Jacqui Du Toit is the head of the group 8th Generation Performance, and organizer of theatre nights at Pressed. The coffeehouse is hosting monthly theatre nights in an effort to create more performance space for artists in Ottawa.
It’s still early evening on Feb. 22, but the small venue on Gladstone Avenue is already packed with about 40 people. They fill every seat at the small, dimly lit sandwich bar’s wooden tables. New arrivals have to stand huddled near the door, stage left.
On that stage, spoken word poet and entrepreneur Sergio Guerra leans toward the audience, reciting passionate passages about politics, spirituality and family.
Later, singer-songwriter Keturah Johnson fiercely thrums an acoustic guitar and lets loose about mental illness.
In between acts, members from 8th Generation Performance Group squat, squirm, stagger and shout their way through improv sets.
This is just a taste of the group’s first theatre night at Pressed Urban Sandwich Bar. Known for its gourmet sandwiches, the venue is becoming a hotspot for local performers.
This makes it an ideal long-term home for theatre nights, says 8th Generation founder Jacqui Du Toit.
“The energy in this place is emerging,” she says. “It’s new, it’s a beautiful vibe in here, so I think that compliments theatre nights and it allows for this network to happen.”
The events will take place on the last Friday of each month and have been booked at Pressed through May. They began at the Patrick John Mills Contemporary Fine Art Gallery, Du Toit says. The performance troupe would collaborate with other local artists to put on shows based around Mills’s exhibits.
From there, theatre nights grew into a platform for creators to collaborate and for new artists to perform original works, she says.
After gallery restrictions forced theatre nights to move in May 2012, they settled in at the GigSpace Performance Studio on Gladstone Avenue. While more people showed up after the move, Du Toit says she wanted a place with a better vibe. She found that with Pressed, she says.The events represent progress in the arts community, Du Toit says. There aren’t many venues in the area that allow actors to hone their craft.
“I find with Ottawa, it’s still quite linear in terms of how they view theatre,” she says. “And coming from South Africa, for me, theatre is all about expression and telling stories, and making a sacred space.”
Ottawa is still in the process of developing its artistic scene, but that means its artists have the unique opportunity to dictate its direction.
That makes it an exciting place, says Guerra, who performs under the name Hyf the GypsySun. He compares the Centretown community to the Greenwich Village arts scene in New York City.
“I think we get the most fusion bands and acts, you know,” Guerra says.
“People doing really different things, because we have less of an overarching scene, monopolizing us from above, telling us that this is good and this is not good.”
The theatre nights bring spontaneity to the scene, Guerra adds.
“We’re building community, right,” he says.
“It’s a place where people can go and see what’s happening with the theatre community and, in addition, meet different artists going on. So we need more of those events going on all the time.”
The events also put a new spin on the community’s “oral culture,” says Pressed owner Jeff Stewart. He adds that they fit in well with the shop’s music and poetry events.
“I just like the idea of having things that are a little bit fringier and might not be able to find a venue, generally, to have them,” he says.
“I think those things often are what people who are sort of enjoying living downtown in a city look for, and it’s nice to be able to combine food and a beer with some local culture and a little bit of edgier, fringier type stuff.”