Nathan Schmidt and Griffin Cork in the Rosebud Theatre production of Stones in His Pockets by Marie Jones. Director Morris Ertman, Scenic Designer Hanne Loosen, Costume Designer Amy Castro, Lighting Designer Becky Halterman, Sound Designer/Composer Luke Ertman.
Rosebud Theatre’s production of Stones in His Pockets by Marie Jones is a highly entertaining and wonderfully crafted production. The play is designed so that two actors portray fifteen different characters. The story focuses on Jake Quinn and Charlie Conlon who have been hired as extras along with plenty of other town folk by a big Hollywood Studio that’s shooting on location in Ireland. Jake and Charlie are down on their luck, but Charlie has a screenplay that he feels could turn their fortunes around if he could get it into the hands of the right people.
The play stars Nathan Schmidt as Jake Quinn, Griffin Cork as Charlie Conlon, and is directed by Morris Ertman. Some of the other characters portrayed by Nathan and Griffin include Caroline Giovanni the American star of the film, Clem the film’s English director, Sean and Fin a couple of young lads from town, and Mickey a local in his seventies whose claim to fame is being one of the few surviving extras on the 1952 film The Quiet Man starring John Wayne.
Stones in His Pockets premiered at the Lyric Theatre in Belfast in 1996, and when it was produced at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in 1999 it became a huge hit. From the Fringe the play moved to the West End in London where in 2001 it won the Olivier Award for Best New Comedy and the Olivier Award for Best Actor for Conleth Hill who many people may know better as Varys in the HBO Fantasy series Game of Thrones. From the West End the show travelled to New York for a successful Broadway run and since then has been performed by regional theatres throughout the world.
I was lucky enough to catch the opening night production of Stones in His Pockets and I had a thoroughly enjoyable, entertaining, and fun evening at the theatre. I sat down with the stars of the show Nathan Schmidt and Griffin Cork to talk with them about the play and we started our conversation by talking about the magic of the theatre and what that word means to them.
NATHAN SCHMIDT
I guess what people mean by magic is something unbelievable that happens right in front of them. And then coming to the theatre you experience the emotions of the story, and it all seems ethereal and magical, and all of a sudden you’re taken up in a story and carried along by the cast or a certain kind of music or the way the lighting cues hit, and it hooks everything up for you, and you become a part of this group of people as the audience experiencing the show. And it’s such a unique kind of experience that you don’t have very often. I think that’s part of what the magic is.
GRIFFIN CORK
I always relate it back to my grandmother a little bit. I always describe her as the ideal audience because she says her perfect show is one that makes her forget about her shopping list. And she likes to think that the story is being told for her only. That it’s her bedtime story is the way she puts it.
And to me, the magic of theatre is that it makes you believe the story. You start to care about that guy on stage and it’s the punch through of that suspension of disbelief. So, in this day and age, if you can make my grandmother forget about her shopping list, I think that’s pretty magical.
JAMES HUTCHISON
Well, I mentioned magic and we often see magic between actors, they have chemistry, they play well off each other. And I can definitely say after seeing the show last week that you guys have great chemistry. This is a two-person show where you’re playing multiple characters. So being in sync is absolutely essential. How much of that chemistry between the two of you was there naturally and how much of it is something that you work on through the process of rehearsal and the performance of the play?
GRIFFIN
I did my audition with Nate which gave our director Morris Ertman and us a pretty good idea about how well we naturally play off each other. And when we did the first read our set designer Hanne Loosen came up to me and said, “Have you read that with Nate before?” And I said, “No, not all the way through.” And she said, “Oh, yeah, you guys are just pinging off each other.” So, there was already bedrock there and I think our sensibilities and our senses of humour line up pretty well.
I don’t know that I ever actively worked on chemistry with Nate, but when you spend forty-five hours a week together you get to know somebody pretty well. And I think I also formed a rapport with our director Morris, and our stage manager Kalena, and our production stage manager Brad, but the audience doesn’t see that rapport because its not on stage. It’s kind of what rehearsal is for in a sense – to build chemistry with the people you haven’t worked with before.
Griffin Cork and Nathan Schmidt in the Rosebud Theatre production of Stones in His Pockets by Marie Jones. Director Morris Ertman, Scenic Designer Hanne Loosen, Costume Designer Amy Castro, Lighting Designer Becky Halterman, Sound Designer/Composer Luke Ertman.
NATHAN
I think it was a John Cusack quote that said one of the skills the actor has is to develop a shorthand for deep relationships. So, it’s actually part of the skill set to be able to speak to each other with a depth of understanding that you maybe don’t actually own but that is actually there because of the trust you have for each other and because of the type of work that we do. We put ourselves in the other person’s hands. And for sure, there are some people you connect with more quickly. Griffin’s quite a bit younger, but we have similar sensibilities. So, I think that chemistry while some of it’s about the people I also think part of it is the skill set to go deep with people quickly.
JAMES
The play takes place in County Kerry, Ireland and the local town is being used as the location for a big Hollywood movie, and the locals are being used as extras. Tell me a little bit about this world, and the world of the play.
NATHAN
It’s really a town that’s lost so much of what made it a town, and people are hanging on there and staying because it is their hometown. So, we have Mr. Harkin selling his land – selling off a lot of his son Sean’s birthright – just to make ends meet because of an economic downturn in the local economy. That’s pretty relatable. And people have that small-town feeling of there’s nothing here for me. There’s no future for me. I have nothing to hope for. The older people are upset by that. They’re hanging on because this is where they’re from and there’s pride in that. The young people don’t see a place to connect and find a life. And then this movie comes and injects all this money into the economy because of the scenery and the beauty of the land and the forty shades of green but it’s just a location to them nothing more.
GRIFFIN
The play is full of harsh dichotomies. There are the people in the town, and then people who have come to the town for the film, the film crew. And even in those groups, there are dichotomies. The townspeople either love the movie or hate the movie. And then in the film, there are people who love Kerry and people who hate Kerry. And then the way that they shoot films is terrible. They dig up the landscape, and they over-inflate the economy, and they work the people to death, and then they leave without any regard really. So, for me, the whole show is about seeing people teeter-totter between the two sides. And I would say the play is exploring the nature of success. Like, what is success? Is it to be famous? Or is it to make a living in the place that you love?
JAMES
The show’s being performed in Rosebud. A hamlet an hour or so drive east of Calgary, not far from Drumheller. And I was hoping each of you could speak a little bit about your unique relationship with Rosebud. Nathan, you’re not only an actor in the show, but you head up the Rosebud School of Theatre’s acting department and make your home in the community.
NATHAN
I grew up in rural Alberta farther north. There was no theatre. Nobody went to the theatre. My family never went to the theatre. It just wasn’t part of the culture that I was in. But our school went to the Citadel Theatre in Edmonton every year. We’d go to a play, and I just thought it was the coolest thing.
And I kind of came to the awareness that it was actually a job that people did. There was a moment where I was like, “Wait a minute, that’s a job. That’s work. They’re at work. That looks like pretty cool work to me.” Everybody was saying, “Oh, you go to a university, and you get your career.” And I’m like, “But those people are doing theatre for a job. That’s pretty great, right?”
So, Rosebud came right along on the heels of those realizations, and it ended up being a place where I could stay connected to theatre and the whole town’s economy is based around doing theatre. And I really enjoyed doing the acting, but I also get to teach, and when I teach I’m constantly redefining and re-articulating and reworking how I work and how I engage story, and so Rosebud became a place to put down roots.
GRIFFIN
I think Rosebud is fantastic. There will always be a city boy inside of me that I can’t shake. But Rosebud is kind of idyllic in the sense of what you would picture a small town should be. Bill Ham the music director here at Rosebud also fixes bikes, and he fixed my bike in his garage. He didn’t train for it or anything he just liked watching videos and figuring out how to fix bikes. And we sat in his garage, and he fixed my bike, and I said, “Great, what do I owe you?” And he goes, “No, no, no.” And I said, “You fixed my bike and if I was in the city, I would pay the bike fixer.” And he said, “No, don’t ruin this.” And I went, “Okay.” So, I had to ask his daughter, who is my landlord, what he likes, and she told me, and so I bought him a big bag of Chicago mix popcorn. It’s that kind of community.
Griffin Cork and Nathan Schmidt in the Rosebud Theatre production of Stones in His Pockets by Marie Jones. Director Morris Ertman, Scenic Designer Hanne Loosen, Costume Designer Amy Castro, Lighting Designer Becky Halterman, Sound Designer/Composer Luke Ertman.
JAMES
So, the play takes place in Ireland and there’s the phrase “the luck of the Irish.” And that can mean that the Irish are inherently lucky, or it can mean that even though the Irish have had some hard luck they’ve overcome those hardships and gone on. How do you think the idea of luck relates to the story of Stones in His Pockets and what happens in the play and then second looking back on your own lives and careers what role do you think luck plays in our lives – how much of an influence do you think luck has on our path through this world?
GRIFFIN
I like exploring the idea of luck – especially through Charlie’s story. Charlie’s not lacking in ambition or initiative, but something switched for him when he partners up with Jake and they start to talk about doing a film about cows. His outcome hope is different. Before his ambition and initiative were leading to something more superficial. Getting to be famous, not working too hard, and getting to be rich. The cow film they talk about making is something they honestly believe in and a story they believe needs to be told.
NATHAN
When Charlie gets an opportunity with his script, he’s so used to not having anything good happen he says, “I knew no one would look at it. I knew no one would ever read it.” I think luck comes when we’ve got eyes enough to see the opportunity and know that we should grab hold of it and do it. And in hindsight, we call it luck. Well, isn’t it lucky that showed up when it did. But it actually was, I had enough awareness to step into my own agency and follow that path.
GRIFFIN
And I think luck has quite a bit to do with our industry but there are also things that you can do to prepare for a lucky break, and I think luck and opportunity are wasted without initiative and ambition.
NATHAN
I don’t have a rabbit’s foot and I don’t rub anything for luck. I don’t pay much attention to luck. But I do think it’s lucky that I found this place from the question you asked before. I wouldn’t have known about Rosebud but somebody that I’d gone to school with came over and I never had friends over because I was a bit of a loner and they came over to visit and said, “Oh, I heard about this place Rosebud,…” and this is right at the time when I was thinking about theatre as a future. “Oh, it’s a little theatre town in southern Alberta where they teach theatre.” And I was like, “Okay, I’ll try that.” And that was it. You can say, “Well, isn’t that lucky she came for a visit.” Or was it lucky that I said, “I’ll try that.” I don’t know. But I do feel lucky, I guess.
Griffin cork and Nathan Schmidt in the Rosebud Theatre production of Stones in His Pockets by Marie Jones. Director Morris Ertman, Scenic Designer Hanne Loosen, Costume Designer Amy Castro, Lighting Designer Becky Halterman, Sound Designer/Composer Luke Ertman.
JAMES
Well, we’re coming out of COVID and it’s good to see live theatre up and running again and if people are looking at heading back to the theatre why should they head out to Rosebud to see this production of Stones in His Pockets?
NATHAN
We just had 170 people in the house today and they had a ball. This show is a good time and people are enjoying themselves. And I always think the drive out here is part of the whole experience. I think there’s something really connecting and nostalgic about the trip out here and then you get to see what we’ve been talking about. A really good play. It’s a good reason to come out. It’s just a delight to have a room full of people again. We just appreciate it and I find it so energizing and exciting.
GRIFFIN
And there is something very beautiful to me about watching a big show with a small cast. And theatre has something that other mediums like film will never have, and it’s that you get to do theatre in front of people that you know are there, and they know that you know they’re there. And you get to actually hear them laugh, or hear them cry, or hear them cough, or hear their phone go off.
NATHAN (Laughs)
Well, that’s the magic, isn’t it?
GRIFFIN (Laughs)
Yeah.
***
Stones in His Pockets by Marie Jones stars Griffin Cork as Charlie Conlon and Nathan Schmidt as Jake Quinn. Director Morris Ertman, Scenic Designer Hanne Loosen, Costume Designer Amy Castro, Lighting Designer Becky Halterman, Sound Designer/Composer Luke Ertman, Stage Manager Kalena Lewandowski, Stage Manager (Rehearsal) Brad G. Graham.
When romance novelist Paul Sheldon is rescued from a car crash by his “number one fan” Annie Wilkes – he feels lucky to be alive. As Paul slowly recovers from his injuries in Annie’s isolated home, Annie reads Paul’s latest novel and discovers to her horror that Paul kills off Misery – her favourite character. That’s when Annie’s obsession takes a dark turn, and she forces Paul to write a new novel that brings Misery back to life. In a perilous game of survival, Paul works on the new novel while plotting his escape from the menacing and unpredictable Annie Wilkes.
Misery stars Anna Cummer as Annie Wilkes, Haysam Kadri as Paul Sheldon, and Curt McKinstry as Buster and I’m happy to report that Vertigo’s production of Misery is a thrilling dive into the scary world of deadly obsession. Everything you want in a psychological thriller is here including phenomenal performances, an incredible set, atmospheric lighting, a chilling soundscape, and plenty of big payoffs all under the gifted direction of Jamie Dunsdon.
I sat down with Jamie to talk with her about Misery, and I started our conversation by asking her what is it about Annie Wilkes that makes her such a compelling and menacing character.
JAMIE DUNSDON
What makes her so compelling is that she’s so human. She feels so real. She’s not a villain. She’s not Moriarty. She’s broken is what she is. She’s a normal human being. She’s someone who has had hurt in her life and pain in her life, and she just used the wrong means to cope with it and that led to an obsession which led to fanaticism.
And for her, this is a love story. For Paul, this is a survival story. She’s entering this story from a much different angle than everyone else. And then she can snap on a dime, which makes her unpredictable and frightening and complex.
Anna Cummer as Annie Wilkes in the Vertigo Theatre Production of Misery based on the book by Stephen King and adapted for the stage by William Goldman. Directed by Jamie Dunsdon. Set Design by Scott Reid, Costume Design by Rebecca Toon, Lighting Design by Anton deGroot, Photo Tim Nguyen.
JAMES HUTCHISON
You’ve got a wonderful cast with Anna Cummer as Annie Wilkes and Haysam Kadri as Paul Sheldon. Tell me a little bit about how these actors are bringing these characters to life and what we can expect as an audience.
JAMIE
When I was casting, I didn’t want a Kathy Bates impersonation. It was about finding a person who could bring complexity to this character. I think it’s easy to look at a character like Annie Wilkes and just play a psychopath. I wanted an actor who could enter her from a human angle. And I felt the same way about the Paul character. I didn’t want a James Caan impersonation. I didn’t want someone to do the same thing that he did.
We’re not trying to do an impersonation of the film, even though this is an adaptation of the film more than of the novel. We are trying to honour what audiences want from the Misery story while also giving them something that’s a little more rounded and a little more complex. So, Anna and Haysam bring something that’s really beautiful to the characters. They bring their years of theatre experience and playing real rounded human characters, so these characters on stage feel like people you could know, and that’s mesmerizing to watch.
Anna Cummer as Annie Wilkes and Haysam Kadri as Paul Sheldon in the Vertigo Theatre Production of Misery based on the book by Stephen King and adapted for the stage by William Goldman. Directed by Jamie Dunsdon. Set Design by Scott Reid, Costume Design by Rebecca Toon, Lighting Design by Anton deGroot, Photo Tim Nguyen.
JAMES
You know, one of the most chilling aspects of the story is the fact that there actually have been fans who have stalked and killed the very people they claim to admire and love.
JAMIE
I know.
JAMES
That’s what’s so strange about humans, right, how that love can twist into hate. And I wonder what do you think it is about human nature that makes some people travel down that dark path of obsession and violence?
JAMIE
I’m not sure what makes them go down that path. I think people who have trauma and then live with that trauma on a loop in their head are looking for coping mechanisms and that can make the mind do dangerous things.
And then I’m guessing what happens with obsession is there’s a shift in the concept of ownership. I think a lot of fans feel ownership over the thing that they love, and when that ownership gets carried to its furthest logical conclusion ownership means control, and ownership means they have a right to control the subject or the object of their fascination and fanaticism. I think objectification and ownership is probably where the shift happens in their mind.
But what makes people go down that path? I’m not sure.
In our production, we’re playing with what happens when people get traumatized. What’s going to happen to Paul Sheldon if he lives through this experience? Is he going to be a different person on the other side? Is he going to be a different person in the same way that Annie is clearly a different person than the child she was? Something happened to her and her past made her who she is.
Anna Cummer as Annie Wilkes and Haysam Kadri as Paul Sheldon in the Vertigo Theatre Production of Misery based on the book by Stephen King and adapted for the stage by William Goldman. Directed by Jamie Dunsdon. Set Design by Scott Reid, Costume Design by Rebecca Toon, Lighting Design by Anton deGroot, Photo Tim Nguyen.
JAMES
In the play, Paul doesn’t give up. He’s resourceful. He’s trying to figure his way out of this situation. So why doesn’t he give up? What keeps him going? What do you think the story says about our desire to fight and survive?
JAMIE
In the novel, he kind of does give up. There are some significant moments in the novel where he wishes for death. We don’t go quite that far in the play, although we hint at it. I think what happens and what pushes him through is probably that Paul gets broken down into the animal version of himself, and that animal instinct to survive.
And the other thing is, he’s got something to fight for. Being locked in this little room changes him. It makes him a better person in a lot of ways. Trauma tends to make someone either a better or a worse version of themselves. And so, I think, he gets a new outlook on the world, and that gives him something he’s trying to escape for. He has a different perspective about his life as a writer and the characters he writes about and a deeper love of the work he’s done. I think he is transformed by this experience.
Haysam Kadri as Paul Sheldon in the Vertigo Theatre Production of Misery based on the book by Stephen King and adapted for the stage by William Goldman. Directed by Jamie Dunsdon. Set Design by Scott Reid, Costume Design by Rebecca Toon, Lighting Design by Anton deGroot, Photo Tim Nguyen.
JAMES
A theatre production involves all kinds of elements and talented people working on those aspects of a production. What are some of the elements you’re bringing together in terms of set design, lighting, sound, costumes, and makeup and how are you using some of those elements to tell the story?
JAMIE
This adaptation of Misery was commissioned by Warner Brothers for a Broadway production, and they pulled out all the stops. They put Warner Brothers’ money into it. The play is massive. And the team at Vertigo has pulled out all the stops as well. They’ve really embraced the challenge.
We’ve got special effects. We’ve got fire. We’ve got guns. We’re using light in a sort of cinematic way. And Scott Reed is doing my set for Misery which I’m really lucky for because the set for this show is very demanding. How do you create a claustrophobic space on stage while also allowing for all the other things that need to happen inside the house? I won’t spoil it, but Scott’s given us a really beautiful mechanism to work with that allows us to travel through the house but to also feel the claustrophobia of Paul’s room.
Misery can feel like a small story. It can feel like a little two-hander, but the scale of this production is pretty massive. I made a list of every special effect in the show and every unusual bit of combat and choreography, and production challenges, and I think that every production challenge that has ever existed in theatre is in this play. Except for bubbles, maybe.
JAMES
Is it too late to add the bubbles?
JAMIE
No, it’s not too late. I’ll look for a place. Just for you.
JAMES
Excellent.
JAMIE
I think audiences are in for a treat. It’s not spectacle for the sake of spectacle. It’s all there to serve the story. Some of the special effects are really tiny and you wouldn’t even think of them as special effects, but they’re special effects to us because they require special technology or a special prop. There are a lot of tricks that we have to do in this production to make things possible.
Haysam Kadri as Paul Sheldon in the Vertigo Theatre Production of Misery based on the book by Stephen King and adapted for the stage by William Goldman. Directed by Jamie Dunsdon. Set Design by Scott Reid, Costume Design by Rebecca Toon, Lighting Design by Anton deGroot, Photo Tim Nguyen.
JAMES
There are lots of different schools of thought about approaching directing and putting on a show and I’m curious to know how you describe your own approach to directing and whether or not you follow any particular philosophy or process or method.
JAMIE
I don’t have a process. In fact, my approach or my process is to not have a process. I was trained with a process. I did my masters in directing and so I learned a process. I learned an approach to tackling plays, but over the last fifteen years of my directing career, I found that when you try to paste a process on top of any given project you’re asking that project to fit within a previously held set of parameters. And that doesn’t work. Every play means something new. So, my approach is to learn what kind of director I need to be for each project.
So, for this cast, for example, I’ve worked with Haysam and Anna and Kurt McKinstry who is in the show as well. I’ve worked with them all before. I know them as actors. I trust them as actors implicitly. And they trust me. We have a really great relationship.
So, we do table work at the beginning and we did some table work on this, but back in my early days of directing, I would have felt the need to write down our objectives for every scene. And today I’m much more like – okay we can talk about our objectives, but we’re not really going to know everything until we’re up on our feet. So, there’s a lot more fluidity than there used to be in my process. There’s a lot more responsiveness to the needs of the moment. So, my approach to directing is to be responsive rather than prescriptive.
JAMES
Is there something about the play or directing or theatre you never get asked that you’d love people to know about?
JAMIE
I would love people to know about the role of the stage manager because most people don’t know what the stage manager is, and the average audience member will never know who that person is or how they exist in the world of the play if the stage manager is doing their job.
And on this show, we have a team of stage managers that are holding this thing up. Every moment they are running around backstage doing things and getting things ready. Meredith Johnson is my lead stage manager, and I often joke that the best-kept secret in Calgary is that the best director in town is Meredith Johnson. She’s a hero and a consummate artist, and without her artistry a show like this wouldn’t work. And it is artistry. There’s timing. There’s finesse. There’s an element of directing in stage management. The true hero of productions like this one are the stage managers.
Anna Cummer as Annie Wilkes and Curt McKinstry as Buster in the Vertigo Theatre Production of Misery based on the book by Stephen King and adapted for the stage by William Goldman. Directed by Jamie Dunsdon. Set Design by Scott Reid, Costume Design by Rebecca Toon, Lighting Design by Anton deGroot, Photo Tim Nguyen.
JAMES
I’m going to go back a couple of years. Back in March of 2020, you were directing a production of Admissions by Joshua Harmon for Theatre Calgary. I think it was just about to open or it had just opened and then COVID hit.
JAMIE
It was about to open the next day.
JAMES
And you had to shut it down and here we are now September 2022. Two and a half years later. I’m curious about two aspects. First, what was it like having to close that show and then what’s it like coming back with a full production now? And I’m curious to know how do you think COVID has impacted the theatre world and you as an artist.
JAMIE
Not being able to open Admissions was one of the most painful things I’ve gone through in my career. We got so close. It was a show I was proud of. It was a show that was doing really well in previews. I feel like it was all this unfulfilled potential energy that was suspended and never got released. So, I have a lot of sadness about the fact that show never opened, and it was a show that not only got postponed but they chose not to bring it back in the end. So, it’s deeply sad for me, and I carry a lot of sadness about that project.
I think a lot of theatre artists have experienced that in the last couple of years, and it’s made them question why they do theatre. There’s a lot of pain in this industry right now. We’ve seen ourselves get shut down and locked away and so now that we’re coming back what I’m seeing is this real joy of being in a room with people that you trust and you want to create with again, and that’s really beautiful and more beautiful than it used to be because we’re aware of how special it is, and we’re more aware of the ritual of live theatre – of the empathetic ritual of coming together in a space to experience things together.
***
Misery stars Anna Cummer as Annie Wilkes, Haysam Kadri as Paul Sheldon, and Curt McKinstry as Buster. Katherine Fadum is the understudy for this production. Misery is directed by Jamie Dunsdon, Set Design by Scott Reid, Costume Design by Rebecca Toon, Lighting Design by Anton deGroot, Sound Design & Composition by Dewi Wood, Fight Direction by Karl Sine, Stage Management by Meredith Johnson, Carissa Sams and Michael Luong.
“I believe we move in the direction that lights us up. That captures our attention. That we feel passionate about. But my end destination keeps changing and what makes me happy keeps changing. I thought when I started all of this, I wanted to be an actress. I didn’t know I was going to be aplaywright. And I like playwriting a whole hell of a lot better. It’s really about trusting the path and letting go of the outcome because how can you really foresee where the path will take you? If someone comes along and mentors you they can only tell you what path they took. But that’s not you. That’s not your path. I used to feel like a failed actress but if I had taken different steps along the way, maybe I wouldn’t have ended up loving playwriting so much or being as happy as I am being a playwright.”
Meredith Taylor-Parry Playwright
Playwright Meredith Taylor-Parry whose previous plays Book Club and Book Club II: The Next Chapter were big hits for Lunchbox Theatre has a new play at Lunchbox premiering on May 10th called Shark Bite. The two Book Club plays focused primarily on the challenges and joys of motherhood and marriage while her new play turns its attention to the relationship between a grandfather and his troubled fourteen-year-old granddaughter Ava as the two struggle to find the love and connection they once shared when Ava was a child.
I first met Meredith back in 2011 at Playworks Ink a theatre conference focusing on playwriting run by the Alberta Playwrights Network and Theatre Alberta. At that time Meredith was just beginning her playwriting journey and she was in the early stages of working on her play Survival Skills which won the New Works of Merit Playwriting Contest in 2013 and was produced Off-Off-Broadway in April 2014 by the 13th Street Repertory Company in New York City.
Meredith is a gifted playwright who is as adept at comedy as she is at drama, and her newest play is a touching and heartfelt glimpse into the age-old challenges of family members trying to reach out across the generations. I contacted Meredith back in March to talk with her about Shark Bite, life-changing decisions, sources of creative energy, and playwriting.
JAMES
One of the things we experience both as an audience and as an artist is a divergence of opinion regarding the work we see and the work we create. And by that, I mean the same movie or book or painting can be praised as the most meaningful and deeply moving experience of someone’s life and someone else will not feel a thing. One person can love it. Another person can hate it. Do you have an explanation for that divergence of opinion in ourselves and in others, and what does that tell you about us as humans?
MEREDITH
I think to sum it up in one sentence – people are complicated. Think of how complicated we are in our personalities and our histories and our experience. So of course, one piece of art is going to mean something completely different to someone else, or they’re going to experience it in different ways. That being said, what I’ve always been told about writing was that the more specific you are to your own experience the more you’re going to relate to a wider group of people.
So instead of trying to figure out what your audience wants, go to the heart and truth of your own experience as much as you can, and you will reach more people. That’s how you find your people. Your audience. The people that want to listen to what you have to say and to what story you want to tell. Because if you’re authentic through your writing and tell your story and your truth, then you seem to reach those people out there who are listening for it. They want to hear it because they experienced something similar.
JAMES
Have you ever had a critical moment in your life where someone or something you’ve encountered has resulted in a decision that changed your life’s path?
MEREDITH
Absolutely. I just feel weird about getting into it because I’m going to get pretty personal but what the f*ck! So, I got involved with a guy who was married back on the East Coast and if you flipped open a sociology textbook you could find a paragraph with our pictures above because it was that typical.
“I’m not happy with my marriage. I’m so sad. And now that you’ve come along, I understand what real love is. Maybe I’m finally ready to leave my wife. But no, I made vows. But I’m so unhappy. And you’re so great and amazing. Let’s get an apartment together! No this is moving too fast for me, I need to think. Blah blah blah.”
And I’ve written about this. I’ve written about this a number of times. Trying to work it out. That’s when I first started writing. That’s what I was writing about. It finally came down to this very dramatic scene in a small rural town in Nova Scotia, where I was sitting in a car and all three characters were there. The mistress, the husband, and the wife and they were screaming at each other. And I thought, “Oh my God, this is a Women’s Television Network fucking movie. And I am part of it. I’ve let my life become this drama.” And it was so clear to me that if one person did not withdraw that this crazy dysfunctional silly drama would continue on for who knows how long. That’s a lot of energy and a lot of pain and a lot of suffering. And I didn’t want any part of that anymore and I wanted to step out of the drama.
So, I did. I went home. I talked to my wonderfully smart, kind, and very wise roomie at the time who was my best girlfriend. And she organized a girl’s camping weekend around the gorgeous Cabot Trail in Cape Breton with a few good friends. By the time we had finished that trip, I decided I was going to get in my car and drive across Canada, cause I love a good road trip, and figure my life out. Those women and that weekend changed my life. Never underestimate the power of the female friendship. So, within two weeks, I packed up all my stuff, dropped it off at my parents and started a road trip and ended up out here. That’s how I ended up in Calgary. So – life-changing.
If I hadn’t done that God knows I’d still be back in Nova Scotia. I never would have had a little look-see and gander around Canada and figured out where I wanted to be. I’m sure I never would have ended up in the arts. I never would have had enough guts to go and do my BFA and my MFA. There’s no way I would have ended up as a playwright.
It’s a really interesting movie. But in the book, there’s a line that goes, “Who we want to be doesn’t matter when there’s no way to get there.” And that really brought to mind the idea of guidance and mentorship in life for me. It’s like how do we figure out how to become the artist?
MEREDITH
I think our picture of who we want to be isn’t the destination. I believe that. When someone says I don’t know the path to get there it’s like – take a fucking step in the direction of where you think you want to go and then watch the magic happen. Because in my life, every time I’ve done a big bold move the universe has come in tenfold.
For example, you may ask how does an elementary school teacher manage to take a road trip across Canada with no job prospects and end up out in Calgary? It’s because within a week after I’d made that decision to leave, I had a big unexpected financial windfall.
I believe we move in the direction that lights us up. That captures our attention. That we feel passionate about. But my end destination keeps changing and what makes me happy keeps changing. I thought when I started all of this, I wanted to be an actress. I didn’t know I was going to be a playwright. And I like playwriting a whole hell of a lot better. It’s really about trusting the path and letting go of the outcome because how can you really foresee where the path will take you? If someone comes along and mentors you they can only tell you what path they took. But that’s not you. That’s not your path. I used to feel like a failed actress but if I had taken different steps along the way, maybe I wouldn’t have ended up loving playwriting so much or being as happy as I am being a playwright.
Anna Cummer, Cheryl Hutton, Kira Bradley and Arielle Rombough in a scene from the Lunchbox Theatre production of Book Club II: The Next Chapter Photograph by Benjamin Laird
I remember making a decision when I was turning thirty. I already had two degrees. I had a Bachelor of Education and a Bachelor of Sociology. Should I go take a Bachelor of Fine Arts and spend all that money or should I go to SAIT and take the film and television course, which was notoriously hard to get into at the time, but it seemed more practical, because I thought, “Well, I could still be on camera. I’ll just be working in television. Maybe I’ll be hosting a show or maybe I’ll work in news.” And that seemed the more practical choice. And if you took a poll of all my friends, which I did, because I used to do that in order to try and make decisions, they all said, “Oh, SAIT. Doesn’t that sound more practical? It’s only two years. You’re not going to spend as much money. I can see you doing television or radio. You’ve always been interested in it.”
Maybe SAIT was more practical, but I went with my gut intuitive feeling that I would not be happy. I got accepted into SAIT. I probably got in because I was relaxed in the interview. I wasn’t hanging all my hopes and dreams on it. I got in, but then I phoned them up and I said, “You know what, I’m declining my seat because I’m going to go to the University of Calgary and I’m going to take my Bachelor of Fine Arts and Drama.” And the admissions person said, “Well, good luck to you.” He was nice. He was just kind of astounded because people wanted to get into the program so badly.
But I just had this epiphany moment and when I made that decision, I decided that from then on, I was going to make bold moves like that. I wasn’t going to do what culturally looked right or what my friends were telling me to do. I was going to go with my gut. And I feel like I’ve been rewarded. I feel very grateful for the life that I live now. I work hard to let go of the feeling that I’m a loser unless I’m a famous Canadian playwright or I’m making good money doing this. Which is so ridiculous because it’s such a crapshoot and there are so few people that are going to go into the arts and make money. Maybe it should just be enough that you’re happy with yourself and you’re happy with trying to get your work out into the world. Sometimes you do, and that should be sweet enough perhaps.
“The Biotechs” Meredith, Tanis, Jenny, and Krista – Banff 2019
JAMES
You mentioned friends. Who do you have in your life that can be brutally honest with you and how brutally honest are you with yourself?
MEREDITH
I subscribe to the philosophy of less brutality and more gentleness. So, I have a really good group of girlfriends who are honest with me, but we’re all each other’s biggest fans and we’re all really gentle with each other. And as far as being honest with myself in a workshop situation, for example, where you bring your play in and you lay it out and all the actors read it, I invite honesty. I just keep assuring people that I want to know if there’s something that doesn’t feel right to them. And you will get a lot of different opinions because as we said before, people are complicated. People respond differently to art. One scene that someone might love and adore another person may think is completely unnecessary. One character that I’m in love with someone else might find creepy.
So, I let everybody know at the beginning I want their honest feedback and that has come with experience. I certainly wasn’t like that at the beginning of my career. Not at all. But now I can handle anything. Just give it to me straight. I will write everything down because I feel like I have a really good inner bullshit meter that will tell me one of two things. Either: “You know what, that comment doesn’t serve the play OR shit they’re right. I didn’t see it before but now that they’ve given me that feedback I have to go back and fix that part. Oh my God, that entire scene has to come out and I have to write something else. What am I going to do? How am I going to fix that?”
Occasionally, I just note a comment and wait for two other people to tell me the same thing then I’ll go back and have a look at it. But I still have the dial on the bullshit meter that says, “Thanks for your feedback!” while I’m thinking, “No way would I touch that. I don’t care if you think that character is creepy. You can not like that character and that’s fine, but I’m not going to change anything or take that character out.”
Arielle Rombough, Kira Bradley, Anna Cummer, Kathryn Kerbes, and Cheryl Hutton in the 2016 Lunchbox Theatre Production of Book Club by Meredith Taylor Parry. Photograph by Meredith Taylor-Parry
JAMES
Let’s talk about creative energy. That’s been one of the challenges I’ve noticed over the last decade with my own writing because I’ve always thought of writing as something finite. In other words, something that gets used up in the day. It’s like a jug of wine, right? You drink as you write and by the end of the day the jug is empty, and you’ve used it all up. And if you use it up on other activities like blogging or writing commercials, which I used to do, there’s nothing left at the end of the day for your stories.
But just the last week I started to think about creative energy more like turning on a tap. In other words, it’s always available. It’s just you have to turn the tap on to use it. So, I could be at work and let’s say I’m a commercial writer, I turn it on. I create whatever I need to make a living. I turn it off when I head home. And then that night, I’ve got a two-hour block where I could turn the tap on again and do my own creative writing. How do you think of creative energy? The energy you use to create your art. Is it a finite thing to use up in a day? Is it a flowing thing? I’m just curious.
MEREDITH
There’s got to be something in the tap when you turn it on. You have to figure out how you replenish that supply or keep that supply flowing. And for me, it comes from other people. For example, my energy has completely changed since we started talking even though this morning, I had a bit of anxiety about doing the interview because I wanted to think carefully about my answers. But now that we’ve started talking about playwriting, I don’t give a shit because I get so excited and all the anxiety goes away. This crazy energy builds up in me and it’s fun because I love talking about writing and I love talking about plays and I love talking about making art.
And if you look at any of my plays they went from one level to a much higher level it was always because of an infusion of creativity from other artists offering their talent, ability, different points of view and brilliance to the project. For example, with Shark Bite Maezy Dennie, Robert Klein, Chantelle Han, and Ruby Dawn Eustaquio were a dream team. I keep getting dream teams at Lunchbox. Like the dream team I had for Book Club and Book Club II. It’s impossible to have all of that artistic talent in a room together and not get inspired. And I know that I need that. It’s just that sometimes I forget to seek that out. I’m pretty good at doing workshops if a workshop pops up from the Playwrights Guild of Canada or whatever. I will do a workshop because I know that I’m going to come out of that two-hour workshop and be full of creative energy, which is going to help my writing that day or the next day or in the weeks to come.
Meredith’s Mother Elizabeth Taylor, Meredith, and her sister Emily Taylor Smith on an Opera Tour in Budapest 2019
And I need to expose myself to other forms of art if I want to get creative energy to put into my own art. I need to visit art museums. I need to look at visual art. I need to listen to a lot of music and different kinds of music. I need to read fiction. I need to go to plays because that will replenish my creative energy. My mom and my sister and I would go on these amazing opera tours pre- Covid. There’s a company out of Ontario called ARIA tours and they handpick the wine that you’re going to drink in the two-star Michelin restaurant where you’re going to dine. And thanks to my Mom, I’ve gone to New York and Scandinavia and several different countries in Europe, and I’ve eaten great food and toured world-class art museums during the day and seen so much opera. I’m truly blessed to have been immersed in such amazing art experiences.
And getting outside. Walking or gardening or yard work. Even shovelling snow. You’re outside. You’re getting your vitamin D. You’re getting some fresh air. You’re doing something kind of mindless that you don’t need your brain for so your brain starts wandering and coming up with creative ideas or starts solving a problem in a play that you’re working on or comes up with an idea that you might use for a play.
All this stuff’s been said before though. I’m not making this up and you just have find what works for you. And those are the three things I can think of that work for me every time: being around creative people, experiencing art in other forms and going outside and walking or just moving your body in other ways like yard work.
JAMES
How has COVID made an impact on you over the last couple of years? How has it impacted you personally and professionally?
MEREDITH
It broke my stride as an artist, I think. It did a lot worse for a lot of other people, so I don’t mean to sound whiny, but I had just rented a desk at cSPACE in the sandbox which is a co-working space at the King Edward. And I would go in once a week dressed up for work with my lunch and my computer and sit at this desk with other people who were renting space. And there’s all this art in there already and a lot of nonprofits and a lot of arts companies and organizations. And I’d go and I’d sit down and work and in a few months I finished an adaptation I was working on. And then COVID hit, and I thought, “Well, I’m not going to go into work anymore.” And for a while they shut down completely. So, now I’m like, “Should I do that again?” It was productive at the time but right now for whatever reason, I’m not super motivated. I already feel really busy.
And the pandemic was the perfect storm for my teenagers and they both encountered a lot of mental health struggles that were worsened during the pandemic and came to light during the pandemic. So, we started a whole journey with both of my kids and that’s taken its toll. It’s been really hard on us as a family but we’re getting through it.
Summer 2021 – Greg, Leo, Noah, and Meredith – Dinosaur Provincial Park – Alberta, Canada
But it also gave me time to rest and say, “Okay, we’re in a pandemic right now. I’m going to support my kids with their mental health struggles and get my kids through grade nine or ten or whatever it was because they’re working from home and they’re going to need my support to get through it.” Neither of them was doing very well independently. They really needed support and help to get through the online learning. So, “I’m going to give myself a break as a writer and I’m not going to feel like I need to be writing every day right now.”
JAMES
You mentioned you have a production coming up with Lunchbox Theatre called Shark Bite. This is the third play of yours to grace the Lunchbox stage and here’s the description, Ava a troubled urban teenager goes to her grandfather’s remote cabin for a visit. The two soon learn that the easy days of their relationship are far behind them and when George tries to find some common ground between them through a hike in the woods, a dangerous turn of events leaves Ava in the position of trying to save them both.
First, I’m curious, Ava’s fourteen and I’m just wondering, what were you like when you were fourteen? What did you think about the world? What was your life like? What did you spend your time doing? And reflecting back now, how much of that fourteen-year-old version remains today and how much did you use it to create the character?
MEREDITH
Oh, God, that’s a tough one. That’s a big question. Okay, so the first part of the question was thinking about yourself at fourteen and I see myself as a gawky, gangly teenager. My nickname was String Bean. And I was a card-carrying perfectionist. I was working really hard in school to try and get good marks. I did extracurriculars. I did sports. Even when they made me miserable I still did them. And then I was looking at everybody else and going why can’t I just be normal like her? Or comparing myself to other people because there was always someone who was better on the basketball team than me and there was always someone who was getting higher marks than me and had a boyfriend when I didn’t. So those kinds of things. Feeling like there’s something wrong with me. That I’m out of place. That I don’t fit in with other people.
I did spend time out in the woods with my father because he was a big outdoorsman. So, the stuff about hiking through the woods in the play and the spruce gum and looking at animal tracks would have still been a part of my world a little bit at fourteen. I don’t know how old I was when I gave up snaring rabbits. When I finally went, “Oh my God this is horrible. And traumatic.” Little t. That was definitely still part of my world at that time.
But when I was writing the play, I also tried to look at it from the point of view of teenagers and I wrote an imagined character who wasn’t really one of my teenagers, but I was certainly drawing from some of their experiences. And then Maezy helped me too in that final workshop that we did in 2021 with Stage One. She helped me be more truthful and authentic. There’s pretty much no other place I’d rather be than sitting in a room with a bunch of actors, trying to make a play better, and then getting to see it. I’m grateful for all the people that I get to work with through Lunchbox and I’m grateful that I’m going to get to work with them again because it’s a pretty damn great place to work.
Maezy Dennie as Ava and Robert Klein as George in the Lunchbox Theatre Production of Shark Bite by Meredith Taylor-Parry. Photo by Tim Nguyen
Robert Klein as George in the Lunchbox Theatre Production of Shark Bite by Meredith Taylor Parry. Photo by Tim Nguyen
Robert Klein as George and Maezy Dennie as Ava in the Lunchbox Theatre Production of Shark Bite by Meredith Taylor-Parry. Photo by Tim Nguyen
Robert Klein as George and Maezy Dennie as Ava in the Lunchbox Theatre Production of Shark Bite by Meredith Taylor-Parry. Photo by Tim Nguyen
Maezy Dennie as Ava and Robert Klein as George in the Lunchbox Theatre Production of Shark Bite by Meredith Taylor-Parry. Photo by Tim Nguyen
Maezy Dennie as Ava and Robert Klein as George in the Lunchbox Theatre Production of Shark Bite by Meredith Taylor-Parry. Photo by Tim Nguyen
Robert Klein as George and Maezy Dennie as Ava in the Lunchbox Theatre Production of Shark Bite by Meredith Taylor-Parry. Photo by Tim Nguyen
Robert Klein as George and Maezy Dennie as Ava in the Lunchbox Theatre Production of Shark Bite by Meredith Taylor-Parry. Photo by Tim Nguyen
Maezy Dennie as Ava and Robert Klein as George in the Lunchbox Theatre Production of Shark Bite by Meredith Taylor-Parry. Photo by Tim Nguyen
Maezy Dennie as Ava and Robert Klein as George in the Lunchbox Theatre Production of Shark Bite by Meredith Taylor-Parry. Photo by Tim Nguyen
JAMES
One of the themes in the play is an examination of self-harm. And the play really made me think about our culture and the fundamental role punishment plays in our society. The desire to punish ourselves is a message that might find its roots in the very nature of our own culture. In other words, ideas like no pain, no gain and the need to make sacrifices in order to achieve something. So, I’m curious about your own thoughts and what you hope your play opens up in terms of a discussion about self-harm and punishment.
MEREDITH
Self-harm wasn’t originally in the play. I workshopped the play with the St. John Theatre Company just before the pandemic in the fall of 2019. Pamela Halstead was the dramaturge and I also worked with a lot of really talented playwrights in that little circle. We were all finalists in a playwriting competition that was put on by the St. John Theatre Company and in order to enter the competition you had to have ties to New Brunswick or New Brunswick roots. Which I do. I was born there.
And one amazing playwright in attendance in Saint John, John-Michel Cliche said that when he thought about the presence of the lighter in the play he immediately thought about self-harm, and I replied – “Wow.” Sometimes you put things in your play, and you know they’re really important, but you don’t know what the hell they’re in there for. And then someone like Jean-Michel comes along and says, “Well, what about this?” And that opened up the idea of self-harm and I started thinking about it, and then it came into my own life through what my teenagers have been experiencing over the past couple of years. And then it came into the lives of a lot of my parent-friends, who have teens, and you know, pandemic aside, just being a teenager in this age is really, really, really, hard. Right? In this age, of TikTok.
So, I believe there’s a reason why Jean-Michel turned to me and said, “I thought about self-harm when she took that lighter.” Coincidence? I’m not sure. I’m experiencing this with my kids and I know so many people who are experiencing this and this needs to be talked about because this is a big commonality among teenagers right now that’s not being talked about a lot. And there are parents from my generation who are going, “What the hell? I don’t get this. I don’t understand this at all.” So, I think it’s really good if we talk about it a bit and we get some more information out about it and it sparks conversation among audience members.
I also think it really illustrates the generation gap between Ava and George because he’s an even older generation because he’s the granddad and how does a teenager maintain a relationship with a grandparent? How did I maintain a relationship with my grandparents at that point? When you’re fourteen and vulnerable and going through stuff that you don’t want your grandparents to know about because they might not understand it or they might judge you for it, so you don’t really show them who you are. You just have this kind of superficial relationship. They just know that you do well at school and you like horses. You don’t talk to them about what’s really going on. I felt there needed to be issues that illustrate the characters struggling to connect while dealing with topics that the granddad doesn’t understand.
And I don’t know everything there is to know about self-harm but from what I’ve learned about self-harm, and from what people have told me – because I haven’t experienced it myself – is that it is different from punishment. My understanding of it is that you’re inflicting a physical pain to avoid or rescue you from or to stop a profound emotional pain that is being visited upon you, rather than it being a punishment. It’s more like an action to protect you from pain, or to take you out of a painful place that you’re in so that you can avoid experiencing emotional pain.
For more information about self-harm check out the links below:
When you think about life how much do you think about the cycles we experience and the linear progression of time we experience because there are cycles and an individual cycle can be different. So, we have the seasons, and each season has similarities to previous seasons, but each season is also unique, right? This summer was hotter than last summer or whatever. And just as we experience cycles in life on an annual basis, we’re also on a linear track. We’re getting older each day. So, our time here diminishes. And when you look at life, how much do you think about the cycles of life and how much do you think of the linear progression of time?
MEREDITH
I think more about cycles. That’s how I mark time. I really love the change of seasons in our climate. I could never be a snowbird. I have friends who are retiring, and I look on Facebook and they’re like, “We’re snowbirds now and we’re going to go down and live in Florida.” My grandparents did that. And I think, “I couldn’t do that. I’d miss the change of seasons. It’s nice to take a break from winter and go away for a couple of weeks but I like that cycle.”
And every year it seems to light me up even more. I’ll be sitting at my window, and I look outside, and I see birds starting to come around because it’s starting to get a little bit milder and I’ve got bird feeders in the yard and I’m like a little kid, “Oh my God, I saw my first Robin.”
And as I get older that stuff becomes more important and interesting to me. I notice it more. I enjoy it more. I enjoy that spring cleanup and getting out when the earth is starting to soften up a little bit and then you go out and you work in the yard all day and you smell the dirt and the air starts to warm up a bit in the spring. And I love the fall equally with all the smells and sometimes that beautiful weather that keeps going into fall when the skies have never been bluer, and it’s really crisp in the morning. And I love the first snowfall of the year and so I think I focus more on cycles.
And I know there are cycles with parenting because parenting is tough. And it makes parenting a whole lot easier because when you’re in a really tough cycle, or a really tough phase it really helps to look at it and realize, “You know what, this isn’t going to last forever. And right now, it’s really, really tough. But in a few years, they’re going to be a grown-up and we’re going to be sitting down having a coffee together, or going to a movie, or going for lunch and everything is going to be okay.” And it’s really useful to remember that when you’re going through a difficult phase.
JAMES
This too will end.
MEREDITH
“This too shall pass.” My mother used to say that all the time and I honestly believe that. And maybe it sounds trite, but it helps me sometimes to say it to myself. When I’m in my own little mire of bad thoughts or bad times or bad luck. It can help me to say, “This too shall pass.” So, I think in cycles. Definitely cycles.
JAMES
Back in January 2016, we did an interview where you talked about your play Survival Skills which is a fictionalized story about a father committing suicide based on your own experience with your own father completing a suicide after he had received a terminal diagnosis, and in that interview, you said, “You want to write the kind of play where people are going to go home and talk about it, think about it and talk about themselves a little bit. You know, my God, if it got people to think about their own mortality a little bit, how could that be a bad thing? We all run around scared to talk about it, but we’re fascinated by it at the same time. The idea that we’re mortal, just to have that discussion opened up wouldn’t hurt.” So, I thought, let’s talk about it. Let’s talk about mortality and the fact that we’re all at some point in the future going to die. Have your own thoughts on mortality evolved over the course of your life?
MEREDITH
I think they’ve evolved but I can’t really say I spend a ton of time thinking or talking about it either. You know, it’s funny, at that point in time, I was obviously thinking we need to talk about death. It needs to be in a play. But right now, I don’t have a lot of thoughts to share on the topic to tell you the honest truth. I still think what I said was valid and I like what I said.
JAMES
Maybe there are times in your life where you feel the need to discuss your mortality, and maybe there are other times you don’t.
MEREDITH
And maybe you could take out the word mortality and punch something else in there like self-harm or punishment or shame or any of the other things we’ve talked about. I mean isn’t that what one hopes a play does? When I wrote Book Club a lot of thought went into how many moms are experiencing the same things, and shame being one of them, for not being the best mother on the planet. A couple of my plays deal with that theme. But if we don’t talk about it and bring it out into the light, we’ll just go on pretending to the people around us that we’ve got it all under control. Perhaps when we open up and laugh about the things that make us feel ashamed as moms or just human beings and shine a little light on it, perhaps that is a little bit healing.
There’s a Brene Brown quote, and I have it on my mirror in my bathroom. “I think laughter between people is a holy form of connection, of communion. It’s the way you and I look at each other and without words, say, I get exactly what you’re saying.”
So, if you write a funny line in your play about something rather important and your whole audience is laughing about it, there’s a shared humanity in that. Perhaps the audience is thinking “I get it. I get what you’re saying. I’m with you.”
Besides the fact that everyone just laughed at something you wrote down and were fortunate enough to bring to actors and a director and the rest of your creative team and they’ve poured their creativity into it and together you’ve just made a big room of people laugh and walk out together feeling happy and connected.
Bedouin Tea Time – Doha, Qatar – Photographer – Louise Good – In the Moment Gallery
“I think gratitude is extremely critical. It is so easy to look at the negative side of a situation. Not to deter from the negative things that are going on in people’s lives – I respect that. And I understand that it can be difficult, but that attitude of gratitude that they talk about is magic. It changes your brain. It makes you always optimistic for what can happen, the possibilities, and it might not always work out – things don’t always work out as I planned them, but I never stop having that gratitude and that optimistic attitude, and I really do believe that carries you far. I believe the world gives you what you need when you keep giving the world what it’s asking of you.”
Louise Good In the Moment Gallery
Louise Good has been travelling the world, camera in hand, taking photographs of her journeys and adventures for the last couple of decades. Over that time she’s created a body of work that is based primarily on what God gives her in the moment.
I contacted Louise last summer to talk with her about her interest and approach to photography where she told me about the key questions photographer Sam Abel asks about his work and how she now uses those questions as a guide for her work both past and present. We also chatted about one of her favourite books The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho, some of her views and thoughts about life, and what it was like growing up in a large family in the northern Alberta community of Grande Prairie.
LOUISE GOOD
Grande Prairie was a great community for our family. Lots of activities. Lots of involvement. As I got older, I played basketball in high school and in college. And I also did a lot of drama and acting. I did a lot of community theatre, and that was a great experience for me, and it kind of led me to my career choice, which was to go into broadcast journalism. And that’s where you and I know each other from because we both went to SAIT together.
The Cinema, Television, Stage, and Radio Arts Class of 1988 at SAIT
JAMES HUTCHISON
That’s true. You mentioned you played basketball growing up and in college, and sports have been a big part of your life. What do you think have been some of the lessons you’ve learned from participating in sports?
LOUISE
I’ve always had a competitive spirit. I think anyone who knows me would say that’s true. It partially comes from being the oldest in a family of nine kids. I had to be independent from a very young age, and sports really taught me how to channel that energy, how to excel, how to work hard, and to never give up, and never give in when things do get tough.
It also taught me a lot about collaborating and teamwork and other people’s points of view, and understanding that sometimes you take the lead, and sometimes you support the leader. So, I think I learned a lot from sports and possibly some of those skills I also learned from growing up in a big family as well.
JAMES
You mention growing up in a family of nine and the majority of us don’t have that sort of experience, but for you that was daily life. So, what is it like growing up in a large family like that and what have been some of the life lessons?
LOUISE
I think from a young age, we learned that we had to work together. And I was very fortunate and blessed to grow up in a family that was full of love. Our parents always instilled in us that we could achieve whatever we wanted to achieve. And I’m not saying we didn’t disagree as siblings and have our share of arguments, but we just had an environment where we could succeed, and we could fail, and it was still going to be okay. And I think that helps you to push the boundaries of who you are, and to help you support other people to be their best.
I don’t think you realize as a kid growing up that those are the life skills you’re learning, but as you get older, and you look back, you can see that some of your success was from that experience. And now that I’m older, I have a grown son. I have a granddaughter and lots of nieces and nephews, and we see that continuing into the next generation of our family.
And I know not everybody’s from a big family, but family has lots of different meanings in life. We create our own families. And friends become our family. I live in Houston now and because of COVID I haven’t been back to Canada to see my parents or the rest of my family in a year and a half. And so, here in Houston I have a family with my friends, and we support each other, and we help each other with our dreams and our goals, and my work family here is pretty amazing too.
Houston – Photograph by Louise Good – In the Moment Gallery
JAMES
What’s it like living in Houston?
LOUISE
I absolutely love Houston. It’s so welcoming. It’s so vibrant. There’s so much going on in Houston all the time. And there are also some similarities to Alberta because of the oil and gas industry. And of course, that’s the industry that I’ve worked in for a big part of my career. So, I’m very passionate about it. You have people from all over the world in Houston, which makes for great theatre, which makes for great sports. We’ve got all the professional sports, the ballet, the opera, and I’ve made some great friends here, and that makes all the difference in the world.
