Nathan Schmidt as W.O. Mitchell in the Rosebud Theatre production of Magic Lies: An Evening with W.O. Mitchell.
Magic Lies: An Evening with W.O. Mitchell is a joyful, fun, and feel-good night at the theatre all brought to life on the Rosebud Theatre’s Opera House stage in a brilliant performance by Nathan Schmidt.
Based on the works of W.O. Mitchell and penned by his son and daughter-in-law, Orm and Barbara Mitchell, the play weaves together an entertaining and insightful script that travels between Mitchell’s fiction and the story of his life.
Mitchell was a writer, performer, and teacher who is best known for his 1947 novel Who Has Seen the Wind. The novel beautifully captures small-town life and the world as seen through the eyes of a young Brian O’Connal growing up on the Saskatchewan prairie. Mitchell is also known for his Jake and the Kid stories which were popular radio plays during the 1950s. No stranger to the stage himself W.O. Mitchell was a storyteller who performed his one-man shows across Canada and penned several plays for the stage including The Kite, The Devil’s Instrument, and The Black Bonspiel of Wullie MacCrimmon.
I contacted Orm Mitchell to talk with him about his father’s work and the journey Magic Lies: An Evening with W.O. Mitchell took to reach the stage. You can read that interview by following the link above. I also spoke with Nathan Schmidt to talk with him about the production and the challenges of performing a one-man show.
JAMES HUTCHISON
What was your reaction when you first read the script and knew you were going to be playing W.O. Mitchell?
NATHAN SCHMIDT
I’ve done a couple of W.O. Mitchell shows. I’ve been in Jake and the Kid, and I’ve done The Kite twice, so lots about the script felt familiar, and I had experienced W.O.’s writing. So, I knew that he was funny, but the scarier thing was I thought, “Oh, man, I’ve got to play this real person who people know.” Whereas Daddy Sherry or Jake – those are characters. Those live in the imagination. It’s a different thing when somebody lives in the real world. And Morris Ertman our Artistic Director would say “When we open Magic Lies: An Evening with W.O. Mitchell all the family is going to come and watch the show.” And I was like, “Oh, my gosh. I’m going to have to play the father or the grandparent of these people in the audience.” So that was the most intimidating thing.
Morris Ertman and Orm Mitchell Opening Weekend Talk Back of Magic Lies: An Evening with W.O. Mitchell
Barbara and Orm Mitchell
Orm and Barbara Mitchell at Chapters Book Signing
75th Anniversary Edition of Who Has Seen the Wind by W.O. Mitchell. Illustrated by William Kurelek. Available from Freehand Books.
W.O. Mitchell
JAMES
Even a one-man show needs a director. For this show, it was Karen Johnson-Diamond. How did the two of you work on the play? What was that process like?
NATHAN
As an actor, Karen has done a number of W.O. Mitchell plays. I think she had been in Who Has Seen the Wind and Jake the Kid and she had a love of W.O. Mitchell as well. So, she came in with a lot of love for the stories and a lot of knowledge about W.O. Mitchell. But she’s also just a wonderfully comedic actor and performer, and so her sense of comedy and her sense of how this thing would play was really just spot on. And all of the direction that she offered to me was really helpful to clarify the joke and to clarify how the show moves forward.
What she really loved about the structure of the play is how it follows him through his life from like six to seven when he loses his father – to ten to eleven – to high school – all the way through to Daddy Sherry and misses a bit of the middle, because as W.O. Mitchell says in the story – he’s kind of focused on the first part of life and the end part of life. Those are the concentrated bits that it seemed his imagination was drawn to.
So, we would do a lot of work with linking. Linking how this story moved to this story and then to this story. And W.O Mitchell had a way of making it feel like it was all sort of off the cuff, but in the end, it was all very planned, and he was coming back to stuff he’d set up earlier and he had really worked out how the punchlines worked and how the ideas and stories came around. So, we did a lot of work like that to try and get into the head of the writer and the storyteller. It was a great process. She was wonderful.
