The competition was at the Remai Arts Centre, home to Persephone Theatre, a theatre I have fond memories of because I was in the very first production to grace its stage, Beauty and the Beast, in 2007, just before it officially opened (and before it was quite finished, actually, but that’s another story). While I was there I ran into Del Surjik, artistic director of Persephone, a couple of times, and confirmed to my chagrin that (as I had suspected) the profile I wrote of him for Fine Lifestyles Saskatoon back in the fall of 2010 had never run in the magazine. (Right after I wrote it, I quit being editor and so had no say in whether it ran or not.)

So here it is. Better late than never!

(References to “last season” or “this season” obviously refer to the time period when the interview was conducted.)

***

Persephone rising

Artistic director Del Surjik has presided over unprecedented growth in this jewel of Canadian theatre

By Edward Willett

Autumn, 2010

When Del Surjik, artistic director of Persephone Theatre, left Saskatoon two decades ago, “a young man seeking his fortune,” he didn’t really expect to be back.

The recipient of the first BFA in theatre awarded by the University of Saskatchewan, the North Battleford native, raised in Yorkton, had been one of the co-founders of Shakespeare on the Saskatchewan (and associate director for its first five years) and also helped found the Saskatoon Soaps.

“It was a very vibrant, golden-age time in Saskatoon’s theatre history,” Surjik says, but nonetheless, he moved to Vancouver in 1989, freelancing a national career or seven years, then spending the next decade as artistic director of Pi Theatre. “It was the indie theatre scene,” he says. “Cutting-edge experimentation. That community in Vancouver expected to see some of the most provocative and urgent thought in theatre coming from me and my theatre. It was exciting work.”

Dogbarked

About five years ago, the late Tibor Feheregyhazi, Persephone’s long-time artistic director, asked Surjik to direct James O’Shea’s play Dogbarked. It was the first time Surjik had been back to work in Saskatoon and, he said, he “had a hell of a good time.”

Audiences had a good time, too. The show was a hit, and Surjik got to refresh his relationship with Feheregyhazi. The two stayed in touch over the next few years, during which time “he was regaling me with the tales of trying to get this building (the new Remai Arts Centre) built.”

After Fehergyhazi’s death in 2007, Surjik received a message from theatre staff asking him if he would be interested in applying to take over as artistic director. In the end he was one of 35 applicants, five of whom were brought to Saskatoon for intensive, day-long interviews.

In the end, Surjik was the committee’s unanimous choice.

“My wife and I sat down and had a hard talk,” he recalls. His wife, Johnna Wright, was then artistic director of another Vancouver theatre, Solo Collective. “It would mean her resigning and setting a succession plan in her theatre company as well as the one I was at. We were very integrated in the community, we sat on a lot of boards.

“What are all the things you can change in your life?” he muses. “New city, new life, new job.” Not only that, his wife was pregnant “with our first and only family member,” son Sascha. But in a way, that made the choice easier. “The notion of being able to raise my son as a prairie boy was a un-thought of until that time,” Surjik says. “It was hugely appealing.”

And so, 18 years after he left, Surjik returned to Saskatoon, his life “circling around  like I was the character in an epic novel.”

“A fantastic opportunity”

“For me, what a fantastic opportunity to take the helm of a regional theatre and come at it with the vigour of a mid-career theatre artist,” Surjik says.

He says one of the great artistic pleasures he finds in his job is the “alchemy” of figuring out a season, “choosing those plays that continue a conversation with the audience.”

Surjik says there are several such conversations going on at once, since you are communicating, not just with those who come to everything, but people who are brand-new to Persephone or even the city as a whole.

“I stay with a demonstration of the great breadth of styles and genres there are in the world of theatre. I think that’s a responsibility as a regional theatre. There’ll be musicals, there’ll be comedies, there’ll be period drama. There’ll be new work. There’s 2,000 years of amazing variety to tap into. All these writers out there writing new work as well. We’ll keep mixing it up!”

Another consideration, Surjik says, is “finding good vehicles for the artists to bring their best work to the stage.”