JAMES
You mentioned we met at the Southern Alberta Institute of Technology in the Cinema Television Stage and Radio Arts program. What made you want to report the news?
LOUISE
As well as being in drama I was also very active in debate. And I liked storytelling. And I liked sports. I actually saw myself, early on, as being a sports reporter. There weren’t a lot of women doing that at the time. But my career path sort of took a different route.
I started out doing broadcast journalism, and I loved it. I worked in radio. I had some television jobs. I did sports. I was my own camerawoman for a while and that’s where my interest in photography began. I had to learn about framing the image and how to make pictures come alive, whether it’s video or photos.
JAMES
What was the first camera you had?
LOUISE
My very first – what I would call a real camera – was a Canon Rebel. One of the very first brands of the Rebel that came out. That’s the camera I began more serious photography with, and that camera travelled all over the world with me. That’s the camera I had for part of my time when I was in the Middle East, and then I got the camera I have today. This one here. It’s a Canon EOS 60 D. And this one is not a new camera either, but it serves me well. The technology inside the camera hasn’t really changed a ton. And maybe some people would argue with me about that, but this is not the top-of-the-line pro camera.
JAMES
Honestly, I’m not that interested in the technical, I’m more interested in results. I got a book out of the library this week called The Americans. It’s a book from the ‘50s, and it’s a bunch of these candid photos that photographer Robert Frank took while on a road trip through the United States. And some of them are taken from bizarre angles and some are blurry, but they all have an emotional impact. There’s power in the image.
LOUISE
I like that statement. Emotional impact.
JAMES
I read this quote “Photography has nothing to do with cameras.” It’s by a guy named Lucas Gentry. I couldn’t find out anything more about him, but I was wondering how much do you agree with that idea or not? “Photography has nothing to do with cameras.”
LOUISE
I think that’s exactly what we’re talking about. It has nothing to do with cameras because anybody can take a great picture these days. Because what makes a great picture is that emotion that you’re talking about. A photo evokes a feeling in somebody, and it doesn’t matter what the camera is, and I know we have great photographers who do amazing technical work, but these days the technology is so good in a phone that a picture can be snapped by anybody.
Photographer Louise Good – Mesa Verde National Park – Colorado, USA – In the Moment Gallery
I saw one this morning. I was looking online. I think it was the CNN Pictures of the week. And it was a photo of this kid jumping into a pond beside a highway. And he was mid-air, and it was just an incredible picture. Now, technically, was it a good picture? Not necessarily, but I went back to that picture three times because it was so cool.
And this reminds me of something I want to talk about. I’ve heard the great photographer, Sam Abel, speak more than once, at the Professional Photographers of America Convention. He is an amazing photographer. And he has three questions that he asks himself about an image. Is it involving? Is it evolving? And does it stay? And so, I asked these questions to myself a lot now about the work I do and when you think about those three questions they kind of answer the other statement that photography has nothing to do with the camera.
After I heard him speak in 2011 I did a couple of things. First, I looked back at the work that I’d already done, and I asked myself why is that a good picture? Does it accomplish those three things? Because, generally speaking, if it’s a good photo, it already has accomplished those three things.
And I still don’t think you can plan to make that happen. Sometimes it’s very spontaneous. And Sam Abel spoke about how he plans out a picture. He frames the picture and then he waits, sometimes up to twelve hours to take the photo. And I thought to myself, “Oh Lord, I do not shoot that way. I don’t have time for that. I just shoot in the moment that God gives me. If it’s a rainy day or if it’s a sunny day I just go and see what I can get. That’s my style. It’s candid, and it’s proven to be very effective for me. Many of my pictures are truly shot in the moment.”
Photographer Louise Good – Dubai – In the Moment Gallery
I didn’t say any of that out loud, obviously, because I was sitting in an auditorium, literally, but I knew that was the name of my brand – In the Moment.
The other fascinating thing is that when it comes to photography or art, as you well know, different things appeal to different people. So, a picture that I may love, for some reason, you may not like at all. And it’s always surprising to me when that emotion comes from a picture that I took or a print that I’ve made that I didn’t expect would evoke that emotion in me.
JAMES
You know, I was listening to a video from photographer Sean Tucker on YouTube and he was talking about the importance of going back and looking at and curating your old work because you have a better eye in the future looking back at your old stuff so you can pull out the work that you didn’t realize was good at the time.
LOUISE
That’s such an interesting perspective. Really makes me think when you’re talking about that. And maybe you know you can explain a little bit about this from your own body of work because sometimes when you go back and read your work again you see things differently and it’s not what you wanted, and that’s why you edit your work, right?
JAMES
Right.
LOUISE
Do you think that comes from a different perspective when you look backwards, or because your emotion isn’t as involved in that moment?
JAMES
It’s funny you mention that because I am working on a script that I wrote ten years ago. And I can’t write that same script today. I’m in a different place and the things I want to say in the script now are a lot different than what is currently said in the script. I don’t plan to change the time of the play. I plan to keep the time of the play in 2010 and oddly enough it’s the only play I’ve written that is about broadcasting.
It’s the one about Wildrose Radio. It’s about a morning show in Lethbridge. I wrote it and I let it sit for a long time and just this year started working on it again. But I’ve got over ten years of additional life experience and I want to comment more on how media and social media have evolved and what the world has been through. Plus, there’s tremendous comedy potential there since the characters will be speaking from their time frame in 2010 about what the future will be and what they think is going to happen and since the audience has lived through the last decade there will be great comic potential there plus an opportunity to evaluate how did we get here? How did we end up with such a polarized world? How did social media become so important?
I think you can’t help but be influenced by the life you’ve lived and the experience you’ve had. And it’s not just your personal experience. It’s also the culture and what the culture has been through, and I think that applies to story, and I think it applies to images. When you were talking about – is it involving, is it evolving, and does it stay with you I think that totally applies to a story, you know? Is a story involving and is there something happening? Is it progressing? And after the credits run, does it linger with you? And so, photography is really storytelling, right, and so I’m wondering how much do you think photography captures reality and how much do you think photography is an interpretation of reality?
LOUISE
That’s a tough one because I think it does both depending on the purpose of the image. In social media a lot of the images we see are people promoting themselves as a brand, and I don’t know how real any of that is, but then there’s a lot of authenticity in the world too, and those are the photographs that really capture people’s imagination. You know that picture of the boy diving into the pond that I looked at this morning.
So, why is it that all media has the top photos of the week? Why is it that even your local news has people sending in their images and people want to see them? It’s because it does represent moments in time, and I think those moments in time are really authentic and they do show us a piece of the world.
I’m working on a series right now called Storm. And I’m actually looking back at some of my older work as well as incorporating some recent work that I have. And the idea of doing a series in a show called Storm isn’t about the gloom and the darkness of a storm, but what comes out of the storm. The resilience. Joy. You know, rebirth. New life. A new perspective on the world and I think it really speaks to a lot of what we’ve gone through in the last year. We’ve been through so much change. Not just because of COVID and loss, but also the economies of the world, the storms they’ve been through, and there’s still great work that needs to be done on social justice issues. And all of these storms that we’re going through are creating something new, and hopefully something better.
Dunnottar Castle Scotland – Photograph by Louise Good
JAMES
You said you were going back and looking at past work as part of your work on this series called Storm, but then I’m wondering, how do you think, photography, and looking back at these old photos impacts our memory of the past?
LOUISE
Well, I find that many of the photos from my past make me smile. Even if they’re not comedic photos. And I think it goes back to those three questions. Is it involving? Is it evolving? And most important in this case, does it stay?
So, when you go back and you look at, like for example in 2019 before COVID I was doing some work overseas, and I was in Scotland, and I took a train out on the Sunday to this little town, and it’s near a castle called Dunnottar, and I went up through the town and up onto this hill to get to the castle – to walk along the sea. But when I turned back a storm was coming in over the town, and it was so dramatic. I was standing on this hillside. It was bright sunshine, and yet, in this town and around the valley it was dark, and I took all these pictures, and it was beautiful. And I was lost in that moment and when I looked back at those pictures recently, I could really be back in that moment.
Smoke – Banff Alberta – Photographer – Louise Good – In the Moment Gallery
JAMES
Well, speaking of pictures that speak to you I asked you to provide five of your favourite photos so we could talk about them and the first photograph I have here is the mountain – the blue smoke – I think you call it.
LOUISE
I called that Smoke. This was a challenging task for me. To pick five pictures, and I really had more than five. And there are some I switched out based on my perspective on a particular day. So, these are the five, that I guess, I settled on.
JAMES
On July 17 these are the ones that you settled on. Tomorrow you might have changed it.
LOUISE
But interestingly, I do have a gallery of my favourites on my website that you can go and have a look at.
JAMES
Right. So, tell me about this photograph. Why is it one of your favourites and what’s the story behind it?
LOUISE
I took that photo on the highway between Banff, Alberta, Canada and Jasper, and there was a forest fire, and it was really smoky through the valley. The fire was actually in British Columbia but the smoke comes through the valley, and it just sticks there. So, I got out and I took some pictures. The only thing that I’ve done to that picture was I just emphasized the colours that were already there. All of those blue colours were what the picture gave me. I just saturated the picture a little more. Blues are a relaxing colour, and I just think it draws you in.
JAMES
The smoke almost acts like a filter. And in between the first mountain and your camera there’s less smoke and then there’s more smoke between the next ridge and your camera because there’s more smoke as you go farther back to each ridge and it actually creates this unique lighting event from the camera’s point of view.
LOUISE
The key element is layers. There are layers in that picture and so it’s involving because you go from layer, to layer, to layer, with your eyes. It draws you into that photo.
JAMES
It’s a beautiful photograph. Did you do this one in metal?
LOUISE
I did do this one in brushed metal and it’s really beautiful in brushed metal.
Bedouin Tea Time – Doha, Qatar – Photographer – Louise Good – In the Moment Gallery
JAMES
The next photo I have is the two guys and the camel and the pots down in the bottom right. Tell me about this one.
LOUISE
So, I was living in Doha, Qatar, and it was Qatar National Day, and I was out with my camera, and this group of men riding camels down the street came along, and so I pulled over and I waved, and I asked if I could take some pictures. And they told me to take pictures, and then they invited me back for tea at the Bedouin camp. Now, normally a woman would not be invited to the tents. That’s for the men. The men do that together, but because this was a special set up so that people could come and see what a traditional Bedouin camp looked like they invited me in.
It was near the end of the day and, you know, technically speaking, somebody might say that picture is not perfect because I didn’t capture the light exactly right in the sky, but emotionally speaking you can have no argument that that is a great picture. And especially if you live in that part of the world. You know again it’s another one of those that might not have meaning to somebody who’s never lived in the Middle East, but it’s a beautiful, beautiful part of the country. And so, we were sitting around the fire. We had the tea, and I just took that picture, and the camel was there, and the young guys were looking at the camel.
Dancing in the Rain – New York City – Photographer – Louise Good – In the Moment Gallery
JAMES
The next one I have is the Radio City Music Hall in New York City. And it’s a rainy night. Tell me about that.
LOUISE
I took this picture with my iPhone. Not with my camera. I didn’t have my camera with me because it was raining so hard. It was my very first trip to New York, which was only two years ago. I’ve travelled all over the world, and I’ve never been to New York, and I just decided that when the time was right the world would let me know that it was time to go to New York.
And so, I found myself in New York with a couple of friends. But on that particular night, we were all doing something different. I wanted to go to the theatre and someone else was meeting a friend and somebody else went shopping. And so I was walking back to the hotel and it was just pouring, pouring rain, and the streets were so wet, but it was so alive, it was just so what New York is – even in the rain. You could feel the excitement. Other people might think it’s average or it doesn’t do anything for them but since I’m picking my favourites I think it’s really cool. And, technically, it’s a storm.
Into the Mist – Atchafalaya Swamp Louisiana USA – Photographer – Louise Good – In the Moment Gallery
JAMES
That’s true. Okay, so the next one I’ve got is the one from Louisiana, Into the Mist, I think you called it. That’s the one with the shadow trees. It’s a striking image. Tell me about that.
LOUISE
This is an image that has evoked the most emotion in others, as well as for me. I posted a version of this on my social media, and I had a lot of responses, and a couple of people even wanted to purchase the picture, so I made a couple sales.
This is the Atchafalaya Swamp in Louisiana, and this was taken during my first road trip after I moved to Houston. I was driving to Nashville to attend the Professional Photographers of America Convention, and I decided to drive there because I really wanted to take my camera and go on an excursion. And so, it was early morning, and I was coming across this part of the highway, and the fog was just thick in the swamp area, and it was just stunning to me. Spectacular.
And you’re not really supposed to stop along that part of the highway but there was a work truck there, and he had his lights flashing and there was room. So, I took the opportunity to pull in front of his vehicle where it was safe, and I got out, and I took as many pictures as I could. That picture is spooky. It’s definitely involving, evolving and it definitely stays with you after you’ve looked at it. How do you feel when you look at that image? Do you like it or not like it?
JAMES
I like it a great deal. It almost feels like a painting to me. And I like the abstract nature of it. I love photographs of trees. It has a surreal feel to it. And yet, it’s part of the world. It’s part of nature. At this moment in time when you were there this little image appeared and this is a part of the world.
LOUISE
If you really think about it, that picture didn’t stay that way for very long. It’s a true In the Moment photo. And I have been across that highway, many times since then. For work, and other reasons. And I have never ever seen it like this since. No matter what the time of day or the time of year. So, it’s unique and it really draws you in. And I actually had written some notes about this photo and I call it a surreal image which is exactly what you said.
Storm… The Silver Linings – Gulf of Mexico – Photographer Louise Good – In the Moment Gallery
JAMES
So, tell me about this one. The storm clouds. It looks like it was shot at a beach, or on the prairie.
LOUISE
That’s at the beach over the Gulf of Mexico between Galveston and Lake Jackson. That was shot during COVID when everything was on lockdown. So really the only thing you could do is go for a drive, which suited me just fine because I can take my camera and go. And this particular day the clouds were just rolling in. I have a bunch of different images from this day, and the one I picked to show you is a black and white. And I just think this one is dramatic. That’s my word for it.
And so this will also be a part of the Storm series because of when it was taken and also because I feel this picture is almost overwhelming emotionally which is how you feel when you’re going through a storm in life. There’s a lot of unknowns going on but eventually, those clouds are going to roll back, and you’ll experience that peace that comes when a storm passes because you gain understanding.
JAMES
Back in 2016 you arranged for a photo exhibition at the Alberta College of Art and I wanted to talk a little bit about that show. What was the process like for putting that show together?
LOUISE
My theme for that show was contrasts because there was so much contrast in my life at that time and there was so much contrast in the images that I had. I had all these great pictures like the Smoke picture from Canada, and the camel picture from the Middle East and the question is how do you take those two diverse images and make a show that people can follow. And so that’s how Contrasts was born.
I grouped pictures together. I had groups of three different pictures under a common theme, and I used different mediums. So, some of them I put on canvas. Some of them I put on brushed metal. And there was a lot of work that went into that. Picking the pictures. Writing the stories. I had a lot of help from friends and family, and really it was a labour of love, and it was a success.
Contrasts Show 2016
Contrasts Show 2016
Contrasts Show 2016
Contrasts Show 2016
JAMES
When you had everything set up including these twenty-foot tapestries hanging from the ceiling in the middle of the room and you had some big photos on the walls what was it like walking into that room after it was all set up and seeing a representation of your work being displayed in a show?
LOUISE
It was very humbling to see it all. I also had so much gratitude for the experiences I’d had that made it possible to take those images and put together this show, and I also had a great sense of accomplishment for a story that I was sharing partly about myself and partly about a body of work that I’d created.
JAMES
You mentioned gratitude. And I’ve known you a long time, and gratitude is a word that comes up quite often with you. How important do you think gratitude is in terms of life?
LOUISE
I think gratitude is extremely critical. It is so easy to look at the negative side of a situation. Not to deter from the negative things that are going on in people’s lives – I respect that. And I understand that it can be difficult, but that attitude of gratitude that they talk about is magic. It changes your brain. It makes you always optimistic for what can happen, the possibilities, and it might not always work out – things don’t always work out as I planned them, but I never stop having that gratitude and that optimistic attitude, and I really do believe that carries you far. I believe the world gives you what you need when you keep giving the world what it’s asking of you.
Gratitude – Photographer Louise Good – In the Moment Gallery
JAMES
So how much do you think your life has been planned and how much do you think your life has been unplanned?
LOUISE
I guess it depends on your perspective but from my perspective, I’m a woman of faith. So, I have to believe that my whole life has been planned – divinely planned in some aspect. And I know that not everybody has those same views, but those are my views, and I think that has helped me to define my strengths and some of my success, and also keeps me honest about what I need to continue to improve upon myself because I can be a very strong personality.
And I think that I have to focus on that attitude of gratitude and appreciation of people and helping others. I like to think that I live a life of service. And so much of the work that I’ve done in my entire life, in my career has been really in the service of others. And my background is a lot of sales work and sales leadership, and for me, sales is about a life of service because it’s not about selling a widget to somebody. It’s about the relationship around those transactions and what we do to ensure that there’s service around the relationship around the business transaction and that those are lifelong endeavours.
JAMES
The Alchemist is one of your favourite books.
LOUISE
Yes, it is.
JAMES
When was the first time you read it, and what did you think about it, and why has it become a favourite book of yours?
LOUISE
Okay, well, you gave me a copy of The Alchemist, my friend. That is when I got my first copy and I’d say that was maybe ten years ago.
JAMES
Sounds right.
LOUISE
You had read the book and talked highly of it, and so when you gifted me that book, it just really spoke to my soul. There are just so many parts of that story that resonate with a lot of people. One of the things that it talks about in the book is when you’re following your personal legend, the world gives you what you need.
What that means is when your soul is on its path – when you’re giving to the world in the way that you’re supposed to – it’s amazing what the world gives back to you. There are also some biblical principles around that because Paulo Coelho is a man of faith.
But the second thing I love about The Alchemist is the author’s story. Paulo Coelho wrote that book, and it was published in Spanish. And I think he said he sold three copies and two were to the same person. And that publisher cut him free, but he never lost faith in his book. So, when nobody else could see that there was something there, he still believed. And that, I think, is such an important concept in the world today – don’t give up on your dreams. Don’t let anybody tell you that your dream isn’t your dream and that it’s not important.
And he says, “I was following my personal legend and my capacity to write, was my treasure, and I needed to share that with the world.” So can you imagine if this man had stopped at that point, because he didn’t get validation from the world? But he didn’t stop. He kept going. And now, The Alchemist has sold over 65 million copies.
I think that the thing I love most about this book – it gets in your heart and soul – it’s a part of you. First of all, don’t quit. Don’t stop. Keep going. The world’s going to give you what you need. People will show up to help you, because you’re following your path. And so often we stop. We quit. We give up. And as long as you’re alive, as long as you’re living, as long as you have a breath in you – keep going. Keep being your best and loving your life and giving to the world. That’s what I get out of this book.
And I have the book right here and I just want to read an excerpt from the introduction by Paulo Coelho in his own words. He says, “I re-read The Alchemist regularly and every time I do I experienced the same sensations I felt when I wrote. And here is what I feel, I feel happiness, because it is all of me, and all of you simultaneously. I feel happiness, too, because I know I can never be alone. Wherever I go, people understand me. They understand my soul. This gives me hope.”
And I just really personally relate to that statement so much because I think that’s how I speak through my own art. It really is my soul, and it really does give me hope that the world is a great place because we can find union in art and in the world and in common ground.
JAMES
I want to talk about, In the Moment. You originally picked In the Moment to promote your photography and then you had an epiphany, I think, it was last summer and now you want to take the idea of In the Moment and make it more than just about photography. Can you talk a little bit about your vision for In the Moment and what you see the future being?
LOUISE
I think it was probably about halfway through last year. It was a month or so into COVID, and I began to have this vision for In the Moment – the brand – that there was a time and a place for this to make a difference in the world. And so, I realized that when the world had to stop because everything shut down, I mean literally everything shut down, people had to take a look at themselves.
And it allowed us the opportunity to be in the moment. To be more present. We weren’t rushing around. And so, it sort of came from my soul and I started designing and working on incorporating some of my images and different words to go with the In the Moment brand.
Be brave in the moment. Forgive in the moment. Rise in the moment. There are so many words that you can use. Laugh in the moment. Be better in the moment. And that’s my vision. To make a difference in the world. To make the world a better place through my photography and through my In the Moment Gallery and to evoke gratitude and kindness, love and grace under difficult circumstances.
JAMES
In what way, if any, do you think the experience of COVID could possibly be a positive thing.
LOUISE
Well, I don’t want us to forget the power of just being still. The power of shifting your values back to family, to friends, to simplifying your life, and to not forgetting – what’s most important to you and prioritizing your values. I think a lot of what in the moment means to me is being creative, being innovative, and thinking about the possibilities that COVID allowed for you that may not have happened otherwise. And I know that there is a lot of anguish and sadness and devastation that’s come from this period of time as well. And certainly, I acknowledge that, but once we get through this storm and we’ve survived it then we have to ask, “What can we do to make an impact on the world? What can we do to make this world a better place?”
John Craggs produced a rehearsed reading of my adaptation of A Christmas Carol which featured a stellar cast including Nicholas Le Prevost as Ebenezer Scrooge, Richard O’Callaghan as Mr. Fezziwig, Susannah May as Belle, Jonathan Tafler as Fred, John Craggs as Jacob Marley, Henrietta Bess as the Ghost of Christmas Past, Sebastian Storey as Tiny Tim, Anna Carteret as Mrs. Dilber, Catharine Humphrys as Fan, and Christopher Beck as Bob Cratchit. The production was directed by Jonathan Kydd with original music by Steve Redfern
A Christmas Carol was the seventh in a series of rehearsed readings that John has produced. The play was presented in support of Acting for Others. Acting for Others provides emotional and financial help to the many actors, designers, and technicians that have lost work during the pandemic and are facing tough times both mentally and financially. I had a chance to sit down with John over Zoom back in November and talk with him about A Christmas Carol and his life as an actor.
JAMES HUTCHISON
A lot of movies and stories including A Christmas Carol talk about the spirit of Christmas. How would you describe the Christmas spirit? What does that mean?
JOHN CRAGGS
It’s something that’s happening even now in November. I can sense it. There are people that would walk past other people in the street and not give them the time of day, but at Christmas people are a little more amicable and focused on each other. There’s just something that seems to rain down on people in the nicest possible way at this time of year.
JAMES
What role do you think telling stories and in particular telling stories in theatre plays in our lives?
JOHN
It plays a great deal, I think. Telling stories to people is essential. And you know it can touch anyone, and hopefully, it can change people’s lives depending of course on the subject matter. I think we want to entertain but we also want people to leave the theatre with a message, a story of some kind. And I think that is essential within our entertainment industry. No matter whether it’s a musical, whether it’s just a play, or it’s a comedy, there is always an underlining meaning behind everything that we see within theatre, including pantomime as well.
JAMES
Is there a particular play you’ve done that was sort of that right balance of entertainment and message that comes to mind?
JOHN
Yes, I’m going to go right back to 1997. And that was an Ibsen play – An Enemy of the People at the National Theatre. That play is the equivalent to Peter Benchley’s Jaws as bizarre as it may sound. Are you familiar with An Enemy of the People?
JAMES
I am. And funny you mentioned it because I was figuring that coming out of the pandemic, we should be seeing a lot of productions of An Enemy of the People. Arthur Miller did an adaptation and I recently reread that one. For those people that don’t know the play, it’s about a doctor who sounds the alarm bells about these springs in a community that have some kind of a bacteria in them that makes people sick and none of the business people or politicians want that information made public because they don’t want to shut down the springs and fix them. And you’re right it’s like Jaws. It’s exactly the same thing. They don’t want to shut the beaches down even though they know there’s a shark in the area.
JOHN
When we did the play and the main character Peter Stockman is speaking to the crowd we actually had a guy in the audience – and I think he’d had a few too many drinks – and he actually stood up and out of his seat – and I was working with the fabulous Ian McKellen who was playing Peter Stockman – and this guy stood up in the auditorium and he shouted, “Why don’t you effing well be quiet? You’re talking a load of rubbish. You want locking up.” And the ushers had to come down to remove him from the theatre and we literally froze on stage when that happened. So, when he’d gone, Ian said – within the character – “Right people, I’m going to carry on with what I was saying after I was so rudely interrupted.” And then of course he carried on.
JAMES
What was that experience like? Having a chance to share the stage with Ian McKellen.
JOHN
Ian is a very generous actor, and he is a lovely guy. And he’s got no affectations about him. It was a pleasure working with him. And, you know, he’d already been knighted, and a lot of people did call him Sir Ian and I said to him, “Do you like being called Sir Ian?” “John,” he said, “I was bestowed this title and it was very nice, but my name is Ian.” He’s a lovely guy. I had a good time doing that.
JAMES
What qualities do you think make a good actor so mesmerizing to an audience?
JOHN
Less is more and I think it’s that magical connection you have with another actor when you walk on stage. It’s not so much about the character as it’s about you as an individual. I mean, from a personal point of view when you walk out on stage the audience lifts you and to me that makes a big difference. If you’ve got an audience there – then that magic starts to happen.
John Craggs
John Craggs in “Bad First Impression” Directed by Daniel Harding
Nosferatu in “Silent Movie” – Kelloggs Crunchy Nut Commercial – Producers: Rattling Stick Directed by Daniel Kleinman
Merriman in “The Importance of Being Earnest” (Online Performance) UK Actors Support Network Directed by James Hillier.
“Victor” in – The Seagull – Another Way Theatre Co. (At the Minack Theatre, Cornwall) Directed by Chris Chambers
John Craggs as Tony in “The Crock” by Steve Gough Producer Pentameters Theatre, Hampstead, Directed by John Dunne
Simeon Diggs in “Drowning on Dry Land” Producer Michael Ross (Bourneyack Theatre Co at Wimbledon Studio Theatre) Directed by Paul Tate.
JAMES
One of the things that is a big part of being an actor is of course doing auditioning. So, I’m kind of curious, how do you approach an audition? What strategies do you use that have helped you over the years?
JOHN
Well, it depends. I mean, as you probably know, a lot of what’s happening now and especially because of the pandemic and because of lockdown and not being able to be in the room as such, which you know, I miss – and a lot of actors miss – we do things called self-tapes. So basically, my agent will send me something and then I need to film it.
And I see an audition as a job in itself. Which means that I don’t look ahead. You look at the script, familiarize yourself with it. Get the essence of what you’ve got to say. Try to memorize as much as you possibly can but don’t let the words get in the way of the character. If I’ve got quite a bit of time, and if it’s from a play, then obviously I’ll make it my business to look the play up and read about the characters and how my character fits into that scene. And then David Cleverley, my partner, very kindly films it for me. The audition, the casting, the self-tape, that is a job in itself. If you get the job that’s great. If somebody else gets it, you shake their hand and you move on.
JAMES
Well, speaking of auditioning Daniel Craig is ending his run as James Bond. So, in a what-if world would you be interested in playing Bond or would you be more interested in playing a Bond villain?
JOHN
Oh, a villain. Most definitely. I’m too bloody old for James Bond. No, it definitely has to be a villain unless of course they wanted an older James Bond’s brother or something. It definitely has to be a Bond villain.
JAMES
So, you are available for the next film then.
JOHN
Oh yes. Yes. So, keep that bit in. (Laughs) But of course, they tend to go for, shall we say, a more familiar face.
JAMES
One of the things I was thinking about, you know, there’s Twitter, there’s Instagram, there’s Facebook, there’s Tik Tok, there’s LinkedIn. There are all these social media platforms. And I’m wondering, what role do you think social media plays now days in the career of an actor?
JOHN
I don’t use Tik Tok. I very seldom go on LinkedIn. I’ll use Facebook. I set up my own account on Twitter @johncraggsactor and then of course I set up @network_actor as well. Twitter has given me and a lot of other people a lot of connections.
You have to be careful I think with social media and just watch what you say, but I do think it can create a lot of opportunities. And I think it’s important to connect with people because this is what a lot of this industry is about. Social media is not the real world, but I do think it does play quite a big part in connecting people. Not necessarily getting the work, but the connections can often lead to work.
It’s where people can connect and interact with each other and show their work and their headshots and what they’re doing and that’s been a very, very useful tool.
And, you know, I’ve had people come back and say to me, “Thank you very much. Through doing that I managed to get an agent.” Well, that’s great, but the hard work came from you. I just gave you that platform to do it. What I have to be very careful about, of course, is a lot of people initially thought that there was a team of people running it, but I run it solo as a fellow actor. It’s not a business. I don’t make a penny.
JAMES
One of the things you did as part of your support for the theatre communities, you started performing rehearsed readings of a variety of plays such as King Lear and The Importance of Being Earnest. How did that come about as part of what you’re doing?
JOHN
Right. I’m going to go back to August of 2020. God, it seems like years ago. And this idea was thrown up by my partner David. He said to me, “You said everyone’s getting bored. Everything’s getting shut down. You’re unable to do anything.”
It felt like our hands were tied, and it was literally like being put into a box. You know, we were caged. We couldn’t get out. And he said, “Have you ever thought of doing plays on Zoom or something?”
And I said, “No. Categorically, no way. It isn’t going to work.” And he said, “Well, what about speaking to Anna Carteret.” Anna is quite a well-known British actress and was very good friends with Laurence Olivier and she’s got a lot of contacts in the industry. He said, “Ask Anna. She knows a lot of people.” So, I phone Anna up and I said, “What do you think of this?” And she said, “Oh, it would be just so uplifting for so many of us.”
And so now we’ve done some Shakespeare. A Winter’s Tale, and Twelfth Night, and King Lear. And we’ve done Bram Stoker’s Dracula as an online reading raising funds for Acting for Others. And people loved it. And it’s been brilliant. And Anna Carter played Van Helsing, so we did a gender swap. She was nervous about it, but I said, “Look it just says Professor Van Helsing so let’s have you as Van Helsing.” And she did a terrific performance.
JAMES
And A Christmas Carol is the next rehearsed reading you’re doing. I’m wondering why do you think the story of Ebenezer Scrooge still appeals to people today?
JOHN
Well, I think it’s the essence of Christmas, you know. It’s just the whole atmosphere. And I think everybody knows an Ebenezer Scrooge. And Scrooge is, I think, almost another tragic figure like Macbeth, in the sense that he brought about his own doom and by the manner in which he was influenced by Jacob Marley and his cruelty to Mr. Fezziwig. You know, just taking Fezziwig’s business away from him because he was a kind man. It was horrible and I think everyone can relate to so much in that story. I really do. I implore people to watch it and take from it what you can and you’ll see that there’s something there for you within that story.
JAMES
So, A Christmas Carol uses past, present, and future to examine a man’s life. And I’m wondering if you could talk about theatre in Britain in terms of past, present, and future. What was theatre like pre-COVID? Where are we now? And what do you think things are going to look like next year and beyond?
JOHN
It’s never been an easy industry and a lot of people don’t like this terminology, but it is competitive. And I think pre-COVID there were still a lot of people all fighting for the same job.
But I did notice when COVID happened, when lockdown came, people seemed to unite. People seemed to support each other because we were all in no man’s land. We’re all in the same – not so much the same boat – there are some people that are on cruise liners and some people that are in little rowing boats, you know. But people started to connect with each other a lot more. And I think it was a case of, “Right, we’re all in a dreadful storm together. Let’s weather it together.”
And what has happened now is its transitioning – as things are beginning to open up – we’ve gone back to a little bit of the past, and I don’t think there will be a massive difference, but I hope a majority of people in the future will think about and remember how they were when the doors were closed. And I think if people can keep that unity between each other as much as possible we hopefully will have a better future.
JAMES
So, John, every year the Queen gives her Christmas message, and the Prime Minister gives his, the Pope chimes in as well. Politicians, artists, religious leaders, all have their Christmas messages. What is your Christmas message to your friends and family and the world this year?
JOHN
This time last year, it was almost nine months since lockdown happened and looking back over the last twelve months, there’s been a great deal of unrest and uncertainty, and loss of businesses. And of course, many lives have been lost because of COVID, and I think as I said before, it has in a way drawn many people closer together.
Christmas is a time for reflection. And although this is said by so many people, it’s so true. We need now more than ever to stand by family, friends, and the people who we work with.
And it is always good to remember, if you are with family at this time of the year, there is always going to be individuals who may be alone. They’re vulnerable. So, if you know of anyone who’s spending a festive period on their own, simply act, pick up the phone. A few kind words are priceless.
Speaking for my fellow actors and creatives I’ve said it has been and certainly continues to be a time of uncertainty for us all. On a good note, we are beginning to see some positive movements in the industry and all I can say is that I hope we continue to stick together and support one another. We shall prevail and come through the storm in 2022.
And finally, a little footnote to what I’ve said – a little something to think about. Christmas is a time for giving. But we must care and give to ourselves in order to be able to give back to others and not just at Christmas, but 365 days of the year.
CAST OF A CHRISTMAS CAROL
Nicholas Le Prevost as Ebenezer Scrooge Richard O’Callaghan as Ghost of Christmas Present Susannah May as Belle Jonathan Tafler as Fred John Craggs as Jacob Marley Henrietta Bess as Ghost of Christmas Past Christopher Beck as Bob Cratchit Sebastian Storey as Tiny Tim Anna Carteret as Mrs. Cratchit Catharine Humphrys as Fan
Directed by Jonathan Kydd Original Music by Steve Redfern
Shaun Chambers and Matthew Parker in The Invisible Man by H.G. Wells adapted for the stage by Derek Webb, at The Jack Studio Theatre, London.
“The Invisible Man is a gem… this wonderful story is chock-full of fifteen characters – excluding the titular Invisible Man – all brilliantly realized by a super-creative and multi-talented company of three actors undoubtedly putting the force into tour de force! This is a master class in extended acting and characterization… a smart, tirelessly inventive telling of this enduring tale.” ★★★★★ The Review Chap
That’s just one of several four and five-star reviews for playwright Derek Webb’s adaptation of The Invisible Man by H.G. Wells which had a highly successful run in London at the Jack Studio Theatre a few months before COVID shut things down. In addition to being a prolific and successful playwright, Derek is also the founder of the Pint-sized Plays Festival which presents plays in Pubs during the Tenby Arts Festival and culminates in a script slam presentation on stage at Theatr Gwaun in Fishguard, Wales.
Now almost two years after The Invisible Man last appeared – or didn’t appear on stage – theatres are starting to cautiously welcome patrons back to live performances. I contacted Derek at the end of August to chat with him about his writing and this year’s Pint-sized Plays Festival which features favourite plays from previous years including my own ten-minute comedy Never Give Up.
Playwright Derek Webb
JAMES HUTCHISON
I read that since 2001 you’ve lived in North Pembrokeshire, and I’m wondering what’s the community like – the people – the culture – what is it about the area that made you want to make this home?
DEREK WEBB
Well, we lived in Surrey near London, and we had been down to Pembrokeshire many times on holiday. I was working as a freelance copywriter with some companies down in Swansea and Cardiff, and I used to come down to South Wales quite often, and property prices down here were about a tenth of what they were in London, of course, and we found a house and fell in love with it, and we decided to move down.
We’re in North Pembrokeshire which is predominantly Welsh-speaking. It’s the language of the home. But we found it absolutely charming. And they were just lovely people and very welcoming and not standoffish at all. We just loved the people and love the place.
JAMES
You’re a playwright and author and a poet and so when you go to the theatre what are your hopes when you’re sitting there and the lights are going down and the curtain is about to rise.
DEREK
There are plays which you can watch and it’s like you’re looking through a window at it, and there are other plays where you’re actually there. You’re actually taken away. And those stories are the ones that stick in my memory. And it’s such a wonderful thing because it’s live. Because it changes night by night, and because it can be totally immersive and involving. Unlike cinema or television, there’s no actual barrier at all. It’s live. It’s life.
JAMES
Is there a play or two that you can share with us that sticks in your memory?
DEREK
Tom Stoppard’s Arcadia is just wonderful. I think it’s probably my favourite play actually. There’s layer upon layer upon layer of things happening. It’s in two different time frames, but things coalesce at the end. It’s quite magical.
And another play that sticks in my memory is David Mamet’s Oleanna which is actually running in London at the moment. I remember seeing it a good few years ago now with Lia Williams and David Suchet. And it’s very, very relevant now because of the #MeToo movement. It’s that sort of thing. The university professor and the student, and turning tables and not knowing, as an audience, which one to back. It’s wonderfully involving. Those are the two that sort of strike me immediately.
JAMES
How did the idea for the Pint-sized Plays Festival come to you?
DEREK
Tenby is a small seaside town in Pembrokeshire. And each year they have an arts festival which is fairly low-key. There are two or three proper venues, and they have talks and music and a few other things. It’s not a big festival. It’s just a week.
I’d been involved with theatre companies writing and acting and directing, and I felt that the theatre world still seemed to be very elitist. And the inspiration for the idea was to try and create something that took theatre literally to the people.
I was talking with a committee member of the Tenby Arts Festival, Chris Sierwald, and the idea was about doing plays in actual pubs and not pub theatres. That was the important distinction. Not in a pub theatre. So, not in a dedicated space, but actually doing it in the pub itself – in the bar area. And we thought we’d just try it. So we started a competition and had a hundred and fifty-odd entries or whatever, which was quite good from a standing start, I thought. And we ended up with six winners and four runners up. The idea was that we’d run the six winners in pubs in Tenby over two nights, and then all ten plays would go up to a theatre in North Fishguard where we’d have a script slam, where the audience gets to vote for their favourite play and favourite script.
Chris, my contact at the Tenby Arts Festival, who was well known in the town, stood up and said, “Ladies and gentlemen we’re going to do these plays here in the pub.” And then, with a lot of trepidation, I stood up and said, “And the first play we’re doing is – and announced the play.” And what was amazing was that this pub that was really busy with a lot of people talking went quiet and they listened to the play. I have to admit I was surprised at how well it went down – and relieved! These weren’t theatre audiences, you know. These were pub people. Out for a drink.
Gary Crane as Todd Sparks and Ben Gabel as Nigel Davenport in Never Give Up by James Hutchison at the 2017 Pint-sized Plays Festival
JAMES
So, what type of play works really well in a pub?
DEREK
Mainly comedies but we had a play called, Sorry, which was basically two monologues to the audience really. There’s a woman talking about how this kid had broken into her home and he’d stolen, and then there was a monologue from the kid, and at the end of the play there’s a scene where the two meet for a sort of reconciliation because he’d been arrested, and it turns out that he’s actually her son. It worked really well. I was worried about putting that one up because most of the things have been comedies, but it worked, and subsequently we’ve done a few dramas and, by and large, they have worked as well. The audience has been appreciative. Which is extraordinary because if you asked a lot of these people, “When did you last go to the theatre?” They’d say, “I’ve never been to a theatre.” And yet they were there obviously understanding and enjoying the play.
JAMES
How has COVID impacted things?
DEREK
In 2020 COVID hit here in March by which time the competition was underway. So, the Tenby Arts Festival decided to cancel. They weren’t going to run anything. So, we ended up videoing all the plays and all ten winners went up on YouTube.
This year we didn’t have a competition, and we’re actually in rehearsals at the moment because we’re going to run the Pick of Pint-sized Plays – which isn’t the best of – it just happens to be plays that the actors and directors have done in the past and said they’d like to do again.
Interestingly, one of the plays we’re running is called Pub Play. And it’s written by a guy called Doc Watson. And it was a runner-up in the very first year. It didn’t run in the pubs, but it ran in the script slam, and it won the script slam.
And two or three days ago on a Facebook post Doc was talking about his playwriting, and he mentioned Pint-sized Plays and said that he’d been working in theatre as a stage manager for years and years and years but had never actually written a play other than a few odd sketches. And this play, called Pub Play, which he wrote for Pint-sized Plays was his first play, and subsequently he’s gone on to write other things.
And that’s a great thing about Pint-sized. It has actually introduced a lot of people into writing and writers into writing 10-minute plays, and many have gone on to write other stuff which is really terrific. We’re proud of that.
And then hopefully next year we’ll do another competition and get back to where we were. That’s the basic plan.
Jackie Williams and Nick Wears in Mrs Thrale Lays on Tea by Rob Taylor in the 2018 Pint-sized Plays Script Slam at Theatr Gwaun in Fishguard, Wales.
JAMES
You’ve been writing for many years. And you write plays and novels and poetry and screenplays and I’m wondering when you look at your body of work now do you notice in your own writing any reoccurring themes or topics that you like to explore?
DEREK
A lot of my stuff is comedy. I’ve done some biographical plays and that interests me in terms of taking somebody’s life and actually trying to distill it into a ninety-minute piece of theatre.
JAMES
One of your plays is Call Me Dusty which is about Dusty Springfield. Tell me how that play came about and how that project developed.
DEREK
We decided to set up a small theatre company called Ignition in 2012, and it just so happened that 2013 was going to be the 50th anniversary of Dusty Springfield’s first solo single – I Only Want to Be With You. So, I started researching and went through eleven or twelve biographies, and I listened to more and more of her music, and I really got into it.
She was absolutely extraordinary because she was this very self-conscious very young sort of convent schoolgirl who wanted to sing and to be a great star, and she was also a lesbian, and she was trying to balance these two things in the ‘60s and the ‘50s.
Now, what I didn’t want to do was a musical. I wanted to do a drama. So, all the music in the play is Dusty Springfield herself singing. And the actress playing Dusty Springfield doesn’t actually sing. There’s one time where she’s doing her first appearance on Top of the Pops, which was her first solo single. And at the time on the television show they mimed. They didn’t have live acts. So, for us to have her miming I Only Want to Be With You was exactly what happened on Top of the Pops.
Jessica Sandry as Dusty Springfield in the Ignition Theatre production of Call Me Dusty by Derek Webb
JAMES
Not too long ago you did an adaptation of The Invisible Man by H.G. Wells.
DEREK
With The Invisible Man, I wrote it so that three actors could play all the parts like in The 39 Steps – so each actor plays five characters. And it was terrific fun because the audience can see what’s happening. They’re in on the jokes. There’s a point when the police catch the Invisible Man and they manage to slap these handcuffs on the Invisible Man’s wrist. But, beside the chain holding the handcuffs together, there was a piece of stiff wire, so they stood out from the policemen’s wrist and look like they’re attached to the Invisible Man, and the policeman gets pulled across stage. And that worked really well. The actor playing the policeman was actually a magician. He added lots of little magical things into the script. We toured it around Wales to about ten venues and then Jack Studio, which is a Pub Theatre in London, took it up and ran it for about three weeks just prior to COVID hitting.
I also adapted The Lady Vanishes from the book that the Hitchcock film was based on – which has proved very successful and it’s being produced by Bacchus Theatre of Canada in October as an online production. I’m looking forward to hearing that.
Andrew Lennon, Stefan Pejic, and James Scannell in the original Ignition Theatre production of The Invisible Man by H.G. Wells adapted for the stage by Derek Webb
JAMES
I read that the first stage play you did was Dog Eat Dog which is a play about an advertising executive who moves in with a group of homeless people. That was in 1998. How did that play evolve? And what was it like going to opening night and seeing your first production on stage?
DEREK
Scary, because you’re thinking, “Oh my god.” And exhilarating, of course, at the same time.
As a kid I wrote a lot of poetry, and I think I might have written a play, and I started a novel during my first marriage, and then I went into advertising and ended up as a creative director, which was great, but what that did is take all the creative energy away. So, I mean, I was writing all day – and by the time I got home I was absolutely knackered.
When I got to my second marriage is when I started writing plays again. My wife, Briony, said, “You really should try writing again.” And so, I started writing some radio plays. And I wrote Dog Eat Dog for an amateur company in London. South London Theatre. They’re a big company, and they have a lot of directors and very good actors and do a lot of good stuff, and a friend, Marcelle Clow, was directing and – I think she probably said, “Could you write something?” And I wrote Dog Eat Dog and that was the first stage play as such. And it went down well, and that was the start!
JAMES
So, you write both drama and comedy, and I’m wondering if the process differs depending on whether or not you’re in the world of comedy or the world of drama?
DEREK
I structure everything to start with, so I know where I’m going. I know people when writing novels go, “I’ll just go where the novel takes me.” Well yeah, but I actually want to know where I’m going. And that discipline is certainly the same for both drama and comedy.
The Agatha Crusty series, which is probably the most successful series I’ve done, started because a local drama company had done a couple of my one-acts and liked them and the director said, “Could you write a murder mystery for me to direct?”
And I sat down with Briony to try and come up with some ideas, and this goes back to Pint-sized Plays in a funny way as well, because they were an amateur company – and their audience is not a theatre-going audience. What they do is watch television or film. That’s their point of reference. Not the theatre.
So, in trying to write something we went through loads of television-type ideas – reality TV – quiz shows – whatever. And then we got onto detectives and Miss Marple and Hercule Poirot and suddenly the name Agatha Crusty popped into my brain – out of nowhere and – that’s it – Agatha Crusty!
At the time I was working on a committee to save a local theatre here in Pembrokeshire which the council wanted to close. I was on the committee, and we thankfully managed to save the theatre. But being on that committee totally did my head in – and the first – Agatha Crusty is called Agatha Crusty and the Village Hall Murders and what happens is the Village Hall Committee gets murdered one by one by one. Which was my way of exacting vengeance on them you see.
Is this a clue? Steve Martin, Heather Harris, and Mike Rutter in the 3A, Milton Keynes production of Derek Webb’s Agatha Crusty and the Village Hall Murders
Now writing subsequent Agatha Crustys you have to structure it well because you need to know who did the murder and how they did it and then work backwards. Apparently, sometimes Agatha Christie herself used to write a novel and she’d get to the end of the book and she would change the murderer and then have to go back through the book and put in clues to make that character the murderer. So, whilst Agatha Crusty and The Village Hall Murders might be a comedy and Call Me Dusty might be a drama the process is actually very very similar in both regards.
Sometimes though serendipity takes over halfway through something, and an idea gets introduced, and that coincides with something else, and that links to something else, and the brain suddenly has all these things there and bing! Literally, out of the blue, the thing can go off on a different course. And it can just coalesce in a wonderful way and sometimes when that happens you get to the point where you can’t type fast enough.
There’s a series I do called Roy Brown, and I’ve written about six Roy Brown comedies now, and there’s Roy and his friends and when I’m writing it they really are talking to me. It’s absolutely wonderful. I just write down what they say.
And in the first one I wrote Roy Brown has this idea that the bluestones, which are the small stones in the middle of Stonehenge which are from Wales, should be returned to Wales like the Elgin Marbles should be returned to Greece. I wrote that back around 2000 and to get some publicity I sent some letters into the local papers purportedly coming from Roy Brown saying, “Stonehenge back to Wales.”
Then a friend in Cardiff rang me and said, “Have you seen the Western Mail today?” The Western Mail is sort of the national newspaper of Wales. I said, “No.” And there on the front page, it said “Pembrokeshire Group Wants Stonehenge Stones Back.” And they’d been to a woman from English Heritage (the organization which runs Stonehenge) who nearly fainted when they told her this idea. They had also contacted a couple of politicians who were appalled at the idea and even ran a leader in the paper decrying Roy Brown. But the thing was, they hadn’t checked the source at all. They’d just worked off this letter: the letter I wrote for Roy Brown.
And I had to confess to the Pembrokeshire reporter, and I said – “It’s not true.” And she said, “I thought that. I told them they should check the story, but they didn’t.” Two days later they had to print a retraction which was “Pembrokeshire Playwright Confesses.” But then because of all the publicity we got a big audience.
Going Viral before Social Media with Roy Brown: Reclaiming Stonehenge
JAMES
So, Derek, we were talking about Dusty Springfield, and she’s been gone a long time, but in a sense, I suppose, we’re talking about legacy. She has this work and a legacy. Do you ever think about your own legacy and what you’d like for your own writing?
DEREK
What are you going to leave? I mean there are certainly things I want to write before I go. A couple of things I want to sort of explore. At the moment I’m writing a play about Richard Trevithick. He invented the steam engine – the railways. Not James Watt. Not the Stevensons. Trevithick had the very first working steam locomotive in Wales, in fact. And he was a fascinating character. Trevithick had loads of ideas, but he was absolutely useless at money, and he never got the fortune he thought he deserved. For some reason he never quite made it, and I’m trying to understand him.
That’s what it’s about – it’s exploring things – exploring people and motivations. And perhaps it’s trying to understand yourself, isn’t it? Maybe – you know – you’re writing things not just to explain things to other people but trying to explain things to yourself about yourself. I mean it’s the actor’s thing about when you’re playing a character – you don’t actually play the character you look for the character in yourself and express that because you actually bring the character out of you because it’s all in there somehow.
To find out more about playwright Derek Webb and his plays such as The Invisible Man, his series of comic Agatha Crusty Mysteries, or Roy Brown Comedies, among many others check out his website by following the link: Derek Webb Playwright.
This interview was conducted on August 21st 2021, and has been edited for length and clarity.
Because of COVID the Pint-sized Plays Festival ran a special show in 2021 featuring an evening of outstanding plays from past festivals.
A Night to Remember by Andrew Turner Carol: Jackie Williams Nigel: Gary Crane Marc: Roger Leese Directed by Cynthia Jennings Winner in 2016
Two Woofs for Yes by Neil Walden Brenda: Allison Butler Ted: Steve Butler Directed by Sarah Sherriff Runner Up in 2016
Bottle for a Special Occasion by Bill Kovacsik Martin: Bern Smith Judith: Jean Smith Runner Up in 2018
The Next Ivan Shiransky by Jim Geoghan Ida: Carol Macintosh Carl: Nick Wears Directed by Carol Macintosh Winner in 2020
Pub Play by Doc Watson Man: Roger Leese Woman: Jackie Williams Extra: Steve Butler Directed by Derek Webb Runner Up in 2008
The Emperor’s New Clothes by Derek Webb Dave: Nick Wears Brian: Adam Edgerley Pub Landlady: Sarah Sherriff Directed by Sarah Sherriff Runner Up in 2015
Vent by Gavin Harrison Lisa: Andrea Thomas Derek: Nick Wears Kelvin: Steve Butler Directed by Carol Macintosh Winner in 2014
Attack of the Killer Banana Spider by John Moorhouse Josh: Tom Wears Sol: JakeWears Directed by Bobbie Sheldrake Winner in 2015
A Little Scotchie by John Spooner Stephen: Bern Smith Rachel: Anna Munro Directed by Sarah Sherriff Runner Up in 2020
Mrs. Thrale Lays on Tea! By Rob Taylor Mrs. Thrale: Jackie Williams Dr. Johnson: Nick Wears Polly: Melissa Pettitt Directed by Derek Webb Winner in 2018
NOTE: ‘Winner’ or ‘Runner Up’ refers to the writing competition, not necessarily the Script Slam
Director of Photography Tony Metchie and David Winning on the set of The Convenient Groom
“I think actors are always vastly better when they’re moving and when they realize in the course of shooting a scene that because you’ve got the Steadicam following them around they can start to forget the self-conscious side of acting. I do that with kids all the time too. Kids love to move. A Steadicam frees people up. It’s almost like it takes away the fourth wall, because people can do whatever they normally do in life, and I just chase them. I love doing that. And I find definitely the performances are much more real and organic.”
What do cannibals feasting on blood-thirsty vampires in Van Helsing and lonely singles finding love in Hallmark’s A December Bride have in common? They’re just two of the many stories film and television director David Winning has brought to the screen.
Comedy, romance, horror – David Winning does it all. In a career spanning more than 40 years David has worked on 29 different television shows including Are You Afraid of the Dark, Van Helsing, Andromeda, Stargate Atlantis, Todd and the Book of Pure Evil, Breaker High, and Earth Final Conflict. His film work has ranged from thrillers, such as Exception to the Rule starring Kim Cattrall, Sean Young and Eric McCormack, to several romantic Hallmark Channel movies such as Tulips in Spring, A December Bride, and most recently Riddle Me Dead, The 27 Hour Day, and Blake Shelton’s Time for Us to Come Home for Christmas starring Lacey Chabert.
David began his filmmaking journey shooting Super 8 movies in the backyard with his friends when he was 10 years of age. At 18, he shot his first short drama Sequence and expanded the plotline into his first feature film, STORM, produced on a shoestring budget in the summer of 1983. That film led to work on his first television series, Friday the 13th, and three Canadian Emmy Award nominations. Other awards include a national Director’s Guild award for Outstanding Drama, a 2020 Leo Award for best direction in a television movie for A Summer Romance and a 2012 Leo for best direction in a Music, Comedy or Variety Program or Series for Todd and the Book of Pure Evil.
I talked with David about his inspirations, his early days writing, producing, and directing independent features, his transition into working on movies and television shows for other producers, his approach to working with actors, and what type of work environment he creates on set for his cast and crew.
JAMES HUTCHISON
When you were 9 or 10 years old you started out doing magic shows, and then you discovered cinema, and I’m wondering if you see a connection between that initial interest in magic and your decision to start experimenting with film.
DAVID WINNING
When I was 8 we went to Disneyland, and I was begging my parents to buy me a ventriloquist dummy. We went in ’69 for the turn of the new decade – Here Come the Seventies, because I remember being there with my parents on New Year’s Eve and all the fireworks are going off and we went into the magic store – and I swear I bought a ventriloquist dummy from Steve Martin who was working there – I’ve seen pictures of him in his first job working Main Street Magic shop right off Main Street in Disneyland. It was the same guy, and I thought isn’t that weird to think that Steve Martin may have sold me my dummy.