The Kite – Rosebud Theatre – 2019
The Sunset Limited – Rosebud Theatre – 2016
Freud’s Last Session – Rosebud Theatre – 2014
Doubt, A Parable – Rosebud Theatre – 2014
Fiddler on the Roof – Rosebud Theatre – 2008
Man of La Mancha – Rosebud Theatre – 2009
The Spitfire Grill – Rosebud Theatre – 2017
A Christmas Carol – Rosebud Theatre – 2020 & 2021
The Diary of Adam & Eve – Rosebud Theatre – 2011
Oliver! – Rosebud Theatre – 2010
Damien – Rosebud Theatre – 2018
The Drawer Boy – Rosebud Theatre – 2006
May & Joe – Rosebud Theatre – 2011
The Secret Garden – Rosebud Theatre – 2010
Jake and the Kid: Prairie Seasons – Rosebud Theatre – 2011
Underneath the Lintel – Rosebud Theatre Production – 2013
The Kite – Rosebud Theatre – 2005
The Lion, The Witch And the Wardrobe – Rosebud Theatre – 2014
An Inspector Calls – Rosebud Theatre – 2016
Stones In His Pockets – Rosebud Theatre – 2022
The Trip to Bountiful – Rosebud Theatre – 2023
Cotton Patch Gospell – Rosebud Theatre – 2013
It’s a Wonderful Life: The Radio Play – Rosebud Theatre – 2013
Nathan Schmidt as W.O. Mitchell in the Rosebud Theatre production of Magic Lies: An Evening with W.O. Mitchell.
JAMES
This is your 50th performance on the Rosebud stage and so I’m wondering when you look back on all the parts you’ve played do some of those characters have a lasting influence on you in any way?
NATHAN
Yeah, there’s a couple that really stick – that I learned a lot about myself from and sometimes that’s uncomfortable. I was in Doubt by John Patrick Shanley and that was a really uncomfortable play for me to be in. It taught me a lot about who I am when I’m helpless and so those things kind of stick. The character teaches you something about who you really are because your instincts as a person are either in conflict with the character or line up with the character in ways that are surprising. That was a big one. I did a Cormac McCarthy play called The Sunset Limited and that was also another hard one.
As W.O. Mitchell says, those characters marked me. And I think the thing I love most is the relationship that characters create with the audience. One of my favourite things I ever got to do was The Drawer Boy by Michael Healey. I was playing one of the farmers. In The Drawer Boy, this young kid comes to hang out at the farm and find out about these two old guys. It was an older character, and I was younger, and I was really worried because it didn’t feel real. I didn’t feel in it, and I was really up in my head about it and nervous, you know, that I was a fraud or I was going to fail, and then one of the things that actually cinched me into it was – I don’t remember how it came about – but maybe it was offered by Morris and he said, “Here’s a toothpick. Just chew on the toothpick for the whole show.”
And so, I would have these toothpicks in the show, and I just chewed on this toothpick the whole time, and it helped me feel like that cranky grumpy guy in that story. Well, you know, a bit later – after the run, I got a little blue index card in the mail and on it was glued a toothpick, and on the backside, this person had written, “We attended the show and your Morgan was like seeing my grandfather alive again, and he passed away in 80 whatever.” She was so clear that she had an experience of seeing her grandpa that day, and I was able to offer her unbeknownst to me an experience like that. And so, you know that play holds a special place for me too because of that story. It’s quite a lovely play.
W.O. Mitchell reading at Trent University
JAMES
W.O. Mitchell perfected the technique of appearing not to be performing. To be spontaneous and to appear as if he was telling the story for the first time. So, he’d draw his audience in through deliberate mistakes or confusion, he’d say, “Oh, did I tell you? Or I forgot to mention.” And in your performance, you totally capture that sense of spontaneous and unrehearsed storytelling. So much so that my son heard a couple of ladies leaving the theatre and they enjoyed the show, but they remarked that they were surprised that you seemed to lose your place and had to go back. Which means to them it was completely natural. So, to me you’re one of those actors who really achieves a feeling of reality in your performance no matter what part you’re playing. That’s a long speil just to ask, how do you do that?