“We want to nurture the local acting pool,” he says, not only people who live in Saskatchewan, but those who trained or lived here and then went elsewhere. “You have to give hope to the artists who live here that their regional theatre is a an avenue of employment. Otherwise they’re going to have to go elsewhere or withdraw from the art form.”

Co-productions, such as last season’s Thunderstick, a co-production with Theatre Network in Edmonton, and this season’s opening show, Great Expectations, with Blackbird Theatre of Vancouver, gives local artists exposure in other cities: the shows open here, then travel to the other centre.

Surjik also believes in supporting other local theatres. Last season, for example, there was a co-production with Saskatchewan Native Theatre Co. on the second stage. “The health of the entire theatre ecology is what’s important,” he insists. “We don’t live in the ecology on our own.”

That philosophy encompasses the whole province. “Ruth Smillie (artistic director of Regina’s Globe Theatre) and I have a great relationship. We made history last year by having a Globe show at Persephone: we brought in Elephant Wake. Ruth and I are hoping that with two really great strong regional theatres in the province, we can spin the momentum that’s going on.”

Under Surjik, Persephone is also helping to develop Saskatchewan playwrights. This year’s Deep End Series will premiere three new Saskatchewan plays, for example.

“They are there because they need to get done. I read them and I had no choice,” Surjis says. “I love writer, I love scripts. We don’t begin without any of these words. If we have a good script, we have the bedrock upon which we can build a really great show.”

An “extraordinary” facility

Surjik is enthusiastic about everything about Persephone, but particularly the Remai Arts Centre. “It’s extraordinary. There’s no theatre that’s the equivalent of this in Vancouver.”

Rawlco Radio Hall, the main auditorium, is “phenomenal,” he says; extraordinarily intimate. “The back wall of that theatre is 12 feet closer to the stage than the back wall of the old theatre,” he notes, and yet there are more seats, 421 in all. “And we’ve got the second stage. And a lobby that actually holds the people in the theatre. We can have two shows running at once, in the BackStage Stage and the Rawlco Radio Hall, and those audiences get to mix, which is a really cool thing.”

Even more extraordinary: the theatre was built on budget and without a mortgage, “at Tibor’s unequivocal insistence. I can’t name another project where that has happened.”

The community has embraced the facility wholeheartedly. “The community use blew us away,” Surjik says. “There’s something like 500 days of combined use in a 365-day year. It’s a very busy place!”

And Persephone’s own success has been “incredible,” he adds. “Typically after the first year of a new building you’re supposed to have a spike and then it’s supposed to dip down, and then a nice slow rise up to a new plateau. That hasn’t been the case. It’s just been growing and growing and growing.”

And so, brand-new though it is, the Remai Arts Centre will soon be expanding, taking advantage of the impending arrival of a new neighbor: the Art Gallery of Saskatchewan, formerly the Mendel Art Gallery, which will be built on Persephone’s current parking lot.

“This is going to become a cultural block,” Surjik says, and since the new building is going to wrap around the theatre, Persephone plans to take advantage of it to enlarge the second stage, add additional dressing rooms and stage-management office space, and expand the shop area.

And don’t mourn the lost parking lot: it’s going underground, which should literally warm the hearts (and other body parts) of January theatre-goers.

A heritage of culture

Persephone’s amazing growth is a testament to this province, Surjik thinks. “This province’s people care about their lives having a cultural component. We have a heritage of it.

“It’s part of a questing life. If you are living a full life, you’re asking questions, you’re testing your beliefs and opinions against others’, you are in contact with your community. These are all important things to having an agile, healthy and forward-thinking society.”

And that, he thinks, is the kind of society blossoming in Saskatoon. “There’s a cycle in the arts where a city is hot,” Surjik says. “Toronto was hot. Edmonton was hot for a while.” Now, he believes, “the eyes of the nation are going to turn and look at Saskatoon.

“It’s coming, and we’re going to be ready for them. There’s going to be a lot going on. There already is a lot going on. It’s time for them to discover what a wonderful place this is for artistic endeavour.”

Anyway, you can now buy it, download it, listen to it, and let me know what you think.

