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Gaslight at Vertigo Theatre – Interview with Director Jack Grinhaus

Posted on March 29, 2023March 8, 2024 by James Hutchison

Vertigo Theatre 2022/23 Season - Misery, Nevermore, Gaslight, the Extractionist, Murder on the Orient Express

Vertigo Theatre presents a highly entertaining and suspenseful production of Gaslight by Johnna Wright and Patty Jamieson based on the play Angel Street by Patrick Hamilton. Bringing the play to life is a terrific cast including Kelsey Verzotti as Bella, Braden Griffiths as Jack, Valerie Planche as Elizabeth, and Hailey Christie-Hoyle as Nancy. The production is directed by Jack Grinhaus and delivers plenty of mystery and suspense.

Production Still - Gaslight at Vertigo Theatre. — *Kelsey Verzotti as Bella and Braden Griffiths as Jack in the Vertigo Theatre Production of Gaslight by Johnna Wright and Patty Jamieson. Directed by Jack Grinhaus. Photo by Tim Nguyen.*

All devoted husband Jack Manningham wants is for his wife Bella to get well. Ever since moving into their new home in London Bella has experienced a number of episodes that have made her doubt her own sanity. Items disappear, noises are heard, and the gaslight dims on its own. Jack enlists the help of Elizabeth the housekeeper and the new maid Nancy to make sure that Bella gets the rest and quiet she needs in order to recover. But things aren’t exactly as they seem and as layers of the story are revealed – including the disturbing history of the house – Bella must figure out what’s really going on before things turn deadly.

I spoke with the director of Gaslight Jack Grinhaus about the play, his role as Artistic Director of Vertigo Theatre, and what fictional detective he’d want to clear his name if he’d been wrongly accused of murder.

JAMES HUTCHISON

So, Gaslight takes place in Victorian London. There are mysteries at play and sinister forces at work. Tell me about your production of Gaslight and what audiences can expect from spending a night with Bella and Jack.

JACK GRINHAUS

It’s a great classic thriller but because of this new adaptation it feels very present and modern. There’s this woman who feels isolated in her home and I think we’ve all known what that feels like over the last few years, and she’s in a relationship she can’t understand, and she is confused about herself. And in this new adaptation, Bella is the agent of her own freedom, as opposed to the original script which had a detective come in and help solve the puzzle. All three women in the story are extremely strong actors and characters and it’s been really exciting to work with them.

And I see the play very much as a superhero origin story because there’s this woman who starts off feeling like she can’t believe in herself. She doesn’t trust herself. She doesn’t trust the world around her. She thinks maybe something is going on in her mind, but as time progresses she’s like Neo in The Matrix. She starts to accept that she can actually expose all the truths of the story. And I think audiences will have a really great time following her because it’s from her point of view and while she’s being gaslit we’re gaslighting the audience as well with the way we’re staging the play and with the way we’re using the design elements.

JAMES

Our perception of ourselves often depends on the feedback that we get from others.

JACK

Yes.

JAMES

How much of our identity do you think comes from what others reflect back to us?

JACK

Well, that kind of goes back to that existentialism, Sartre kind of idea, right? There’s no shame until we are witnessed by others. It’s a really intriguing question. I’m going to give you a little anecdote of me gaslighting myself recently.

During our run of Murder on the Orient Express, Haysam who starred as Poirot was doing the big Poirot finale. I was in my office. I was listening to the play on the program sound outside in the hallway.

I thought, “Okay, I’ll go down and see the applause and go talk to the audience after the show. I’ll just hang out in the office until then because I’ve seen it fifty times.” And I waited for a particular point in Poirot’s final monologue, where he speaks about one of the characters and he says, “Oh, she’s in a new play called No, No, Nanette on Broadway and she’s very successful.” And I went, “Okay, great. I’m going to head down.”

And I went downstairs, and I went into the theatre, and I slowly opened the door, and as soon as I walked in Haysam was on stage saying, “Oh, she’s in a new Broadway show called No, No, Nanette and she’s very successful.” And I went, “What the hell? How? Didn’t I just hear?” And I started to question myself. I went, “Oh, no. I must have only thought I’d heard that line.” And then I found out after the show that a woman had actually shouted in the audience and they’d stopped the show. She thought her husband was having a medical emergency, but he actually just had his eyes closed and was listening.

So, they decided to restart the play and go back to the top of the monologue, and I walked out of my office and into the theatre at the same moment in Poirot’s final monologue missing all of what happened in between. I thought, “I must have lost my mind.” It was funny because why wasn’t my first instinct to think, “Oh, maybe something happened on stage, and they had to go back?” Instead, my first instinct was to think that there’s something wrong with me. I basically gaslit myself.

And I think people who are predators can really take advantage of that kind of thing. Knowing that people self-deprecate and blame themselves and their sense of shame and guilt is so high in relationship to other people that they doubt themselves. And it’s because we always want to please the people around us. That’s the secret weapon of the person who does the gaslighting.

JAMES

You’ve got Kelsey Verzotti as Bella, Braden Griffiths as her husband Jack, Valerie Planche as the housekeeper Elizabeth, and Hailey Christie-Hoyle as the new maid Nancy. What are some of the qualities this cast brings to their characters and to the telling of the story?

JACK

I’ve known Val for a long time. We’ve worked together in the past. And so, I knew Val and I knew her as a great rock in a company, a strength in a company. She’s a director as well, which I like as a director because you’ll get someone who’s looking at the big picture from the inside. And her great strength of character I knew would support some of the younger women in the show, Kelsey and Hailey, who are still new to a certain extent. They’ve both started to have burgeoning careers, but they’re still in the early stage of their career. And I thought here’s their first big chance at a really intimate big show here in Calgary. It’s good to have someone like Val who can keep them grounded and supported when needed and Val’s also such a strong actor that she brings up the people around her too.

And there’s something about Haley’s ability, even in her youth, to show great strength of character and independence. And that’s really great for her playing Nancy, who’s sort of an obstinate maid in the house who’s got her own game going. So, Haley right from the audition had this kind of maturity and wisdom that I felt was important for playing Nancy because Nancy is someone who probably came from the street, probably has a lot more street sense and streetwise than education and wealth because she came from nothing. And so, she has to have – even in her youth – this look in her eye that shows experience and life.

Braden is a brilliant actor and has always been the good guy in shows in Calgary. He’s never really been known as the bad guy. So, this is a great way to gaslight the audience by going, “Hey, look it’s the nicest guy in Calgary.” And I just think Braden’s such a strong actor bar none that his ability to play the ambiguity of Jack is really exciting because that’s really hard. It’s hard to direct an actor into ambiguity. And that’s what we need because you can’t totally know whether Jack is really the bad guy or not. And maybe he isn’t. You have to see the production to find out. And that ambiguity that Braden brings to the character keeps the audience guessing for as long as possible.

And Kelsey is such a strong, young actor who needs to be able to carry the weight of the show. She has this great sensitivity and emotional availability and vulnerability, but at the same time you can see there is a powerful spirit there, a strong human there. And that’s Bella. Bella is both. And oftentimes you’ll find actors who play one or the other better. Somebody who’s better at playing somebody who’s vulnerable and not as strong. And then other people can play someone with a hard edge but not as vulnerable. And Kelsey has this great balance flowing between those two worlds which is what we need to legitimately believe Bella’s journey. We need an actor who can be vulnerable and then finds the strength to empower themselves to success.

And the cast has really great chemistry and the second we had the first read we knew we nailed it. They all have these qualities that I perceived as important for the version we are telling of Gaslight.

JAMES

The title of the play is Gaslight but in a greater sense we’re talking about betrayal. Being betrayed leaves a deep wound and it seems to be a common theme in a lot of plays and movies and books. Why do you think it is we like stories about betrayal?

JACK

Partly because we all understand it. We’ve all had a moment in our life where we’ve been gaslit. We’ve all had personal or professional relationships in business and in life where somebody has led us down a particular path and then pulled the rug out from under us. And I think we all know what a terrible feeling it is to go through that.

But I also think betrayal is part of the bigger picture of what we do at Vertigo, which is intrigue. I think most people in our world are honourable as humans. And for us, we’re fascinated by the underbelly of society. We’re fascinated with people who are willing to do things that we may not be willing to do. And so, you have television shows like Succession and even though these stories are dramas it’s really about the intrigue. It’s about trying to figure out why, how, and who in regard to the story. The thing about Vertigo is we lay so many breadcrumbs that our audiences are used to watching every blink, every chin movement, and every hand gesture. And so, I’m really marking those moments in the play, and I think the audiences love that. I think that we as humans love to solve puzzles and riddles.

JAMES

Part of the job of the artistic director is to provide a vision forward in regard to the theatre and the plays it produces. Next season you’ll be designing your first season as Artistic Director of Vertigo Theatre. I’m curious to know what goes through your mind as you’re picking the plays you want to produce and designing an overall season.

JACK

It’s a great question. It’s a huge one. Because you’re encapsulating quite a bit. As an artistic director you have to imagine that there are maybe thirty or forty balloons that you’re trying to hold all the strings together on. First is the theatre you’re working at and its mandates. You have to serve that. Then you have to serve the needs of the patrons, the donors, the staff, the marketing, the board, the funders, the sponsors, the local community, and your own artistic interests.

And, of course, you’re making sure that there is parody and equity in the voices and faces involved in projects. And I like to look at what the tone of the world is at the time, what’s going on in the ether at the moment. What’s the zeitgeist reading so that people always feel like there’s something interconnected in the works they’re seeing artistically.

Our current season I said was so much about people escaping isolation. Which is intriguing because that is exactly what we’ve all been doing. Next season is a season of what I call transformation. A season of people starting to look again at who they are and trying to affect the world around them and how that works. And to me, that’s very much what we’re doing now. We’re coming out of the pandemic and we’re asking ourselves, who are we now and how do we impact the world around us? And so, all the plays for next season were built around that thematic element.

And I’m interested in authenticity and intensity in the work. I think it’s really important that people are drawn into the stories and the emotional experience. And I love high theatricality, so I always pick plays that are really theatrical in nature, and I’m also interested in balancing seasoned and new audiences’ interests.

And so as an artistic director I’m trying to blend all of those things together in an exciting, engaging, and thrilling season and to offer something fun because people have been beaten up over the last little while and they want entertaining plays with great stories and I think that’s what makes Vertigo seasons so successful.

Vertigo Theatre 2023/24 Season - The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde - Sleuth - Heist - The Girl on the Trail - Ms Holmes & Ms Watson - #2B

JAMES

While I was doing a little research on you and I came across Bound To Create Theatre which was formed in 2004 by yourself and Lauren Brotman. And on your website, it says in regards to the type of work you create that you are keenly interested in the beauty, boldness, and truth born from confronting the challenges that face the human spirit. So, what has been a highlight or two from the work that you’ve created with B2C Theatre about the challenges of being human and what sort of impact do you hope it’s had?

JACK

When we started the company we realized there were a lot of niche issues that were not necessarily being discussed and so we started taking on stories that we felt were about lesser-known issues and also exploring highly theatrical means and premiering incredible works by new voices in theatre.

One that really sticks out for me is dirty butterfly by Jamaican British playwright debbie tucker green, which is kind of a poetic piece about the collateral damage of domestic abuse. We had this incredible underbelly storyline, and we’re also premiering in North America for the first time this incredible black playwright from the UK. Obsidian Theater, who’s the premier black company in Canada, partnered with us for that.

And it was incredible because we would have women’s shelters coming to see the shows and women coming out saying, “You know, seeing your show made me understand that I’m not alone.” And when you hear that – that’s kind of everything. Martha Graham once said that if she affected one person in her show in the entire run then it was worth it. And now debbie tucker green’s work is world-renowned.

*Lauren Brotman, Kaleb Alexander, and Beryl Bain in dirty butterfly by debbie tucker green. Photo by Joe Bucci.*

Also, Meegwun Fairbrother’s Isitwendam (An Understanding) which was a play about a young man who is half indigenous and half white and he goes to work for the Conservative Government and his first job is to go and discredit a residential school survivor’s reparation claim. And when he goes there his whole life is turned upside down as he finds out about residential schools. We started this fifteen years ago and now we’re hearing more about residential schools, but at the time that was not a subject that most places or people were interested in negotiating.

We worked with Native Earth in Toronto that premiered our play and we toured it all over the country and it was just a real opportunity to deal with a really important issue but in a really unique way. It was a detective fiction basically because it was about a young man who is trying to figure out the mystery of his missing father. And it ends up that his father was at one of the schools and had taken his life. That’s what started to pull me into the detective genre because I co-wrote and co-created it with Meegwun Fairbrother – the writer – the creator. He brought his story and I sort of created this bubble of detective fiction and Lauren and I sort of tweaked and worked in that. And so that was really exciting.

*Meegwun Fairbrother in Isitwendam by Meegwun Fairbrother and co-created by Jack Grinhaus. Photo by Joe Bucci.*

For the first fifteen years or so we were purposefully tackling things that we just didn’t think people did. And we were very lucky to have a very strong audience and community-based support behind it. And it was really exciting. And we learned how to do everything – write, produce, direct and it really defined who we were as artists and our integrity as artists and our passion and how hard we work.

*Ray Strachan and Lauren Brotman in Hedda Noir adapted by Jack Grinhaus from the Henrik Ibsen play Hedda Gabler. Photo by Philomena Hughes.*

JAMES

For my last question let me set the scene for you. It’s been a weekend where you and a number of other artistic leaders from the Calgary community have been brought together at a remote mansion by an eccentric millionaire named Sir Cedric Digglesworth who wants to leave his fortune to the arts community, but rumours are rampant that not everyone is on his good list and he’s about to change his will. Then in the middle of the night, a gunshot rings out and when everyone rushes into the library they find you holding the proverbial smoking gun and the lifeless body of our famous arts patron Sir Digglesworth lying dead at your feet. You stand wrongly accused of murder. What famous fictional detective would you want to investigate the crime and clear your name and why would you want to pick that particular detective?

JACK

This one is going to be the shortest answer and the easiest one for me. I would take Batman, the Dark Night Detective, any day of the week. Batman would come in and not only solve the crime, but he would equally punish the appropriate criminal in a way that would be a more fitting justice than maybe what the cops would. And so my go-to is always going to be Batman.

JAMES

Was Batman a hero when you were a kid?

JACK

Oh, of course. I had all the comics on the walls and all the books as well. And he’s called the Dark Night Detective, you know, and the new Batman is that detective genre style.

JAMES

Do you have a favourite Batman?

JACK

Listen, I’m a kid in the nineties, so I gotta go with Keaton. The sound of his voice is always going to be Batman to me. And my favourite actor ever is Jack Nicholson. It’s really hard to beat that joker.

Murder on the Orient Express at Vertigo Theatre – Interview with Director Jovanni Sy

Posted on December 6, 2022March 13, 2023 by James Hutchison

Murder on the Orient Express Poster for Vertigo Theatre Production

Vertigo Theatre 2022/23 Season

Misery, Murder on the Orient Express, The Extractionist, Gaslight, Nevermore

Murder on the Orient Express at Vertigo Theatre is a masterful and thrilling production of the Agatha Christie classic cleverly adapted for the stage by Ken Ludwig.

***

Everything is not as it seems. That statement has never been more true of a murder mystery than in Agatha Christie’s Murder on the Orient Express. Hercule Poirot finds himself surrounded by an eclectic assortment of characters including wealthy American businessman with a shady past Samuel Ratchett, the elderly Russian Princess Dragomiroff forced to live in exile, and the overbearing, loud, and life of the party Mrs. Hubbard, an American. Before the train can reach its destination, it is stopped by a snow drift in the mountains and during the night one of the passengers is murdered!

Poirot is assigned the task of investigating the murder by his friend and manager of the railroad Mousier Bouc who is also travelling on the train. There’s an abundance of clues. An abundance of suspects. And only Hercule Poirot can untangle the web of deception and decipher all the clues to figure out his most baffling and morally challenging case.

Vertigo Theatre takes you along for a thrilling, fun, and intriguing murder mystery featuring a terrific cast including Haysam Kadri as Hercule Poirot. I sat down with the director of the play Jovanni Sy who is also a playwright and actor to talk with him about Murder on the Orient Express, what makes the mystery genre so popular, and how he came to play Mr. Miyagi in the premiere of The Karate Kid – The Musical.

JAMES HUTCHISON

The murder mystery is a popular genre of fiction. So, I’m curious what do you think it is about that genre that has such a lasting appeal, and then I’m wondering specifically, why is Poirot such a popular figure? What did Agatha Christie stumble upon or deliberately design to make Poirot the much beloved and popular character that he is?

JOVANNI SY

I have a theory. I think people love mysteries because the detective is ultimately a seeker of truth. It’s solving a puzzle but it’s also trying to uncover the truth in the face of all your adversaries trying to inundate you with lies. There’s something really appealing about that, about being able to weed through all the deception, weed through all the artifice to uncover a nugget of truth.

And as for Poirot, I think people love him because he’s a showman. He’s so idiosyncratic. One of the really interesting things about the whole detective genre is that we get to know most well-known detectives on a reasonably superficial level. The story is not about their journey to get from point A to point B and learn something along the way. It really is a plot-driven genre, so people will like mysteries in as far as the mystery is compelling and good.

I don’t think Poirot would’ve been a popular detective if Christie weren’t extremely adept at constructing these wonderful puzzles for him. We know his characteristics, but they’re all rather external. They’re about his vanity or his pomposity or his strict moral code. But he doesn’t often undergo a dramatic journey the way protagonists in other genres do. It’s really about how good is he at solving the mystery.

Production Still Murder on the Orient Express at Vertigo Theatre — Mike Tan as Monsieur Bouc, Sarah Roa as Countess Andrenyi, and Haysam Kadri as Hercule Poirot in the Vertigo Theatre Production of Agatha Christie’s Murder on the Orient Express adapted for the stage by Ken Ludwig and directed by Jovanni Sy. Photo by Tim Nguyen

JAMES

In this production, you’ve assembled a stellar cast including Haysam Kadri who is portraying Poirot. What do you think are the qualities Haysam brings to his portrayal of Poirot and as the director of the play how much of that is the director’s vision and how much is the actor’s vision? How did that collaboration work on this production?

JOVANNI

What Haysam brings, other than being a superlative actor is real fierce intelligence. He’s really good at thinking through the text. I mean, I think it’s no surprise he is the artistic director of The Shakespeare Company, and you know for most interpreters of Shakespeare you really need a very rigorous sense of diction and thought. Thought and text have to be aligned and with Shakespeare it requires a real cerebral kind of technique.

And I think approaching the character ultimately, it’s him. He’s the guy doing it. I think where I help is early on in rehearsal, I felt he was doing a wonderful job right off the top, but it felt like his Poirot had a more Sherlock Holmes kind of rhythm to him. Because, you know he’s done such a wonderful job of playing Holmes where everything was super direct, and Holmes is like tunnel focused and everything is to get to the point. Poirot’s not like that.

Poirot is a hedonist. Poirot loves his rich food and his expensive wines and beautiful women. And he is a bit of a showman. In Ludwig’s text he has a lot of stuff where Poirot’s constructed something like the way a magician would present a trick – you sit there and in a second I will show you – this! And he constructs a lot of reveals in a very ostentatious almost vaudevillian kind of way.

So, we almost had to slow down Haysam’s motor. I think his own personal motor is probably more closely aligned to a Holmes-like character who is super fast, super cerebral, super to the point, and instead have him sit back and really enjoy the indulgences of a Poirot and the way he enjoys unfurling the mystery for you in a very showy manner.

JAMES

You know, it’s interesting too with Poirot being as you mentioned a hedonist that perhaps he is more in touch with the psychology and motivation of his suspects.

JOVANNI

Absolutely. I think you’re quite right. Whereas Holmes is much more evidence-driven, science-driven, and data-driven with his kind of process Poirot is about constructing the mindset of the killer. He definitely looks at a murder scene and thinks, “Is this a tidy or an untidy kind of killing? What frame of mind were the perpetrator or perpetrators in? Were they in a hurry? Were they enjoying themselves?” He really tries to pinpoint the psychological makeup and motivators for any kind of crime and match that against his range of suspects. Whereas Holmes is practically on the spectrum where he observes a lot but misses things about the way people work because he’s clinical and robotic in his approach.

JAMES

One of the interesting things about Murder on the Orient Express is of course the setting because the play takes place on a train, and that certainly provides challenges for your set designer, Scott Reid and your actors. But it’s also fun to see on stage. Can you talk a little bit about the set design and what it was like to create that world and put the characters into it?

JOVANNI

It has its inherent challenges. Some things are really hard to circumvent as in Ratchet’s sleeping compartment must be next to Mrs. Hubbard’s on one side and Poirot’s on the other. You can’t really get around that. I think the geography of the crime is pertinent to its uncovering. So, some things are set in stone.

It’s a challenge because a train is a confined space and I think we leaned into it as much as possible. We didn’t try to do an abstract representation where a train corridor could suddenly easily accommodate the five people who needed to be in the corridor. So, you know, in that scene where they’re all passing each other, we just leaned into how even in the most luxurious train on earth you still have a problem if it gets crowded when you try to pass each other in a corridor. Or when you have nine people in a room that is literally three by five how do you stage that?

It was tricky and it takes a lot of precision so that people aren’t blocking each other. Fortunately, the sight lines are good. Scott created some really smart conventions like being able to see through the walls from the rooms to the corridor and having walls implied but not completely filled out.

Luigi Riscaldino as Michel the Conductor, Sarah Roa as Countess Andrenyi, Haysam Kadri as Hercule Poirot, Mike Tan as Monsieur Bouc the Vertigo Theatre Production of Agatha Christies’s Murder on the Orient Express adapted for the stage by Ken Ludwig and directed by Jovanni Sy. Photo by Tim Nguyen

JAMES

So, I want to talk a little bit about another iconic character because you’re also an actor and earlier this year you were in the world premiere of The Karate Kid – The Musical, and you played Mr. Miyagi, who in the original movie was played by Pat Morita. What was it like to work on that show and become part of the DNA, so to speak, of Mr. Miyagi?

JOVANNI

It was surreal is the only word I have for it. I mean, that was such an iconic movie for me. I was sixteen when it came out. And, Pat Morita, you have to understand, was like an idol to a whole generation of Asian performers, because we were so underrepresented. There were so few figures in television and film that weren’t the stereotypical background kind of guy who was a buffoon or an idiot or just inconsequential. Mr. Miyagi had power and agency and dignity and humour and pathos and Pat Morita did an incredible job. He got an Oscar nomination. So, he’s an iconic figure to so many Asian performers and artists of my generation and subsequent generations.

So, to walk into his shoes was daunting because he created a character that everybody knows – everybody loves, and the challenge was how to interpret it and make it my own and not try to just copy him because I couldn’t even if I tried. Even if I just wanted to say, “Hey, let me just crib, everything Pat Morita did.” I’m not Pat Morita. It wouldn’t work. And, in the end, what made it even more surreal was Ralph Macchio, William Zabka, and Martin Kove they all came out to see the show in St. Louis. Talk about meeting your idols. So, it was an incredible experience.

JAMES

I did read somewhere that there are plans for Broadway. Is that correct?

JOVANNI

It’s still in the works. I think if it happened it would probably happen in 2024, but you never know. It could happen. I hope it does. I would love to do that show again.

JAMES

Is that an ambition of yours to get on the Broadway stage?

JOVANNI

You know, it wasn’t. I’m pretty happy with my career in Canada. I mean it’s not an ambition in the sense of one that I would say I actively pursued. There are musical theatre specialists who move to New York, and they’re clearly working towards that trajectory. So it was, I would say more of a fantasy than an ambition. I thought about it the same way I thought it would be great to play shortstop for the Jays, you know, it’s just in the back of my mind. I took no concrete steps to get there. It just sort of happened. But would it be great to be on Broadway? Yeah.

JAMES

I understand that when this opportunity first came up you were busy with a lot of other things and you went, “Nah, I’m not going to do it.” But your wife, Leanna Brodie, had some good career advice for you.

JOVANNI

That’s absolutely true. When I got the call I was directing my thesis play at the University of Calgary. I had just started. I was at the busiest I could have been and I was also scheduled to direct a show in Winnipeg around the time that Karate Kid would’ve happened. So, I thought, you know, I already said I’d do something else, but she said, “Look your friend would understand if you got this. You could pull out of your directing commitment.” Which I ended up doing. But she told me, “If you’re going to do it, don’t just do it half-ass. Do a good job.” And I listened to her. I actually really worked on the video audition. I sent it in still thinking this is ridiculous. There’s no way. But it happened. It just happened and I almost didn’t bother submitting because I thought I’m too busy. Leona is the smartest person I know and always gives very good advice.

JAMES

You’re an actor, director, and you’re also a playwright. Your very own mystery, Nine Dragons, premiered on the Vertigo stage in 2017, which I saw, and I really liked. The story follows Chinese Detective Tommy Lam in 1920s Hong Kong, while he investigates the deaths of several women, and he finds himself battling racism and he risks losing his career, reputation, and maybe even his life. So where did the inspiration for that story come from and what does the future hold for Detective Tommy Lam?

JOVANNI

The funny thing is, I had an image of Tommy’s foil the character Victor Fung, first. I think I saw a picture of a Chinese man in a beautiful tuxedo looking very Noel Cowardesque and I thought, what an interesting man, who is he, why is he dressed like this? And I thought of a Victor Fung like character and I’ve always loved mysteries so the idea to make it noiresque and set it in 1920s Colonial Hong Kong came early.

I was working on this piece in Toronto before I moved out to Vancouver in 2012, but I ran into Craig Hall the artistic director of Vertigo Theatre at a conference in Calgary and we talked about this piece I was writing and he thought, that sounds really interesting. And Craig has his own connection to Hong Kong, and he’s been to Hong Kong a number of times. So, that’s how it started. That’s the connection to Vertigo and why it premiered there. It wouldn’t have happened without Craig.

And what’s in store for Tommy? Craig actually commissioned a prequel, which is another Tommy Lam story that takes place about thirteen years before Nine Dragons. So, we’re talking 1911, Hong Kong and I started working on it. And it may have a future at Vertigo. Jack Grinhaus the current artistic director of Vertigo Theatre and I have been talking about it but it’s early. We’ll see.

JAMES

You know, you’re writing plays and you’re creating this character have you ever thought of writing some Tommy Lam mystery novels? You could write a whole series.

JOVANNI

I haven’t. But you know I love that genre and if I were to turn to long-form fiction, I think I would go in the mystery direction.

JAMES

So, you not only write mystery, but you also write comedy and congratulations are in order because you recently won the Playwrights Guild of Canada Comedy Award for your play, The Tao of the World. And it’s a free adaptation of William Congreve’s Restoration comedy, The Way of the World. Your modern version takes place in Singapore, and it’s two years after a pandemic and the wealthy elite are making up for lost time by hatching schemes to bed other people’s partners and to swindle each other out of their dynastic fortunes. What’s the story behind the creation of that work?

JOVANNI

It’s really weird. I was at the UofC doing my MFA in directing and I needed to direct a thesis play. It kind of happened coincidentally because I was working on this Nine Dragons prequel which is a totally different beast and I had plans to direct this other play, a Brecht piece and then the faculty had some reservations about the viability of doing that piece so they suggested I do something else. And somebody said, “You know, we’re in the middle of COVID, we could use some laughs. Have you thought about doing a comedy?”

So, I thought, I’ve always loved Restoration comedy. I remember seeing a bunch early in my career and being a fan of a number of them. And I started looking at them and I thought about The Way of the World, but I thought at the same time, how can I take this established piece and try to reinterpret it from modern times because there’s something interesting about a new definition of restoration.

The Restoration comedies are all about the restoration of the monarchy after Cromwell. You know, the years of the Republic. So it’s the restoration of the monarchy coming in because most of the English royalists had been exiled in France. But what does restoration mean today? And to me it really meant the restoration of everyday life after we’ve been shut down.

I started working on it right in the middle of COVID when we were still working remotely, learning remotely. Masks were mandatory. Social distancing was mandatory. And so, what would it be like after COVID? Because I imagine the rich and wealthy would be just as naughty post-COVID as they were post-restoration of the monarchy, there’d be a kind of a giddy bawdiness and licentiousness.

And of course, I wanted to set it in an Asian setting because that’s what I’ve done with a lot of my works is try to recenter the experience to interpret it to a modern audience that includes Asians but doesn’t exclude everyone else. So that’s how it came about and was set in Singapore. It was almost like an experiment that just went really, really well.

JAMES

So, you know, it’s funny you mentioned needing a play and then this comes along. How much of your work do you find is just having the practical thing that you need and then inspiration strikes?

JOVANNI

That happens more often than you’d guess. I hadn’t even thought of it that way. Thank you. Wow. That’s a real, Aha! Yeah. I think it’s born of pragmatism first then the inspiration comes later. Or you know, not even inspiration. It’s like, I’ve got something to solve, so how do I solve it? I’m almost a believer that inspiration’s overrated and that if you frame creativity as a series of puzzles to be solved where you can define the parameters what you would call inspiration comes afterwards because you’ve had something active to work on.

Which is why I love writing in genre. I love the mystery genre. So, genre can actually be liberating because it sets the parameters for you and gives you something to do so you don’t have time to worry about do I have some kind of divine inspiration? You’re just trying to crack a knot, right?

JAMES

Inspiration is problem-solving.

JOVANNI

Yeah.

JAMES

We read mysteries, and we watch them on TV or at the movies, but there’s something extra fun and engaging about going to the theatre and seeing detective fiction. What makes the stage such an ideal and fun medium for experiencing a who-done-it and what sort of fun are audiences in for when they come to see your production of Murder on the Orient Express?

JOVANNI

I think first, it’s ultimately a fair test because you are literally, as an audience member, seeing everything exactly the same as the detective is seeing it. Everything that’s happening is happening in front of your eyes. There are no edits. There’s no selective choosing of things. You are solving the mystery at the same rate and with the same details that the detective has. So, it’s fair.

But the other thing is the implication that you can experience a surprise. The gasp. It’s happening right in front of your eyes – the mystery or shock, or unexpected bit of violence, or an unexpected bit of mayhem – it’s so immediate. And I think that’s why the stage is one of the best places to see mystery because it’s a visceral thing. You get that immediate connection when reading a mystery but it’s not in front of your eyes. You’re not seeing blood or a flash of light or hearing a sound that resonates to your core. So, if you’re going to see Murder on the Orient Express, you’re in for a literal ride. It’s like a train ride. You feel like you’re there on the train confined with the passengers and there’s a sense of danger and a sense of fun.