So, I was doing ventriloquist shows and really bad comedy at school and at libraries and I was also kind of doing magic shows. And on my 10th birthday, my dad got me a little Instamatic M 22 Kodak movie camera, and all I wanted to do for the first couple of years after getting that camera was special effects. I did all these double exposure, pixilation and stop-motion films of us driving on the lawn, and animation stuff and that’s all I cared about. I didn’t think about movies as an art form or anything, I just thought about extending the world of magic into movies and photography.
And I loved going to movies, but I never really thought I’d be the kind of person to tell stories. I thought I’d be the special effects guy. You know, I’ll do all the science fiction effects and I’ll make the Starship Enterprise fly on Star Trek. So, magic and ventriloquism and puppetry and all that stuff kind of led into the narrative interest in movies. And after making films for a couple of years I thought, “Wait a minute – maybe there’s a way I can tell stories.”
JAMES
So, what do you think is the magic of movies? What do you think when you hear that term used? How would you define it?
DAVID
When you ask me that question I have to think back to what I thought was magical about movies as a kid, because it’s been so long since I remember sitting in the theatre and just forgetting time. The last time I can remember the audience just kind of fading away and getting lost in the whole experience of movies was when I was a kid and I used to go to all those crappy monster movies that used to run at the Tivoli and the Plaza theatre in Calgary in the ’70s. And then, because you’re a kid, you get so fascinated by that magic that you want to find out how it’s made and in the process of learning how to make movies and spending your life trying to transport others and give them that experience, you ruin it for yourself because you’ve seen behind the curtain.
JAMES
So, I’m wondering if you think back to that time when you were that age can you remember what it was like to sit in that dark cinema for the first time and watch 2001 A Space Odyssey.
DAVID
I must have spent a year and a half – off and on – going to the North Hill Cinerama and seeing 2001 because it was the one Cinerama screen in town. And I used to be in that giant theatre by myself just absorbed and fascinated by 2001. It’s still my favourite movie of all time, but as I’ve gotten older I’ve gotten tired of trying to explain why it’s my favourite movie because it was such a personal thing for me as a kid.
I love Kubrick. I think Kubrick’s a genius. I think that’s one of the last times I can remember feeling transported by a movie, but it’s also because 2001 is such an unusual, bizarre, visual experience that I think it’s something that transports a lot of people, just because it’s so odd and different and strangely paced, you know with beautiful imagery and stuff, but that’s kind of where it started for me – the germ of wanting to make movies and thinking of things in terms of narrative and storytelling.
JAMES
You know I think one of the strengths of 2001 and one of the reasons it still works and still fascinates is that it really tells so much of the story through visuals.
DAVID
Yup.
JAMES
There isn’t dialogue. We watch action. I suspect, because I’ve watched it recently again, that the reason it still holds your attention and still keeps you riveted and keeps you fascinated by what’s going on on-screen is because it has this sort of feeling of simplicity even though it was not necessarily simple to create.
DAVID
It’s a very simple storyline, but it’s about a huge, epic topic – the origin of mankind and the point of our existence. You know just huge, huge subject matter, but told in a very simple linear storyline.
It’s funny when you bring it up because I can remember sitting in this theatre. And it was almost like a private club because I’d go in and get a ticket and just sit there and there’d be nobody else in theatre and I’d just watch a matinee of 2001 and just be glued to it. I think I’ve seen the film sixty or seventy times, and there’s nothing like seeing it at the Cinerama. It’s a beautiful monumental epic film.
And then, strangely enough, when I was 16, I saw Star Wars for the first time in that same theatre. And I’m not the biggest Star Wars fan, but I appreciate the movie, and I remember I was a Star Wars fan from the point of view of being fascinated by George Lucas being this young wunderkind and being on the cover of Time Magazine and basically owning the summer of 1977.
I went with a bunch of my friends and we all sat in the front row and after the movie we came out of the theatre and I asked this friend of mine what did you think? And he said, “Wow, that was great.” And I said, “What other films have you liked?” And he said, “That’s the first time I’ve ever seen a movie in a theatre.”
And do you remember what an explosive kind of visceral experience it was to see Star Wars? Because the effects were so crisp and it was just so different and amazing and fantastical. Can you imagine the very first time you see a movie and it’s that movie? I can’t imagine – I just can’t imagine how much more powerful that would be than it was for the rest of us.
JAMES
We met each other at the University of Calgary on the first day of orientation. We were both in the drama department.
DAVID
This is like forty years ago.
JAMES
Yeah, this is ages ago, and one of the other filmmakers you admire is John Carpenter and I remember we’d sometimes be at the university late at night, and in the music department they had rooms where they had pianos and I remember you playing the theme to Halloween on the piano and hearing it echo down the dark corridors late at night. And that film really permeated the culture. I mean everybody knew the theme, even if they hadn’t seen the film. What do you think it was about that very small budget film that captured the attention of the movie-going public at the time?
DAVID
You see my connection to Halloween is so personal. I don’t know if it affected everybody else as much as it did me, because when Halloween came out in ’78 I was 17 and we hadn’t done Sequence yet, and I was just getting out of high school, and this guy comes along and he makes this little $300,000 movie. Up until very recently, it was the most successful independent movie of all time. It got replaced by Blair Witch Project, I think, in the ’90s and probably something else since, but when Halloween came out – I think he produced it for $320,000 and it made, like, $51 million.
JAMES
In 1978 dollars.
DAVID
Yes, and it was such an incredible inspiration for all of us because we’re thinking about doing things independently and getting things rolling and trying to get Sequence off the ground and then ultimately STORM. I just remember having this kind of brazen attitude, thinking, “If this guy can do it, then I can do it.” And I loved Carpenter, and I still love Carpenter. I think Carpenter’s a genius too.
I’ve always said, “Kubrick and Carpenter are like two ends of the spectrum. Kubrick’s a visual genius and he’s an intelligent filmmaker and Carpenter mastered putting style into bubble-gum horror movies and low budget sci-fi.” I just love his style.
He directed Starman and Escape from New York and The Thing, and I think The Thing is probably one of his greatest movies. I saw it in the theatre as a sneak preview at the Showcase Grand downtown. It was the second movie with Conan the Barbarian, which I watched, and I was really tired and then The Thing came up and just exploded. It’s one of my favourite horror, action, sci-fi movies ever. I just think it’s so well done. And one of the reasons I love it so much is because it’s not CG it’s physical effects, and I just found that so much scarier.
I think what Carpenter probably tapped into with Halloween in ’78 was that he had to hide things because he had no money. It’s like the shark in Jaws. You know there’s a monster there, but you never see it. And so, it’s a memorable scare when you do see it.
I remember you were with me when I saw Psycho for the first time at the Plaza, and I can remember sitting in a packed theatre. I’d never seen the movie before. I’d never seen it on TV. And I remember the moment where the detective is climbing the stairs – you know Martin Balsam – and it cuts to that overhead shot and mama comes rushing out from the door, and I just had this rush of adrenaline, and I was terrified, and the whole crowd’s being absolutely terrified by that movie and going, “Holy crap!”
I think John Carpenter used to do a lot of that with his early stuff. He was really good at visual suspense, and there are famous moments that I love that I’ve stolen from him millions of times. Like the shot with the babysitter in the kitchen – you know – walking from one counter to the other counter and there’s nobody in the background, and then she comes back, and he’s standing in the background, and just the static stillness of that was so scary. And I think when I was doing my first films, Sequence and STORM, I just lifted a lot of that imagery because I loved it so much.
Brad Fernie as the Mechanic, Camera Assistant Douglas Craik, Director David Winning, and Cinematographer Andrew Jaremko on the set of Sequence
JAMES
Do you think your own work has a certain style?
DAVID
Well, I’d probably have to only look at the films that I produced because there’s two paths to my career. There’s the independent stuff I produced that I had control over and then there’s the entire television career, where you’re making movies for somebody else. And I used to say that making movies is like trying to paint a picture and eight people are holding the paintbrush and helping you pick colours and telling you what’s wrong and what doesn’t work.
If I have a style somebody else will have to look at my work a hundred years after I’m dead and gone and say, “Oh, I see some link between all this,” because I can’t really see it anymore. I always feel like maybe this whole diversion into making other people’s movies for thirty years was supposed to bring me back to where I make my own films and actually have more control over it again.
JAMES
You’ve occasionally mentioned the desire to get back to doing those independent features, but man – that’s a long journey and a hard journey putting all the pieces together.
DAVID
In my 20s – when people are supposed to be starting families and having kids and beginning careers – I spent five years making one film, and then I spent another four years making the next film. And sometimes I think I’d love to get back to that because you have so much control over making your own projects, but at the same time, it’s really hard to raise money, and it’s hard to keep control anyway, because after I finished STORM and wanted to get it distributed I kept turning down offers for two years because people wanted to change stuff in it, and I was so idealistic in my 20s I thought, “No, you can’t change it. This is my film. I’m making this movie.”
And thank God, I held out for a decent offer from Cannon where they didn’t want to change anything but then at the end they wanted to change stuff because they said, “Here’s a quarter of a million bucks. How long is it?” “It’s 78 minutes.” “OK, deal’s off.” And there was this whole flurry of calls and I said, “Well, why don’t you advance me fifty thousand and I’ll go out and shoot more film?” And Golan-Globus and the Cannon people were like, “Yeah, whatever.” So, they advanced me the money and I ended up shooting and adding more to the film. So even with your own films before you can actually get them into the theatre you still have to make changes.
David Palffy, Tim Hollings, David Winning, and Thom Schioler First Day – Shooting STORM
JAMES
I’m going to go back a step to when you graduated high school and you had an interest in pursuing a film career and you initially enrolled in the Drama Department at the University of Calgary – and that wasn’t right for you, and I remember you telling me you looked at the Southern Alberta Institute of Technology, but that wasn’t right for you either.
DAVID
Do you remember the joke, Jim? I did the University of Calgary for three months, I did SAIT for three weeks, and I was going to do the police academy for three days.
After I bombed out at university, I went to the film course at SAIT, and I was there for literally two days. The guy came in to speak to all the new students in the program, and I won’t mention his name because he’s probably still around, but the guy came in and I was like, “I’m going to be a film maker. I’m going to be a film director. I’m coming here to SAIT and I’m going to make movies, and I’m going to be the next Hitchcock.” And the guy came in and said, “Okay, welcome to the Cinema, Television, Stage, and Radio Arts program. If you’re here to make the next great Canadian feature film and win an Oscar you’re in the wrong place. Our goal here is to place you people in television and radio news.”
And I quit. I just said, “I quit.” And I went right to the Student Union Office and the guy came in and said, “David, this is Mr. so and so, and it’s his first day.” And he said, “Hey Dave congratulations! Welcome to SAIT. Come in and we’ll talk. It’s my first day and all I want to do is interact with the students. What can I help you with?” And I said, “I’d like to quit.” And this poor guy’s face just sunk.
JAMES
A memorable first day. Well, that led you to have a conversation with your father about your plans, right?
DAVID
Yeah, I broke his heart.
JAMES
But your Dad was a pretty amazing guy. He supported your dreams, and he was willing to let you follow your path, and I just wonder if you could talk about where do you think that courage came from for you to follow your path and how did your father support that dream?
DAVID
I was 22, and I was raising money, and I was going to go to film school, and my Dad was going to help support me. I had a job as a bouncer and a ticket taker and a waiter and a bartender and all these little odds and ends jobs.
And in 1983 I had this inspiration. It was like a lightning bolt and I think I wrote a note in my diary that said, “I’m going to make my own film. I’m going to take all this money that we’ve saved for film school and buy film stock, and I’m going to go and shoot a really low ratio like three to one, and we’re going to literally force this film into existence.” Which is how I always describe STORM. Because I was so naive. I had no idea.
But I got so excited by the idea of being able to completely control a project that I remember not sleeping for weeks. “Oh my God, I can do this! I’ve had a breakthrough. I’ll write the movie, and I’ll go out and get friends and I’ll get Jim and we’ll get everybody, and we’ll hire a TV news cameraman, and we’ll go shoot the film for four weeks and we’ll shoot from dawn till the sun goes down and it’s completely mine and I make all the choices and it’s all my decisions and if it fails, I’ll just go do something else. I’ll go work in a bookstore or something.”
And that’s what led to STORM and that’s why four or five years of my 20’s was spent trying to gradually raise money to make this little epic movie. And all through that, my Dad was completely supportive, and you know he lent me money, and he charged me interest for it. And then years later when STORM sold and I paid my Dad back – every dime plus all the interest – he gave me all the interest back as a present.
And he lived long enough to see STORM, and he was proud of it. You know, I remember he came to the Uptown Theater when it ran in ’87 – when it opened in theatres, and he was with my Mom and my Mom told me years later that he sat down and he said, “Oh my God, I hope I like this.” Because he spent so much time pushing for it, and by the end he was clapping, and he loved it.
David Winning & Dr. Martin D. Winning
JAMES
That’s great. I know I know your Dad’s been gone a long time.
DAVID
Yeah, thirty years.
JAMES
Thirty years. What would you want him to know about your film career now?
DAVID
You know when my dad was getting sick and towards the end I’d say in my 29-year-old stupid juvenile way, “Dad, you can’t die. You’ve got to stay around. I’ve got to win my Oscar. You’ve got to see that.” And he used to say, “Well, if there’s any truth to what they say, I think I’ll know about it.”
So, I guess I’ve always sort of felt like our parents look down on us and somehow they’re aware of what we’re doing because, really, you know I mean, I had this crazy drive to make movies, but if it hadn’t been for my dad that wouldn’t have happened. And it’s not like most people think that he paid for everything but it was more about him going against the grain, because he grew up in a very academic world, you know, he had a PhD in Chemical Engineering. And my brother was in social work and my mom was a home economics major and dietitian, and so here I come along as the black sheep in the family and I was going to do something different.
And I sometimes think you’d never be able to do what you did in your 20s if you didn’t have this ridiculous bravado confidence and so, getting back to why aren’t I doing independent features now – it’s really hard. And I’m not sure we have enough energy in our 50s and 60s as we had in our 20s. I suppose I could do it, but when other people are raising money and working with corporations and all the distribution is so streamlined and you’re working with great people, you don’t really want to go back to those days where you’re hiring the news crew to make a movie.
Stan Kane in STORM
JAMES
So, one of the fun things about getting to do STORM and getting it sold is you get to go to a premiere. What was that like?
DAVID
Oh, it was a riot. It was so much fun. It was pretty cool to actually get a movie out there and be seen. And the premiere was fun just because it was lots of family and friends. And it kind of taught me a lot about how the movie business works although everything’s changed now. But back then movies would go through this incredible cycle of a lot of hype and it’s like Barnum and Bailey and they open on Friday and then they’re gone in a week because they don’t do enough business, unless they’re a blockbuster, obviously, and they go on for months and months. STORM lasted, I think, three weeks, which I thought was amazing. But I think they kind of hung onto it because it was Canadian content, so it was playing at Westbrook and at the Showcase downtown and I took a lot of pictures of the marquees.
JAMES
And then twenty years later you did a retrospective and had a celebration and a screening and you brought the cast and crew together and did a Q&A with the audience. What was that like?
DAVID
It was great. One of the reasons I did it was because the older actors in STORM Stan Kane and Harry Freedman and Lawrence Elion were getting on and I thought it was a good reason to get everybody together and have a party, right? So why not? It was like going down memory lane but it’s not a very Canadian thing to do. Part of the reason Canadians have struggles with the film business is that they don’t promote themselves.
I think that if I’d grown up in the States I would have gone a lot further in my career a lot earlier, because it’s kind of an American sensibility to promote yourself and be big and bold, and to get your stuff out there and to ask for more, and to come back and get noticed and to get doors slammed in your face and to keep going back and keep knocking. That doesn’t happen in Canada. And I think when I was growing up I was a little more American in terms of just pushing and not taking no for an answer. And you need that in the beginning when you’re firing up your career. You need that adrenaline when you’re starting out just to get you up the mountain and get these things made.
Stan Kane, Harry Freedman, Lawrence Elion – 20th Anniversary Screening of STORM
JAMES
So, STORM led to you doing some television work. You got hired to direct a Friday the 13th episode. So, you’ve made your independent film and now you’re going to be in charge of a much larger crew. And you’re walking onto a show where people know each other. They’re working on the series, and I’m sort of wondering, what were you feeling and doing the night before you walked onto the set? And then what was the reality of actually going to work that day and calling action for the first time on a network television show?
DAVID
Scary. What was I doing the night before? Throwing up. Yeah, STORM got me into the Directors Guild and the Directors Guild had a little booklet and they put like a page for each director and stuff. And in the late ’80s, they were doing Friday the 13th and they were in their first season and one of the directors fell out and J. Miles Dale who’s gone on to produce Shape of Water and stuff, years later was one of the producers and he’s flipping through the book and he sees ‘Winning’ and he goes, “Sounds positive. Let’s hire this guy.”
So, I literally got flown to Toronto, and I was 26. And I got off the plane, got in the studio, and they’re like, “How old are you?” And I think I said, “34.” And they’re like, “Okay. You’ve done this before, right?” No. But you never tell anybody you haven’t done stuff because otherwise why would they hire you?
And I remember walking onto this amazing old house set that, I think, was built by David Cronenberg’s designer Carol Spier for one of his movies, and they had made it into the old Curious Goods store. And I was terrified, and I remember asking the first AD will you walk me around and show me stuff. And it’s a scary experience going from a crew of 20 to a crew of 180 people. And I remember asking the first AD, David McLeod, who I flew out from Toronto to work with me on the second feature Killer Image – and I asked him, “Where have you never put the camera?”
Even then I was thinking, I have to make this different – I have to make whatever I do different. I was so ballsy even then, I was like, “What have you never done here?” He told me where they usually put all the cameras and I made sure I didn’t do anything like that because you have to try to find a way to stand out.
You know, the weird kind of schizophrenic existence of directing television is that you have to stand out, but you also have to fit in. It’s not like you can come in and change the whole storyline of a series. There’s a Bible and a certain way they do things. And they don’t really want you to rock the boat, but at the same time, if you don’t stand out, how are you going to look any different than the other guys?
So that was my big thing. And so, long story short, I did three episodes of Friday the 13th, desperately trying to make them different. And I ended up getting Canadian Emmy nominations for all three episodes so somehow I was able to make those shows stand out. And I remember walking in and they said, “Here’s the script.” And it was about killer bees and the director who left actually quit because he didn’t want to do the script. And the cool thing about when you’re a young guy is you get this stuff and you’re like, “I don’t care what it is I’m going to make an amazing show out of this.”
So, I was really proud of the Friday the 13th episode I did with Art Hindle and Tim Webber. I was thrilled and terrified all at the same time. It was really scary, but one of the coolest moments is when they pay you, because it’s very lucrative and you realize, “Oh, my God I’m 26 years old, and I’m making this much money.”
And I thought, “I’m off to the races. I’m a TV director now.” And then, you know, years go by, and eventually you get to a slump, where it’s like, “Oh, you mean, I’m not just going to be handed money to do these shows?” Because it’s tricky. Every year in my career has been a tricky thing to negotiate. Every year has had its own challenge.
John D. LeMay, Louise Robey, and Chris Wiggins – Paramount’s Friday the 13th The Series
JAMES
So, you’ve directed all types of genres. You’ve done horror, romance, suspense, and comedy. When you look at all those different stories that you’ve brought to the screen are there any particular story elements that you feel every story shares?
DAVID
Well, you know, in one year, I’ll be doing Hallmark Christmas movies at the same time as I’m doing gruesome post-apocalyptic vampires for Netflix. And I always think everything’s the same. Kid shows are the same. Erotic thrillers are the same. The Hallmark Christmas movies, the vampire series, the westerns – they’re all the same and you’re just trying to pull people into a story, so they care about it.
So, the most important part of anything you do is the first ten minutes, because you need to pull people into the stories and make it somehow personal for them, even if it’s science fiction, or running from vampires, something that would never happen to them, you have to make the stories personal to people or else they don’t care.
I’ve spent 30 years leaning really heavily on Steadicams and the roaming process and so if a hundred years from now someone’s looking at my movies, they may notice that the camera never stops moving. So the Steadicam actually becomes like a third actor in a love story. So, for example, you have the characters actually dancing with the camera, and it’s so cool to me how it’s shorthand for me to pull people into a story.
And jumping back to the Psycho reference I was talking about earlier – remember how Hitchcock tried to give everybody this really disturbing point of view of Norman Bates – so that the audience actually felt like the murderer. The audience is spying on Marian in the shower. The audience is seeing Martin Balsam falling backwards with the knife. And that was disturbing in the ’60s, because it’s like, “Oh, my God, I’m seeing this from the perspective of a maniac.” But that’s one of the tricks I’ve always tried to do, is to make the camera kind of a character in the shows.
David Winning, Lauren McNamara, and Julie Gonzalo on location for Falling for Vermont
JAMES
In terms of directing actors does giving them movement help their performance?
DAVID
Totally, I think actors are always vastly better when they’re moving and when they realize in the course of shooting a scene that because you’ve got the Steadicam following them around they can start to forget the self-conscious side of acting. I do that with kids all the time too. Kids love to move. A Steadicam frees people up. It’s almost like it takes away the fourth wall, because people can do whatever they normally do in life, and I just chase them. I love doing that. And I find definitely the performances are much more real and organic.
JAMES
So, I was wondering about the importance of promises and payoffs in terms of putting together a film or a television show? Do you think in terms of promises and payoffs? And if you do, how does that influence things in terms of telling the story and shooting it?
DAVID
I’m not really a writer, right? I’m a director, so I’m basically always interpreting someone else’s writing. But when I read movie of the week scripts, I have to kind of draw on the writer side of me to improve them. One of the revelations I made early in my career was when I realized the bottom line with almost any production company I’ve worked for is, that as long as it doesn’t cost them more money, nobody really cares if you rewrite the scripts. So, then you think, I’ve been given this gift, I can change this. So, I guess I do have to rely on a lot of writing skills.
And in terms of payoffs, what comes to mind when you ask me the question is the structure of the script I’m working on, and if the structure isn’t exciting enough I end up trying to inject elements to make things better in terms of cliff-hangers or story suspense, and just basically trying to find any way to improve and elevate the material, which is always what you try to do.
I’m definitely trying to create builds and payoffs for characters and constantly trying to make the characters less shallow. You try to flesh out the characters and make the characters more interesting so that everybody has some kind of an arc. And the most interesting characters to me are always the villains and you try to give the villain some humanity and some backstory because I think one note villains are pretty boring. Not that there’s a lot of villains in Hallmark movies.
JAMES
There are obstacles.
DAVID
There are obstacles. It’s usually saving the farm or falling in love. That’s always an obstacle.
JAMES
Who’s a favourite villain, then?
DAVID
You know my favourite villain of all time is Laurence Olivier as Szell in Marathon Man. And I like Javier Bardem as the creepy face-shifting Bond villain in Skyfall, and that movie has probably become one of my favourite movies of all time in terms of the action genre. When I saw Skyfall, I thought, that’s it. That’s the perfect three-act structure for a modern epic action film. I just loved it. I thought the whole thing was amazing.
You know, we were talking about my favourite directors, Kubrick and Carpenter, earlier but my other two favorites that we didn’t mention, and I think they’re the best screenwriters in the world – if I may go out on a limb – are the Coen Brothers. I love the Coen Brothers’ movies. Always have loved them. I think they write poetry. And I think they’re screenwriters that actually have so much more respect for the English language and words and I just love their movies.
So, you have opposite ends of the spectrum with Kubrick and Carpenter and now I’ve got the Coen brothers on one end and on the other end of the spectrum, the low end is Tarantino. Who I also think is brilliant, but I also think his style can come off as low class, and incredibly foul-mouthed. But the movies are so visceral. I love his movies. I think his movies are just brilliantly done. And they seem so heartless, but they’re just so energetic that I just get pulled into them.
JAMES
Don’t you think he embraces that B-Movie genre?
DAVID
Well, he’s doing what I thought I was doing. He’s imitating things that he loved. Everything he does is an imitation of something that moved him a lot. So, I can remember in ’92, when I had just finished Killer Image and I thought, “Okay I made this great action film.” And I’ve got it coming out, and I was all geared up and excited, and then out came Reservoir Dogs, and I swear, I almost retired at 29. I almost quit the business when Reservoir Dogs came out because I thought that’s exactly what I’ve been trying to make for 10 years – a really visceral, violent, action-packed, nonstop, funny film. I just love Reservoir Dogs. What an explosive debut.
And the other incredible breakthrough premiere movie from my other guys was Blood Simple. You know, the Coen Brothers first movie, and in the script for Killer Image the senator was described as an Emmet Walsh type. And Emmet Walsh had been in Blood Simple and I’m thinking, “Who can I get to play this guy?” And somebody said, “Well, why don’t you just ask Emmet Walsh?” And I was like, “I can’t go to the guy who did Blood Simple. I wouldn’t even be able to talk to him.” So, you know, we approached him and he said, “Sure I’ll do it.” We had him for four days. We had Michael Ironside for seven days. And the film was twenty days. So, a whole lot of that movie is not either of those two guys. Its body doubles and over-the-shoulder shots and, you know, people running around trying to look like Michael Ironside. That’s how you make low-budget movies.
Michael Ironside, David Winning and M. Emmet Walsh – on the set of Killer Image
JAMES
You sent me a note that one of your favourite films of your career is Exception to the Rule, starring Sean Young, Kim Cattrall, and William Devane, and I just want to know why is that one of your favourites? Why does that one standout?
DAVID
I did STORM and Killer Image and then I did Profile for Murder with Lance Henriksen and then Exception to the Rule. Exception to the Rule was the kind of movie that I’ve always wanted to make. I always wanted to make thrillers, you know, and we mentioned, Marathon Man. That was the kind of movie I wanted to do. Thrillers.
But it’s very seldom that you actually end up exactly on the path you want when you’re trying to pay the rent and develop a career. So, you end up doing Christmas movies and vampire shows and kid’s sitcoms and dinosaur shows.
There’s this fantasy that directors are offered things and I take a script and I review it and I go, “I don’t know if I want to direct this. Oh really. How much are they offering?” It just doesn’t happen. I mean, the agent calls and says, “David, they want you for the movie.” And I say, “When?” Boom. “What’s the money?” Boom. And I go, and I do it. I take any job that’s given to me, because otherwise I would starve to death.
So, Exception to the Rule was great, because it was a thriller and it was one of those cases where the script was kind of shallow and kind of misogynistic and I said, “Can I change this?” And again, they say, “We don’t care.” As long as it doesn’t cost money, people don’t care. “Do whatever you want to do you’re the director. Rewrite it.”
So, I was able to do a little rewriting on it and make it a bit more thriller-ish, more kind of Marathon Manish, which is what I always wanted to do. And we had a slightly bigger budget on it and I just kind of felt like I found my mojo on that movie.
And I still like it. I think it still stands up. And a lot of my friends that have seen Exception to the Rule think it’s one of my better movies from those early thrillers. You know I’ve done stuff that I’m really proud of in the last 10 years, but Exception was just a really fun memory because it was shot incredibly quickly, and I was trying so hard because you’re always trying to make small movies look like big features.
And when we finished it, I thought it turned out pretty well and we ended up taking it to the Houston Film Festival and I brought down Michael Bateman who was the film editor. And we showed it to a crowd of like 500 people in the theatre and they all jumped in the right places and they really got into it. And it’s just that kind of group feeling that doesn’t happen very often. And then we talked to the audience for like an hour and a half after the movie. And it just felt like I touched people with it. It was pretty cool. And you know, I got to work with Kim Cattrall and Sean Young in the same movie and I used to brag about getting to work with William Devane from Marathon Man.
JAMES
Did you chat to him at all about Marathon Man? Did you play the fan a little bit?
DAVID
I’m always playing fanboy with these guys. Like I got to ask Emmet Walsh about Blood Simple and I was definitely a fanboy with him and with Devane too. Exception to the Rule turned out pretty well. I thought. It’s not a bad little thriller for what it was, you know.
William Devane and David Winning on the set of Exception to the Rule
JAMES
You had an audience of 500 people who are totally engrossed in the film. That’s what you’re trying to do.
DAVID
That’s why you make movies, right? Nowadays it doesn’t happen because there’s no theater experience anymore, but more people watch my directing work now than have ever watched it.
When I do these Hallmark movies, if I’m lucky, I can get three to five million people watching it on the first screening. And then it goes into reruns so you multiply that and you know twenty to thirty million people end up watching your work; same work that people tease me about making, but when you’re shooting them, you feel the weight of the fact that these movies really mean something to people, you know. You have to value and respect the importance of everything you’re creating. It will mean something to someone.
And I just love pushing buttons and playing with emotions and making people cry and I just love doing that in these movies. And Hallmark gives you perfect opportunities for doing that because they’re all about family and Christmas and longing. And so many of the ones I’ve done recently are about heartbreak and dealing with grief.
Like, the Time for Me to Come Home series that I did that was based on a Blake Shelton song and he executive produced for Hallmark. They did three movies. I did the first one and then someone else came in and directed the second one, and then they brought me back for the third one. Which is the one that came out last Christmas and got the biggest ratings of all three, which is great, but they’re all heartbreaking, you know, three Kleenex kind of movies.
And I tear up worse than anybody watching these movies. When you direct something, you really get into it because you’re more invested in it than anyone. You’re the best audience because you know the people and you made the choices and you suggested things that they do. So of course, the big tear-jerky moments are going to hit me the hardest because I’ve choreographed it that way.
Bruce Dern in Swamp Devil
JAMES
Well, I want to talk more about the Hallmark stuff but we were talking about being a fanboy and working with a few of the folks that you loved when you were growing up. So, let’s talk a little bit about Swamp Devil and good old Bruce Dern. He’s the guy from Coming Home, Black Sunday,
DAVID
…Silent Running…
JAMES
Yeah, and you know, nominated for an Oscar for Nebraska. What was it like doing Swamp Devil with Bruce Dern?
DAVID
You don’t have enough time to hear my Bruce Dern stories. When I was about 13-14-15, I wandered into Science Theater 148 at the University of Calgary where the Student’s Union used to run Friday Flicks in the ’70s. And Paul Brown, may he rest in peace, and I rode our bikes over to the university and wandered into the Science Theater, and the projectionists were doing a test screening of the movie they were running that night.
And so up comes the opening few minutes of Silent Running, which became one of my favourite movies of all time, because, you know, I was already a kid sucked into Star Trek and all the science fiction stuff and suddenly there’s this outer space movie I’d never heard of, because back in those days movies could be released and Calgary wouldn’t see them for years.
But, of course, with the internet now everything’s just instant, right? Things are released and, boom, you see it or it’s on Netflix, but back then movies would take a while to get around the world and get into people’s psyche and stuff and Silent Running was one of those movies. So, I see Bruce Dern and I’m in love with the movie and then flash forward to the early ’80s and Bruce Dern’s in Calgary shooting that movie with Gordon Lightfoot.
JAMES
The Western, right?
DAVID
Yeah, and it was called Harry Tracy Desperado.
JAMES
Right, and they were shooting at Heritage Park.
DAVID
And they were shooting at Heritage Park and we went a couple of times just to get in on the set – that was back when you could do this. And we just kind of watched them shoot and I ended up sitting down in this director’s chair and they called cut and Bruce Dern walked out of the set and came over and sat right beside me with this Styrofoam coffee cup.
And I looked at him and I wanted to say to him, “You know you’re the reason I got into movies, I love Silent Running.” And he turned and he started to talk to me and then he looked at me and said, “Oh God I’m talking to an extra.” And he got up and walked away. And then I looked down and I see his coffee cup, and there was this 10 second moment where I thought I’m going to take that coffee cup. I could sell it on eBay. This is Bruce Dern’s coffee cup from Harry Tracy.
So anyway, now flash forward years later and I’m shooting monster movies in Montreal. And we did Black Swarm with Robert Englund and then Swamp Devil was right after and we shot them together. It was like an eight-week period – we’d prep and shoot – prep and shoot. And so, this rumour started happening halfway through Black Swarm that they were going to get Bruce Dern to do Swamp Devil. And I just about lost my mind. And believe it or not, I actually did tell him that coffee cup story eventually.
So, they pick Bruce Dern up at the airport and he was coming in for his costume fitting on a Saturday and this cab pulls up and Bruce Dern gets out and he was 72, I think, when we did Swamp Devil, and he got out and I was kind of speechless. I mean I get to direct this movie, and I am in awe of this guy and I really don’t know what to say to him. He was incredible.
And he used to tell me stories all the time about movies that he worked on and things that he’d done and Silent Running and his best friend in the world is Jack Nicholson. And we would be shooting and his cell phone would ring and he’d go, “Can you take that?” Because we’re in the middle of shooting something – “Can you take that? Say hi to Jack.” And I’d take the phone and I’d look down and it would say, Jack Nicholson. He’d always hand me the phone when Nicholson phoned him. And I just never had the guts to say anything. Anyway, it was an incredible experience. Working with your idols. It’s kind of scary.
And speaking about idols in the late ’80s they called me up and said, “We’re doing this series in Toronto called Earth Final Conflict – a Gene Roddenberry series.” And I’m like, “You’re punking me, right?” Like, I’m going to work on a Gene Roddenberry series, because I grew up with Star Trek. And I’ve told millions of people that Star Trek taught me how to make movies when I was 10. And Star Trek the original series is now completely corny, and people make fun of it, but the original series is still my favourite, I remember being 10,11, and 12 and just staring at this black and white TV, trying to figure out how they put it all together and kind of reverse engineering it in terms of drama and structure and choreography and I still do stuff to this day that’s right out of Star Trek. It’s just the way my brain works when I’m trying to block scenes. And then I went out and did Andromeda for four seasons, which was another Roddenberry series.
Working with your idols… Bruce Dern and David Winning on the set of Swamp Devil
JAMES
Let’s talk about another series of yours. Todd and the Book of Pure Evil. It’s about a group of high school students and this demonic book that unleashes all these horrendous things into their school, and they have a different adventure each week.
DAVID
You’ve seen those, right?
JAMES
I’ve seen most of that series. I’ve seen the episodes you’ve done. And it’s just one of those shows that pushes the boundaries. It’s wacky and fun and bizarre. What was the creation of that like?
DAVID
Well, it was completely politically incorrect. The guy behind that series is Craig David Wallace, who created the series as kind of a thesis project when he was at the Norman Jewison Film Center. It was his graduation project. So, they did a short film called Todd and the Book of Pure Evil which is their version of the pilot episode. And then they used the short film as the springboard to try to get the rest of the series made and Space Channel and some other companies got involved. And they ended up shooting it in Winnipeg of all places, covering various empty high schools with blood and all sorts of gruesome things.
And they wrote the first 13 episodes over seven years because they were trying to get them perfect. And I remember sitting down with Craig and he said, “Okay, we’ve got you,” and they had four directors, I think – and he said, “We want all the directors to read all the episodes.” So, I sat down, and I read the first 13 episodes, and I laughed. It was some of the best, funniest, most bizarre writing I’d ever read. And it’s a really weird combination of absolute gruesome horror and hysterical comedy and completely off base.
And when we got the green light and I went down and shot them and I had to shoot people saying some of the most horrible lines and I said to Craig, “Do you want an alternate on this line?” And Craig was, “No, absolutely not. It’s as written.” Because they were kind of like the Coen Brothers in a way. It was all so brilliantly written. And the wording was so biting and sharp and the descriptions and everything, he didn’t want any alternates. He didn’t want anything softened, and I realized that he was such a rebel kind of producer, that they wanted to go out and do exactly what they wanted to do and have everyone be so shocked that maybe it would be cancelled.
I thought, okay, that’s pretty bold, because you know, you’re never going to have a chance to come back and do this line, if you want to soften it and it was something just politically incorrect. But it was a very free series to do because nobody came out unscathed in that show. They made fun of everybody. And everything was just super violent, and I just had a blast making that show.
And then the weird thing that happened is it became a hit, and they went to Craig and said, “Okay, we’re going to do another season, so start writing some scripts.” And so, they didn’t really know what to do for the second season. The first season took seven years to write, and the second season took about three and a half months to write. It was a great series to work on; maybe the first season eclipsed the second season but the second season had a lot of really fun stuff in it and I had a blast working on it. Brave creative producers.
JAMES
You’ve worked on Earth Final Conflict, Andromeda, ABC’s Dinotopia, and you’ve done Stargate Atlantis, and I just wanted to touch on the Stargate Atlantis episode, you did called “Childhood’s End.” I watched it last year and again this week.
DAVID
That episode is one of my favorite things I’ve ever done. I was really proud of that episode.
JAMES
It had a lot of kids in it. It moves along really nice. And you mentioned Star Trek, and it has a little bit of the feeling of that episode of Star Trek, where the kids are growing up and they die when they reach puberty because of this disease. Remember that episode?
DAVID
It’s called “Miri.” With Kim Darby.
JAMES
It’s about a kid-based society.
DAVID
It’s funny you mentioned Star Trek, because when you work on those kind of shows and when you work on Andromeda with Kevin Sorbo, I go right back to being the kid watching the black and white TV in the basement. And I think, “Jeez, I’m actually here now. I’m creating this world. And even though I’m standing inside a fake spaceship, this is going to be so real for some 10-year-old somewhere in the world.”
And as people have told me, whenever you do anything, even if you’re not sure it’s going to be great, it always ends up being somebody’s favourite movie, or somebody’s favourite episode of the show. That’s what I take really seriously when I’m working on shows. Because I know it’s going to mean something to somebody and I can still tap into the 10-year-old in my head when I’m making these movies and try to see it from that perspective when I’m trying to tell the story.
And you know it was a great cast. And it was a really fascinating little story about these poor kids on this planet killing themselves at 25 because they think they can’t live to adulthood, because the Wraith will come and take them out. The kids were great. And you know we had a ton of fun, like, burying that little shuttlecraft that crashes in the opening sequences. It was a great episode to do and they had some really great directors on that show. Peter DeLuise was super nice to me and I just went in and I worked so hard to try to make this just a great episode. I’ve always been proud of that show and it won three international awards for directing. I’ve always been into the promotion factor of the career and I like to celebrate the work and hopefully people see it because you’re trying to keep the momentum of your career going.
Rukiya Bernard, Rowland Pidlubny, and David Winning on the set of Van Helsing
JAMES
Let’s talk a little bit about Van Helsing and your involvement with that. I mean that’s a pretty bloody and effects rich show. How did that come about?
DAVID
Chad Oakes started out as a talent agent in Edmonton and then he moved down to Calgary and started Nomadic Pictures with Mike Frislev and they ended up hitting it big with Hell on Wheels, and in 2016 they asked me to direct Mutant World for them with Kim Coates and Amber Marshall for SyFy. That led to Chad getting Van Helsing and so SyFy and Netflix co-produced Van Helsing and they did the first season without me but then they called me second season and said, “We have a couple of episodes for you in a block.” And I said, “Great.”
So, I sat down and watched the whole first season. And the very first episode of Van Helsing is incredibly gory, and just blood splatter and violent. It had a little bit of that Tarantino visceral kind of punch to it that I just loved. And so, I ended up getting hooked on this thing and binge watched the entire first season. The first season’s amazing. It had a beautiful arc to the story, and there was a major change that happened in one of the characters in the series, about eight episodes in, that just completely knocked you off your chair and took the character in a whole different direction.
And when I got offered it, I said, “Can we do some Steadicam?” And they’re like, “Yeah, we’ve been waiting for somebody who knows how to use it properly.” So, I came in with an episode about cannibals called “Big Mama,” and if you get rid of all the politics and all the BS in the film business, you really end up being like a kid in a candy store. Because you get all these actors and these really cool scripts and this vampire apocalypse world that they created for you that’s brilliantly set-designed and you wake up sometimes and you think, “Was there an apocalypse, because this is so realistic.” And I’m just so proud of those episodes. I ended up doing six of them. I did two a season. And in the third season they called me and said, “We want you to do the finale.” Which, as you can imagine, is this golden position for a director. Everybody wants to do either the pilot or the finale where all the stories get wrapped up.
And if you said to me, that’s the only thing you get to do for the rest of your life, is this little weird vampire series, I would be thrilled because it was like playing cops and robbers when you’re a kid. You know, like chasing bad guys and stuff. And I just loved the whole good and evil battle with Van Helsing. It was so blunt and obvious. And with vampire characters you can do anything. And if you watch the series, they would take their favourite actors and they would make them not vampires for a few episodes, or the villains would become heroes and be humanized for a few episodes. It was just a blast. And it was a great cast to work with.
Aleks Paunovic played Julius and was amazing. And I ended up through a weird series of circumstances not working with the star Kelly Overton the first season I was there. She wasn’t in either of my two episodes. I didn’t end up working with her until the finale of the third season. So, she came to me and said, “I’ve heard a lot of good things about you. I liked your episodes but isn’t it weird that we haven’t even met until, you know, three seasons into this series.” She was great.
David Winning and Aleks Paunovic on the set of Van Helsing
JAMES
So, since we’ve been talking about Van Helsing – lots of times you contrast your Van Helsing work with your Hallmark work – and you’ve directed other shows, I think that have a lot of heart, like Twice in a Lifetime, so it’s not something completely new. And you’ve done what? Twenty projects for Hallmark now?
DAVID
I’ve done 17 movies for Hallmark. Ten of them have been Christmas movies. Seven of them have been seasonal like summer/spring movies.
JAMES
I’ve got a list here: Marrying Father Christmas, Unleashing Mr. Darcy, Tulips in Spring, A December Bride, Falling for Vermont. And then you did as you mentioned Time for Us to Come Home for Christmas, which aired last December. Why do you think people have an appetite for these movies? And what draws you to the story as well?
DAVID
What draws me to them is just the challenge of making anything entertainment. I mean, anything you’re given. I mean, like I said with the killer bee show I started my television career with on Friday the 13th, I like being challenged to take stuff and make it better and elevate it. And with the Hallmark movies, it’s not as hard because it’s got a built-in audience and predictable storylines and people just love the comfort of that.
And I think in dark times, people just flock to Hallmark movies because there’s a comfort level and a feeling of safety and a security. And some of my best childhood memories were wrapped up in Christmas and that kind of magical fantasy feeling about, you know, the world loves each other, and everything’s great, and it’s all wonderful. That’s a beautiful feeling, and that really is Christmas when you’re a kid.
I think 85 million people watched these movies last year because there’s a huge need for safe entertainment in the world right now. Especially with so much upheaval going on politically and spiritually with people that I think people just want to pour themselves a glass of wine and sit down with some popcorn and watch these really safe wholesome stories because it has memories from their childhood.
JAMES
You recently directed Riddle Me Dead a Crossword Mystery for Hallmark, right?
DAVID
My 40th feature.
JAMES
So, what are the Crossword Mysteries and what is Riddle Me Dead about?
DAVID
What Hallmark smartly decided to do is they took their favourite stars like Candace Cameron Bure and Lacey Chabert and the people that they’ve done the Christmas movies with, and they started to develop spin-off mystery series with each of them. And so Lacey was doing Christmas movies and she wanted to branch off and do a mystery collection. So, the New York Times crossword puzzle editor, whose name is Will Shortz pitched an idea to Hallmark about doing a mystery series about a girl who basically does what he does – she creates crossword puzzles, but she also hooks up with a police detective and she ends up helping the police department solve murders.
And they’re lightweight mysteries. They’re not super violent, obviously, because it’s a Hallmark thing. They’ve done five of them now to great success and everybody loves Lacey. And the cop in the series is played by Brennan Elliott, who coincidentally went to my high school in Calgary but in the ’90s. And we’re shooting the first day and he said, “Well, I grew up in Calgary.” And I said, “What high school did you go to? And he said, “Aberhart, how about you?” And it was one of those weird moments where you kind of whittle it down and gradually realize that you’re neighbours. Anyway, so Brennan Elliott and Lacey Chabert started these movies and I directed number five, which premiered in April and it’s called Crosswords Mysteries: Riddle me Dead.
Brennan Elliott and Lacey Chabert in Crossword Mysteries: Riddle Me Dead
DAVID
And the plot is kind of fascinating. It’s about a game show. You know, all the scandals about the game shows in the ’50s. And people cheating on game shows. It’s kind of like that, and I can’t give too much of it away, but, Lane Edwards plays the game show host on this fictional game show called Riddle Me This and at the end of the first act he gets murdered on the set. And so Lacey Chabert has, of course, attended this taping and she gets embroiled in the whole mystery. And it was so much fun to do. We basically built a Jeopardy-like set inside a soundstage, complete with working cameras and I pulled things out of the script and moved them onto the game show set because I knew the stage was going to be fantastic. So much of what happens in the story actually ends up happening on the stage in you know, the dark hours.
It was a ton of fun and I’ve got a really good relationship with Lacey Chabert. I did a movie about seven years ago called The Tree That Saved Christmas with her. It was for Uptv and we shot it in eleven days and it ended up on the top five list of The New York Times for best Christmas movies of 2014. I don’t know how that happens, it’s like winning the lottery, right? So, I definitely advertise the fact that that happened, because I was really proud of it.
And Lacey’s famous to people from Mean Girls, and she was the little girl in Party of Five, the series. And The Tree that Saved Christmas kind of introduced her to Hallmark and now she’s done like 26 Hallmark movies. Mostly in Vancouver. So, when we did Time for Us to Come Home for Christmas together it was great to reunite with her and then while we were shooting she said, “Do you do mystery movies?” And I’m like, “I do everything. Vampires. Spaceships. Kid shows. What do you want?”
Making films during COVID – David Winning and Lacey Chabert on the Set of Time for Us to Come Home for Christmas
JAMES
Right, and so you did Crossword Mysteries, and you did the Christmas movie and you shot out in Vancouver with COVID protocols. How do you get a movie put together during COVID and keep it safe for everyone?
DAVID
This Saturday will be the first anniversary since the film business shut down. We called it Black Friday because the whole film business shut down on March 13. And slowly in July and August the industries in Vancouver, the IATSE Union and the Directors Guild and the various film production centers were trying to develop protocols as to how the heck are we going to get back to work?
And basically, film sets hired COVID departments. People that come in and are just specifically there to make sure that everyone is wearing masks. And we wear masks all day, obviously like anywhere else, but it’s still a hundred people working in very close proximity. Temperature checks are done every day. The actors on the show are tested for COVID once a week, or in some cases more than once a week, sometimes three times a week on some of the bigger shows. But as you can imagine, the worst thing to happen to the film business is something to slow down production because it’s just so hard to physically get these movies made.
And now we’ve got another whole element of safety and we have to just take everything even slower. So, it’s been a real learning curve. Obviously, the actors take the masks off just before they shoot and then pop them back on at the end and a lot of actors are wearing face shields. These kinds of plastic visors that come over their heads. And you know people are going around spritzing your hands all day long. And when you sign-in in the morning, when you arrive at set you have to go through a whole COVID protocol where you do a checklist, and they do the forehead temperature checks and everything and it’s really well regulated. One of the other things they’ve done is kind of divided into pods, you know. We get these wristbands when we go to work. And if you’re in the red zone, the hot zone, you’re in a small group of people that can be around the cast. And the extras, for example, are all separated from us and they come in at the last minute.
And I’m really proud of the fact that I’ve done three productions now with nobody getting sick. But I will say that I felt kind of guilty in some ways getting back to work when so many other people are struggling. I think things are starting to fire back up, but, I mean, I feel for the restaurant industries and all the companies that have shut down and closed. But I think the film business is one of the safer businesses right now, just because you can’t afford to get someone sick, it’s just such bad publicity and obviously you don’t want people ill for any reason. So, I have been proud of the fact that we’ve been able to keep people safe.
Keeping people safe – David Winning and Lacey Chabert on the set of Riddle Me Dead
JAMES
So, you mentioned Riddle Me Dead and Time for Us to Come Home for Christmas and Lacey Chabert and I know I read some other interviews with her and she’s not the only one, but a lot of actors talk about how much they like to work with you, and they enjoy your approach on set. I wonder what type of work and creative experience do you try to create for the cast and crew?
DAVID
When I started out, I used to work as a PA for Access TV and I used to get yelled at by directors and they used to do a lot of screaming and had tempers. And I thought, “I don’t know if I want to be in this business if this is the way it’s going to be.” I worked for a lot of hotheads when I started out in my early twenties and so I thought, “If I was doing this job I’m going to treat people better.” And I always think people do their best work when they’re relaxed and happy and my parents ingrained in me that you have to create a world where people are happy.
And so I’ve spent a lot of time trying to be a party host when making movies because I have never lost that childhood love of movies. People I work with say, “You seem so excited making this that I got reinvigorated working with you.” Which is kind of why I’m there. I’m supposed to be a cheerleader. And I’m supposed to try to remind people about why they’re in the business. Because a lot of people forget. It’s got to be more than a paycheck. So, I think if I have a good reputation, it’s because I try to make people as relaxed and to let them have as much fun as possible. And I have great respect for actors. I love working with actors. It’s hard enough just physically getting movies to happen so why not try to make it as comfortable an experience for people as possible.
Create a world where people are happy. Fay Winning and David Winning
JAMES
What does an actor need most from his director?
DAVID
They need to feel safe. And I end up becoming the only critic that matters for their performance. It’s just the actor and me. You know, like Lacey and I have a great relationship. You work with people who trust you. And it’s about trying to guide their performance and trying to elevate the material because if they look good – I look good.
So, I’m always trying to make people feel like they have the best playground to work in. And then what’s always fun, a lot of times, even in comedies I always try to do a third take where you let people just do whatever they want to do. And you’d be surprised how often that material ends up in the show. When I was doing Breaker High years ago for Saban, Ryan Gosling, who went on to some success, and Tyler Labine used to be just hysterical together. They were playing the two kids and we would always do what we called a Jimmy and Sean take where we would just let them go and do whatever they wanted and some of the funniest moments from Breaker High were because you created a comfortable enough place so that people could spread their wings and just experiment.
And I don’t know if you’ve been on set in a while but because of the nature of the digital stuff, you don’t usually cut. You’ll shoot a scene and I do it all the time – still rolling – still rolling – still rolling – take it back, take it back, let’s try it again. And I’ll direct live you know. Just try it with this and try it with that and you don’t get this rigid “Cut” and the scene is over. You just keep rolling. Sometimes you do three or four takes without ever cutting the camera. Or you can drag cameras around and reposition stuff while we’re rolling because you have the freedom to do that. Because it’s digital. It’s not like back in the STORM days, I mentioned earlier, where you’re on a three to one shooting ratio, and I only have so much film. Then everything had to be very specific and perfect. But there’s so much more freedom now with the digital technology.
Erin Krakow, David Winning, and Niall Matter on the set of Engaging Father Christmas
JAMES
Well maybe talk a little bit about that 40-year career what are some of the big changes you’ve seen over that span of time?
DAVID
Well, actually, I’m proud of the fact that I worked on the very first high-definition television series in the late ’90s. For a long time people used to say, ER, you know the George Clooney TV series, was the first series to shoot HD digital, but actually Earth Final Conflict was the very first series that used Sony 900 cameras and was exploring this whole technology and all the cameras were cabled up. There were cables everywhere. And now of course, it’s completely freeform, which is great. But I was very proud of the fact that I was really in on the ground floor when digital came along.
I miss film because when you used to shoot film, even on a TV show like Andromeda, there’s a comfort to sitting beside the camera and hearing the film churning through the magazine. That was the old days and we’re making movies, you know. But now it’s all so electronic. It’s all “ones” and “zeros”. “Stand by for data capture!”
I remember having my whole world kind of rocked years ago when I went to a Pantages Theatre in Los Angeles which was a designated testing ground for George Lucas’s 8k projection systems and I remember going and watching some digital stuff that had been shot at night on a 4k system and then projected in 8k, and I thought, “Film’s dead.” And in the last ten to fifteen years incredible strides have been made in digital photography and I realized, “Oh, you won’t have to ship film prints to theatres all over the country anymore. Now it’s just a little HD drive and eventually they’ll just be beaming the signal out from some central location to all the theatres.”
JAMES
And boy, did it happen fast. And you’re right you don’t have to do prints and you know 40 years ago even with a big film, they might only make 100 or 200 prints. And it starts in New York and LA and it goes to the A markets and then it goes to the B markets and like you say, it could be six months to a year before it gets to a theatre in Calgary because they only have so many prints. And then the funny thing is the print arrives in Calgary after it’s been on the road for a year and then the projection you see is full of scratches. And it might even have a film splice in it. It was such a totally different experience. We forget because what we see now is so clean.
DAVID
And to connect back to something we talked about earlier. That’s why John Carpenter’s career happened. It happened because Halloween was released city by city by city. And it started to do this gradual build. It was released in October in LA and into small little markets. And it was brushed off as a little shocker movie and then it eventually worked its way to New York, and he got a Village Voice review, where it basically compared him to Alfred Hitchcock, “This is incredible suspense.” And then his career exploded. But that kind of thing doesn’t happen anymore, where you get this kind of slow-release. In the old days, somebody would just take a print and drive it around the country and rent a theatre and show it in all these little markets and try to build up interest all over the country. That’s just not a concept that occurs anymore. Nowadays, you get Netflix dropping an entire series in one day.
JAMES
So you’ve had a career that has lasted 40 years. It’s a tough business. You grew up in Calgary so you’re used to the boom and bust cycle because Alberta’s economy is oil and gas, and film and television is very much boom and bust for a lot of artists. So, I’m just curious, what strategies have you used in your career to help you ride the ups and downs working in the film and television biz.