I’m currently narrating my own novel, my YA fantasy Spirit Singer, for Iambik. I have less concern about pleasing the author in that case! (Interestingly, it’s been almost like reading someone else’s book, it’s been so long since I write it.) I’m anxious to get it finished and on the shelves–or whatever you buy audiobooks off of–too.

Two of the occasions were to mark the centenary of the Hill Companies, intimately involved in the building of the city and province. One of those was here in Regina, the other in Calgary, where I got to poke fun at our neighbouring province in front of an august crowd that included the then-Premier of Alberta, Ralph Klein. So that was cool!

The following version of the speech was given at the 2005 convention of the Saskatchewan Urban Municipalities Association‘s annual convention in Saskatoon.

It is a great privilege for me to be here on the occasion of the centennial convention of the Saskatchewan Urban Municipalities Association.  My name is Thomas Walter Scott, and I have–or rather, from your point of view, had–the honor of being the first premier of the province of Saskatchewan.

You will forgive any confusion in tenses, I hope. For you, as I understand it, it is January 29, 2005.  However, when I awoke this morning, it was January 29, 1912.  I therefore bring you greetings, not only from the government of Saskatchewan, but also from what is, to you, the distant past, a time when this great province was not a hundred years old, or even ten years old, but barely six.

Before I enter into the substance of my remarks, I must first express my gratitude to Mr. H. G. Wells, without whose invaluable invention, the Time Machine, I would not have been able to be with you here today.

I confess that, having just arrived moments ago, I have no detailed knowledge of conditions in this Saskatchewan of almost a century in my future; but I have made a few observations already that imbue me with confidence that our glorious province has indeed blossomed into greatness as I have always predicted it would.

I note, for example, that the legendary hospitality of the Saskatchewan people has not changed; for after having left the Time Machine in the street outside this great auditorium in a spot conveniently marked with the image of a wheeled chair–an image which looked remarkably like the time machine itself, and which I therefore took to be an indication I should stop there–I glanced back to see a gentlemen in a blue uniform writing a welcome note and placing it in a prominent place where I could not fail to see it upon my return, a generous action indeed.  I must congratulate the current mayor and city council of Saskatoon for establishing what is obviously a corps of men whose duty it is to issue friendly greetings to newcomers. I certainly look forward to reading his warm welcome when I return to the Time Machine after my address to you, and I trust that those of you representing other municipalities issue similar greetings to newcomers to your towns and cities.

And speaking of the street outside, it was with great pleasure that I noted it was paved, and bordered by concrete curbs and sidewalks. This is a great advance from the province’s early days; our standing joke in 1905 was that when it rains one could pick up enough topsoil to claim a homestead simply by walking down the street of any Saskatchewan city.  As one early resident of the province wrote home to Ontario, “we welcome the winters for the reprieve they offer from the sea of mud we live in the other three months”!

But even in my own time, we have made great strides in improving the roads of our cities.  Indeed, just last year, in the spring of 1911, we inaugurated that most civilized means of transportation, a streetcar system, in Regina.  Though I did not see it in my brief sojourn outside, I am certain that Saskatoon and other Saskatchewan communities must by now also enjoy this modern convenience. No doubt most of you rode these streetcars as you made your way to the convention from your various hotels.

I note that this room is lit most brilliantly by electricity–so brilliantly, indeed, that it is difficult to see anything of any of you from here on the stage–which gives me confidence that all the cities of Saskatchewan must enjoy the benefits of electrical power.

Similarly, I am confident that most residents of Saskatchewan now have access to a telephone.  This is of great concern in my own time.  In the last election, in 1908, our Liberal platform called for increased telephone service, and we have committed ourselves to public ownership of long-distance lines.  However, I am firmly against the public ownership of local telephone companies, or other public utilities.  Government oversight, yes; government control, no. This, of course, contrasts with the well-known Conservative position in my day that all public utilities should be government owned.  Now, I know that the Urban Municipalities of Saskatchewan have called upon my government to place telephones under public ownership.  However, I am sure by your time that concern has long since faded.  I have often said it would be suicidal for any government of Saskatchewan to try to provide a telephone to every rural resident. That is best left to private enterprise; and no doubt the decades have proved me right. No doubt by your time hundreds of local telephone companies across Saskatchewan are providing the handful of telephones needed by the smaller towns,you’re your organization and the Conservatives alike have come around the wisdom of the staunch Liberal belief that government should not assume ownership of ventures that could be handled by cooperative or private enterprise.