***

VERTIGO THEATRE presents Agatha Christie’s classic
MURDER ON THE ORIENT EXPRESS
Adapted for the stage by Ken Ludwig

Agatha Christie’s MURDER ON THE ORIENT EXPRESS features Haysam Kadri as Hercule Poirot, Luigi Riscaldino as Michel the Conductor/ Head Waiter, Stafford Perry as Col. Arbuthnot/Ratchett, Jesse Del Fierro as Mary Debenham, Elinor Holt as Mrs. Hubbard, Alexander Ariate as Hector MacQueen, Mike Tan as Monsieur Bouc, Elizabeth Stepkowski-Tarhan as Princess Dragomiroff, Lara Schmitz as Greta Ohlsson and Sarah Roa as Countess Andrenyi.

MURDER ON THE ORIENT EXPRESS is Directed by Jovanni Sy, Assistant Direction by Camryn Hathaway, Set & Projection Design by Scott Reid, Costume Design by April Viczko, Assistant Costume Design by Katriona Dunn, Lighting Design by Jonathan Kim, Sound Design & Original Composition by Andrew Blizzard, Assistant Lighting Design by Tauran Wood, Fight & Intimacy Direction by Brianna Johnston, Stage Management by Donna Sharpe, Ashley Rees, and Raynah Bourne.

A Christmas Carol at Desert Crown Theatre – Interview with Christine Ralston & Nate Ralston

Posted on December 1, 2022June 21, 2023 by James Hutchison

A Christmas Carol at Desert Crown Theatre Square Poster

This holiday season Desert Crown Theatre produced a festive and entertaining production of my stage adaption of A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens. A Christmas Carol is the ageless story of redemption where Ebenezer Scrooge having turned his back on love and his fellow man is visited by three Christmas spirits who teach him the error of his ways. In this fun and lively adaptation, you’ll still find all the ghosts of Christmas Past, Present, and Future along with Tiny Tim, Bob Cratchit, the Ghost of Jacob Marley, Old Fezziwig, Scrooge’s nephew Fred, and the love of Scrooge’s life, Belle. There are some scary bits, a few good laughs, a tender moment or two, and some surprises! It’s a fresh take on an old tale sure to thrill young and old alike.

Desert Crown Theatre is based in Vail, Arizona a small community of about 15,000 not too far from Tucson. Last year a group of Vail residents got together to start a new community theatre company in order to provide opportunities for youth to explore and experience the arts including drama. I sat down with Christine Ralston one of the founding members of Desert Crown Theatre and her husband Nate Ralston who is playing Scrooge this year to talk with them about Desert Crown Theatre and this year’s production of A Christmas Carol.

CHRISTINE RALSTON

I grew up in an extremely performance-oriented family. We played instruments, we did theatre, we did film, we did dance. It was really important to my parents to let us explore. Not all of us acted, not all of us sang, not all of us danced. I’m in the middle of seven siblings. There’s a lot of us. But they really wanted us to have an outlet.

All of our children are older teenagers or adults now but when they started going through middle and high school I was shocked when I found out there weren’t clubs with those types of activities available. And our schools are great schools it’s just after years of seeing no choir or drama club we decided to form Desert Crown Theatre.

I’m the director of youth programs so my passion is to do things like our summer camps and our hope is to provide kids and the community with an artistic outlet and to keep it at a low enough cost so that it’s not pricing children out. Because they might not ever try it otherwise, and we’ve already discovered some kids who are extremely talented and have really bright futures in performing who came to summer camp and who had never done anything before.

NATE RALSTON

I did some community theatre where I grew up. Even where I grew up, there was a community theatre. I didn’t start Desert Crown Theatre but I’m supportive of it because I had that opportunity as a youth. I was in three plays as a teenager. Crazy for You, Number the Stars, and Babes in Toyland. And I really liked it. I thought it was a lot of fun. And last year when we were doing A Christmas Carol I really liked the role of Marley. It seemed like it would be fun to be the mean and angry ghost. And this year I wanted the opportunity to try the main role and there are some challenges to it as well, but I enjoy that.

A Christmas Carol at Desert Crown Theatre production photo — Nate Ralston as Scrooge, Raedin Ralston as Young Scrooge, Taylor Ralston as Niece Emma, Éowyn Ralston as Little Fan in A Christmas Carol at Desert Crown Theatre. Pete Mecozzi Photography

JAMES HUTCHISON

One of the fun things about this year’s show is your entire family is involved. Nate, you’re playing Scrooge. Christine, you’re the stage manager and also the Spirit of Christmas Yet to Come. You’ve got your son Raedin playing Young Scrooge and your daughters Krystin, Éowyn, and Evelynn are also part of the cast and Afton is helping backstage. So, this is the second year the entire Ralston family has been involved with the production of A Christmas Carol. What’s it like having the whole family working on the show and what are some of your family traditions you celebrate this time of year?

CHRISTINE

It’s great. It’s building a really fun memory this year, especially with our son playing young Scrooge opposite his dad’s Scrooge. It’s brilliant because he looks like him and can mimic him so well that it makes for a very believable character.

NATE

The difficulty is that whenever we stand next to each other I have to get on my tippy toes so it doesn’t look too odd because he’s a couple of inches taller than me.

CHRISTINE

It’s definitely building a new tradition for our family. And as far as our other family traditions, we don’t really have too many. I grew up in a family and we observed Hanukkah from my dad’s side, but we also did Christmas. And we still do both.

NATE

What we do for Hanukkah is celebrate with latkes and dreidel. And now that the kids are older dreidel has kind of passed by the wayside. We have some end-of-year traditions. There’s a place we walk to and see the Christmas lights. We have our traditions about how we celebrate Christmas on Christmas Eve and the way we have a Christmas Eve dinner and Christmas Day dinner.

CHRISTINE

And every year, at least one or two of us has participated in our church’s Christmas music program.

A Christmas Carol at Desert Crown Theatre — Michael Shaughnessy as The Ghost of Jacob Marley in the Desert Crown Theatre production of A Christmas Carol. Pete Mecozzi Photography

JAMES

Nate last year as you mentioned you played Jacob Marley and this year you’re playing Scrooge and the play deals with redemption and forgiveness. And I’m wondering how playing Scrooge, a man in desperate need of redemption and forgiveness, has made you think about those two aspects of life.

NATE

I have to be fully honest. I’m a religious man, and that’s a normal part of my life. It’s a daily part of my life; asking for forgiveness; looking for redemption. I believe that all men are sinners and have fallen short of the glory of God and the play focuses a lot on the idea of redemption. One of the lines in the show is Bob Cratchit telling his family what Tiny Tim had said in church earlier. And he had said that he hopes everybody can see him as a cripple so that they can remember who it was that made blind men see and lame men walk. A Christmas Carol without mentioning any names focuses quite a bit on Jesus Christ, and I think if I were to have a wish it would be that this show can help bring people closer to the saviour – to the redeemer. So, for me personally, this has not really added to or changed the way that I view forgiveness and redemption instead I guess I’d say it further strengthens my belief in it.

CHRISTINE

In the play, you can really see that the Cratchit family is a religious family. They read Psalms together when they’re in mourning and they go to Church and it shows that they have that connection and that faith that things are going to be okay, and they’re going to make it through. A Christmas Carol is a show that is all about finding hope. It’s not like redemption goes away at the end of your life. Even in your later years, it’s still attainable because it’s never too late for forgiveness or to change. I think that’s a good message that A Christmas Carol shares with everybody who comes to see it.

JAMES

I don’t think until Scrooge is pleading near the end of the play in the graveyard with the Ghost of Christmas Future and he asks for forgiveness that he has a chance for redemption.

CHRISTINE

The graveyard scene is really intense. Especially for us because it’s the two of us up there alone in the graveyard with the tombstone. And we play my character the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come as a lady in full Victorian mourning with a veil. And Scrooge is asking for mercy. This man who at the beginning of the play would never have asked for something like that.

We really try to give that scene a bit of desperation. Nate ends up on the ground in full tears and is really desperate because he thinks that he can’t do anything and the spirit has turned her back on him and it’s a really powerful moment. Not only is he asking for mercy he is also realizing he has to ask for forgiveness. Mercy isn’t just given. Mercy needs to be earned as well.

That’s one of our favourite scenes especially because the following scene is so different. He has pledged that he’s going to change and he wakes up in his bedroom a completely new person. And I think that’s really symbolic.

JAMES

Every theatre company brings their own vision to the telling of the story. Tell me a little bit about the vision for this year’s production as you bring it to the stage.

CHRISTINE

Audiences come to A Christmas Carol for the atmosphere. There had been discussion of do we modernize this or do we change the time period. And the overall consensus was, no. People want to be transported back to a simpler time. People want a classic tale told in its own time which means gorgeous costumes. And we wanted to make our atmosphere immersive so the second you walk through the door we have a choir and they’re phenomenal singers in Victorian garb, and we have a Christmas tree auction set up, and we want our audience to walk in and be filled with the Christmas spirit. That’s kind of our goal with this show.

Production still A Christmas Carol at Desert Crown Theatre — Nate Ralston as Scrooge and Porter Turner as Tiny Tim in A Christmas Carol at Desert Crown Theatre. Pete Mecozzi Photography

JAMES

When I was writing the play I wanted to create a scene that showed how Bob Cratchit is a really good dad and that he’s playful and there’s this wonderful humour and love in the family. And that’s the scene where we see the Cratchit family on Christmas day.

CHRISTINE

I think how you wrote it gives credit to Bob because despite the fact that he comes from this cold, harsh workplace and working for Scrooge he is able to leave that at his door when he comes home to his family. And so, you have this bubbly happy home and they’re playful and excited. Most portrayals don’t really put that in.

NATE

One of the difficult aspects of playing Scrooge is trying to figure out when he’s going to start having this change of heart because he’s super cold and angry, and then he goes on this journey and sees things in the past and it hurts him a little bit, but does it really make sense for that to be the thing that immediately changes his heart?

There’s got to be this gradual change and in the scene where Bob Cratchit and his family are celebrating Christmas and they’re so happy and it’s so much fun he sees what it’s like to have a happy home. I don’t think it makes any sense for Scrooge to start to feel any happiness unless he’s seen how happy Bob is with his family. So, one of the things that I try to show is how the happiness Bob is experiencing with his family is having an effect on Scrooge.

JAMES

One of the other things I have in my version of the play is that Mrs. Cratchit actually does get to give Scrooge a piece of her mind. That’s something she says she’d like to do in the book, but she never gets the chance.

CHRISTINE

Oh, absolutely. And our Mrs. Cratchit plays it so beautifully. She is a sweet and loving mother and she’s so kind and when she stands up for Bob in the street scene on Christmas Day, she does give Scrooge a piece of her mind because she’s a woman of her word. And then of course, Scrooge immediately triples Bob’s salary and she’s taken aback. I think sometimes Mrs. Cratchit gets left behind. So, it’s nice to let her have a moment.

I actually had the actress ask me, what’s her first name? And I said, go read the book. She doesn’t have one. Because it was written that way. In the book, she was just Mrs. Cratchit. And one of the things we have hidden on stage is an original edition of Charles Dickens’s A Christmas Carol.

JAMES

So, maybe the spirit of Charles Dickens might be there to help you guys out.

CHRISTINE

That’s what I think. This book is from the eighteen-hundreds and it’s on our set and the audience doesn’t know it, but we know it. And we’ve got a cast of about 45 people, 20 of which are children. And it helps our board to see that so many people believe in us and support us. And when you have a large cast they bring more people to the theatre and I really stress to the cast as much as I can that you don’t know who you’re going to inspire, whether it’s an audience of 30 or 300 or 3000, you don’t know who you might inspire out there.

We had a little girl show up to auditions with her dad, who we’ve known for a few years and we convinced him to come in and read and guess who’s playing Fezziwig. He did not expect to audition. He had never done this sort of thing before and we just said to give it a go. And it turned out he had a talent for it and he had just never put himself out there. And he is having so much fun and doing the show with his daughters. His one teenage daughter is the assistant stage manager and the little one is playing Ignorance. And it’s just been so much fun to have that many people involved.

The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe at Rosebud Theatre – Interview with Anna Dalgleish and Caleb Gordon

Posted on November 18, 2022March 9, 2023 by James Hutchison

The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe Production Still — Anna Dalgleish and Caleb Gordon in the Rosebud Theatre Production of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis. Adapted for the stage by Ron Reed and Directed by Morris Ertman.

This holiday season Rosebud Theatre is taking audiences on a magical journey back to Narnia in a fun and family-friendly stage adaptation of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis.

In the original story Peter, Susan, Edmund, and Lucy Pevensie are four children who have been evacuated to the countryside from London during the early days of World War II. The children soon discover a wardrobe in their new home that leads them to the magical land of Narnia. Narnia is locked in a forever winter but never Christmas spell by the White Witch who rules over the land. The story revolves around the promise of spring and end of the Witch’s rule that is prophesized when two sons of Adam and two daughters of Eve mark the return of Aslan the lion who is the rightful King of Narnia.

In Ron Reed’s stage adaptation Lucy and Peter return to the wardrobe as adults many years later and relive their adventures in the land of Narnia when they were children. The production is directed by Morris Ertman and stars Anna Dalgleish and Caleb Gordon who play Lucy and Peter as well as all the other characters in the story including Aslan, the White Witch, Mr. and Mrs. Beaver, Father Christmas, and Mr. Tumnus.

I was lucky enough to catch the opening weekend of the play and experience a terrific production that reminds all of us about the joy and imagination of childhood while bringing a beloved story to life. I sat down with the talented stars of the show, Anna and Caleb, to talk with them about the production, their love of theatre, and what they want for Christmas.

ANNA DALGLEISH

For a long time, I’ve been seriously looking at adopting cats and I get an early Christmas gift this weekend. I get to adopt two little kittens and I’m very excited about that. So, Christmas comes early for me. It starts this week.

CALEB GORDON

The last time we did this show I was involved as an assistant stage manager and the gift shop sells Turkish Delight. I never thought I would like Turkish Delight, but I had a bag of their stuff, and I liked it so much that I bought them out. So, let me just hawk for the gift shop. Ten dollars a bag. It’s very tasty. Turkish Delight is my answer.

JAMES HUTCHISON

I’m curious, when did each of you discover your love of theatre and what was it about that experience or moment in time that stirred your soul?

ANNA

Well, I have a very special story that goes along with this because the very first time I saw a play, it was a two-hander version of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. Pacific Theater had put on a show very similar to this one, but it was a different adaptation. I had never seen a play before. I was a four-year-old, so it was all magic to me.

And then when I was six years old the second show I ever saw was also The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. And that was when I fell in love with theatre because I have very strong memories of that. By this point I was an avid reader and already quite an imaginative kid and to see something playing out in real life embodied by people right in front of my very eyes who were profoundly affecting my emotions and whose story I was following along with captivated me. And so, my love of theatre is all tied to this story, and I was very keen to do the show when the chance came around.

Production Still The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe — Anna Dalgleish and Caleb Gordon in the Rosebud Theatre Production of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis. Adapted for the stage by Ron Reed and Directed by Morris Ertman.

JAMES

What about you, Caleb?

CALEB

I went into theatre when I was in grade nine, and I was very good at it. And I say good at it because I could memorize things very well, but I had no idea about emotions or that maybe I should use them on stage.

And I remember when I had just turned eighteen sitting down and having a really big conversation with myself. I had gone to a summer drama camp, and they had talked about the presence of the fool in a lot of Shakespeare’s plays. And I hated being a fool. I hated not being in control was the real thing. And I remember thinking, maybe that’s not healthy and maybe I should look into that.

And so, I did. I decided, let’s do all the things I’ve never done before. Let’s be the fool. Let’s be okay with being a fool because what we had talked about in summer school was how fools are the only ones who are comfortable in chaos and limbo. Everything and everybody else gets turned upside down, but the fools are the ones who are suddenly the guides and the way keepers in those situations. And I thought, “Wow, that sounds infinitely better than been tossed around and lost at sea and not actually knowing where I’m going.” And so, I would say from that moment onwards is where my love of theatre was truly ignited.

JAMES

Your love of theatre brought you to the Rosebud School of the Arts. Both of you are graduates. So, tell me about your relationship with Rosebud and how you feel it has helped shape you as artists.

ANNA

There’s something so intense about forming an artistic voice in such an immersive education environment. Rosebud is basically a street that crosses another street and when you dip down into the valley it’s like you’re fully immersed in theatre and in your studies. And at times that was incredibly intense and sometimes even overwhelming. But at the end of the day, I think that the immersion into the world of theatre that exists at Rosebud is what has made me such a holistic theatre person and so willing to dive into the deep end every time I get a chance to do something theatrical.

CALEB

I know that when I came to Rosebud, I used to be quite a people pleaser and I would always defer to other people and their needs, but Rosebud was small enough that I couldn’t do that anymore. Instead, I had to actually take the stage and when the light was shone on me I had to step into it. Rosebud is where I started to listen to my own voice as opposed to the voices of others and that was very helpful for me in realizing who I was. Rosebud is a place where when you graduate you are your own artist with your own voice.

JAMES

Did you find the same Anna, that you discovered your individuality as an artist when you were in Rosebud?

ANNA

Absolutely. We were all so different from one another and that’s a comforting feeling when you’re at an audition because auditions are always nerve-wracking. They’re going to see sixty people today and how in the world am I going to stand out? But my training here taught me that it is not about outshining, it’s about bringing what only you have to offer to the audition.

And then at the end of the day, if that’s a fit for the show, fantastic. If it’s not a fit for the show, it’s not because you’re a bad actor, it’s because you have shown them what you have to offer and they’re going with someone who has a different thing to offer. So, you never have to pretend to be someone you’re not. You just have to bring your unique gift. And I think that Rosebud grads are encouraged to have that sense of self and that sense of individuality and to put their own quirky stamp on who they are and what they bring.

Anna Dalgleish and Caleb Gordon in the Rosebud Theatre Production of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis. Adapted for the stage by Ron Reed and Directed by Morris Ertman.

JAMES

There’s a famous quote by George Bernard Shaw. “We don’t stop playing because we grow old. We grow old because we stop playing.” And I think that’s an interesting idea when we look at this particular adaptation of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe because Lucy and Peter are adults and they’re remembering their childhood adventures.

CALEB

One of my favourite parts of this show is when Aslan comes back and we just play tag for a few moments. The exuberance that I feel in that moment not only from myself but from the audience as well is so exciting. Who would’ve thought that watching two people run around on a stage playing tag was exciting? And yet it is. Even today, we just came out of a show and oh goodness, people were excited and chattering, and all I’m doing is running around on stage out of breath.

And I think I have a sense of play. I play a lot of video games and tabletop games and that sort of thing, but I’m realizing just how much a sense of play is actually something to be celebrated because it’s not that people don’t have a sense of play it’s that people can’t express it fully because they’ve been told that’s a thing that you leave as a child and now that you’re older you have responsibilities. You can have responsibility, but you can do it with a wink in the eye and a sense of play.

ANNA

This question makes me think of the dedication in the novel that C.S. Lewis wrote to his goddaughter who was named Lucy. And he says something like this, by the time I’m finished writing this book, you may have grown out of fairy tales but there will come a day – one day where you’re old enough to read fairy tales again, and I hope this book will find you then.

And I think that’s true of the characters in the story. I think Peter and Lucy are far enough away from their adventures as children and are far enough into their lives in England as adults where they need to remember how to read fairy tales and how to play again. And I think it is that sense of play and embracing that childhood belief and courage and adventure that brings a taste of that Narnian magic back to them in the present moment.

CALEB

And in this play, at one point I’m Peter playing Edmond watching Lucy play the Witch Queen and she levitates her wand. And the wand does levitate because a Narnian is holding it up for her. And there’s that moment where Peter’s thinking, “Did I just see that? Is that what’s really going on right now?” And those moments in our adulthood are just a trick of the light but as a child those moments are not a trick of the light they really happen.

ANNA

That’s another magical thing that is brought to life in this particular production because even though we have two primary storytellers we have two other actors Christopher Allen and Lacey Cornelsen involved in the process. We start out in this dusty old room and because of these two other actors the whole room bursts with magic and the involvement of these two Narnian characters makes you really believe that the magic has come back.

JAMES

When Lucy and Peter first discovered Narnia, it’s a land of perpetual winter and never Christmas. In fact, the White Witch’s magic keeps Father Christmas from being able to visit Narnia. And the story is about the arrival of Aslan and the breaking of that spell. And the story takes place in England during World War II and it’s about living through tough times with a vision of better times in the future. What is it about Christmas do you think that renews our hopes for a more compassionate and better world?

ANNA

I think for one thing winter is a very desolate time and if it goes on for too long you begin to wonder if we are ever going to see tulips again or crocus again or all these beautiful springtime miracles. And I think that Christmas is representative of that miraculous life springing forth.

And I know that for C.S. Lewis a ton of his interest and passion was in the Christ story and of course that’s remembered at Christmas time where out of nowhere a miracle is born that turns the whole world upside down. And I think, in this story Father Christmas who comes in with this boisterous energy and gifts galore represents the turning point. And he comes with the good news that Aslan is in fact here and the balance of power is shifting, and the melt will come and you will have what you need to be prepared for the coming world.

CALEB

I remember being very young and thinking Christmas is about getting presents and it’s all about getting the Fisher-Price Knights and Castle set or whatever it was that I really wanted. And then of course you go through a little bit more and you realize, ok, maybe it’s actually more about getting socks and more about the people that I spend it with.

And I have always enjoyed the Christmases that I’ve experienced in Rosebud. I worked in the Mercantile for quite a few years while I was a student, and I remember having so many good memories of the place. Closing down and we’ve sent all the patrons home and it’s dark and there’s just a little bit of excitement because even though it’s cold outside and it’s freezing and Kevin’s car won’t start we know that we have a community out here in the middle of nowhere who gather and find warmth with each other’s kindness.

And I remember thinking in the early days of COVID that we might never have theatre again. I tried a few ZOOM readings where I read Shakespeare with a bunch of other players to an audience and it just does not feel the same. There’s no life through the digital ether, unfortunately. I think technology is great but realizing it’s never going to bridge that gap like real live theatre can was very worrisome.

So, it’s reassuring to come out of it now and I’m dealing with a cold but instead of saying sorry everybody I have a cold and you’re just going to have to deal with that I can say sorry everyone I’m going to be masked up for the next little while because I don’t want to spread that to everybody. COVID brought a lot of realities to the forefront. Theatre is a precarious career at times. It’s precarious and it’s a gift to be able to be in front of people and I should take care of myself and others while I do it.

ANNA

Theatre artists have always been adaptive and the fact that it’s a live art means that at any moment anything can happen and you have to adapt to it. We’ve always been good at that. But I think COVID taught us on an industry scale, just how flexible we can be and how creative we can be about solutions.

And I think bringing all of that adaptation and creativity back into the theatre when audiences have been allowed to return, has made us care for each other better and has made us even more grateful for the gift that is being inches away from your scene partner and being just feet away from the audience.

There’s nothing like a full theatre of well-fed, excited individuals ready to watch a show and Rosebud does that unlike anyone else. It’s been a glorious and joy-filled homecoming, these returns to full audiences. And now I think none of us take it for granted. So, there’s extra magic in that for sure.

***

The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis adapted for the stage by Ron Reed stars Anna Dalgleish as Lucy and Caleb Gordon as Peter along with Christopher Allan and Lacey Cornelsen as Narnians. Director Morris Ertman, Fight Director Nathan Schmidt, Scenic Designer Morris Ertman, Costume Designer Hanne Loosen, Lighting Designer Michael K. Hewitt, Sound Designer/Composer Luke Ertman, Stage Manager Samantha Showalter, Assistant Stage Manager Koayla Cormack.

This interview was conducted on Friday, November 11, 2022, and has been edited for length and clarity.
Last Revised on December 22, 2022.

Interview with Playwright Caroline Russell-King – High and Splendid Braveries

Posted on October 22, 2022February 1, 2023 by James Hutchison

Tara Laberge as Emily Murphy in the Drama on a Dime and Urban Stories Theatre Production of High and Splendid Braveries by playwright Caroline Russell-King. Photograph by Benjamin Laird.

Playwright Caroline Russell-King has been writing plays and entertaining audiences for more than forty years. Her Palliser Suite trilogy of one-act comedies which all take place at the Palliser Hotel in Calgary was shortlisted for the National Steven Leacock Award for humour. Her play Selma Burke, which she co-wrote with Maria Crooks, and is about the life and work of African American sculptress Selma Burke was shortlisted for this year’s Sharon Pollock Award. And her most recent play High and Splendid Braveries explores addiction, women’s rights, and prohibition all told through the life and times of Emily Murphy one of The Famous Five. Not only is Caroline a gifted playwright but she’s also a dramaturg, theatre critic, and ghostwriter. You can find out more information about her plays and professional services by visiting her website at www.carolinerusselking.com.

I saw High and Splendid Braveries a few nights ago in The Motel at the Arts Commons and I’m happy to report that it’s a play filled with wonderful moments – funny, tragic, heartbreaking, and triumphant all brought to life by a powerful script and a terrific cast of five actors playing multiple roles. The Famous Five were five Alberta women who lead the fight to have Canadian women recognized constitutionally as persons. Emily Murphy led the battle and was supported by Irene Parlby, Louise McKinney, Henrietta Muir Edwards, and Nellie McClung. Their case was rejected by The Supreme Court of Canada in 1928, but the Judicial Committee of the British Privy Council, which was the highest court in the land at the time, decided in favour of the women on October 18, 1929.

I sat down with Caroline to talk with her about High and Splendid Braveries and the journey the play took to go from page to stage.

JAMES HUTCHISON

Initially, you wanted to write a play about The Famous Five but felt that a two-hour play simply couldn’t capture the lives of all these women, and you found that one voice above the others began to speak to you. Tell me about that process and the years it took to go from your original inspiration to a finished play.

CAROLINE RUSSELL-KING

Well, the truth of the matter is that I didn’t know anything about them. I was woefully ignorant. And so, I was reading an article in Avenue magazine, and it was about the first unveiling of the statues of The Famous Five in Calgary, and I thought, “Oh, that’s interesting.” And in the back of my head I thought, “Oh, that’s a good Alberta Foundation for the Arts grant because it’s about women’s history, and somebody will fund me to write a play about that.” And then I started researching these women and I started falling in love with these women and being awestruck by these women and being completely swayed by them.

The Women are Persons! statue in Calgary honouring The Famous Five. Sculpted by Barbara Paterson. Photo courtesy of Frances Wright.

So, I did a lot of research. I read their books, and I went to Ottawa and put on the white gloves and looked at the original correspondence in the archives, and I had some copies of that sent to me. I did interviews with people including Frances Wright who’s the CEO of The Famous 5 Foundation, and my mother-in-law Angela Matthews was a contributor and supporter of The Famous Five, and I’m not sure exactly how it happened, but I got invited to the inner circle and unveiling of The Famous Five Statues on Parliament Hill. So, I got to meet The Prime Minister, Jean Chretien, and go into the Senate and meet the senators and have cocktails with Margaret Trudeau. And that was interesting because that’s where I first started thinking about loss. There were lots of activities going on at the time, and I fell down that whole rabbit hole of research, and then I started writing the play.

And the play was too much. There were too many storylines and too many parts. And I thought I can’t write about The Famous Five. I have to focus on one. So, the one I was most attracted to was Emily, and a lot of people have written about Nellie. There are a lot of Nellie plays out there. But I thought of Emily because she was literally the driving force behind getting this thing done.

People think the story is about women wanting to become persons. Well, we already knew we were persons. So, what did Emily really want? I followed that thread, and I read her book, The Black Candle, which was the first seminal book of research at the turn of the 20^th century about opioids in Canada.

She went into drug dens and interviewed people and tried to make systemic change and tried to save lives. She was exposed to the idea of harm reduction. We think of harm reduction as being a new thing, but it isn’t. She would have been appalled at the closing of safe injection sites. She was really ahead of her time in a lot of ways. She was trying to save lives and stop the flow of opium. She was amazing. She was a neat broad. I liked her a lot.

Ginette Simonot as Princess Poppy with Martina Laird-Westib and Shannon Leahy in the Drama on a Dime and Urban Stories Theatre production of High and Splendid Braveries by playwright Caroline Russell-King. Photo by Benjamin Laird

JAMES

You said in the introduction to your play that she whispered to you in the night.

CAROLINE

You know what it’s like. You’re a playwright. You know what they do. They wake you up and they start talking to you and then you have to grab a pen and start writing it down.

JAMES

It makes our job easier.

CAROLINE

It does.

JAMES

The play features five actors portraying multiple characters, and the play is very fluid in terms of moving between locations. And I think it’s very cinematic with short scenes, but you can follow the major narrative quite easily. Tell me about the team of people you’ve gathered together to bring High and Splendid Braveries to the stage and to life.

CAROLINE

I have my very good friend Elizabeth Stepkowski Tarhan directing the play. She’s a fairly new director, but she has a huge wealth of theatrical experience. She’s worked all over Canada in A houses with the best directors, and she brings with her this huge wealth and passion and rigour and care.

And I wanted to do it in the Arts Commons. That was important to me. I’d heard a rumour, and I don’t know if it’s true, but I’d heard a rumour that the land opposite the Arts Commons is going to be repurposed and that there was some threat that The Famous Five statues might actually be moved away from there. And I thought, “I have to do my play before the statues get moved.” So, I wanted a theatre in close proximity to the statues, and the simplest and easiest way to make that happen in six months was to co-produce the play with Urban Stories Theatre and Helen Young, who has been producing shows in the Motel for ten years.

The cast includes my really good friend Allison Smith, whom I’ve known for forty years, and she played a pregnant clown in one of my first plays at The Glenmore Dinner Theatre. She doesn’t like to talk about that. (Laughs) So, Alison Smith and Martina Laird-Westib, Shannon Leahy, and Tara Laberge. I had seen Tara Laberge in a Fire Exit show, and I was really impressed by her work. And we have Ginette Simonot. She’s a rock star.

Playwright Caroline Russell-King in rehearsal for High and Splendid Braveries.