DAVID
I’ve been on a good run for the last four or five years. I don’t want to jinx it but Hallmark Channel has been very good to me, obviously, and with the Van Helsing stuff it’s been a pretty steady run. I’ve spent probably all of my 40 years being like a promo guy. You know, I’m just trying to promote stuff and I always thought that you’d eventually get to a stage where you wouldn’t have to do this anymore. You just arrive, and you’d be the famous director and people just hand you your projects. That just doesn’t happen. And it doesn’t happen more now than it ever did in the past because there’s so much product, and there are so many channels and potential places for things to be produced.
You know, when we were growing up, it was three networks, and then it became three networks and Super Channel, and then it became satellite channels and now there’s 400 channels that need product to fill them. So, I don’t know how you don’t get lost in the mix. I just think I’ve been really lucky. I’ve always been sustained by an existing industry and I got the reputation of being kind of like a go-to guy. I can’t tell you how many shows I’ve taken over where the director has been either fired or got sick or got COVID or something happened and they fly me in. They call me on the Sunday and fly me in on the Monday and we start shooting, and I’m walking onto set reading the script and going, “Okay, you’re married to who? And you’re going to kill him in this scene.” I’ve done that a million times.
And that’s part of the reason it’s so much fun. I’ve done work on 29 different television series. And television is completely about the clock. They don’t care who you are or who the director is and film is the same way. “This movie has to happen today, in this amount of time, and if you don’t do it, there’ll be somebody different here tomorrow that’ll do it.”
One of my things I’m most proud of is that I’m incredibly prepped on the shows I direct, like you direct them in your head a million times before you ever get close to the actors or the sets. And so you can see all the shortcuts in advance. We could do this together and combine this scene and do this and that. And television taught me to have this incredible eye on the clock all the time, right. So, I always know where we are in the day and the first ADs are coming to you and saying, “You only have so much time.” I know exactly where we are in the day. I know exactly how much time I have. I know what tricks I’m going to pull out at the last minute to finish this undoable day. Because in television, you’re shooting 12-page days. It’s just ridiculous. The pace is ridiculous. But I think because I’ve faced all of the scary stuff I feel more relaxed directing now because I don’t get surprised by too much. I know how to fix things when things go wrong.
And I’ve always felt like I still maintain the excitement about trying to make everything different and exciting, but I’ve definitely had ups and downs. I remember very clearly 2008/2009 when the bottom kind of fell out of the industry and they stopped making TV movies, and I didn’t work for two and a half years. Not one booking in two and a half years. And I had come off a fairly steady bit of work so I had you know some money backed up but I started selling property and I have no nest egg left and I honestly thought, “I guess I’m retired. I guess that was it.” I’ve had a couple of little plateaus like that. You just never know where the next job is coming from. I have no idea what I’m doing next week. I could get a call today and be in Budapest the following week.
JAMES
You mentioned World Fest Houston and you’ve had a chance to go to some conventions and do some panels and things like that and I’m just curious, what’s it like to go and be a part of that and talk to the fans from the shows?
DAVID
I love doing that. I used to do it a lot when I was doing Andromeda and Stargate: Atlantis I went all over the states to all these little science fiction conventions, and they asked you to come and sign things and so you take a whole bunch of pictures of you working on different shows with various people and the science fiction fans are the best. In Springfield, Missouri, years back, this guy rolled up to me in a wheelchair, and he was in a full Klingon outfit. And I said, “Hey, how are ya?” And he would only speak in Klingon. Sci-fi fans are so much fun. And I’ve done Comic-Con San Diego a couple of times, with 130,000 people, which has been very bizarre. Sometimes nobody comes and talks to you because nobody knows who the directors are but, when they see you have a connection to various science fiction shows they feel like they know you. And there’s a lot of seven-year-old Power Ranger fans in the world that think I’m a superstar because I directed the Turbo: A Power Rangers Movie sequel in ’97 some 25 years ago. I still get invited to the MorphiCons in Pasadena every year.
JAMES
It’s fantasy time Dave. So, what television series from the past would you go back in time and take a shot at directing and why?
DAVID
Star Trek. The original series. I have fantasized for years about going back in time and being on that set. I would love to have done that. I would have loved to have directed 24. I loved 24. It was one of my favourite action series. I would love to have directed some of the Night Gallery episodes or Twilight Zone even back in the ’60s you know. But probably Star Trek TOS would be the thing I’d go back to direct. I’ve walked around stage 31 at Paramount in Hollywood and had exactly this thought many times. It was the original Desilu Studios Stage 9 until they merged with Paramount in 1967. This soundstage housed all the sets that represented the interior of the Enterprise. Hung out there while they were shooting Ted Danson’s sitcom Becker.
On Set – David Winning – Photo by David Giesbrecht
JAMES
You’ve done a lot of interviews over the years and I’m wondering is there anything that you would like to talk about that you just don’t get asked? You know, any subject, any stories, anything that you go gee I wish they’d asked me about that?
DAVID
You know, I always like to come back to my parents and the fact that I was so lucky I got the parents I had because, you know, I was adopted. I really wish my Dad was able to have seen more of my career, because as we talked about he stayed supportive even when he didn’t really understand it because he knew it was making me happy. So, I always try to honour my parents. And the temperament that I have is really completely from them. I was nurtured in a very supportive environment when I grew up. And I love the fact that that extends into whatever I do as a career in entertainment and the fact that I have a reputation for being a good guy to work with. And I’m proud of that and I think my Dad would be proud of that if he knew about it.
And sure, the hair gets gray, and you get older, but inside, I’m still this 15-year-old kid making movies in the backyard. And I never want to get rid of that, and the thing I don’t say enough is how incredibly lucky I’ve been to have survived 40 plus years in a business where people just drop out. I’ve been incredibly lucky. I would love for you to put that in because that’s what I feel is the thing that I never get to say, because I was lucky to land with the parents I landed with and you know, obviously I’ve worked very hard, but I’m just very lucky to have been able to sustain a 40-year career because if you knew the politics I’ve had to negotiate and all the competition that’s whizzing by me you’d be surprised that I’m still standing upright making movies.
And people think, “Did you design this career?” No, I wanted to pay the rent. I just wanted to keep working. So, I’m happy that they still call me. I go where the work is. I’ve never turned down a job. I’ve done 17 movies for the Hallmark Channel, but I have no idea what I’m doing six months from now. That’s the way it is. People think, “Oh, he must have it all set out so he does four a year and you start this one and then you prep the next one and then this month you have a little vacation, and it’s never been like that. I just wait for the phone to ring every Monday and most Mondays it doesn’t ring.
FAY WINNING 1923 – 2021 David’s mother and biggest fan sadly passed away at 98, weeks after this interview was conducted. She was integral to instilling in him the love of family, sensitivity and humility, and wholesome values that allowed him to flourish in the Hallmark universe. She was a gentle, kind, caring soul and will be missed. The Hallmark Channel in Los Angeles made a large donation in her honour to one of her favourite charities.
A year ago Juliet Liraz a senior Correctional Substance Abuse Counselor produced an inmate-run production of my adaptation of A Christmas Carol in the Department of Corrections in the state in which she lives. This blog is the story of that production, and it contains an account of the production in Juliet’s own words. It contains an interview I did with Juliet in November to talk with her about the production and her work with the Department of Corrections. And it contains two stories, one from Group Facilitator McCoy and one from Group Facilitator Kibeon, about their experience helping to produce A Christmas Carol.
“And in the play when Scrooge went back in time and saw the love of his life and saw how he just pushed her away because he was Scrooge and he was a young man and he’s just making these choices and they’re yelling – the inmates in the audience they’re yelling, “Don’t do it Scrooge!” because as they’re watching that scene they see themselves. They see those pivotal moments in their life where they know they should have gone left, but they went right. And the actor playing Scrooge did such a great job of showing how this horrible belligerent nauseous person just transforms into this carefree young man, and for the audience it was reliving those moments in their lives and seeing what could happen in their own lives if they made a change. It was really magical.”
Juliet Liraz
“The next few days of preparation were a comedy of errors. Murphy’s law really does exist! What kept us alive and motivated was Ms. Liraz’s belief in us. After years of conditioning, many inmates begin to believe that they are not worthy, not deserving, not trustworthy, stupid, naïve, crooked, and incapable. When someone simply believes in and validates us, we want to give them everything we have.”
GF Kibeon
“A counselor who went to both performances was amazed. She normally doesn’t go to any inmate thing. The experience of doing the play opened people up to our program and the need for an outlet for their feelings. Many people now wanted to participate in the next thing. After being able to do a play in 5 days, we were beyond cocky. All of the GF’s figured if we had a month we could do anything.”
GF McCoy
When I interviewed Juliet to talk with her about the production of A Christmas Carol she mentioned a Nigerian novelist by the name of Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie who talks about the danger of a single story which basically means if we only have a single story about another person or another country we run the risk of misjudging that person or that nation.
“The single story creates stereotypes, and the problem with stereotypes is not that they are untrue, but that they are incomplete. They make one story become the only story. Show a people as only one thing, over and over again and that is what they become.
The consequences of the single story is this: It robs people of their dignity. It makes our recognition of our equal humanity difficult. It emphasizes how we are different rather than how we are similar.
Stories matter. Many stories matter. Stories have been used to dispossess and to malign, but stores can also be used to empower and to humanize. Stories can break the dignity of a people, but stories can also repair that broken dignity.”
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie – The danger of a single story – TEDGlobal July 2009
And so that’s one of the reasons I wanted to tell this story about the production of A Christmas Carol. It’s not the sort of story you often hear in regard to prison life and for that reason alone it deserves to be told. And what this story revealed to me is how our actions and decisions have consequences that touch many lives and ripple through time. That’s why it’s important to remember that each of us has the power to do good based on how we treat others and live our lives.
Juliet Liraz’s Reflections on A Christmas Carol
“And that’s when the idea arose of producing a Christmas play.”
I was hired by the Department of Corrections shortly after I acquired my counseling license. I had worked with DOC as a teacher while finishing graduate school, and I was excited to serve in a different capacity.
The winter holiday season is a difficult season for many people and especially for incarcerated individuals. I’d heard stories about how this was the most trying time of the year, so I had asked for and received permission to decorate the building for Christmas.
Decorating the building seemed like a small gesture. However, what I’ve learned toward the end of my time in Corrections, is that small gestures have a long-lasting impact. They teach you about this while you’re in training; however, it’s connected towards negative outcomes such as staff smuggling dangerous contraband into the prison. Negative outcomes do happen, absolutely, but so do positive ones.
I started decorating with a few volunteers. The counselors work alongside inmates certified as Group Facilitators. A few of them helped me decorate the building while groups were in session. We received a lot of wide-eyed stares, and soon, with the approval of the other counselor, my small crew of volunteers expanded. Anyone watching the scene would have seen a group of tatted up convicts, from varied backgrounds, taping garland across the ceiling. I couldn’t have asked for a better group of volunteers. Together, we created a Winter Wonderland.
I was taken aback by how heartwarming the experience was. Again, I thought nothing of decorating the space. According to my logic, it was no big deal. However, I was never so wrong. Many of the volunteers have never decorated for the holiday, and for various reasons, absolutely dreaded the season. For many, it’s the worst time of the year. The volunteers told me and the other counselor that they felt renewed, happy, and hopeful. The energy in the building was jubilant.
And that’s when the idea arose of producing a Christmas play. I was talking with a GF in my office at the end of the day, and during our conversation, he’d mentioned that he had never seen a play before, and I blurted out, “Hmm…what if we do a play here? A Christmas play?” The idea quickly took root, and my mouth started moving a mile a minute. While teaching, I had my students write original screenplays to satisfy a writing requirement, and they performed their pieces in front of a small audience. But THIS, this could be on a grander level! This could be a unit-wide production! We could have auditions, rehearsals, props, music, and after a brief period of frenzied babble, I finished with, “What do you think?”
Baffled at the sudden and intense turn of events, the GF stammered, “I don’t know.”
I called another GF into my office and told him my idea. As I spoke, several emotions flashed across his face, and after a lengthy pause, he agreed that it was something that was feasible – with permission – and the production might be a wonderful farewell to the retiring Deputy Warden who had a history of supporting inmate rights. It would be a testament to her legacy. We notified the other GF’s to get their feedback. They were caught off guard, nervous, excited, confused, and did I mention, nervous? But we had a plan, we would perform A Christmas Carol, because I had a vision. A Christmas Carol is a story about a man who was offered an opportunity for redemption. It was a story about second chances. It was the perfect story for the incarceration population.
“Oh. My. God. He said, “yes”.”
The only problem was we didn’t have much time. The DW was leaving in a few weeks, and if this was going to happen, it had to happen fast.
I needed to ask permission, but before I asked for approval, I needed something to present. We needed a script, and more importantly, permission to use that script. And, if this was going to work, we needed permission in two days.
I went home and researched various adaptations. The time constraints and the lack of funding definitely proved to be an enormous barrier, which was expected. On Sunday, I came across James Hutchison’s adaptation of A Christmas Carol, and I knew that – like Neo in The Matrix – his version was The One. It was a well-written adaptation of the classic story.
I noticed that his email address was posted, and I thought, “Well, all he can do is say no or simply not respond.” This was our only shot, seriously. We had too much work to do in a short period of time. We needed permission by the end of the day to meet the insanely tight deadlines created by my “What the heck was I thinking?” idea.
I typed the email, made a silent prayer, pressed send, and went about my day with the unsettling feeling that I’d have to tell the GF’s that the play would not happen. Hours later, I checked my email, and blinked. I got a response from the playwright. I read the response and screamed. He said “yes”! Not only did Mr. Hutchison grant us permission to produce his adaptation of A Christmas Carol, but he would allow us to utilize his material for free!
I ran around the house and told my family. We had permission! We could really do this! And then I was hit with a wave of terror. Oh. My. God. He said “yes”.
“How in the world would we be able to pull off a production in only a week?”
Once we received permission to produce the play, we needed permission from my supervisor and the Deputy Warden to actually produce an inmate run production. Always a champion for a good cause, my supervisor said, “If the DW approves, then go for it!” With her permission, I sent an email to the DW and a memo regarding the production, but we had to wait for a response. The DW was unavailable for a few days, and it couldn’t be helped.
We didn’t wait idly. In the interim, we prepped. When or if, we received approval, we would be ready to take off sprinting.
As each day passed with no word, our anxiety heightened. How in the world would we be able to pull off a production in only a week? When the DW and I finally spoke, she mentioned that she had always wanted to see an inmate-run play in prison during her leadership. We received permission on the last workday of the week. Time to move.
We posted flyers that said that any individual interested in auditioning for A Christmas Carol, had to sign up by the end of the day. The rumors on the yard were rampant. Who produces a play in prison? Doesn’t she know where she works? Doesn’t the play have female roles? No one was going to audition! This is prison!
Well…by the end of the day, we had very few audition slots available. We were booked solid.
The auditions were unbelievable. We had a line of inmates who didn’t sign up by our abrupt deadline, but they still wanted a chance to audition. We didn’t turn anyone away. The judges and I sat behind a long table, ala American Idol, and watched in amazement as performer after performer recited line after line. Many were nervous, some bold, a few slightly defiant in their stance, and others shy. However, they each brought something special into the room, and when asked why they auditioned, their answers were woven with a similar thread. They knew that in order to change their lives, they had to try something new. This was an opportunity to see themselves in a new light, and they didn’t want to miss their chance. We really wanted this to work, because after all, second chances is the central theme of A Christmas Carol.
And then entered Scrooge.
One of the GF’s decided to audition and the mild-mannered man transformed into a disgruntled, highly abrasive, powerhouse who berated the judges on their lack of professionalism (we were running behind on time) and demanded excellence. He paced back and forth as he recited the passage that he obviously felt was beneath him. Finished, GF Kibeon gave the judges a look of utter contempt before storming out of the room.
Apparently, he was done.
The GF’s and I looked at each other with identical expressions of bewilderment and utter excitement. We found our Scrooge! This could work! We could actually pull this off!
“The show must go on.”
As I walked onto the yard, the following day, my mind went over the list. The cast was selected, check. The music for the performance was selected and burned onto discs, check. The sound crew went over the script, check. The scripts were given to the actors, check. The instruments and sound system were in working order, check. The props were mostly created and accounted for, check. Visitation was scheduled for rehearsal, check.
I paused. The yard, which is usually brimming with orange, was empty. My heart sunk. No! I called the control office. Was the yard locked down?
Their reply was succinct. “Yes, ma’am, the yard is locked down for searches.” Jesus, just take me now! Of all the days to lock down the yard for searches, it had to be the day our rehearsal was scheduled. The only day we could rehearse. The day right before our first performance!
The GF’s, the sound crew, and I were able to go into Visitation to visualize and plan the layout for the performance, but by the time the lockdown was lifted, there was no way to run through a full rehearsal. The inmates didn’t even have lunch yet, which was a process in itself.
I remember looking around the empty Visitation room, and thinking, “How is this going to work? How are we going to rally random inmates, most of whom have no acting experience, to perform in front of their peers with no rehearsal time? They JUST got their scripts yesterday! And there was a dancing scene!!!”
I watched the Correctional Officers pass by the windows with a curious look on their faces. This. Is. Not. Good. This play is the talk of the town, and it’s going to be a disaster. To say that we were in panic mode would be an understatement. But as they say in the biz, “The show must go on.”
“Everyone was looking at me to lead the team.”
Worried, I arrived early on opening day. I walked into the building, flipped on the light, and saw a life-sized coffin beautifully crafted out of cardboard in the middle of the floor. The props crew had gotten permission from a CO to finish the props the night before. I’ve heard it said many times, but man! There is so much talent behind bars.
I almost cried, and a tiny glimmer of hope sprung from the darkness. Just…maybe.
The GF’s and volunteers arrived shortly after, and it was time to get to work. We grabbed scripts, props, blankets, lists with character names and the actors housing locations, extra chairs, tables, and so much more. I was the only staff member in the building, so I had to race back and forth to provide supervision. My heart was thumping in time with my footsteps. We were running out of time.
The sound crew met with the recreation CO in Visitation who graciously allowed us to use his sound equipment for the play. In an hour, we had set up the stage and the seating. Now, where the heck were the actors? Seriously! Where. Were. The. Actors.
The actors were supposed to arrive an hour early to prep and run through their scenes. We had a room for them to rehearse in and wait for the stage manager to alert them of their upcoming scene. The play had over 25 roles, and I only saw 10 actors amidst the buzz of activity. I was told that “so and so was here, but such and such didn’t want to do it anymore. Or what’s his face would be late. Uh, could I call x, y, and z on the radio so he could be released from work.”
Alright, stop!
I told everyone that I was going to do a roll call. If they were not part of the cast or crew, they would have to step outside so we could prepare to give them the show of a lifetime. One older gentleman crossed his arms, and said, “I’m not moving. If I leave, then I won’t come back.” Well…then.
I had someone monitor the door, and I called roll.
I had all the actors assemble in the back room, and I sent two GF’s to find the missing cast. If they weren’t coming, I needed to know NOW so I could find replacements. The play was scheduled to start in mere minutes, and we didn’t have all of our cast. Most of the actors who had arrived didn’t have their scripts, and everyone was looking at me to lead the team.
“Scene after scene went without a hitch…until…”
Damage control. I spoke to the actors who were available and asked if they would assume another role. They were ready and willing. Perfect. Focusing on the first five scenes so we could start – the audience was filing in – the GF’s and I split our scripts into sections and provided them to the actors. I quickly created an 8 count for the dancing scene and hurriedly taught the actors. We found a few volunteers to lift the curtain in between scenes, and we were off!
I took a deep breath, and with more confidence than I felt, I introduced our play. We started about 20 minutes late. The stage was flanked by two curtains. The prop crew and I were on one side. The sound crew, the stage manager, and the actors were on the other side. We all had a script with notes that we followed throughout the performance, and oh! What a performance!
One of the CD players broke, and we couldn’t switch songs as much as planned. The sound crew worked feverishly to accommodate the numerous song changes in time with each scene. To get the attention of GF McCoy and the rest of the sound crew, I would flap my arms like a bird, and write messages on the back of the script like “Change song” or “Repeat.”
In this version of the play there are letters that Scrooge’s nephew Fred gives to his Uncle Scrooge but the letters were on my side of the stage. I handed the letters to the runner and whispered, “Walk around and hand these to Fred.” He nodded and disappeared. Well, the actor who played Fred hadn’t arrived, so he had no idea who to give the letters to. In the meantime, a volunteer who’d helped in every other capacity, but was insistent that he did not want to act, walked onto the stage and read the lines for Fred. I felt such gratitude. He performed the part beautifully, and then came the line about the letters.
There was a pause on stage, and suddenly, a hand whips the curtains back, and hands the letters to Fred. The audience erupts in laughter. There were several magical moments during that performance that simply took my breath away. Moments when everything flowed, and in the middle of the chaos, I would stand and watch, captivated. The scene with Scrooge and Marley was so powerful, the audience clapped and whistled.
We were doing it! The dance scene, with male and female roles, was a huge hit! They twirled around and repeated the 8 count that they had just learned while the musician sang his heart out! Scene after scene went without a hitch…until…
We lost our scripts. Remember, when I’d mentioned that the GF’s and I gave out most of our scripts to the actors. Well, it just got worse. In the last scene before intermission, Scrooge glanced off stage. He needed a script. I looked at the stage manager who said, “I gave you my script.” I looked at him and said, “I gave it to Scrooge.” We looked at someone else who gave their script to someone else. Everyone was so confused that Scrooge just lifted up his hands and said, “I don’t know what’s going on,” and walked off the stage.
“The second half was marvelous!”
On that note, I had to walk in front of the audience and ask them to return later in the day for the remainder of the play. The audience hollered that they wanted to stay during outcount, but we had to regroup. We had a late start, and since we didn’t have a rehearsal, we didn’t know the production’s running time.
The cast and crew barely spoke over lunch. We were so dejected. I felt like a complete failure, and we even discussed cancelling our second performance. Why embarrass ourselves a second time?
We took a deep breath and made more copies of the script. I wrote my name across the top of my script in big letters. I wasn’t giving that sucker away. The sound crew and I went over the musical transitions. We looked at the list of characters and chopped the cast by half. We’d only focus on the actors that had committed. We didn’t have time to search the unit for people. We didn’t have time for a lot of things. We reorganized the prop schedule and went with a minimal look.
We learned from our mistakes, and when the curtain went up we were ready to finish the play and never do anything like this ever again.
The second half was marvelous!Utter magic! The scenes mimicked our theatrical journey. After much turmoil, we triumphed. We felt renewed. We had hope. We had a second chance. I couldn’t describe how I felt as I saw everything flow in perfect harmony.
We looked at each other when we received a standing ovation. Okay, maybe we could do a second performance.
“A Christmas miracle.”
A Christmas Carol was a Christmas miracle. A few people have told me that it was the best Christmas they’d ever had in their life. Ironically, it was in prison. The unit was filled with a joy that bubbled just under the surface, and the effect lasted for weeks. The positivity was contagious, and there were even murmurs about building a stage. This play helped transform the worst time of the year into a year that no one would forget.
A Christmas Carol was one of the most unforgettable experiences in my life. I was aware that there were certain moments within this extraordinary experience that changed the trajectory of the production: having a supportive supervisor, meeting the Group Facilitators, the volunteers I met while decorating for Christmas, the random conversation with the GF in my office about a play, emailing that particular playwright, the retiring DW’s desire to witness an inmate-run play, nudging GF Kibeon to play Scrooge and his unforgettable audition, meeting the sound crew (we couldn’t have completed the play without them), the support from the correctional staff, and the courage of the actors who auditioned and performed.
I didn’t realize until almost a year later, how much strength it took the inmates to participate in the play. Prison culture heavily discouraged personal discovery, and each participant knew the code. They made a conscious decision to go against the status quo and choose something different, even for a moment. For this, I am eternally grateful.
And they wanted more! The actors who were in the play, wanted a larger role next time. The people who didn’t audition, wanted to audition for the next one. The people who missed the performance, wanted a first-row seat for the next play. The assumption was that there would be a next time.
“…with this team, we could do anything.”
After the play, I said, “Never again.” Though the experience was exceptional, I didn’t think I could go through the process again. I didn’t think I even wanted to do the process again.
The GF’s were on another track altogether, and soon, they won me over. I didn’t know much, but I did know one thing – with this team, we could do anything. I mean, we produced A Christmas Carol, in 5 days. Everything else would be a piece of cake.
We came up with a new program that would consist of four rotating monthly events: Poetry Corner, Talent Showcase, The Fine Arts & Crafts Show, and a Seasonal Play. The mission was to Celebrate Recovery by allowing inmates an outlet for self-expression, let them showcase/discover their skills and talents, break out of their comfort zones, and validate and affirm their humanity. The program gives the inmates something to look forward to, something to prepare for, something to participate in, and something to challenge their view of themselves. In summation, it’s therapy in disguise. More importantly, like A Christmas Carol, it would be available to anyone on the yard.
Great plan, but we had a problem. The DW retired, and the new DW might not be so program friendly. If the DW said no, then it was a wrap. He was the boss.
The new DW was absolutely supportive, and we moved full speed ahead. We hosted our first Poetry Corner, which like A Christmas Carol, had auditions, rehearsals (thank God!), props, and a packed performance. The performance had a café feel, and the GF’s, resembling waiters, providing popcorn and coffee for our guests.
We were on a roll. We had auditions for our next event, the Talent Showcase, and I even managed to speak to donors to help fund future performances. It seemed as if nothing could stop us.
Enter COVID-19. Like the rest of the world, everything changed, and our program was dismantled.
It’s unfortunate that the program was cancelled but I’ve come to learn in life that there are only temporary victories. That the rights won today must be defended tomorrow. And it’s not just people that require transformation it’s institutions as well and that’s a much bigger and much longer process. But even though things may not always work out we should remember the words of Scrooge’s nephew Fred when he tells his Uncle why he celebrates Christmas.
“Uncle I have always thought of Christmas time as a kind, forgiving, charitable time. It is the one time of the year, when men and women open their hearts and think of all people as fellow passengers to the grave, and not as another race of creatures bound on different journeys. And therefore, though it has never put a scrap of gold or silver in my pocket, I believe that it has done me good, and will do me good; and I say, God bless it!”
Interview with Juliet Liraz: Everybody needs compassion.
At the end of November, I contacted Juliet Liraz to talk with her a little more about her experience producing A Christmas Carol at the Department of Corrections and about the transformative nature of theatre and story. I started off by asking her if she thought our role in life is to make the world a better place, and if so, how do we do that.
JULIET
I do personally believe that our role is to make the world better and to make it better in a way that’s uniquely us. So, the way people do that is through their gifts and through their experience, and I think it’s varied, but the theme is always the same. You hope that the world is a better place because you were in it. I try intentionally with every interaction I have to leave the other person feeling better than they were before I walked in the room. Because you never really know what somebody’s going through. And it can’t hurt. It can only heal. It can only help. That’s my personal philosophy.
JAMES
Where do you think that compassion comes from?
JULIET
I just know when I was at my worst…when I was at my most unlovable and hateful…that was always the time when I needed somebody to brush past that and go into my circle and tell me, “It’s okay.” And sometimes I still need that. It’s part of the human experience. So, I try to assume, regardless of how happy or miserable somebody is on the outside everybody needs compassion.
JAMES
You mentioned prison culture in your description of putting on the play. What is prison culture? What is that like?
JULIET
I know about prison culture from working in a prison. I was always a visitor. So, I was always aware that I’m only seeing the tip of the iceberg. It’s very different asking somebody who was incarcerated for a certain period of time about prison culture. They’ll definitely have their own version. But from what I glimpsed, prison culture is very insular. There are definite codes. They say there’s a difference between a convict and there’s a difference between an inmate. A convict is the more positive version because that’s someone that has the code, and they stick to the code, and they mind their own business. They follow the rules. I was aware of that, to some extent, but doing the play really just threw all of that to the side. And I’m really surprised that it was as successful as it was.
JAMES
What is the biggest misconception based on your experience that people have who are outside of the prison system – the general public – what is the biggest misconception they have about what prisons are, do you think?
JULIET
I don’t want to say this lightly. There are violent things that happen in prison. That’s absolutely true. But Nigerian writer Chimamanda Adichie talks about the danger of only having a single story about another person or another country and how that can lead to misunderstanding. And everything I knew about prison was what I saw on TV and the articles I read about stabbings and things of that nature. And those things absolutely do happen, but that’s a single story, and that’s why I’m really glad that you’re having this interview because there are wonderful things that happen in the most unlikely of spaces. I’ve seen acts of kindness and compassion that took my breath away. While I was working there I saw people who had nothing give freely. Even though they say in prison culture nothing’s free. Be careful. Gifts aren’t free in prison. They say there’s always a string attached to it. But I had the most transformative experiences in a positive way while working in prison. There’s so much more than meets the eye.
JAMES
You mentioned stories. You mentioned you had seen transformative things. I want to talk about stories and the power of story and the importance of story. What do you think it is about a story that gives it the power to be transformative?
JULIET
Human beings are hardwired for storytelling. Certain parts of our brain like cortisol. Cortisol is part of our fight or flight response. That’s triggered when you’re listening to a story. Oxytocin is triggered when you listen to a story and that’s attached to love and connection and belonging. And together that creates empathy. So, our brains literally just light up when we hear a story. We’re able to feel exactly what the character’s feeling. If the characters sad our brain tells us we feel sad. Our mirror neurons mean we are literally hardwired to learn, to grow, to develop, to adapt, to explore through listening to stories.
JAMES
Why did you choose A Christmas Carol for the story you wanted to tell?
JULIET
A Christmas Carol to me is the classic story about redemption. You have Scrooge who was really poor and that’s something that some of the incarcerated can really relate to. He’s this poor guy who worked his way up the ranks. People are scared of him. He walks into a room – everybody stops talking. He’s all about money. And he pushes away the more humane aspects of who he is on his climb up. And then his business partner comes down and says, “You have to stop what you’re doing otherwise what happened to me is going to happen to you.” So, it’s a story about second chances.
JAMES
Why do you think it’s important to give people second chances?
JULIET
Because we’re human. We’re going to make mistakes. Some of them are small, and some of them are catastrophic, and you can never take it back, and they’re devastating. But I choose to live my life believing that regardless people have value, and we should show compassion and give people that opportunity for change. A lot of people are like you need to change you need to do this, but we have to create an atmosphere that’s supportive of change, and second chances, and new beginnings.
You asked about prison culture. When some of the GF’s were reflecting on the story of A Christmas Carol they were talking about how they treat each other. And you’re treated as if you’re nothing. As if you’re never going to be anything. This is who you are. Stay down here. Know your place. You can’t grow. What are you thinking? Your life is over. And that just creates a cycle. So, just like in the story when Scrooge realizes he wants a better future and made a change I think the inmates definitely learned from that.
JAMES
Right, we have to – as a society – figure out what is the society we would like to have in the future. So, if these people who are incarcerated are going to have an opportunity to participate in that future then we have to figure out what we need to do now to make it possible for them to reintegrate, and it sounds like we’re not really providing them with the tools and opportunities necessary to be able to get back into normal society.
JULIET
Correct. A lot of guys will say, “Oh, I’ll do this when I leave.” or “I’ll start this when I get released.” But you don’t make those changes when you’re already out there. A boxer doesn’t practice when he gets into the ring. He practices before. And a lot of our interventions happen right before somebody leaves, if they even have that opportunity at all. There are thousands of people in prison who don’t have access to programming because we don’t have the staff, or they’re not on a certain list. We’re limiting what people are able to do while they’re in prison, but if we want there to be some sort of massive shift in their consciousness we have to create that.
One of the main events in A Christmas Carol is when Marley came to Scrooge and he said, “If you don’t change your ways this is what’s going to happen to you. I’m giving you this second chance where the universe is going to help you in this magical way for you to be able to go back in your life and to see all these things.” For one, the inmates can really relate to that because they’ve heard that same thing from friends, or if they haven’t heard it before that play was their wake-up call and at that point it was like, “Oh my gosh, I need to change things.”
And in the play when Scrooge went back in time and saw the love of his life and saw how he just pushed her away because he was Scrooge and he was a young man and he’s just making these choices and they’re yelling – the inmates in the audience they’re yelling, “Don’t do it Scrooge!” because as they’re watching that scene they see themselves. They see those pivotal moments in their life where they know they should have gone left, but they went right. And the actor playing Scrooge did such a great job of showing how this horrible belligerent nauseous person just transforms into this carefree young man, and for the audience it was reliving those moments in their lives and seeing what could happen in their own lives if they made a change. It was really magical.
JAMES
I was just thinking about our tendency to label somebody by an incident. So, in other words, if somebody commits a crime that then labels them. I wonder if that’s just part of human nature that we, like you’ve mentioned, latch on to the simplest explanation of the single story, and then we define that person based on that first impression. How do you think as a society we can can help people see the full person?
JULIET
Through art, right. Through storytellers. I am such a fan of the arts because you can touch so many people. One piece of art can touch millions of people, and they can interact with it, and it leads to how they treat their families and other people. And I know we’re not trying to minimize victims’ rights but in order for our society to grow and to evolve we have to see that people are complicated. And I believe the arts are a huge medium for sharing multiple stories about a single event.
JAMES
When you look back at A Christmas Carol what are some of the highlights that come to you in terms of putting on the production.
JULIET
One was when we got the okay from you. You’re like, “Okay let’s do it.” You said yes to this play even though several people would have actually said no to having their play done with this population group. You said, “Hey it’s not a big deal. It’s a great idea.”
And then I had to get permission to actually do it. So, it could be a real thing. And coming in and seeing huge life-sized props that they created out of cardboard. And seeing that enthusiasm where they didn’t know what we were doing, they didn’t know if this was going to work, but we all had that same goal that we were going to make it happen.
And I wanted to make sure that every single person on the yard had the ability to audition. Everyone was like, “Can I come?” Like sure you can. And when you see them walk in and they’re so nervous and then they read for like Tiny Tim – and we talked about prison culture earlier – and in prison culture you don’t do that. Like in most prisons you’re segregated by race. You sit here. You do this. You’re a good soldier, right. And this was something that required them to take their own initiative. Not only that but to say, “I know this isn’t what’s done here, but I’m going to try it anyway.” Like, just having people accept that gift. That to me was the most transformative experience. Having them go, “I’m not going to waste this opportunity. I don’t care what I look like. I’m going to take it.” And to me that type of bravery, especially when I worked in the prison longer and I really realized what was at stake and what they were risking was amazing. I have no words for it.
And I created a program for the production and I can’t tell you how many people wanted more than one. They sent it to their moms. They sent it to their wives. They sent it to their kids especially to tell them, “Look what I did. You never thought I would be in something like this. Look what I did. Look at what I was a part of.” It had their name on it. I had a little biography in there just like in playbill, and they said their families were so proud of them. And it almost brought some of them to tears to be able to say, “I took this opportunity. I was a part of something, and I saw a different version of myself.”
And that to me was the miracle. Not only that but to have all the GFs come, because if it wasn’t for them this wouldn’t have happened because they worked nonstop. They set up flyers. They helped with our props. They helped, with these ideas, I would have at the last minute, and they would make it go through. And even with all the fumbles and there were several – you could see the joy – and it was literally the best Christmas that they’ve ever had…myself included. You literally gave several people including myself the best Christmas we’ve ever had, and I can’t even imagine the ripple effect that it had. You absolutely can positively say that you created this experience that has changed my life forever. And I know I’m not the only one.
JAMES
That’s kind of you to say.
In keeping with the spirit of sharing more than a single story, I’m really excited and grateful to be able to share with you two more stories about last year’s production of A Christmas Carol. Group Facilitator McCoy and Group Facilitator Kibeon were kind enough to write out some of their own reflections about A Christmas Carol and what the experience was like for them.
GF McCoy’s Reflections on A Christmas Carol
“…we kicked things into high gear.”
I become a Group Facilitator and started to facilitate recovery groups in October. In these groups, guys talk about their drug abuse and other issues. As a GF we use our state certification to ensure what is said in groups stays in our groups.
When Ms. Liraz came in early December, she wanted to decorate our building. I do much of the maintaining of books, rosters of who’s in groups, and other office duties. I was more than happy to want to cheer up our workspace.
As part of my responsibilities, I also help tell all new arrivals to the unit about the substance abuse program. Every week, guys would step into the building, comment on the decorations, how they loved seeing them, asking me to light them up, and many would stay after orientation to make sure they saw all of the decorations.
Later, Ms. Liraz was talking with another GF about doing a play. I talked about how I watched the Nutcracker around Christmas while in grade school. Ms. Liraz talked about doing a play here. I told her it was possible. Not thinking she would ever be able to do it. I almost wanted to ask her if she knew she worked in a prison. Not much later, Ms. Liraz came back with a play, then an approval from the Deputy Warden. This is when we kicked things into high gear.
“Many people thought it would never happen.”
Now that Ms. Liraz got permission to do the play, we volunteered to do something. I, being a former club promoter, who had worked in radio in college, did the sound and posted flyers all over the unit. I posted flyers on shower doors, dining halls, phones, microwave rooms, education rooms, visitation, next to disciplinary, and near guard bubbles on each individual yard. I was also part of the judge’s panel that helped pick guys for roles.
We made 10 copies of the script for all of us to have. I then made another 20 copies for the auditions. We started – hoping to fill what seemed like 40 roles. I was thinking we would have to change some of the names of the characters, so guys didn’t have to play a girl role. After doing the auditions we had no problem filling most roles. Some of the female roles I found people who wouldn’t have a problem playing. I was tasked with filling some of the missing roles as well as making sure that everyone had a copy of their lines.
Part of getting the sound ready was to look through the script and to make a list of all the sounds like the creaking room, footsteps, clock chimes, crackling fire, and crowd at a marketplace. Then, get the list of all these to Ms. Liraz so she could find them and put them on CDs for us to use for the play.
Luckily, there isn’t much to do in prison around Christmas time. The Props Department read the script to find what props they would need and where they can source the cardboard needed to create them. The GF’s worked with the Commissary and Property Departments to use their old cardboard to build sets as well as getting old blankets for curtains.
Many people thought it would never happen.
We scheduled a rehearsal, but that day we had searches happening so no rehearsals. We tried to organize a weekend rehearsal and a lot of the main characters showed up but that went badly.
We set up for the show the next day. Our set included a coffin, door, fireplace, and other easy to get furniture like a desk and chairs. We had heated conversations on where the stage should be and how actors were to go and come from scenes. I was asked by inmates and officers on multiple occasions if it was actually going to happen.
“…word got out…”
To say everyone was nervous was an understatement. As we looked out into the audience, the Deputy Warden, Captain, Lt., Sgt., and other administrative personnel were there with the inmates eager to see the performance. I have a script for sound and all of the GF’s and Ms. Liraz have scripts. Most of the cast doesn’t. Some didn’t come. They got scared, others, never thought it would happen. Now that it is, they lost their script. And, oh yeah, I had to go and get people and hope to find replacements for those that didn’t show up.
The visitation area had like 30 people in attendance as we started. For the sound, I had to piece together 3 CD players and get them to work with the PA system. As we started, everything was smooth. Then one CD player won’t pause to hold where it needs to start. Another CD player now won’t read the CD. Now I’m missing cues. I look across the stage to see Ms. Liraz frantically trying to signal me.
After we started, I see the audience start to grow. A random CO stops by. More inmates come in. Since we never rehearsed, we took longer than expected and we needed to stop, break for lunch outcount, and finish the play in the afternoon. The afternoon performance was packed, word got out that not only did we do it, but it was good with some funny parts.
I was able to work out a cross-stage communication with Ms. Liraz, so now, my panicking about not having the sound at the right spot was less. The second half was much easier. To our amazement, we were able to do another performance the next week. The performance went off with a better understanding of what can happen. More inmates and prison staff showed up.
“After being able to do a play in 5 days, we were beyond cocky.”
I had been in prison for 9 ½ years when we did this play. This is my only prison experience where when I had to go off unit to a doctor’s appointment both the inmates and officers from other units asked me about the play. A counselor who went to both performances was amazed. She normally doesn’t go to any inmate thing. Many inmates and officers were asking, what’s next?
The experience of doing the play opened people up to our program and the need for an outlet for their feelings. As you might guess, more people are willing to talk with a GF about their feelings. Many people now wanted to participate in the next thing.
After being able to do a play in 5 days, we were beyond cocky. All of the GF’s figured if we had a month we could do anything. Ms. Liraz asked me and another GF to put together a schedule to do just that. The next day we had stretched 5 days into a month. Our first step would be a Poetry Corner, followed by a Talent Show, an Art Show, and a Seasonal Play.
I once again posted flyers all over the unit, with the new schedule. The Poetry Corner that we were able to do was great with an outstanding turnout. Officers, inmates, and administrators all were in attendance. All actively waiting for the next event, the Talent Show. Then…COVID.
GF Kibeon’s Reflections on A Christmas Carol
“…this lady is f***ing crazy.”
I have been incarcerated for over 15 ½ years and came to prison when I was 19 years old. I was working as a Group Facilitator when I met Ms. Liraz. From an inmate perspective, anytime we encounter a new staff member, we always try to figure out if they are “pro-inmate” or not. In other words, do they believe we are human beings who deserve to be treated with dignity, or do they believe we are criminals who must be punished and mistreated.
After the first few days working with her, we all knew she was the former. We knew she genuinely wanted to help all of us. She has a heart of gold, and an inspiring light that surrounded her wherever she went. It was contagious. She quickly became the oasis for the yard – the saving grace for those stranded at sea. People like her are sacred and rare because they do not come around very often, and they usually don’t stay long when they do.
She had been here for maybe a month when she first mentioned putting on a Christmas play. The first thought that flashed across my mind was “this lady is f***ing crazy.” I mumbled a response of “that would be cool, but I don’t think staff will go for it.” To my shock, she told me a few days later that everything was approved. My mind continued to be the Doubting Thomas, thinking very few people would want to participate. I learned a valuable lesson that day: Never doubt Ms. Liraz because she will consistently prove you wrong. My new thought was “this should be interesting.”
“I decided to embrace the magic…”
She asked me a few days later if I wanted to audition. I told her that I didn’t really want to audition or act. She pushed, prodded, and encouraged me to do it. “Come on, it will be fun, and you would be great.” I reluctantly told her that I would audition for a role as a backup if no one else volunteered. I figured this was a good way to appease her, and I probably would not have to act, and if I did, it would be a small part. I had no idea that at that point I just strapped myself into the seat of a roller coaster…
On audition day, I was informed that there was one person who auditioned for Scrooge and he had a legal call, so since I agreed to be a backup, I would be auditioning for Scrooge in a few hours. “Oh, f***!!” I thought. Ms. Liraz told me to just have fun and don’t worry about it. She said I didn’t have to do it if I didn’t want to. But I had already committed, so I agreed to audition.
A coworker of mine told me, “Kibeon, this will be a good experience of walking through fear, that’s what we preach to the guys we work with in recovery.” I responded, “Well, I’m glad you have such a positive outlook on it. I guess that means you will have no problem taking my place.” “Oh no, I can’t do that, what, are you crazy?” I was overwhelmed with stress and anxiety. I was scared…I was pissed.
I arrived later for auditions, and I was impressed by how official and organized things were. There was an actual casting crew in the backroom and there was a doorman who greeted me, gave me a script, and said I should be going in, in about 15 minutes. The doorman was a well-known skinhead with a swastika tattooed on his head. He kept smiling and asking me, “Isn’t this the coolest thing in the world? Bro, this is the first time in 20 years of prison that it’s ever felt like Christmas. This is awesome, isn’t?”
At that moment, I realized there was something seriously magical going on. This play had already begun transforming a skinhead’s stereotypical anger and hate into a childlike innocence. Ms. Liraz single-handedly shattered and challenged every cultural norm we had all grown accustomed to living in this place. I decided to embrace the magic and give it my all.
I took my long ponytail down and laid my hair over my face. I decided to become a method actor and not break character during the audition. I channeled all of my anger, bitterness, and resentment that had accumulated throughout my life, took a deep breath, and walked through the door.
Immediately, Ms. Liraz and my coworkers started laughing. I raised my voice in an angry serious tone and began berating them for laughing and treating this like a joke, and almost stormed out the room. The look of fear and confusion that ran across everyone’s faces was priceless, as they did not know if I was joking or not (sidenote: I was joking). I fed off this energy and tried to give the performance of my life…I was hired!
“That experience was one of the most transformative of my life…”
The next few days of preparation were a comedy of errors. Murphy’s law really does exist! What kept us alive and motivated was Ms. Liraz’s belief in us. After years of conditioning, many inmates begin to believe that they are not worthy, not deserving, not trustworthy, stupid, naïve, crooked, and incapable. When someone simply believes in and validates us, we want to give them everything we have.
The nervousness, stress, and anxiety never went away – all the way up until showtime. Once the show started, I transformed into Scrooge and everything else faded away. My coworker was right, walking through our own fear is a great medicine. For weeks afterward people were coming up to me on the yard giving me thanks and praise. I felt like a Rockstar. That experience was one of the most transformative of my life, and it was a result of something so simple: Somebody caring about us, and somebody believing that we are magical and deserve to be treated as human beings.
When I think of A Christmas Carol there are two themes that dominate the story. The themes of compassion and redemption. And I think it’s important to note that the compassion component isn’t just that Scrooge learns to feel empathy and compassion for others but that his change comes about due to the compassion shown to him by the people in his life. His nephew Fred shows up at Scrooge’s office year after year imploring his Uncle to celebrate the Holiday and come for dinner. His business partner Jacob Marley returns from the grave and gives Scrooge a chance for redemption. And his clerk Bob Cratchit and Bob Cratchit’s son Tiny Tim insist on toasting and blessing Scrooge as the founder of the Christmas Feast even though Scrooge’s wages provide a meagre meal for the Cratchit family.
And then of course there’s Scrooge’s redemption which reminds us that how we approach life, how we view the world, how we treat others, is within our power to change at any point in time. Just because the world can be cruel and harsh is no reason for us to be cruel. And I think that’s a terrific message at Christmas or at any time of the year. And so we can certainly learn from stories like A Christmas Carol but we can also learn by those who choose to live their lives believing in others because these people put beliefs into action and one of those people is Juliet Liraz and I think it only right that she be given the last word:
“I do personally believe that our role is to make the world better and to make it better in a way that’s uniquely us. So, the way people do that is through their gifts and through their experience and I think it’s varied but the theme is always the same. You hope that the world is a better place because you were in it. I try intentionally with every interaction I have to leave the other person feeling better than they were before I walked in the room. Because you never really know what somebody’s going through. And it can’t hurt. It can only heal. It can only help. That’s my personal philosophy.“
INTiP International network Theatre In Prison – The INTiP intends to support theatre projects for planning, relationship-building, debate and qualification in prison institutions around the world. INTiP presents itself as an instrument, a reference to the many operators of this growing field in the context of a phenomenon that originated internationally over 60 years ago.
The names of those involved with the production and identifying details regarding organizations and places have been changed to protect the privacy of individuals.
This interview and the additional content provided for this blog has been edited for length and clarity.
I love that quote from Ezra Pound that artists are the antenna of the nation. I love that because it’s as if artists are sort of tuned into the zeitgeist of what is important to people right now or what they’re talking about. But I don’t know if a play can ever change anything. I think it can ask questions. Generate discussion from viewers, but I don’t know if it’s actually where the change happens. I think change happens in people’s hearts, really.
You know there’s research that’s been done with audiences that shows their heartbeats and breathing actually get into a rhythm while they’re watching the same play. There’s something really intimate and connecting about that. It’s amazing. Plus, theatre does hit at the heartstrings. Hits at the emotions. Hits at the brain waves. It does all those things and helps us think about issues and relationships – things that maybe we don’t often think about.
Tracy Carroll Director – Dramaturg – Producer
For six years, playwrights, actors, and audiences have been gathering at Holy Trinity Anglican Church in Edmonton for a monthly play-reading series called Script Salon. While the in-person gatherings have stopped, due to COVID-19, Script Salon ended 2020 with an online reading of my romantic comedy Under the Mistletoe.
Under the Mistletoeis about Harvey Swanson and Nancy Potter, two old friends, who find themselves trying to navigate the tricky road of love, sex, and desire while spending a romantic night in the Candy Cane Suite at the Prairie Dog Inn Regina during the holiday season. The play will be performed by Ian Leung and Melissa Thingelstad and is being directed by Tracy Carroll.
I connected with Katherine Koller and Tracy Carroll, the producers of Script Salon, over ZOOM a couple of weeks ago to talk with them about theatre, the origins of Script Salon, and their plans for 2021.
JAMES
I’m wondering, as artists, and as playwrights, and as theatre people, do you think people, as human beings, are ruled more by mind or emotion?
KATHERINE
I think it’s always going to be emotion. And I think that’s the brilliance of theatre because it hits us in the gut before it gets us in the head.
TRACY
I think it may depend on the person. Some people are led more by the heart, and some are led more by the head. It depends, I would think.
JAMES
You mentioned theatre, but how do you think stories, in general, appeal to the mind, to the intellect, of people.
KATHERINE
I think one of the big reasons we are story people is that we are curious to know how someone else has solved the problem that we may not yet have met. So, I think we’re constantly gathering evidence, both emotional and intellectual knowledge, to help us navigate a world in which there’s no guidebook.
JAMES
How much do you consider theatre, a collaborative art? And how much do you see theatre as an expression of an individual vision?
TRACY
It’s wholly collaborative. A hundred percent. Even though it can be an isolating kind of craft with the playwright often writing by themselves eventually the play will be read by someone else. Will be heard by someone else. The characters will come alive with actors. A director gets involved. The designers get involved. The dramaturg. Everybody. It’s always fully collaborative to me.
JAMES
It’s collaborative but then I also wonder about when you want to look at a block of work – a volume of work – a playwright’s ten or fifteen or twenty plays that they write in a lifetime, and I know there’s collaboration, but is there an individual vision in there as well that reveals itself over the course of the playwright, or actor, or director’s lifetime?
KATHERINE
I think, you know, when you put on a play, it’s actually layers of individual visions. I think the playwright has a vision at the beginning which gets elaborated on and challenged and sometimes, you know, surprisingly so, but that’s the nature of what it is. It’s collaborative. The designer has her vision. The lighting person has their vision, and so it’s like these layers of individual visions that go into making the whole, I think.
JAMES
And it’s not unusual for the playwright after seeing a production to rewrite the play and incorporate a lot of those ideas and visions into the rewrites and development of the play, I suppose, is it?
TRACY
That’s right. You’re really not doing it on your own, but when you’re talking about the canon of someone’s work, I think it really depends on the playwright. Some playwrights will write different things with different themes, and others will really hone in on specifics. I’ve worked with one writer quite a bit who pretty much one hundred percent has written about environmental issues in different ways. Other people will write about more personal things. About LGBTQ issues, or family issues, or other important issues in the world.
I had Beth Graham in last week as a guest in the young playwriting company at the Citadel Theatre and we were talking about her different ideas for her plays, because they seem quite varied. And she was asked, “Where do you get your ideas?” And she said, “I don’t know. Sometimes it’s from a headline. Sometimes it’s an image. Sometimes it’s a character. And then it sort of grows into something else. So, the plays are vastly different because they’re coming from different places.”
JAMES
Yes, mentioning Beth and her sensitivity to different inspirations makes me want to ask a question that often gets asked – do you think the theatre is more a reflection of society, or more a catalyst for change? Is it looking back, or is it looking forward?
KATHERINE
I think, it’s always a reflection of what’s going on, which could be a call to action or a desire for change. I love that quote from Ezra Pound that artists are the antenna of the nation. I love that because it’s as if artists are sort of tuned into the zeitgeist of what is important to people right now or what they’re talking about. But I don’t know if a play can ever change anything. I think it can ask questions. Generate discussion from viewers, but I don’t know if it’s actually where the change happens. I think change happens in people’s hearts, really.
TRACY
I agree. I think that’s why plays are so important. They’re a reflection – a little photo of the time – that we’re in, right? And I think that’s important. To reflect. Not just in plays but in art in general. Looking at what’s happening right now helps the future. Knowing the feelings and knowing the struggles helps us think about repeating those things or not repeating those things in the future.
So, for example, I’ll go into a different genre here. Theatre for young audiences is very much about teaching about a specific subject. So, if you’re teaching about bullying hopefully the play will change the future so that these kids, especially the bystanders, will know what to do when they encounter bullying in the future.
And otherwise, there’s a lot of discussion. Some of the best plays I think are when you go to the bar after – which we can’t do right now – but when you go to the bar after and you can really talk about the play and pull it apart and it really makes you think and talk and maybe it makes an individual make a change. You never know.
JAMES
I’m wondering, you mentioned zeitgeist. Because you are involved deeply with Alberta playwrights and the work that’s being done here is there an Alberta voice? Are there any unifying themes? Is there a unique Alberta voice out there that we can identify or not?
TRACY
For some playwrights their setting will be somewhere in Alberta, which of course affects the play. Theme wise – I don’t know. Have you noticed that Katherine?
KATHERINE
That’s a really tricky question. I mean there’s no limit to the kind of voices we hear in Alberta. I don’t think we have corralled ourselves into one category, or theme. I think in Alberta we’ve got so many different voices going on here…
TRACY
…a lot of diverse voices…
KATHERINE
…no one is like the other. That’s what I would say. No one sounds like the other person.
JAMES
I want to move on to Script Salon which is a series of readings that you have been doing up in Edmonton since 2014. I’m just wondering what was the genesis of Script Salon and how has it evolved over the last six years?