You know, when Saskatchewan became a province, just seven years ago for me, and a hundred for you, there were only 60 incorporated villages, ten towns and three cities–and yet, the Union of Saskatchewan Municipalities held its inaugural convention, cementing its reputation as a very forward-looking organization. In fact, it wasn’t until 1908, the year my Liberal government won re-election, that the Legislature passed the acts that set up the current system of cities, towns, villages and rural municipalities, and created the new Department of Municipal Affairs.

No doubt the acts have been amended many times since.  You may find it amusing to know that in those early days, a village could be incorporated as a town with a mere 500 residents, and it took only 5,000 to become a city!  But villages longed to be towns. Among other things, towns could acquire parks and recreation grounds, and establish skating and curling rinks.  (The latter power was insisted upon by the many Scots in the Legislature!)

And in my time, villages are springing up and becoming towns with astonishing speed.  To name just three, Melville, Outlook and Watrous hardly existed in 1907, organized as villages late in 1908, and incorporated as towns in 1909.  No doubt by your day they each contain many thousands of residents and are thriving cities.

When the province began, we had only three cities.  Already, in 1911, we have four.  And their populations continue to soar.  In 1901, Regina had just 2,249 inhabitants; that swelled to 6,169 five years later, and 30,214 in 1911.  Saskatoon had only 113 in 1901, 3,011 in 1906 and 12,000 in 1911.  Moose Jaw sprang from 1,558 in 1901 to 13,823 in 1911, and Prince Albert from 1,785 in 1901 to 6,254 in 1911.  Overall, the province’s population has almost doubled, from 257,000 in 1906 to nearly half a million in 1911.

And thus, though I have had no opportunity to confirm it, I am confident that today, in twenty-ought-five, Saskatchewan has proved the prediction I have made often:  “Just as rue as the sun shines there will be within this Province alone some day a population running into the tens of millions.”

That being the case, many of you must represent urban municipalities with populations in the hundreds of thousands, or even millions.  Regina alone, I am confident, has long outstripped the great cities of my age–London, New York, Paris–in population, beauty and culture, and though no doubt Saskatoon continues to lag behind Regina in population, even with only half as many people, I am certain it, too, must be a great city, as must Moose Jaw, Prince Albert, and all the rest.

I did my best, as premier, to spread the benefits of province-hood to all our cities. Regina, of course, was made capital and received the Legislative Building; Saskatoon received the University. Prince Albert was given the provincial penitentiary, and North Battleford the mental health hospital.  And Moose Jaw, the second-largest city in the province in 1911, received…um…well…well, no doubt something came up. Later.  After my time?

Perhaps I can share a little bit more about my time, though the political concerns of 1906 may make you laugh in this more sophisticated age.

I am ashamed to say, for example, that there is great concern about corruption in government in 1912.  My promise on becoming premier in 1905 was that I would present to the people of this province good, clean, honest government.  I am confident that the governments I have formed have set just such an example, so that never again have the Saskatchewan people seen politicians sullied by scandal.

In fact, if I may be permitted one partisan note, I am confident that my Liberal government has presented such an example of good government that Liberals continue to govern this province to this very day.

Peace, Progress and Prosperity was my slogan for the 1905 election.  I am certain all three have continued to be the lot of Saskatchewan residents in the years that lie in your past, but are still in my future.  This province’s people have unlimited potential. Already, in my time, your association has played a key role in unlocking that potential.  The fact that I am here helping you celebrate your 100th anniversary is proof to me that you have continued to do so.