I couldn’t afford to put this show on with a full equity slate, so these are some of the best non-equity actors in town and what’s great about being a theatre critic is I’ve gone to a lot more theatre and seen a lot more people, and I’m always scanning for who’s out there and who is going to be somebody that I want to work with in the future. That’s how we got Tara Laberge, and then because of COVID we have an understudy – the lovely Tara Blue.

JAMES

One of the things I really liked about the play is that you let your characters speak from their particular perspective and the time in which they lived. So, we have characters voicing opinions and ideas that today we wouldn’t agree with but as an audience in 2022 we recognize the ideas as being out of step with how we think today. So, I’m curious to know your thoughts in terms of trying to be fair in presenting how these characters thought and still designing the play to reflect our modern views about some of the ideas you present.

CAROLINE

Well, it’s a conundrum, and it’s interesting because there’s been a shift towards taking those attitudes out of plays. I saw a play in the past year that was a historic piece that spoke so eloquently and so vocally about everything, but they wouldn’t have spoken like that at the time. They wouldn’t have said that. This voice is the voice of the playwright who wants to apologize for these characters. And because you’re a playwright you understand we want our characters to be flawed. We don’t want these perfect people doing perfect things in perfect situations with no conflict. That’s boring and unrealistic.

And The Famous Five, as they’ve come to be known, the more they get scrutinized under the microscope the more flawed they seem to people, and then people concentrate on those flaws as opposed to acknowledging the incredible amount of worth that happened because of these women. They literally changed the world.

I believe the audience is smart. I don’t like the term bums in seats. I like the term brains in seats. I think sometimes playwrights want to make things safe and spell stuff out or be superior in some ways, but I think the audience is bright and there are always going to be people in the audience that are smarter than I am.

JAMES

Do you think sometimes playwrights don’t want to be taken to task by presenting a controversial idea?

CAROLINE

Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. But you know it’s not my personality to shy away from controversy. I always say one of my worst flaws and one of my best flaws is that I’m not a people pleaser. That being said, I would like people to enjoy my art, but I don’t write thinking about pleasing certain people or certain elements of our society. That’s not where I come from.

I think we need to talk about the issues more, and I think we need to get out of our silos and talk about the things that matter. We need to build bridges. We need to be able to communicate with each other. I mean, the issue of drug addiction – how is that not bipartisan? How is it that not everybody wants to address poverty and healthcare? What kind of world are we trying to build? It’s scary when we can’t talk to each other.

JAMES

One of the things that makes your story real is that you deal with loss. Emily’s personal loss. Could you speak a little bit about including that in the play?

CAROLINE

That actually came out of talking to Margaret Trudeau because I thought there’s a woman I have nothing in common with. We’ve got our little sandwiches and our drinks, and her life and my life are completely different. But she had this enamel pin on which was a rose for her late husband, and she had lost her son. And we started talking about grief. And I thought, well, that is the universal thing that joins us all together. The older we get the more we’ve encountered loss and grief and I immediately started thinking about Emily and thinking about what the loss of a child would have been like for her. I think personally there is no greater loss than the loss of a child. A spouse is hideous, brothers and sisters are hideous, and parents are bad, but they come in order. You’re a father, you know. How would you come back from that, right? That should be another bipartisan thing. Who doesn’t care about that?

Tara Laberge as Emily and Ginette Simonot as Doris in the Drama on a Dime and Urban Stories Theatre Production of High and Splendid Braveries by playwright Caroline Russell-King. Photo by Benjamin Laird.

JAMES

I’ve seen you on social media where you do a thing called Pop Up Playwright. On your website you say, “Pop Up Playwright is about creating art in public spaces. Playwrights are generally not visible. Actors are visible. Directors are. Playwrights not so much. I think we need to come out of our offices and move away from the kitchen tables and go out. Much like painters, we need to set up our easels and create in public.” Tell me about the decision to create Pop Up Playwright and what it’s been like to create art in public.

CAROLINE

Oh, it’s fascinating. It’s been a great social experiment. I’ve done Pop Up Playwright in hospitals, airports, downtown, at City Hall, libraries, and once on the street. I have my Pop Up Playwright sign I put up, but I also put up a little plexiglass sign that will say something like, “Ask me questions about plays. Feel free to interrupt me.” I invite interactions with people.

It’s very strange because you’re regarded overwhelmingly with such suspicion and one of the things that I get asked all the time is, “What are you selling?” And while I am a dramaturg, I’m not out there trying to drum up business. It’s about having discussions about theatre with people who might not even go to theatre. I love talking to people about so many things and having people come over and ask, “What are you working on?” And I can say, “I’m writing this scene. I don’t think it’s very good right now, but I think I know how to fix it.”

Allison Smith as Arthur and Tara Laberge as Emily in the Drama on a Dime and Urban Stories Theatre Production of High and Splendid Braveries by playwright Caroline Russell-King. Photo by Benjamin Laird.

JAMES

So, now that the play is finished and it’s being produced what does Emily Murphy, the Emily Murphy who spoke to you in the middle of the night and whispered in your ear, what does she think of the play, and what do you hope comes out of this?

CAROLINE

At the moment she would channel Nellie McClung and say, “Get the thing done and let them howl.” The big dream would be to have it produced at the 100th anniversary of the Persons Case, which is in 2029. I’d like to get it on at the NAC, so I’d like the play to have a bigger profile. I think that’s the only time producers would consider putting it on at that level.

But the most important thing is that people come away from the play having had an entertaining night at the theatre. That they haven’t been lectured to. It’s not an infomercial. It’s not a heritage moment. It’s not a quaint little story about Little House on the Prairie women trying to do their thing. These are real women. These are flawed women. These are women who are fighters.

***

CAST & CREW

On a Dime Productions and Urban Stories Theatre presents High and Splendid Braveries by playwright Caroline Russell-King stars Tara Laberge, Allison Smith, Martina Laird-Westib, Ginette Simonot, Shannon Leahy, Tara Blue. Co-producers Helen Young & Caroline Russell-King, Director Elizabeth Stepkowski Tarhan, Stage Manager Andrea Cortes, Assistant Stage Manager Mary Bogucka, Assistant to the director and original music AJ Tarhan, Cello Morag Northey, Lighting Concepts Elizabeth Stepkowski Tarhan, Lighting Designer Calum Maunier, Lighting Tech Support Kai Hall.

Stones in His Pockets at Rosebud Theatre – Interview with Actors Nathan Schmidt & Griffin Cork

Posted on September 17, 2022July 13, 2023 by James Hutchison

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.

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.

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.

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.

Misery at Vertigo Theatre – Interview with Director Jamie Dunsdon

Posted on September 16, 2022March 9, 2023 by James Hutchison

Vertigo Theatre kicks off their 46th Season with a spine-chilling production of Misery based on the novel by Stephen King and adapted for the stage by William Goldman. Goldman also wrote the screenplay for the 1990 movie starring Kathy Bates and James Caan.

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.

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.

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.

Interview with Playwright Meredith Taylor-Parry

Posted on May 10, 2022June 24, 2024 by James Hutchison

Photograph of Meredith Taylor-Parry — Playwright Meredith Taylor-Parry

“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.”

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 13^th 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.

JAMES

Last year I was reading a book called, I’m Thinking of Ending Things by Ian Reed. It was adapted into a movie on Netflix by Charlie Kaufman.

MEREDITH

Oh, Charlie Kaufman. I usually like his movies.

JAMES

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.

Photgraph of Book Club II: The Next Chapter by Meredith Taylor Parry — 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.

Meredith Taylor-Parry and her friends Tanis, Jenny, and Krista - Banff 2019 — “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.”

Photograph of Book Club by Meredith Taylor Parry — 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 Taylor Parry with her mother Elizabeth Taylor and sister Emily taylor Smith in Budapest in 2019 — 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:

JAMES

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.

I mean my God, what more could you ask for?

Link to Phantom of the Royal Winnipeg Ballet by James Hutchison

Interview with Kristen Da Silva – Playwright

Posted on January 26, 2022November 23, 2024 by James Hutchison

Photograph of Playwright Kristen Da Silva — Playwright Kristen Da Silva. Photo by Patrick Hodgson

“I wrote a comedy with a character who has terminal cancer, and I didn’t know whether that was going to work, whether people were going to be willing to go there and laugh in the same breath as they’re going to cry. I lost my aunt to the same cancer I wrote about, and you know we didn’t get to confront some things in real life, because we’re not always capable of doing that with our loved ones, but I got to confront some of those things in the play. So, I think that comedy is a doorway to some tough conversations. And I set out to entertain people, but I don’t shy away from tackling things that might be more difficult or might evoke sadness, because I think there’s something really cathartic about feeling all of those emotions in one night.”

The Rules for Playing Risk, Where You Are, and Hurray Hard are just a few of the plays where playwright Kristen Da Silva takes a comedic look at the loves, ambitions, and struggles of the everyday people in her plays. In fact, that’s one of the reasons I love her work so much. These are people you can relate to and understand and identify with. These are stories about people trying to navigate the intricate, and mystifying road of relationships, love, and sometimes even death all delivered with humour and humanity.

All the more interesting is the fact that prior to diving into playwriting and acting full-time Kristen spent the first part of her working life in the corporate world. Home on maternity leave with her youngest son, and feeling a need for some intellectual stimulation, she wrote her first full-length romantic comedy Book Club. Other plays were soon to follow including Gibson & Sons and Hurry Hard both winners of the Playwrights Guild of Canada Comedy Award.

Her most recent play, The Rules of Playing Risk, a touching story about a grandfather and his estranged grandson getting to know each other for the first time, premiered in April 2021 in a video-on-demand production from Theatre Orangeville. I contacted Kristen over ZOOM back in February 2021 to talk with her about her creative process, thoughts on comedy, going down rabbit holes, and what she’d say to her younger self if she could go back in time.

JAMES HUTCHISON

A couple of days ago, I watched this documentary from 1964 called Ladies and Gentlemen, Mr. Leonard Cohen, and it reminded me of my childhood, because I grew up in the ’60s, and I was watching the cars and the way people were dressed, and I had this avalanche of nostalgia hit me, and I found myself diving into memories of my childhood. I was wondering, for yourself, do you have triggers that take you back to your childhood? And what was that childhood like?

KRISTEN DA SILVA

My favourite part of my childhood was camping. We used to go up to Wasaga Beach where there was a campground, and we had a trailer, and the smell of smoke from a campfire and the smell of Avon Skin So Soft still brings me right back to my childhood. My parents, like everyone, used Skin so Soft as a bug repellant.

The winters were a bit tougher because when I was seven we moved to Nobleton – which is a village surrounded by farmland. It was very different from the neighbourhood where I had spent the first seven years of my life – where there were a lot of families packed in tightly together with kids, and it just facilitated kids playing more easily. In the country to play with someone, you had to be driven to their house.

But at the campground kids used to play all day, and I remember coming back at whatever time curfew was, but all day long we just ran around and played capture the flag and explored the woods. I have great memories of that.

JAMES

I guess when I think back to my childhood and what’s different today is the sense of freedom children had to play. To explore. I remember riding all over Calgary on my bike, you know, going for miles, all over the place.

KRISTEN

Yeah, it’s very true. It’s really changed. I would lose my mind if my kids were gone all day, and I didn’t know where they were. But that was normal in the ‘80s. There were no cell phones. No way to really check-in. It was just come in when the streetlights come on.

JAMES

Supper time is when the mothers are standing on the porch shouting for the kids.

KRISTEN

One of my aunts used a whistle to call us back. When we heard the whistle, we came running. And other than that – we were on our own.

JAMES

At what point did you find yourself being on stage and telling stories, and where do you think that impulse to perform comes from?

KRISTEN

I think it started with dance. I didn’t really enjoy dance in terms of the lessons, but I remember really enjoying the recitals. That feeling when you go out on stage and you’re suddenly not as bound by your own awareness of yourself, and you can express yourself in braver ways through performance and through playing a character. I think that’s what really drew me to theatre and kept me coming back time and time again.

And I remember when I would go to a movie, I would leave the theatre and still be in that world. I was a big reader and I think I was living in a fantasy a lot of the time. Every activity I did as a kid I turned into a story for myself. I remember going skiing and weaving a tale as I was riding the chairlift about what I was there doing and where I was in the world. I spent a lot of time inside my head. Inside fantasy. And I think being on stage was an extension of that.

I first started acting in school. I believe we did Rapunzel, and I think I played Rapunzel’s mother. I played Mary in the school Christmas pageant, which was in French. I remember going to the manger and we were speaking French. And then after that, once I got into higher grades, there was a school play you could audition for every year, and I always did that.

JAMES

So, it’s interesting to me that you’ve got this storytelling narrative going on in your head and this love of fiction and literature, and then you go to university and major in political science and labour relations. How does that happen?

KRISTEN

Well, I’ve thought about it a lot because it really is strange. And the weirdest part is that my parents encouraged me to major in theatre. And I said, “No.”

I think I felt scared of failing. If I were to pursue what I really cared about – and it didn’t work out – that felt like too big a thing to put on the line. These weren’t conscious thoughts that I had back then, but now looking back on that decision I think that’s the main reason I didn’t major in theatre.

Also, it wasn’t a usual career choice at my high school. I didn’t know anyone who had done that in my peer group or slightly above my peer group. I couldn’t look to someone else and go, “Okay, so that’s a path I could take.”

JAMES

What were the university years like for you? Because I understand you did keep your foot in the theatre circle. You joined an improvisation troupe.

KRISTEN

Yeah, I kind of didn’t deliberately do that. You know honestly, when I think back to that time I was really overwhelmed by the experience of attending university, because keep in mind, like from the age of seven on, I lived in this tiny village, and we had one stoplight, and you know even going to York and seeing that many people in one place was a really new experience for me.

I don’t think I was really sitting down in an organized way and thinking through things. You have to declare a major, and I had done very well in my last two years of high school in history and in law, and I thought, “Well, I’m good at these things. I think maybe I’d like to pursue something like that.”

And then at York, in order to graduate, you have to do an arts credit in your first year, and you can pick any art. I picked theatre because that was what I was already familiar with and liked. It was because of that that I got into the improv company because the professor who taught me, Fred Thury, ran Vanier College Productions, which at that time was sort of like a theatre program for non-majors. It was where people could continue learning about the craft and perform.

He asked all the people that were in his acting class to audition for Vanier College Productions, and – I think even before that happened – they’d already cast the improv company, but somebody had left, so he approached me during class one day and basically said, “You’re going to come and be in this improv company.” It wasn’t really, “Do you want to be in this?” It was, “You’re going to be in this.” Which is sort of how Fred was. He was like, “You’re directing the next play. I see your potential, so I’m not going to give you a choice.” Which I think, given my personality, and how wishy-washy I was – is what I needed.

And after that happened, I was smitten. We were performing sketch/improv shows once a week, but we were rehearsing and writing new sketches, I think, two or three times a week. Some years I was also involved in a mainstage show. It became really busy and was also social, and you know you’d think, before class I’m just going to pop over and help with costumes, then you find yourself there for three hours. Oh, shoot, I missed my whole lecture. I really got distracted and sidetracked, and I had a lot of catching up to do on my other classes.

JAMES

You mentioned you grew up in a small village and you talked a little bit about your friends. Have you retained any friends from your childhood or the university days? And, if so, what’s it like having that long connection with someone?

KRISTEN

I have friends from my camping days. We don’t see each other very often, but once in a while we might chat over Facebook. I’m still in touch with my best friend growing up and we see each other once in a while. We’ve lived in separate places a lot since childhood. She was in Kelowna for several years and then, you know, once you have a young family, you don’t see people as often as you’d like.

The people I’ve stayed closest with are the people I met in university doing improv and doing Vanier College Productions. I’ve made a few very close friends through that, and we lost touch with each other for a little while, but we reconnected probably ten years ago. Some of my closest friends are people I met in university.

What does it mean? I mean, I think it’s just that thing of having a shared experience with someone, someone who understands how dear you hold a place that other people, who have not been a part of that, find hard to understand. We went through these experiences in university that shaped us as people, and as artists, and there’s that sort of mutual history together that matters.

And there’s just that thing of people who have been there for you through your life, the people who have been there for your major milestones, good and bad. They become the people that you trust the most, and you turn to, and in some cases, and for me, this is very true, they become your family, your chosen family.

So, they are very important to me. And particularly in the last few years, as I left my previous career behind to embark on playwriting and acting as a full-time pursuit. That was really scary. And those were the people that kept me focused, cheered me on, and bolstered me, and let me know I’m doing the right thing. And when you lose faith, having somebody there who can say to you, “Don’t lose faith, you are on the right path” is totally invaluable. That’s the role we try to play for each other.

I think anytime you see somebody who’s been successful at something often it’s because of the people around them, who support them. Maybe we don’t appreciate that enough and how important that is, because doing something all on your own and maintaining your own momentum takes superhuman confidence.

JAMES

So, I’m wondering now, at this age and with the life you’ve lived, and the wisdom you’ve gained, if you were to have a time machine and you were able to go back to the campus when you were a young student in the bar having a beer, and you went up to your younger self, what advice would you give her?

KRISTEN

I actually think the way things turned out and the path I took is exactly how it had to happen in order for me to arrive where I am, and I’m happy with where I am. I’m grateful for where I am.

So many things had to be in alignment for me to pursue this career and one of the things that absolutely had to happen was I had to go into the corporate world, because if I had not done that – I wouldn’t have had the money saved to make a go of it.

The business skills I developed are really useful as an entrepreneur, as someone who’s trying to manage their own business, if you will. I have a great agent now, but certainly, in the first few years, everything, marketing my work, negotiating, all of that was me. I learned a lot of those skills in business.

And I also wouldn’t want to tell myself to avoid things that were painful or avoid things that you could look back on as regrets, but you can’t, because as cliche as it sounds, all the things that you’ve done and gone through become where you draw your stories and your understanding of the world from. Life is an incredible teacher. There is no shortcut to learning some things.

So, I wouldn’t want to go back to myself in university and tell myself anything that might change what I decided to do, because I think what I decided to do is why I’m where I am right now.

JAMES

So, you’d buy her a beer and say, “You’re on the right path, kid.”

KRISTEN

Yeah, I think I would probably just give her a pat on the head and maybe tell her it’s going to work out. I think that’s what I would do.

JAMES

I want to talk a little bit about some of your thoughts on theatre and writing, but I want to start by asking you about some of the writers you like and admire and who they are and why you happen to like their writing, and I’m thinking particularly playwrights, but it could be novelists, or other writers too.

KRISTEN

I’m really interested in who else is writing comedy, and I’m big into Canadian writers in general. I’d hate to leave anyone off a list because I have so many friends who write. If I were to pick a single play that really moved me recently it would be What a Young Woman Ought to Know by Hannah Moscovitch. I listened to it on the Play Me Podcast where they do radio readings of Canadian work.

There are some American playwrights whose work I like as well. Annie Baker comes to mind. Currently, I’m reading a Lynn Nottage play called Sweat, which is fantastic.

And in terms of other reading, I tend to gravitate to things that are not comedic. The last novel I read was The Nickel Boys by Colson Whitehead, and I highly recommend it. I finished it at 2:00 am and, without giving too much away, there’s this twist, one of those gut-punch sort of things. The power of really good writing amazes me.

JAMES

We talked about you majoring in political science and I have a BA in sociology. And I’m wondering if political science and sociology are about exploring the balance between the individual and society. And I’m wondering if that’s a fundamental subject of drama, right? Conformity versus individualism, and the tension between those two. So, I’m wondering what are some of your thoughts about freedom and conformity and stories? Do you see any of those themes in your own writing or in writing that you like?

KRISTEN

I view reading as one way to better understand things I have never experienced, or I never could experience myself. I don’t know how much I have to say about the specific subject of individuality versus conformity, but certainly good stories often have a character that’s willing to challenge their status quo or the status quo of the world. To make things better, and that’s certainly a theme that’s appealed to me.

I think reading things that are written from a point of view you don’t personally own can grow empathy and understanding for other people and find the commonalities between yourself and other people because there’s always something, regardless of what the story is, relatable in there. Someone has written this story, and it might be their own story, or it might be a story about their community, and that’s such a gift to be able to open a page and grow your understanding.

JAMES

So how does comedy provide insight into the world? Because you’re a comedy writer, and I agree, I like finding the comedy writers. Why do we need comedy? What does it do for us? How does comedy help us understand the world?

KRISTEN

I think it plays a huge role, and I think that’s because it’s really hard for people to be vulnerable and comedy is a way for us to put down our guard. Laughing with someone is a really quick way to find common ground. We both found something funny, and now we’re laughing. There’s a science behind what laughter actually does in our brain, and some of those brain chemicals allow us to feel a little more open for a while after we feel them. In that way, comedy is like a doorway into being able to examine ourselves without the level of fear we might feel doing that directly.

I think comedy is a huge opportunity to bring people in and have them hear what you have to say. It’s very disarming to laugh. And when people are relaxed, and they’re enjoying the story you can say some things and you can get some things across in a way that you might not be able to do off stage.

I wrote a comedy with a character who has terminal cancer, and I didn’t know whether that was going to work, whether people were going to be willing to go there and laugh in the same breath as they’re going to cry. I lost my aunt to the same cancer I wrote about, and you know we didn’t get to confront some things in real life, because we’re not always capable of doing that with our loved ones, but I got to confront some of those things in the play. So, I think that comedy is a doorway to some tough conversations. And I set out to entertain people, but I don’t shy away from tackling things that might be more difficult or might evoke sadness, because I think there’s something really cathartic about feeling all of those emotions in one night.

Photograph of Where You Are by playwright Kristen Da Silva — Debra Hale, Melanie Janzen, Kristen Da Silva in Theatre Orangeville’s production of Where You Are. Photo by Sharyn Ayliffe

JAMES

In our correspondence, I mentioned that I finally got around to watching all nine seasons of The Office and you wrote back, “Oh, that’s one of my favourite television series.” Why does The Office appeal to you? What do they do well? Why is this one of your favourites?

KRISTEN

The first time I watched The Office I was going through a very tough time. I was living on my own for the first time in my life, I had a one-year-old son, and it was a very stressful, lonely sort of time. And someone said, “There’s this show you should watch, The Office, it’s funny.”

So, I put it on one night, and there was just something so comforting about it. It was about everyday sort of scenarios where people are just going to their office job, and the company they’re in is a paper company, and everything feels kind of low stakes from that point of view, but the personal stakes are really high. Steve Carell is a genius in his role. And that character is so believable, even though he’s so outrageous. The writing is funny, the characters are solid, and you feel like the actors are having fun. It became like comfort food to me.

JAMES

You know the entertainment industry has a tendency to label people. This actor does this type of character. This writer does this type of writing. In what ways is that helpful? And as a comedy writer in what ways do you think that’s a hindrance?

KRISTEN

That’s an interesting question. I don’t know. I don’t know if there would be resistance to seeing something of mine that isn’t funny at all. I think over time, as I’ve written more, I have become more comfortable with putting more drama in my comedy, but I don’t yet feel compelled to write a pure drama, and whether or not people would embrace it – I don’t know.

As an actor, I do both. I have done a lot of comedy on stage, but I’ve done drama on stage as well. And in terms of film and TV work, it’s mostly drama. I think that some of the best comedic actors are also some of the best dramatic actors, because I don’t think the skill set is different. I just think that with comedy, there’s a technicality that sort of comes in about timing, and for some people that doesn’t come naturally to them. The really great actors are gifted with that skill, and they always say you should play a comedy like a drama. You should take it very seriously. Whatever’s going on should mean the world to your character. I think that’s what makes comedy work. If we go back to The Office, you know, Dwight is just as serious as can be. And it’s funny, because the actor, Rainn Wilson, has chosen to commit to that.

JAMES

Now that you’ve written six, seven, eight plays are you noticing any particular themes in your stories? Is there anything that you gravitate towards now that you’ve got a body of work?

KRISTEN

Oh, yeah, for sure. For sure. The same themes show up in everything. For me, it’s a lot of stuff around relationships and familial history. Mothers and daughters. Daughters and fathers. Fathers and sons. Brothers. Pretty much everything I’ve written, except one thing I think, speaks to those themes and explores the challenges inherent in those relationships. A lot of things around people trying to work out what happened in their past and make amends.

I’ve just finished writing, The Rules of Playing Risk. It’s about a grandfather and his estranged fourteen-year-old grandson who he doesn’t really know and whose father he didn’t really know either. The story is about what prevented the grandfather and his son from having a really meaningful father-son relationship and how that has impacted the grandson.

The play also deals with trauma and with PTSD. Not in a very open way, it really only deals with it through how the characters have adapted (or maladapted) to their own traumas. I was interested in the idea of how many generations does this affect – what gets passed down and how far-reaching some of that stuff is. I have a personal connection with that. And in the research for this play about this grandfather and grandson I took a lot of details from my own family history.

Both of my grandfathers were in the Second World War, and when I asked my family what my grandfathers had told them about their memories of being in the war it was sort of shocking to me that, at least in my family, they never talked about it. I mean, they would have gone through some horrific things that we now understand carve a lasting imprint on the brain and affect everything about somebody.

And I was interested in that. You know, how does a person go through this terrible thing that must have had a deep impact on him at a young age, and then come home, marry, and have kids immediately. That had to impact him and the way he parented, and it had to have impacted everyone around him. And so, I was curious to see how that showed up in my own family when I was growing up. And how does it show up in me now?

Production still of The Rules of Playing Risk by Kristen Da Silva — Neil Foster and Liam Macdonald in Theatre Orangeville’s production of The Rules of Playing Risk. Photo by Sharyn Ayliffe

JAMES

If you look at the plays you’ve written and characters you’ve created is there a particular character or a couple of characters that maybe are closer to who you are as a person?

KRISTEN

I don’t know. I’ve never thought of that. I would probably have to say that the character I’ve got in this new piece, The Rules of Playing Risk, whose name is Maggie is probably the most like me in terms of how she thinks and how she responds. Our backstories are different, but I would say in terms of personality, she’s probably the closest. She’s quick-witted but cares about people, and she engages in the world with humour, more so than anything else, which is very me. There are probably parts of me in everybody I write. Probably, there are parts of you in everybody you write too.

JAMES

Even some of the nasty characters? The not-so-nice characters?

KRISTEN

Oh yeah, that’s the interesting stuff, right? Like, where did those come from? Are those the things we don’t like about ourselves that we’re exploring on the page? I haven’t written a lot of villains because my plays don’t tend to have a villain. The only play that I can think of that really has someone who was set up to appear to be a villain at first is Five Alarm where there’s the rivalry between the two main characters competing in this chili cook-off. And a lot of that was extracted from my own life. The character isn’t based on me, but some of the things that end up explaining her behaviour I could relate to.

For her, it was the feeling of being left out of things, and she acts this way, because she feels rejected. And I can remember feeling some of those things in my life and certainly, I’ve observed other people who are very spiny and have a hard time letting people in or being vulnerable and that stems from having been rejected and not feeling safe around other people.

JAMES

I suppose that’s because as humans, so often, our behaviour is designed to protect us.

KRISTEN

Yeah, exactly. I think most people want to experience a true connection with others. And it’s just, there are so many things that happen in our life that scar us and make that hard. The more things that someone’s been through the harder it is for them to find the courage to open themselves up and to be hurt again. There are people who struggle with that forever and never resolve it. And it’s sad. Unfortunately, tragic things happen, and people become so defensive over a lifetime that they can’t let others in. That theme shows up a lot in my writing.

JAMES

Do you think a lot of theatre and stories are about characters attempting to be their authentic self and maybe that’s why we relate to it? Is that one of the appeals of drama? Watching characters trying to do that. And then how hard is it for people in life to be their authentic selves?

KRISTEN

It’s really hard. I do think that’s the appeal. I think that’s the appeal in writing it too. Sometimes you can resolve things through writing that you can’t resolve in the world, because in writing I have the ability to force the conversation between two people. And as a writer, I can choose to allow that person to take whatever step, even if it’s just that tiny step that allows the conversation to start. I can force them to do that.

In the real world we all have people in our life that you want to say, “Stop! Everything you want is available to you. If you would just lay down your defences and reach out for it you would have richer, more meaningful relationships and that might mitigate some of your feelings of being rejected.” You see these people struggling to belong, and a lot of the time their struggles are self-defeating. You’re right – it’s fear-driven. No one wants to be hurt, and vulnerability is the most important ingredient in connection, but it’s so hard for most of us to be vulnerable.

JAMES

We started talking about comedy, and now I think we’re talking about tragedy.

KRISTEN

I think they’re the same.

JAMES

Are they?

KRISTEN

I think they are. I don’t know about you but if you were to break down what your comedies are about you could take some of these same subjects and make them into a drama. If you took out some of the jokes and changed the dialogue.

Even my play Hurry Hard, which is about these people who want to win a local regional bonspiel, is really a story about this estranged couple whose marriage ended because they weren’t able to find vulnerability together and figure out their problems.

And it’s also about this relationship between two brothers where this tragedy happened. The older brother was on track to having an incredible NHL career, and a stupid choice by his younger brother led to an accident that basically took him out.

And they both have to live with that in their relationship – the level of guilt, on one hand, that has made this relationship dysfunctional and then, on the other hand, this guy who loves his brother, but his brother took something away from him and that’s left him bitter about what his life ended up actually being.

All of these storylines could be put into a drama very easily and still work. I don’t think comedy and tragedy are very different.

JAMES

Subject matter may not be different, but the tone is.

KRISTEN

Yes.

JAMES

How would you describe your writing process?

KRISTEN

I think most of my writing happens when I’m not in front of my laptop. So, before I start writing, now, usually I have had the idea in my head for a while, and I have started to work out some of the details, so when I get to the actual phase of sitting down to start writing dialogue I have a sense of who the people are already. Their voices have been in my head. I’ve probably already played with some lines of dialogue, I’m starting to figure out the relationships, I know what the conflict is and I’m working out the details.

So, I do a lot of thinking before I sit in front of my computer, and then I tend to write in bursts of a day or two where I’ll sit at the computer the whole day and I’ll get a lot of writing out. Usually, the first thirty pages of something new flow out of me and they’re really easy to lay down. When I’m writing a two act play once I get to a point where there will be a natural intermission there’s always a timeout. I almost feel like I lose momentum at that point, because I’m trying to figure out act two.