KATHERINE
Well, there were four of us in the room and we were all Playwrights Guild of Canada members, and we were trying to come up with a way to showcase work in Edmonton. And we wanted to access the membership of the PGC, and we wanted to elicit assistance from the Alberta Playwrights Network, and we happened to have access to this space at Holy Trinity Anglican Church. And then, you know, we thought, “Well we’ve got all these amazing actors in town who would jump at the chance to do a cold reading.” So, we put all those elements together and then later we expanded out a little bit to be more Alberta based. And then once we started, we realized we had something because people kept coming.
TRACY
And one of the amazing things is that about fifty percent, I think, have gone on to production.
KATHERINE
I think it’s up to like fifty-eight percent. It’s quite high. We started to get artistic directors coming to shows and then we started to get artistic directors coming in the room to rehearse the reading for the shows that they would then go on to direct. And so, we think it’s pretty awesome that theatre companies and playwrights are seeing us as a tryout for a production. It was really fun to see that we were part of that ecosystem of Edmonton theatre. But not all of these were produced in Edmonton. Some of them have gone and been produced in lots of other places.
JAMES
Well let’s talk a little bit about COVID-19 and 2020 here. You had to shift. I know you haven’t had your monthly readings. So, how has COVID-19 impacted Script Salon and then looking at 2021 – what is the plan?
TRACY
Well, one thing is the space, right. We always gathered at the church in this space and we haven’t been able to do that. So, it’s been sort of a challenge to try to figure out what to do. So, we took a pause. We had a little message back in April for our sixth birthday on our Facebook page, and other than that, we’ve been fairly silent except in September we had six writers read from their works. And we did that online. And it was wonderful. And now we’re going to do your Christmas piece which I think is a nice way to wrap up 2020 with some fun for our audience.
KATHERINE
One other thing I wanted to mention, James, about the success of Script Salon is the audience. We spent six years developing a really unique community. We open our doors about forty-five minutes before the show and it’s a racket in there. People are talking to each other and reconnecting. And you know, part of the fun is that they get to see each other again, and they get their drink and chat, and that’s something I don’t always see in the theatre. In the theatre I see this kind of anticipatory, you know, sort of hush, but not at Script Salon. I’ve had people in the audience come to me and say, “I so love this. I’m a theatre goer anyway, but when I come to Script Salon I feel like I’m part of the theatre. I feel like I’m contributing because I can hear the playwright talkback afterward, and I can ask a question, and I can go up to the playwright and give my compliments directly in person.” And those are things you can’t actually do very easily at a production. So, the audience part is essential to the way we do things and that’s why we were kind of at a loss when we couldn’t meet with our audience directly.
But then, when we did the readings in September. You know, we were very surprised at the loyalty of the audience coming in, and the feedback that we got afterward, and people were so happy that we were still alive. I don’t know how much we can speak about 2021 and what we’re going to do. We have one plan for January. Maybe Tracy you want to talk about that.
TRACY
In January of 2021, we’re going to do readings, just like we did in September, except we’re going to have all Albertan BIPOC writers, so they’ll read from their works. And then, in March, we will do readings from the Alberta Playwriting Competition. And in April, for our 7th anniversary, we’re going to do more readings from playwrights. And then we’re going to see what happens with COVID and if we can get back into our space.
JAMES
We were talking about collaborative versus individual vision, and then we touched on audience, and I guess your final collaborator in the creative process is the audience. And so, I’m wondering about your own thoughts about theatre as a social gathering as a community event. Why are you attracted to this community experience and the creation of theatre?
TRACY
Well, let’s see James, I started dancing when I was four, and I think I was Chicken Little when I was about six or seven.
JAMES
So, it’s been a lifelong passion.
TRACY
Indeed. Yeah, boy, it really feels when I think about theatre and the gathering tradition…ritual…I really…I really miss that. That’s for sure. And having that liveness in front of you – there’s just nothing like it, and it’s not the same on-screen. Although I’m really enjoying some things on screen. But that interaction with audiences is everything, whether it’s watching the play, or being in the lobby and talking about things beforehand or afterwards.
You know there’s research that’s been done with audiences that shows their heartbeats and breathing actually get into a rhythm while they’re watching the same play. There’s something really intimate and connecting about that. It’s amazing. Plus, theater does hit at the heartstrings. Hits at the emotions. Hits at the brain waves. It does all those things and helps us think about issues and relationships – things that maybe we don’t often think about.
Theatre really is about bringing community together, so it’s really challenging right now with COVID and I am hoping that all our theatres in Edmonton and Calgary can hang on and get through so we can do theatre in the future. We’ll get over it eventually. You know, the world has been through plagues before, and theatres have come back, so theatre is going to come back. There’s, I think, no doubt about that, but it’s shifting things. It’s making things different. I think that all this online stuff is really interesting because there’s a different kind of access for a lot of people, which is really fascinating to me. So, it might be an interesting way to keep new audiences coming by having some of this online interaction, you know, along with the live part.
KATHERINE
I do agree with Tracy that we’ve had to find other ways to access our need for theatre, and for myself, what’s happened is that audio drama has filled that niche probably more than zoom theatre or film, because I’m partially creating the show as I’m listening to it in my own head.
TRACY
And I think a lot of theatres, and a lot of theatre-makers are doing just unbelievably creative things whether it’s something live like a cabaret type of thing or something on screen or workshops or whatever people are offering, I think it’s amazing. And boy, the access has been incredible for artists to be able to…
KATHERINE
…to work with anybody…
TRACY
…right to work with anybody across the country. It’s just incredible. So, I hope that the creativity and collaboration just keep happening. And on top of COVID the other layer is a bigger awareness of Black Lives Matter and of BIPOC artists, being involved. That’s a whole other layer that’s going to shift our rehearsal halls, our readings, and our productions. We have to be more aware of everybody in the room and my hope is that we have a more inclusive working space for everyone.
Under the Mistletoe CAST Ian Leung as Harvey Swanson Melissa Thingelstad as Nancy Potter
Ian Leung is pleased to be reading at Script Salon again. His recent theatre credits include Pastor John in The Blue Hour (SkirtsAfire Festival), Daedalus in Slight of Mind (Theatre Yes), King Berenger in Exit the King (Studio Theatre), Wormold in Our Man in Havana (Bright Young Things), Professor Ogawa in Pugwash (Ship’s Company Theatre) and Trigorin in Stupid F**king Bird (Edmonton Actors Theatre).
Melissa Thingelstad received her BFA in Acting from the University of Alberta and has worked as a professional actor in Amiskwacîwâskahikan (Edmonton) for fifteen years. She is an Associate Producer for theatre no. 6, an Artistic Associate with Theatre Yes and was cocurator on the National Elevator Project. Her acting portfolio includes stage work, film work, and voice over. She has had the great privilege of working in Edmonton, Banff, Winnipeg, Washington, DC, London, England, and Halifax and is the recipient of three Elizabeth Sterling Haynes awards for acting. Theatre credits include: Slight of Mind, Viscosity, and The List (Theatre Yes), Stupid F@#king Bird and Fatboy (Edmonton Actors Theatre), An Accident (Northern Light Theatre), Kill Me Now (Workshop West Playwright’s Theatre), and Proud and The Fever (theatre no.6). Melissa has also collaborated on new works for a number of multidisciplinary festivals in the city including: Visualeyze Festival, Storefront Cinema Nights, The Expanse Movement Festival, and The Kaleido Festival.
Tracy Carroll has worked as a director, dramaturg, teacher and producer for over 20 years including 6 years as the Artistic Associate- North for Alberta Playwrights’ Network and Artistic Associate at the Citadel Theatre where she co-created and directed KidsPlay @ the Citadel.
She is the Coordinator of Peep Show!, a tease of new plays, which started during the inaugural SkirtsAfire Festival in 2013, co-producer of Script Salon, a monthly play-reading series featuring Alberta plays and playwrights and co-producer of EDMONten- A Showcase of Ten-Minute Plays.
Tracy was dramaturg on The Mommy Monologues, written by 10 women and produced at SkirtsAfire 2017. She also directed and dramaturged The Book of Ashes by Emil Sher for the Northern Alberta Children’s Festival, Last Chance Leduc by Katherine Koller and The Invention of Romance and Matara by Conni Massing at Workshop West Playwrights’ Theatre.
Tracy is facilitator of the Young Playwriting Company at the Citadel Theatre, teaches for the Writes of Passage program in schools, and has been offering online playwriting classes through her company Write-A-Play. She also teaches Drama in the Classroom to teachers and will be offering workshops at several Alberta Teachers’ Conventions in 2021.
Katherine Koller writes for stage, screen and page. Her first plays were for CBC radio. Her Alberta LandWorks Trilogy is Coal Valley: The Making of a Miner, The Seed Savers and Alberta Playwriting Competition winner, Last Chance Leduc.
Her opera, The Handless Maiden, received a recital reading in Vancouver and Hope Soup, for radio, was recorded at the 2019 Edmonton Fringe and available at https://playwrightsguild.ca/edmonton-script-salon-podcasts/.
Her web series, about Edmonton youth changing their world, is at sustainablemeyeg.ca. Art Lessons, her novel, was a finalist for the Edmonton Book Prize and the Alberta Readers’ Choice Award. Winner of a High Plains Book Award and the Exporting Alberta Award, Winning Chance is her recent collection of short stories.
When I was eighteen I was freaking out about paying for theatre school and doing this career because I’d been told how hard it is and there are so many unknowns, and my dad sat down beside me, and he was quiet for a moment, and then he put his hand on my back and he went, “Do the thing that you want to do until you don’t want to do it anymore. And then find something else to do.” And I stopped freaking out. And of all my mentors, that sentence is the best piece of advice I ever got, because you wouldn’t want to be forty and going, “God, I wish at eighteen I’d gone and done what I wanted to do.”
Griffin has worked extensively on stage appearing in productions for Theatre Calgary, The Shakespeare Company, Lunchbox Theatre, and Birnton Theatricals. He made his film debut at the age of twelve alongside Matthew Perry in the feature film The Ron Clark Story and can currently be seen in the Alberta produced Abracadavers by Numera Films which is available on the Fantasy Network and Amazon Prime.
Griffin is currently working on several film, television and theatre projects while also launching and co-hosting The Breakfast Dish Podcast along with his mother Karen Johnson-Diamond. The Breakfast Dish offers listeners get-to-know-you conversations with a variety of artists creating dance, music, visual art, and theatre online.
I heard about the D. Michael Dobbin Apprenticeship Program at ATP and I applied and got in and it was phenomenal because you are cycled through almost every department at the theatre. So, my first couple of weeks were in props and costumes. And then, marketing, and then play development, and fundraising, and youth education and outreach. And as part of the apprenticeship, you get to assistant stage manage a show during the ATP season, and I worked on the Last Voyage of Donald Crowhurst with Ghost River Theatre.
My stage management team was Jen Swan and Patti Neice, and I had an appreciation for the acting side of production, but I don’t think I had a full appreciation of stage management until that show, because Ghost River Theatre Shows are very tech-heavy. I think Jen was working with something like a thousand to fifteen hundred cues and there were a million props. It was very Brechtian, and the audience sees everything working. That gave me such an appreciation and love for stage managers everywhere.
Braden Griffiths in Alberta Theatre Projects’ production of Ghost River Theatre’s The Last Voyage of Donald Crowhurst. Photo by Benjamin Laird. Set and Costume Design: Patrick Du Wors. Lighting Design: Kerem Çetinel. Sound Design and Video Technology: Matthew Waddell. Video Design and Technology: Wladimiro A. Woyno Rodriguez.
JAMES HUTCHISON
Talk about being thrown into the deep end.
GRIFFIN
Totally and you know, Eric Rose and David van Belle from Ghost River Theatre and everyone were as accommodating as they could be. But because of the nature of that show and how intense it was no one really had the chance to sit down and explain things. Which is also kind of how I prefer learning anyway is trial by fire. I like going in and figuring it out in the moment. That’s how I learn best. When there’s a little bit of pressure.
JAMES
What was that show about?
GRIFFIN
So, basically there’s this British race to sail around the world solo – you don’t bring anybody with you – it’s just you in a boat sailing around the world. And Donald Crowhurst isn’t really a sailor. He’s more of an inventor and things went poorly on the ship.
JAMES
He and several others set off on this voyage and he decided he’d never make it. So, he went down and pretended to be going around the world, but all the time he was just floating off South America. His plan wasn’t to win the race but then everyone else ended up dropping out of the race for various reasons and he was the last one, and he knew that if he finished the race he’d be found out.
GRIFFIN
Totally. He’s faking logs. He’s faking radio check-ins. And the craziest part is the only real evidence we have of his race is his black box entries, his fake logs, and his journals. There’s not actually a clear picture of what happened and what he did and where he went, because eventually he goes absolutely insane. And I can’t remember if this is true or not, but in our adaptation of the story he jumps off the boat and drowns.
The cast of Alberta Theatre Projects’ production of Ghost River Theatre’s The Last Voyage of Donald Crowhurst. Photo by Benjamin Laird. Set and Costume Design: Patrick Du Wors. Lighting Design: Kerem Çetinel. Sound Design and Video Technology: Matthew Waddell. Video Design and Technology: Wladimiro A. Woyno Rodriguez.
JAMES
It’s true that the boat was found abandoned.
GRIFFIN
Yeah, they did find the boat. So anyway, it’s a combination of sea madness, and guilt, and you know everything that he would put his family through if he came back and it was revealed that he faked it. It was an outstanding production.
JAMES
So, looking at that experience, and the people you’re connected with now. How has that helped you in your career making those connections and working on those shows?
GRIFFIN
That’s the number one benefit of the MDA is that it allows you to meet people in the profession. ATP is in the Arts Commons which is Calgary’s central arts building. And so you’re around there all the time working in the office when actors and directors are coming in to pick up their scripts or when you go down to the cafe and get your lunch for the day and you meet people there. It’s a phenomenal networking opportunity.
The cast of Alberta Theatre Projects’ production of Ghost River Theatre’s The Last Voyage of Donald Crowhurst (on screen: Griffin Cork (Apprentice Stage Manager), Braden Griffiths and Vanessa Sabourin). Photo by Benjamin Laird. Set and Costume Design: Patrick Du Wors. Lighting Design: Kerem Çetinel. Sound Design and Video Technology: Matthew Waddell. Video Design and Technology: Wladimiro A. Woyno Rodriguez.
JAMES
Who are some of the folks who have been significant for providing you some guidance and what are some of the key pieces of advice they’ve given you over time?
GRIFFIN
I remember there was a point at the University of Lethbridge where I had to decide between two shows and I called Braden Griffiths who played Donald Crowhurst, and I aspire to have a career trajectory like his and also to be as well-liked as Braden is. He’s a phenomenal actor. He’s a lovely man. I consider him a very close friend, and the best advice he gave me about choosing a role was, “Don’t think about the production, don’t think about the company, don’t think about the money, none of those things matter. If there’s a conflict, you go with the one that serves you artistically at the time.”
JAMES
What role was that?
GRIFFIN
I had to choose between an ensemble part in the UofL mainstage production of Carrie, or a decently larger part in Dennis Kelly’s show DNA but with Theater Extra which is the student company at the University of Lethbridge. It’s about a group of teens that do something bad and then they have to decide how to cover it up and deal with that guilt. I eventually ended up going with the DNA role because it was a little meatier. I’m glad I did. I loved that show so much that my company Hoodlum Theatre produced it the summer after.
Hoodlum Theatre’s Production of DNA by Dennis Kelly (From L to R): Taylor Sisson, Walker Nickel, Ciaran Volke, John Tasker and Miku Beer Photo by Griffin Cork
GRIFFIN
And I have to give love to Samantha McDonald. She was one of, and still is one of, my greatest mentors. When she was production manager at Lunchbox Theatre she would look over some of the grants I wrote and she gave us rehearsal space for Hoodlum’s first show. And she took me out to dinner one time and the piece of advice that she gave me was, “There are going to be so many things in this career that try and break you. Don’t let them break you. There are going to be so many things in this career that don’t mean to deter you but will. Don’t let them deter you.” And I think that’s a really elegant and poignant way of saying this career is hard work but it’s possible, and there’s a lot of things that really make it worthwhile.
And my mom and dad are Karen Cork and Kevin Cork. Karen is better known by her stage name Karen Johnson-Diamond. My mother is still an actress and a director, and my father used to be one. He went to Stratford for a few years and I think he had too many productions where he was guard number three and he got kind of disillusioned. So it was like, I don’t want to do this anymore, and now he’s a financial planner. And having someone who has a financial brain in your family, who also knows what it’s like to live on an actor’s budget, is insanely helpful.
Kevin Cork and Karen Johnson-Diamond in As You Like It RIGHT before they got married!
JAMES
How does he allow his artistic side to still get sunlight? What does he do?
GRIFFIN
I’ll tell you, James, him and I have really connected over the past three or four years over Dungeons and Dragons. Which is the tabletop role-playing game and I think the way he gets his creative side out is by being the dungeon master. And in Dungeons and Dragons you can buy books of modules and campaigns to send your characters through, but my dad doesn’t do that. My dad creates his own worlds and rules and settings and characters and plot events. He basically writes a campaign or a quest. And what’s great about it is, if we make stuff up in the session as the characters, he’ll write down the names and what we said and bring them up in a later session. And keep in mind that a lot of Dungeons and Dragon sessions are three to four hours apiece, and campaigns can last from twenty-five to thirty sessions.
JAMES
So, what have you learned from your mom?
GRIFFIN
From my mom I learned kindness, and empathy, and a lot of human values, but if we’re talking career one of the most important things she taught me from a young age is the career and real-life applications of improv. Improv is a phenomenally useful tool for anybody. It teaches you listening, positivity, empathy, and critical thinking. It will literally help you with anything you do, and it’s mind-numbingly useful for acting. A lot of directors like actors that come into the room and can offer a lot of different things on a line or a scene. And that’s what improv is. Improv is having an offer ready.
JAMES
So, I’m wondering when you sit in the audience and you’re watching a show what are your expectations of a production?
GRIFFIN
So, my grandmother, my mother’s mother started seeing a lot more theater after my grandpa, her husband, passed away a couple of years ago. She’d go to the theater and then come home and go to bed and it became like a bedtime story. And a very crucial part of that was because it let her not think about anything else except the story and what was happening in front of her.
She says, “I don’t want to be thinking about my shopping list when I go to a play. If it’s a matinee, I don’t want to be thinking about the thing I have to go to after this matinee. I don’t want to be thinking about any other life event. I want this story to grab my attention. Hold it. And hold it for however long they asked me to be there. An hour. An hour and a half. Two hours. It doesn’t matter.”
And so, for me, I don’t know if there’s any formality or structure or trope or story elements that I have come to expect or demand from a production when I go to the theatre. My expectations have kind of shifted to what my grandmother has described as her expectations, and I think they’re really simple, and I think almost any production can achieve it. “No shopping list,” and that’s a Sandy Moser quote.
Shooting Abracadavers – Photo by Rachael Haugan
JAMES
I know you do some film work so tell me a little bit about how you got involved in film and what you’re working on right now.
GRIFFIN
I started acting in film when I was in grade five, and there was a TV movie coming through town called The Ron Clark Story, and it was about a teacher who goes to this rough and tumble school and has to change things. Matthew Perry, who plays Chandler on Friends, was the teacher, and when he got to this new school the camera pans over to see twelve-year-old Griffin. And I had a rat tail, and vanilla ice lines shaved into the side my head, and a mohawk. And I’m standing in a garbage can. Basically, I was the dumb kid being abused by the teachers. I’m so dumb I have to go stand in the trash. I’m standing in a wastebasket. So, that’s how I got started in film.
And I have a buddy named Josef Wright who I met at Theater Alberta’s ARTSTREK which is a week-long Summer Intensive that happens at Red Deer College. And he was like, “Hey man I’m in film school at SAIT and I’m doing a student film, it’s kind of goofy, do you want to come be in it?” And I was like, “Sure.” And it was about a guy who gets a genie lamp and he’s really lonely and he wishes for a date. And I met the camera operator on that film whose name was Morgan Ermter. And Morgan and Joseph have a film company called Numera Films.
And in 2014 they entered the STORYHIVE Web Series competition which provides winners with funding for the project they’ve entered. And they asked me to be in it, and it was called Abracadavers. So, we did the pilot and sometimes as a film actor you kind of show up to set and you do your bit. You get your cheque. You leave. You’re not usually involved in any of the other parts of the project. But something about the content of this particular project and the people involved and the way they were talking was pretty cool.
And we didn’t win STORYHIVE so I was like, “Okay what are we going to do with it?” And so, we took it to the Banff World Media Festival, and we pitched it to a bunch of distributors and financers. And basically, I just bugged my way into Numera Film. I pestered Morgan and Joe, as much as I could to just let me help out more. And then Abracadavers got funding and we did it for a season and we got a distribution deal. And I really found a lot of joy in film producing just because of how much you are involved. It’s really satisfying. It’s a different feeling to sit in a screening as an actor and then to sit in the screening as the producer, because as a producer you’re involved in every stage of making a film. There was something really fulfilling about that.
And so now me, Morgan, and Joe are Numera Films and we have a couple of things in the works. Right now, we’re pitching a few features. We filmed another web series pilot called Restless Sleep, which is kind of like a web Black Mirror. It’s like a horror anthology where every episode is a different story.
And I am working with a company right now called Thousand Year Films. They’re producing Father of Nations which is a post-apocalyptic film that’s being filmed in the Badlands. They’re doing pickup shots today, as we speak, because they got shut down by COVID.
Screen Grab of Griffin Cork in Father of Nations from Thousand Year Films
JAMES
You were in a one man show and I’m sorry I missed it, but you won an award for best actor for the show from…
GRIFFIN
…Broadway World. That was for Fully Committed by Becky Mode.
JAMES
Tell me about being in a one man show. What type of challenges do you face? How do you work the day? What is that experience like for an actor?
GRIFFIN
I find there’s usually a point in a run of a show say, anywhere from like forty to seventy percent of the way through the run that you feel like you’re in a groove. Not that you can go on autopilot. You still have to connect with your fellow actors, but you can do the show confidently. With Fully Committed I never hit a groove.
Every night, I was unsure if the show was going to go well. But there’s something really exciting about that and my stage manager, Meg Thatcher, was my lifeline. Fully Committed unlike a lot of one-man shows doesn’t interact with the audience at all. No asides. No inner monologues. Nothing. And there’s a lot of tech, and seventy cues that were all phones.
The story follows Sam who works at an expensive restaurant’s booking line. That’s his gig. He’s a failing actor and he’s trying to make a living. So, we slowly discover the plot and meet all these characters through three phones. There’s the main phone line. There’s one phone line that goes directly to the chef. And then there’s a cell phone.
So, throughout the play one of the phones will ring. And sometimes that’s in the middle of me being one of the two characters that I’m talking to and playing on stage. And then this phone rings and I have to remember who’s on the phone. And frankly, there were one or two times where I totally goofed and I picked up the phone and went – “Hello.” And I went with a different accent than the person I’m supposed to be in the play at that moment and thank God for Karen’s improv because I improvised a conversation that kind of revolved around what was happening, and then I put the phone down.
And God bless Meg that phone would ring again, and she’d give me another shot at remembering who that person was supposed to be. I don’t know if stage managers get enough recognition, because they are your scene partner, technically, in a one man show.
Birnton Theatricals Production of Fully Committed by Becky Mode Starring Griffin Cork, Directed by Chris Stockton, Lighting and Design by Kathryn Smith Photo by Chris Stockton
JAMES
Here’s an interesting question for you to ponder. Actors look at human nature. So, in your exploration of human nature what do you think is the fundamental force driving human behaviour?
GRIFFIN
Holy crap, James. Oh, man. Are you asking what I hope drives human nature, or what I actually think drives human nature?
JAMES
I like truth.
GRIFFIN
I think one of the largest driving forces for humanity and human nature right now and the way that people act in today’s world is a sense of identity. And I mean that in the simplest ways in terms of who am I? What values do I have? You know, kind of the more metaphysical questions, but also in the more social questions of how am I seen?
But I think human nature is an ever-growing evolving beast. I know who I was at seventeen is not who I am right now, and I think my understanding of human nature and my understanding of what drives human nature is not the same as it was then. I think everybody would like to say that they know who they are and what their values are, but I think it’s always changing. So, I think what drives human nature is to kind of keep up with the ever-evolving nature of your identity. And I think that is really exciting, and I think it also explains the surge and use of social media.
I use social media as a work tool for marketing and also for acting. When you’re know as an actor, you’re marketing yourself, which I think is a weird phrase, but it’s kind of true. That’s why social media became so popular because it gave people a sense of identity.
It’s like on a very basic level deciding whether you’re a cat person or a dog person so if you’re having a conversation in the group, and the other person goes, “Oh I’m a dog person too” there’s that brief moment where you go, “Oh, you and I are part of something.” So how you’re perceived on social media is not a separate identity but a part of your identity, but for those who don’t know you personally it’s your only identity.
It’s so scary for me to just declare what I think drives human nature because I think I only have such a small sliver of what human nature is. Like I bet you someone who works in literally any other profession will have a totally different answer. But I think because my job is so focused around people and relationships, and sometimes pretending to be other people or adopting the qualities of other people that it requires you to constantly re-examine your own identity.
Lenin’s Embalmers by Vern Thiessen
Broken
But Hark! A Voice! With Thou Art Here Theatre
Concord Floral
D-Day Plus One
John, 316
Calgary Young People’s Theatre Production of Holmes and Watson
JAMES
After playing a role have you ever afterwards adopted a perspective or had a character you’ve played influence your identity?
GRIFFIN
Interesting. (Long Pause) Yeah, kind of. It was a production of All for Love by John Dryden at the University of Alberta. You know the show?
JAMES
No, I don’t.
GRIFFIN
It’s basically just the story of Antony and Cleopatra. It’s not exactly Elizabethan, but it’s still a very classical text. It was directed by Peter Hinton, and I played Ventidius, who was one of Anthony’s lieutenants. And in our adaptation and exploration it was almost like a love triangle between Anthony, Ventidius, and Cleopatra. Ventidius didn’t have any romantic or sexual love for Anthony, but just a profound respect, and I don’t want to say platonic love because it was stronger. It was love and respect and admiration. But even those words aren’t enough. I think it’s something that gets generated by wartime and warfare and all those insane psychological pressures that come with that time. And there was just this phenomenal bond between them. For so long I had a certain way of expressing my love for my male friends and I walked away from that show with a deeper confidence to be vulnerable and honest, when expressing deep admiration and love and respect for a male friend.
All For Love with Sarah Emslie, Helen Belay and Leila Raye-Crofton Production Design by Sofia Lukie, Photo by Ed Ellis
JAMES
So, I noticed there was a Lieutenant Governor of Alberta Award announced a few weeks ago.
GRIFFIN
That’s right.
JAMES
I think they had one hundred and sixty submissions and they picked ten young emerging artists. You being one of the ten. Tell me about winning the award. What was that like? What does that mean to you?
GRIFFIN
It was really, really phenomenal. Since high school or junior high school a lot of my friends are like, “Oh, I can’t wait to get out of Calgary. I can’t wait to get out of Alberta.” And even when I was like thirteen I was like, “I think it’s pretty good here.” And I’m fortunate that my parents made travel an important part of my life, because I’ve been to a lot of places in the world and that’s kind of solidified my love for Alberta. I’ve seen other places and life’s pretty good here. It’s kind of like you don’t know what you have until you don’t have it, right?
It’s also kind of why I haven’t made the move to Toronto or Vancouver. It’s not that I think my life and career would be a lot different if I moved to Toronto or Vancouver, but I find I truly believe in Alberta. I think Alberta has a lot to offer. And I think the way I described it to the Lieutenant Governor is, I think Alberta has for the past ten or fifteen years had this compressed nugget of diamond potential that is going to burst soon. There’s a part of me that just believes it’ll happen, and I really want to be here when it does. And frankly a lot of my friends make fun of me for defending Alberta the way that I do so winning the award was a little Alberta love and a nice high five back.
Griffin Cork 2020 Lieutenant Governor of Alberta Emerging Artist Award
JAMES
So, how old are you now? If you don’t mind my asking. About twenty-five?
GRIFFIN
Twenty-four. Oh my God, I think I’m twenty-four.
JAMES
Okay, I have a question for you. Where are you at forty?
GRIFFIN
At forty. It’s hard to think about. I’d like to get married. I love the idea of marriage. I’d like to have a kid. I don’t know how many. I can’t imagine more than one or two.
JAMES
It’s interesting to me that the first thing you think of is home life. When I asked you where you saw yourself at forty it wasn’t theatre. It wasn’t career first. The first thing that popped into your mind is I would love to be married. I would love to have kids.
GRIFFIN
Well that’s the result of a lot of inner exploration that I’ve been doing since I graduated in terms of what would actually make me happy in life. Like what is it that contributes to your quality of life, because from eighteen to twenty-two I was very business focused. Not that I’m not anymore. I just didn’t make time for anything else. I was just hustling – hustling – hustling – constantly going at it. And I don’t regret it because it benefited me greatly. But I think as I get older, I’ve started to explore what will make me happy.
JAMES
Give you a happy life.
GRIFFIN
Totally. Rather than just a good career. Have a happy and fulfilling life.
JAMES
Have you identified any of those?
GRIFFIN
Man, I want a partner for sure. Absolutely. I can’t imagine going through this life without a partner. I know people that do it. People that never marry or never date. I don’t think I could do it. I think there’s so many cool life experiences that happened to everybody but also different cool life experiences that happened based on the career you chose and where you live and are more special when you share.
One of the first times that I travelled without my parents was when I went with some of my friends and my partner at the time to Australia and New Zealand. And it was euphoric experiencing a part of the world that I’ve never experienced before and having the experience of travelling on my own, but in my own generation with one of the most important people in my life at the time. I think it was that life event that I went, “Oh man, there’s more to life than work.”
JAMES
So where are you going to be at sixty? A grandfather I’m assuming.
GRIFFIN
Definitely a grandfather. Frankly, I don’t see myself, directing, I’ve only ever directed one thing, and it was a music video, and that’s about as far as I’ll go. I don’t think I have the skills or interest in directing. I would love to have a television series at some point in terms of being a character on a full season of a show because that’s four months of filming, and I think that kind of journey would be really interesting. And I love the idea of doing a touring show. I’d like to be teaching, a little bit. One of the most fulfilling experiences of my life, so far, was being a supervisor at ARTSTREK. ARTSTREK is the best. If you’re a drama geek and you go to ARTSTREK there are ninety other drama geeks that you get to hang out with. I really like teaching kids. It’s so much fun.
JAMES
You have a new podcast. The Breakfast Dish. I’m curious. What is The Breakfast Dish and how’s that going?
GRIFFIN
So, my mother had a photo series on Facebook she called The Breakfast Series. It started when she had a meeting at 9:00 a.m. or something and she went okay, “If we’re going to meet at 9:00 a.m. we’re going to go for breakfast.” So, they went out for breakfast and after the meeting was done because breakfast wasn’t over, they just started talking about who they were, as people. Breakfast was conversation. Breakfast was who are you? Breakfast was what are you working on right now? Breakfast was, I’ve never met you let’s go for breakfast. So, then she started this thing called The Breakfast Series, where she wrote a blurb about the person she was having breakfast with and what they’re doing and why she loves them.
And so we pitched a breakfast series to Verb Theatre for their Blue Light Festival. The Blue Light Festival was A Festival of Social Media Performance meant to run entirely online that was announced back in October 2019 long before COVID entered the picture. We called it the Blue Light Breakfast Series and the idea was to interview all of the people in the festival. To find out who they are, and the work that they’re doing, but the work is secondary to us. We just want to know who you are. This is just us hanging out.
And because a lot of theatre is moving online, we wanted to make a good archive of all the socially distant online work that is happening right now within Alberta, but also across the country. So, we got a lot of development through Verb Theatre and then we wrote a grant to the Rozsa Foundation, The Calgary Arts Development Authority, and the Alberta Foundation for the Arts, and they chose to support us.
So, then we started The Breakfast Dish and The Breakfast Dish is for people who are making work online digitally. It is both to assist the artist in terms of the promotion of the work they’re doing because it’s a whole new theatrical marketing landscape that no one really knows how to do, and to help audiences find the work online. And it’s just me and my mom and we made a pact when we started hosting it that it’s just a conversation. We have some ideas of what to talk about but it’s just three or four people chatting about their work, who they are, what their favorite breakfast is, and why they do the work they do.
JAMES
Griffin, because you’re a host and because you have your podcast if you were going to sit down with Griffin Cork and be the interviewer, what would you ask yourself? Is there anything that you would want to bring up and love to talk about?
GRIFFIN
I don’t often get asked about what is the driving force of human nature in today’s world.
JAMES
I get asked that all the time.
GRIFFIN
I’ll bet you do. The thing that I could probably talk to you about ad nauseam is something we touched on earlier.
JAMES
Ah, I think I know what it might be.
GRIFFIN
Guess.
JAMES
Dungeons and Dragons.
GRIFFIN
Yes sir! Just give me one second. (Holds up sheets and notebooks) These are all my character sheets and notebooks, of all the campaigns that I am in currently. Oh boy. It’s the best because it’s just creative storytelling, with your buddies, or your family or random strangers at a gaming store. And especially if you do what my dad does which is the Homebrew, right? Homebrew is the term we use where you make up your own campaign. You don’t use the books. You just make up your own world and your own story. So, you get to make this TV series length saga story every Thursday night with your friends at a table with some chips. I mean you can’t do that right now, but before COVID that’s what you did.
JAMES
You do it in four different locations now. We have Zoom. We have the connectivity. We have the ability to stay in touch. We didn’t have that before.
GRIFFIN
Yeah, and I think Dungeons and Dragons and video games or computer games or anything like that tricks people into exploring their own creativity, even if they think they don’t have any. Even if they think they have no artistic talent or creativity or anything.
Something like Dungeons and Dragons or video games, kind of pulls that out of you. Whether you like it or not. And then you get to see it and view it and experience it. That I think is why I love Dungeons and Dragons. You’re just making stuff up. That’s how you don’t think about your shopping list is you’re trying to figure out the world that’s being presented. I’ve talked about Dungeons and Dragons so much. I could talk your ears off.
JAMES
I have a suggestion for you.
GRIFFIN
Hit me.
JAMES
The driving force of human nature is the desire to play.
GRIFFIN
Oh yeah, that’s a very good suggestion.
JAMES
Because you know we say play around with it see what you come up with. Scientists play around with ideas. We play with things all the time. That’s it. Humans just like to play. There you go. There’s our self-help book. Play it Forward.
GRIFFIN
Perfect.
JAMES
So, we covered a few things.
GRIFFIN
We sure have covered a few things. The only thing that I would toss in is that I forgot to tell you the advice my dad gave me.
JAMES
What advice did you father give you?
GRIFFIN
The only reason I bring it up now is because I think it’s not just a theatre thing. I think it’s a life thing. When I was eighteen I was freaking out about paying for theatre school and doing this career because I’d been told how hard it is and there are so many unknowns, and my dad sat down beside me, and he was quiet for a moment, and then he put his hand on my back and he went, “Do the thing that you want to do until you don’t want to do it anymore. And then find something else to do.” And I stopped freaking out. And of all my mentors that sentence is the best piece of advice I ever got, because you wouldn’t want to be forty and going, “God, I wish at eighteen I’d gone and done what I wanted to do.”
Toni Guffei – Marketing Architect – Ratio Marketing and Reports
“Marketing is both branding and lead generation. When we work with companies it’s more about how are we going to optimize your budget so that you get the best return on your marketing investment. So, part of that is measuring the brand and the perception that people have about you so that they will naturally turn to you as the first Top of Mind company. The other piece of marketing is lead generation. So marketing is about attracting customers. It’s that funnel of attraction – consideration – and decision – so you can convert those leads into sales. So, branding and lead generation tie directly in with the corporate goals of profit.”
Toni Guffei is the owner and founder of Ratio Marketing a boutique marketing and strategy agency that has served hundreds of Canadian and US businesses in a wide range of industries including technology, construction, oil and gas services, environment, arts, education, professional services, hospitality and non-profit.
Ratio Marketing provides its clients with market research, market assessments, competitive assessments, strategic marketing plans, branding strategies, industry profiles and communication tactics and specializes in both traditional and digital marketing methods.
For the last fourteen years Toni has been an instructor at Mount Royal University and is currently an Adjunct Professor who teaches degree courses that include Marketing, Entrepreneurship, Market Research, and Branding. Since 2018 Toni also teaches courses through SAIT‘s Digital Marketing Program which includes corporate certification in Search Engine Optimization, Website Development, Digital Marketing Analytics and Social Media for Business.
I first met Toni back in 2002 when she was working with the Business Development Bank of Canada and the Calgary Chamber of Commerce for Small Business Week. Back then Small Business Week included a large conference that brought together all kinds of Calgary Businesses and a huge awards dinner gala that celebrated and honoured some of the top companies that make Calgary their home. The world has gone through a lot of technological change in the past eighteen years and as businesses learn to navigate a quickly changing world economy marketing has never been more important to their survival. Marketing is one of those things that everyone has to do regardless of whether or not they’re a small business or a big arts organization or an entrepreneur or an established or emerging artist.
I connected with Toni at the start of May on ZOOM in order to maintain a safe social distance and to talk with her about marketing, branding, blogging, social media and to get her thoughts about the current COVID-19 pandemic.
JAMES
You describe yourself as a marketing architect. Why do you use that description?
TONI
I come from a family of builders. My father’s a builder. He came from Italy. My brothers are all builders in one way or another. When people go what is a marketing architect it gives me an opportunity to say we plan and build your business. But at the same time, it has this tie into my family’s profession and building a business is like building a home. You need a foundation and you need walls and you need a roof. You need all these different parts to build a building. The same thing is true about building a business and marketing. Marketing’s not just one thing. Marketing is half science, half art, and part psychology. That’s my Yogi Berra take on it.
The science is the tools. In marketing, there’s a lot of theory but over time things have evolved about how to approach things and make decisions. And that’s the stats, right. We have a lot of stats from which to make decisions. And marketing is also an art because you need to understand the brand and what appeals and colours and messaging and experiences. But the real basis of marketing is the psychology and figuring out what motivates people and what emotions are you trying to tap into that inspires them to do something.
JAMES
How do you access somebody’s psychology to get them to do what you want them to do?
TONI
There’s a tool that we use in the foundations of marketing that is based on Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. And our most basic needs are safety and security. And then comes love and belonging and self-esteem and at the very peak is self-actualization. And if we just use those as motivators of human behaviour, we can tap into those basic needs.
So, for example, there are a lot of current commercials that are tapping into the emotions about what’s happening in the world right now and instead of promoting their products or services, they’re promoting community and family and values that mean something to people.
That’s what really good brands do. They align their values with the values of their customers, and so their customers will be loyal to them because they see a piece of themselves in the brand and that’s the self-actualization piece. It’s like this company aligns with my values so strongly that I’m going to be loyal to them because they understand me and my deepest needs.
JAMES
What’s your definition of marketing and how does your company, Ratio Marketing, approaches marketing in a general sense?
TONI
Marketing is both branding and lead generation. When we work with companies it’s more about how are we going to optimize your budget so that you get the best return on your marketing investment. So, part of that is measuring the brand and the perception that people have about you so that they will naturally turn to you as the first Top of Mind company. The other piece of marketing is lead generation. So marketing is about attracting customers. It’s that funnel of attraction – consideration – and decision – so you can convert those leads into sales. So, branding and lead generation tie directly in with the corporate goals of profit.
JAMES
So, how much do you think marketing leads the consumer and how much does marketing respond to social and cultural trends?
TONI
Companies need to be agile, especially at this time however the heart of marketing is what the customer wants. It’s not build it and they will come from the movie Field of Dreams. That doesn’t really work unless you just happen to be lucky like ZOOM is right now and you have the right product in the right place at the right time.
When we do projects with a client we do research first. We ask the market either the existing market or the potential market what’s important to them because you can’t give people something they don’t want. You can give them something that they don’t realize they want or need, but if their wants and needs are different than what you’re offering you can’t make them do anything.
JAMES
You know, I’m reminded of one of the clearest examples I ever heard of that is you could create the greatest cheeseburger, and you could create a wonderful advertising campaign where it just looks delicious and it’s at a great price but a vegan will never buy it. You have to know what the consumer wants in order to satisfy that need. And then as you say tie those products and your brand into Maslow’s hierarchy of needs in that person’s life.
Starbucks first U.S. Signing Store in Washington D.C. Partners in the store are all deaf, hard of hearing or able to speak sign language.
TONI
Starbucks is a good example of a business that understands how to hit each one of those emotional needs in someone to motivate them. So, at the lowest levels like security and safety they give rewards. They give you something to make you feel good. Food is a basic need, you know, it falls into that category.
Then they also do stuff related to love and belonging and esteem because they make you feel good because on your birthday after collecting the rewards, they acknowledge you and say, “Hey, Toni, it’s your birthday, you get to buy whatever you want in the whole store.” They make you feel special.
And then at the top level – that self-actualization level – companies are beginning to understand that the way to motivate people at that very deep level is to highly personalize the offering for them. Starbucks does that. Every single coffee is customized to exactly how each customer wants it. So, they understand motivational behaviour in people and they have an ideal loyalty program.
JAMES
Yeah, I guess we’re just gonna have to see if it’s successful or not.
TONI
I hope it works out for them.
JAMES
Hey, I want to talk a little bit about blogging as a tool for marketing and how you feel blogging fits in.
TONI
So, for business, it’s a good tool because it’s a verbal branding piece and it can really contribute to your brand. Ideally, you want to put your blog on your website, because that’s where you want people who are searching for that kind of information to go. And Google likes new and fresh information on your website. So, contributing by way of a blog to your website gives it that fresh rank that Google likes.
But the other thing is – it gives your brand personality because a website is very static. When you’re writing a blog it really brings out the flavour of how you express the brand. Whether it’s a how-to blog or an interview blog it really gives people an emotional feeling about what you have to offer going back to the emotional piece of marketing.
JAMES
What about as an individual then? You mentioned as a company but if you’re an entrepreneur, or an individual consultant how does blogging work as part of your marketing plan?
TONI
Blogging lets you position yourself as a thought leader, or an industry expert or an influencer. So, if I use myself as an example, there’s a hub and spoke strategy to marketing. You want to have a hub where you direct your digital and traditional marketing because then you can measure it.
A website is a great hub because you can use Google Analytics. And you can send people there from social media to check out your website. Or from videos or from newsletters or from traditional media all driving them to that hub.
So, for me, I don’t use my website, I use LinkedIn, because I want to position myself as an industry expert. So, I put my blogs on LinkedIn, and I curate content on LinkedIn. So, I do fresh content, which is my own blog once a month or so and I post other relevant content that’s strictly about marketing strategies. I can occasionally post some other things, but my brand is being a marketing strategy expert and that’s what I want to reinforce. I’ve been doing it consistently for four years now.
So, for two years straight I posted a blog once a month, and one of those blogs got picked up by LinkedIn and they put it in their Pulse Magazine. So now I can’t change it. It’s fixed, like a PDF, but it’s gotten almost 25,000 hits because they pushed it out. So, a blog can be hugely powerful for reaching a broader audience.
And then to establish yourself as a thought leader, whether you want to be speaker, or if you are a writer or playwright, or you want to get your name known or you want to be an influencer, that eventually you might get paid to curate other content to make a living out of it.
Blogs began as a personal mini site, where people used to just record their opinions, stories and other writings as well as photos and videos. And now it’s become part of an overall marketing or brand strategy, whether it’s an individual or a company, and it can be used to drive business.
So, blogs have gone from maybe two or three paragraphs when they started to long-form content of three to four thousand words because Google really loves that depth of information. And ideally you want your blogs to show up in organic searches. And if Google sees that there’s weighty, relevant content, and you’re linking to other sources that builds a sense of online community. And once you get it showing up organically, and people start to follow you and engage with the blog and comment and you get to know your audience better – then you can actually start to leverage some of that into lead generation. Taking it from a branding platform to lead generation by having more calls to action like visit our website for some of our upcoming talks or, check out some of our other blogs and you can start to generate leads or you can monetize it if you want to.
JAMES
Let’s talk a little bit about social media and about online marketing and the various platforms like Facebook and Twitter. And I know we’ve got the Coronavirus right now, but minus that I’m just really interested in looking at social media as a marketing tool.
TONI
Facebook still dominates. It’s not going away. They’ve got Whatsapp. They’ve got Messenger. They’ve got Instagram. If you put an add through Facebook it actually has sixteen different channels that it moves through. They have a wide reach and one-third of the world’s population is on Facebook. The most active demographic is the older demographic and more women.
I should mention 80% of the people on Instagram aren’t even in North America. It’s a worldwide platform. It’s great for visual branding, visual representation. And if you put an ad on Facebook, it automatically can be put through to Instagram. So, it’s a highly powerful marketing tool. And people like the visuals.
Twitter is kind of a niche source. It skews slightly more men. It’s just the facts ma’am. LinkedIn is for professionals and it’s owned by Microsoft. It’s a pretty powerful tool to use as an industry expert.
And then the new kid on the block is TikTok. TikTok’s value is that it appeals to the humour of a 14-year-old boy. So as a brand, it’s been really hard to figure out how to tap into that. But companies are now starting to advertise on TikTok. TikTok is about entertainment. It’s silly fun. So, it’s hard to infiltrate that silly fun level and come across as being professional but like I say brands are finding ways to do it.
JAMES
So, the noise to content ratio on social media is pretty high. How do you cut through that clutter? How do you get the attention of the person you’re trying to reach?
TONI
I think the important thing is not just to use one channel, right? And the risk with all social media is that when you post something as soon as someone else posts something your post falls down. And probably 80% of the people don’t even see your post. So, you need to post frequently. And if you talk to any social media strategist, they’re gonna want you to post many times a day or many times a week. I don’t really believe in that. I think it’s more important to diversify your branding across different digital assets or channels. So, you know, post on Twitter, if that’s where your market is or on a visual platform like Instagram where you can have a lot of filters and you can do a lot of things to really make your post pop and stand out.
JAMES
I guess companies are really becoming responsible for the creation of their own content. What advice would you have for a company about creating content?
TONI
I think it’s important to know what you’re doing, too, because you can drive it off brand, right? Even accidentally. But I always say that even if you hire someone or a company to manage your marketing, you still need to have the people within the company providing that content because they know the company best. So, somebody from the company should be there managing it or contributing it to it anyways.
JAMES
Do you have an example of a company you’ve worked with that has had a particularly effective marketing campaign?
TONI
I’m working with Ravenwood Developers. They’re a home builder and they wanted to tap into the energy-efficient high-performance homes market. They build Custom Homes. Beautiful homes. But they wanted to move into this niche for the 35 to 50-year-old homeowner who would like a green home. It’s not about the money. It’s about what they want to contribute to the betterment of our earth and for their children and a legacy.
So, we created a campaign which was quite successful. We created a landing page on their website that performed really well in terms of gathering contact information and we used social media to drive them there. So, we identified the market and who they were and what their values were. So, we can niche the market quite well with social media because a lot of them are on Facebook and we used Facebook and Instagram to highly target them because you can filter out who can see your ads. And we drove them to the website, and we tested different visuals.
You know to find out what worked, what didn’t work, what messages worked. Was it heartfelt? Was it more about the money? And so we optimized it to the point where a lot of people were clicking on it, and they really liked the landing pages that were more heartfelt. You know your home is where your family gathers and going back to Maslow’s hierarchy of needs of love and belonging and deep values that people have around their home we were able to optimize it and now we’re running campaign after campaign based on that concept, and it’s working really well.
JAMES
So, when planning, marketing, you know, there’s the immediate short term and there’s long term things to consider. What are some of the things you need to look at in terms of your short-term marketing plan and your long-term marketing plan? How do those go together?
TONI
So, the long term would be building your brand, building your perception, and that’s consistency through multiple channels, over a long period of time. So, consistency means regular postings, regular updates to your website, regular visuals and messaging, whatever you’re doing on a regular basis to indicate that you’re there. And then multiple channels that are integrated. It shouldn’t just be one channel. Most people aren’t just on one social media, or watch just one TV station, or listen to just one radio station. And then you have to give it some time to work. So that’s the long term.
The short term is generating those leads and driving traffic to your hub and helping them to make decisions. So, part of that decision-making process is giving them an opportunity to get more information about you. So, capturing their names so you can sign them up for a newsletter or send them more relevant content. Not sales content, because all you’re trying to do is align their values with yours so that they come to a point where they will buy something.
JAMES
This is May 1st 2020 and the Coronavirus is causing a huge worldwide impact. So, let’s talk about that a little bit because it makes sense since we’re in the middle of it and everything we’re going to say here is going to be from the context that we’re talking about this on May 1st. So, what are you seeing the impact of Coronavirus on businesses and their marketing?
TONI
I’m personally writing a blog about it. It’s the Ps of Pandemic because you know, it’s kind of a play on marketing. Marketing is the four Ps. Product, price, place and promotion. Well, the pandemic has caused companies to either protect, promote or pivot themselves in terms of marketing.
So, protecting is cutting back. Slashing costs. They’re just holding tight to protect their assets but they should still be doing branding and posting. The other option is to promote. Some companies are still going full steam ahead. They’re still doing marketing because they’re either a grocery store, for example, or they’re a valued service. So, they still need to do some promotion. And then the pivot is where some companies have done a complete U-turn and they need marketing because it’s just like repositioning yourself. They have to rebrand and come up with what does that look like? And that’s hard to do quickly. We’ve only been in this six weeks or so but companies like Minhaus Brewery that started producing hand sanitizer did a quick pivot. Mind you they’re not pivoting for the long term. But a company where the old business is never going to work again needs to pivot during this time and they need to get on the rebranding as soon as possible in order to capitalize on it.
JAMES
So, Toni, we’ve talked a lot about marketing but I’m wondering do you have a personal formula for success? Something that works for you?
TONI
Hard work and resilience. I just keep working at it. I don’t think there’s any other way of being successful. And failure is just one more step closer to success because it’s only through failure that you actually learn how to optimize and become successful.
Producer/Director Matt Boda – Absurd Hero Productions
“Where preparation and opportunity meet is what makes luck seem so magical. I think if you prepare yourself for an opportunity, such as selling a movie script, then you can attract that scenario by actively working toward making yourself prepared and making it not so much about luck anymore and making it more about fate.”
***
Producer/Director Matthew Boda has ambitions of taking his company, Absurd Hero Productions, into the big leagues and producing film and television across multiple genres. I connected with Matt through the Austin Film Festival where my comedy Masquerade had been a finalist in the playwriting category in 2018. After chatting with Matt about that script we got to talking about his love of film and television and I was immediately impressed by his boundless energy and enthusiasm for telling stories and so we set up a time to continue our conversation. I connected with Matt over ZOOM at the start of May to find out more about his personal vision for Absurd Hero Productions and his plan to bring new stories and screenwriters into production through his Get It Made X initiative.
JAMES HUTCHISON
Tell me a little bit about your logo for Absurd Hero productions. What does it mean and what does it symbolizes?
MATT BODA
It’s from the myth of Sisyphus. Sisyphus is, you know, a Greek character being punished forever and eternally having to push a boulder up the side of a mountain only to achieve the task and then have the boulder roll back down the mountain and he has to do it all again. Over and over and over. And it becomes an absurd task. There’s no meaning. There’s no reason to push the boulder up the mountain. There is no benefit, but he does it anyway.
It’s also a super hard thing to do. To push that boulder up a mountain every single day. So, it takes a hero’s spirit to be able to accomplish the task and do it anyway, in spite of its meaninglessness.
And essentially, Albert Camus who is an existential philosopher wrote his own version of the myth of Sisyphus and likened the absurd hero to modern man. Life inherently has no meaning except for the meaning that we give it.
So, knowing all that philosophy I went out to do one of the most difficult things that there is, and that’s to create a production company from zero not knowing anyone. Not having any direct contacts. Not coming from money. To do an absurd task. To try and become a filmmaker and make a production company and be involved at the highest level of making content that lasts forever and that’s super beneficial to the people that watch it and it felt right to me to do it under the brand name of an Absurd Hero.
JAMES
I have a quote for you by filmmaker Ted Kotcheff. He directed The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz which featured Richard Dreyfuss, First Blood with Sylvester Stalone, Weekend at Bernie’s, a lot of different films and he’s done a lot of television. He said, “Everything about filmmaking tries to distract you from that first, fine, rapturous vision, you have of the film.” I’m wondering how much you agree with that, and how do you keep that spark alive to make you see a film through from idea to screen?
MATT
Well, I agree with it completely because essentially what happens is the vision comes into the mind of the creator. Whatever way you believe it gets there – whether it’s a muse, or it’s God, or its creative energy, or whatever – something inspires the idea in the first place.
For me, it comes in a flash. I have a vision. I see the whole movie in a moment in my mind’s eye, and it fills me with the desire and motivation to do the work to pull that out of my mind, and put it into the real world, and see what it will look like.
So, saying that everything after that is designed to get in the way of the original vision is completely true, because you have to compromise with the reality of what you can create and your fantasy of what you had envisioned.
So, it’s like, “Okay I guess I can’t have him on top of the Titanic.” “Well, what if he’s in a little rowboat on the side of a dock on a lake?” “Okay, well does it embody the same theme that you were trying to express for the character on the deck of the Titanic?” “Yeah, it actually does.” “Okay then, let’s put him in the skiff.” “Cool. Problem solved.” That’s the compromise between fantasy and reality that any filmmaker has to go through in order to see their vision go from inception to completion.
JAMES
One of the projects you have in development is called The Container. Where did the idea come from for that project, and how did that develop, particularly in light of the times we’re living in, and how current and significant the subject matter is.