And…Mr. Wells told me I shouldn’t tell you this, but…well, I happen to know you will continue to play a vital role in Saskatchewan for decades to come:  you see, I must now bid you farewell, remount the Time Machine, and make my way to my next speaking engagement–the bicentennial convention of the Saskatchewan Urban Muncipalities Association, scheduled for Saturday, January 31, 2105.  Reserve your hotel rooms now!

My congratulations and best wishes once again. Thank you for your kind attention.

(The photo: the Saskatchewan Legislative Building at sunset.)

“The first 90 percent of the code accounts for the first 90 percent of the development time. The remaining 10 percent of the code accounts for the other 90 percent of the development time.”

Humorously, that adds up to 180 percent of the development time, but even if you correct the math, you end up with something that’s absolutely, undeniably true about pretty much any creative endeavor you wish to examine: it’s the last 10 percent that eats up 90 percent of the time.

It’s certainly true in the theatre. As an actor and director, I see it all the time. It’s pretty easy to get a show up on the stage with the blocking 90 percent done and the dialogue/music/etc. 90 percent accurate. But taking that roughed-in show and turning it into a polished piece of stagecraft takes hours and hours of additional rehearsal.

It’s true in visual design. I design a lot of posters for Regina Lyric Musical Theatre and create its newsletter, and also do the programs for Lyric and for The Golden Apple Theatre, the new professional theatre company here in Regina I serve on the board of. It’s easy to slap something together. But getting it to look good can take hours of tweaking, polishing graphics, choosing just the right font and font size, etc., etc.

And it’s absolutely true in writing. I’ve worked with a lot of young writers in various workshop scenarios, and the one thing I have to emphasize over and over again is that your work is not done when you type The End at the conclusion of your first draft: it’s just beginning. The rewriting and polishing is every bit as important: and, typically, far more time-consuming. (A caveat: everyone’s writing process is different. I have heard of writers who polish every sentence as they write, so that they feel they’ve done a good days’ work if they turn out a page of prose. I can’t work that way. For me, first drafts roll out almost as fast as I can type, at least when everything is working well, and the rewriting is where I take that rough-hewn piece of literary marble and shape it into a glistening, smooth work of art…or as close as I can get; sometimes I end up with something like the Venus de Milo; parts of it are great, but there’s still something missing…) .

This is a hard thing for young writers to hear. If you’re, say, fifteen years old and you’ve just written an entire novel, it’s very easy to be so proud of your creation–as you should be, just for the dedication it shows!–that you reject all suggestions that it could be improved.

It can be a hard thing for any new writer to hear, because, let’s face it, it’s a lot of work to write 100,000 words. The thought of going back over those words again…and again…and maybe again and again after that…is daunting. But it has to be done. And that effort, which in many ways is much greater than the original crafting of the draft, is what separates professional writers from those who are merely amusing themselves and whichever of their friends they can convince to read their very rough work.

Believe, me I know whereof I speak. I’m currently on my third…or is it my fourth?…rewrite of a YA book that I’ve been laboring over for what is, for me, a very long time: about a year and a half now. I’ve now spent far more time rewriting it than I did writing it, and it’s still not done.

And guess what? Even after a book is accepted, you’re still in that the-last-10-percent-takes-90-percent-of-the-time situation, because there’s a little something called editorial revision still to come. On my science fiction novel Marseguro, published by DAW, the comments from my editor, Sheila Gilbert, resulted in some 25,000 additional words. I’m currently revising Twist of the Blade, Book 2 in my Shards of Excalibur YA fantasy series. Soon I’ll have major revisions to complete on Magebane, my first fantasy novel for DAW, under my new nom de plume Lee Arthur Chane, and I already know those are going to be humongous.

But you know what? The extra effort required to polish anything, be it a play, a poster or prose, is worth it, because the satisfaction of knowing something you’ve created or helped to create is the very best it can be is enormous. That final 10 percent of the work may indeed take 90 percent of the time; but it also provides 90 percent of the reward.

The photo: Sunset over Howe Sound, West Vancouver, British Columbia

For Ruth Smillie, artistic director of Globe Theatre, the key to Globe’s upcoming production of J.M. Barrie’s classic tale of Peter Pan is that children don’t differentiate between reality and make-believe the way adults to.

