some time ago in 2007, joesph unrau and i encouraged local theatre makers to write a letter to their younger self with advice. the idea was to be a mentor to yourself, if you could. the project spoke to a personal need for experienced trusted advice and desire for a transference of knowledge within the community. we valued people's experience from the most 'successful' to those practicing in amateur theatre. this was very important to us. by chance, the project found the right people namely ken cameron who was at the artistic director of the magnetic north theatre festival at the time, and has been part of the compass points programming ever since... largely by the efforts of long time conference coordinator liz truchanowicz and recent coordinators karen gross, and this past year brian postalian. they have continued to ask theatre makers from all across this country to write these letters, and they dispersed amongst the compass points participants. below are some of those letters from this year and years past. maybe some day we will make them into a book. i share them with you so that you might experience a little of the same feeling i get when i read them. thanks liz, brian, karen, ken, and all the people who took time to write them including our local practitioners here in halifax. xo
