk, but 2018 will be carrying on where the previous shows left off.

You could be part of that, if your circumstances permit. Don’t necessarily rule it out if you live elsewhere; passing travellers have paused for five weeks to take part. If you don’t feel like investing five weeks of your life, you can still participate: audience members are a very important part of any show, 

FASS’s website is here . Auditions will be held from Monday, January 8 to Wednesday, January 10^th, 2018. The show itself runs from Thursday, February 1 to Saturday, February 3^rd in the University of Waterloo’s Humanities Theatre.

1: FASS 1984: The FASSist Manifesto had so much faith in one actor’s ability to remember lines that not only was his part by far the largest, the second largest role in the show was the puppet on his right hand. Whose lines he also had to deliver. 

[added Feb 3, 2018]
So this didn’t work out quite as well as I had hoped, because on Feb 1, the FASS President handed me this.

Hilarity ensued, including this letter which I delivered to them the next day.

FASS Board

On behalf of the FASS Theatre Company

At the University of Waterloo

February 2, 2018

Re: Your letter dated January 28, 2018 respecting certain allegations about my conduct

Thank you for your letter dated January 28, 2018. I am frankly bemused about the intention of your letter, but as it appears to allege that I have engaged in wrongful conduct, in respect to which you have threatened to take certain actions, I would like to provide a clear response. 

• You have stated in your letter that I have attempted to contribute anonymously to the script of the FASS Winter 2018 production, implying not only that I initiated such contribution, but that I did so in a secretive and underhanded manner. Leaving aside your claim that anonymous contribution is prohibited by the FASS constitution – which, upon a plain reading of the constitution, it is not, since the management of the script writing is left up to the Chief Script Writer – this grossly falsifies the situation, as I had simply responded to an open request for writers made by the Chief Script Writer on my own feed, and stated only that I did not wish any credit mention.

• You have listed out a number of privileges that FASS members are entitled to, and that I, as a former FASS member, am no longer entitled to. These include contributions to productions, attendance at FASS social or organizational events, voting at FASS meetings, and being privy to internal working of FASS meetings. You then state that I had made a number of attempts and requests to exercise such privileges, and imply that I have done so in a harassing manner. Again, apart from the fact that every single item on this list is wholly within the FASS Board’s control and that I could therefore not attempt to unilaterally exercise these privileges (for instance, the voting process and any leakage of inside information are surely internal FASS matters), this is a wholly misleading characterization of the events that actually occurred. Any communications that I have had with FASS members that relate to my potential contributions to FASS have either been initiated by FASS members, or have been the result of my civilly volunteering assistance when, in the course of a separate conversation with a FASS member, the subject of a gap in FASS requirements has arisen. I categorically deny that I have behaved in any harassing manner whatsoever.

Your letter further contains an outline of the steps that you intend to take with respect to me. You are, of course, free to set policies with respect to the conduct of your organization the members thereof, but do keep in mind that, as I am no longer a member of your organization, you do not have any right to dictate any of my actions beyond those that directly affect your organization. You may certainly make known the fact that I am no longer a member of FASS to your current members and to others who may need to know that fact, but you are not permitted to make any misleading statements with respect to the circumstances of my departure, my current status, or, indeed, anything concerning me. Any false or misleading statements about me can be considered defamatory. In particular, I trust that you have not been communicating the allegations contained in your letter to any third party, and particularly to my employer, the University of Waterloo; any such communications made in the misleading style presented in the letter would be considered defamatory.

You have stated in your letter that you are opposed to my presence at any of your shows, whether as a UW employee or as an audience member. Permit me to inform you that you do not have the right to dictate whether I am present in public spaces such as the theatre in which performances are given, and you certainly do not have the right to interfere with my employment on any basis that you have outlined in your letter. You have not provided any evidence – or indeed, any allegation – of any conduct that would necessitate constraining my movements, and the implication that I am harassing or dangerous is greatly offensive.

Given your evident desire to disassociate me from FASS, I am formally requesting that you permanently delete all images of me from your website and any public or internal files. This letter also revokes your permission to use any of my work, in whole or in part, in accordance with my rights as the copyright owner to my work, and you must also remove any public references to me that are linked to such work. If you have not done so within ten (10) business days, I will consider taking such actions as are necessary to enforce my rights in my images and in my work.

In conclusion, please be advised that if you take any of actions that you have outlined in your letter, on the misleading premises that you have set out in your letter, I will not only be forced to consider seeking all available legal and equitable remedies respecting such defamation and recovery of any damages that might ensue from such defamation, but also to make a formal complaint with the University of Waterloo under Policy 33 in relation to your harassment and attempt to poison my workplace. As FASS is not a formal legal organization, please be advised that these remedies and complaints would be exercised against each individual of the Board, as I assume that, by presenting your letter in the manner that you did, each individual of the Board is in agreement with, and complicit in, its contents.

Please govern yourself accordingly.

Yours truly,

James Nicoll