Smillie, who is directing the production, recalls that this past summer she overheard a group of boys walking up and down the street, “very engaged in what they were doing,” and overheard them say, “We have to save the president,” with “enormous concern and conviction.”

It’s that kind of immersion in the world of make-believe that Smillie hopes Globe’s Peter Pan will provide to people of all ages.

Including directing and being part of the cast of Tent Meeting, Regina Lyric Musical Theatre‘s fall show, which opens next Tuesday, November 3, and runs through November 8 at the Shumiatcher Theatre in the MacKenzie Art Gallery.

I’d tell you about it, but you can read all about it in today’s Regina LeaderPost. The story begins:

Regina Lyric Musical Theatre’s production of the gospel-flavoured musical Tent Meeting opens on Tuesday.

Edward Willett, who is directing and performing in the play, explained that it’s set in the 1930s in a small town in Alberta. The town is in danger of “drying up and blowing away” when a gospel quartet arrives in town to put on a tent meeting.

The leader of the quartet group, Rev. Elroy Phillips, played by Michael W. Hamann, has a history in the town. A local farmer, George Hoveland — played by Willett, who also plays quartet bass Bob Lefsrud — is “watching his fields blow away” and has become bitter. He used to sing gospel music, but lost his faith because of the drought. George’s wife, Dolly — played by Heather Ross, who is also the pianist — is worried about her husband. A bit of a love triangle is one factor involved. Back in the town, Phillips is trying to set everything right.

If you’re in the area, I hope you’ll come see it! Tickets are $25 for adults and $15 for students, and are available at Bach & Beyond or online here (or at the door, if we’re not sold out). Show times are 7:30 p.m. Tuesday through Thursday, 8 p.m. Friday and Saturday, and 2 p.m. Sunday.

It’s a good show. It’d be a sin to miss it!

For audiences, it’s not physical vocabulary but Shakespeare’s 400-year-old verbal vocabulary that may intimidate. But Geoffrey Whynot, who plays Theseus and Oberon, points out that “in real life we don’t necessarily hear every word someone speaks. I think if the actors are clear on what they’re saying, what the relationships and the journeys are, even if the audience hears a word that’s archaic, they will understand it contextually, and they will still hear the emotional life of the line.”

There’s a lot of “emotional life” in A Midsummer Night’s Dream. “The point of it is love,” Whynot says: characters develop an understanding of love and rediscover its power.

“And it is funny,” he adds.

“It’s so funny,” (artistic director Ruth) Smillie agrees.

And she also agrees it’s about love: “Romeo and Juliet without the swords and death,” she calls it.

“It takes the same premise, star-crossed lovers, and through fairy magic and fairy mishap it all comes right in the end. Through the night the metaphor is that these young lovers are actually able to see each other as individual people, whereas before it was all about lust and honour and all the rest of it.”

Here’s how the festival is described:

Local actors work with directors from across the country to help develop new plays by Saskatchewan Playwrights. We workshop the plays and then take them for a spin in front of a lively local audience.

Each play will be workshopped (2-6 days) with professional actors and directors and then the plays will be presented as Staged Readings. The readings can range from actors at music stands to full on productions with scripts in hand.

I’ve been hired for the cast of Kobyla, by B.D. Millar, directed by Sharon Pollock. It’s described this way:

Kobyla is the true story of Nazi war criminal Hermine Braunsteiner. In 1964, her quiet life as a New York housewife is turned upside down when she is exposed by Simon Wiesenthal. Her American husband, Russell, vows to stand by her to the end. But can his devotion survive the trials and accusations that follow?

Our reading of Kobyla will be Tuesday, May 13, at 8 p.m. in the University of Regina’s Riddell Centre (presumably in the small “black box” theatre space known as the Shu-Box). Admission is free.

Other readings over the week include The Offal Truth by Bob Armstrong on Monday, The Freaks! and Living Wonders! Circus Sideshow by Will Brooks on Wednesday, Swamp Fever by James Misfeldt on Thursday, Old Farts by Madeleine Dalhem on Friday, The Last Windwalker by Catherine Harrison on Saturday at 2 p.m., and Johnny Zed! The Musical! by Daniel Macdonald, Henry Piovesan and Sheldon Davis on Saturday at 8 p.m.