The first few times that happened, I panicked. And then once I had worked my way through that painful period a few times, now I expect it to come, so I don’t panic. And I will take as much time off as I need. There might be a break of a month or two in between writing. I have things I need to work out, because I don’t really do detailed plotting. I don’t plot it out on paper. I plot it out in my brain, but I also leave space for the characters to tell me what’s going to happen. I think at some point the characters start talking, and they start doing things, and then you’re just there to report it. I think they need room to do that.

JAMES

Do you find you always know where the play is heading in terms of an ending? I know John Irving – this is so bizarre to me – in interviews, he says that he always comes out with the last sentence of his novel. He writes down the last sentence for The World According to Garp or Cider House Rules – he writes down the last sentence and then he writes the story, and he said, he has never changed the last sentence. That just shows you how unique writing is. There’s no other writer in the world who does that. But that’s how he writes. So, maybe talk a little bit about endings and when those come to you and how they help you in your writing process.

KRISTEN

I don’t always know the ending. I usually have an idea of where it will go, or I have two or three alternate endings in my mind where it could end up. And that’s because I find as you’re writing you’re taking new paths you didn’t expect.

At some point something occurs, and you follow it, and it opens up a different lane, if you will, and you need to be able to be open to that effecting where the story ends. And I think part of the pleasure of writing is discovering that. The reason I don’t write a detailed plot is because I think I would lose interest if I already knew where it was all going to go. I think part of the joy of writing, for me, is discovering the story.

JAMES

A lot of your stories deal with relationships and romance. Are you a romantic?

KRISTEN

I have to admit, after all these plays I’ve written about love that I must be a romantic. I didn’t think I was before. I really didn’t.

I don’t know what your childhood was like, but my parents and family weren’t effusive, and we dealt with life through humour. That’s how we would show love. That’s how we managed disagreement. We managed most things through humour, and humour is a door. Humour can be used to open a door, but it can also be used to close things off.

So, I have had a hard time with romance in my real life. But I think there’s a part of me that really yearns for that and has always wanted the world to be more ideal. And you have to believe in love, right? What else is there? If you can’t root for love and root for the most powerful thing in life then suffering will quickly outweigh everything else. I think, again, back to what we really, really truly yearn for, above all else, is connection. It’s human connection. We are social creatures who rely on each other.

JAMES

I read in a couple of interviews you gave that your friends say you have a tendency to head down rabbit holes.

KRISTEN (Laughs)

Oh, God.

JAMES

How do these rabbit holes serve you in terms of your creative life? Are the results useful?

KRISTEN

I think it’s always useful. You might not need the specific information or knowledge that you’ve gained but there is something useful about constantly challenging your brain and opening new pathways and learning new things. So, something will catch my interest, and my interests are varied, and I think what my friends find amusing are the unexpected topics I’ll go down a rabbit hole on.

At the beginning of the pandemic, I got super into astrophysics, and I was trying to understand string theory, and I still don’t understand it. I watched hundreds of hours of video and read more things about it because once I’m curious about something my brain doesn’t want to let go of it until I understand it.

I sort of hyper-focus on things and that includes writing, which I think is a gift as a writer to be able to hyper-focus and get a lot done in a short period of time, but as a human, it’s a gift and a curse, because you can get distracted by it and end up down a path that really isn’t overly productive. Maybe it will be later, but I don’t think at any point in the future anyone is going to call on me to save the world using string theory.

JAMES

If this is a plot point in a play when you say, “No one is going to call on me to save the world using string theory.” We of course know you’re going to need it.

KRISTEN

Exactly. Well, I better do more research then because I’m just not ready yet. I actually don’t understand it.

JAMES

I’ll bet half the people studying it don’t understand it. Let’s talk a little bit about the first play you wrote called Book Club. Tell me how that came about and why you decided to write it.

KRISTEN

Book Club is the only play that I wrote without any plan going in whatsoever. Like none. It started as a lark. I was on mat leave with my youngest son, and it’s physically busy, but it’s not intellectually very challenging, and I needed something for my brain to work on. I really didn’t write it with a lot of intention. In my later work, if I was going to talk about a subject, I gave it some thought as to what I was trying to say, as opposed to just improvising the whole thing. So, that play, I think, is quite different from the rest of my work.

JAMES

You had mentioned to me that Norm Foster is a mentor and somebody you connected with. How did that relationship happen? How did you connect with Norm, and what sort of sage advice has Norm Foster provided you in your career?

KRISTEN

Oh, gosh, we initially connected on Twitter. I had made a joke and I wrote, “I wish community theatres would do a goddamn Norm Foster play every once in a while.” Which is obviously a joke because it’s hard to find a community theatre that doesn’t have a Norm Foster play in its season. But I didn’t know him, and I tweeted that and someone else – not Norm – took exception to my tweet.

JAMES

They didn’t understand it as a joke.

KRISTEN

No. I thought it was obviously tongue-in-cheek.

JAMES

Yeah, I thought it was obvious too. I thought it was funny.

KRISTEN

Because he’s extremely well produced. Like he is the most produced playwright in Canada, and it’s well earned.

JAMES

If only Tom Hanks could get a break.

KRISTEN

Right. “I wish people would recognize Tom Hanks and put him in some movies.” It was that kind of a joke. Anyway, someone took exception to it and that person responded angrily to my tweet and listed all the places that Norm’s been produced, and I didn’t even see it. I’m at work and my friend texted me and she goes, “Oh my God, you gotta go on Twitter. Somebody didn’t like your tweet and Norm Foster responded to that person defending you.” So, I went on Twitter and Norm basically had said, “I think she was being tongue-in-cheek, and I thought it was funny.”

And then we followed each other, and I was talking to another new playwright, and he had shared his play with me, and in his play he had a foreword he had written, and it included a quote from Norm about his play. And I wrote him back and I said, “Did Norm Foster read your play?” And he said, “Yeah, if you send him a play, he’ll read it.” And I thought, wow, that’s wild that he takes the time to read other people’s plays, because people must be sending him plays constantly.

So, I sort of put that knowledge away, and I still didn’t really have the guts to ask him, because I didn’t know him. And I thought that’s sort of an audacious thing to ask someone, you don’t even know, to spend three hours reading your play when you don’t have a name, and no one knows who you are.

But then one day, I think he had just liked a tweet of mine or something, I decided why not just ask? At that point, I’d written Book Club, and I thought it wasn’t terrible, maybe it won’t be a waste of his time. Maybe he’ll have something to say about it, and maybe he’ll offer some feedback. So, I found myself writing a message. And as I’m writing the message, I find myself not just saying, “Will you read the play, but will you mentor me?”

And, he responded and said, “I’ll read your play. Send it to me.” So, I sent it to him, and he read it right away, and I thought, “Wow how generous that he not only will read my play, but he will read it immediately and provide me with paragraphs of commentary on it.” So, he read Book Club, and he wrote me an email that said, “It’s very difficult to write comedy, and you know how to write comedy.” And he said, “I would love to mentor you. I want to be who discovers you.” And that was the start of what ended up being, to this day, a really meaningful friendship in my life.

He didn’t teach me how to write, but he did help me figure out what worked and what didn’t work. He gave balanced feedback, you know, as complimentary as he was about it, he also had things to say that helped sharpen it. And so, I would ask him questions, if I was confused about something, or if I was struggling with something. And it could be related to the writing itself, or it could be related to the industry.

Because he knows how the industry works. And I didn’t know. I didn’t understand anything about it. I didn’t know how playwrights made money. I didn’t know who made decisions, or how to submit things, and how you get your work produced. I didn’t know any of that. He gave me really solid advice, and he opened doors for me by introducing my work to other people. That is what eventually led to me being produced professionally. There aren’t enough words to describe how important he’s been in my career.

JAMES

Every artist needs their champions.

KRISTEN

Absolutely. And he’s had success and he has the grace as a human being to be willing to send the elevator back down and help other people succeed, and nurture other people with their writing, whether they show great promise or not, he will still read and give notes to people. He has an incredibly generous spirit to other writers because he is really passionate about writing.

JAMES

I’m going to take a little side shift here.

KRISTEN

Okay.

JAMES

Because the reality is we’re in COVID. And we’re in lockdown, and we’re experiencing it, and I’m just wondering what have you found the most challenging, for you personally, living in a pandemic?

KRISTEN

Well, being very honest it’s mental health. Anxiety. I didn’t write for the first nine months of the pandemic or do anything that I loved really, because I was using so much of my energy and my personal resources to manage my way through how scared I felt.

I felt really worried about the sickness itself. Especially in the beginning when we had very little information. I remember thinking, “Can I be outside? Am I going to get sick if I walk my dog?” We didn’t know anything about the virus yet. We didn’t know how contagious it was or how deadly it was. And so, I was scrubbing my groceries down with Lysol thinking if I didn’t do that my family might get sick and God forbid one of them could die, and as a mom of three kids, like all parents, you worry.

So, there was that, and I love my career. I love what I do, and I had an amazing exciting season lined up, and now all of a sudden, I had to watch each show sort of wash up on the shore. Cancellations came in waves. Things got cancelled or postponed, and I know a lot of artists probably felt the same way – it’s not just your livelihood. If you work in the arts, it’s not something you just do to make money. It’s the opposite, right? We almost make no money, and we do it anyway. So, there’s something in it that’s completely integral to our existence. And that being threatened sent me into an existential crisis. I thought, “What would I do if theatre didn’t recover? How would I find meaning for myself? My children give me a lot of meaning and purpose, but theatre also gave me a lot of meaning and purpose.”

JAMES

It’s part of your identity. It’s part of who you are.

KRISTEN

Absolutely. My entire life has included theatre and performing. So, it’s been a profoundly challenging year, but it’s also been a very ground-breaking sort of breakthrough year in terms of understanding that you cannot build your whole life around one thing – that’s very dangerous. So, you have to figure out where your inherent happiness is and how to find joy in life if things you count on right now were to go away, because they can. That’s what we’ve all learned. Things can go away very quickly.

JAMES

I want to talk about honesty, and I want to talk about it on three levels. How important, do you think, is it to be honest with yourself? How important is it to be honest in our personal relationships, and how important is honesty in the writing and presenting of stage plays?

KRISTEN

It’s vitally important in all three areas, I think, again, going back to vulnerability, which requires telling the truth and looking at yourself with a clear eye. Like being able to see the things about ourselves we might not like, and not reject those things but embrace them and accept them. You know, accepting that we’re fallible, that we all have flaws, we all make mistakes, make bad choices. Being able to confront that with honesty, but not with condemnation. I think that’s meaningful when you’re talking about being honest with yourself, but it’s also meaningful when you talk about being honest within relationships. I think dishonesty is often a protective measure. There’s that feeling that if I’m honest about something – whatever that might be – if I’m vulnerable, I might be rejected. They might not accept me anymore.

But deep truly meaningful love and intimacy only comes from the ability to be extremely honest. You can’t build a relationship with somebody on dishonesty because the other person is operating without information that they might need in order to understand why you behave the way you do, and you’re also not able to be yourself. So first, you have to do the work of confronting that in yourself. Why do I react to that? Why does that trigger me to be really upset or feel threatened or angry? You have to be willing to look at things that have either happened to you or that you are ashamed of.

The topic of shame and how it keeps us from being honest with ourselves is also very interesting to me. As a kid I struggled in school to complete things, and I struggled with being able to pay attention. And the way that the world reacted to that was that I was not behaving. I wasn’t being compliant. I was a troublemaker. I didn’t care. I was lazy about school. And those labels stuck to me. And so now, whenever there’s something in my life where I’ve dropped the ball my immediate reaction is to feel shame. I feel ashamed that I’m not as good as other people at organizing my life.

And it’s the same in interpersonal relationships. I think we avoid that feeling of shame because it’s so threatening, because to feel that we aren’t worthy of other people’s acceptance and love is threatening. You know – the idea that we can be ostracized and wouldn’t have people around us, that we would be abandoned. Fear keeps people from being vulnerable with each other.

And on stage, if you want the audience to go on a journey with you, you have to have vulnerability. So as an actor you have to find that. As a writer you have to find that. You have to tell the truth about things. You have to be willing to tell an honest human story showing people that are flawed and still lovable.

JAMES

You mentioned your play, Where You Are, was more personal, because it was inspired by your aunt who suffered from the same cancer as one of the characters in the play.

KRISTEN

Yeah.

JAMES

Why did you feel the need to explore that and create a story around that experience?

KRISTEN

Because I love my aunt so much, and I guess it was sort of a love letter to her. She inspired that story. And I wanted to do what I could to keep parts of her here. I didn’t know how to say goodbye to her and close that chapter. And writing something felt like a way to express what she meant to me. But it also, in a way, helped me process my own grief.

My aunt was given a year when she was diagnosed. And you’ve got one year to do everything you’d want to do, and at the same time, you’re battling an illness. It made me think about my own mortality a lot and what it would be like to know that you had a finite amount of time left. The play, however, is not about my aunt. A lot of the piece is fictionalized. Most of it is very fictionalized. It’s just about the experience.

JAMES

It’s inspired by that experience.

KRISTEN

It’s inspired.

JAMES

Sometimes audiences don’t understand that even though your aunt died from the same cancer the actual story you end up writing from that has touchpoints…

KRISTEN

…but is different. Exactly. One of the main things in the play is the decision to treat the cancer or not. And that came from a conversation with my uncle. He told me she had struggled really hard with the decision to stop chemotherapy because she didn’t want to let her sisters down. She didn’t want to say to her sisters, “I’m not going to do everything I can do to prolong my time here.” Because it comes down to time. When you have a terminal cancer all the treatment is designed to buy you more time, it’s not going to cure it.

And with my aunt and many people who go through cancer treatment, the treatment itself is very debilitating. She would have the chemo, and that whole week she would feel miserably sick. And just as she started to come around it would be time for another round of chemo. And so, she had to make the decision whether she wanted to prolong the time she had or accept that her time might be shorter, but that her quality of life would be better for the last months that she had. And I wanted to explore what it would feel like to be terminally sick and to be thinking about your loved ones and trying to make decisions that are best for you but also honouring your loved ones and the sense of obligation you feel, and that’s really what the character in the play struggles with.

In the play, she has a hard time telling her niece that she’s sick because she doesn’t want it to change their relationship and then everything between them will suddenly have a different colour. Which it does once you know someone’s sick. Every time I spoke to my aunt – every time I saw her – I thought, what if this is the last time? And I remember saying goodbye to my aunt. She had a celebration of life, for her birthday. And I knew saying goodbye to her that day after this celebration would be the last time I would look her in the eye and say goodbye. And we said goodbye like it wasn’t the last time. We said goodbye like it was just another visit and we would see each other again at Christmas. And we both knew we wouldn’t.

So, there was a great deal of pain, but there was also a great deal of beauty and grace the way she navigated all of that. It was really inspiring. And I thought, you know, if I can do anything, I can write this story and maybe if I write this story, it will help other people also understand their pain.

JAMES

What’s been some of the audience reaction to seeing the play? What have you heard back from people?

KRISTEN

It’s been really touching, because I’ve had people reach out to me on social media that saw the play elsewhere and wanted to tell me that they really connected to it because of a personal experience they were either going through or had gone through. And in some ways, although it’s tragic and there are parts of the play that are gut-wrenching, there’s also a message of hope to it and ultimately joy, and that’s what I wanted to achieve. I’m really proud of that piece.

JAMES

Do you think that play indicates a shift in your writing?

KRISTEN

Yeah, I do. I think that’s the first time I really tackled something more challenging. And then it emboldened me to continue to explore things that aren’t light-hearted. It’s comedy, but it’s also real life. And real life is tragic sometimes. I hope that people can find something in the finished play that helps them process their own life in some way.

You can learn more about Kristen Da Silva at the Marquis Literary Website.

Link to Masquerade by Playwright James Hutchison

Link to Under the Mistletoe by Playwright James Hutchison

Interview with Actor John Craggs – A Christmas Carol

Posted on December 2, 2021March 11, 2023 by James Hutchison

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

Link to Four Christmas Plays for Community Theatre by James Hutchison

A Christmas Carol at Tarleton State University

Posted on November 30, 2021March 9, 2023 by James Hutchison

A Christmas Carol Tarleton University: “I think one thing that’s really beautiful about live theatre specifically is the trust between the audience and the actors on the stage. Because the audience knows it’s not real, but they trust us, and they let themselves be fully engulfed by our story and these characters. And theatre teaches you lessons even if you don’t know it, and you keep those lessons subconsciously for the rest of your life.”

Cheyenne Nash, Lighting Designer

This year my adaptation of A Christmas Carol will be haunting several stages across America this Christmas including the stage at Tarleton State University in Stephenville Texas. A few weeks ago, I had the opportunity to chat with Prudence Jones Assistant Department Head and Associate Professor of Theatre and several of the students involved with the production of A Christmas Carol.

JAMES HUTCHISON

So, Prudence what do you think it is about the story of Ebenezer Scrooge that still appeals to people more than 175 years after it was written?

PRUDENCE JONES

We all respect and want to see a redemption story. Getting to watch Scrooge and see him change from being this miser to being a good person and realizing that he is not the most important person out there is important, because inside of us all we have qualities about ourselves that we may not like, and we may want to change. A Christmas Carol allows us to see that there is the possibility for someone who was so bad to do what’s right and change and to realize that we are responsible for the other people on this planet – not just ourselves.

JAMES

This is a big show. It’s a large cast. There are lots of scenes, tons of things happening. So, how do you as a director work on a show like this and bring it together?

PRUDENCE

There’s a lot of leg work before we even cast the show. I am a very detail-oriented person, so I spend a lot of time taking the script and breaking it down. Tracking who could play multiple parts. Making sure I know where individual characters are going to be within the show as well as the set pieces because for this particular show the set pieces are moving and double-sided. So, we have Scrooge’s counting-house that turns around to become his bedroom. And the other side of the counting-house turns around to become the Cratchit’s home.

I also have really great assistants, like Larmie who is handled all our choreography and Sarah our stage manager. It’s really important for me as a director to have people that I can rely on. And so, in rehearsal they’re able to use all that prep work that I did to track all the pieces – the props and the actors and the sets and it allows me to focus on my creative side and to be a director.

JAMES

Larmie as the choreographer on the show there’s the party at Fezziwig’s and the description that I’ve put in the play is simply that they perform a dance of the period. What can you tell me about the dances you’re featuring in the production and how you go about working them into the play?

LARMIE GAMBRELL

Right from the get-go Prudence and I had discussed that we wanted to do a waltz because that was a popular dance during that time period. So, I went to Vivian – the sound designer – and she found me a perfect song. As soon as I had a chance to sit down and really listen to the music I pretty much came up with the dance in my head. I’m a very visual person, so I just went in the theatre, and I played the song on repeat over and over, and I danced it myself until I had it down perfect, because I had to teach fourteen other people the dance, and they caught on really quick too. I think they learned it in about forty-five minutes

JAMES

What have you enjoyed most about the theatre program at Tarleton?

LARMIE

I personally love that we’re a smaller program. It allows us the opportunity to get involved with just about anything we want to. One minute I’m painting the set. The next minute I’m acting in a show. There’s a wide variety of things that we get to do here, and we get to feel really close to one another and to learn about one another and to rely on one another and I just like the opportunities that we’re given here.

JAMES

Sarah, you’re the stage manager and I’m not sure everybody understands how important a stage manager is. I was wondering if you could explain some of the key duties of a stage manager and illustrate it with some of the challenges of putting on this production.

SARAH ADAMS

One of the main challenges in this show is just how big the cast is. I’ve never stage managed let alone stage managed this big of a cast and so I have to make sure everyone is on time doing what they’re supposed to do and being quiet and being courteous. Making sure the actors know they’re blocking is probably one of the biggest challenges and I’m also making sure I’m giving time to every single actor and not just focusing on Scrooge or the spirits.

Theatre at Tarleton’s 2021 Production of A Christmas Carol
Theatre at Tarleton’s 2021 Production of A Christmas Carol

PRUDENCE

Since we’re a generalist program we make it a point that every person is important. Not just the person playing Scrooge. And since Sarah is the one running the show when it comes time for the actual full production we make sure all the students have a good understanding and respect for their stage manager.

SARAH

And I’m working with the designers and making sure I’m aware of what they need from me. I work with the sound designer and the lighting designer throughout the process, and I make sure everyone is comfortable with what they’re doing, and that they know exactly what they’re supposed to be doing and making sure everyone’s on the same page.

JAMES

What attracted you to this particular theatre program?

SARAH

My high school theatre teacher went here and she told me to go do my own visit and I came here and there was this beautiful atmosphere and it felt kind of like home. And everyone here is literally like a family.

JAMES

So, Cheyenne you’re the President of the Tarleton Players and I’m wondering what does that mean? What does that involve?

CHEYENNE NASH

We do a lot of fundraisers and a lot of social events, and we raise money for anything the department needs. And we also want to bring our students a little bit closer together. So, that’s the purpose of the group. And we have a group of officers with a variation of ages and a variation of focuses, and they are kind of the voice for the students, and they make the plans, and I just make them happen. So that’s kind of what I do as the President.

JAMES

Both the sound and lighting elements of a play complement the production and I’m curious as the lighting designer what are you doing with the lighting to tell the story of Scrooge and his Ghostly Spirits as he travels through his past, present, and future?

CHEYENNE

I kind of decided that my biggest challenge would be the spirits. I use the intelligent lighting and LED and colour to separate the worlds between Scrooge’s reality and the supernatural dream. And so, for the first spirit I’m using a lot of sombre colours. Yellows and oranges and white almost. And then the second spirit is vibrant reds and greens. You know, the true Christmas colours because we saw the second spirt as more like a Santa Claus kind of spirit. And for the third spirit I’m using purple, dark blues and colours that are kind of scary.

JAMES

Vivian, you are playing Mrs. Cratchit and the sound designer for the show. How are you incorporating sound in various ways to enhance the production?

VIVIAN ALONSO

There’s a lot of scary scenes like when Jacob Marley first comes or the third spirit appears and so those scenes have a lot of intricate sounds like the chains and footsteps and hellish sounds. And in underscoring the Fezziwig scene I’m using sound to enhance the cheerfulness and to keep up the holiday spirit throughout all of it.

JAMES

You’re also playing Mrs. Cratchit. I’m curious about how you prepare for the role. Have you been looking at lives in Victorian times or are you looking at it more as an emotional journey? What’s been your process?

VIVIAN

It’s been more an emotional journey at least going from her being so happy and content with her family and Tiny Tim and her children and everybody coming together for Christmas. And then the next scene that they’re in, her youngest child is gone. And it’s a huge milestone that she has to get through – holding herself together and holding her family together.

JAMES

Tiffany, you’re playing the ghost of Christmas past. The Ghost of Christmas past offers Scrooge a chance for reflection – what are the qualities you think are most important that the Ghost of Christmas past should possess?

TIFFANY WYNNE

I think all the spirits are very wise and compassionate. What I think is important about the first spirit is that it acts as more of a teacher to Scrooge, and it uses different tactics to make Scrooge come to conclusions himself, rather than directly telling him what he’s done wrong.

JAMES

Since you’re the Ghost of Christmas past I’m wondering when you look at your own Christmas Past are there some traditions or memories that make Christmas time special for you?

TIFFANY

I think what makes my Christmas most special is that my family gets together and cooks all the meals for the holidays. I don’t cook, but I do in fact, participate in that. And I just think that brings us together, and I think that’s probably one of the most important things that we do.

JAMES

Charlie, you’re playing Scrooge. How do you make Scrooge a human character and not just a miserable old miser?

CHARLIE SMITH

Well, it’s the moments that Tiffany mentioned. You know, throughout the play, he sees his own life and where it went wrong. And instead of being told, like Tiffany said, he starts to realize and starts to understand things. So, during those moments, I try to crack the ice a little bit more each time while still retaining that surliness.

JAMES

Why do you think we actually care about what happens to Scrooge? What does that indicate about us as humans?

CHARLIE

Well, it’s sort of piggybacking on what Prudence said at the beginning. We all have a Scrooge within us. A miser that wants to hold onto everything and we might all develop certain tendencies throughout our lives that we come to regret. Sometimes we find it very hard to take back those tendencies or to break out of certain habits. And so, it is good for people to see a story where someone’s so far gone and so self involved that even he can dig himself out of the hole he’s dug for himself.

JAMES

Tyler, you’re playing Bob Cratchit. What type of a man do you think Bob Cratchit is and how does his situation resonate with audiences today?

TYLER KRUMM

I think Bob Cratchit is a very simple man. He doesn’t really require much in life. He doesn’t want much in life. He has what he wants and that makes him happy – his family, his friends. And even though he doesn’t get that much through his job it’s still more than enough than what he needs to be happy. And I think audiences really resonate with that because they look and see what they have in their lives, and I think most people realize they don’t really need a whole lot to be happy.

JAMES

So, if someone was trying to decide between a couple of different theatre programs, what would you tell them about your theatre program and why they should consider it?

TYLER

It’s a program that really allows for a lot of different opportunities. No matter what it is you’re going to do. Maybe you want to be backstage doing lighting, or maybe you might think, I want to give acting a try. Well, you can do that here. It’s a small enough program that not only can you really connect with everyone, but it gives you opportunities to work with a lot of different people on a lot of different things.

JAMES

So, a final question for the group and anyone can answer. Why is theatre important? Do we still need it? What does theatre offer our communities?

PRUDENCE

With live theatre you’re sitting there making a memory that no one else can have except for you and the other audience members and the actors on stage. Theatre is one of the very last art forms in the world where it’s just you as an audience member and the people on stage and the rest of the world is gone. It’s the moment that’s happening in front of you right then and there and it can never be repeated and that makes it unique.

CHEYENNE

I think one thing that’s really beautiful about live theatre specifically is the trust between the audience and the actors on the stage. Because the audience knows it’s not real, but they trust us, and they let themselves be fully engulfed by our story and these characters. And theatre teaches you lessons even if you don’t know it, and you keep those lessons subconsciously for the rest of your life.

A Christmas Carol at Theatre Tarleton

CAST of CHARACTERS

Charlie Smith as Ebenezer Scrooge
Clay Luton as Mr. Bentley
Tyler Krumm as Bob Cratchit
Jake Wadkins as Fred
Rolan Garcia as Mr. Granger
Kaitlyn Dearth as Mrs. Harrington
Landen Harbour as a Boy
Rachel Thompson as Mrs. Dilber
Gerik Lyssy as Ghost of Jacob Marley
Tiffany Wynne as the First Spirit
Morgan Williams as the Cook
Luke Thomas as Scrooge as a young boy
JD Dovark as Scrooge as a young man
Allie Mackey as Fan
Damion Smith as Mr. Fezziwig
Nakiya Oleru as Mrs. Fezziwig
Rolan Garcia, Gabriel Leal, Clay Luton as Fezziwig’s Daughters’ Beaux
Emma Morrow, Shiann Reese, Allie Shaffer, Clara Chestnut as Fezziwig’s Daughters
Gerik Lyssy as Jacob Marley
Matalynn Thayer as Belle
Cameron Bishop as Dick Wilkens
Landen Harbour as Hugh
Mary Lou Graves as Georgia
Micaela Medina as Grace
Kyllie Avery as Tabatha
Tommy Vest as Second Spirit
Vivian Alonso as Mrs. Cratchit
Luke Thomas as Peter Cratchit
Vivan Horton as Abigail Cratchit
Erika Owen as Martha Cratchit
Elena Gracia as Tiny Tim Cratchit
Emily Turner as Emma
JD Dovark as Topper
Shiann Reese as Rose
Emily Rose as Ignorance
Micaela Medina as Greed
Gabe Escoto as Third Spirit
Gabriel Leal as First Man Businessman
Clay Luton as Second Man Businessman
Damion Smith as Mr. Newbury
JD Dovark as Old Joe
Cameron Bishop as Thomas
Emma Morrow as Caroline
Landen Harbour as Boy
Mary Lou Graves as Girl

Luke Thomas, Rolan Garcia, JD Dvorak,
Nakiya Oleru, Allie Shaffer, Shiann Reese,
Taylor Fambrough, Clara Chestnut,
Morgan Williams, and Emily Rose
as Carollers

PRODUCTION STAFF

Director – Prudence Jones
Assistant Director/Choreographer – Laramie Gambrell
Stage Manager-Sarah Adams
Assistant Stage Manager-Olivia Santisteban
Set Design- Prudence Jones
Costume Design- Riley Fischer and Carol Stavish
Lighting Design- Cheyenne Nash
Sound Design- Vivian Alonso
Hair Design- Samantha Heately
Make-up Design- Gabe Escoto
Projection Design- Sarah McGrath
Props Head – Cameron Bishop

PRODUCTION CREW

Light Board Operator – McKenzie Lucero
Sound Board Operator – Jakayla Daniels
Spotlight Operator – Phillip Skinner
Projections Operator – Robby Green
Master Electrician – Kody Lewis
Deck Manager – Turner Laxson
Run Crew – Jillian Lambert, Kody Lewis
Paint Charge – Andrea Alviar
Paint Crew – Cheyenne Nash, Allie Shaffer,
Cameron Bishop, Kyllie Avery, Mary-Lou Graves,
Laramie Gambrell, Bella Jarmon
Props Crew – Mary-Lou Graves, Mary Maturo,
McKenzie Lucero, Jillian Lambert,
Rachel Thompson, Emma Morrow
Light Crew – Kyllie Avery, Tiffany Wynne,
Jillian Lambert, Andrea Alviar, Allie Shaffer,
Emma Morrow, Cameron Bishop, Nakiya Oleru,
Sarah McGrath, Tommy Vest
Wardrobe Crew – Alicia German, Andrea Alviar,
Sam Heatley, Jake Wadkins, JD Dvorak
Makeup Crew – Bella Jarmon, Clara Chestnut
Publicity Head – Mary Maturo

Tarleton State University Theatre Program – The Theatre Program encourages creative thinking and the development of the multiple crafts of theatre through experiences in design, rehearsal, and performance. Tarleton strives to provide students with exposure to a wide variety of performance styles and historical periods, opportunities to improve self-discipline in preparation for a deadline-driven, production-oriented career, and a supportive environment where students are encouraged to try new things and learn from their failures.

Submission Opportunities for Playwrights

Posted on September 10, 2021December 13, 2024 by James Hutchison

I’ve listed several submission opportunities and conferences for playwrights and provided a short description as well as a link to each opportunity’s website for further information. Please check out the submission guidelines for each festival or playwriting development opportunity before deciding whether or not you want to submit your work. Listing these opportunities is in no way an endorsement. If the deadline has passed then take note for the following year.