MATT
That project is making its rounds. I’m super proud of it. It scored really well on the Blacklist. Everyone that reads it gives it their praise, and I’m super grateful for that.
That idea came in a flash from my mind’s eye and that’s usually born from needing to find a solution to a problem. In the beginning when I first started making films my ideas were visions about myself and my own life experiences, and so I started to make art about my life experiences, and I wasn’t getting the kind of response that I wanted to have with the work. It was too personal.
It was me all over everything. Me the director. Me the producer. Me the actor. It felt like a one-man-band in a way that alienates the audience. It makes them feel like they can’t identify with the story because all they see is you trying to work out your own problems on the screen. And I had fallen into that trap a couple of times because I had run with someone telling me to “write what you know.” Which for me was a mistake, because it made me dive into this selfish realm that a lot of people get into where they think they need to show that they can do everything, as opposed to embodying the true spirit of filmmaking which is completely collaborative.
So, I was stressed out after a big movie that I had personally financed called Blood Sweat and Years, that even though it was shot well and had great music, just fell flat, and I was in need of a new idea. And I was actually in line to go to a movie in the middle of the day and my mind was hijacked, and what I saw was a little girl looking through a crack in a shipping container at the waves and the ocean and when she looked back into the container I saw all these people. They were all Chinese people and they were stuck in the shipping container, and I saw this whole movie in my head and it all ended in this terrible tragedy, and this little girl was the only one who lived to tell about it. In my mind’s eye that’s what I saw. So I immediately went home, and I found out through a little research – and thank God for Google you can go directly to the source – I started finding out that it was true. That before China became the giant manufacturing mogul it is now Chinese people used to flee the country because there were no opportunities in China, and they used to do it via shipping containers coming through ports in America like Long Beach. And I read all these articles, so I started to formulate it around China, and then I realized that all that stuff was actually twenty years old. So, I shifted and I did a bunch of research and I created this framework that took this really neutral approach to writing the movie, that’s about a group of North African migrants stuck in a shipping container.
It’s eighty-eight pages long, and it’s like a thrill ride that ends with a wallop. It punches you in the gut. It’s a humanitarian film in the same vein of Cary Fukunaga’s film Beasts of No Nation on Netflix or Hotel Rwanda. That’s how The Container came to be.
JAMES
But it would not have existed, I think, unless you had worked, originally on Blood Sweat and Years, because the creative journey of that film involves you doing the previous film and learning from it. So, now how much do you draw upon your personal life? How do you balance that mix of taking from your past experiences to tell a story that isn’t necessarily about you individually, but might reflect some of the themes, feelings, ideas, and experiences you’ve been through?
MATT
It’s really simple. Now, I imagine being someone else. Just like an actor. I imagine what I would do in that person’s situation, but I let them do it just like the actor lets the character do it. So you know, let’s say I was from Eritrea, and I was living on a thousand calories a day, and I had scrounged up every cent I had to try and escape, and I just think what would I do in that situation, but I don’t imagine my face as the person accomplishing it. I imagined the face of a little girl, or the gentleman, you know, that needed something that I’ve never needed in my life but if I did, how would I go about doing it. I put other faces on it and that removes me from the equation so it’s not a self-centred approach. It’s universal.
JAMES
A film from twenty or forty years ago reflects the time they were born in, and yet some films even though they might have been made fifty or sixty years ago, still feel like they have a universal appeal or a universal story. What do you think it is in great films that makes some of them feel timeless?
MATT
It’s definitely making the audience identify with a core theme of the story. So, for instance, in The Container, it poses the question, “As you sit there and complain about what you’re going to eat tonight and how fast your internet is – imagine this: “What would you do if you were in this container and you’d paid a thousand bucks that took you eight months to save and you had your daughter with you and this was your last chance to get out of the country. You know, the country that made your life a living hell. What would you do if you were someone else?” And it takes the audience out of who they are and it makes them reflect on what they have. So, the audience has to identify in a very personal way with what’s happening in your subject matter and what’s happening in your concept, or it’s going to be forgettable.
JAMES
With film you’ve got two hours. In series television like Game of Thrones you have seventy hours. I think the difference in the amount of storytime you have means that film has to be much more concentrated. Much more to the point. Do you think films work best when they have a single protagonist that you’re seeing the story through?
MATT
I think they’re two different mediums that both approach story in a different way. For film, it’s much more focused. It’s like, “What do you want the audience to get out of this one movie, because they’re only going to watch it that one time and then it’s over and the world your telling begins and ends in that movie?”
Whereas the purpose of a TV show is for people to fall in love with the actors, and they get plot and structure and story through the whole thing but the most rewarding part is being fed this story that feels so real in this episodic way so you can spend so much more time with a character, as opposed to learning a theme.
You know, films to me are themes. Like Fight Club has all these themes you can dissect forever whereas in Game of Thrones I love Tyrian, and I love Sansa. They’re like my sister and my uncle and you know they’re my family because I went through all this hardship with them, and I know what they went through. I know their story and their stories are just like me knowing my best friend’s story who you know maybe he was a drug addict and his dad died. The thing about the episodic story is you love the person, whereas in a film you love the idea and you love the people that are expressing that idea.
Matt on set – Absurd Hero Productions
JAMES
Right, well let’s talk about ideas. What kind of ideas do you enjoy exploring what kinds of stories attract your creative energy?
MATT
Well, you know, nowadays, I’ve just been super focused on executive producer roles where I champion multiple projects. So, I’ve got all these fires burning now and I created this program, Get it Made X, which is essentially a union for non-union writers.
So, any writer that’s accepted to the program comes into the fold with all the rest of our members, and they all compete for funds that we put into the program as well as they pay membership dues. So, all of that all gets put into a pot. And they compete to make proof of concept films with that money and we make multiple projects so right now I have five of them.
And I can talk about each one of those projects the same way that I talk about The Container. Because what we do is reverse engineer long-form materials. So, if somebody has a script they love and its scoring well in the screenplay world what we do is have them write a five-page version. Maybe the most pivotal scene that really showcases what the world of the film or the show or whatever it is would be about. And we go that extra mile because I have a production company. I own all the cameras. I have 5000 square feet of office space and everything you’ll need as well as all of the contacts and the relationships and the infrastructure because I’m in Los Angeles and I’ve been doing this for twelve years.
So, we go right to the source and make these films and then we put these packages together with known entities and then we go to the studios. Because I have contacts at the studios, but they won’t read words on a page from an unknown writer. They just won’t do it. But what they will do is watch a five-minute film that’s well produced.
So, I’m like, “Hey what are you guys looking for?” “Oh, we’re always looking for easy horror stuff.” ” Okay, well I’ve got this thing about a demon baby and a crazy girl next door concept.” “Ok, send me the demon baby thing.” Boom, I text him a link that goes to a proof of concept movie, and he watches it and at the end he goes, “Hey, do you have the full script?” And then we send the book and the full script and all the people that are attached to the project. “Oh, you got the guy from Weeds as the main actor. Or, “Oh you got the guy from Brooklyn Nine Nine to direct it.” Now all the studio has to do is inject funds into a group of artists that are already mobilized, and a product will emerge. That’s what we’ve been doing now, and it’s just awesome.
JAMES
So, what then is your vision for Absurd Hero Productions in the future? What is your goal.
MATT
What I imagined us to be is like Bad Robot. Bad Robot makes film and television shows across all genres. And if I have the right number of members in Get It Made X, I’ll be able to turn out twelve films across all genres, a year. So, my vault will be full – just filled to the brim with ideas that are packaged on paper and have known talent that have said that they will be a part of the project.
JAMES
Getting a film made is a tough business, so I was wondering how much do you think luck plays a part in a person’s success?
MATT
Where preparation and opportunity meet is what makes luck seem so magical. I think if you prepare yourself for an opportunity, such as selling a movie script, then you can attract that scenario by actively working toward making yourself prepared and making it not so much about luck anymore and making it more about fate.
JAMES
You’re prepared to take advantage of the opportunities when they present themselves.
MATT
And luck is opportunity in disguise. You know what I’m saying? If you’re prepared for the opportunity and you get it, it’s going to feel like luck, but no it wasn’t really luck it’s because you were ready to take on that opportunity.
Matt – Early Days in LA
JAMES
You said you’ve been doing this for 12 years in LA. What brought you to LA? How did you get there?
MATT
I lived in Florida, and I started in Miami. I was in a rock band until I was 25 and I got way too caught up in that scene in terms of just all it has to offer in terms of sex, drugs and rock’n’roll.
So, I had to rebuild my belief system mentally from the ground up about what I expected out of life and what my life was going to be now that the rock band was over. I made a lot of decisions in terms of, you know, not allowing chemical dependency to become this everyday thing in my life. I had to shed that whole older beginning of being in a rock band, and of being rebellious, and being the lead singer, and being the center of attention.
And that’s how I ended up in LA when I was 25. You know, new brain power and new motivation, and that’s when I started from the ground up. And I rode a bike. I didn’t have a car. I rode a bike and went to any film place, and I literally said I’d work for free for a week to show you guys who I am and my attitude and to see if you guys want to hire me.
And it was no, no, no, no and then a lighting rental house said yes, and they hired me, and I learned lighting, and I met people. I got into the union for camera and lighting, and I spent the next eight years working on movies and television and being a lighting technician, and I did camera a bunch too.
JAMES
But I think the first 25 years of your life has been really informative for you in terms of your journey and who you have become.
MATT
Yeah, I just wish I didn’t waste so much time. You know what I’m saying. You can get off the elevator at any floor. For me, I decided to go to the sub-basement for some reason.
JAMES
How important is forgiving yourself for those years to having a more positive and better future now?
MATT
As an artist, you know, having internal conflicts is the reason why I feel I need to have a voice. I feel like the only way to dissipate these internal pressures for me is through art.
Matt on Set – Absurd Hero Productions
JAMES
What filmmakers and films do you find inspiring? Who speaks to you? Who do you get excited about?
MATT
I collect 11 x 17 movie and TV posters. Right now I’m looking at posters for Game of Thrones, The Tudors, Neon Genesis which is an anime from Japan, Silver Linings Playbook by David O. Russell, Cary Fukunaga – Beasts of No Nation all the way to stuff like Blue is the Warmest Colour, which is a crazy indie that came out of France.
But my favourite stuff is historical fiction. Like The Last Kingdom which is about the Danish coming over to England when England was multiple nations in the eighth and ninth century during the reign of King Alfred the Great. And I’ve watched that series, like three times and it’s got four seasons now and I’ve watched each season three full times and they’re ten hours each. Same thing with Game of Thrones, you know, every single night I’m watching a piece of something, you know, all the way to shows like Billions, or Homelands.
JAMES
So, having lived a different life when you were younger and being your age now what would you say to your younger self? What sort of advice would you give to your younger self?
MATT
You know pain is inevitable, but suffering is optional. I took the crazy route and then wallowed in my suffering so a lot of my joy was robbed from me.
I guess I would just say, “Just go easy on yourself. Don’t beat yourself up so much. You know, dude just keep going. Who cares? Does it really matter that much? Just try and don’t give up, because if you give up – it’s definitely not gonna happen.”
The worst part is that for the vast majority it never happens for them. They write three or four scripts and then they don’t write any more. And that’s it. It’s done. They’ve written a bunch of scripts that maybe placed in a few contests, but they never got made. But Get It Made X is going to be a way for people that are in the non-union realm to compete with everybody that’s in the union realm without having to wait to win the lottery – so to speak – and we want to do that for as many people as possible.
“When you sit down as a playwright and you start to think about a character that’s going to inhabit your world, that’s a piece of coal. Until you put that piece of coal under pressure, you’re not going to reveal all of its facets. So, characters have to be put under pressure. And that’s where you as a writer, and your audience is going to discover all of the facets of that character. And you’re going to turn that piece of coal into a diamond. With facets that shine and shape and inform. It’s pressure. But the pressure can be lost if the writer gives it too much time.”
Trevor Rueger has been an actor, director, writer and dramaturge for over 30 years. In 2011 he received the Betty Mitchell Award for Outstanding Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role for his performance as Billy Bibbit in Theatre Calgary/Manitoba Theatre Centre’s production of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. As an actor, he’s been seen at Theatre Calgary, Lunchbox Theatre, Sage Theatre, Vertigo Theatre, Stage West, and the Garry Theatre.
His directing credits include When Girls Collide, Columbo: Prescription Murder and Columbo Takes the Rap for Vertigo Theatre, Ai Yah! Sweet and Sour Secrets, Life After Hockey and The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (Abridged) for Lunchbox Theatre, Heroes for Sage Theatre, SHE and Matadora for Trepan Theatre, Medea and 33 Swoons for Rocky Mountain College and Courage for Lost Boy Productions
For 20 years he was an ensemble member and writer for Shadow Productions. Trevor was also an original ensemble member of Dirty Laundry which is a weekly improvised soap opera and for 10 years he was chair, writer, and producer of the Betty Mitchell Awards which recognizes excellence in Calgary Theatre.
I’ve worked with Trevor several times over the last decade as a dramaturge and I’ve always found his feedback on my plays to be insightful and constructive. He asks the right questions. Questions that make me think about my story and characters in a manner that results in a better draft.
I sat down with Trevor at Alberta Playwrights Network where he’s been the executive director for the past eleven years to talk with him about his career and his approach to acting, directing, and working with playwrights. Our interview took place in late January, a few months before the current pandemic and lockdown, and so the impacts of COVID-19 on the Canadian Theatre Community were not a part of our conversation.
JAMES HUTCHISON
I’m curious, how did you get interested in theatre and what were some of those early experiences and influences?
TREVOR RUEGER
I didn’t get involved in theatre until high school. I come from a family that was certainly not against the arts. We as kids were just allowed to find our own way. So, when I was a kid, for me, it was sports for the most part.
I was a middle child with six years difference between me and my younger sibling out on an acreage where the nearest neighbour, who was five years older than me, was two miles away. So, I spent a lot of time by myself inventing games and inventing sports and I was quite imaginative and creative, and I was a bit of a gregarious kid as my mother would state.
So, in high school, my mom said, “Well, you should probably take a drama class because you’re such a ham.” And I said, “Okay.” So, I did.
And on the first day of the drama class, it was announced that auditions for the school play were happening that afternoon, and so I signed up for an audition. The play was called Present Tense and it’s a fun little play about a kid in the 50s who’s having trouble with his girlfriend and he imagines that his girlfriend is having all of these wild and crazy love affairs with everyone but him. So, I auditioned for the play and the next day I was cast as the lead in the show.
JAMES
Had you not been cast, who knows?
TREVOR
Oh, exactly. Absolutely. And so, I took drama and played sports all the way through high school. And there was a bit of a pull between my basketball coach and my drama teacher as to which I should focus on. And when I was in grade 12, there were some conflicts between my basketball schedule and my drama schedule and suddenly my schedule all worked out, because unbeknownst to me until I found out many years later, my basketball coach and my drama teacher had gone behind my back and negotiated my schedule.
High School Years
JAMES
Oh, that’s cool. So, then you went off to the University of Calgary to pursue a degree?
TREVOR
I didn’t start out pursuing a degree in theatre. I did one year of General Studies and then I was going to go off into the Education Department where I was going to become a math teacher. But I took drama 200, which was the introductory acting class with Grant Reddick. Halfway through the course you get your grade, and you have a little meeting with the instructor.
So, I go into Grant’s office and sit down and Grant says, “The work is really coming along and you’re really doing well and here’s your grade. How are you doing in your other drama courses?” And I said, “I’m not taking any other drama courses, I’m actually, in General Studies and going into the Education Department.” He went, “Oh, no.” And I said, “What do you mean?” He went, “You should probably take the other drama classes.” And I went, “Okay.”
So, I went home and had a challenging conversation with the parents about switching my major and going into the drama department.
JAMES
How did you approach that? I mean, you said they were pretty open but a number of years ago there was more of a thought that you picked a career and stuck with it. You didn’t have options. Now days people will have four or five careers.
TREVOR
That was certainly their major concern. This does not seem like a career choice. This does not seem like something you can make a living at. This sounds like something, that while it may satisfy you in one way, is going to be incredibly challenging. And so, they’re really looking out for me, right?
JAMES
As parents do.
TREVOR
Yeah, absolutely. It was a difficult conversation. It was three or four years later that I finally realized they were acting out of love and protection and wanted the best for me. But I kind of had them over a barrel because they had made a promise to all of their kids that if you went to university or college they would pay for it. So, I threw the gauntlet down and said, “That’s fine. I am out of here and you’re really reneging on your promise.” So, there was some negotiation and my dad kept pushing me to do a fallback degree afterward. But oddly enough, all the way through my university I was working professionally as an actor. I was studying during the day and doing shows at night.
JAMES
What kind of shows?
TREVOR
I got my first paycheck from Stephen Hair for doing a straight play called Cards on the Table by Agatha Christie at Pleiades Theatre back in that time. I think I played a police officer who had six lines.
Pleiades Mystery Theatre – Cards on the Table by Agatha Christie
JAMES
So, you’re in university and right away you get taken in by the Calgary theatre community. How do you think that helped you build your career here in the city?
TREVOR
I have to take a step back slightly because I already knew a lot about the Calgary theatre community before university because my high school drama teacher Kathryn Kerbes was a professional actor and did some shows while she was a teacher. And her husband Hal Kerbes was quite well connected and a fantastic artist and actor, singer, and costumer. He did it all. In fact, our high school drama class was thrown a party by Hal and Kathryn Kerbes at their home after we graduated where they invited all of their theatre friends over. And so, at that point, I was already quite well immersed and I already knew a few of the people who were part of the cast of my first Pleiades show.
JAMES
So, how do you approach a character? How do you get into the mind of the person you’re going to be? The character you’ll be portraying.
TREVOR
I start big. I start with a big wide canvas. And then I bring the lens into smaller and smaller and smaller details. The first thing I look at is the narrative journey and arc of the character. And then figuring out within that arc what the character wants. That to me is the fundamental question approaching any material. What does the character want? Then once I discovered that I ask how does the character fit into the story? Then I start to look at the text. What does my character say? What does my character say about myself? What do other characters say about my character?
And then I start to develop a physical vocabulary that comes from the world around me and the world that we’re creating in the rehearsal hall and then ultimately on stage. If I’m in a family drama one of my tricks is to look at my relatives and steal their moves. I’ll decide within the family structure who is the most influential on my character, and then I’ll pick up their mannerisms.
So, for instance, I was playing Happy in a production of Death of a Salesman at the Garry Theatre directed by Sharon Pollock. And I just watched the physical mannerisms of the actor who was playing Willie, and the actor playing my older brother Biff and it wasn’t mimicry, but I just went, with a similar physical vocabulary.
JAMES
Any particularly fond memories of a role that you really enjoyed working through and capturing,
TREVOR
I’ve enjoyed a lot of the work I’ve done but the work I did as a young actor with Sharon Pollock at the Garry Theatre was really great stuff to be able to cut my teeth on. The Garry Theatre was a pretty amazing experience because I was directed by her in roles that I would never have had an opportunity to even audition for at other theatres in Calgary or across the country. I played Alan Strang in Equus, I played Happy in Death of a Salesman and I played two or three characters in a production of St. Joan. But I was so green. I was absorbing the work without actually being able to articulate what I was doing.
Cast from the 2016 Stage West Calgary Production of Suite Surrender by Michael McKeever
JAMES
What was it like for your family to come and see you on stage?
TREVOR
They were always supportive, and they came to see as much of the stuff that I was in as they could. And my dad was quite gregarious as well and spent a fair amount of time telling stories in various pubs in and around Forest Lawn, and I would go and meet him every once in a while in the afternoon for a beer after class. And going through university my dad was always, “ You know you could get your education degree.” And in year two it was, “You could get a real estate license.” Year three it was, “You know, you could probably turn these drama skills into sales. I know a guy who owns a car dealership. You could sell cars on weekends. Or you could always learn to be a backhoe operator.” So, he was always just going, “Get something else to fall back on. It doesn’t have to be another four-year degree.” And my dad would introduce me when friends would come over to the table as this is my son he’s going to university. Well, finally there was that day my dad introduced me to one of his pals who’d never met me before as, “My son. He’s an actor.” I went alright.
Realizing the divas are about to discover they’ve been roomed together, assistant Mr. Pippet jumps into the arms of hotel GM Mr. Dunlap
JAMES
So, tell me about what attracts you to directing and what type of shows are you attracted to?
TREVOR
Here’s the thing that I discovered which leads me very well into the world of being a dramaturge. It’s not that I dislike the performance aspect of being an actor. I quite enjoy it. I love putting on the costume. I love walking out in front of an audience. I love hearing them react and knowing that you’ve had an effect on them in some way. But when you get into the run of a show, it’s the law of diminishing returns. So, what I discovered when I started directing, which has led me into dramaturgy, is I love making big discoveries. And that’s the rehearsal hall. It’s the same way as I was just discussing how I approach a character right. Starting with this big broad canvas. So those big discoveries. What is this world that we’re going to create? Who are the people who inhabit this world? How do they connect to each other? What are we telling an audience? What are we showing? What are they seeing? All tied back to, we’re supporting the work of the playwright.
The 2010 Theatre Calgary Production of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest by Dale Wasserman. Based on the novel by Ken Kesey. Directed by Miles Potter.
JAMES
How did you end up getting involved in dramaturgy?
TREVOR
It was working with Sharon Pollock. It really was. It changed the notion of how I look at work and how I look at plays. And at that point, I had no idea what dramaturgy was, but she looks at work as a director, as a writer, as an actor, and with such a writer’s eye, and with such dramaturgical care for the work that it made me read differently.
Again, we were doing Death of a Salesman and in our first read through the actor, playing Willy Loman made a choice with a line delivery on about page eight or nine. And it was our first read-through and Sharon stopped there and went, “That’s a very interesting choice that you’re making. I just want to warn you, let’s not get trapped into that yet because while you do say that and that could be the emotional content of what you’re saying here – forty pages from now you say this.” And I thought – how is she on page eight, and on page forty at the same time, and it was because she had a concept or saw the whole. And it made me start to look at work differently. As an actor to look at work differently. As a director. And then realizing a few years later, oh, that’s dramaturgy. That’s dramaturgy – defending the work of the playwright and seeing the big idea within that world.
Directed by Trevor Rueger
JAMES
I find it takes a couple of reads to understand the connection between page eight and page forty because on a first read you don’t always see the connection between the two.
TREVOR
Absolutely. Though, as a dramaturg it’s not that I don’t give work multiple readings before actually crafting a response to a playwright but I generally make my notes on the first reading because for me – what the playwright has asked me to do as the dramaturge is to be their very first audience. And an audience is only going to see a work once. So, I approach it with that mindset. So, I will read it and make my big notes and observations. Then usually upon a second or third reading, I start to be able to see, “Oh, hang on, my bad. I misread that. Oh, I see, that connects to that.” Or, “Mmmm, it seems to be that the idea is shifting or has shifted or wants to shift.”
JAMES
This is why I think it’s very important not to share the work too soon. Because if you share it too soon you can never get that first reader back. Although to help make it fresh again one of the things I find useful is to put the work back into the drawer for six months.
TREVOR
Absolutely. So much of my practice, as a director has touched on that kind of notion. I feel that within the Canadian theatre system, we do not have enough time to rehearse nor do we have enough time to let the work germinate for the artists because of the commercial aspect of things, right, that you have to create a new product virtually monthly or bimonthly. Rehearsal periods are truncated and the work just gets rushed to the stage. So, for me as a director wherever possible I do five-hour days with my cast instead of an eight-hour rehearsal day. We’ll do eight hours for the first couple of days and then we’ll shift as soon as possible to a five-hour day.
JAMES
What do you find the shorter hours do for them?
TREVOR
They come back the next day fresh. They’re still working eight hours. They’re not doing eleven and twelve-hour days. So, they’re actually doing eight hours of work but you only have access to them for five. And that creates within the rehearsal hall a demand to be focused. People come in fresh and you can usually start those final days of rehearsal at noon. So it’s like 12 to 5. So, you come in fresh because you’ve had a morning. You’ve had an evening. You’ve had an opportunity to do some work. You’ve had an opportunity to think about the work. You’ve had an opportunity to reflect on notes. As opposed to coming home at the end of an eight hour day throwing some food in your face, trying to learn your lines, getting up the next morning and taking a look at the work you’re going to be doing the next day. It’s all so exhausting. It’s also exhausting for a director and a stage manager.
Jamie Matchullis as Jennifer, Chantelle Han as Lilly, Ben Wong as Charlie, and Kelsey Verzotti as Jade in the Lunchbox Theatre production of Ai Yah! Sweet and Sour Secrets by Dale Lee Kwong. Directed by Trevor Rueger – Photograph by Benjamin Laird
JAMES
So, tell me about APN.
TREVOR
The Alberta Playwrights Network is a membership-driven organization devoted to supporting, developing, and nurturing the work and the playwright through education, advocacy, outreach, and any other resource or technology that we can provide our membership.
JAMES
You’ve been running APN for eleven years. Where do you think you were as an organization when you started and where do you think you are now?
TREVOR
APN, as I’ve always known it, was a healthy, vibrant, energized organization. And the organization that I inherited, certainly was that. Strong membership base. Pretty interesting programming that people were taking advantage of. But over the last eleven years, the biggest thing that I’ve seen shift and change and alter is the theatrical landscape.
When I came into the organization Canada Council had just paid for a research paper to be written by Ben Henderson who was with Saskatchewan Playwrights Centre and Martin Kinch who was with Playwrights Theatre Center in Vancouver. Both organizations very much like APN. They wrote a paper called From Creation to Production that talked about the new play development model, as it existed in Canada, and as it existed in the UK and in some parts of the United States. And at that time, it was a pretty standard that a play gets selected for a workshop. A play gets developed. A play gets produced. Or a playwright gets developed and produced.
There were a lot of ideas in there that I looked at and I read. “Okay, is APN doing this? Yeah, we seem to be doing that. All right. That seems to be successful. We seem to be doing this. That seems okay. We don’t seem to be doing this. I don’t know if our organization could ever do this.”
So, I enacted a five-year plan at that point which focused on playwright advocacy and doing more work and providing greater agency for our members by getting their plays into the hands of people that might produce them. So, through that came a number of things including the catalogue which featured plays ready for production by our members. Fast forward ten years later, that paper, From Creation to Production, is completely out of date.
JAMES
It’s now a historic document.
TREVOR
Yeah, absolutely. And so that’s why APN with funding from the Canada Council is currently engaging in this national research project, to discover – who we are and where we are as a nation – and as producers and creators and playwrights and theatre companies – and trying to figure out what the landscape is as it pertains to new play development, new play creation, new play curation and to find out what we can do.
Mike Czuba, Kira Bradley, Melanie Murray Hunt, and Trevor Rueger workshopping new work with APN
JAMES
Well considering where we are right now can you talk a little bit about diversity and inclusion as an organization.
TREVOR
Three years ago, at a board retreat, one of our board members brought up as a point of discussion that we don’t seem to be doing a lot of work in the realm of diversity which lead to a really great conversation that we had never had as an organization. Because our organization has always been open, and available, to anyone and everyone.
JAMES
If you’re a playwright, call us.
TREVOR
If you’re a playwright, call us. We don’t discriminate based on age, race, country of origin, religious background, sexuality, or sexual identity. None of that has ever been a part of our membership process. And we’ve never asked those questions, nor did we ever care to. So that led us to the discovery that while that may be our internal belief that may not be our external perception.
And as we’ve done some surveys and spoken to diverse theatre creators about this what we discovered is not that the outside perception was necessarily wrong, but that the outside perception was different from our internal belief. We believed that we were an open door for everyone, but what we discovered is we have to take that door out to people and let them know that we exist and that we have this belief?
JAMES
It’s not enough to just have the door open.
TREVOR
Exactly. So, we’ve held a couple of meetings with diverse artists from across a number of disciplines both in Calgary and Edmonton. We’re also undergoing a process with the Professional Association of Canadian Theatres and there’s a number of Calgary theatre companies that have gotten together for two or three meetings to have frank and open discussions about equity, diversity, and inclusion that are chaired and convened by diverse artists which has been really eye-opening to us.
We just got some money from Calgary Arts Development, to dig into this work a little deeper. So, we’ve just hired what we’re calling a Community Outreach Ambassador, who for a period of time is going to go out and engage with diverse and underrepresented communities and just have frank and honest conversations with them about what our organization does. Here’s who we are. Do you have creators? Do you have writers? What can we offer you? Is there anything that we could provide that would assist you on your artistic journey?
By the end of this year we’ll probably be creating some value statements that we will publish on our website and those value statements around equity, diversity, and inclusion will trickle down and be at the forefront of thoughts regarding programming.
For ten years Trevor Rueger was the chair, writer, and producer of the Betty Mitchell Awards. The Betty Mitchell Awards recognize excellence in Calgary’s Professional Theatre Community. Photograph by Jasmine Han
JAMES
So, let’s talk about dramaturgy. How do you engage with the playwright? What works best?
TREVOR
For me, dramaturgy is a philosophy. And the philosophy is simply about helping the playwright find the ideas, both big and small in the world that they’re trying to create. I tend to start every dramaturgical session by asking the playwright, “Tell me about you and tell me about your work. And tell me about the creative process that you’ve been engaged in thus far and tell me what you want to say.” A lot of the questions and feedback that I tend to formulate, as I’m reading a work generally always come back to, “What are you trying to say? What do you want the play to say? What do you want the audience to think, feel, and be saying when they’re walking out of the theatre? What’s the experience you want to take them through?” So that’s always where I start a conversation. And that becomes a touchstone from which we can negotiate.
JAMES
Do you have any particular way of breaking down scripts?
TREVOR
There are three things that I really focus on. One is character. If I was to pick up this script as an actor or a director, based on what I’m seeing right now, would I be able to either give a performance, akin to what the playwright has written, or as a director get to a performance that’s akin to what the playwright has written. That’s usually where I have a lot of questions about the character and the character journey. To me, it starts with character, then it moves into structure. How is the world structured? How is your narrative structure? And then my third one is time. I think the notion of time is overlooked by emerging playwrights.
JAMES
What do you mean by time?
TREVOR
What I mean by time is how much time expires in the world of your play. Because time has a powerful effect within a narrative in terms of an emotional state. When I teach my introduction to playwriting, I use the epilogue at the end of Death of a Salesman as an example of time. Linda is standing at Willy’s grave and in the reality of the play he passed two or three days ago. She’s got this beautiful speech about, “I can’t cry Willy. I can’t cry. Every time I hear the screen door open, I expect it’s you. I can’t cry.” And I always ask playwrights in the course, “Okay, so that’s three days ago, but let’s imagine she’s standing at the grave a year later and says those exact same words.”
JAMES
It totally changes everything.
TREVOR
It totally changes everything, right? The audience now is getting a completely different story. And all you’ve done is change the element of time. The actor is going to play it differently. The director is going to approach it differently. So, that’s what I mean by the notion of time, and how time is important and sometimes we give a story too much time. It becomes too epic and the hero’s journey loses all of its stakes.
When you sit down as a playwright and you start to think about a character that’s going to inhabit your world, that’s a piece of coal. Until you put that piece of coal under pressure, you’re not going to reveal all of its facets. So, characters have to be put under pressure. And that’s where you as a writer, and your audience is going to discover all of the facets of that character. And you’re going to turn that piece of coal into a diamond. With facets that shine and shape and inform. It’s pressure. But the pressure can be lost if the writer gives it too much time.
L to R: Col Cseke, Kathryn Kerbes & Trevor Rueger in an APN workshop for Saviour by Maryanne Pope – January 2019
JAMES
I really like the fact that you’re talking character, structure, and time, because then it doesn’t matter whether it’s comedy – doesn’t matter whether it’s a tragedy – because those function in every story. And those things are the elements the story is built out of.
Okay, I have one final question. Speaking as a dramaturge you’re working with a new playwright. He’s written a new play called Hamlet. What are your dramaturgical notes on Hamlet because it’s a pretty good play?
TREVOR
Yeah, it’s pretty good. One question would be, “Do you feel that the Fortinbras plot is overwritten for what thematically you think it’s giving you?” Because that’s the plot that always gets cut. And I ask people when I’m teaching my introductory playwriting course, “In Hamlet, how long from the first scene on the parapets of Elsinore castle to the end of the play? How much time has expired in the real world?”
JAMES
You know, I’ve never thought about it, but it feels like it’s a lot of time. Well because he travels to England and comes back. I don’t know. A month. Two months?
TREVOR
Six months.
JAMES
Six months.
TREVOR
Six months in order to travel by boat to and from England. And there is a reference to six or seven months actually later in the text. But if Hamlet was to be that slow and wishy-washy for seven months…
JAMES
…he wouldn’t have our sympathy. We’d be frustrated with him.
TREVOR
Yeah, we’d want to punch him in the face. So, our mind shortens it to an acceptable amount of time. Yeah, I could see how he would have difficulty making a choice in two months. But you know, if I’m really thinking about the fact that it’s taking him six to seven months to make a decision, I’m starting to turn off the character. Yeah, so maybe you want to take a look at time.
I did a speech for a seniors group at Theatre Calgary many years ago about dramaturgy and I created a fictional case study on if I was to dramaturg Hamlet, but it was like, draft one, right? So, Shakespeare comes to me and he goes, “Okay, I got this great idea for a play. Here’s what’s going to happen. Kid comes back from college because his dad’s died. And then his mom is sleeping with his uncle and his uncle killed his dad.”
“Oh, that sounds really great.”
“Yeah. And then he enacts revenge.”
“Okay, great. Question. Did he witness the murder?”
“No, he did not witness the murder.”
“Did somebody witness the murder?”
“No, no, no. This is how the uncle is getting away with it. Nobody witnessed the murder.”
“So how does Hamlet know that his uncle did it?”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, you said he exacts revenge on his uncle for the murder of his father?”
“Yeah?”
“So how does he know his uncle killed his father?”
“Ah, yeah, I see what you’re saying. (Pause) Ghost of his dad?”
“Ghost of his dad! Good idea. Let’s have him show up.”
Alberta Playwrights’ Network is a not-for-profit provincial organization of emerging and established playwrights, dramaturgs, and supporters of playwriting. Our members come from across the province in both rural and urban communities, with the largest portion of our membership residing in Calgary and Edmonton. We strive to be a truly province-wide organization, with representation from all corners of the province. Alberta Playwrights’ Network exists to nurture Albertan playwrights and provide support for the development of their plays. APN promotes the province’s playwrights and plays to the theatre community while building and fostering a network of playwrights through education, advocacy, and outreach.
“I’ve made a lot of friends working on sets and being in class. Everyone says this is a cut-throat business but it’s not. Actors really do champion other actors. At least the ones I choose to have in my life. I love it when my friends book work, even when we go out for the same roles. We support each other through the tough stuff and celebrate even the small victories.”
Ryan Quinn Adams is an LA based actor who commutes between Lake Tahoe, where his family lives, and Los Angeles in order to pursue his dream of becoming an actor. I first met Ryan when my play, Death and the Psychiatrist, was part of WordWave in Lake Tahoe back in 2016, and Ryan was cast as Randy Cooper a patient with a bundle of phobias including a fear of Thanksgiving that was the result of his pet turkey Oscar paying the ultimate price for the family feast. Ryan brought a warmth and charm to the part and we connected on Facebook and since then I’ve been following his trials and triumphs as he pursues his dream. I spoke to Ryan and we discussed his life as an actor working to break into the biz, as well as his approach to acting, and how The Empire Strikes Back ignited his love for story and movies.
RYAN QUINN ADAMS
Ultimately I’ve wanted to be an actor ever since I saw Star Wars the Empire Strikes Back with my mom and my sister when I was about five or six, and I was just enthralled with the idea of being able to use magic to navigate the world. And my mom knew one of the prop makers that worked on Star Wars, and we went to his shop, and he had a Darth Vader helmet. And I don’t know if it was used in the production but I’m guessing not because he gave it to me. It was a full helmet that attached from the front and back. It was a really well-done piece of machinery, so for Halloween, I was Darth Vader and I made the circuit board. And you know, I’m five or six years old and I just had black gloves and black clothes on but for a little kid it was very imaginative and it just opened my world to how movies can really spark your imagination.
JAMES HUTCHISON
You’ve gone from being that six-year old kid dressed up as Darth Vader trick or treating to that guy who’s trying to become a professional actor in LA. Is there any way for you to tell us a little bit about what that journey has been like for you?
RYAN
It’s been long. (Laughs) When I was eight I did my first commercial. And I lucked out with that because we owned a resort. My grandparents built this compound in Palm Springs on two blocks where all the houses backed onto each other, and my grandparents bought the houses and removed the fences, and so it became a compound. It was for the family to use because they’re big on family gatherings, and they were well to do so they had the resources to do it.
And my mom said, “Why don’t we turn this into an executive retreat where people can come on their business trips.” Basically, your first Airbnb, right? And so, we were living there. My mom was running this executive retreat, and JC Penney was staying there shooting their Christmas catalogue and commercials, and I was in the backyard playing. It was a great place for a kid to grow up because we had pools and there was a lot for a kid to do.
So, I was outside playing and the kid that they had hired was sick. And the producer was walking by watching me play and said, “Hey, how would you like to be in a commercial?” I didn’t know what that was, so I asked my mom and she said, “Absolutely.” And they put me in these nice clothes and had me play. And that was my first paid acting gig, and they paid me really well. I’m eight years old and I made more in a day than my mom made in a month. And I thought, “Wow, that’s pretty cool.”
But I didn’t pursue it at the time because we moved a lot. We moved from Palm Springs to a little town called Eagle’s Nest in New Mexico. And we were there for about four months and then we moved to Tahoe after that.
Ryan’s first paid gig as a model for JC Penny’s Christmas Catalogue
JAMES
Any memorable experiences from your time living and growing up in Lake Tahoe?
RYAN
When I was in the 11th grade Kevin Costner was filming The Bodyguard in Tahoe with Whitney Houston. I was VP of the drama club and our president, Stacey Wisnia, had got it in her head to get in contact with Kevin Costner and invite him to speak. And so, she figured out which hotel he was staying at, and she just wrote him a letter and stuck it under his door.
JAMES
She stuck it under his door.
RYAN
Yup, she slid it under his door. It’s a small town so everybody knows everybody. And she must have known the front desk person and said, “Hey, I just want to slide this note under his door.” And the note simply said, “Hey, you know, we have a drama club and we know you’re shooting here. Would you mind spending a couple hours telling us about your experience?”
And he did. He showed up. And the drama club got to be out of school for the day, and he came to the theatre and we talked. He was only supposed to be there for two hours, but I think he stayed for about four. And he just answered questions and told us about his story and how he was in college and he wasn’t even planning on being an actor. But he stumbled on it. He did a stage performance of, I can’t remember, but it was probably one of the Arthur Miller classics and he fell in love with it.
JAMES
Kevin Costner was a big, big, star at that point in his career. For him to drop in on a local drama club and spend three or four hours there chatting and talking about his life and the business is very revealing about the type of person he must be.
RYAN
He was super generous with his time and his answers. But the big thing he was saying was if you’re considering pursuing acting as a career, don’t do it. He went on to explain all the trials and tribulations you go through and the likelihood of being a star or even being able to make a decent living at it at the time was really slim. Even though he was telling us not to pursue acting as a career all I heard was it is possible and it can be a rewarding life.
JAMES
I think you mentioned to me that your drama teacher also said don’t become an actor.
RYAN
My high school drama teacher, K.C. Hoffman, was just out of college so she was twenty-one or twenty-two teaching people just a few years younger than herself. She gave us the freedom to explore and do the work in a playful way. But she told us how hard the business was and when I was a sophomore, we did a production of Arsenic and Old Lace. I really wanted a specific role, and I got the script ahead of the audition, and I memorized the role I wanted, and I did the work as if I had already gotten the part, and I came into the audition and I killed it. And she said, “Would you like to audition for anything else?” And I said, “Absolutely not. This is the role I want.” And she said, “Really, because I don’t see you in this role.” And so, I didn’t get cast in it, and that was my first real rejection in the business. And she did it, she said, to teach me a lesson because she knew I was starting to think about pursuing acting as a career. So, that was kind of a devastating blow to me.
Actor Ryan Quinn Adams
So, I did pageants and plays and started picking up music instruments, and I was in a band in high school, and when I moved to LA out of high school I wanted to be an actor, but you had to have an agent to get work. There were independent films but not to the level there are now. You could do background work and get your SAG voucher because they wanted you to be SAG before you’d be repped. So, you needed work before you’d be repped, but you needed a rep to get work.
JAMES
That’s a catch-22.
RYAN
It is a catch-22. I found it extremely frustrating. So, to pay the bills I ended up working in the music business. I worked for a company called Studio Instrument Rentals, and they’re still around, and I’m still friends with the owner, Ken Berry.
They have a huge assortment of instruments – drums, keyboards, guitars, amps, anything you need to put on a show, even lighting setup, stages, and professional sound equipment. And I started off as a delivery guy. So, people would rent a Gibson Guitar for a studio session, and I would deliver it. And while I was there, I wanted to learn about how to do live audio mixing, how to do the lighting, how to set everything up. So, it was like a paid internship for me. I just absorbed every little bit of it I could, and within a year and a half, I was one of the production managers that would put on the productions.
I worked with a lot of up and coming bands at the time like Jessica Simpson and Matchbox Twenty. And I worked with Metallica who were pretty well known. And I got to work at venues that most people don’t get to go to see. I did a lot of the parties at the Playboy Mansion and you know as a twenty-something-year-old guy I was living the dream.
Ryan Adams and his friend James Roberts “living the dream” in LA
But when I was in the music business I got really heavy into the drug scene and became an addict and in 2000 I got somewhat sober. I was still drinking and partying but nothing like I had been, and I met my wife Amanda, and I was actually going to move back to LA in 2001, but we found out she was pregnant, and I thought, “Well, let’s do the right thing and stay here in Tahoe and have a family.”
So, I ended up getting a job working for a cell phone company that was eventually bought out by Verison, and I was doing really well in sales, and we’re raising our daughter Aaralyn, and then I started getting back into the drugs and my son Daylan was born in 2006. And I was in my full-blown addiction from 2006 to 2009 where we are homeless, you know, we lost our home. We lost all of our worldly possessions. The only thing I didn’t lose was my children and my wife. And we’re living in a trailer on my in-law’s property just off the hill from Tahoe in a town called Pollock Pines, and in January 2009 I end up getting clean and sober. And at the same time, I started working for UPS as a driver and making really good money, and we bought a house, and we’re living the American dream and everything is going really well.
Family Beach Time – Ryan with his wife Amanda, son Daylan, and daughter Aaralyn
And in the process of being in a 12 Step Program, you start to learn a lot about yourself, and you make amends to the people you’ve hurt. And that’s part of the process and the second time around doing the steps I made amends to myself, because I had put off my dreams of acting and of having a creative and fulfilled life for my addiction.
So, I said, “You know what, I want to get back into it.” And so I started doing plays at the community college in Tahoe, and I started buying digital film equipment, and in 2013 I auditioned for a film called Precaution and Manuel Crosby the director liked my performance, but I wasn’t right for the role, so he rewrote the script to have a part for me in the film. So, my first film credit is Precaution and it was because I did enough work in my audition to get the director to like me enough to write me in. And we’ve become really good friends since then, and he was a USC film student at the time.
So, I started looking for inspiration to write something myself, and I wrote a short called Second Glance. My son and I had gone to Denny’s to get his free Denny’s meal on his birthday and there was an older guy with a beard in a red polka dot hoop skirt with a purse to match and these big hoop earrings, and I just started thinking about this guy’s story. And I thought maybe it’s his wife’s birthday and he’s bringing her to dinner. So, I ended up writing Second Glance which is a story about this guy in a cocktail dress and he’s taking his wife out for their anniversary and along the way he meets all these bigots.
Rob Meiers in a scene from Second Glance. Directed by Ryan Quinn Adams.
And I knew a friend that owned an Italian restaurant, and he let me use the space when it was closed, and we shot this five minute short in eight hours. And everything that can go wrong on a production went wrong. The sound was terrible, so we ended up doing what’s called ADR on all the dialogue which is dialogue replacement, basically. But that film went to some festivals and won some awards, and so I got really involved in the film community. And I started making more shorts and meeting other like-minded people, and I was still working at UPS. So, I’m going to rehearsals at night, and I’m shooting on the weekends and suddenly my life becomes two lives plus trying to manage having a family at the same time. And then I started driving to LA for auditions in 2016 and in 2017 I decided to start taking acting classes with Howard Fine in LA.
He was basically Uta Hagen’s partner you know during the last decade of her life. So, it’s loosely based on Uta’s work. But that was an eye-opening experience because here I was trained to put on these characters on stage and to try to be something that you weren’t instead of using yourself in everything that you are, you know, and so that was a paradigm shift and really intense, but it’s much more effortless now.
Class Photo – Howard Fine Acting Studio
JAMES
Once you got into the serious acting you realize you mine your own experiences. You mine your own life. Your natural responses.
RYAN
Right.
JAMES
That’s one of the reasons acting done well, is so draining, right?
RYAN
Yeah, it’s exhausting even. Even some of the simple stuff can be really challenging if you’re really invested in it.
JAMES
Tell me a little bit about some of your favorite roles you’ve had or some of the favorite acting experiences you’ve had over the last few years.
RYAN
There’s a movie in post-production right now where I play a guy named Vince. He wants to be the boss of this gang, but he’s kind of incompetent, and he keeps screwing everything up, and he takes everything super personal.
The film’s called First Date, and it’s about a teenage kid who asks a girl out on a date, and he realizes his parents are taking the car to Vegas for the weekend, so he doesn’t have a car, but he’s saved up enough money to buy a car, so he goes and buys a car from a shady fellow. After he buys the car he gets wrapped up with a bunch of crazy people, cops, and criminals, including me and the gang I’m a part of, and we end up chasing this kid around. It’s an action rom-com basically.
Ryan Quinn Adams as Vince in the soon to be released action-comedy First Date. Written and Directed by Manuel Crosby & Darren Knapp
So, that was my friend Manuel that I did the movie Precaution with. This is his feature debut. It was a lot of fun to work with him. We shot sixty days over a year in total. We shot a lot because there was a lot of action that needed to be choreographed. And I did some stunts in the movie too. So, I got to work with a stunt coordinator so that was a lot of fun. That’s one of my favourite roles to date just because of how intense I got to be as Vince.
JAMES
Who are some of the actors that you really admire and whose work you like?
RYAN
Meryl Streep, Daniel Day-Lewis, Al Pacino, Robert De Niro, Michael Cain, Gary Oldman, Dustin Hoffman, and Jack Nicholson. They all get lost in the work. They’re so real and compelling to watch. Joaquin Phoenix was great in Joker. He brought a real humanity to the torment that his character was going through, and it was really compelling to watch. Tom Holland is a youngster that just blows me away. I know he has more in him, and I can’t wait to watch his career continue to soar. Hugh Jackman does theatre, musicals, anti-hero movies and is an amazing, loveable, charismatic guy. Tom Hardy is one of my all-time favourites just because sometimes I’ll be watching a film and I’ll be a quarter of the way into it and I’ll go, “Oh, my God, that’s Tom Hardy.” That’s just amazing to me that he can find that character so deep in himself that his essence merges with it. The Revenant, Dunkirk, Taboo… all Tom Hardy. What attracts me to all these actors is how effortlessly they make it all look, but it takes a great deal of craft to make it look that good.
JAMES
What is it they’re doing that makes it so powerful?
RYAN
If I knew that I would be right there with them. (Laughs) You know, a lot of times when you see a really compelling performance on screen it’s because the director gave them the freedom to do that.
JAMES
So, you have a place in LA and you commute between LA and Tahoe because your family is still based in Lake Tahoe. Can you describe what your life as an actor is like?
RYAN
It’s frustrating. It’s fun. It’s challenging. And it’s a lot of work. I put a lot of work into my craft, and I read a lot of plays and screenplays, and I do a lot of scene study with Howard and my classmates.
I spend over half my time in LA. The commute is six and a half hours each way so that’s challenging. I travel 1000 miles a week to follow this passion. The sacrifice of being away from my family for four days to four weeks at a time takes its toll. But they understand and the kids tell me it’s inspiring to see me follow my passion. But it’s hard. And when I tell this story people always ask, “Why don’t you just move them to LA?” Good question. Simple answer. They don’t want to live in LA. My wife has a good career in Tahoe. The last thing I want to do is rip them from their lives so I can follow this dream.
Ryan with his daughter Aaralyn, son Daylan, and wife Amanda in Tahoe.
So, I usually leave on Mondays and I come home Fridays because I’ve learned that if I have an audition on Monday and I don’t have anything for the rest of the week and I decide on Thursday to come home early as soon as I get close to Tahoe I’ll get a notice that I have an audition on Friday, and I have to turn around and go back. So, if I go down on Monday I stay for the whole week, and I almost always have an audition on Monday.
But I don’t wait around for the phone to ring. I never do that because it’ll drive me nuts. I’m always keeping busy either in class or hiking or at a movie or hanging out with some friends. But when you do get the call it’s usually an email or a text. It depends on whether it’s straight from your representation or if it’s through one of the casting sites. And then I’ll read the breakdown. You know, this is a guy in his 40s and his wife just left him and any other details they provide and that gives me a little background. If I can I’ll try to get hold of the script, or if the scripts not available from my agent or from the network I will go and read all the other character’s sides to get an idea of what this show is. If it’s a show I’ve never seen I’ll try to find an episode to watch to get the tone of it. And then once I get all that and have an understanding of where this character will live in their world I’ll start creating my character. Who is this guy? What’s happening? And I’ll just work my craft, and then, if there’s time, and it’s a big enough role, I’ll get some side coaching from an acting coach just to make sure I’m not missing any layers.
Ryan Quinn Adams as Vince and Angela Barber as Ricky in the soon to be released action-comedy First Date. Written and Directed by Manuel Crosby & Darren Knapp
JAMES
But that costs you money, doesn’t it?
RYAN
Yeah, it can cost money. Sometimes I’ll trade with people because I have directing experience and a pretty good eye for seeing what other people are doing. And then you go to the audition and depending on the audition I go through ups and downs of having lots of anxiety about auditioning to let’s just go have some fun and play. And it just depends on the audition. I auditioned for a film that Meryl Streep is the star in and my scene was with Meryl Streep and Nicole Kidman and I was pretty nervous about that one. So, I’ll do some meditation to try to calm things down. And then I go to the audition. And I have a ritual now where I tear up the sides and throw them away as I leave the audition. I’m not taking that with me. My work is done. And if they call me and I get the part then great, but if I don’t get the part then it’s Monday afternoon and I got to go to an audition and act today. That’s my philosophy on that.
JAMES
You mentioned you do films and you do a little bit of writing and some directing. How do you like to work with actors on your set?
RYAN
I love working with actors. It’s such a collaborative art especially when you’re directing. As an actor it’s collaborative too but when you’re directing you’re collaborating with so many people, and I love that aspect of it because you’ve got your cinematographer and your grips and the lighting guys and sound people and the actors and background and the art department and everybody’s coming together to make this thing that you’ve written, and you get to see it go from the blank page to a finished product. If you’re working on somebody else’s script then you take this roadmap, which is the script, and you get to create something out of it. My favourite part is working with the actors and seeing what they’re bringing to the table and then expanding on that because its fun to watch these characters come to life.
JAMES
What is your hope for your career?
RYAN
The generic answer would be a working actor but, you know, in truth, I would love to be on an HBO or Netflix comedy or drama as one of the series regulars. Ideally it would be a production that shoots all over the world so I get to see the world at the same time. (Laughs) That is my ultimate goal. How I get there is still up to the powers that be. But there’s so much work out there, I have no doubt that things are going to start shifting in my career as long as I keep doing what I’m doing.
With film there are different levels and when you start out you’re in the bottom level. You’re doing student films and stuff pro bono just to get a reel and to get experience and maybe you’re doing some background work. And then you level up to paid. Features, independent films, some non-network TV. And then you go into network TV, co-star, guest star, and maybe you’re no longer doing ultra low budget features you’re doing studio features or low budget features. And then you move up to recurring guest star and then series regular and doing big studio features where you’re not the lead but you’re doing more than a one liner on a film.
So, right now I’m levelling up from doing independent features and non-network TV to network TV. And there are some growing pains and some frustrations. Like I’ve been what they call pinned, which is basically between you and maybe another person after you go to call-backs. I’ve been pinned several times in the last few months for some pretty big things, and when you don’t get it you start having this self-doubt, but I just have to keep reminding myself that even a call back is a win in this business.
Ryan Quinn Adams in Dead Man’s Locket
JAMES
The other advantage you have is that you’ve lived a lot of life. I think you have way more life experience to draw upon than that kid who first went to LA at twenty. You’ve been knocked about. You’ve been bruised. You’ve raised a family. You mentioned your addiction and congratulations – I saw a post – where you said –
RYAN
Yeah, it’s been 11 years.
JAMES
That’s awesome. Congratulations.
RYAN
Thanks.
JAMES
I think that gives you a depth that you can use as an artist that wouldn’t have been there when you were younger. So, let’s talk about that. If you were to give a couple of tips to people, you know, thinking of diving in and doing the same kind of journey what would they be even though everybody told you not to do it?
RYAN
I do a lot of stage managing for Howard’s beginning classes and I try to mentor the young people in the classes, and what I tell people is it’s a marathon, not a sprint. Be prepared for the long haul. It takes time to develop craft. It takes time to develop relationships with agents, managers, casting directors, directors, everyone that you need on your side to have any kind of success. Don’t look at the no’s as missed opportunities or rejection. It’s not personal, so don’t take it personally. If you beat yourself up for not getting the role or get bitter about not booking or not getting an agent or if you start thinking it’s not fair, you won’t last.
