The Lunchbox Interview: Len Falkenstein, Alex Donovan, Jean-Michel Cliche on “Lac/Athabasca”

Authors are often asked, “Where do you get your ideas?”

For some, it’s from gentle nature, or from friends and family.

For Len Falkenstein, inspiration came in part from the tragedy of Lac Megantique — and the outrage that it ever happened.

Len Falkenstein is the author and director of Lac/Athabasca, a new play that has been shown in BC and Ontario and now comes to our very own Memorial Hall on October 14 to October 17. He joined me today along with two of the actors from the show, Alex Donovan and Jean-Michel Cliche, to talk about the experience of writing and staging this play, the challenges of the interspersed storylines, and playing multiple characters.

Music today:

We began with The Dears with We Lost Everything, from the new album Times Infinity, Volume 1.
A gentle-ish nod to those who have lost everything, we heard from Hey Rosetta with the song Soft Offering (For The Oft Suffering) from Second Sight.
And we ended with Midnight Meets The Rain from Destroyer, off the new album Poison Season.