This list is no longer being updated. Several of the contests are still active so please feel free to follow up on your own.

The Great Canadian Playwright Showcase

Two-thirds of Canadian playwrights agree that greater compensation and access to programming opportunities would provide the highest impact in satisfying their current needs as a playwright.*

*Source: Casemore, L. (2021). Surveying the Landscape: The New Play Ecology in Canada Alberta Playwrights’ Network.

TGCPS is a networking event to foster production possibilities by uniting creatives, coordinators, and crew with theatre industry decision-makers for a few spring days in Grande Prairie, Alberta.

This first edition of TGCPS invites delegates to meet with each other and experience new frontiers on an epic journey of discovery. TGCPS No. 1 kicks off in Alberta’s hidden treasure of the north, Grande Prairie. The expedition takes place May 10 -13, 2024, when a hardy group of intrepid souls from across Canada and abroad meet to exchange perspectives, languages, cultures, and ideas. Join us at the Trading Post where the future of Canadian theatre takes shape.

Conference Details: The Great Canadian Playwright Showcase

When Words Collide – Writers Conference

Where: Calgary, Alberta, Canada

When: August 16 – 18, 2024

When Words Collide is a festival for readers, writers, artists and publishers of commercial and literary fiction, including genre, YA, children’s books, poetry, and much more. WWC is a festival that welcomes all lovers of the written word regardless of age, background, citizenship, disabilities, sex, educational level, ethnicity, family status, gender, gender identity, experiences, race, religion, or sexual orientation.

Festival Information: When Words Collide

The Relentless Award

Applications are limited to shows by writers with United States citizenship, those who possess or are in the process of obtaining a green card, those with student, immigrant, or work visas for the United States, or anyone who currently resides in the United States and has lived here for at least four years.

The Relentless Award was founded in honour of Philip Seymour Hoffman and places special emphasis on works that are fearless in their choice of subject matter, featuring passionate voices that are relentlessly truthful. The winner along with finalists and semifinalists will also receive development opportunities through a series of staged readings at Theatre Row as well as at some of the top regional theatres in the country.

Submission details: The Relentless Award

The Alpine Fellowship 2024

The Alpine Fellowship is a charitable foundation that supports, commissions and showcases artists, writers, academics and playwrights. They are committed to discovering emerging talent, to disseminating new ideas and to sharing thoughts about art, literature and philosophy.

If you’re a writer, poet, academic, playwright or visual artist, then consider entering one of their prizes based on this year’s theme – Flourishing. There are cash prizes and you’ll be invited to attend their 2023 symposium.

The winner of the Theatre Prize will receive a cash prize to support the writing of their proposed play, and the runners-up will receive travel expense support that must be used to attend the 2023 symposium which will be held from August 10th-13th, 2023 in Fjällnäs, Sweden

Submission details: The Alpine Fellowship 2024

Vancouver Asian Canadian Theatre MSG Lab

vAct’s MSG Lab facilitates the creation and development of new theatrical work by emerging and mid-career Asian Canadian artists. The MSG Lab showcases stories from Asian Canadian perspectives and develops new works for future production opportunities. This year’s MSG Lab runs from May to December, with a series of 6 writers’ seminars and two 5-day writing/creation residencies (non-live-in).

During the MSG Lab, each writer will have a personally designed process that will propel the current script/proposal to a more fully realized version for an informal public presentation. Selected applicants will receive development support including:

A $4000 stipend per project;
16 hours of in-studio workshop time with actors and collaborators
Approximately 60 hours of dramaturgical support (inclusive of workshops and a public presentation);
In consultation with the dramaturg, each writer will have the opportunity to design a personalized writing/creation process that best serves their creative needs.

The application deadline for the 2023 MSG Lab is Monday, February 27th, 2023.

Submission details: vAct’s MSG Lab

KHN Center for the Arts – Artist Residency

Application deadlines are March 1st and September 1st annually.

The Kimmel Harding Nelson Center for the Arts awards up to seventy juried residencies per year to established and emerging visual artists, writers, composers, and interdisciplinary artists from across the country and around the world. Residencies are available for 2 to 8 weeks stays. Each resident receives a $100 stipend per week, free housing, and a private studio.

The mission of the KHN Centre for the Arts is to support established and emerging writers, visual artists and composers by providing working and living environments that allow uninterrupted time for work, reflection and creative growth and to present and support arts-related programming that expands public awareness and appreciation of the arts.

Since 2001, KHN has hosted more than 50 working artists each year which include a combination of visual artists, writers, composers, and interdisciplinary artists. Each has found privacy in which to create along with ample opportunities to interact with fellow artists in the vibrant and friendly community of Nebraska City located an hour’s drive south of Omaha.

Application details: KHN Centre for the Arts – Artist Residency

Drama Notebook Submission Guidelines Summer/Fall 2023

Drama Notebook is accepting play script submissions from playwrights, teachers, and actors who have written scripts or scenes for children and teens. Currently looking for plays based on popular works in the public domain, such as Peter Pan, Beauty and the Beast, Pinocchio, The Jungle Book, The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, Anne of Green Gables, The Scarlet Letter, The Sword in the Stone, The Velveteen Rabbit, Swiss Family Robinson, and others. Plays that are of a timely or educational nature, such as Christmas plays, Cinco de Mayo or Day of the Dead plays, plays that explain nature, geography, math, history or science. Also, looking for plays by BIPOC writers and plays that celebrate cultural diversity and equity. Complete information about Drama Notebook and how the company works with authors can be found on their website.

Submission details: Drama Notebook Play Submission Opportunities

National Alliance for Musical Theatre Annual Festival of New Musicals

Musicals that are complete and ready for readings, workshops and/or productions.

The NAMT’s Festival of New Musicals is the cornerstone of NAMT’s mission to be a catalyst for nurturing musical theatre development and production. Every year, we feature eight musicals in short presentations for an audience of over 700 industry professionals. We look for new musicals at all stages of development from the broadest possible range of voices.

Submission details: National Alliance for Musical Theatre Festival of New Musicals

Dramatist Guild of America – End of Play

End of Play is open to both members and non-members of the Dramatists Guild. Writers of all backgrounds are encouraged to participate, and prior writing experience is not necessary.

Starting April 1, 2024, participating playwrights, composers, lyricists, and librettists will be challenged to write a brand new play or musical, or revise an old draft. Through a combination of community-building events, motivation, and that all-important deadline, DG hopes to inspire countless new works.

End of Play is an annual initiative, created by the Dramatists Guild, to incentivize the completion of new plays, scores, or songs over the period of one month. Since the launch of End of Play in 2020, hundreds of participants from all over the world have connected with one another, uniting to overcome the obstacles that stand in the way of creating new theatrical work.

Each year, writers set goals for themselves at the beginning of End of Play month and share their weekly progress with the community. Goals may include writing a new full-length play/musical, two one-act plays/musicals, or completing a second draft of any of the above. Ultimately, the aim of End of Play is to get writers to the finish line with inspirational prompts, motivational events, and the support of their End of Play community.

Participation details: Dramatist Guild of America – End of Play

Theatre 503 – International Playwriting Award

Theatre503 is the home of new writers and a launchpad for the artists who bring their words to life. Theatre 503 supports new writers and champions their role in the theatre ecology. Their goal is to find exceptional playwrights who will define the canon for the next generation. Learning and career development are at the core of what they do.

Theatre 503 is a 63-seat theatre based in Battersea, London. They stage the work of more first-time writers than any other theatre in the country and programme over 100 new pieces of writing every year ranging from short plays to full runs of superb drama. They believe the most important element in a writer’s development is to see their work developed through to a full production on stage, performed to the highest professional standard in front of an audience.

Submission details: Theatre 503 – International Playwriting Award

The Magnetic Theatre 5th Annual One Act Play Festival

Plays 5-15 minutes in length.

The Magnetic Theatre produces plays that have not been previously produced. Playwrights accepted into the One Act Play Festival will be notified by May 30, 2023. Playwrights, actors, and production team members participating in the Festival receive a small stipend. The festival will be held in November 2024.

Submission details: The Magnetic Theatre – 5th Annual One Act Play Festival

The Helene Wurlitzer Foundation Artist Residency Program

The Foundation accepts applications from painters, poets, sculptors, writers, playwrights, screenwriters, composers, photographers, and filmmakers of national and international origin.

The Helene Wurlitzer Foundation of New Mexico (HWF) is a private, 501(c)(3) non-profit, educational and charitable organization committed to supporting the arts. The Foundation offers three months of rent-free and utility-paid housing to people who specialize in the creative arts. Our eleven artist casitas, or guest houses, are fully furnished and provide residents with a peaceful setting in which to pursue their creative endeavours. Applications are reviewed by a selection committee consisting of professionals who specialize in the artistic discipline of the applicant. Numerous jurors serve on committees for each: visual arts, music composers, writers, poets, playwrights, and filmmakers. Jurors, who know nothing about the artist’s demographics, score in five categories based purely on the merit of the applicant’s creative work samples. The Foundation provides residency grants to creative artists from all over the world, regardless of age, experience, nationality, ethnicity, gender, or sexual preference.

Submission details: The Helene Wurlitzer Foundation Artist Residency Program

National Theatre Playwriting Masterclasses

The National Theatre London offers a series of Masterclasses that provide different techniques and insights into the process of play development. Each session uses discussions, exercises, and a Q&A with a different playwright each month. Playwrights leading the sessions will be associated with the National Theatre and will have work currently on at the National Theatre or coming up or recently staged by the National Theatre. Sessions are £25, run 2 hours and are provided through ZOOM. This is an ongoing series.

Information: National Theatre Playwriting Masterclasses

Jewish Plays Project Annual National Jewish Playwriting Contest

Full Length Plays a minimum of 65 minutes in length

The Jewish Plays Project identifies, develops, and presents new works of theatre through one-of-a-kind explorations of contemporary Jewish identity between audiences, artists, and patrons. Submit unproduced full-length (65+minutes) plays and musicals that are written primarily in English and focus on aspects of 21st Century Jewish identity, culture, ideas, and the complex and intersectional nature of contemporary Jewish life.

Submission details: Jewish Plays Project Annual National Jewish Playwriting Contest

Quannapowitt Players – Suburban Holidays XII!

Plays 10 to 20 minutes in length

QP is seeking new plays for Suburban Holidays XI for 2022, our popular annual holiday-themed play festival and fundraiser. We are proud to be presenting our eleventh year of holiday shows! Play submissions should be between ten and twenty minutes in length and focus on a holiday. All holidays are welcome! In the past we have produced plays centered on Arbor Day, Valentine’s Day, New Year’s Day, Halloween, Mother’s Day, Kwanza, Hanukkah, and Christmas, just to list a few! We appreciate large casts (within reason), and also welcome smaller shows. Plays featuring children are also welcome. Also, please keep in mind that we do try to keep the festival family-friendly, so plays with excessive profanity are discouraged.

Submission details: Quannapowitt Players – Suburban Holidays XI!

Theatre Rocks National Playwriting Competition

Full-Length Plays
US Residents

Full-length plays that have not been published or produced professionally. Previous non-equity productions are accepted. Submissions open on November 1, 2023, and close on April 19, 2024.

Submission details: Theatre Rocks National Playwriting Competition

Drip Action Theatre Trail 2022 One-Act Plays

Short plays 30 to 40 minutes in length.

Plays should be between 30 and 40 minutes long, with practicable casting, props and effects and a maximum of five performers.

Submission details: Drip Action Theatre Trail 2022

Golden Thread Productions ReOrient Festival of Short Plays

Plays that are 10 – 30 Minutes in Length
Playwrights of Middle Eastern Heritage

Produced once every two years, ReOrient Festival showcases the diversity of voices and aesthetics from the Middle East and its worldwide diaspora in a curated festival of short plays produced biennially in San Francisco. Playwrights should be of Middle Eastern heritage. The submission deadline for consideration in ReOrient Festival 2023 is July 30, 2022.

Submission details: Golden Thread Productions – ReOrient Festival of Short Plays Submission Opportunities

Gallery Players Black Box New Play Festival

Plays that are 10 to 30 Minutes in Length

Gallery Players is seeking plays for its 26th Annual Black Box New Play Festival to be held in January 25 – February 4th. Each play selected will be given a black box production with non-Equity actors. Playwrights must be available via Zoom or some other virtual venue for rehearsals and use this as an opportunity to continue work on their play.

Submission details: Gallery Players Black Box New Play Festival

VetRep 10 Minute and Full-Length Play Submissions

Full-length and 10-minute Plays
US Veterans – Military, Law Enforcement, Fire Service, EMS, Foreign Service, Intelligence Service, DoD employee, DoD Contractor or Immediate Family of the Service Member.

VetRep provides opportunities for veterans interested in writing. Until July 3, 2024, VetRep is accepting both 10-minute and full-length plays. Full-length competition winners will receive a $10,000 grant, second place finalists will receive a $7,500 grant, and the third-place finalist will receive a $5,000 grant. The winner of the 10-minute play competition will receive a $1,000 grant, the second-place finalist will receive a $750 grant and the third-place finalist will receive a $500 grant.

Submission details: VetRep 10 Minute and Full-Length Play Submissions

Vivid Stage Seeking Full-Length Plays

Full-Length comedies and dramas

Submissions are accepted from November 1 to December 31. Scripts should not be submitted from April to November. One script per writer with a maximum cast of 9 and must include realistic and substantial roles for women. No musicals.

Submission details: Vivid Stage Seeking Full-Length Plays

Screen Craft Stage Play Writing Competition

Some of the greatest films ever written were adapted from stage plays. ScreenCraft’s Stage Play Competition is a great opportunity to have your work considered by influential writers and industry professionals. Drawing on a long history of playwrights transitioning to screenwriting, this competition seeks to celebrate excellent plays that have great film or TV adaptation potential.

Submission details: Screen Craft Stage Play Writing Competition

OFF OFF BROADWAY SHORT PLAY FESTIVAL

Plays no longer than 15-minutes in length.

The OOB Festival is one of Samuel French/Concord Theatricals’ primary initiatives to work with the next wave of emerging playwrights. Come summer 2022, we will present 30 short plays selected through an open submissions process and evaluated by a distinguished panel of judges. The 30 plays are narrowed down to 10-12 finalists, 6 of which are selected by the Concord Theatricals staff to be licensed for future productions and published in an anthology of short plays that will become the 47th edition of our Off Off Broadway Festival Plays series.

Submission details: OOB Short Play Festival

Native Voices: Annual Call for Scripts 2021-2022

Native Voices is seeking short plays and full-length plays written for the stage by American Indian, Alaska Native, Native Hawaiian, and First Nation Artists

Short Plays – Many Native stories involve a Trickster, a cunning, crafty, clever, mischief-making being who often teaches humankind how to be while embodying what not to be. For our 2022 Short Play Festival, we invite you to tell a story inspired by a Trickster. These plays can be funny, sad, triumphant, or anything in between. The only rule: they must be 10 minutes long and must incorporate the “Trickster” theme.

Full-Length Plays – Native Voices is currently accepting submissions of full-length plays (60+ pages) by American Indian, Alaska Native, Native Hawaiian, and First Nations playwrights addressing all themes and topics. The 2023 Playwrights Retreat and 29th Festival of New Plays brings artists to Los Angeles to work on a selected number of plays through a rigorous directorial and dramaturgical commitment for 8–10 days in June. The Retreat culminates in public staged readings of the plays at the Autry Museum of the American West in Los Angeles. Selected playwrights receive artistic support as well as an honorarium; out-of-town artists receive roundtrip airfare plus lodging in Southern California.

2023 OPEN Submission for Production Consideration – Native Voices accept scripts all year long.

Submission details: Native Voices: Annual Call for Scripts

PWC – Many Voices Fellowships

Full-Length plays
Black Playwrights, Playwrights of Colour, and Indigenous Playwrights residing in the U.S. with the legal right to work.

The Many Voices Fellowship is intended to support early-career Black playwrights, playwrights of colour, and/or Indigenous playwrights who demonstrate extraordinary potential, artistic vision, and a commitment to spending a year in residence in Minnesota developing their work with the Playwrights’ Center in community with other fellows. The fellowship is additionally supported by a professional theatre artist mentor. Many Voices Fellows will receive a $20,000 stipend and $3,000 in development support. Full length plays by Black Playwrights, Playwrights of Colour, Indigenous Playwrights residing in the U.S. with the legal right to work

Submission details: PWC Many Voices Fellowship

University of Calgary – Canadian Writer-in-Residence

We encourage applications from writers of all genres who have one to four published and/or professionally performed works to their credit. This residency is a full-time term position, dates are non-negotiable.

The Canadian Writer-in-Residence is expected to spend 50% of their time working on their own writing, and 50% of their time on community outreach, including one-on-one consultations with the public and public lectures or readings. We encourage candidates to propose their own initiatives for community engagement. A background or demonstrated interest in community engagement — such as experience teaching or mentoring writers — is an asset.

Submission details: University of Calgary – Canadian Writer-in-Residence

The Neukom Institute Literary Arts Awards for Playwriting

Full-length plays and other full-length works for theatre that address the question, “What does it mean to be human in a computerized world?”

Submission details: The Neukom Institute Literary Arts Award for Playwriting

Lake Tahoe WordWave One-Act Play Competition

One-Act Plays up to 60 minutes

Each year three one-act plays no longer than 60 minutes are selected and playwrights receive a $500 cash prize and are invited to a 2-night stay in South Lake Tahoe in order to see their work directed and produced as a staged reading at the historic Valhalla Boathouse Theatre.

Submission details: Lake Tahoe WordWave One-Act Play Competition

Lanford Willson New American Play Festival

Full-Length and Short-Plays

The Lanford Wilson New American Play Festival honours new American plays that provide dynamic performance opportunities for college-aged actors. Submitted plays should not have had a previous full production. Workshops and readings are fine.

Submission details: Lanford Wilson New American Play Festival

Premiere Stages – The Premiere Play Festival

Full-Length Plays
Playwrights from New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, and Deleware

Premiere Stages accepts submissions of unproduced unpublished full-length plays written by playwrights affiliated with the greater metropolitan area. (New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, and Deleware) All plays submitted to the festival are evaluated by a panel of professional theatre producers, directors, dramaturgs, playwrights, and publishers. Four to five finalists are selected for a public Equity. Premiere Stages is committed to supporting a diverse group of writers, and playwrights of all backgrounds, ages, and experience levels are encouraged to apply.

Submission details: The Premiere Play Festival

Titchfield Festival Theatre Playwriting Competition

Full-Length Plays no longer than 120 minutes
UK Writers

All plays are read anonymously by a panel of readers appointed by TFT.(made up of a diverse mix of patrons, volunteers, language and literature professionals, all from a wide age range and geographical area). This panel creates a shortlist for a final expert panel. This final panel of readers includes Artistic Directors, Professional Actors, Directors and Playwrights. Plays must be full length a maximum of two hours in length submitted by UK writers 16 years of age or older.

The winner is awarded a £1000 cash prize and a one-week production in the ACORN Theatre with a TFT Director and actors in a package worth £10,000.

Submission details: Titchfield Festival Theatre Playwriting Competition

The Blank Theatre & Ucross Foundation of Wyoming – Future of Playwrighting Prize

Must reside in the United States

This award represents a unique collaboration between the prestigious Ucross Foundation in Wyoming, where artists from all disciplines have been supported by residencies since 1983, and The Blank Theatre in Hollywood, which has been developing new plays and new artists since 1990.

The Future of Playwriting Prize will be given annually to an early-career playwright who personifies the future of theatre — someone whose voice will shape theatre for decades to come, and who will bring new thoughts and views to the American theatrical conversation.

The winner will be awarded a $5,000 cash prize and an all-expenses-paid, two-week residency at Ucross’s ranch at the foothills of the Bighorn Mountains. The residency includes transportation, accommodations, meals, and the opportunity to commune with other visiting artists. The winner will also receive a professionally produced staged reading in The Blank Theatre’s Living Room Series new play development program.

Submission details: The Blank Theatre & Ucross Foundation of Wyoming – Future of Playwriting Prize

Diversionary Theatre Submission Guidelines

Full-Length Plays

Part of Diversionary’s mission is to tell the story of the LGBTQIA+ community, which we accomplish by considering works that have queer characters, themes, or are by queer playwrights. If at least one of these three applies to your work, submit away!

Submission details: Diversionary Theatre Submission Guidelines

Theatre in the Raw – One-Act Contest

One-Act Plays no longer than 30 minutes

Theatre in the Raw is looking for the best, new and fresh One-Act plays no longer than 30 minutes never before performed or published. In particular, they are looking for plays dealing with the themes of culture/social diversity.

Submission details: Theatre in the Raw – One-Act Contest

Scripts on Fire – New Play Competition

Full-Lenth plays with a minimum length of 80 minutes.
Canadian Playwrights

Scripts on Fire is open to all residents of Canada and scripts entered in other competitions that have received workshops or been given public readings are eligible, but scripts that have a planned production at the time of submission are NOT eligible. First Prize: $500, a workshop and staged reading. (Fire Exit Theatre will have the option for inaugural production as a part of their 2022-2021 season).
Honourable Mentions: A prize of $200 may be awarded for Honourable Mention (up to 2 per competition).

Submission details: Scripts on Fire – New Play Competition

Dayton Playhouse FutureFest

Full-Length Plays with a minimum length of 75 minutes

Entry must be an original work that has not been published or produced where admission was charged. Staged readings/workshop productions are not necessarily disqualifying factors. No musicals or plays for children.

Should your script be selected and produced as one of the six finalists, playwrights must be available to attend the festival in person and participate in all events. Finalists must acknowledge the Dayton Playhouse when their script is published. The winning playwright awards the Dayton Playhouse the option to produce the winning play as part of its main stage season royalty-free.

Submission details: Dayton Playhouse FutureFest

Long Wharf Theatre – Submit a Play for Consideration

Full-length, One-act, 10-minute scripts, musicals, adaptations, translations, virtual/Zoom plays.

Long Wharf Theatre has a proud and rich history of forming meaningful relationships with artists, supporting the development of their work, and moving their projects towards production. We are also eager to support projects that originate with artists other than playwrights, such as designers, directors, dramaturgs, and activists. Many of these works have become part of the modern American canon with more than thirty Long Wharf Theatre productions transferred to Broadway or Off-Broadway runs. Particularly interested in plays by BIPOC writers, plays centering on cultural narratives, stories of joy and resilience, multi-disciplinary work, and theatrical innovation.

Submission details: Long Wharf Theatre – Submit a Play for Consideration

The Cape Cod Theatre Project

Playwrights may send one play per season for consideration. The proposed play must still be in development and cannot have received a professional production, or a production that has been reviewed, prior to August 2022. If your play is selected, your play will have a 20-25 hour developmental rehearsal process followed by 2 or 3 public readings with talkbacks.

Submission details: The Cape Cod Theatre Project

Goodman Theatre – Playwrights Unit

The Goodman Playwrights Unit is a season-long residency program for Chicago-area playwrights.

The program invites up to four playwrights each year to meet bi-monthly with the Goodman’s literary staff and other cohort writers to develop their new Goodman commissions. Playwrights must be available to meet at the theatre at least twice a month during business hours and have had at least one fully-produced play.

Submission details: Goodman Theatre – Playwrights Unit

Studio 180 Theatre

Studio 180 Theatre is interested in material that engages audiences intellectually and emotionally and encourages dialogue and action even after the curtain falls. They are interested in works that tackle politically and ideologically challenging issues using a non-prescriptive approach. Interested artists are asked to make a maximum two-page submission that includes an outline of their play, as well as a description of its production history and/or stage of development.

Submission details: Studio 180 Theatre

Theatre One Emerging Voices

Plays that have not received a professional production
Playwrights that reside in Canada

Theatre One’s Emerging Voices is a series of workshops and staged readings of three new, original plays by local and regional Canadian playwrights. Participating playwrights benefit from dramaturgical support before, during and after the workshops, have the opportunity to engage with professional artists during a CAEA workshop and see their plays read before live audiences that evening, receiving valuable feedback from actors and patrons.

Submission details: Theatre One Emerging Voices

The Henley Rose Playwright Competition for Women

Full-Length or Two-Act plays.
Female-identifying playwrights.

The Henley Rose Playwright Competition for Women was founded by Yellow Rose Productions, with the permission of Beth Henley, to encourage and recognize the new works of female playwrights. The competition aims to give voice to the stories of this generation and to bring into the spotlight important works that have been crafted. Submissions are welcome from July 1st until August 31st and will be read by a committee of writers, theatre artists, and producers. The first 250 submissions to be received between July 1st until August 31st will be considered.

Submission details: The Henley Rose Playwright Competition for Women

Enough! Plays to End Gun Violence

10 Minute Plays that address the issue of gun violence.
Unpublished and unproduced plays by writers aged 13-19. Plays must be the original work of a single writer.

ENOUGH! Plays to End Gun Violence creates space for teens to confront gun violence by creating new works of theatre that will spark critical conversations and inspire meaningful action in communities across the country. Their mission is to promote playwriting as a tool for self-expression and social change, harnessing this generation’s spirit of activism and providing a platform for America’s playwrights of tomorrow to discover and develop their voices today.

Submission details: Enough! Plays to End Gun Violence

Newmarket International Festival of One Act Plays

One-Act Plays between 15 to 45 minutes in length
International Submissions

The Newmarket International Festival of One Act Plays is an annual festival with a focus on one-act plays. Plays are performed for a single performance over a three-day festival in September. The submission window for the 2023 festival ends on February 28th, 2023.

Submission details: Newmarket International Festival of One Act Plays

Constellation Stage + Screen: Woodward/Newman Award

Full-length Plays between 75 and 135 minutes. TYA shows should have a complete running time of over 40 minutes.

The Woodward/Newman Award is an exclusive honour offered by Bloomington Playwrights Project, started through the support of Joanne Woodward, Newman’s Own Foundation, and the Newman family, celebrating Paul Newman & Joanne Woodward’s tremendous history of work on stage and screen. The Woodward/Newman Award presents the best-unpublished play of the year with a cash prize of $3,000 and a full production as part of BPP’s Mainstage season, along with travel reimbursement.

Submission details: Constellation Stage + Screen: Woodward/Newman Award

The Kennedy Center VSA Playwright Discovery Program Competition

10-Minute Plays

Young writers with disabilities are invited to submit a ‘ten-minute script’ of any genre. Scripts may be for plays, musicals, multimedia, video, film, TV, podcasts, or other writing for performance. Entries may be the work of an individual student or a collaboration of two students that includes at least one student with a disability. A panel of theater professionals selects division winners.

We welcome international applications. International applicants must be ages 15-18, have a disability, and submit all materials in English or ASL.

Submission details: The Kennedy Center VSA Playwright Discovery Program Competition

MadLab Theatre Roulette

Plays 5 to 15 minutes in length

Theatre Roulette is Ohio’s longest-running shorts festival. The festival receives over 1,000 scripts annually from every corner of the world. Playwrights will be notified when their script is received, but only contacted further if the show is selected for production.

Submission details: MadLab Theatre Roulette

Theatre Oxford 10-Minute Play Contest

10-Minute Plays

Theatre Oxford’s annual 10-Minute Play Festival draws new works from all over the world. The grand prize is $1,000 plus production in arts-loving Oxford Mississippi, a town beloved for its literary history. Through this festival, Theatre Oxford encourages creativity and advances its mission to make the theatre accessible and enjoyable for all.

Submission details: Theatre Oxford 10-Minute Play Contest

The Valley Players Playwright Award

Full-Length Plays
Vermont, New Hampshire or Maine Playwrights

The Valley Players Playwright Award was established in 1982. The intent of the award is to promote the theater arts and to encourage and support the creation of original plays by residents of Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine. Any Vermont, New Hampshire or Maine resident is eligible to submit one or more original, full length, non-musical plays for consideration, providing the play has not been produced on stage before and has not been previously published. Plays which have had workshop readings are eligible. Plays which have won an award or prize in any other playwriting contest are not eligible.

Submission details: The Valley Players Playwright Award

The Road Theatre Company 15th Annual Summer Playwrights Festival

Plays of any length and any genre are accepted but plays must be unproduced on the West Coast and remain unpublished until after the festival.

Now in its 31st season THE ROAD THEATRE COMPANY and Taylor Gilbert, Founder/Artistic Director together with Sam Anderson, Artistic Director, remain committed to our meaningful mission to produce and develop new work for the stage. We are thrilled to announce that the play submission process is now open for new and diverse plays to be considered for our Summer Playwrights Festival. One of the largest staged reading festivals in the United States, SPF hosts a diverse gathering of playwrights from across the country and around the world. Submissions from established/published authors or first time playwrights are welcome.

Submission details: The Road Theatre Company – 15th Annual Summer Playwrights Festival

Green Man Theatre Troupe – 10 Minute Play Festival for Midwestern Playwrights

10-Minute plays maximum of 8 pages long
Playwrights must be currently residing in Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Wisconsin, Missouri or Michigan. Scripts with previous performances are permitted but must be unpublished.

GreenMan will be presenting Eight to the Bar/ista, an evening of eight 10 minute plays. The prompt is “Happy Anniversary!” The show will be performed in July, 2023 at Brewpoint Coffee in Elmhurst, Illinois.

Submission details: Green Man Theatre Troupe 10 Minute Play Festival for Midwestern Playwrights

Little Fish Theatre – Pick of the Vine

Plays a Maximum of 15 minutes

Little Fish Theatre in San Pedro CA accepts scripts for their annual PICK OF THE VINE short play festival.

Submission details: Little Fish Theatre – Pick of the Vine

Eugene O’Neill Theater Center – National Playwrights Conference

All genres and styles of drama, including one-acts and solo pieces
Playwrights must be 18 years of age and have the right to work within the United States.

Founded in 1964, the National Playwrights Conference at the Eugene O’Neill Theater Center is the country’s premier institution for new play development. Every summer, a select number of unproduced works are selected from a pool of 1,000+ submissions for a playwright-driven workshop on the O’Neill’s campus in beautiful Waterford, CT. The O’Neill strives to foster an inclusive, collaborative environment in which artistic exploration and experimentation are encouraged at every step in the process.

The National Playwrights Conference is delighted to accept script submissions from playwrights of all stripes. We hold our mission of discovering and amplifying the voices of new plays and playwrights in high esteem, and remain committed to maintaining the open, blind submissions policy that has been place since the inception of the National Playwriting Conference itself.