NATHAN
Morris said this the other day and I think it’s true. I think when we get curious about people then we kind of fall in love with them. And I think it’s true of the characters we play, and I think in the rehearsal there is something about just falling in love with the reality of whoever they are and whatever drives them. You’ve heard it said that one of the actor’s adages is don’t judge the character even if you’re a villain. Villains are motivated by what they believe to be true or good or at least by what is in their best interests.
And I think the actor’s job overall – and W.O. Mitchell did this in spades too – is to collect people. To watch people and to observe what they do and why they do it without judgment and to allow them to steep into you and to become part of you and the energy of being them and how they participate in the world. It’s partly that and it’s partly just having fun. It’s just fun to try and make it as real as possible.
Saint Sammy and Brian: Saint Sammy calling down the wrath of the Lord to smite Bent Candy’s new red barn. Illustration by William Kurelek from the 75th Anniversary Edition of Who Has Seen the Wind. Available from Freehand Books.
JAMES
You know, it’s interesting that you mentioned fun, and I think W.O. Mitchell is able to capture the feeling of childhood and play and imagination and curiosity. What are your thoughts about the child within you in terms of that living in you as an actor?
NATHAN
I have three kids now and when I watch the four-year-old and two-year-old play for them every game is real. They just believe it. My little guy just thinks he’s the Flash. He thinks he’s the fastest thing going and so he’ll be like, “Watch this Dad.” And he will just run through and he’s like, “You didn’t even see me, did you.” And I remember as a kid wearing my North Star Velcro runners and those are the fastest shoes, and I can run so fast in my North Star shoes because they’ve got shooting stars on them and that makes my feet fast. And I believed it to be true.
Our adult logic brains know it’s not true, but it could be in your imagination. And the audience does the same thing. They all know they’re not seeing W.O. Mitchell. Karen said, “Nobody’s coming to see the actual W.O. Mitchell. They’re coming to have an experience of W.O. Mitchell and if we deliver it in a way that doesn’t give them any reason to doubt too much – then the audience will let their imagination see me as him.” And so, you know, I think our imagination is a remarkable and amazing gift, and I think as creatives we may access it a little bit more at times, but it’s there for everyone. They just have to access it.
JAMES
This is storytelling at its simplest and best. One actor. Minimal set. What is it like for you as a performer doing a one-man show? How do you create that connection with your audience?
NATHAN
I’ve done a number of one-person shows now and it gets to be a lonely room as opposed to having one or two other people or a group of actors to hang out with. It can be lonely in that way, but the audience really becomes the best friend of the show. And especially in something like this where it’s such a direct address. The whole point of the show is the relationship of the storyteller to the audience. At the end of the play, W.O. says that this is the thing – the energy of a live audience responding to a story – that’s where it’s at.
And for me, that is where it’s at. I love that relationship. I’m always curious about it and excited about it. Sometimes puzzled by it, you know, sometimes it lands really well, and people just explode with laughter and sometimes they don’t, and you can’t put together all of why that is, but people get to be who they are and so it’s a really lovely sort of bond that I’ve come to love about performing. And that’s the amazing thing about storytelling in theatre. And at the end of the play he says,
“You know…the energy of death lies behind everything I’ve written—it’s death and solitude that justify story telling. Telling stories draws us human aliens together in the mortal family, uniting us against the heart of darkness, defending us against the terror of being human. Writing’s a lonely act—like playing a dart game with the lights out. You have no idea whether your darts are coming anywhere near the bull’s-eye. But this (open handed gesture to audience)…this dilutes the darkness, gives me what all stage performers love—that immediate thrust of a live audience responding to story magic. (Looking out to audience, grins). We were flying tonight!”
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.”