Actor Ryan Quinn Adams
Allow yourself breaks. Take vacations. Spend time with family. Find balance. Do the things you love to do other than acting. Everybody wants an agent right away and they’re so focused on the career that they’re not spending enough time experiencing their life and what’s happening. You need to live your life to have life experiences to bring to these characters, and if you’re young and you don’t have any life experience it’s okay to get some.
I’ve made a lot of friends working on sets and being in class. Everyone says this is a cut-throat business but it’s not. Actors really do champion other actors. At least the ones I choose to have in my life. I love it when my friends book work, even when we go out for the same roles. We support each other through the tough stuff and celebrate even the small victories.
Getting an audition in LA is something like a one in four-hundred chance. There are three to four thousand submissions and they only call thirty to forty of us in to audition. Then if you get a call back they’re only calling four of us back, and when you book the job that means there were four thousand other people they looked at and you got it! That’s kind of mind-blowing. So, we celebrate the little stuff. “I got an audition.” “Hell yeah!”
Ryan Quinn Adams is a SAG/AFTRA actor based in Los Angeles California. For a complete list of credits, contact information, and acting reels check out www.ryanquinnadams.com or his IMDB Profile. This interview had been edited for length and clarity.
Rebbekah Ogden and Aaron Krogman in the Rosebud Theatre Production of A Christmas Story based on the 1983 movie and the books by Jean Shepherd and adapted for the stage by Philip Grecian. Directed by Paul F. Muir. Photo credit Kelsey Krogman.
“The first show I ever went to see before I became a student here was a Christmas show and it was such a warm feeling of like showing up to someone’s house and the Christmas lights are on and there’s a warm fire and there’s laughter and good food and good drink in that house. That Christmas vibe is on offer here in a really particular and unique way. And, the show is the central point of that. We come together around this holiday and this moment of connection and I think the story is really connecting with people. It’s really a place where you come around and feel that warmth and that joy and the camaraderie and cheer of Christmas.”
Aaron Krogman, Actor
Rosebud Opera House – Christmas 2019 – Photo Credit Randall Wiebe
My son and I journeyed out to Rosebud a few weeks ago to see A Christmas Story. The play is based on the 1983 movie and the books by Jean Shepherd and has been adapted for the stage by Philip Grecian. It’s the classic tale of Ralphie Parker’s relentless campaign to get his parents to buy him, “an official Red Ryder, carbine action, 200-shot, range model air rifle, with a compass in the stock and this thing that tells time,” for Christmas.
Surrounding this core story there are several other subplots and adventures where we meet a whole cast of characters including Ralphie’s friends, the neighbourhood bully, his little brother Randy, the mall Santa, and of course Ralphie’s mother, and his father “the old man.” The Rosebud production features a terrific cast and a versatile and stylized set that adapts easily from one location to the next all while keeping the action moving.
A Christmas Story is a fun and family-friendly production that not only includes a highly entertaining and memorable holiday classic but also features a delicious holiday buffet feast and live Christmas Carols to put you in the mood before you go and see the show. The production runs until December 22nd and tickets are available online at the Rosebud Theatre Website or by calling the box office at 1-800-267-7553.
Aaron Krogman portrays the grown-up Ralphie in a charming and nuanced performance where he guides us through this particular childhood Christmas memory and adds some humourous insights and observations from an adult point of view. I spoke with Aaron about the production, his time as a student in Rosebud, his five years playing Jesus in the Badlands Passion Play, and his love of music.
Aaron Krogman – Rosebud Centre of the Arts
JAMES HUTCHISON
You’re a graduate of the Rosebud School of the Arts from 2008. Tell me a little bit about your time here as a student and what that was like?
AARON KROGMAN
When I graduated high school, I had no idea what to do with my life. I had high levels of interest in multiple topics and zero confidence in any of them. And I remember one summer other friends of mine had been back in town for the summer on their college summer break. And one of my friends said to me, “Dude, if you don’t go to school and do something, I will be so disappointed in you.”
And, a week later I said to my dad, “Dad, if I don’t get a plan together and go to school this fall, I never will, but I don’t know what I should study.” And he thought about it for a little bit and said, “You know Aaron, I’ve always thought you could be an actor on a stage.”
So, on his suggestion, I called Rosebud School of the Arts. Making that phone call was probably the scariest part of the whole thing. Paul Muir, who is the education director at Rosebud, and who is now my boss, answered the phone. We had a conversation about my interests and why I was calling, and I think that first conversation just opened a door for me that has never closed since.
When I showed up that September to start school, it was just amazing. I didn’t think the world could be the way it was in Rosebud. I didn’t think there would be people in the world who cared about the kind of stuff that I cared about. People who spent their lives making space for storytelling with the human being as the prime subject of storytelling and about the possibilities of making the world a better place and making human culture a better place and enabling us to see the best in each other. My time as a student in Rosebud is one of the most amazing life-giving experiences I’ve ever had.
Aaron Krogman in the 2007 Rosebud School of the Arts Production of As You Like It
JAMES
Do you feel that you discovered your purpose in life by going to Rosebud?
AARON
I have memories of being very young and caring about the kinds of things that Rosebud’s about. I wouldn’t say that I discovered my purpose. I recovered it. It was something that was alive in me at a very young age and coming to Rosebud as a student and now being here as a member of the company and as an instructor I feel like I recovered my five-year-old self.
JAMES
Was there any particular instructor or mentor at the school that you remember any lesson learned or experience that still resonates with you today?
AARON
You know it’s funny, I’ve been thinking about what’s been so significant for me in the last month about opening A Christmas Story because it’s been a five-and-a-half-year break for me from interacting with the Rosebud audience. And now I’m back and this is my first time on stage and re-engaging with that audience. And I think it is the collective education that the audience has given me – the feedback and the support and the affirmation of what good, clear, generous storytelling is.
I think what’s particularly unique about Rosebud educationally is the chance to be in front of the audiences that come here. I think they are a powerful part of the training that takes place and I think there are many in the audience who deliberately come here because they want to see students grow. And so, I think, in the big-picture view of what has really made a difference for me has been exposure to and vulnerability with that audience. They are just as significant an educator as any of the faculty here.
And most of the direction that I’ve received as an actor has been with Morris Ertman the Artistic Director of Rosebud. I’ve done more shows with him than any other director and cumulatively his confidence in the ideal that we as storytellers have something vital to offer that matters has rubbed off on me in ways I’m still just discovering.
Aaron Krogman, Rebbekah Ogden, Glenda Warkentin, Silas Winters, and Nathan Schmidt in the Rosebud Theatre Production of A Christmas Story based on the 1983 movie and the books by Jean Shepherd and adapted for the stage by Philip Grecian. Directed by Paul F. Muir. Photo credit Morris Ertman
JAMES
Well, let’s talk a little bit about A Christmas Story. At the end of the night after the audience has seen the play what do you think they walk away with?
AARON
Well, I think it’s similar to what the play does for me. We end the story on Christmas morning. And I remember Christmas after Christmas my dad giving me a Christmas gift and being really excited about it. And in the play the dad is excited that his son’s going to open the gift that he’s been asking for – forever. And the father and boy open the present and the dad has all this additional information about the gift and I have so many memories of my dad saying things like, “Oh, I got you this little stereo for your room. And it has all these features and let me take you through all the features.” And that’s what happens in the play. And that’s so familiar to me. And it makes me so fond of my own father in that moment. And I love story that returns us to our own life in a way that makes us more able to live it somehow. Whether that’s remembering the best parts of it or whether that’s looking at it in a slightly more positive way.
JAMES
Tell me about the cast and what it’s like to work with them and how you guys worked on the play and brought it together?
AARON
It’s a ton of people who are all currently Rosebud School of the Arts students or grads. A lot of times we bring in guest artists which is awesome, but this is a rare thing where it’s a big cast that’s in house. And there are lots of opportunities for students in this show to take their first steps on the Opera House stage.
It’s one of the things I’m loving the most about this process right now. I’m watching students go through what I went through as a student. Which is having the opportunity to perform in front of an audience and how that changes your experience of the text and how important that is and to realize, “Oh, there’s an opportunity for a laugh in this line, which I didn’t see at all. And if I just say it clearly and communicate it, and offer it up, the audience will be ready for it. They know there’s a laugh line coming before I do as an actor. And if I just listen to them, they lead me to it.” So that’s one of the elements that’s happening in the play right now and I love to see that happen.
Back: Kalena Lewandowski, Anja Darien, Rebbekah Ogden, Holly Langmead. Front: Silas Winters, Keisha Wright in the Rosebud Theatre Production of A Christmas Story based on the 1983 movie and the books by Jean Shepherd and adapted for the stage by Philip Grecian. Directed by Paul F. Muir. Photo credit Kelsey Krogman.
JAMES
In Rosebud you do these main stage shows that run for two months. What as an actor is beneficial about having these longer runs where you get to spend time with this character in a story every week?
AARON
The educational opportunity is exponentially bigger. I think it’s amazing to experience the full range of what different audiences can be like in terms of their engagement. If you do a two-week run where you do ten shows, the greater part of your experience of that show is going to be rehearsal. Performance is the smaller part. And, I think that in most theatre programs you never get out of rehearsal.
You might do your student shows for a weekend or for a two-week run, but they’re all in house audiences. They are people who are coming that know you. There is value in an audience that is objective and indifferent and paying money to see a show. And there are those elements in a Rosebud audience and while they care about theatre they’re also paying money and they want it to be good. And I think that is part of the pressure cooker of what it means to be part of live theatre.
JAMES
When I was doing my research for this interview, I discovered that you released an album in 2012. I was just curious about music in your life and the importance of music and the creation of that album. How did that all come about?
AARON
I got into music long before I got into theatre. I was raised in the church and the primary involvement I had with the church was musical. So, I started playing drums and then played bass and then guitar and just did everything. I really loved music. It was one of the first things that really spoke to me.
And I was working on a play with Lucia Frangione, who’s a very successful award-winning Vancouver playwright who teaches a course here at Rosebud and she liked my writing and offered to collaborate with me on a project she was working on. And we started working on a piece about a songwriter who wrote songs and so I started writing songs for that play. We did some development and it was pretty exciting, but it didn’t really take off and so, in the end, I had these songs. And a friend of mine here in town Paul Zacharias was a music engineer and producer and he just made an offer to record them through his company doG House Studios. And I said, “Yeah, let’s do it.”
It’s funny that you asked about that because I’m actually scheduled to have another meeting with Paul and we’re going to record another album. And I’m excited about it because I’ve always loved music.
Aaron Krogman as Jesus in The Badlands Passion Play
JAMES
Let’s talk a little bit about the Badlands Passion Play. You’ve been in the play for seven years and five of those years you played Jesus. Tell me a little bit about the experience of being in that production and what that was like.
AARON
It’s theatre, but it’s different. It’s unique. It’s outdoors and it’s primarily community theatre. There are a few people who are there in a professional capacity and most of those contracts are behind the scenes in terms of stage management, design, and direction.
Almost all of the actors are volunteer or from community theatre and I think that is probably what makes it the most unique. There’s an amateur vibe to it, which is amazing. I’ve become a huge fan of the word amateur, as I’ve heard it defined by some of my favourite authors, as those who do something for the love of it. These are the real priests of culture. They’re the ones who are making an offering with the work of their hands.
JAMES
How did you find your interpretation of Jesus and that story change over the time of you performing it?
AARON
I think it charts some of my growth as an actor. I understudied the part for two years and so I watched it and I developed my opinions. My first-time playing Jesus was a reaction to what I had seen. I really wanted to play Jesus as understated and not as profound and to be motivated by the present moment. But in some ways, it didn’t serve the stage because that’s a particularly large stage and the size of the performance has to be a certain thing in order for it to reach the back of the house. People are watching with binoculars. They’re not seeing my authentic transparent thought.
JAMES
You were acting for the camera instead of the stage.
AARON
Totally. And, you know, the directors were all over me for that, and rightfully so. And I think we each have our imagined version of who Jesus is or was regardless of our faith and we also have this imagined version of Jesus that our culture offers us. Is he angry or is he warm and kind?
And I really wanted him to be like my version where he’s warm, thoughtful, and a little bit of a rebel. But the second year I got to do it I went really hard in the other direction. And the third year I did it, I sort of was like, I have no idea what I’m doing in any of this. And so, I just emptied myself of any preconceived ideas and based my performance very much in the moment and it’s not my strength as an actor.
I pre-plan. I know my text. I do my backstory. That’s been my habit, and that third year, I threw it all out. I just emptied myself of any preconceived notion of what I ought to do, and I just entered and reacted, and it was very much a roll of the dice in terms of who I was embodying. And I still did the right blocking. I didn’t surprise anybody really, but it was for me internally a hands-off kind of thing. And then the last two years I did the same thing and that’s kind of how I am as an actor now.
Rehearsals are about finding the boundaries, the thresholds, the gates to pass through. The ones that matter. And then after knowing those boundaries taking my hands off the wheel and having less control and the less control I have the more alive I am in the scene and the more people can enter into it. So, I flush the lines from my head. I empty myself of my awareness so I’m not conscious of what’s coming. I just let go and trust that the lines will be there and then I just react in the moment. Which is something I should have been doing in the first place.
Badlands Passion Play
Badlands Passion Play
Badlands Passion Play
Badlands Passion Play
Badlands Passion Play
Badlands Passion Play
Badlands Passion Play
Badlands Passion Play
JAMES
But that’s the big challenge, right? It’s the ability to know the lines so well that you can forget them. So, the emotional energy of your interaction with the characters on stage is what you’re actually responding to.
AARON
Totally. And that’s what I’ve loved about acting alongside someone like Nathan Schmidt who plays my Dad in A Christmas Story. He’s just one of the most generous scene partners. He pays attention. And he just says yes to everything you do.
JAMES
I have one more question about the Passion Play just because I was reading that it’s becoming more musical. There’s been the addition of live music and rather than the lines always being spoken some of them are now being sung. Is that correct?
AARON
In 2018 they went on a big tangent down this musical road and then in 2019 they jumped in with both feet. I think I sang twelve songs in last summer’s version. And now for next year, they’re not going to be doing the music they’re going to go in a different direction.
JAMES
Oh, interesting.
AARON
That’s another unique thing about the Passion Play. They’re workshopping it every year. And sometimes there are big changes and sometimes there are smaller changes. The production, as a whole, is hungry to grow and always kind of morphs.
But there is something really cool about the musical theatre form because it’s larger than life. The size of the expression and the form of the expression reaches further, it’s more obvious and it demands more of your body. It demands more of your instrument. And I think it lends itself to the size of an outdoor stage. And in the Passion Play, you have to use your hands. You have to point at who you’re talking to. All those things which feels so manufactured, when you’re not used to them become the language of that stage. And musical theatre already lives a huge step further in that direction.
But it’s funny because in recent years I’ve spent much more time on the Passion Play stage than on a smaller stage like the Rosebud Opera House and I’ve had to shake off the habit of full arm extension every time I say a line to somebody. It’s been great to let that go and find a more subtle size of performance.
Rebbekah Ogden, Nathan Schmidt, Silas Winters, Glenda Warkentin, Geordie Cowan, Kalena Lewandowski, and Keisha Wright in the Rosebud Theatre Production of A Christmas Story based on the 1983 movie and the books by Jean Shepherd and adapted for the stage by Philip Grecian. Directed by Paul F. Muir. Photo credit Kelsey Krogman.
JAMES
So, why should people come out to Rosebud to see A Christmas Story?
AARON
Because it’s more than just the show. It’s coming to this town. There’s Christmas lights everywhere. There’s Turkey in the buffet. You get to hear Christmas music sung to you as you eat. You enter into the Christmas context in a way that is just so memorable.
The first show I ever went to see before I became a student here was a Christmas show and it was such a warm feeling of like showing up to someone’s house and the Christmas lights are on and there’s a warm fire and there’s laughter and good food and good drink in that house. That Christmas vibe is on offer here in a really particular and unique way. And, the show is the central point of that. We come together around this holiday and this moment of connection and I think the story is really connecting with people.
It’s really a place where you come around and feel that warmth and that joy and the camaraderie and cheer of Christmas.
A Christmas Story based on the 1983 movie and the books by Jean Shepherd and adapted for the stage by Philip Grecian runs until December 22nd at the Rosebud Opera House. The production stars Aaron Krogman, Rebbekah Ogden, Glenda Warkentin, Nathan Schmidt, and Silas Winters and is directed by Paul F. Muir. Tickets are just $84.00 for adults and $62.00 for youth and include a seasonal buffet with roast turkey and stuffing, plenty of side dishes and other main courses, plus a vast array of pies and cookies and puddings. Order tickets on-line at the Rosebud Theatre Website or by calling the box office at 1-800-267-7553.
StoryBook Theatre is Canada’s largest volunteer-run Theatre for Young Audiences and produces a season of plays that are designed to offer mentoring opportunities and artistic development to emerging artists while providing high-quality entertainment at affordable prices for Calgary families and theatregoers. In addition to offering a season of plays, StoryBook also runs a year-round theatre school that provides classes in acting, dance, and music for children, teens, and adults. Now in its 43rd Season and operating out of the Beddington Theatre Arts Centre StoryBook has entertained more than a million Calgarians and has become an important part of the cultural fabric of this city and an integral link between the professional theatre community and emerging artists.
Part of the driving force behind StoryBook Theatre’s success and growth has been its Artistic Director JP Thibodeau who is an award-winning actor, director, and theatre designer. Over the last few years JP has worked with playwright and composer Joe Slabe to create world premiere musicals, including Lest We Forget, Naughty But Nice, and the multi-award- winning Touch Me: songs for a disconnected age, presented by Theatre Calgary. He has worked on stage and behind the scenes on a variety of productions including Richard III and Romeo & Juliet with The Shakespeare Company; Rock of Ages and The 39 Steps with Stage West; Dad’s in Bondage and Lest We Forget with Lunchbox Theatre: and A New Brain and Avenue Q with StoryBook Theatre. JP has directed more than 55 musical productions and has worked tirelessly to foster the growth and development of young musical theatre artists across the country. He is the recipient of the 2016 Greg Bond Memorial Award for outstanding contribution to musical theatre in Calgary and was just awarded the Sandstone City Builder Award at the Mayor’s Lunch for Arts Champions in recognition of his work with StoryBook theatre and emerging talent.
I met with JP at his office in the Beddington Theatre Arts Centre at the end of July just before he was about to begin directing the North American tour of Queen’s We Will Rock You by Ben Elton for Annerin Productions and Jeff Perry Promotions to talk with him about his own journey and his vision for StoryBook.
StoryBook Theatre’s Production of Rent
JAMES HUTCHISON
You got a nice honour at the Mayor’s Lunch for Arts Champions this year. You received the Sandstone City Builder Award.
JP THIBODEAU
The award is really about the initiatives we’ve been doing here at StoryBook. And I didn’t really realize it but my entire career has been about emerging artists and community building. I think the hard part about getting the award is that I get the honour of the award, but there really is a team of people that contribute in a lot of different ways.
JAMES
So, you came into StoryBook with a vision that you’re now seeing realized. Can you can talk about that initial idea and vision?
JP
I left a previous job after ten years because I got to a point where I wasn’t fulfilled artistically or business-wise. So, I had to walk away from that for my own sanity, and at that point I didn’t know what I wanted to be when I grew up.
And George Smith, who was running StoryBook at the time, had reached out to me and said, “Can you direct a show for us?” And so, I came out and directed a show and we had lots of talks about StoryBook and where it was because the year previous it had almost gone bankrupt. So, they were trying to figure out what it needed to be when it grew up.
So, we were both in this – what do we want to be when we grow up stage?
And when 2013 came around, they asked me to take over interim, but I knew I didn’t want to take a job just because I needed a paycheck. I needed to make sure that there was some fulfillment in it. So, the board and I talked a lot about vision. And we had a retreat and I said, “What’s missing in this community is a bridge between the professional theatre community and the amateur world.”
And there’s nothing wrong with the amateur world. There’s an important place in the world for community theatre. But what’s missing is that in between for the people who’ve gone away to school and they’ve come back to Calgary, but they can’t get hired at Theatre Calgary or anywhere professionally yet. And there’s no one helping them hone their musical theatre craft and saying you have potential – so let’s change that and put them with some professionals.
And one of the biggest realizations I had my first year when I took over was understanding the importance of networking in the arts and how fundamental that is to any career longevity. You need to know people. You’re not going to get an audition – you’re not going to get an interview – you’re not going to get anything with anybody unless they’ve heard of you, or someone in their circle has heard of you. And so that really became my focus as an emerging artist myself.
JAMES
What were some of the pillars that you wanted to put in place to make your vision of StoryBook a reality?
JP
My kids had a big part of that because at that time we were going to the Saddledome to see The Wiggles, or we were going to see these big touring shows that we’re paying 80 and $90 to go see. And there’s nothing in it for the parent. It’s just for the kids. So, as parents, you’re just chaperones, you’re just babysitters and I’d think, “This isn’t family time because I’m not getting anything out of it.”
And StoryBook used to have this thing called Cookie Cabarets, and the audience would come in and all the kids would file down to the front of the building, and the parents would sit at the back, and I would go to the booth and watch the show from the back, and I’d see all the parents on their phones while all their kids are down front, and they weren’t sharing the experience because we were telling them the kids sit close and the parents sit at the back. We were telling them don’t enjoy this as a family.
Within the first month after seeing that I changed it and said, “We aren’t doing it anymore.” And I got lots of backlash. And I said, “No, they need to enjoy this together.” So, then it became if they’re going to enjoy it together, there’s got to be something in it for the adults. So how do we do that? And that’s when the re-planning and the reshaping of what our seasons would look like began.
JP
And for me, it became about engaging professionals. Every show needed to have professional mentorship. Whether that was the director or the choreographer, or the stage manager, whoever it was, there needed to be that professional development and mentorship on the team. And in those early years, and even today, I really make sure that everyone on the team is offering some kind of a mentorship to those emerging artists who are finishing high school or have just come back from university or college. And by giving them that mentorship we instantly elevate the quality of the show.
And that’s when directors like Mark Bellamy or Karen Johnson Diamond or Kevin McKendrick and all these other great Calgary artists got involved and started really helping me shape who we were going to be. And so, we started elevating the production quality and that gave the parents something. So now they’re going, “For my $25 I’m getting so much more, and it’s worth the time with my kids.” And I think the beauty of theatre, in general, but especially in our city with a lot of oil and gas families where mom or dad work a lot is that they get to spend that time in the theatre with their kids and this is their hour they’ve set aside to come and be with the family.
JAMES
One of the things I really like is that you have the cast come out for autographs and selfies at the end of the show.
JP
That was the one thing I was told I would not be allowed to change, but when I first took over I didn’t want to do it.
JAMES
Really?
JP
As an actor, I don’t like being me. I like being a character on stage. But after watching the first season I thought I don’t know how you couldn’t do it. We get letters from the kids and from the parents who took their child to their first show ever where they got to see the show and then meet the people in the show after.
And when we do our first meet and greet for a new show that’s starting production we talk about the importance of what we do and why we do it. We talk about StoryBook and who we are and where we’ve been, and why I’ve assembled the team I’ve assembled for that show.
And we talk about how they’re going to be someone’s first theatre experience and someone in that audience is going to be moved enough to pursue this as an art form or become a future patron all because of what we do in this show. And nine times out of ten that someone comes and talks to you after the show and you may not even realize it until I get the email later and forward it to you.
StoryBook Theatre’s Production of Mary Poppins
JAMES
Where do you want StoryBook to be two, three, four years from now?
JP
Right now the office runs with two – three people – max and at this point we want to look at the internal and figure out how do we support me? How do we support the office? How do we support the Theatre School in a way that has longevity and sustainability, because while we were growing all the programming, we never grew the office. So, we never gave focus to the bloodline that makes this all actually happen.
The board and I had a great talk last year and I said, “You know, when I first took over, I said in ten years, we should be equity, and be a full union house.” And last year, I said to them, “I’m going to retract that. I don’t know that we should because I still think we’re a necessary part of the building blocks of the community. We are the next step for someone who’s looking to make a career. But we’re not the full step. And so, we need to focus on the educational component, and really make sure that what we’re offering is mentorship and guidance into the next level of someone’s career.”
And we do that right now through the shows but I’d love to see that transcend a little bit more into education. And you know, by no means am I suggesting that in five years StoryBook will become a college or anything like that and it’s not necessarily the Rosebud model either but something where a student could finish school and we offer internships where they’re directly correlated to a school program where they can come here and work on set design, for example, and create these relationships beyond the StoryBook doors. But right now, we don’t have the capacity to do that administratively, so I want to figure out how to grow us from the inside.
JAMES
So, what you’re looking for is the business model that will allow for people to come here and work and mentor and build an organization that has stability.
JP
That’s exactly what we’re looking at is the business model and I think this current season has the right number of shows for us, and I think beyond this it would probably be doing tours. We could take some of the shows we’ve created, or some of the shows that we’re working on, and start touring them. Like Alberta tours, or Western Canada tours, or across Canada tours.
JP Thibeadeau Singing with the Cast of MisCast – A StoryBook Theatre Fund Raising Event
JAMES
StoryBook offers subsidized programming can you tell me about that?
JP
When I first took over, we had a theatre school and at that point we were seeing about 500 kids a year. Now we see about 3000. And so it’s grown a lot. But one of the biggest comments we would get on feedback forms was parents saying they wish they could do more but they can’t afford it. And so, we started talking in the office, and I said to the team, “Well, what’s one more kid? It doesn’t cost us anything more to throw one more kid in the classroom.” And I said, “Let’s just try it.”
And so it quickly became our mantra to not say no to anybody. So, on average we get five or six requests for subsidy a week. And I remember I was talking to this one girl’s dad and he said they feel like they’ve done their daughter a disservice because they couldn’t afford piano or dance or voice lessons for her because this is her love, but they just have no money to do it. And they were so so happy that she can at least audition for the shows and get in and that made me realize how fortunate I was as a kid. I was fortunate enough to have voice lessons and piano lessons because my parents could afford it.
But there are so many kids who can’t. So, we decided that we’d create this program, The Ellie Tims Project named after one of the founders of StoryBook. And the intention is to give youth whose families can’t afford it free piano or dance or voice lessons for a semester and provide free building blocks and inspire them. That’s part of the reason we want to look at the business model and figure out how to get more fundraising to support these programs.
JAMES
So, what you initially started in order to create a bridge between the professional world and the community theatre world has turned into city-building and community-building.
JP
It is now, for sure.
JAMES
I bet you didn’t anticipate that.
JP
I didn’t. Not at all. I never saw myself as an emerging artists advocate. But when I ran this dinner theatre in Canmore, you know, having been freshly out of school, I was hungry for a job. So, I knew where the hungry people were, right, the ones who were just finishing school. They’re keen, they’re eager, they’re willing to try and do things and they have a more naive, yet energetic attitude, and there’s more optimism to them wanting to be a part of something.
So I did that – then, and I’m still doing it now. And at StoryBook our Student Summer Intensive Program is the nearest and dearest to me. It’s all these young people who have just found themselves. They’ve just decided who they are, and how to express themselves and you watch them form these relationships that will last a lifetime. They don’t know it yet, but we know it – watching it.
And so, you watch them bond and I always say to the parents on opening night that this program isn’t about them putting on a show. It’s about them finding themselves and creating something together and being community builders. And usually, at the end of the program, I’ll ask who’s planning to make this a career and less than half raise their hands.
There was one girl a couple of years ago who went through the program and now she’s in her fourth year of University because she’s always wanted to be a lawyer, but she took the program because she just loves it. That made me realize that this is about building and understanding community. And theatre is about community and how we interact with each other. Good or bad. We work together. We work through it.
StoryBook Theatre’s Production of The Wizard of Oz
JAMES
One of the things I want to talk about, other than the StoryBook is your own work because you’re a designer, you’re an actor, you’re a singer. You’ve done all these other things. I’m just curious about some aspects of you as an artist. What about as a director? How do you approach a show?
JP
The script has to be one that I’m excited about and passionate about and I think a lot of it comes down to casting. And I think for me as a director I’m okay with young people who don’t have it already there. I think for a lot of directors the casting is 90% of the work, because if you cast the right people the show is done. But I like casting the diamonds in the rough. The talent is there, but it might not be polished, and I like that, as a director, I like that challenge and seeing them grow in the process.
JAMES
And perhaps an artist at that stage is going to grow a great deal more given that opportunity.
JP
I think so. A lot of my process is about living on your growing edge and so I talk about that a lot in the rehearsal process. If the scenes are too comfortable, you’re not growing. And so, we talk a lot about that and a lot about storytelling and that musicals aren’t about music they’re about storytelling and using the music to help tell that story. So, if that means that the song isn’t as perfect and beautiful as it could be that’s okay as long as you’re telling the story because the audience can feel the story and hear the story and that’s fundamentally your job.
JAMES
Any particular show on your wish list that you want to direct?
JP
There’s two. One is A Chorus Line. I don’t know why. Maybe it’s because I’m not a dancer, and I’m not a choreographer. But I’ve always had this great vision for this show, and I would just love to see it come to fruition. The first time I saw it I don’t think the director understood the show. It was a tour. I saw it in Toronto. All the acting was disconnected from the song. And I felt like there was acting going on and then songs going on and there was no connection. And for me, as a director, in my rehearsals I’ll talk a lot about how dialogue is the extension of music.
So when a song is up tempo the dialogue immediately following that song should still be in that tempo. And the dialogue in that scene should take us to whatever the tempo is for the next song. We should feel that naturally. It shouldn’t feel jarring when all of a sudden the song stops and now we’re talking to this person in the scene.
I think the way A Chorus Line is set up is it is very much – dialogue by this person, they sing a song, next person, and so on, right. Given that the title of the show is Chorus Line it’s about the group of people not the individuals, and I think, every time I’ve seen it, that’s been a part that I feel is lost – the idea that this is about that group, the whole group of people and their connection to each other, not just one person, which is the irony of the show.
JAMES
So, that’s one.
JP
Yeah, that’s one. And I want to direct Shakespeare but I don’t know it well enough. And I’ve done my fair share of contemporary Shakespeare designs but I just don’t feel Shakespeare’s as accessible for a modern audience as it could be. I think the Shakespeare Company’s done a great job of bringing that together but I would like to direct it and make it more accessible to a modern audience and someone more like me.
JAMES
That would mean commissioning and reworking the script obviously.
JP
Totally.
JAMES
The Lion King did a pretty good job of reimagining Hamlet.
JP
I think my bucket list would be to do something like that. Something that’s innovative. I’d love to create something new and be a part of the creation of it and a part of a team of creators.
The 2019/20 North American Tour Cast of We Will Rock You – The Musical by QUEEN and Ben Elton
JAMES
How did that opportunity come about?
JP
I think this is one of those networking opportunities where you’re just connecting with all the right people at different times and then somehow, they all connect and come together at the same time.
This is through Annerin Productions here in Calgary and Jeff Perry Promotions. Jeff has been one of the biggest stadium promoters in Canada for years and they wanted to start creating shows. And they’ve done this with RAIN and Let It Be that went on to Broadway and the West End. And they recently did that with Jukebox Hero and when they were developing that show they asked me for advice and input about how they could do it in Calgary.
And with We Will Rock You I think there are ten Alberta based artists performing in the show out of a cast of sixteen and the whole band is from Calgary. The entire production company is all Calgary based and so it’s pretty impressive for a North American tour coming out of Calgary to be happening.
JAMES
I’m seeing A Chorus Line down the road.
JP
There you go.
JAMES
So, here’s a logistical question. You’re designing a show that you’re going to pick up, and you’re going to set up that morning, you have a quick tech and that evening you have a show, and then you strike and go to the next town. What are some of the logistics of creating a touring show like that?
JP
My brain has been hurting? Just so many questions. Every stage is a different size. So, how do I block the show? Do I block it for the smallest stage? Do I block it for the medium stage? So we’re making decisions as we go and seeing what works best. And there’s been a lot of that kind of stuff. Plus, Queen’s pretty heavily involved. Which is so cool and so scary all at the same time. So, their music Supervisor flies in on Monday to be with us for the first week of rehearsals to make sure all of the music is learned the way that Queen wants it learned.
JAMES
So, you have to lock things in earlier. Things that you wouldn’t normally have to lock in at that point.
JP
Yeah. The show’s been designed to travel and transport and build in four hours and so it’s got to easily pack up and the set has to be built before we even start rehearsals. I have to commit to everything whereas with StoryBook there’s a little more flexibility.
JAMES
When does it open?
JP
It opens September 3rd in Winnipeg and then travels to ninety-plus cities in the US and Canda through to March 2020. Including New York City at Madison Square Gardens in November and then it comes back to Calgary December 27 at the Jubilee.
JAMES
I have one other question. So how do you manage your time? Like with your commitment at StoryBook and your directing how do you keep organized? How do you keep things on schedule? Because you’re such a busy guy.
JP
Well first, I hate the word busy. I call it living. It’s a choice and no one’s forcing me to do it. So, it’s not busy and I know my wife on certain days will disagree, but I think we’ve gotten a custom in our society to glorifying busy or the idea of busy. You know someone might say to me, “I’m so busy at work today.” And I’ll go, “What’s so busy?” And they’ll say, “Well all these patients today.” And I’ll say, “Oh, so like you went to work. You did your job.” So busy now is just working. That’s why I hate it
JAMES
Alright, I’ll change the question, then. How are you so productive?
JP
I don’t think I would be if I wasn’t organized. And there are times of the year where it’s great and there are times when it’s a gong show. Christmas time is a gong show every year until December 12th hits, and it’s my birthday, and all the shows that I’m part of are open. It’s fortunate that in the position I’m in now and where I am at in my life that I can be a little bit more prescriptive about when I work, or when I’m on-site to work. Because I can do a lot of it from other places. And we’ve done pretty good as a family setting aside time. I’ve got two boys. So, even driving here today, I was dropping my boys off at swimming and I would reach over and poke my son and do these things that annoyed the hell out of me as a kid when my dad would do it. And I’m doing it now because I just want to be connected to him. But it’s tricky, because, my job is night and my wife’s job is day and so we’re passing ships in the night sometimes.
JAMES
You have a very clean desk for a person who is so productive.
JP
It’s funny, you’re the third person this year, who has said that to me. Someone came into my office and said, “Well, who’s desk are you sitting at?” I said, “Mine.” He said, “That is your desk? I figured your desk would be the messiest desk.” And everyone in the office was laughing because that’s exactly, I think, how people see me. They see everything I’ve got my fingers in, and they think I must live in chaos. And I don’t. I can’t be artistic and thrive unless I’m organized, at least I know that works for me.
The Drowning Girls – Vertigo Theatre – Photo Tim Nguyen
Tim Nguyen’s work is striking and vivid and the images remain with you long after you’ve seen them. He’s one of the most sought after performing art photographers in Calgary and his work ranges from capturing all the energy and emotion of live theatre to the intimate and personal process of portraiture. You can see more samples of his work and contact him through his website: Tim Nguyen
I sat down with Tim at his home office to talk with him about his theatre work, his award-winning fine art photography series Lumination, and his Rococo Punk project for the School of Creative and Performing Arts at the University of Calgary.
Photographer Tim Nguyen
JAMES HUTCHISON
So, before you became a photographer you were thinking of acting as a career and you went to the University of Calgary because you were bitten by the acting bug.
TIM NGUYEN
I was.
JAMES
What type of acting? Comedies? Dramas?
TIM
I discovered very early on that I’m not funny on stage. My comic timing is atrocious. I’m relatively amusing in conversation, I would like to think, but on stage, it’s the patter or the timing, the thinking on my feet – just doesn’t happen the same way. So, I made peace with that fairly early on, and I decided that I would try my hand at more dramatic roles. Angsty roles. Because I was twenty and I wanted to talk about my feelings on stage.
So, I got to the middle of third year and it became really clear to me that this was not the right path that I was on. I’d botched a couple of auditions that I thought I was a shoe-in for, and when the casting came out I was at the bottom of the list. So, I got handed a lesson. A harsh lesson. And it left me time to reflect and realize that this wasn’t the right thing for me. I felt like I was moving vaguely in the right direction, but the artistic direction was slightly askew of where it needed to be.
So, after having this very difficult conversation with a prof of mine, who’s now retired from the university, I realized that it was actually okay to change directions and to admit that I hadn’t been approaching things quite right and to move on to the next thing. And it was a breath of fresh air, and at the same time, it was a bit of a kick in the pants. But I was also sort of lost at sea. After I graduated, I worked in retail for a while. I sold cameras. I did construction. I travelled Europe for a little while. And when I got back from Europe a few photo jobs just landed on my desk and then snowballed into bigger and bigger things.
Sylvie Moquin – Lumination – Photo by Tim Nguyen
JAMES
When did you start to realize you had an eye for composition?
TIM
I have a really specific point in time that I can call back to. I think it was grade eleven where I had this little box camera. It was basically a reloadable disposable camera. And that was what I carried around in high school for the most part. And there was a day where my girlfriend at the time and myself were downtown in the Devonian gardens with the late afternoon sun spilling in through the windows and just beautiful shadows coming across the old Devonian gardens. They had those big angled skylights on the one side and this really stark tile. And for whatever reason, I asked her to go and sit over inside the shadow. Inside this specific area. And I took four pictures on this little box camera and when I got them back that was it. It was this lightning moment where I looked at what I had shot and what I was trying to do and I looked at the shapes – the forms – the shadows – the light and I knew that there was something there that I needed to keep investigating.
Brian Smith – Portrait – Photo by Tim Nguyen
JAMES
It’s interesting, you said you walked in there and you’re looking at the shadows. You’re looking at the light. You’re looking at the textures. You’re looking for that place where you can put the subject and something magical is going to happen. Because most people would not see that and so much of photography is understanding or being attuned to the light.
TIM
Once the camera-specific elements were muscle memory everything else just became about the composition. I don’t spend much time or energy on getting my settings dead on when I’m shooting theatre anymore because it’s just automatic for me.
JAMES
And when you’re doing production stills they’re running the show.
TIM
I get one crack at it. I have not read the script. I haven’t seen the set. And that is the only day of the production that I’m in house.
Crime Does Not Pay – Downstage – Photo by Tim Nguyen
JAMES
Why do you choose not to know the play before you go shoot it?
TIM
It didn’t start off as a conscious choice. It started off as a matter of opportunity. The first company that I shot for was Downstage when they first formed. Simon Mallett, who founded the company, was doing his masters at the same time I was an undergrad. So, we’d known each other in university and even in school I was the guy with the camera. And he started bringing me down to the Motel Theater to cover shows that he was producing. And these are shows that were being done with Home Depot lighting and bits of pipe and drape. There was no production value to them. They were just people trying to do politically motivated theatre, and they had a statement they needed to make.
JAMES
Right, because Downstage is based on conversation. We want to start a conversation about a particular subject, so they’d create a show.
TIM
Right from the get-go that was their mandate. So, I was given the freedom to just show up. I was given a couple of bucks for my time. It was the starting point, the foundation of learning how to tell a story through still imagery and finding my own aesthetic inside of that as a medium. Because it’s one thing to just document a production as it’s happening. I could stand in the middle of the house and point my camera at various corners of the stage, but it’s going to look like that’s the level of effort that I put in. When I go and I cover a production I am running the entire time. I’m sweating as much as the actors on stage are, and it’s been quite a while since I’ve been concerned with how much noise I’m making. If anything, I’m akin to phones going off, candy wrappers crinkling, or a baby crying in the house. But I’m the only person in the audience so it’s less problematic.
Mark Bellamy, Barbara Gates Wilson, and Tyrell Crews in the Vertigo Theatre Production of Death Trap by Ira Levin – Photo by Tim Nguyen
JAMES
And you’re capturing something that’s going to be here and then gone anyway – and yours is the record. It’s an extremely challenging thing to get good photographs of a stage performance because you’re trying to capture particular moments – particular connections between the characters – or particularly revelations of a character, and those are fleeting and fast. So, I imagine your time as an actor, has in some ways, informed your shooting of plays.
TIM
A hundred percent it has. One of the things that I noticed early on was my sense for where an actors blocking was going to go – where they were going to travel on stage. I was effectively predicting it a lot of the time. So, I’m trying to stay a step ahead of the actors and where they’re travelling, but then I have to have the right composition to complement their eyeline for their intention plus whoever they’re speaking to. It’s a hell of a challenge.
JAMES
It’s spontaneous, yet there’s a certain structure to it
TIM
Very much so.
Andy Curtis, Anna Cummer, and Tyrell Crews in the Vertigo Theatre Production of The 39 Steps – Photo by Tim Nguyen
JAMES
How would you summarize what you’re trying to capture in the frame when you shoot a play?
TIM
When I’m shooting a play I’m not really paying a ton of attention to the text. I don’t fully absorb the storylines most of the time. I’m looking for moments of heightened emotional responses from the actors. Moments of high intensity. High action where lighting effects or special effects are going to go off. Things like that. But at the same time, those are really particular moments. Eighty percent of the play is still covered beyond that.
When I’m looking at the rest of the show what I’ve realized is that I’m not really looking a hundred percent at what’s happening through the viewfinder either. I kind of relax my eyes – kind of like when you take your glasses off. I relax my eyes a bit and I look at forms, negative space, where the highlights are and how elements complement one another, and I’m composing around that for the most part. So, it’s a bit of experience based, and it’s a bit of a sense for how shape and form and colour should fit and interplay, and those I think are the main approaches that I’m using these days
Jesse Lynn Anderson and Graham Percy in the Vertigo Theatre Production of Raymond Chandler’s The Big Sleep adapted by Aaron Bushkowsky – Photo Tim Nguyen
JAMES
In addition to doing production stills you’re also doing some advertising work for theatre companies with your photography. Let’s talk about the new season campaign you created for Vertigo.
TIM
This has really been a natural progression of what I’m doing in the performing arts community. I’ve been doing the production stills and headshots for ages and doing advertising and poster work for the arts isn’t completely brand new for me, but it’s relatively recent.
One of the conversations I had with Vertigo towards the end of last season was that they were getting a little tired with their existing imagery and style especially when Lunchbox and ATP and everybody else was refreshing their brand. So, I presented about eight different styles of artwork that I thought were potentials in one of the pitch meetings with Craig their artistic director and Evelyn and Kendra their marketing people and Darcy who was their graphic designer. The two winning concepts were the lighting style of my own Lumination work which Craig was aware of because I’d actually done a gallery show at Vertigo the season before and had about twenty of the Lumination prints on display there for most of the season.
The other part of this concept was influenced by True Detective, the TV series. The intro and theme has a ton of video compositing that’s done layer upon layer of faces with cityscapes that are sort of washed across them. They kind of look like projections that kind of look like they’re coming from inside the skin. And it’s this beautiful style of work that got copied over, and over, and over again by other people when it was popularized including us to some degree. So, what I ended up pitching to Craig was a combination of those two things. I wanted to do a floating shape and I wanted to create a composite that was tailored to each show.
Sherlock Holmes and the Ravin’s Curse at Vertigo Theatre – By Tim Nguyen
JAMES
So, there are little clues in your composition about the themes of the show about the subject matter of the show. And right now, we’re looking at the Sherlock Holmes image.
TIM
Sherlock Holmes and the Raven’s Curse. So going with fairly literal imagery to begin with we’ve got the bird’s wings. The raven wing shape moving upwards and then the raven sort of sitting over top of this particular part of the Isle of Skye. The Isle of Skye being one of the main backdrops for the show. And we’ve got Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson in the image as well.
JAMES
And then a mysterious woman.
TIM
There’s a mysterious woman of Asian descent. That’s why there’s dragon imagery in the background. At the time of creating this that role hadn’t been cast. So, we were looking for a creative way to incorporate the knowledge that there was going to be a third primary figure without making them identifiable. So, I decided to have her looking out into the scenery and having her back to camera.
JAMES
The great thing about this image is that when I look at it I want to know what this play’s about. It makes me curious. It looks intriguing and interesting. It looks mysterious.
TIM
Yeah, I’m really, really satisfied with how this one came out.
JAMES
Is this type of work something you want to pursue more?
TIM
I think so. This was a lot more satisfying to do than some of the piecemeal stuff that I’ve been doing just to keep bills paid. With this project, I was able to sit down for a longer period of time and concentrate on it and really give it some critical thought about how I wanted the aesthetic to come across.
Mercy from Overwatch by Porzelain PNG – Photo by Tim Nguyen
JAMES
You mentioned your Lumination series. Tell me a little bit about that project and how it got started.
TIM
So, Lumination was born from theatre as well. It was inspired by a Downstage play called In the Wake that I documented at the Motel Theater in 2010 and then they took it on tour. The production was entirely presented on a platform. It was five actors on a platform that was about ten by ten and they performed on it for ninety minutes. It was a fairly large chunk of plexiglass with pockets of lights that were on dimmers underneath that they could control and they could colour. And these were all Home Depot lights at the time.
And they did something absolutely beautiful with it. There was shadow play. There was puppetry. There was contact improv and shape creation with their bodies. It was just beautiful to take in. And it led to this immediate thought when I was documenting the play that I wanted to see what I could do with it. I wanted to see what I could do with that style of lighting.
And so, I asked Simon Mallett to borrow that set for probably about a year and a half before he let me borrow it, and I showed up at the Motel theatre one night after they’d done a run, and I put my own lights inside their box, and I put a light overhead. And that was the very first time that I had ever done that look. And it was just called the lightbox project or something like that at the time. I had a dancer, and I had a nude that I had brought to the space, and we just experimented with shape and form and musculature to see how it worked. And it worked out beautifully. Those photos are as good as any of the things that I shot during the two years after that.
And then a couple of years later, I got my own studio space, and I had Anton deGroot who built the set for In the Wake rebuild that stage in my studio. And I had that for three and a half years. I’ve since replaced that with something more robust. Something that’s actually got an acrylic top and I stick lights underneath and point them upwards now.
Justin Dale, world Champion Cyr Wheel Performer – Photo by Tim Nguyen
JAMES
So, what was the evolution of the subject matter then in terms of what you were shooting?
TIM
It didn’t start off as theatre, I can tell you that much. I started off mostly with dancers. I had a fairly good in with Dancers Studio West and a couple of other companies at the time. I was really interested to see what this hard contrast lighting would do with musculature, particularly legs and movement and jumping and that sort of thing. So, dancers were a natural and for the first year that I was doing this project I was asking people to come as they were. I did have some styling on site, but I was mostly interested in seeing who these people were as I was having a brief conversation with them and finding out what made them tick.
JAMES
You were looking to capture something of the person and the personality?
TIM
Yep. So, I was shooting this with a 200-millimetre lens. I was 25 feet away from the set. So, there was a bit of shouting back and forth over music and that sort of thing. But what it did was – it isolated people in space.
So, I just rolled a blank sheet of paper down behind them. And the studio was thirty feet by twelve feet. So, I’m on one end and my crew is sitting behind me and the subjects – they’re on the far end totally by themselves. No props. No sense of background. The overhead lights were on because that was how I chose to shoot all these. So, they didn’t even really have a sense of what the lighting style was like.
Scorpio Theatre – Photo by Tim Nguyen
TIM
For a lot of these people it was it was a leap of faith and just assuming that I knew what I was doing. To start with I didn’t give people a ton of direction. I asked people not to bring a lot of props. For the most part, it was articles of clothing. It was wigs. Anything handheld was passable, but I wanted to look at people as they were. Or, who they wanted to present themselves as, and sort of play within that realm and see what I could extract from them. And I found that really fascinating. But about halfway into that process the theater stuff starting to creep in.
I had the entire crew from Scorpio Theatre come down to see me. They brought swords, shields, chain mail, and axes. They were doing a stage combat based show and there was a bunch of short scenes all stacked together, and each one of the scenes devolved into some kind of big fight. It was super amusing. I really enjoyed their show. And this ended up being their marketing material for it. We ended up creating these long panorama images that were a composite of this person fighting this person. With this person overhead. And this person down here.
Pan and Hook – Lumination – Photo by Tim Nguyen
JAMES
So, you would shoot people individually or two people at a time and then compose the whole image.
TIM
For the most part, all of these shoots have been two people at the most. In fact, in the Peter Pan one, those two people were photographed six months apart.
JAMES
That’s how Orson Welles used to shoot his films. We’ll do the close up now in Europe and I’ll get the guy in Hollywood six months later.
TIM
That’s a good comparison, I like that. So that actually touched off a really hard change in what my intention was. I suddenly had people showing up and they were putting on these full characters. For me, they weren’t showing up as themselves. That led to 2017 where all I did was photograph people in cosplay. I did a year’s worth of people in these high colour, cartoony type of outfits, and those were the characters that they wanted to present, and that I found incredibly fascinating. At one point I had nine Disney Princesses show up all at once. So, we spent an entire morning photographing Cinderellas and Ariels and Rapunzels.
The YYC – Princesses – Photo by Tim Nguyen
JAMES
And then you decided to make a book.
TIM
I did. The book doesn’t have any of the Cosplay work in it, unfortunately. The book is entirely black and white and it is the work that I did between 2012 and 2015. Since that time, I’ve been doing everything in colour.
JAMES
Some great portraits have been done in black and white.
TIM
Absolutely. Some of the best portraits have been done in black and white. For me, black and white changes the way somebody takes in the image. You are not focusing on blemishes, skin tone, bags under the eyes. You’re not focusing on nudity. You’re not focusing on anything other than the texture of an image and where the light is and the negative space. And those are all things that I gravitate towards, quite heavily.
Christina Robertson – Lumination – Photo by Tim Nguyen
JAMES
So, I’m curious when you’re going to do a portrait and you’re trying to capture somebody – how do you go about doing that?
TIM
It’s similar to how I approach doing headshots for people. And I think portraiture sort of evolved naturally out of my headshot business. When somebody comes for a professional headshot the first conversation I have with them is how uncomfortable are they being in the studio knowing that they’re about to be on camera? Because despite all of us being performers in one way or another, there is a heavy sect of people that really don’t want to be on camera. They would much rather be behind a keyboard. Behind the lens. Behind the scenes.
With portraiture, I put a lot of stock into putting people at ease before we even get started. And I feel like part of that is actually my personality. I present myself as very easygoing, very relaxed, low intensity, and that puts people at ease most of the time. So that’s a starting point and the portrait work I’ve been doing for the last year and a half has largely been conversational. So, I have a lot of outtakes, where people’s mouths are moving, or their eyes are darting around, and that sort of thing. And that’s something that I’ve had to teach myself to shoot around.
Erin Madill – Portrait – Photo by Tim Nguyen
JAMES
And so maybe you’re capturing the moment when they’re thinking about the question rather than answering the question.
TIM
Those pondering kinds of looks are quite popular.
JAMES
Because they drop the facade. They’re internally in their mind.
TIM
As soon as you get somebody really thinking about something all of the external stuff goes away.
So that is how a lot of my portrait work has been developing over the last year. I’ve been discussing, in advance, with people that are coming for a portrait what subject matter we should get into. And it’s led down some very curious paths including been given some really brutal trauma stories from people. And I’ve been let in on secrets from people that I will never – never redistribute. But it’s also led to this artistic wall that I’ve run into where I’m not totally sure how to present that work now, because of the context of how it was given to me. But I’m trying to find the right voice to put that into the world without exposing people in the wrong sense. The best that I’ve come up with so far is, I think, I’m going to discuss the questions that were asked more than the answers that were given. So, I’m sitting on about a year’s worth of portrait work that’s both beautiful and brutal.
Zac Savage – Portrait – Photo by Tim Nguyen
JAMES
Let’s talk a little bit about the project you did for the School of Creative and Performing Arts at the University of Calgary which is being unveiled this Saturday during Alumni weekend.
TIM
The Rococo Punk?
JAMES
Yeah. What exactly is Rococo Punk?
TIM
My interpretation of Rococo Punk – as an art style – is effectively the embodiment of Renaissance silliness.
JAMES
I like your definition better than what I read on Wikipedia. How did the project come about?
TIM
I had been developing a Renaissance style of lighting that I had been using mostly on nudes and on portraits, and I wanted to do something broader with that. The first thing I did was rent this dress from the university and I hired Natasha Strickey and we generated that photo. And after she graduated she ended up becoming a good friend of mine. And we’ve done a lot of creative work together like that, that has influenced to a heavy degree, the way that I’ve moved forward.
Natasha Strickey – Lumination – Photo by Tim Nguyen
TIM
And then I had a conversation about a year and a half ago about doing something like that with April Viczko, who directed a show called, The Learned Ladies at the University of Calgary three seasons ago. What I actually pitched to her was that I wanted to get the cast back together from that show and see if we could do a renaissance group portrait with everyone. Unfortunately for me, I hadn’t really considered that some of those actors aren’t in town anymore, or they’ve ceased acting, or they’ve just moved on to different parts of their lives. So that wasn’t really an option.
April counter-offered and suggested we try and see if there’s an event that we could wrap this inside of and get somebody to fund it. And the next time we sat down that was exactly what she had done. The Alumni Association was interested. Alumni Weekend was interested. So, let’s see if we can get some grad students and prominent alumni to come down for this rather than having to get these specific actors.
JAMES
This is a big project.
TIM
Humongous. I had the responsibility of the shooting days, and the post-production was entirely on my shoulders. But there was a team of about five people that did the initial groundwork and gathered the costumes and the casting and did all the fittings. And all of that took about a year and then on Alumni Weekend last year there was a team of 30 people that were working on this plus all the talent that came which for the most part are alumni, faculty and students and includeS 62 different people.