Submission details: Eugene O’Neill Theater Center – National Playwrights Conference

Eugene O’Neill Theater Center – Young Playwrights Festival

Original Plays 10-15 Pages in Length
Playwrights 12 to 18 years of age living in the United States

oung Playwrights will spend a weekend at the O’Neill with a dedicated creative team – director, dramaturg, and actors – comprised of National Theater Institute alumni helping them stage their plays. The development process draws on principles and techniques used during the O’Neill’s renowned National Playwrights Conference. With these methods, the young playwrights hone their work, furthering it from the initial isolation of writing to the collaborative process involved in making their script into a living, breathing play. Students receive a rigorous exploration of their work guided by professional artists as well as a script-in-hand public reading of their new play.

Submission details: Eugene O’Neill Theater Center – Young Playwrights Festival

Hampstead Theatre – Open Script Submissions

Full-Length Plays

All submissions should be unperformed, original full-length plays written in English by UK based playwrights.

Submission details: Hampstead Theatre – Open Script Submission Opportunities

Gloucester Stage – Play Submissions

Gloucester Stage Co. is looking for new plays that reflect a cultural competency with cunning, intelligence, and passion. Because of their intimate performance space they are looking for shows with no more than 6 characters. Gloucester Stage is committed to upholding the work of local authors and stories from under-represented communities. Playwrights in the United States, Canada, and the UK may submit.

Submission details: Gloucester Stage – Play Submissions

The Bread & Roses Playwriting Award

Full-Length Plays
Playwrights based in Europe

The Bread & Roses Playwriting Award is a competition for full-length theatre plays by European-based writers that have not previously been produced or published and feature at least half female, non-binary or gender neutral roles.

Submission details: The Bread & Roses Theatre Playwriting Award

Stage It! 10-Minute Plays Competition – Center for Performing Arts – Bonita Springs Florida

10-Minute Plays
International Submissions

The STAGE IT! Ten-Minute Play Festival is an annual short play festival that culminates with the production of at least 10 ten-minute plays, along with the release of a volume of collected short plays selected by an international panel of judges. The Center’s intention with the Festival is to promote playwrights and their work. Playwrights maintain full rights over their plays beyond publication and are not held back from further publishing or future productions. Direct contact information is included in the book and the book states clearly that any and all production rights are solely the playwrights’. The book encourages readers and possible producers to make contact with the authors.

Submission details: Stage It! 10 Minute Plays Competition

Atlanta Shakespeare Co. – MUSE OF FIRE BIPOC PLAYWRITING FESTIVAL

Full-length plays between 90 minutes to 2 hours and 30 minutes
New Works no previously published or produced plays will be accepted.

The Atlanta Shakespeare Company is launching a new playwriting initiative for historically marginalized artists. The “Muse Of Fire Playwriting Festival” invites playwrights of the global majority to create a full-length play that reimagines Shakespeare’s themes and plots through the lens of BIPOC America. Script submissions will be accepted through spring 2023, and three finalists will be invited to Atlanta to see their scripts receive staged readings in summer 2023. The winning script will also receive a $5000 cash prize and a staged reading at the January 2024 Shakespeare Theatre Association Conference, hosted by the Atlanta Shakespeare Company.

Submission details: Atlanta Shakespeare Co. – MUSE OF FIRE BIPOC PLAYWRITING FESTIVAL

The Seymour J. and Ethel S. Frank Festival of New Plays: JETFest

Full-Length Plays with a maximum of 85 minutes
Playwrights 18 years of age and older.

JET’s main stage programming is wide-ranging, including comedies, dramas, and plays that often reflect issues of family, community, and humanity. Entry must be a full-length original work or adaptation with a minimum running time of 85 minutes that has not been produced prior to the festival. Maximum cast size of 10. Staged readings/workshop productions are not disqualifying factors.

Submission details: The Seymour J. and Ethel S. Frank Festival of New Plays: JETFest

Windsor Fringe – The Kenneth Branagh Award for New Drama Writing

Plays 25 to 35 minutes in length.

Amateur playwrights worldwide are invited to submit unpublished one-act plays. Three winning scripts will be selected for fully staged performances during the Windsor Fringe Festival.

Submission details: Windsor Fringe – The Kenneth Branagh Award for New Drama Writing

Pioneer Drama Service – Shubert Fendrich Memorial Playwriting Contest

Family Friendly Submissions between 15 minutes and two hours.

In order to encourage the development of quality theatrical materials for the educational, community and children’s theatre markets, Pioneer Drama Service sponsors the annual Shubert Fendrich Memorial Playwriting Contest. Shubert Fendrich founded Pioneer Drama Service in 1963 and was the heart and soul of the business for more than twenty-five years. The Shubert Fendrich Memorial Playwriting Contest is an ongoing contest, with a winner selected by June 1 each year from all eligible submissions received during the previous year. All eligible plays accepted for publication will be considered contest finalists, from which the winner will be selected. The contest winner will receive a $1,000 royalty advance in addition to publication.

Submission details: Pioneer Drama Service: Shubert Fendrich Memorial Playwriting Contest

Alleyway Theatre: Maxim Mazumdar New Play Competition

One Act and Full Length Plays

The annual international competition was founded in 1989 by Alleyway Theatre in memory of Canadian actor/playwright Maxim Mazumdar (1953-1988). Playwrights around the world (with or without representation) are encouraged to submit their plays and musicals each season to the Maxim Mazumdar New Play Competition. Each category of the Mazumdar Competition is for plays that are ready for production. The winning script in each category will receive a full production, along with a cash prize.

Submission details: Alleyway Theatre – Maxim Mazumdar New Play Competition

The International Academy of Television Arts & Sciences Foundation: Sir Peter Ustinov Television Scriptwriting Award

One-hour television script.

Created in 1989, The International Academy of Television Arts & Sciences Foundation has its own Constitution, Officers and independent Board of Trustees. Each year, The Foundation administers the Sir Peter Ustinov Television Scriptwriting Award. The competition is designed to motivate non-American novice writers under the age of 30, and offer them the recognition and encouragement that might lead to a successful career in television scriptwriting. Entrants are asked to create a completed half-hour to one-hour English-language television drama script. The award winner receives $2,500.

Submission Details: Sir Peter Ustinov Television Scriptwriting Award

Know Theatre – Playwrights and Artist Festival

Plays 15 to 20 minutes in length.

When we look at a piece of art, each person has a different interpretation. That is the beauty of art and the challenge to our playwrights. Each year, we offer three works of art and ask writers for plays from 15 to 20 minutes in length based on how they are moved or inspired by the artwork. We blind-read the submissions, select two for each artwork and produce them. The art is exhibited, we perform the play and ask the audience for feedback. Musical pieces inspired by the artwork are also shared. After each performance, there is a talkback that includes the playwright, the composer, the director and actors. We also like to include our artists, if possible. This mixed-media event draws inquisitive art and theatre lovers to the festival and it makes for an exciting night of theatre.

Submission details: Know Theatre Playwrights and Artists Festival

Playwrights Guild of Canada Tom Hendry Awards

Full Length plays multiple categories.

The Playwrights Guild of Canada hosts an annual awards competition honouring Canadian playwrights in a wide range of categories, including the RBC Emerging Playwright Award, Carol Bolt Award, TYA Award, Playwrights Guild Comedy and Musical Awards, Lifetime and Honorary Membership Awards, and the Bra D’Or Award. The awards are named after Tom Hendry, a founding member of PGC who passed away in 2012. The winners are recognized in a ceremony that takes place in the fall each year at The Arts & Letters Club of Toronto. Playwrights must be a member of the Playwrights Guild of Canada.

Submission details: Playwrights Guild of Canada Tom Hendry Awards

The Ten-Minute Musical Project

Musicals between seven to twenty minutes.

Since the inception of The Ten-Minute Musicals Project, over sixteen hundred submissions have been received, from librettists, lyricists and composers in seventeen nations: Australia, New Zealand, Canada, the United States, Uruguay, Ireland, England, Scotland, France, Denmark, Germany, Italy, South Africa, Egypt, Israel, Saudi Arabia, and Ukraine. Submissions should be completely original stage musicals that play between seven and twenty minutes. Works which have been previously produced are acceptable, as are excerpts from full-length shows if they can stand up on their own.

Submission details: The Ten-Minute Musical Project.

Three Rivers Theatre Company seeks Faith-Based and/or Family Friendly Plays

Full-length Plays

Three Rivers Theatre Company, a non-profit community theatre, based in East Tennessee, has launched a playwrighting contest looking for faith-based or family-friendly plays. Each playwright may only submit one play for consideration. All entries should be original, unpublished and previously unproduced material. Submissions should be full-length plays with an approximate running time of no more than two hours.

Submission details: Three Rivers Theatre Company Faith-Based Family Friendly Play Competition.

Stage Door Productions One-Act Festivals

One-Act plays 15 pages or less

The Stage Door Productions One-Act Festival is an opportunity for new playwrights to showcase their work. Each spring, six original one-act plays 15 pages or less are selected from submissions and then performed. Prizes are awarded to top judges’ choice as well as the audience’s favourite.

Submission Details: Stage Door Productions One-Act Festivals

Annual Alberta Playwriting Competition presented by Alberta Playwrights Network and Theatre Alberta

The Alberta Playwriting Competition is presented by the Alberta Playwrights Network in association with Theatre Alberta. It was recently announced that with the blessing of the Pollock family, APN is renaming the “Grand Prize” to now be know as “The Sharon Pollock Award” – in recognition of the Most Outstanding Un-produced Play written by an Alberta Playwright. Sharon Pollock was an untiring champion of the Alberta Playwrights’ Network and anyone that devoted themselves to the craft of playmaking.

Submission details: Alberta Playwrights Network/Theatre Alberta – Alberta Playwriting Competition

New England Theatre Conference – Aurand Harris Memorial Playwriting Award

This award for full-length plays for young audiences was created in 1997 to honour the late Aurand Harris (1915-1996) for his lifetime dedication to all aspects of professional theatre for young audiences. A panel of judges named by the NETC Executive Board will administer the award. A staged reading of the prize-winning scripts will be held along with the Annual Excellence in Theatre Awards ceremony.

Submission details: Aurand Harris Memorial Playwriting Award

Echo Theatre’s BIG SHOUT OUT 3 – International Play Contest for Women+ Playwrights

Playwrights who self-identify as a woman are invited to enter one play or play-with-music (45-minute one-acts to full-length scripts) to Echo Theatre’s 3rd BIG SHOUT OUT International New Play Contest.

Submission details: Echo Theatre’s International New Play Contest for Women+ Playwrights

Yale Drama Series Playwriting Competition

Plays a minimum of 65 pages in length.

The Yale Drama Series is seeking submissions of full-length plays a minimum of 65 pages in length for its 2022 playwriting competition. The winning play will be selected by the series’ current judge, Paula Vogel. The winner of this annual competition will be awarded the David Charles Horn Prize of $10,000, publication of their manuscript by Yale University Press, and a staged reading or virtual performance. The prize and publication are contingent on the playwright’s agreeing to the terms of the publishing agreement.

Submission details: Yale Drama Series Rules and Submission Guidelines.

Austin Film Festival Playwriting Competition

Full-Length Plays

The Austin Film Festival Playwriting Competition gives playwrights a chance to explore the film and television conference which providing film professionals a chance to discover storytellers who have mastered the art and craft of stage drama. Austin Film Festival furthers the art and craft of storytelling by inspiring and championing the work of writers, filmmakers, and all artists who use written and visual language to tell a story.

Submission details: Austin Film Festival Playwriting Competition

American Blues Theatre: Blue Ink Playwriting Award

Unpublished Original Full-Length Plays

The nationally-renowned Blue Ink Playwriting Award was created in 2010 to support new work. Each year American Blues Theater accepts worldwide submissions of original, unpublished full-length plays. The winning play will be selected by Artistic Director Gwendolyn Whiteside and the theatre’s Ensemble. The winning playwright receives a monetary prize of $2,000. Cash prizes are awarded to finalists and semi-finalists too.

Submission details: American Blues Theater Blue Ink Playwriting Award.

The Sauk Hillsdale County Community Theatre Call for Plays in Development

Plays of Any Style or Length

The Sauk, Hillsdale County’s Community Theatre, located in Jonesville, Michigan is seeking unproduced plays to consider for their eighth annual Plays-In-Development. Plays can be of any style and of any length. The goal of Plays-in-Development is to help playwrights improve plays that have yet to be produced by working with a director and actors and a talkback with the audience after the reading.

Submission details: The Saulk Hillsdale County Community Theatre Call for Plays in Development

Fred Ebb Foundation – Fred Ebb Award

Musical Theatre

As a writer, lyricist, composer and director, Fred Ebb made incalculable contributions to the New York theatrical community. Mr. Ebb is a Tony®, Grammy®, Emmy®, Olivier® and Kennedy Center Honors Lifetime Achievement Award winning recipient. Fred Ebb and John Kander collaborated for over 35 years and produced such classics as CABARET, ZORBA, CHICAGO, WOMAN OF THE YEAR, KISS OF THE SPIDER WOMAN, CURTAINS and THE VISIT.

Each applicant for the Fred Ebb Award must be a composer/lyricist or composer/lyricist team wishing to create work for the musical theatre, and must not yet have achieved significant commercial success. Only musical theatre work will be considered. Applications will be accepted from June 1st – June 30th. The winner will be selected in November and will receive $60,000.

Submission details: Fred Ebb Foundation – Fred Ebb Award

New Works of Merit Playwriting Contest

Full-length Plays

New Works of Merit seeks full-length plays that are powerful and not only entertain but also educate and enlighten. The contest assists winning and honourable mentioned playwrights to have their play presented in a public forum and to bring these scripts to the attention of producers and artistic directors. New Works of Merit seeks full-length plays that are powerful, heartfelt new works that not only entertain, but also educate, enlighten, and uplift humanity.

Submission details: New Works of Merit Playwriting Contest

Ashland New Plays Festival

Full-length drama or comedy, intermission preferred. If no intermission, then 75 minutes minimum running time.

Founded in 1992 and managed by a volunteer board of directors, Ashland New Plays Festival is a nonprofit theatre that encourages playwrights in the creation of new works through public readings. ANPF’s flagship Fall Festival is an international playwright competition that culminates in the reading of four new plays chosen by a team of volunteer readers from hundreds of submissions. This unique and much-loved event features professional actors from Oregon Shakespeare Festival, Southern Oregon University’s Theatre Department, the local community, and regional theatre hot spots. The reading performances, and the talkbacks that follow, are a rich theatrical experience for audiences.

Submission details: Ashland New Plays Festival

Theatre BC – Canadian Playwriting Competition

Full-length and one-act plays
Canadian Playwrights

Since 1989, Theatre BC had sponsored the Canadian National Playwriting Competition and its subsequent New Play Festival. The competition is open to all permanent residents of Canada who have been permanent residents of the country for the past 12 months.

Submission details: Theatre BC – Canadian Playwriting Competition

Seven Devils Playwrights Conference

Full-Length Plays

Seven Devils will not be accepting submissions for the 2022 Conference. The Conference expects to return to the open submission model in 2023. All submissions must come directly from playwrights – no agent submissions.

Submission details: Seven Devils Playwrights Conference

The New American Theatre Full Length Play Competition

Unproduced and unpublished full-length plays.

The New American Full-Length Play Competition has been created to support new plays. The competition is in line with The New American Theatre’s ongoing commitment to inspire, educate and nurture artists and our community toward a thoughtful and humane worldview through the art of storytelling. We help theatre artists find their voices, cultivate social consciousness and prepare for a lasting career. We support new and established playwrights and incubate new plays. We seek to make a lasting, life-long impression on our community – inspiring the audience to continue provocative conversations long after the curtain closes. (Note there is also a New American Theatre One Act Play Competition)

The New American Theatre is a critically-acclaimed actor-driven theatre company best known for exploring and supporting new and challenging work in the American theatre and for producing classic plays with modern, cultural relevance. The New American Theatre is dedicated to the support and growth of all artists who participate in the collective imagination that is theatre.

Submission details: The New American Theatre Full Length Play Competition

The New American Theatre One Act Play Competition

One-Act Plays a maximum of 15 minutes in length not produced in Los Angeles.
International Submissions

The New American One-Act Play Competition was created to support new plays. The competitions are in line with The New American Theatre’s ongoing commitment to inspire, educate and nurture artists and our community toward a thoughtful and humane worldview through the art of storytelling. The New American Theatre helps theatre artists find their voices, cultivate social consciousness and prepare for a lasting career. They support new and established playwrights and incubate new plays. They seek to make a lasting, life-long impression on their community – inspiring the audience to continue provocative conversations long after the curtain closes. (Note there is also a New American Theatre Full Length Competition)

Submission details: The New American Theatre One-Act Play Competition.

Eden Prairie Players – Women’s One Acts

One-Act Plays

Women’s One Acts is an annual selection of short plays that are written and directed by women.

Submission details: Eden Prairie Players – Women’s One Acts

PlayFest Santa Barbara

Full-length Plays

PlayFest Santa Barbara accepts submissions for full-length plays, musicals, translations and adaptations, and works for young audiences. Any works submitted must not have had a prior professional production. Playwrights, librettists and composers with professional representation may have their agents send manuscripts at any time. Playwrights, composers and librettists without representation are welcome.

Submission details: PlayFest Santa Barbara

Edwin Wong Presents: The Risk Theatre Modern Tragedy Competition

Plays 90 to 120 minutes in length.

Edwin Wong calls on playwrights worldwide to submit full-length plays from 90 to 120 minutes in length to the 4th annual 2024 Risk Theatre Modern Tragedy Competition, juried by an international panel of professionals, anonymous to each other and the public until the winners are announced. Cash prizes of $10,200 for the winner and five $600 prizes for the runners-up.

Submission details: Edwin Wong Presents: The Risk Theatre Modern Tragedy Competition

Alfred Fagon Award

New Full-Length Plays In English
Playwright of Caribbean or African descent, resident in the UK.

Alfred Fagon lived in Clarendon Jamaica, Nottingham, Bristol and London. He was a boxing champion, a welder, an actor, a poet, and a playwright. After his untimely death in 1986, his friends held a memorial evening at Tricycle Theatre to commemorate his life and work. The donations collected at the memorial formed the basis of the Alfred Fagon Award to recognize Black British playwrights from the Caribbean. The first award was supported by Arts Council England and The Peggy Ramsay Foundation was presented to Roy Williams. The Peggy Ramsay Foundation continues to support the Award and the prize this year for the winning writer is £6,000.

Submissions are now open for the 25th Alfred Fagon Award! The award is the leading award for Black British playwrights. The competition is open to any playwright of Caribbean or African descent, resident in the UK, for the best original, new full-length stage play in English.

Submission details: Alfred Fagon Award Supported by the Peggy Ramsay Foundation

Screencraft – Stage Play Writing Competition

Submission details: Screencraft – Stage Play Writing Competition

FADE TO BLACK: Play Festival

Plays 8 to 10 minutes in length.

Play must be unpublished and unproduced and have a running time between 8-10 – minutes. Fade To Black is Houston’s 1st and only national play festival to showcase the new works of African American playwrights.

Submission details: Fade to Black: Play Festival

The Road Theatre Company: Annual Summer Playwrights Festival

The Summer Playwrights Festival is the largest staged reading festival in the nation, with playwrights from across the country and around the world participating. Each reading is followed by a talkback with the playwright and director. New and established playwrights are encouraged to submit.

Submission details: The Road Theatre Company Annual Summer Playwrights Festival

American Stage’s 21st Century Voices: Emerging Plays

Full-Length Plays

American Stage is committed to producing powerful and relevant professional live theatre. Our 21st Century Voices is an initiative dedicated to developing and presenting new full-length works for the stage that speak to a contemporary audience in fresh and compelling ways. 21st Century Voices programming includes an annual staged reading festival, workshopping of new scripts, playwriting residencies and fully produced new plays receiving one of their first three professional productions at American Stage.

Submission details: American Stage’s 21st Century Voices: Emerging Plays

Southeastern Louisiana University – Inkslinger Playwriting Contest

Full-Length Plays

Southeastern Theatre is committed to developing emerging voices in theatre by providing full productions of yet-to-be-published winning full-length plays as part of its Mainstage Season. All submissions must be original unpublished plays intended for a college-aged cast and audience. Plays that have been produced still qualify but they must be unpublished.

Submission details: Southeastern Louisiana University – Inkslinger Playwriting Contest

THEATRE THREE – Annual Festival of One-Act Plays

30 minutes maximum no minimum length.

Since its inception in 1998, The Festival has received over 10,000 submissions from across the world and produced 132 world premieres by 102 different playwrights. The Festival presents between five and seven plays each season. Playwrights may only submit one play per Festival. Only unproduced works will be accepted. Plays that have had staged readings or online productions are eligible. Selected plays will be presented for ten performances (dates to be determined in winter-spring 2024), at the Ronald F. Peierls Theatre, on THEATRE THREE’s Second Stage.

Submission details: THEATRE THREE – 25th Annual Festival of One-Act Plays

Playwrights Horizons Submissions Opportunity

Full-Length Plays

Playwrights Horizons is in pursuit of storytelling that is rich in self-expression and theatrical imagination that explores the multiplicity and complexity of American culture and experience and it is their aim to support artists who have a demonstrated commitment to the craft, art, and profession of playwriting. NOTE: Playwrights Horizons does not consider: new drafts of previously submitted work, autobiographical solo shows, one-acts, and straightforward adaptations or dramatizations of historical events.

Submission details: Playwrights Horizons Submission Opportunities

Adirondack Theatre Festival

Full-Length plays and musicals submitted by literary agents.

The Adirondack Theatre Festival produces new high-calibre scripts throughout each season. ATF welcomes the opportunity to read submissions of full-length plays and musicals from skilled playwrights who feel their work would be a good fit at the Adirondack Theatre Festival.

Submission details: Adirondack Theatre Festival

The Bruntwood Prize for Playwriting

Full-Length Plays 60 minutes or longer.
UK, Republic of Ireland, British Overseas Territory Playwrights

The Bruntwood Prize for Playwriting – which seeks scripts from established, emerging and debut writers to develop for the stage – will return in 2022. Submissions will open in late January 2022 along with the announcement of the judging panel, before closing on 6th June. Playwrights residing in the UK or Republic of Ireland or British Overseas Territory or with a British Forces Post Office address. Plays must be a minimum of one hour or longer in running time.

Winning plays are selected across four categories, with each winner entering into a development process with the Royal Exchange Theatre in an endeavour to bring their work to production.

Submission details: The Bruntwood Prize for Playwriting

National Arts Centre – National Creation Fund

The Fund is a catalyst for Canadian artists to take their projects to a new level. Investments provide the additional time and resources that bold, ambitious projects need to be successful on the national and international stage.

To be considered for an investment the project must:

be led by Canadian creators in theatre, dance, music and inter-disciplinary performing arts;
have a strong artistic team and be artistically ambitious and compelling;
have committed Canadian and/or international producing and presenting partners;
have long-term national or international impact, including through touring; and
have a significant amount of confirmed funding and a clear plan for how our investment would enhance your development process and elevate the project to a new level.

The National Arts Centre does not invest small amounts of money in a large number of projects; instead, they invest $2,000,000 to $3,000,000 a year in 10 to 20 projects.  To date, their investments have ranged from $80,000 to $240,000. In addition to their investments, they offer access to other NAC resources, such as production expertise and connections to national and international networks.

The National Arts Centre supports bold and ambitious work representing a diversity of disciplines, abilities, genders, ethnicities, languages, cultures, and regions. They find compelling and ambitious projects for investment in two ways: by actively seeking great projects across the country; and by accepting proposals from artists and arts organizations.

There is no deadline. Proposals are accepted throughout the year, and the curatorial team reviews them on an on-going basis.

The Fund is open to professional artists, producing companies and organizations. To be eligible, an artist must be a resident or citizen of Canada, although you may be pursuing your work outside the country. While the lead producing company must be based in Canada, the project can include international partners and co-producers.

Program and submission details: National Arts Centre – National Creation Fund

Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity – Playwrights Lab

Canadian Playwrights

Each year the Lab welcomes Canadian playwrights and their collaborators, providing each writer with a residency tailored to their specific needs with the goal of nurturing, challenging, and inspiring the next phase of their work. Each Lab features international writer/dramaturg teams, an acting company, and partnerships with organizations from across Canada and beyond.

Playwrights will experience an inspiring, interdisciplinary, and inclusive environment to work on their plays while surrounded by performing artists from across the country and around the world. The Lab supports challenging, multi-disciplinary, provocative approaches to telling stories and is proud to gather on Treaty 7 territory to create, share, and explore theatrical storytelling.

Submission details: Banff Centre for the Arts and Creativity – Playwrights Lab

Synecdoche Works – The Frank Mosier Fellowship for Works in Heightened Language

Plays 40 minutes or longer.

Synecdoche Works accepts English-language plays from anywhere in the world. Submitted works can not be currently attached to a theatre or production company. Submissions must be in a heightened version of the English language. This includes but is not limited to works using meter, verse, rhyming schemes, pidgins, creoles, and code-switching. Plays must contain at least 60% heightened language and be longer than 40 minutes. Authors awarded a grant must be willing to participate in a brief rehearsal process culminating in an online video reading of their submitted work. The winning playwright receives $3,000 U.S.

Submission details: Synecdoche Works – The Frank Mosier Fellowship for Works in Heightened Language

The Siminovitch Prize

Mid-career Canadian Playwright or Director or Designer (Prize rotates)
For 2023 – Call for Nominations of Canadian Playwrights

Over a three-year cycle, the Siminovitch Prize celebrates a professional mid-career director, playwright, or designer whose work is transformative and influential. The Prize also recognizes the importance of mentorship to support emerging talent: the Laureate receives $75,000 and selects a Protégé who receives $25,000. In 2021, the Siminovitch Protégé Prize is presented by the RBC Foundation.

Do you know an outstanding playwright who deserves national recognition, $75,000, and the opportunity to support an emerging artist with mentorship, and $25,000?

Peers are invited to nominate an exceptional artist who has made a remarkable contribution to enriching theatre in Canada.

Nomination deadline – midnight on June 18, 2023.

Nomination details: Siminovitch Prize

Interview Tracy Carroll & Katherine Koller

Posted on December 6, 2020July 2, 2022 by James Hutchison

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.

Katherine Koller
Playwright – Novelist – Screenwriter

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 Mistletoe is 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.

Download – Interview with Tracy Carroll & Katherine Koller – Tuned into the Zeitgeist
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

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.

Interview with Griffin Cork – Actor, Producer, Filmmaker

Posted on October 26, 2020November 23, 2024 by James Hutchison

Griffin Cork
Photo by Tim Nguyen

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.”

At twenty-four Griffin Cork has already stacked up an impressive list of film and theatre credits and several awards that illustrate his artistic talent, hard work, and dedication. In 2017 The Alberta Foundation for the Arts named him one of the top 25 Young Artists in the province, and in 2020 he was one of ten recipients of a Lieutenant Governor of Alberta Emerging Artist Award.

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 contacted Griffin over Zoom back in July and we had a far-ranging conversation about theatre, acting, Dungeons and Dragons, and his experience at Alberta Theatre Projects as part of the D. Michael Dobbin Apprenticeship Program.

GRIFFIN CORK

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.”

DOWNLOAD – James Hutchison Interviews Griffin Cork: Actor, Producer, Filmmaker
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Old Stock: A Refugee Love Story

Posted on February 11, 2020July 2, 2024 by James Hutchison

Old Stock: A Refugee Love Story is a story about desperation – hope – love – refugees – babies – grandchildren – the past – and the present. It’s an entertaining, touching, and memorable night at the theatre. Did I like it? I loved it. Would I recommend it? Without a doubt.

Playwriight Hannah Moscovitch — Playwright Hannah Moscovitch. Photo Alejandro Santiago

This show has won praise and sold out around the world. It’s been to New York where it was nominated for six Drama Desk Awards and was a New York Times Critic’s Pick. The Herald Scotland called it, “A thing of raw and unmissable beauty.” David Cole, from the Village Voice, said: “It will reaffirm your faith in the enduring spirit of humanity, community, and family.” And our very own Louis B. Hobson from the Calgary Herald said that Old Stock is a “must-see for anyone who loves and appreciates theatre that pushes boundaries.”

So, what’s it about?

Well, it’s about the great-grandparents of Hannah Moscovitch. Hannah Moscovitch is one of Canada’s most celebrated and talented playwrights and she along with her husband Christian Barry and Ben Caplan got together over pickled herring and decided to tell the story about Hannah’s Jewish grandparents who fled the ethnic and religious violence in Romania in the hopes of starting a new life in Canada.

The story is told to us in songs and scenes and one of the best parts of the play is Ben Caplan’s performance as The Wanderer. The Wanderer is the narrator of the tale. A tall, energetic, and bearded master of ceremonies who is a commentator and a comedian and a joyful dancing spirit who celebrates life but still acknowledges the darker side of humanity.

Caplan is a pure joy to watch and he sure knows how to use his voice in ways that convey emotion and humour and add texture to the sound. And while his voice has shades of Topal from Fiddler on the Roof and Leonard Cohen’s melancholy ballads I’d describe his sound as truly unique and powerful.

Director Christian Barry has assembled a talented group of musicians and performers to round out the ensemble. Eric Da Costa plays Chaim with wonderful shyness and tenderness while also playing the woodwinds. Shaina Silver-Baird is perfect as Chaya who is a little more matter-of-fact about life. A little less the dreamer and a little more the pragmatist. She also plays the violin. The rest of the band includes Jeff Kingsbury on drums and Graham Scott on keyboards and accordion. And this is a tight-knit group of musicians who weave a tapestry of sound throughout the show.

And as far as the songs go they’re a lot of fun to listen to with smart and playful lyrics that comment on the story and on broader issues. For example, in Truth Doesn’t Live in a Book it’s a song about the tension between oral traditions and the written word and that once things get written down they lose their ability to adapt and evolve. Because as The Wanderer points out “An eye for an eye means fair compensation. It doesn’t mean take up arms against another nation. Anything written down can be twisted apart.” You can check out the full song by following this link where Ben Caplan drops by Paste Studios in New York City to perform.

The whole story unfolds before us from a shipping container that opens up to create the world of Chaim and Chaya as they arrive in Canada in 1908 and meet for the first time at Pier 21 in Halifax as they stand in line waiting for a medical exam.

