Coming up

on DESK SPACE: Rosalynn Tyo

CHRISTOPHER MORRIS

Christopher Morris for DESK SPACE


DESK SPACE Who?

CHRISTOPHER MORRIS I am an actor, director and playwright living in Toronto and am the artistic director of the theatre company Human Cargo.


DS When did you start becoming interested in acting or get your first role?

CM My first official play was playing some kind of grave digging person in grade three in a version of A Christmas Carol at my elementary school in Markham, Ontario called Kateri Tekakwitha. My first "real" play was in grade nine in a collective abouhigh school called The Highschool Zone, I played a nerd and a tough guy.


DS Where do you come up with ideas for your characters?

CM I always get ideas about my character from the script. Sometimes I feel like I get too "outer" and looking for effect if I look outside the script.


DS Why do you work where you do?

CM On a smaller scale, I work in my small farm house in Toronto. It's a perfect kind of oasis from the city, at times I feel like I don't live in a city because it's tucked away off the street, but great because I can get right into the middle of the city whenever I want. Over the last few years I have been creating work with my company in places outside Toronto (some of them being - Nunavut, Iceland, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Israel, Republic of Georgia, Petawawa, Yellowknife). Working in places outside my culture help keep me off-balance in a way and make me try to find new ways in, or new ways to create things.


DS What was the last play or film you watched?

CM The last film I watched was Polytechnique, the last play I watched was Cloud Nine.


DS What are you working on now?

CM I am working as an actor on an extremely dirty adaptation of Racine's Andromache, and organising upcoming workshops for Human Cargo. One is called The Runner and is about ZAKA (I'm writing and acting in this), the other is called Petawawa and is about how the war in Afghanistan affects the families of Canadian, Pakistani, Afghan and Taliban soldiers (I'm directing this one).

Coming up

on DESK SPACE: Christopher Morris

ADRIENNE WEISS

Adrienne Weiss for DESK SPACE

DESK SPACE Who?

ADRIENNE WEISS Adrienne Weiss lives in Parkdale, teaches college students how to write, and then tries to write stuff herself.

DS When did you start writing, publish your first book?

AW First attempt at writing a story—a murder mystery—was in 1983. First attempt to get published—in OWL Magazine—was in 1985. First book: 2001. Last published poem: 2008.

DS Where do you write?

AW In bed while Coast to Coast is on the radio, at the desk in the picture, while students write exams, whenever I am held up in a waiting room waiting to do my taxes….

DS Why do you work where you do?

AW That desk in the picture is in a small room surrounded by paper and pictures and funny paraphernalia that somehow or other creates a comfortable yet disturbing space. That helps with the writing.

DS What are you working on now?

AW Still working on a manuscript of poetry now eight or nine years old. Dreaming of writing a lengthy essay that outlines the brilliance of Stevie Nicks’ Bella Donna.

Coming up

on DESK SPACE: Adrienne Weiss