It sounds like an exciting week of new work. Come check it out!

Nevertheless, I can make a make a few bold predictions: the actors nominated most likely appeared in dramas from major film distributors, and have either been nominated in the past or appeared in a film starring or directed by previous nominees.

Yes, for those of you who think that scientific research is too often focused on the needlessly esoteric, I give you “I’d Like to Thank the Academy, Complementary Productivity, and Social Networks,” a working paper by Nicole Esparza and Gabriel Rossman of the California Center for Population Research at UCLA.

As the abstract states, “This paper explores under what conditions a film actor will be nominated for an Academy Award.”

It explores three questions: whether “asymmetric centrality in the network of screen credits predicts Oscar nomination,” whether the skill of the other members of the filmmaking team has “spillovers” for the actor, and whether network ties to Academy members make a nomination more likely.

The authors helpfully explain all these questions in terms of Robert DeNiro (well, why not?).

“Asymmetric centrality in the network of screen credits” is defined as, “If an actor has outranked Robert DeNiro in a screen credit does this imply high status and the career rewards that come with it?” The second question translates as, “does having Robert DeNiro as a co-star make one more likely to be nominated for an Oscar?” and the third as, “Does your having worked with Robert DeNiro in the past make it more likely that he will nominate you for an award today?”

How do you go about answering these questions? Esparza and Rossman drew on every film geek’s go-to source for detailed information about movies: the Internet Movie Database. They looked at data contained therein on 171,539 performances by 39,518 actors in all 19,351 Oscar-eligible films made between the founding of the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences in 1928 and 2005. A total of 1,394 of those actors were nominated for Academy Awards

Their conclusions? The single best thing an actor can do to boost his or her chances of being nominated is to avoid comedies: actors are nine times more likely to receive a nomination for work in a drama than in a non-drama.

Another good move is to avoid acting in a year in which a lot of movies are made. Not too surprisingly, actors were more likely to be nominated in years when fewer movies were screened.

Women are more than twice as likely to be nominated as men, simply because there are fewer female than male performers in films.

As for the “asymmetric centrality” effect, yep, it’s real: performers who regularly placed high in the credits of their movies were twice as likely to be nominated as those who didn’t.

Having a major distributor was the fifth most likely predictor for a nomination: it also almost doubled a performer’s odds, as did having been nominated for an Oscar in the past.

To answer the second question in the abstract, yes, performers get spillovers from high-powered creative teams. The researchers dubbed this the “Robert Forster Effect,” after Robert Forster, a character actor who performed in dozens of films but only received a nomination when he appeared in the 1997 movie “Jackie Brown,” written and directed by Quentin Tarantino and co-starring Samuel L. Jackson, and—yes—Robert DeNiro.

(However, performing with such high-powered costars can be a mixed blessing. It only improves the odds of being nominated as a supporting actor, not as a lead actor, which is what happened to Forster even though he had more screen time than either Jackson or DeNiro.)

The biggest surprise in the study turns out to be the answer to the third question in the abstract: industry ties had very little influence on nominations. People who had worked for years with a wide array of Academy members were no more likely to be nominated than those who hadn’t.

For you, oh readers in my future, the nominations for this year’s Oscar are now an open book.

You have my fearless, science-based predictions in hand.

How’d I do?

Looks like I’ll be part of the cast for Beauty and the Beast at Persephone Theatre in Saskatoon in December. Should be fun, and it’s also exciting because this will be the show that launches the brand-new downtown theatre: I gather our first preview will also be the theatre’s grand opening night. Very cool!

I auditioned for the Beast but didn’t get that; instead, I’ll be playing Monsieur Dark, who runs the asylum Gaston tries to get Belle’s father committed to, and “as cast,” which could mean anything from villagers to wolves to animated dinnerware–or all three.

If you’re in the vicinity, hope to see you in the audience!