He has a rash. She has a cough.

This is a beautifully written scene as two strangers meet and learn about each other and clearly one of the two is interested in maybe being more than just friends. And so they both move to Montreal where they meet again and love blossoms. Well, not exactly. Chaya who along with her husband and family fled Romania before the trouble started lost her husband, whom she dearly loved, to typhus and her newborn child to starvation as they made their way along a dirt road to Russia. She paid a heavy price coming to Canada and those memories haunt her.

But Chaim’s story is no less tragic. He left after the pogroms started and the details about what happened to his family makes you question God and humanity. And it’s that dose of reality that counters the humour and fun and gives Old Stock its power.

In the end, Chaim and Chaya marry. They have a child. Then another one. And one more after that. And then a fourth. And those children have children. And then those children have children. And then Hannah Moscovitch and her husband Christian Barry bring their first child, Elijah, into the world – who just so happens to be the great-great-grandchild of Chaim and Chaya.

Old Stock: a Refugee Love Story is a Klezmer, rock, folk musical and it’s a true story…for the most part. I mean obviously, it’s a story and some poetic license has been taken and what takes years in life is told in ninety captivating minutes on the stage. This is a story about life and death and hope and perseverance and lessons to be learned about how we treat our fellow man and the assumptions we make and the things we say.

Have we learned those lessons?

History would say no.

But that doesn’t mean we should stop teaching them. After all, we tell stories to learn about ourselves and others and maybe at the end of the day to help us live our life a little bit better and with a little more compassion and meaning.

So, let me just sum up by saying I’m just a guy who likes to go to the theatre and when I see something, I like, I like to tell others. So, I’m telling you – go see this play. I loved it. This is a play I’ve been looking forward to seeing for over a year and it did not disappoint.

Old Stock: A Refugee Love Story was part of Alberta Theatre Projects 2019/20 Theatre Season and the show has done numerous tours. You can check out 2b theatre company to see if it will be coming to a theatre near you and if it does I’d highly recommend you see it.

A Christmas Carol by James Hutchison at Johnson City Community Theatre Tennessee

Posted on December 6, 2019October 20, 2023 by James Hutchison

Scrooge was in love – once long ago. This must be clearly understood or nothing wonderful can come of the tale you are about to hear.

That’s not exactly how A Christmas Carol begins. No, it begins with Marley was dead and looooong buried. Marley was Scrooge’s business partner and only friend in the world, but Scrooge had once been in love. That is true. He had loved Belle. They were engaged. His life could have been very different and that’s what makes Scrooge such a tragic and sympathetic character.

This Christmas, 176 years after the story was first published, the Johnson City Community Theatre is producing my big cast version of a Christmas Carol from Thursday, December 5th to Saturday, December 22nd. The production is being directed by Melanie Yodkins and stars Tom Sizemore as Ebenezer Scrooge. I connected with Melanie and Tom early in November to talk with them about the Johnson City Community Theatre and the production of the play.

JAMES HUTCHISON

Tell me a little bit about the Johnson City Community Theatre.

Director Melanie Yodkins

MELANIE YODKINS

Johnson City Community Theatre is the longest consecutively running community theatre in the entire state of Tennessee and next year will be our 108th season. The patrons have always kept it going. The people who love to perform. The people who love to be in the productions.

We have an archive going all the way back 108 years with photographs and production brochures and memorabilia. We’ve got folks who have been here forever. Generation after generation.

That’s really the joy of community theatre. Family is really the biggest piece. My husband Jason and my son Andrew are in the play. My son is a year old and cute as the dickens.

TOM SIZEMORE

No pun intended.

MELANIE

No pun intended. I literally only have them walking across the stage and they light the lamps in the street scenes. Andrew is definitely not old enough to handle much more than that. My husband and I actually met on that stage six years ago. We met and fell in love. We were doing a Christmas play, and we started dating on December 18th. We were married less than two years later. And just before our third wedding anniversary, Andrew was born and now he gets to perform on the same stage.

JAMES

But, isn’t that nice. We were talking about history and so when your son is twenty years old there will be a production photo of him and his dad in the play. So, what do you think theatre provides a community?

MELANIE

I think people crave story. I think they crave that connection with literature with the past with people with opposing viewpoints, and I think theatre allows those doors to just be blown wide open, to allow for people to see and to experience things that otherwise they would not.

Actor Tom Sizemore

TOM

And with the times we’re living in people can be transported to, in this case, Victorian England and so it’s a way for them to feel better and feel good about things that maybe in other areas or other walks of life they’re not feeling so good about. And I think it’s a wonderful way for children to develop self-esteem, self-image and confidence.

JAMES

How young were you when you got on the stage, Tom?

TOM

Well, I’ve been doing community theatre for about twenty years. But my parents always said that I was singing before I could talk. I’ve been singing my whole life and after college and having been in a few musical productions it just made sense for me to branch out and do some non-musicals as well.

JAMES

You’ve had a lot of vocal and musical training and I’m wondering when you’re doing a play like a Christmas Carol, which is not a musical, how does your vocal training impact your ability to portray a character?

TOM

Quite a bit, actually. There are moments in this play that are sublime – that really tug at the heartstrings – that are very tender – that are very touching. And so, from a vocal standpoint, and especially in a smaller, more intimate venue, which is what is here at the theatre in Johnson City I’m really trying to use different vocal techniques to bring out some tenderness – to bring out in this character, some vulnerability. Which I definitely think should be there. But at the same time when the spirits are aggravating me to death and wanting me to see things that I really don’t want to see and I don’t want to deal with – then my disapproval or my impatience with that whole situation comes out and I use a lot of vocal techniques to let them know that I’m not happy.

JAMES

So, Tom, you and Melanie are talking to me from a room in your home that is filled with Christmas Carol memorabilia. Clearly this story is a love and a passion for you.

TOM

It is. I told Melanie that this is a dream come true for me. I had played Marley in a previous production but to play the old miser is something I’ve always wanted to do. I grew up in the Washington DC area and it was a tradition for us to go to Ford’s Theatre, every Christmas and see their production of Christmas Carol. I’ve been fortunate because I’ve been able to meet Charles Dickens’ great-grandson and his great, great-grandson and to have been to Dickens’ home in London. When I was growing up the story was one that I just loved, and I’ve seen every version that I could find whether it was film or television or just in any media. And then I started collecting things that are related to that including a 1916 poster from a version of A Christmas Carol, and I actually have a silent movie and was produced by Thomas Edison.

JAMES

You’ve been prepping for this role for a long time.

TOM

I have.

The Ghost of Jacob Marley and Ebenezer Scrooge in the Johnson City Community Theatre Production of a Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens. Adapted for the stage by James Hutchison. Directed by Melanie Yodkins. Eric Donahue Photography

JAMES

Melanie, I’m curious to know what resonated with you about my particular adaptation?

MELANIE

I read over fifty scripts and when I was reading through your script what it provided that no other script did was the ability to add my own creative flair to the story. And you had already written in several things that I wanted to do. For example, the part where Christmas Future comes out of the box and wraps all of the chains around Scrooge and then Scrooge ends up in the box and I wanted to do that very same thing and it was already written in your script.

And I was reading it myself but I decided I needed more voices so I could just sit and listen to the voices telling the story so I could visualize it. So, I put together a table reading with some folks who I trusted and I just sat there and I listened. And it just resonated so deeply with me. And it was a no brainer. I was like, “This is the one I want. This is the one I want to do.”

JAMES

So, tell me a little bit then about some of the things you’re doing in terms of design elements for your vision of the story?

MELANIE

Andrew Whitman is our set designer. He’s actually one of my students from eons ago. He was in high school doing a summer arts program and I was one of the teachers running the program. And he has since graduated from college and worked at the Barter Theatre, the equity theatre up in Virginia. And so, I asked him to pitch me some ideas after reading the script himself. And one of the things that he brought up was that he wanted the desk to also be Scrooges bed and Scrooges tomb.

So, we’ve built this gargantuan desk. It’s big enough that Tom can fit on top of it. And Tom can also fit inside of it with another person. We really wanted to play on that concept that the desk represented Scrooges Empire. It really is his idol. It really is his life and then to have him buried in it or entombed in it we thought would be a really poignant way to drive home that little nugget. And then we also have it on a three-foot-high platform. So, I’ve got two staircases that kind of move around this platform so you can create different spaces based on where the stairs are so for example when they’re both in front of it that’s when it’s Scrooge and Marley’s. So, it’s this homage to the great and powerful desk and Scrooge.

JAMES

One of the most challenging parts for me to write was the scene where Belle leaves Scrooge. I rewrote that a number of times because I needed to make it very clear what was going on there. I love that the older Scrooge watching the scene tells his younger self to “Go after her you fool.” That’s a wonderful moment but we wouldn’t feel anything unless we had the earlier scenes where we see some real tenderness and love between them.

MELANIE

You have to feel something for Scrooge, or it wouldn’t matter. It’s not enough to know that he is who he is. You have to understand how he got to be the way he is. And you have to understand what he sacrificed to become that person without even realizing that he was sacrificing it.

You know, the first time the actors playing young Scrooge and Belle went through that scene their levels just kept going up and up and up until they were actually yelling at each other. And all of a sudden she says, “Are you not miserable?” And he just looks at her and there’s this dead silence there for a minute and you just sit there holding your breath. And, then she goes on to say, “I have no choice but to release you. And, I hope you’re happy in the life that you’ve chosen instead of a life with me and I will always mourn the life that we could have had.” And she leaves him standing there absolutely shredded.

The Johnson City Community Theatre Production of A Christmas Carol. Adapted for the stage by James Hutchison and directed by Melanie Yodkins. Eric Donahue Photography.
The Johnson City Community Theatre Production of A Christmas Carol. Adapted for the stage by James Hutchison and directed by Melanie Yodkins. Eric Donahue Photography.
The Johnson City Community Theatre Production of A Christmas Carol. Adapted for the stage by James Hutchison and directed by Melanie Yodkins. Eric Donahue Photography.
The Johnson City Community Theatre Production of A Christmas Carol. Adapted for the stage by James Hutchison and directed by Melanie Yodkins. Eric Donahue Photography.
The Johnson City Community Theatre Production of A Christmas Carol. Adapted for the stage by James Hutchison and directed by Melanie Yodkins. Eric Donahue Photography.
The Johnson City Community Theatre Production of A Christmas Carol. Adapted for the stage by James Hutchison and directed by Melanie Yodkins. Eric Donahue Photography.
The Johnson City Community Theatre Production of A Christmas Carol. Adapted for the stage by James Hutchison and directed by Melanie Yodkins. Eric Donahue Photography.
The Johnson City Community Theatre Production of A Christmas Carol. Adapted for the stage by James Hutchison and directed by Melanie Yodkins. Eric Donahue Photography.
The Johnson City Community Theatre Production of A Christmas Carol. Adapted for the stage by James Hutchison and directed by Melanie Yodkins. Eric Donahue Photography.
The Johnson City Community Theatre Production of A Christmas Carol. Adapted for the stage by James Hutchison and directed by Melanie Yodkins. Eric Donahue Photography.
The Johnson City Community Theatre Production of A Christmas Carol. Adapted for the stage by James Hutchison and directed by Melanie Yodkins. Eric Donahue Photography.
The Johnson City Community Theatre Production of A Christmas Carol. Adapted for the stage by James Hutchison and directed by Melanie Yodkins. Eric Donahue Photography.
The Johnson City Community Theatre Production of A Christmas Carol. Adapted for the stage by James Hutchison and directed by Melanie Yodkins. Eric Donahue Photography.
The Johnson City Community Theatre Production of A Christmas Carol. Adapted for the stage by James Hutchison and directed by Melanie Yodkins. Eric Donahue Photography.
The Johnson City Community Theatre Production of A Christmas Carol. Adapted for the stage by James Hutchison and directed by Melanie Yodkins. Eric Donahue Photography.
The Johnson City Community Theatre Production of A Christmas Carol. Adapted for the stage by James Hutchison and directed by Melanie Yodkins. Eric Donahue Photography.

JAMES

Tom, what are your thoughts about Scrooge’s journey to redemption?

TOM

By the end of the play he needs to show how deeply affected he is by what he has been shown, but he resists and fights it tooth and nail and he tries to make excuses. And one of the other ways I’ve looked at it is Scrooge is a businessman and being a businessman he’s smooth and persuasive and he’s used to getting his own way and when he doesn’t that’s not a feeling that he is very comfortable with. But I also think there is a humourous aspect to it as well. For instance, when the Ghost of Jacob Marley asks him, “Do you believe in me or not?” Melanie has blocked the scene so that Marley is only about an inch from my face. And then Scrooge says, “No, I do not.”

JAMES

Why do you think A Christmas Carol resonates today so many years after it was originally written?

MELANIE

I think there is a little bit of Scrooge in every single person. To the extent that we get wrapped up in me, me, me, my, my, my, this is my world, this is what I’m doing. These are my goals. This is my focus. And then all of a sudden, Christmas comes around and we’re like, oh, hey, we can give ten dollars to a charity or we can collect food for the food bank or we can give gifts to people that they’re going to love. But then you still have people who don’t even want to do that.

I love the fact that this truly is a story of redemption which makes a really beautiful connection to Christmas too. Because if we think about the biblical side of it Christmas represents the time of Christ’s birth and the beginning of redemption and you kind of have a really nice parallel with Scrooges own redemption and the redemption that we find in Christ, which is much of what literature of the time alluded to back when A Christmas Carol was written. People weren’t writing Bible stories, but they were utilizing the same moral concepts from Scripture and putting it into story form.

And so it touches people’s hearts in such a way that doesn’t make them feel like we’re shoving Jesus down their throat. We’re touching people’s hearts on a totally different level and reminding people about charity and compassion and those are the things that should really be our business in life. That’s why we’re here. We’re here for all of humanity. It’s all our responsibility. And all of those elements work together to create a reason why so many people love this story.

JAMES

Tom, how about you?

TOM

Tiny Tim and Ebenezer Scrooge in the Johnson City Community Theatre Production of a Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens. Adapted for the stage by James Hutchison. Directed by Melanie Yodkins. Eric Donahue Photography

If Scrooge can change, we all can change, but that process is not easy. And in Scrooge’s case I think there’s a reason Dickens wrote it as a ghost story. It’s significant to me that in order for this process to begin, Scrooge has to be scared to the point that his legs are shaking. He’s never experienced anything like this before in this life. So, in order for change to occur sometimes, we have to experience something that we would never expect or something out of this world has to happen in order for a person to change. And because of all of the relationships, the family bonds, the love of the Cratchits the story is timeless. We probably all have, truth be known, family members that we are reminded of from the story.

JAMES

Why should folks come out and see Johnson City theatre’s production of A Christmas Carol?

MELANIE

Because the artistic concept of how we’re presenting this play, while telling an absolutely fabulous story, isn’t like anything I’ve ever seen. It’s incredibly original. And we have incredible actors. After Tom auditioned, I needed to find a Marley that matched the epitome of the Scrooge that Tom brought to his audition. And the young man who is playing Marley, absolutely, bar none just blew me out of the water. It brings such a high calibre of performance quality to this production that people need to come and see the hard work, the dedication and the heart of storytelling that is found only on this stage this season.

TOM

I think it’s definitely an ensemble cast so that each person brings something to their role and their character. People will be talking about it and raving about it. And it goes without saying that I’m just honoured and privileged to be part of it.

Cast A Christmas Carol

Olivia Ares, Gavin Arsenault, Larry Bunton, Asher Church, Lorelai Church, Sam Church, Adam Derrick, Tony DeVault, Camden Downes, Hudson Downes, Cierra Fannon, Jada Greenlee, Shanna Greenlee, Danielle Hammonds, Andrew Headen, Jason Headen, Linden Hillhouse, E.C. Huff, Landon Kell, Audrey Kuykendall, Magee Little, Jamie Lombardi, Richard Lura, McKenna Marr, Tom Sizemore, Nathaniel Oaks, Evangeline Perreault, Matthew Pickle, Raelyn Price, Elizabeth Renfro, Saqqara Scott, Derek Smithpeters, Alice Tester, Lucy Tester, Daniel Tester

Links to Play Page where you can download four Christmas Play Scripts by Playwright James Hutchison for Free including the comedy What the Dickens, the romantic comedy Under the Mistletoe, and both a large cast version and small cast version of A Christmas Carol.

A Christmas Carol by James Hutchison at Wokingham Theatre England

Posted on December 4, 2019June 14, 2023 by James Hutchison

“You may find me cold and unfeeling sir, but I would venture to say I am a man of my word; a man whose word carries weight; a man whose word allows him the ability to strike a deal and back it up with his signature. My signature is worth something. Yours it would appear – if you continue to treat your financial obligations and business dealings in this manner – will soon be worthless.”

Jerry Radburn as Scrooge in the Wokingham Theatre Production of A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens. Adapted for the stage by James Hutchison. Directed by David Stacey. Photograph Simon Vail Photography

These are the words of a man who hates Christmas! A man who hates anything that does not make him richer and so he hates Christmas most of all. These are the words of a man filled with pride who has forsaken humanity and measures his life in dollars or pounds sterling only. These are the words of Ebenezer Scrooge.

And this Christmas those words, which happen to be from my adaptation of A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens, are being brought to life in Wokingham England where Wokingham Theatre is producing my small cast version of the play from December 4th to 14th. The production is being directed by David Stacey who I connected with in early November to talk with him about Wokingham Theatre and his production of the play.

JAMES HUTCHISON

Tell me a little bit about Wokingham. The community and the theatre.

DAVID STACEY

It’s quite a traditional lovely old English town that has a good community atmosphere. The theatre group itself started back in the 1940s. And through community spirit and amateur theatre clubs it developed and sustained itself and in the 1980s they built a theatre. Unlike a lot of other theatre groups who have to either rent accommodation or share the space with other societies or groups Wokingham Theatre has its own space.

JAMES

Why do you think A Christmas Carol still resonates so many years after it was originally written?

DAVID

The Christmas that we know, certainly here in Britain, with the roast turkey or roast goose, the Victorian Christmas carols and all those kinds of traditions come from Dickens. Everybody, when they’re celebrating Christmas, encounters all of those as part of the Christmas season. So that’s partly it, but it’s also a lovely moral story that taps into what is important about Christmas. And that’s not necessarily anything to do with religion, even though it’s obviously a religious feast, but for those that aren’t religious they can still tap into the spirit of the story and what Christmas means. And everybody knows the story and they like to listen to it, again and again, year after year, and it has a happy ending which audiences love.

Vicky Lawford as Mrs. Dilber and Jerry Radburn as Scrooge in the Wokingham Theatre Production of A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens. Adapted for the stage by James Hutchison and directed by David Stacey. Photograph Simon Vail Photography

JAMES

What are some of the unique things that you’re bringing to your production?

DAVID

When the spirits arrive there will be some video projection onto the stage to add special effects. And we’ve got music that has been written for the show. It’s not a musical or anything but rather than just taking pre-recorded Christmas carols or Christmas music, which everyone will have heard before, we’re composing music. I also wanted to keep it traditional. So, we’re still using the Victorian setting and we still have the Victorian imagery and everything, but we’re doing things slightly different with how the spirits look and how that’s played.

So, for example, the second spirit rather than dressed exactly in the costume, as described in the book, our second spirit is going to be on stilts. So, he’s quite the giant but a bit more like a circus or Willy Wonka type of character rather than a Santa Claus character in the big beard and costume. And the third spirit is traditionally done as a grim reaper, so I wanted to do something different with that. He’s quite creepy. You look at his face that has a mask on and a black suit and he has these long fingers. And we have an interactive set that moves and hopefully the audience will be magically surprised by that.

JAMES

What do you like about directing?

DAVID

It’s the creativity. I do acting as well as directing. And when I act in something I tend to miss the directing and when I direct something I tend to miss the acting. But I really like directing and trying to get my vision of the story out and seeing it created. Whether that’s doing a small black box studio theatre show or something larger on the stage in Wokingham with more people involved. It’s about bringing the magic of the story to the audience. And I will read the script and think this is my vision of it. And I want to then be able to turn that into a reality and that’s why I really enjoy reading play scripts, rather than novels. Because the play script is written for somebody else to take and to visualize it and to physically produce it and turn it into something for people to watch. And I find that really exciting, rather than books which stay in your head, you’re not expected to physically recreate the physicality of it. And I like that the audience is watching it from the front, and then from behind you have all of these sets that are actually all fake. And it’s all people in makeup and costumes that are taking on a character and I really, really like that.

Jerry Radburn as Scrooge in the Wokingham Theatre Production of A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens. Adapted for the stage by James Hutchison and directed by David Stacey. Photograph Simon Vail Photography
Peter Pearson as Jacob Marley and Jerry Radburn as Scrooge in the Wokingham Theatre Production of a Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens. Adapted for the stage by James Hutchison and directed by David Stacey. Photograph by Simon Vail Photography.
Becca Tizzard as the First Spirit and Jerry Radburn as Scrooge in the Wokingham Theatre production of A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens. Adapted for the stage by James Hutchison and directed by David Stacey. Photograph by Simon Vail Photography
Jerry Radburn as Scrooge in the Wokingham Theatre Production of A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens. Adapted for the stage by James Hutchison and directed by David Stacey. Photograph by Simon Vail Photography
Vicky Lawford as Mrs. Dilber and Jerry Radburn as Scrooge in the Wokingham Theatre Production of A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens. Adapted for the stage by James Hutchison and directed by David Stacey. Photograph Simon Vail Photography
Wokingham Theatre Production of A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens. Adapted for the stage by James Hutchison and directed by David Stacey. Photography Simon Vail Photography

JAMES

One of the things I tried to do in my adaptation was have Scrooge interact more with the spirits or speaking to the people that are memories and making him more resistant to changing by having him argue more with the spirits than what’s in the book. Scrooge has to take the whole night to change and that’s a process and a journey and I wonder if you’ve found that playing well and just how the actors are using it.

DAVID

That’s one of the things that attracted me to this particular script. And also because you introduced the device of the letters. The letters allow Scrooge to have more regret at the end. In the original book he wakes up the next morning and is going to change but there needs to be some sort of regret as well because he’s lost out on marrying his childhood sweetheart because he didn’t behave very well. And that’s life. You can’t go through life behaving badly and then decided to change your mind and get everything back that you’ve missed out on. The letters are a lovely, lovely device to really emphasize that and as you say the talking to the spirits is good fun. He’s particularly argumentative with the first spirit and we’re having the first spirit be quite argumentative back. She’s not playing it all nice. Because even though it’s not a complete nightmare, it isn’t a pleasant dream he’s having in any way.

JAMES

Well as a playwright I’m not set in you having to produce the play as I’ve described it. Generally when I write I try to minimize the amount of character description and character action I put in my scripts because I believe those things are going to be discovered by how you design the set, by the actors you cast, by how you want to stage the play, by the size of your stage, all of these things that I can’t anticipate. So, it’s absolutely wonderful and so fascinating to see the different takes on telling the story that all come from the same script.

DAVID

And because our audience is an adult audience we’re not trying to do anything that’s too saccharine or anything like that. It’s not really targeted to a child or family audience so we can have some bits that are maybe a little bit more unpleasant or you don’t have to worry about scaring kids or getting them upset.

And so one of the other things I’ve introduced for when Scrooge travels with the spirits is to make the journey quite unpleasant. Particularly with the first spirit. When she says, “I will take you or let’s go and see somebody else or the Fezziwigs – that kind of stuff – she grabs hold of Scrooge and it’s almost as if he’s being electrocuted. So, there’s going to be lots of special effects of electricity and sparks and things like that. And it’s painful for him. And then with the second spirit, it’s a bit more wonderous and swirly and everything is going to get spun around and he’s going to get physically thrown around as if he’s on a sort of like a roller coaster. I didn’t want it to be where they all just float off into the sky like Peter Pan and drift around pleasantly, because then I’m not convinced that Scrooge has changed. Or why would he change if it’s all been a nice dream? No, it’s because he’s been taught a lesson in a painful way and I think the script allows for that.

JAMES

I think you found my big cast version of the script first and then I sent you my smaller cast version for you to read. That version has one actor play Scrooge and then the other actors play multiple roles. How is that working for you in terms of staging the play and telling the story

DAVID

Wokingham Theatre is a relatively large group, but we certainly couldn’t have cast a thirty strong production. So, I really liked how you reduced it down and have the multi rolling and have it as an ensemble piece. And, that’s the main reason I went with the smaller cast version although we didn’t go strictly with the casting as you have it in your script. But I like the idea of the actors taking on more than one role because it gives them more to do and they do enjoy that in my experience, and it gives them a bit more stage time.

Peter Pearson as Jacob Marley and Jerry Radburn as Scrooge in the Wokingham Theatre Production of a Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens. Adapted for the stage by James Hutchison and directed by David Stacey. Photograph by Simon Vail Photography.

JAMES

Tell me a little bit about the cast.

DAVID

Jerry Radburn who is playing Scrooge and has been acting at Wokingham Theatre and at various other theatres for a very long time is someone I know very well. I’ve been in lots of plays with him but I haven’t directed him before. Most of the cast I know and I’ve worked with in various guises either being in plays with several of them or directed them in other shows but there’s one or two that I’d never met before who turned up because we have open auditions. And so, it’s really, really nice when we get new people coming along. And as part of this season I had a policy that I sent to all of my directors that you needed to cast at least one new person for each show if they’re suitable for a particular role just to expand the diversity of the group. And we have a youth theatre group, as part of Wokingham Theater, which runs classes and so we often tap into that to find keen youngsters who want to take parts and be in our main season shows. And so that’s kind of good fun to work with the youth cast as well. The key thing is that everybody’s doing it because they love it. Everyone has fun and that’s the main priority.

A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens and adapted for the stage by James Hutchison runs from December 4th to December 14th at Wokingham Theatre. The production stars Jerry Radburn as Scrooge and is directed by David Stacey. To find out more about Wokingham Theatre and their upcoming season visit the Wokingham Theatre Website.

Wokingham Theatre – A Christmas Carol – Cast & Crew

Jerry Radburn – Scrooge
Matthew Lugg – Fred
Claire Bray – Bob Cratchit, Scrooge as a young man
Peter Pearson – Mr. Bentley, Jacob Marley, Thomas
Chris Westgate – Mr. Granger, Second Spirit, Mr. Fezziwig
Gary Smith – Mr. Harrington, Old Joe
Vicky Lawford – Mrs. Dilber, Mrs. Fezziwig, Mrs. Cratchit
Becca Tizzard – First Spirit, Martha Cratchit. Rose
Louise Punter – Cook
Sophie Marsden – Belle, Emma, Caroline
Andi Lee – Granny Cratchit

Youth Cast:
Oliver Lees, Nicholas Zezula, Amber Pearce, Annabel Brittain, Jonathan Willis, Joseph Rea

Director – David Stacey
Assistant Director – Heather Maceachern
Production Manager – Claire Lawrence
Stage Manager – Mike Rogers
Costume – Rosemary Matthews & Sue deQuidt
Props/models – Claire Willis
Lights – Nick Gill & Richard Field
Sound – John Gold
Original Music – Charlie Lester
Choreography – Lesley Richards
Set Design – Henry Ball

Interview with Aaron Krogman: Actor

Posted on November 26, 2019July 2, 2022 by James Hutchison

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.

JP Thibodeau – StoryBook Theatre

Posted on September 19, 2019April 19, 2024 by James Hutchison

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 Production Still Rent — 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?

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?

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.

Storybook Theatre - Artistic Director JP Thibodeau - Season 43

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.

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?

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.

Mary Poppins at StoryBook Theatre — StoryBook Theatre’s Production of Mary Poppins

JAMES

Where do you want StoryBook to be two, three, four years from now?

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.

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?

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.

It is now, for sure.

JAMES

I bet you didn’t anticipate that.

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?

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.

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?

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.

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.

Totally.

JAMES

The Lion King did a pretty good job of reimagining Hamlet.

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.

JAMES

What are you working on right now?

I’m working on Queen’s We Will Rock You by Ben Elton for a North American tour.

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?

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.

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?

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.

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?

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.

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?

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.

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.

Interview with Photographer Tim Nguyen

Posted on September 5, 2019December 2, 2024 by James Hutchison

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.

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.

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.

Tim Nguyen – Behind the Scenes of Rococo Punk

Written in Stone Premieres at the Newmarket National Ten Minute Play Festival

Posted on July 18, 2019September 28, 2023 by James Hutchison

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.

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.

Newmarket National Play Festival Table work and Rehearsals — 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.

***

***

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?

Written in Stone at the Newmarket National Play Festival

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

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 in Written in Stone at The Newmarket National Play Festival.

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 in Written in Stone at The Newmarket National Play Festival.

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 in Written in Stone at The Newmarket National Play Festival.

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 in Written in Stone at The Newmarket National Play Festival.

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).

Ahsley Frederick Stage Manager Written in Stone at The Newmarket National Play Festival.

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.

Christopher Duthie, Julie Orton & Ayla Stephen: A Dinner Party

Posted on June 17, 2019July 15, 2023 by James Hutchison

Allison Lynch is Darling, Ayla Stephen is Boo, Kiana Wu is Sweetie, and Geoffrey Simon Brown is Baby in A Dinner Party by Christopher Duthie. Directed by Julie Orton

We write songs about love. We tell stories about love. We long for love. We celebrate love. Love is all around us and yet we don’t always know what it means. If we did we wouldn’t need to keep discussing it and exploring it and talking about it. We are, it seems to me, bound by our heart’s desire. So, what is this thing called love? I think if I was to define love – I would simply call it absurd.

So, I’m really excited that Christopher Duthie, Julie Orton, and Ayla Stephen have joined forces to bring Calgary the premiere of Christopher Duthie’s new play, A Dinner Party, which just so happens to be an absurdist examination of love.

When Boo, Darling, Baby and Sweetie are unable to agree on a common deﬁnition of Love, their otherwise normal dinner party spirals into an absurd chaos of marriage proposals, identity crises, culinary emergency and polite cannibalism. Part absurdist meta-theatre, part romantic cringe comedy, A Dinner Party asks how we know our individual Selfs and understand our Love for one another in the fragmented social landscape of the 21st Century.

If that doesn’t sound like a fun night at the theatre I don’t know what does. I sat down with Christopher, Julie, and Ayla while they were in rehearsal to talk with them about the play and how it explores relationships and love.