The camera was thirty feet back from the set. And I had it up on a platform on a tripod for the entire weekend. We photographed about two people at a time. It took two full days. It was about 20 hours of photography. And then it took all of October last year to put the image together.
So, this is going to end up as an enormous print that is going to be 60 inches wide that’s going to hang in the Reeve Theatre lobby. So right outside the space where we created it. And that’ll be a permanent installation that we’re revealing on the seventh of September and I’ve got wall space set aside at my studio, which I’ve just finished renovating, and I’m going to have my own copy of this made.
Rococo Punk – University of Calgary School of Creative and Performing Arts – Photo by Tim Nguyen
The grand reveal for the Rocco Punk was held on Saturday, September 7th in the Reeve Theatre Lobby during the University of Calgary’s Alumni Weekend. The photograph features University of Calgary alumni from the School of Creative and Performing Arts including: Anton deGroot, Michaella Haynes, Sarah Mitchell, Brad Mahon, Odessa Johnston, Julie Orton, Megan Koch, Cayley Wreggitt, Sadaf Ganji, Brittany Bryan, Jason Mehmel, Connor Pritchard, Marisa Roggeveen, Mark Bellamy, Emily Losier, Michèle Moss, Tim Nguyen, Natasha Strickey, Donovan Seidle, Pil Hansen, Allison Lynch, Tina Guthrie, Laurel Simonson, Jason Galeos, Meghann Mickalsky, Christopher Hunt, Vicky Storich, Clem Martini, Louisa Adria, Shondra Cromwell-Krywulak, Allan Bell, Allison Weninger, Kaili Che, Megan Stephan, Lisa Russell, Ana Santa Maria, Madeline Roberts, Myah Van Horm, Elizabeth Rajchel, Onika Henry, Val Campbell, Hailey McLeod, Taylor Ritchie, Liam Whitley, Adam Kostiuk, Bruce Barton, Zachary McKendrick, Simon Mallet, Braden Griffith, Laura Hynes, Lana Henchell.
Barry Tuff, Rogers Media – Photograph James Hutchison
“I remember, there actually was a sort of a watershed year for me where I realized I must have arrived on some level because I had an unbelievable year of new business achievement and was rewarded for it. And I looked at it, and I realized that they were all referrals. Every single new business account was a referral. And I said, “That’s it. I believe I have arrived on some level. People trust me. They’re, okay to refer me.”
Barry Tuff, Rogers Media
You won’t stay in business long if you don’t get customers through your door or get customers purchasing your products and services online. And while social media and digital have opened up new avenues for reaching potential clients television and radio still attract a large audience and offer tremendous marketing opportunities. For several years I worked for Citytv writing and producing commercials and one of the people I worked with in sales was Barry Tuff. Barry is one of those sales guys who cares deeply about his clients and just as deeply about the people working at the station to help deliver an effective advertising campaign. I sat down with Barry to talk with him about his career in media, our predictions for the Stanley Cup, and his love of music.
JAMES HUTCHISON
So, we’re going to chat a little bit about life in media. Your life in media specifically.
BARRY TUFF
It’s been a long life.
JAMES
Where did you first start, and what year was it?
BARRY
In 1976 I started working for a company called Hook Signs which became Hook Outdoor the monopoly billboard company in Alberta. I was there for about two or three years. Years later, it was bought out by Jimmy Pattison and is now one of the largest outdoor companies in the world, but when I started there it was a beautiful experience because it was a small family run company. And your goal was to become a director someday and be able to share in those profits. After that, I left and tried out a few different things that didn’t work out very well and then I got into radio.
JAMES
Where was your first radio job?
BARRY
I went to work for CKXL in 1980.
JAMES
The CKXL of today is not the CKXL of 1980.
BARRY
Not at all. It was a top 40 radio station. The morning show had a 30 share and a share is the percentage of radio listeners tuned into a given station at a given time. And the personalities on that radio station were celebrities. It was incredible to be part of that. We had the XL sunspot sticker and it was on just about every car in the city and we had people running around giving out money if your sunspot was spotted and they pulled you over. We had the fun bus and the fun bus would be going up to the mountains all the time with winners in it. It was a party bus. So, there was lots of money and lots of ways to exploit it. And there wasn’t a hell of a lot of competition. We had CFAC which was a country station. We had CHQR which was easy listening and CFCN which was about the same.
JAMES
Radio was massive in those days.
BARRY
It was massive. We had a client that had these pots and pans they wanted to sell out of a farmers’ market that was located on Blackfoot Trail, and they spent a couple thousand dollars to buy some radio spots on CKXL to sell this truckload of pots and pans. Of course, these were the best pots and pans in the world at an incredibly discounted price. I think it was 35 bucks in about 1982. I went to check it out and I couldn’t get close to it. The traffic jam was incredible. There were literally people parked on the boulevard running up with their money in their hands to get a hold of these pots and pans. That kind of stuff would happen all the time. So, you knew people were listening, and they were responding, and it was nice to be a part of that. Of course, you reflect on that now because the world today is so fragmented.
JAMES
And now you’re working for Citytv but when you started here it was still A-Channel which was owned by Craig Broadcasting.
BARRY
It was A-Channel, the last of the independents. And we survived with our hard work and ingenuity and you know, being a good alternative and providing great value and great service to our clients. And then A-Channel was sold to CHUM out of Toronto, and A-Channel became Citytv, and then CHUM was sold to CTV, and CTV couldn’t keep all the assets.
JAMES
Because at the time the CRTC said you can’t have two television stations owned by the same company in the same city and CTV already owned CFCN here in Calgary.
BARRY
And then Ted Rogers who was always known as a bit of a maverick said, “Here’s a cheque. Go get Citytv. I want it.” And so, we went from the little station that could to an iconic Canadian brand – Citytv, and then Rogers bought us and they’re a company with really deep pockets, and that really put us on the map.
JAMES
You’ve done local sales for a long time in radio and television and worked with a lot of local clients in this market. What are some of the things you would tell a client today that they should be looking at in terms of their use of media as part of their marketing message?
BARRY
I think consistency is essential.
JAMES
When you say consistency what do you mean?
BARRY
You want to be on-air as often as you can and as much as you can. You really need to stay front and center at all times. And that doesn’t necessarily mean you have to have a huge budget. You can narrowly cast your net and just buy Breakfast Television for example and be there all the time, and by doing that you can build your business and build your brand. You have to be there in good times and in bad times, it’s insurance, and you’re going to gain market share because others aren’t there consistently, and so when the good times come you’re going to do really, really well.
JAMES
You’re talking about keeping that top of mind awareness in the consumer’s mind because people do forget.
BARRY
Yes, they do.
JAMES
If you look at national brands they always dedicate budget to brand awareness in conjunction with their sales message. And the sales are more successful because the branding message keeps them in the consumer’s mind, and there’s statistical evidence to prove that the brand advertising impacts positively the sales advertising, correct?
BARRY
Yeah, well, it triggers associative memory or your reticular activation system, you know, by which when you’re in the market for something all you see is that advertising, right? And when you’re not in the market for something it retreats. You don’t notice it. And as a salesperson, I can not emphasize enough the importance of being prepared and asking the right questions when you meet a new client. You should know all about them, and you should do all your research. That’s one thing that’s changed. I remember spending time in the basement of the public library downtown looking at microfiche and annual reports before going out to a client. That was an afternoon. Now it’s pretty easy to get that information from their website.
JAMES
But you still need to hear from them.
BARRY
You still need to find out what their pain points are, what their goals are, what their challenges are, and where they aspire to be. And often, they’re confused, you know, you need to help them focus because there are lots of choices now. We do lots of digital. Rogers Media has a full line of products that we can geofence and geotarget, and we’re fully integrated with our other media divisions. We have digital and television, but we also have our radio group in Calgary which includes CHFM, 660 News, Jack FM and Sportsnet 960. And the vision for media companies these days is that they can provide all your solutions with just one call.
And a lot of clients in a tough economy want extra value and one way to do that is to develop partnerships and promotions. And we’ve got lots of ways to do that. We’ve got segments on Breakfast Television they can sponsor, we’ve got live eyes, we’ve got a great promotions department so there’s contesting. And that way you can add layers to a 15 or 30-second ad campaign. We do lots and lots of that. And one of the most gratifying things we do is working with charities on that basis and developing partnerships.
JAMES
What are some of the local charities that you’ve worked with?
BARRY
We have worked with organizations like The Mustard Seed, Inn from the Cold, and Safe Haven. Those are just three of them. Rogers supports charities and they’re good corporate citizens. They encourage their employees to volunteer, and Rogers gives every employee one day off a year during work time to volunteer if they choose to. And then we have a weekend in June where everyone in the company is encouraged to go out and volunteer. And this year we went out and volunteered at the YMCA’s Camp Riveredge, and we helped the grounds crew clean up and get things ready for their season. And we’ve also volunteered at the Mustard Seed and at the Calgary Food Bank. And we partner on events like the Calgary Marathon and this year we produced a series of vignettes. They were profiles in courage really and told people’s stories about how they started running and how it changed their lives and we hope that those stories might inspire someone to try something they might not normally try. And radio was there, and Andrew Schultz from Breakfast Television was at the finish line, and Ted Henley from Breakfast Television starts the race and announces the runners as they cross the finish line.
JAMES
What are some of the clients you’ve had for the longest?
BARRY
We’ve worked with Toyota for 20 years and when you work with a client that long you really get to know each other. And the key is to never take each other for granted. Just like a marriage. Because you cannot rest on your laurels and assume that’s going to be there from one year to the next. So, you have to foster that relationship constantly. We’ve worked with Broadway Across Canada for many, many years. I remember the first time they came through with a Broadway production I thought, “Well, this is great. It’ll come and it’ll go.” Well, I think we’ve worked with them for probably 15 years now. We partner with trade shows and festivals. A lot of individual events. The Circus comes to town once a year, and Disney on Ice comes to town once a year, and the Monster Jam and on and on and on.
JAMES
Let’s talk a little bit about the new season and one of the new shows you have on your schedule is Four Weddings and a Funeral. What can you tell me about that one?
BARRY
It’s based on the 1994 movie that starred Hugh Grant and Andie McDowell. It’s produced by Mindy Kaling. She was in the office and she’s a comedian, she’s had a pretty popular show recently, but now she’s branched off into the movies and she’s behind the scenes of this one as a producer. It’s about relationships and how complex they are and we hope it resonates with people. It will air Thursday nights at 10 o’clock.
JAMES
And then you’ve got a new situation comedy coming up called Mixedish.
BARRY
Mixedish is the prequel to Blackish. It’s about a mixed-race family that lived on a commune and then moved to the suburbs and the children have to navigate a school culture where they’re not perceived as either black or white. So that’s got some real potential and it’ll run from 9:00 to 9:30 on Tuesdays and Blackish will run 9:30 to 10. So, same production company and same writers and if it does half as well as Blackish we’ll be pretty happy.
JAMES
There’s a midseason replacement that looks interesting called Council of Dads.
BARRY
It’s about a fellow that’s been diagnosed with terminal cancer and he’s very principled and he wants to make sure that his philosophies about life are passed on to his kids after he’s gone. So, he puts together a council of his friends who are also dads to step in after he’s gone and guide his children. And when we showed the trailer to our ad agencies we had a disclaimer saying that this one may bring a tear to your eye because of what it’s about, and we had people reaching for the tissues. It should have some impact, and it’s a great message.
JAMES
And on your Saturday nights – what have you got programmed there?
BARRY
This will be the fifth season of our owning the NHL broadcast rights and between the City stations, Sportsnet and our partnership with Hockey Night In Canada on CBC we’ll produce and broadcast 500 games plus every game in the Stanley Cup playoffs. And of course, the best part is that because it’s sports anything can happen. And this year we had some Canadian teams, including the Flames, in the first round.
JAMES
It would have been nice to have a few more rounds.
BARRY
It would have been nice to have a few more rounds, but that’s sports and every season there’s always going to be some great memorable moments, and there’s a large audience who are big fans that will show up and watch.
JAMES
Quick question for you then. As a Calgarian I know you won’t be biased on this, but what’s your prediction for who will the Stanley Cup next year?
BARRY
(Laughs.) I can not make that prediction.
JAMES
I can. Calgary Flames, man. Go Flames Go all the way.
BARRY
Yeah, it’s the Flames turn.
JAMES
That’s right.
BARRY
It’s been a long time. It’s the Flames turn.
JAMES
So, you’ve had a long career in sales.
BARRY
Forty-three years.
JAMES
So, looking back on that forty-three years, what do you think it is that makes a salesman good at their job? What are the qualities you think you need to be a top salesperson?
BARRY
I think you need a work ethic, for sure. You need discipline. You need to look after you so you can look after other people. And you need to be informed. And you have to be interested in things and inquisitive, and you have to have empathy, above all, because it’s not about you. It’s about the client and any client that you go see their first question is going to be, “So what’s in it for me?” And you have to be very cognizant of that. So, first you have to find out who they are, where they’re at and where they want to be, and then make a proper recommendation based on education and experience. And if anybody is interested in selling you have to study selling from the masters. There are books. There are seminars. There are YouTube videos. You have to become a student for life because even when you are at the top of your game you’re never done.
JAMES
There’s never a, “You Made It,” party.
BARRY
There is no finish line. I was just talking to somebody this morning and I asked him, “How’s the year going so far?” And he said, “Well, I had my best year ever last year and you know what that means for this year?” It’s hard to overachieve when you’ve had your best year ever because you become the victim of your own success so you’re always chasing something.
JAMES
Plus, we should say that when you’ve had your best year ever your sales manager looks at you and goes, “How are we going to improve on that and deliver an extra 10% this year?”
BARRY
Yes.
JAMES
So, what do you think people misunderstand about the sales profession? What do they get wrong?
BARRY
I think it’s those terrible clichés. It’s the huckster. It’s the pitch person. It’s the snake oil salesman. And sometimes when you walk into a new business and even though you’re not like any of those and you’re professional you can often get judged based on the last few that were in the door before you. So, when you meet new clients, you’re always having to earn the right and always having to earn their trust.
JAMES
So, what I’m hearing from you is that part of being a successful salesperson is establishing, maintaining, and growing your reputation.
BARRY
Reputation is everything. I remember, there actually was a sort of a watershed year for me where I realized I must have arrived on some level because I had an unbelievable year of new business achievement and was rewarded for it. And I looked at it, and I realized that they were all referrals. Every single new business account was a referral. And I said, “That’s it. I believe I have arrived on some level. People trust me. They’re, okay to refer me.”
JAMES
Because that’s putting their own reputation on the line.
BARRY
Yes, it is. And you can feel it. Reputation is everything.
JAMES
Reputation and integrity.
BARRY
Hand in hand. And, above all, you always want to seek ways to be inspired so that you can inspire other people.
JAMES
Okay. Well, then speaking of being inspired let’s talk about another interest of yours. You’re a musician?
BARRY
Yes, I am.
JAMES
How long have you been a musician?
BARRY
For as long as I can remember. I started playing drums probably at the age of 11. And I think I got together with other musicians and jammed for the first time probably when I was about 15 years old. And then starting in the 80s there were these six-night cabarets and we put together a great band and we played all over, it was a tremendous band.
JAMES
What were you called?
BARRY
The band was called Body Talk and we had a massive P.A. and light system and it was a good-looking band and we dressed well and we had sound effects. We did cover material, but it wasn’t necessarily the most popular covers, but it went over very well and one of our first gigs was opening for Chubby Checker. And Chubby’s a good guy and he was playing with a bunch of New York musicians who were on the road with Chubby just trying to keep the dream alive.
And then we became an A-Circuit party band called Cross Section and we had a beautiful girl that sang with us. It was a real show band and we played for companies that would have these lavish parties and they’d hire us. Mostly one-night corporate stuff which was way better money than playing six nights in a cabaret. We finally figured that out. And since then I’ve been in some country trios and I played in a gospel band for a few years at a church.
JAMES
So, music has been a cornerstone of your life and I’m wondering what is it you get out of music? What does it provide?
BARRY
It’s a high, it just is a tremendous high when those lights come on. And I ended up playing with a very talented musician who drove us to rehearse past our abilities. And I hate to rehearse but he said, “If you are overprepared on your best night you’re going to blow everybody’s mind, and on your worst night you’re going to be really good.” And he was right.
JAMES
Who was that?
BARRY
Frank Windsor. He’s a commodities broker in town, and he’s an incredible musician. Just incredible. And, that was a good lesson. And it’s a lesson that you can certainly apply to just about every area of life. You have to be willing to put in the work in order to be prepared and do your best.
This week my play Written in Stone is premiering at the Newmarket National 10 Minute Play Festival along with twenty-four other Canadian plays. In last week’s blog, I interviewed Michael Halfin the Artistic and Executive Director of the festival and Heather Dick a director, actor and playwright who is directing my play.
The plays are grouped into four themed Pods with six plays being presented in each Pod. Written in Stone is part of the “you|TURN” Pod and tells the story about the creation of the Ten Commandments and explains the reason man was given a soul, and how Lucifer ended up in hell. The production is being directed by Heather Dick and stars Bridget Bezanson as Michael, Meredith Busteed as Lucifer, Stephanie Christiaens as Gabriel, and Alexia Vassos as God.
Usually, I’m the one doing the interviewing on my blog but this week I’m answering some questions Heather asked me about my writing and specifically about what inspired me to write Written in Stone.
HEATHER DICK
What sparked your writing of Written In Stone? Was it in response to an event or interaction between people that you observed? Or something else entirely?
JAMES HUTCHISON
I was inspired by God. In a manner of speaking. I was doing a lot of reading about Greek mythology and the Bible and early Christians and I’d just written a play called The Blood of a Thousand Chickens which is my interpretation of the story of Oedipus and an examination of belief using Zeus and the ancient Greek Gods to look at customs and traditions and practices. So, I was thinking of ancient times and Gods and exploring religion and that got me to thinking about what might be the best ten commandments for creating a healthy and vibrant society where equality and environmental stewardship were the cornerstones of the law. And so while musing about all of that the idea of placing the creation of the ten commandments in a corporate setting where God is the boss and he’s escaped for the weekend to go play golf while leaving his employees to do the work he’s going to take credit for popped into my mind.
HEATHER
How do you approach writing a play? Do you begin with characters, an issue you’d like to explore, a theme?
JAMES
It varies. I’m a gardener when it comes to writing. I like to plant the seeds and see what grows. I’m not big into structure initially. I need the spark of an idea to get me going, and then I just sit down and start writing. Sometimes the whole play will simply emerge in a matter of a week or two or in a day if it’s a short play, and sometimes it can take years where I keep coming back to a script and a story I’ve been working on for some time until I get it finished. The big thing for me is I need the spark or the beginning moments usually in order to start writing, and that often gives me enough to get a third of the play written. So, at that point, I’m learning about the characters and the story and what they want and who the protagonist is and who the antagonist is, but once I hit a certain point then I really need to figure out my ending. I need to know how the story ends in order to continue writing the play, because knowing the ending informs the structure of the story and all of the obligatory scenes you need to have in order to reach the end, because everything is leading towards a specific outcome.
Sometimes the story and structure of the play come earlier and sometimes it comes later, but once I know the ending then I put on my architect hat and sketch out the rest of the plot. And if I can’t figure out the ending that’s where the play stalls, and it goes back into the drawer maybe to re-emerge at another date or to join the millions of other unfinished stories in drawers and on hard drives around the world to forever be forgotten.
One of the other things I’ve discovered about my writing is that what I need to know about the character is also influenced by the story. I have a bunch of questions I will ask about my characters especially for longer plays and doing that helps me understand the history of my character and the choices they’ve made in life and what’s important to them. Just as a side note, I never begin with the physical description of a character. It bugs the hell out of me that so many character profiles begin with hair colour and weight and all these other least interesting characteristics. What you need to do is determine the kind of a person your character is, and that means who they are and what they do for work. How they treat people. The physical person is determined by the career and ambitions of your character otherwise you are letting your physical description, which is only the surface aspects of your character, determine the very nature and soul of who your character is and what they want, desire, and need in life. Now that might mean in the end certain physical aspects might be extremely important in terms of self-identity such as a person who values their physical strength but is now growing older and feeling the effects of age. So that character in order to maintain the physical beauty and strength of their youth might be willing to do something such as sell their soul or take an experimental drug to keep what they value most.
And I don’t sit down and necessarily fill out the entire character description at the beginning. I tend to go back and forth making discoveries in the writing of the play which means going back and answering more questions about my character in the character profile. So, for example, you could be writing a scene and suddenly your character mentions having worked at an all-night diner in her twenties and that isn’t something you knew before so now you go back and you ask about that time in her life and who she met and what her day was like and how that has informed her life and the choices she’s made and her view of people. Then having that knowledge you go back and continue the story and now the character has specific memories rather than vague ideas. It makes for a more vibrant and interesting story.
A really big thing for me – is finding the right name for a character. In fact, if I don’t have the right name I can’t write. I spend lots of time looking at baby names and the meaning of names and testing names out until I land on the right one. So, once I get an idea for a play then I have to discover who the characters are and what their names are and once I have the right name – boom I just start writing. So, for example in my play Death and the Psychiatrist – Death’s name isn’t death it’s actually Mortimer Graves. Mortimer means “Dead Sea” and Graves means well – graves. And it wasn’t until I had the name that I was able to write the play although the idea for that play – Death having a psychiatrist – came to me late one winter night while I was out walking my dog Zeke and a little voice in my head just whispered, “What if death had a psychiatrist.” It was several years later before I actually sat down and wrote that play and that was the first play I wrote on my current journey as a playwright.
For Written in Stone the choice as far as character names go was made for me because I chose to dramatize the story by using existing characters from Christian mythology including Gabriel, Michael, and Lucifer and of course the big guy himself – God. The thing is I’ve played around a bit with who these characters are in order to make it more entertaining and surprising for the audience.
HEATHER
How is writing a 10-minute play different than writing a full-length play? What are the unique challenges you face?
JAMES
Written in Stone wasn’t a ten-minute play. It’s actually a half-hour play cut down to ten minutes. Here’s one of the cut lines from the longer version of the play, “What were you doing standing in line squeezing the pumpernickel?” I love that line. Out of context, it sounds ridiculous. So, I don’t always write with the intention of writing a ten-minute play. Sometimes I do. Sometimes I don’t. The reason I cut Written in Stone down to ten minutes is simply because there are so many ten-minute play contests out there and I want my work to be produced and seen.
JAMES
For a lot of years, I worked as a commercial writer/producer so I’m used to telling stories in thirty seconds. Advertising is all about storytelling. It’s about connecting a particular product or service to your target audience emotionally and the best way to do that is through a story that illustrates the qualities the product possesses. That’s the first truth of marketing and advertising. The product actually has to deliver on the promise. Take Tim Horton’s for example. They’ve had a terrible fall from grace as a Canadian icon because they are no longer what they were. They’ve finally degraded the product to a point where they’ve lost the loyalty of their clients. In fact, I want to write a short play about it called Glory Days where we have these two Canucks talking about the glory days of Tim Hortons where they’re reminiscing about when Tim Hortons used to make the donuts in store and how amazing they were. On a personal note, my favourite Tim Hortons pastry was the walnut crunch. It was this heavy cake dough with icing and nuts, and it was awesome. And then the company that owned Wendy’s bought Tim’s and that was the first round of cutting quality and they brought out this revamped version of the walnut crunch that didn’t have the same texture, flavour, or feel of the original and was kind of spongy and light and of course, it failed. Last year Tim Hortons went from the fourth-best brand in Canada to fiftieth, but it’s been a decline that’s been in the works for a couple of decades. And now I’m thinking maybe this is a time travel story and we have these two Canuck scientists who are determined to travel back in time to get a walnut crunch and a double-double and relive the glory days of Tim’s.
That whole rant was simply to say that I worked for a long time in an industry where you had twenty-five seconds and sometimes less to tell a story so ten minutes is a huge amount of time. You can cover a lot and what I really like about the ten-minute format is that you don’t always have to tell a conventional story – you can explore a mood or a question. It’s like music. An individual song might not tell a story but it might paint a particular image and speak about the human experience on some level. I think short play formats have the power to do that as well and something that might be boring in a two-act structure might really be fascinating and compelling in ten minutes. The thing is you have to create some sort of satisfactory experience for your audience so they feel satisfied and engaged. When you work on a longer work then you need layers, so whereas a short play might be akin in some ways to a pop song a long play could very much be compared to a classical concert. So, in a full-length play, you dramatically explore a particular question and in a classical concert, you explore a particular melody with all kinds of variations.
HEATHER
What do you hope that audiences will take away from seeing Written In Stone?
JAMES
I hope they laugh. My favourite quote of all time is from George Bernard Shaw. “Life does not cease to be funny when people die any more than it ceases to be serious when people laugh.” To me, satire and comedy are wonderful tools for holding up a mirror to our hypocrisy and lies. I’ve always liked comedy and satire and one of my favourite films is Dr. Strangelove or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb by Stanley Kubrick starring Peter Sellers and George C Scott, and it’s all about the insanity of living in a world where we live minutes away from Global nuclear annihilation. The first time I saw the film was at an Arthouse here in Calgary called the Plaza theatre, and it was when Ronald Reagan was sabre rattling, and the USSR was burning its way through elderly communist party leaders, and so tensions were high between the two superpowers, and we were living with jets in the air ready to respond to a nuclear threat within minutes. And this is just an insane way to live, but the fact that we live in this insanity is what makes the film so tremendously funny. And now with Putin, a couple of years ago threatening to rearm his nuclear arsenal and the potential of another arms race being bantered about I have to say the film is as relevant if not more relevant today. And so, with my little play, I’m asking people to think about the ten commandments and what they say and examine them based on what we’ve learned about our world and our place in it. So, yes I want people to laugh, but I think if they want to go out after the play and have a pint and play God and discuss what laws their ten commandments would contain I think they’d have a terrific discussion about what is truly important in life and what if any are the guiding principles we should live by.
HEATHER
Are you working on a new piece now and if so, would you like to talk about it?
JAMES
I don’t talk about new work until after the first draft is finished and it’s sat in a drawer for some time and then come out for a polish. I find if I talk about an unfinished piece of work the feedback I get takes me down the wrong path. Now for other people – they thrive from feedback. They love to take ten pages and share them. Me, I don’t work that way. In fact, nothing kills my idea quicker than getting the wrong feedback. It sabotages my creative process because I can’t unhear what I’ve heard. So, my advice is, if you’re like me, don’t share your work before it’s finished. That’s the same advice Stephen King gives in his book On Writing which I read back in 2010 when I began this playwriting journey and have reread several times since.
Having said that I’m in the process of finishing a new two-act comedy called Under the Mistletoe. These were originally two one-act plays that I’ve combined into one full-length play. And this is a good example of a play that’s had a long journey to completion. Early drafts of some of this work go back to 2011. It’s come in and out of the drawer several times and even had a couple of workshops. The second act worked fine, but I’d had some feedback on the first act and it took me in a direction where the story died. And it’s been dead ever since. I kept trying to rewrite the first act, over the years, but I could never get it to work. I’d lost the spark – the thing that gave it life, and no matter what I did I couldn’t get it back. Well a few months ago I thought I’d try again, and I pulled the play out of the drawer, and I decided to rename the characters, and once I gave the characters new names it made the play feel fresh and I was able to give it a complete rewrite and recapture the magic that had been there when I originally wrote the play.
JAMES
Basically, it’s similar to Neil Simon’s Plaza Suite. The play takes place in one hotel, but each act is a different story with different characters. I also wanted to write a play about characters in their fifties because I’m in my fifties and life is very different now that time is short.
The play takes place at Christmas thus the name – Under the Mistletoe. In act one there’s a character named Mike Riley who’s unemployed, divorced, and living in his brother’s basement. So, he’s a little depressed especially because he’s spending the holidays in the Gingerbread Suite at the Prairie Dog Inn Regina. But then he meets Claire McKenzie and they spent a romantic night together and Mike thinks his luck is finally starting to change so On Christmas Eve he purchases the Two Turtle Doves Holiday Romance Gift Basket and hopes to make his relationship with Claire more than a one-night stand.
Then in act two, I have Harvey Swanson and Nancy Potter who have been friends for years but after they kiss in a movie theatre during the ending credit of Casablanca they decide to try and make their friendship a romantic one. So, they book the Candy Cane Suite at the Prairie Dog Inn Regina for a romantic rendezvous. The only problem is Harvey is having a tough time getting over the death of his wife and he feels guilty about being with another woman. So, the big question is will Harvey and Nancy become lovers or will these new romantic feelings and Harvey’s reluctance to let go of the past end their friendship?
That’s going to be up on my website come January.
Otherwise, I’ve got a huge amount of rewriting to do and I’ve been spending a lot of time working on my blog and interviewing other playwrights, actors, and directors. I love doing the blog because I’ve always liked to learn about people and what drives them. I have a degree in sociology and had considered becoming an archaeologist when I was younger, but my life took a different path. Still, I’m interested in people and society and why we do what we do and live as we do. Sociology, archaeology, and playwriting are all just different aspects of exploring humanity.
And if you’re interested in reading up on Brand Rankings from 2018 see the link below to the Maclean’s article on Tim Hortons. Just on a side note this year Tim Horton’s was ranked 33rd. Still a long way from the position they once held and not the place you’d expect such an iconic Canadian brand. Although, is it really Canadian any longer and has it really been Canadian for some time?
“Last year, Tim Hortons reputational brand ranking plummeted from 4th place among Canadians in 2016 to 50th, according to Leger. Another survey in 2018, from the Peter B. Gustavson School of Business in Victoria, B.C., found Tims had free fallen to 203rd spot on a brand trust basis, from 27th place a year earlier and number one overall as recently as 2015. It’s a short drive from iconic to notorious, when you’ve driven off a cliff.
The company’s owners since 2014, Restaurant Brands International (RBI), were based in the U.S. before moving the head office to Oakville, Ont., with a further move slated to downtown Toronto. And RBI is backed by Brazilian investors 3G Capital, who are legendary, if not downright notorious, themselves for their love of cost-cutting at the companies they buy.”
Heather Dick – Director Written in Stone
Heather is excited to be directing at the Newmarket National 10 Minute Play Festival for the first time. As a director, actor and voice artist she has worked across the country. Favourite directing credits include: Earth Tourist (Chandlier Factory Prods.), Forgotten Voices (World Premiere), Mail-Order Annie and Streethearts ( Sirius Theatrical Co.), The Art of Listening (Canadian Premier, Southern Mirrors Prods.), La Sante C’est Pas Sorcier (Waterwood Prods. – Ontario Tour), and The Peacemaker (Golden Horseshoe Players). For over 30 years, Heather has coached and taught workshops in acting, comedy and voice for many independent Toronto acting studios. She is also the Founding Artistic Director of the Sirius Theatrical Company (Toronto) where she currently teaches acting and voice and has produced multi-disciplinary performance pieces. Heather Dick is a member of Canadian Actors Equity Association. www.siriustheatrical.com
Stephanie Christiaens in the NNPF 2019 production of Written in Stone by James Hutchison. Directed by Heather Dick. Scenic design, Ellen Brooker. Costume Design, Madeline Ius. Lighting Design, Christopher Pattenden. Photo: Jason Wighton.
Michael Halfin, Artistic & Executive Director Newmarket National Play Festival “I have always been fascinated by the 10-minute format. I find it exciting and I had my senior students write 10-minute scripts for production every year. I came to see that this was a format akin to the studies visual artists do before they explore a concept on a larger canvas. Playwrights such as ‘Tennessee Williams and William Inge explored these short versions of plays before they expanded them into full-length scripts. So, what is wonderful about the format, is that it is an invitation for EVERYONE to write. For EVERYONE to have a voice because it’s a format wherein even the novice playwright can find success.”
Heather Dick, Director Written in Stone“For me, one of the themes the play explores is the traditional corporate structure and goals such as getting the corner office and the expense account at the cost of perhaps personal integrity and values. Changing the genders allows us to question how women have perhaps succumbed to following these traditions in order to take their place in the business world both as employee and owner. I’m hoping that an all-female cast will start people talking about and questioning female roles and power within a corporate structure, especially as God is presented as a woman.”
I’m very excited to announce that for the second year in a row I have a play being produced in the Newmarket National 10 Minute Play Festival. Last year my drama Valentine’s Day which is a story about a recently widowed old man named Tom remembering the day fifty years ago when he met the love of his life, Heather, was part of the festival. This year my short comedy, Written in Stone, which is about the creation of the Ten Commandments is one of twenty-four new plays being premiered from Monday, July 22nd to Sunday, July 28th. The NNPF is a festival dedicated to Canadian plays and the diverse voices of this country and takes place forty minutes north of Toronto in Newmarket Ontario.
Download Play Script
It took Charlton Heston, Cecile B Demille, and Hollywood $122,000,000 million dollars, adjusted for inflation, and 220 minutes to tell a story I can tell in 10 minutes with a much smaller cast and budget. Of course, I didn’t really cover the part of the story where Moses is set adrift as a baby into the reeds and grows up as a son of Pharaoh, and I didn’t deal that much with the 10 plagues, although I mention it, and the Exodus doesn’t really appear in my version of the story although it obviously happened because Moses is heading up Mt Sinai to get the commandments and he had to cross the Red Sea in order to get there.
The plays are grouped into four themed Pods with six plays being presented in each Pod. Tickets are just twenty bucks per Pod and each Pod is presented four times during the festival. Written in Stone which is part of the “you|TURN” Pod tells the story, as mentioned before, about the creation of the Ten Commandments but it’s also about the reason man was given a soul, and how Lucifer ended up in hell. The production is being directed by Heather Dick and stars Bridget Bezanson as Michael, Meredith Busteed as Lucifer, Stephanie Christiaens as Gabriel, and Alexia Vassos as God. Other plays in the “you TURN” Pod include Running Low by Jessica Ayana-May where a misty morning jog along a mountain trail leads to a disturbing discovery and Penance by Peter Genoway where the un-cloistered truth leads two nuns into conflict. This pod is suitable for most ages and is described as: “When travelling the winding road, it’s hard to see the curve that lies ahead.”
If your tastes run a little more mature you might want to see the “end|RUN” Pod which has plays dealing with mature themes, and contains adult language, and violence. This Pod includes Plus ça change by Genevieve Adam where a royal romping rumpus disrupts the king’s court and Not Going Nowhere by Natalie Frijia where more than a house is reduced to ashes as the fire rages on. This Pod is described as: “If the end is inevitable, why didn’t we know that from the beginning?”
The third Pod called “stand|OUT” includes a story about a lonely woman who hopes a furnace repairman can restart her pilot light in a play by Jerri Jerreat called Seducing Harry and Nothing but the Tooth by Jody McColman which is an incisive story about a cash transaction that goes hilariously awry. This Pod is suitable for most ages and its description reads: “Sometimes, a door isn’t locked; It’s just stuck in place.
“Life belongs to the living, and he who lives must be prepared for changes.” That’s the description of Pod number four: “after|LIFE”. Plays include Dispatch by Andrew G. Cooper about a 911 operator coping with the unceasing trauma of the job and Like a Kite by Ron Fromstein where the traditional family dinner goes up in smoke in this half-baked comedy. This pod is intended for a mature audience as it contains disturbing scenes and deals with mature themes and language.
A few weeks ago, I did an interview with Michael Halfin the Artistic and Executive Director of the Newmarket National Play Festival to talk with him about this year’s festival and his thoughts about the importance of Art as well as an interview with the director of my play Heather Dick.
Michael Halfin – Founder, Artistic and Executive Director Newmarket National Play Festival
JAMES HUTCHISON
This is year three of the festival and it continues to grow. What have you retained from the past two years and what have you added or improved on the festival for this year?
MICHAEL HALFIN
I am very excited about our partnership with the Newmarket Group of Artists. We explored the idea of combining a visual arts interpretation of our pod themes in year one with some success but went another direction last year. This year, we’ve returned with more lead time to the idea of the art exhibition, and I’m thrilled that we have close to 50 pieces linked to our four themes. We are offering guided tours of “NGA-EXPLORE” that focus on the theme of one pod at a time. Patrons explore a theme—like after|LIFE—as a visual art experience, then they go up and see the performance art exploration of that same theme.
JAMES
So, every year the festival selects twenty-four plays and you put those plays into four individual pods that are focused on particular themes. And last year you told me you don’t “theme” the festival and people can write about whatever they want, but what you’ve discovered is that playwrights are attuned to the Zeitgeist and seem to write around particular themes on any given year anyway so the plays seem to naturally group around particular themes and that seems to indicate that playwrights are responding to issues and events of the time, and so I’m wondering what do you think the themes at this year’s festival tell us about what’s on people’s and playwrights minds?
MICHAEL
That, sir, is a great question. I don’t want to be too pinned down on that one because we collocate words as pod themes. That is, a pod like After|Life can be read and interpreted in many different ways such as: Someone is after your life which is threatening; the afterlife we know from our faith systems; the pursuit of happiness and people’s dissatisfaction with their life as it is because it seems like people are chasing after the life they think they deserve rather than the life they are living; a new reality such as climate change means we are now living life after a change from the way we’ve always lived it. And that’s as much as I’m going to give you because if I deconstruct the various interpretations of each pod theme, I’m ruining the fun for the playgoer. And, in any case, there’s the after-show talks where people can explore how the pod theme applied to each of the six plays in it.
JAMES
Over the last few years, I’ve entered a lot of ten-minute festivals and they’re not all equal in terms of their treatment of writers and artists. One of the things I really appreciate and like about the NNPF is the amount of exposure and support and professionalism you offer the winning playwrights and participating artists. You put a biography online for all the playwrights, directors, actors, and production staff with links back to their websites if they have one. You promote the festival as well as individual playwrights and artists through your social media including Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. You are a Canadian Actors’ Equity Association production under the Festival Policy. You offer playwrights that can come to the festival an opportunity to do a public reading from another work. Plus, and this is a big plus, all playwrights receive a royalty for the production of their plays. To me, you really set the standard for what a 10-minute play festival should be especially when asking to premiere new work. I’m curious, how did you arrive at this vision and decide this was the way you wanted to produce the festival?
MICHAEL
Wow. You’re forcing me to put as much thought into my answers as you are putting into your questions. I guess this idea had been growing in my mind for many years. As the Coordinator of the Regional Arts Program at Huron Heights Secondary School, I wanted kids to know what Canadian Culture is. To that end, I conceived what we called the Canadian Play Festival, which I ran for 25 years and the school is still producing to this day. In any given year, we produced 6-7 Canadian Plays. I would order 60 or so scripts a year from Playwrights Canada for student directors to comb through and select what we should produce. I am proud to say that Playwrights Canada told me that Huron Heights had the largest library of Canadian plays in the country.
I have always been fascinated by the 10-minute format. I find it exciting and I had my senior students write 10-minute scripts for production every year. I came to see that this was a format akin to the studies visual artists do before they explore a concept on a larger canvas. Playwrights such as Tennessee Williams and William Inge explored these short versions of plays before they expanded them into full-length scripts. So, what is wonderful about the format, is that it is an invitation for EVERYONE to write. For EVERYONE to have a voice because it’s a format wherein even the novice playwright can find success.
Table work and Rehearsals for this year’s National Newmarket 10 Minute Play Festival. Photo Jason Wighton.
JAMES
The arts would not exist without partnerships and support from the community, local business, and governments. I think the success of your festival indicates you’ve spent the time and energy to develop and nurture those partnerships. How did you go about creating those partnerships and what do your partners get out of participating and supporting the festival?
MICHAEL
I couldn’t ask for more from our principal partner, The Town of Newmarket. We had our table read on Tuesday, July 2nd and the Mayor and half of the town councillors came out to welcome the 24 companies. How do I get that kind of buy-in? I honestly don’t know. I just believe that we can do things in better and different ways than people have done before, and others seem to want to ride along on this dream. But, honestly, it’s very hard work. It’s 365 days a year, it’s—literally—walking up and down the same street dozens of times to talk to people, thousands and thousands of emails and phone calls, and pitching, pitching, pitching. My dad was a salesman and when he retired, my mother wanted me to take over his business. I said, “No, mom, sorry, I’m not a salesman.” I realize, now, that I am very much my father’s son. He said to me once, “Michael, you can’t sell anyone something they really don’t want to buy.”
JAMES
You often hear people question the value of arts and yet music surrounds us. We hang paintings on our wall. We watch television. We go to movies and music festivals. And many of us paint and play instruments and write fanfiction or poetry. So, we are surrounded by art and consume art on a daily basis. To remove art would be to remove much of what gives life value and meaning. Because it’s a national play festival how do you think the NNPF contributes to the artistic and cultural life of our country?
MICHAEL
Another great question and I’m not going to give you a cliché answer. I spent 35 years as a drama educator and the last 20 of those as a very vocal arts advocate. You’d think that the point you’ve made here is obvious—why wouldn’t the “Everyman” realize what a huge consumer of arts and culture he really is? Well, do we actually have to concentrate on breathing, or do we just autonomically do it? Well, that’s the arts. We breathe it in and out and don’t realize how it sustains us and is the life’s breath that permeates our collective consciousness. That’s why the NNPF, through the art exhibition, the director/actor talk back sessions, the pints with the playwrights, the staged readings of plays we are helping to develop from 10 minutes to full-length scripts, the playwriting workshops, and of course, the playwright readings are all about connecting the artists with their audience and the audience with their artists. We have 16 of 24 playwrights coming to the festival this year and many of them, as you can see from their biographies, come from all over Canada. Whether it be Newfoundland or B.C, our regions shape our views. Those regional voices come together here, and I feel, help us articulate what it means to find our unity in our diversity.
JAMES
Last year you told me a little bit about your vision for the future of the festival so I’m curious about where you’re at with your vision of expanding the festival to go beyond the ten-minute play?
MICHAEL
Well, as I just referenced, we are taking two scripts that were introduced at last year’s festival and are performing them as staged readings with two performances each on July 22 and 23. One show, in particular, has had a lot of dramaturgical support from us and the playwright has told me that the script has grown enormously through the process. My guess is our next step will be to do full productions on plays like this as either an adjunct to the summer festival or as part of a winter season.
JAMES
Okay, so my play in this year’s festival is more or less a discussion about the Law of God and what those laws should be. If you had the power to add a commandment to God’s Law what would it be? What do you think is a good guiding principle for mankind? And just so you know it can be serious or otherwise. My own favourite unserious but highly beneficial commandment would be, don’t forget to floss.
MICHAEL
Yes, I do have an 11th commandment, and I’m quite serious about it. It is, “Thou shalt not be mediocre.” I find wayyy too many people are satisfied with doing the minimum; that, well, that’s good enough. Nothing is ever good enough. Luisa, a character in The Fantasticks, exclaims, “Oh, God. Oh please. Don’t let me be normal!” That’s the point. Don’t be normal—be excellent!
JAMES
Final thoughts? Anything you want to add?
MICHAEL
I really appreciate your kind words about how we respect the work of the artists who participate in NNPF. This is a place where you will find respect and the freedom to create.
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Actors, directors, and designers all make significant contributions to bringing a play to life and no two productions are ever going to be the same so it’s always fun to get a chance to talk with the people putting your work before an audience. I asked Heather Dick, the director of my play a bit about her own theatre company as well as some questions about working on Written In Stone.
JAMES HUTCHISON
Heather, you’re the founding Artistic Director of the Sirius Theatrical Company. Tell me a little bit about the company and how it started and what type of theatre you generally produce?
HEATHER DICK
I founded the company in 1989 because I was interested in creating theatrical performances and working on roles that inspired and challenged me in ways that I wasn’t being cast at the time. As is often the case, I was frustrated with the roles I was being offered and wanted to work on darker material and themes and to experiment with a variety of styles of theatre including traditional, site-specific, and others that would leave audiences questioning traditional perspectives. Founding the Sirius Theatrical Company gave me the opportunity to experiment and work in non-traditional ways. Now, the shows that I produce are very connected to the community in which I live and work and incorporate themes and issues that are relevant to the people who live here.
JAMES
Have you found that the themes or types of the plays you produce now compared to when you started the company are different and if so why and if not – why do you think that would be?
HEATHER
When I first began producing, I wanted to focus primarily on Canadian work and as much as possible new work. Since early 2006 I have produced large scale multi-disciplinary performance pieces that incorporate photography, dance, music and poetry as well as traditional scene work. I’ve also written several of the pieces, which I’ve very much enjoyed doing and which has sparked my work as a playwright. This work is very connected to issues that are specific to the community in which the company is located.
Gwyn Beaver, Dan Karpenchuk, Stephen Ingram in Valse Sentimentale (stand|OUT) by Wyatt Lamoureux, Directed by Trevor Curran. Scenic design, Ellen Brooker. Costume Design, Madeline Ius. Lighting Design, Christopher Pattenden. Photo: Jason Wighton
JAMES
You’re directing two plays in this year’s Newmarket National Play Festival. Buried by Sarah Anne Murphy and my play Written In Stone. Tell me a little bit about what attracted you to these particular plays and why you wanted to tell their stories?
HEATHER
I loved both Buried and Written In Stone the minute I read them. They are as different as can be from each other in style, characters, setting and story, yet both grabbed my heart in different ways.
Buried is a mother/son relationship story and, as you might imagine, touches on so many aspects of the love and ties between a mother and her son. It is bitter, sweet, loving, sometimes pain-filled and sometimes full of joy and happiness. As a mother, I understand how hard and scary it is to let a child fly on their own when all you want to do is, perhaps selfishly, keep them close. As a daughter, I understand the need to be my own person unbound by parental issues and needs. I wanted to share all of this with an audience.
Your play, Written In Stone, had me laughing but also asking myself, “Could this be the way the ten commandments were written? What if……?” I love that it makes me reflect on traditional beliefs while taking place in such a contemporary corporate setting that everyone will be able to relate to the characters, their relationships and the questions it poses. I also love all the humour. I hope that people leave the theatre chatting about it and laughing too.
JAMES
When I originally wrote the play it was about God and three angels working on the ten commandments and it was intended for an all-male cast but for the NNPF we’ve recast the play so that all the parts are being played by women. I’m curious to know if changing genders offered any additional insights or new takes on the themes of the play?
HEATHER
I’d say ‘yes’ and ‘no’.
For me, one of the themes the play explores is the traditional corporate structure and goals such as getting the corner office and the expense account at the cost of perhaps personal integrity and values. Changing the genders allows us to question how women have perhaps succumbed to following these traditions in order to take their place in the business world both as employee and owner. I’m hoping that an all-female cast will start people talking about and questioning female roles and power within a corporate structure, especially as God is presented as a woman.
Written In Stone also looks at traditional stories/beliefs surrounding the creation of the ten commandments and asks us to reflect on whether or not they all still have value and relevance in the world as it is today, as represented by the modern corporate boardroom setting. I think this reflection stands whether the gender of the characters is male or female, so changing the gender doesn’t affect this questioning.
Stephanie Christiaens in the NNPF 2019 production of Written in Stone by James Hutchison. Directed by Heather Dick. Scenic design, Ellen Brooker. Costume Design, Madeline Ius. Lighting Design, Christopher Pattenden. Photo: Jason Wighton.
Bridget Bezanson in the NNPF 2019 production of Written in Stone by James Hutchison. Directed by Heather Dick. Scenic design, Ellen Brooker. Costume Design, Madeline Ius. Lighting Design, Christopher Pattenden. Photo: Jason Wighton.
Bridget Bezanson, Meredith Busteed, Stephanie Christiaens in the NNPF 2019 production of Written in Stone by James Hutchison. Directed by Heather Dick. Scenic design, Ellen Brooker. Costume Design, Madeline Ius. Lighting Design, Christopher Pattenden. Photo: Jason Wighton.
Meredith Busteed in the NNPF 2019 production of Written in Stone by James Hutchison. Directed by Heather Dick. Scenic design, Ellen Brooker. Costume Design, Madeline Ius. Lighting Design, Christopher Pattenden. Photo: Jason Wighton.
JAMES
Okay, so my play in this year’s festival is more or less a discussion about the Law of God and what those laws should be. If you had the power to add a commandment to God’s Law what would it be? What do you think is a good guiding principle for mankind? And just so you know it can be serious or otherwise. My own favourite unserious but highly beneficial commandment would be, don’t forget to floss.
HEATHER
Find a moment of laughter in everything you do.
The Last House (after|LIFE) by Andrew Paulsen. Photo: Jason Wighton
JAMES
What have been some of your discussions with the cast about the play and its story and themes?
HEATHER
I’m delighted with the cast. Everyone is bringing a sense of humour and play to both the rehearsals and the production. Bridget Bezanson is playing Michael, Meredith Busteed is Lucifer, Stephanie Christiaens is Gabriel and Alexia Vassos is God. Our wonderful stage manager is Ashley Frederick who keeps all organized and on time with a light and caring touch. To date, our discussions have focussed on character relationships – employee to employee, employee to boss, and jealousy – which are all relevant to many of the commandments and how we treat our fellow human beings.
JAMES
So, I asked Michael the same question, you often hear people question the value of arts and yet music surrounds us. We hang paintings on our wall. We watch television. We go to movies and music festivals. And many of us paint and play instruments and write fanfiction or poetry. So, we are surrounded by art and consume art on a daily basis. To remove art would be to remove much of what gives life value and meaning. I was wondering what you felt arts in general and the Newmarket National play festival specifically contributes to the artistic and cultural life of our country?
HEATHER
The Festival is a gift to the actors, directors, and production crew who have an opportunity to create and learn in a generous and supportive environment. For our country, it is building a stronger Canadian cultural voice.
DIRECTOR, CAST, and STAGE MANAGER
WRITTEN IN STONE
Heather Dick – Director
Heather is excited to be directing at the Newmarket National 10 Minute Play Festival for the first time. As a director, actor and voice artist she has worked across the country. Favourite directing credits include: Earth Tourist (Chandlier Factory Prods.), Forgotten Voices (World Premiere), Mail-Order Annie and Streethearts ( Sirius Theatrical Co.), The Art of Listening (Canadian Premier, Southern Mirrors Prods.), La Sante C’est Pas Sorcier (Waterwood Prods. – Ontario Tour), and The Peacemaker (Golden Horseshoe Players). For over 30 years, Heather has coached and taught workshops in acting, comedy and voice for many independent Toronto acting studios. She is also the Founding Artistic Director of the Sirius Theatrical Company (Toronto) where she currently teaches acting and voice and has produced multi-disciplinary performance pieces. Heather Dick is a member of Canadian Actors Equity Association. www.siriustheatrical.com
Bridget Bezanson – Buried, Seducing Harry, Written in Stone
Bridget is excited for her third summer with the Newmarket National 10 Minute Play Festival. She is an actor and classically trained singer with credits in regional theatre throughout Ontario and Atlantic Canada. Favourite performances include Funeral Sandwiches (NNPF), Rockbound (Two Planks and a Passion), Love You Forever (Stirling Festival), No Way to Treat a Lady (Festival Antigonish), and Annie (Neptune Theatre). Other credits include voice work in radio drama and animation (CBC), radio commercials, and narration. A versatile vocalist, Bridget has recently performed at corporate events for Manulife and Shoppers Drug Mart, and performs regularly as a soloist and band singer. Bridget Bezanson is a member of Canadian Actors Equity Association. www.bridgetbezanson.com
Meredith Busteed – Secret Santa, Written in Stone
Meredith is thrilled to be joining The Newmarket National Ten Minute Play Festival this summer. She is a music theatre performer with credits in regional theatre throughout Southern Ontario and the United Kingdom. Favourite performances include The Wizard of Oz (Diversified Theatre), 9 to 5 The Musical (Edinburgh Fringe Festival), Assassins (RCS), Up the River (Thousand Islands Playhouse), Anne in Anne of Green Gables (MMT), and Mary in Mary’s Wedding (Theatre Kingston). Other credits include commercials with Rogers (Next Issue), Anti-mean tweets campaign (Sportsnet). A versatile performer, Meredith has also dedicated her career to teaching private voice, musical theatre and dance to the next generation of artists. @mabusteed
Stephanie Christiaens – Like a Kite, Written in Stone
Steph is excited to be making her debut at the Newmarket National 10 Minute Play Festival! She has been performing around Southwestern Ontario for over 20 Years and recently made her professional debut last summer at the Lighthouse Festival Theatre in Port Dover in Stage Fright. Favourite performances include The Day They Shot John Lennon (Players’ Guild of Hamilton), Noises Off! (Dundas Little Theatre), The Whores (Stage 88), Key For Two (The Aldershot Players), and Don’t Misunderstand Me (Act 4 Productions). Other credits include TV commercials (CTV London), independent film productions (Post-Life Productions), and reporting for Rogers Local access network.
Alexia Vassos – Nothing but the Tooth, Secret Santa, Written in Stone
Alexia is delighted to be involved with the Newmarket National 10 Minute Play Festival for the very first time. She is a recent graduate from the Theatre and Drama Studies program at the University of Toronto Mississauga and Sheridan College. Alexia’s credits include: Olga in Three Sisters (Theatre Erindale), Silenus/Therapist/Baucis in Metamorphoses (Theatre Erindale) and Maria in Twelfth Night (Theatre Erindale).
Ashley Frederick – Stage Manager
Ashley is thrilled to be participating in the Newmarket National 10 Minute Play Festival for her first time! Recent stage management credits include The Teeny Tiny Music Show (Hamilton Fringe, 2016), This Is War (York University, 2016) R.E.M. (York University, 2017), and InspiraTO Festival- Blue Show (2017). Ashley is also a performer, director, deviser, and founding member of Atomic Oddity Productions, whose first show After George premiered this year at the Devised Theatre Festival, and the Theatre Centre. Ashley will be graduating from York University’s Theatre program with a specialization in Devised Theatre in January 2020.