JAMES HUTCHISON

We’re going to be talking about your play A Dinner Party which is an exploration of love and so I’m curious about what your favourite love song is and why?

CHRISTOPHER DUTHIE

I think my favourite love song is, Naïve Melody – This Must Be the Place by the Talking Heads because it’s so beautiful and also because it’s about what we think love will be and then we discover what it is.

JAMES

Are you checking Google music?

AYLA STEPHEN

Yeah. (Laughs) I can’t think of any. I love – love songs so much and they always hit me right in the heart but then I forget about them and find new ones.

JULIE ORTON

I have two. The first one is Little Person by Jon Brion and it’s from the movie Synecdoche, New York which is a Charlie Kaufman movie.

JAMES

It’s a strange movie.

JULIE

It’s a very strange movie but it’s a beautiful song and it’s very reminiscent of this play. It’s about going through the world in a disconnected way hoping that one day you’ll bump into that other person you’ve been waiting for and that you can just live a simple life together with that other person. And my other one is When you Get to Ashville by Steve Martin and Edie Brickell because it’s just a really pretty lovely yearning song.

Christopher Duthie – Playwright – A Dinner Party

JAMES

So, where did the inspiration for this play come from?

CHRISTOPHER

I was doing my MFA in creative writing from 2015 to 2016 in Guelph when I was living in Toronto and I needed to figure out what to do for my thesis, and I had literally written down this conversation that I’d woken up with in my head that was funny, and then I’d put it away and I had figured once I finish my thesis I will come back to it. And I think I was secretly intimidated by the pressure of writing a thesis play and having to write something serious and important. And as a way of psyching myself out of that kind of thinking I just said, “I’m going to write this ridiculous play and try to make myself laugh and give myself the freedom to make myself laugh and see if anything comes from it.” And that scene became the play and quite quickly the structure and setting of the play became very clear, and I found that as I started writing something emerged that would be funny at first and then it would stop being funny and it became kind of serious, and once it was serious something real would happen and it would become funny again.

JAMES

So, what is the play about?

CHRISTOPHER

A Dinner Party is an absurdist party about two couples whose evening is thrown off course into a kind of chaos of marriage proposals, heartbreak, culinary emergency, polite cannibalism…but essentially it’s about two young couples disagreeing on what love is.

JAMES

The definition of love.

AYLA

It’s a millennial viewpoint on love and relationships that’s absurdist and highly relatable and also very funny. And I say millennial in a good way. It’s not derogatory and it’s not a judgemental term. It’s just that’s where we are and that’s where these characters are living.

JULIE

And one of the great things about the way Christopher has written the play is that it can to be explored in an ungendered way. So, every character could be played by anyone and have any sexual orientation. And it’s funny because when you end up with your cast, just by virtue of the dynamics in the room, all of a sudden, you’re making a different comment on a love dynamic. And so you can tell many different versions of love and many different stories.

And so we have a couple in the play who have been together for a long time and in our version of the play, they’re being played by two female-identifying performers. And so all of a sudden, the dynamics of an older settled love between two women is a really interesting story to dig into compared to the younger love couple in the play being played by a male-identifying performer and a female-identifying performer. Suddenly the dynamic of the settled female couple becomes much more interesting when compared to the younger male and female couple.

And the first time I was introduced to the play was when we did a reading at Christopher’s house. So myself and Mike Tan, Graham Percy, and Brett Dahl, were invited to read the play. And so in that dynamic, I was the only female and there were different dynamics at play for sure. But it didn’t change the arc of the play, it didn’t change the relationships at the core and what their issues are. It was fascinating. Now we have the inverse of that where we have one male and three females, and it works just the same.

JAMES

Who have you cast in the show?

AYLA

I’m playing the character Boo, and Allison Lynch is playing Darling, who is my partner in the show. And we have Geoffrey Simon Brown playing Baby and Kiana Wu playing Sweetie.

JAMES

Did you make any interesting discoveries during the writing process in terms of love that you didn’t expect?

CHRISTOPHER

I think I confirmed ideas that I had always sort of operated with. Like, I don’t necessarily believe that everyone experiences love in the same way. I don’t necessarily believe that there’s one person for everyone. I don’t necessarily think that everyone wants as their ultimate fulfillment of self to be with another person. I think those sorts of ideas made themselves apparent.

JULIE

There are definitely parts of both couples that I can relate to. You have this young couple that are in the early stages of being together. Like six weeks of being together and everything is wonderful. Everything is new and fresh. And there’s definitely parts of that relationship where I go, “Oh, I remember what that was like.” And it was so perfect, right? “Why can’t we live there forever?”

And then there’s this more settled couple that I recognize immediately. And I think, okay, I love the intimacy of how well they know each other. And I love the comfortability between them, but I also see the traps of that. And I also see the disconnections that can happen after spending a lot of time with someone. And so, I think for me, same as Christopher, it just confirmed the things that had been swimming around in my head.

JAMES

Ayla, what about yourself? Have you discovered anything new in terms of your views of love and relationships?

AYLA

I haven’t been in relationships as long as my character has but there is that beautiful comfortability and knowing that even if you’re having a fight there’s still that underlying love, and support and commitment that’s there. And not to say that’s easy or that makes it okay when you are not nice to the person you love, but there is a kind of security built into that.

JAMES

Why do we do that? Why aren’t we nice to the people we love? As actors, you do dramas all the time, where people who are supposed to love each other are not nice to each other. Any insights on good old human nature?

JULIE

I think in order to be in a long term committed relationship, you have to maintain a certain amount of vulnerability at all times. And I think it is human nature when you are feeling not as strong as you did yesterday or if you’re feeling a little insecure to occasionally swipe out in order to protect yourself. And sadly, it tends to be at the person that you love the most, because they know you the best. And it’s frustrating, and you wish it didn’t happen, but it does.

JAMES

Do you think in love we expect too much from our partner?

JULIE

Oh yes. And I think committing to one person is a really cuckoo experiment because you are an individual fully formed human with a much different experience leading up to the day you met them. And so, your way of interpreting things or looking at things or defining things is different than theirs. And so sometimes you come up against something that is just a conflict of experience and it’s really hard to say we’re two different people, but we’re going to continue on the same path, even though we don’t know where this is going.

JAMES

Is that a cultural thing or is it a human thing?

CHRISTOPHER

Without giving too much away I have right in the play that we have these two holy things in the West, in our culture. We have the dream of the perfect monogamous love, and then we have this dream of total personal freedom. And those ideas are at war constantly. Because I don’t really believe you can have both. Because I think how we define perfect love in our culture involves giving up a piece of yourself and surrendering to the fact that I’m with you on this road that we are creating together. And that is going to involve some of where you want to go, and that’s going to involve some of where I want to go, and we are going to disagree. And if our dream is to stay together, then we need to figure out a way to do that.

JAMES

How much do you think we understand our partners and how does the play explore that?

AYLA

I think the play explores that quite a bit. I think that might be one of the thesis points. How are we communicating and what language are we using? Because if your timelines are different, and the way you’re talking about getting there is different – even if it might look the same – it’s not the same thing. And that can cause feelings of insecurity and vulnerability that can lead to those miscommunications and those anger points. So it’s like, “Oh, it sounds like we’re not working towards the same thing? Is this the right relationship for us to be in?”

JULIE

And I think another thing that the play explores is not just how well do we know our partners, but how well do we know ourselves in our partnerships, because I think we invest a lot in a dual identity and we end up losing a little bit of our individual identities. And so, at the end of the day, when you sit down with yourself and think how well do I know my partner – I think it’s actually who am I in this relationship?

JAMES

Julie, I want to ask how did you go from reading it in Chris’s home to now sitting in the director’s chair. At what point did you go, “I’m going to be the director?”

JULIE

Not one point did that happen. When I read it my gut reaction was I really want to be in this play because there are so few opportunities to do absurdist Theatre in Calgary these days. There’s been a little more this season with Rosencrantz and Guildenstern and Waiting for Godot which is great but not new absurd theatre. I don’t think I have seen a new absurdist play in years. And Christopher’s writing is so funny and quick and smart, and really profoundly beautiful.

So after reading it that first time, I just thought, “Oh, my God, I really hope he’s gathered us all here because he wants us to be in his play.” And then I didn’t hear a lot about it because he was working on his thesis. And then he reached out to me and said, “I want to talk to you about A Dinner Party,” and we met for coffee and he said, “I think you should direct it.” And it scared the poop out of me James, but I think I said yes immediately and then I went home and I was like, “What have I done? I don’t know what I’m doing. I have no idea the first thing about how to direct a play, how to lead a room, how to talk to actors. I just know how to be talked to as an actor.”

AYLA

See, and I disagreed.

JULIE

Yeah, you did.

AYLA

Julie and I worked on Goodnight Desdemona Good Morning Juliet together. And that was the first time we’ve been actors in a room together since University. And I was like, Julie’s had so many opportunities to work as an actor in Calgary and outside of Calgary. She’s immensely skilled and the way that she’s able to communicate with a director about what she’s doing and what she’s doing with us as actors in the scene I was like, “Julie should move into directing.”

CHRISTOPHER

You were the first person that said, “Julie could direct this.”

JULIE

And I’m excited that I said yes because it’s been profoundly exciting in the room. It’s been one of the hardest things I’ve ever done, for sure. But there’s nothing I like more than sitting in a room and watching actors pull apart a script and invest in characters. And this is a character-rich play and so it hasn’t felt like I’m a total fish out of water. It feels like I can actually communicate what’s happening. And it’s been so joyful and I don’t know what happens next with me as a director, but right now, God, I love it!

Playwright/Producer Christopher Duthie; Sound Designer Thomas Geddes; Actors Kiana Wu, Geoffrey Simon Brown and Allison Lynch; Actor/Producer Ayla Stephen; Director Julie Orton; Fight Director Brianna Johnston; Set/Costume/Props Designer Deitra Kalyn – in rehearsal for A Dinner Party by Christopher Duthie

JAMES

So, you were all at the University of Calgary together and I understand that you’ve wanted to work together again for some time and now you’re finally making that happen. What was the process of bringing A Dinner Party to the stage?

AYLA

Chris did a lot of the legwork writing grants and finding opportunities and making partnerships and connecting with people in the community to get extra support. Like Vertigo came on board, once we had some grants, and they’re really doing a lot to support indie artists who are coming up.

CHRISTOPHER

They’re our venue sponsors.

AYLA

We had that support and we had people in our lives who were really excited about seeing us working together again because we’ve established ourselves as artists in the community now. And we raised additional funds through a Kickstarter campaign and it’s all for generating new work which I think hasn’t been happening as robustly as it had been in Calgary about five years ago. And we’re excited to be contributing to that.

CHRISTOPHER

I will say too that, as much as we are friends we admire each other’s work. And what we’ve talked about is coming to each other with projects we’re interested in leading and trying to find a sustainable way of supporting each other and making theatre in the long term. And also to help each other build the skills that we have and can share with each other to develop our own practices and production abilities.

JAMES

So, just before we wrap up here what’s your favourite line from the play? Without giving too much away.

AYLA

“I could so be a shepherd.” I love that line.

CHRISTOPHER

It feels a bit like tooting my own horn but actually, I really like the line, “No, I knew you were behind me.”

JULIE

Yes, that’s a good one. I like, “Love isn’t just one feeling it’s an amalgamation of every feeling.”

JAMES

And final question, just curious, what is polite cannibalism?

CHRISTOPHER

Oh, you’ll have to find out.

AYLA

Come see the show.

JULIE

Pinkies up.

***

A Dinner Party runs from June 20 to June 29^th in the Studio at Vertigo Theatre. Tickets are just $30.00 for adults and $25.00 for students and seniors and can be purchased by calling the Vertigo Box Ofﬁce at 403.221.3708 or online at VertigoTheatre.com. Please note that the show does contain adult themes and nudity and is intended for a mature audience.

Calgary theatre artists Christopher Duthie, Julie Orton and Ayla Stephen are proud to present the independent premiere production of A Dinner Party by Christopher Duthie, directed by Julie Orton at the Vertigo Studio Theatre from June 20-29, 2019.

Written as Christopher Duthie’s MFA thesis in Creative Writing at the University of Guelph, A Dinner Party is a comedy about true love for the post-truth era. This new take on the absurdist genre is hitting the stage for the ﬁrst time in an independent production supported by the Canada Council for the Arts, the Alberta Foundation for the Arts, a generous community of Kickstarter crowd funders, the venue sponsorship of Vertigo Theatre and the partnership of Inside Out Theatre’s Good Host Audience Inclusion Program.

A Dinner Party is the pilot project of an indie-producing collaboration between Duthie, Orton and Stephen. With over a decade of experience each onstage as actors and offstage as playwrights, theatre creators and/or producers, they are banding together to play a more active role in making exciting theatre happen in Calgary.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Samantha MacDonald: The Universe Provides

Posted on June 13, 2019September 2, 2023 by James Hutchison

“I guess the other thing that I love so much about our industry is the amazing people who have all, for better or for worse, made this decision to become a part of this crazy thing that we do. And they give their hearts, and their souls, and their blood, and their sweat, and their tears, and we all have our crazy stories about the crazy hours and the hard work and all of the things that go into making theatre, but at the end of the day we get each other, and we come together in this almost spiritual way and support each other and make something beautiful – and then it’s gone. It’s like poof, and it’s gone, and I just love that – I love the temporary nature of what we do. And sometimes it’s heartbreaking, but it’s a big part of what I love about theatre.”

Samantha MacDonald, Artistic Producer – Lunchbox Theatre

Samantha MacDonald has been a part of the Canadian theatre scene for thirty years and has spent a substantial part of that time as both a director and theatre administrator. She was the Co-Founder and Co-Artistic Producer of Project X Theatre Productions in Kamloops BC from 2004 to 2010 and was the Artistic Producer of Theatre North West in Prince George BC from 2010 to 2014, and for the last five years she’s been a vital part of the Lunchbox Theatre team. MacDonald joined Lunchbox in 2014 as the Production and Operations Manager and then became the Associate Artistic Producer from 2015 to 2017 and for the last two years she’s been leading the company as the Artistic Producer.

In addition to her administrative and arts leadership work, she’s an accomplished director having directed several Shakespeare plays including, Two Gentlemen of Verona, The Tempest, and Hamlet for Project X and more recently As You Like It for Shakespeare by the Bow. She’s also directed several contemporary plays including To Dream Again for Storybook Theatre and several productions for Lunchbox Theatre including the very touching and poignant Flight Risk by Meg Braem, the smart and complex In On It by Daniel MacIvor and the very funny and successful Guttenberg! The Musical! which was the final play in the 2018/19 Lunchbox Theatre season.

I sat down with Samantha to talk with her about her love of theatre, Lunchbox, and her plans for the future.

JAMES HUTCHISON

So, I’ve listened to and read other interviews with you and sometimes you’ll say, “Oh dear, I’ve gotten on my soapbox about theatre.” But I want to hear you on your soapbox. I want to hear what it is you love about theatre. What is it?

SAMANTHA MACDONALD

Oh God, how long do you have? (Laughs) There are a number of things, but I think the first thing I fell in love with about this medium and what we do is just telling a great story. It’s the opportunity to put a bunch of people together in a room and touch them emotionally and to allow them all to feel something and to connect to something in a way you can not do in any other medium. Live theatre is the one place where we all share something so visceral and engaging in one space and we all experience it together at the same time, and part of that experience is how we respond together in a dark space to whatever we’re watching. And I love that.

SAMANTHA

Two weekends ago I had the great pleasure of adjudicating the Provincial High School Drama Festival in Red Deer, and my partner in crime was designer Anton de Groot, and one of the things he talked a lot about in his adjudications was exactly that and how on stage you are able to do things that you can’t do on film in terms of engaging an audience. So, you can take a piece of fabric that was once a parachute and turn it into waves or into a mountain or whatever, and the audience goes with you on that journey, and I love how you can tell a story in such an incredible way that maybe you would never have imagined.

And I guess the other thing that I love so much about our industry is the amazing people who have all, for better or for worse, made this decision to become a part of this crazy thing that we do. And they give their hearts, and their souls, and their blood, and their sweat, and their tears, and we all have our crazy stories about the crazy hours and the hard work and all of the things that go into making theatre, but at the end of the day we get each other, and we come together in this almost spiritual way and support each other and make something beautiful – and then it’s gone. It’s like poof, and it’s gone, and I just love that – I love the temporary nature of what we do. And sometimes it’s heartbreaking, but it’s a big part of what I love about theatre.

Creator and performer Michelle Thrush in Inner Elder, co-presented with One Yellow Rabbit as a part of the High Performance Rodeo. Photo Credit: Benjamin Laird

JAMES

When did you decide to go into this profession?

SAMANTHA

When I was in elementary school I was an actor, and I’m not an actor now, and I never ever will be, but I was an actor in elementary school and I loved it. I loved being on stage. I was Sir Joseph Porter in H.M.S. Pinafore. I was Tiny Tim in Christmas Carol. I did all these things and as I got a little older I used to see shows whether it was my sister in a high school production or whatever, and when I would watch theatre there was always this hole in my chest that I could never explain and that I never understood, but I would watch theatre, and I would just have this kind of pain.

After high school I decided I was going to be a corporate lawyer and work for Coca Cola, and because I’d worked on a couple of theatre productions in high school I took a technical theatre class my first year of college, and the second day of this class we went to the Sagebrush Theatre, which is where we would do most of our learning in Kamloops, and I walked into the theatre, and I stood on the stage, and that hole I had been feeling went fwump. And I went, “I’m never going to be a corporate lawyer.” (Laughs) And that was it. The joy of this medium just filled that empty space in me and I was in love. And you know, here we are thirty years later and I still love it. I still absolutely love it. And whatever that hole in me was it never reopened. It went away that day and it’s never come back.

First day of full costume for the 2010 Project X production of The Rocky Horror Picture Show. Director Samantha MacDonald and her assistant director dress up to show solidarity and support for the cast.

JAMES

Let’s talk a little bit about the unique story of Lunchbox because lunch-time theatre was a big thing in the seventies. I was doing a little research about it and I was reading that in London you could see great actors like Bob Hoskins on stage, and interestingly enough there does seem to be a bit of a resurgence of lunchtime theatre going on now, but a lot of the original theatres have disappeared. So, what do you think it is about Lunchbox – because Lunchbox has had good times and tough times and it’s still here – what do you think it is about this theatre company that has made it possible to last for forty-five years?

SAMANTHA

I think there are a few things. I think the organization has always been very good at listening to its audience, and I think we’ve done very well over that large span of time of making sure that we are growing and changing with what our audience needs and wants. And our audience as a result of that has trusted us, and so even when we offer them something that’s maybe a little more challenging or a little different than they’re used to they will go on that journey with us because they trust us and what we’re giving them.

Devon Dubnyk and Arielle Rombough in the 2018 Lunchbox Theatre production of It’s a Wonderful Life: A Live Radio Play, adapted by Joe Landry. Photo credit: Benjamin Laird

SAMANTHA

And I think there’s something really lovely in terms of being able to come for an hour and eat your lunch and watch great entertainment and then go away again. You know it’s a great story, but it’s not a huge commitment, and I think that’s something – particularly in our day and age – that a bite-sized bit of theatre is a great way for people to connect. It’s also, if you’re new to theatre, a really nice way to check it out without a huge commitment.

JAMES

Looking at this last season what have been some of the highlights for you at Lunchbox?

SAMANTHA

One of the big highlights for us was the opportunity to premiere a brand-new musical which we commissioned from a young local playwright. Emily Dallas is incredibly talented and a lovely young woman and so to have an opportunity to say to her, “I want you to write a piece of theatre and these are the parameters I need you to write within,” and then for her to come back with a piece like Brave Girl, which was our Remembrance show was really exciting, and our hope is she’ll be able to take it and expand it beyond a one act.

Elinor Holt, Jessica Eckstadt, and Tara Jackson in the 2018 production of Brave Girl by Emily Dallas. Photo credit: Benjamin Laird

JAMES

How did you two connect?

SAMANTHA

I directed Emily in As You Like It for Shakespeare by the Bow a couple of summers ago, and for one of her audition pieces she sat down at the piano in the Theatre Calgary rehearsal hall and played this beautiful song she’d written about a young person’s struggle in high school and about being your own hero. And by the end of the song, both Susan McNair Reid and I were in tears and then having worked with her all summer long I had a strong sense of both her ideals as a theatre creator and also her talents as an artist. I mean, I would say I took a risk, but it wasn’t really a risk, because I knew she would come up with the goods.

JAMES

Brave Girl is, as you mentioned, a one-act play and Lunchbox does one-act plays. What is it you’re looking for when you select a one-act play for your season? What jumps out at you?

SAMANTHA

It has to have heart. The content and story arch can be about anything, but at the end of the day what we know is that our audiences really connect with and are engaged with stories that have heart. And by that I mean it has to be a piece that connects to our audience in a positive emotional way so whether it’s something that affirms their beliefs, or something that reminds them that there is good in the world, or something that takes them on a journey – at the end of their sixty minutes with us – even if it’s a dark piece – even if it’s a piece that takes them to a place that’s more challenging – it still, at the end of the day, leaves them feeling better off than they did when they arrived.

So, for example, I directed In on It by Daniel MacIvor which was a challenging piece for our audience because it was nonlinear, and it was darker, and there was a character who died in it, and it was about dealing with grief and death, but I think our audience really liked being engaged in those ways. And in Brave Girl there’s the story of these two sisters and their struggles and how it tears them apart, and then of course at the end it puts them back together again, and it’s also the story of the mother who loses her spouse, and then she watches this rift develop between her two children, and it’s her journey as well, and so Brave Girl has lots and lots of heart in it.

Mark Bellamy and Stafford Perry in the 2016 Lunchbox Theatre production of In On It by Daniel MacIvor. Photo Credit: Benjamin Laird

JAMES

Let’s talk a little bit about the season coming up. I’m curious, as an artistic producer, how do you balance your artistic vision with the business realities of running a theatre?

SAMANTHA

Well I mean obviously, as you know, financially it’s always a huge challenge, so when I was programming the 18/19 season, which is just wrapping up, part of what I was really aware of was that we needed to try and find a way to balance things financially in order for us to survive. So part of that was bringing in some shows because they tend to cost a little less, but I was really adamant that moving forward we were going to find a way to get back to producing more local work and hiring more local artists for our 45th season.

And in terms of programming, I always listen to the kinds of things my audience is saying, and I’m always looking at the things that do well for us and what people are talking about. And I suspect over the years we’ve lessened the number of actors over the course of our season so for us a big show is six. It’s a Wonderful Life was a six-person show and that was massive for us, but we also knew that show would sell really well so at the end of the day it wasn’t a risk. People really love the Remembrance show and the Christmas show, and so it is a bit of a challenge in terms of continuing to find new works that fit into both of those two categories.

Selina Wong in the 2016 Lunchbox Theatre Production Lest We Forget, created by JP Thibodeau and Joe Slabe. Photo credit: Benjamin Laird

JAMES

You’re doing Last Christmas by Neil Fleming next year and I was wondering how you arrived at that play as the right choice for next season?

SAMANTHA

I was looking for a Christmas show, and I went back over our history, and we had decided as a team that for our 45th season we wanted to look back in order to look forward a little bit. So with the Remembrance show and the Christmas show we said, “Okay, let’s look back at some of the stuff we’ve done in the past.” And Last Christmas had gone through our Stage One Festival, and it had an original production that had done very well for us, and now here we are ten years later and I think it’s a relevant family story with heart.

JAMES

And it’s funny. Even though it deals with some very serious issues like cancer it’s actually very humourous.

SAMANTHA

It is yeah. And it has that family connection between grandkids and grandparents which I think is relevant, and that’s a connection we don’t see a lot on stage. So, it’s nice to have that multi-generational story. And then similarly we picked Flanders Fields for this year’s Remembrance show because it was our very first Remembrance show that we did and it did really well for us. It also came through Stage One and it has a very clear affiliation with us as an organization, and it’s another moment of looking back to look forward.

Miles Ringsred Riley and Karen Johnson-Diamond in the 2011 Lunchbox Theatre production of Last Christmas by Neil Flemming. Photo credit: Tim Nguyen

JAMES

You’ve also got a world premiere coming up called Old Man the Napi Project can you tell me a little bit about that?

SAMANTHA

Yes, and that won’t be the real title that’s just the working title. So, Justin Many Fingers and I connected about this time last year, and we started to talk about what we can do and one of the things we’re going to do is have an artist in residence program. So, the intention is to take an Indigenous artist and offer them the opportunity to devise a brand-new show under Justin’s mentorship under the auspices of Justin’s company and Making Treaty 7 with Lunchbox as the production side of things. And Justin has now chosen that artist and it’s going to be Zachary Running Coyote, and he will create a show. And the intention is to take the trickster character Napi from the Blackfoot and to look at the trickster character from a variety of different nations perspectives and legends. I’m super excited that it’s going to be Zach because he is a super talented young guy and just a lovely – lovely human and a great storyteller.

JAMES

You’re ending your season with Nashville Hurricane with Chase Padgett who came here a couple of years ago to do his Six Guitars show. And for anybody who hasn’t seen him, he is the most amazing talented performer you’re ever going to see. I even went up to the Fringe in Edmonton last summer just to see Six Guitars, so I’m thrilled to see him coming back to Lunchbox.

SAMANTHA

Our season catchphrase is Together. The whole season is really about togetherness and acceptance and it’s about being all in this together and from the first show to the last show in the season that’s the message. And so in that last moment in Nashville Hurricane where he talks about his epiphany and realizing that we’re all here together and we’re all a miracle – that was for me – a beautiful way to wrap up this season which is really an encapsulation of who we are as Lunchbox Theatre and who we want to be in our community so yeah, it was the perfect show.

JAMES

So, after five years at Lunchbox you’ve made a decision to say goodbye and when it was announced that you were leaving I had this little moment of, “Oh, no not again.” Because you’ve brought Lunchbox to such a good point, and it’s healthy, and the seasons are good and they’re entertaining, and I was like who are they going to get?

SAMANTHA

When I announced to my team that Shari Wattling was my replacement and they cheered I went, “Yeah, okay we’re good. I can leave you guys and you’re in good hands and you’re happy so that’s what matters to me.” And Shari is such a smart lady, and she has really great ideas about where Lunchbox is going, and she has a significant history with the company. Her first professional gig was here. She’s directed for us. She’s dramaturged for us. She’s acted on our stages a number of times, and she was in the office for a period of time, so she has a really good love and understanding of the organization, and I think that’s super important.

Shari Wattling – Incoming Artistic Producer Lunchbox Theatre – Photo credit: Trudie Lee

JAMES

So then, what brought you to this point in your life? Why did you make the decision to leave?

SAMANTHA

There are a couple of things. I should be super clear that I am not leaving Lunchbox. It has nothing to do with this organization. I love this company, and I love the work that we’re doing, and my team is amazing, and if it were ten years ago and I still had the energy and the space in my life that I had then – then I would stay.

But I have been running companies solo essentially for about seventeen years without a break, and I just turned forty-seven, and what I became very aware of in the last couple of years is – that as much as I love the work that we do and as much as I love this industry – my own well has begun to run dry, and I needed to take steps to do a little self-care to refill that well before I started getting bitter and before I started getting angry. Before I stop loving what I do.

And another part that plays into that is when I was twenty-two my mom died of cancer at forty-eight and as I approach that milestone I am aware that in her forty-eight years she lived a vast life, and she raised five children, and she volunteered and studied and had a very rich life. She was an exceptional human. And as I look at my own life in my forty-seven years I’m aware that there’s something a bit lacking for me, because all I’ve done is work and that’s meant the end of a marriage of fifteen years and a lot of stress. So, I made a commitment to myself that I’m going to do something different and see if I can figure out how to live a little bit of life for the next little while. So it’s not about leaving Lunchbox, or even necessarily leaving theatre, it’s about finding a way and a space for me to have a life with a capital L and to re-evaluate things and then move forward from there, and I don’t know what that will look like but that’s the plan. And I’ve been saying for years, “I’m going to get a life one of these days,” and I finally just went, “No I actually have to do something in order to make that happen. No one’s going to hand it to you.” And I always say the Universe provides, and it always has in my thirty years in this industry. I’ve never been without a job, and there are lots of opportunities sort of floating around out there, and I’m just waiting to see what the next thing is that the Universe offers.

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You can check out the entire 2019/20 Lunchbox Theatre season below. Individual tickets to Lunchbox shows are just $25.00 or save some money and purchase a play pass which gives you seven flexible admissions for the price of six. Complete season details and ticket information can be found at LunchboxTheatre.com.

Lunchbox Theatre 2019/20 Theatre Season

The Pink Unicorn
By Elise Forier Edie
September 14 to October 5

Some battles only a mother can fight. When Trisha Lee’s daughter announces that she is genderqueer, the small-town Texas widow’s world is upended. Suddenly at odds with her faith and her family, Trisha must struggle to understand and accept her daughter’s truth. Hilarious and heartfelt, The Pink Unicorn explores a mother’s boundless love for her child.

In Flanders Fields
By Rober Gontier & Nicky Phillips
October 19 to November 9

This stunning work was our inaugural Remembrance play in 2010, when it received a Betty Mitchell Award nomination for Outstanding Production of a Musical. Based on the extraordinary life of Lt.-Col John McCrae, In Flanders Fields sweeps from rural Ontario to the mud of the French trenches, revealing the brotherhood, love, and true humanity of one of Canada’s most famous poets.

Last Christmas
By Neil Flemming
November 23rd to December 21st

Last Christmas, Jake’s wife Marge was still alive and every ritual was observed. This year, between two feuding daughters and a delinquent grandson, Jake’s holidays will be anything but traditional. This heartwarming comedy offers a contemporary look at the joys and challenges of the season, and reminds us that family just might be the greatest gift of all.

Good Morning Viet Mom
Created and Performed by Franco Nguyen
January 11 to January 25

Filmmaker Franco Nguyen travels to Vietnam seeking inspiration for his first feature film and finds an unexpected subject – his mother. Good Morning, Viet Mom is a comedic and bittersweet gem from a first-generation Canadian raised by his single immigrant mother. Nguyen shares stories about childhood; his relationship with his mother; and their emotional trip to Vietnam.

Old Man: The NAPI PROJECT
A Partnership with Making Treaty 7 Cultural Society

The culmination of a co-operative Artist in Residence program with Making Treaty 7 Cultural Society, this project will explore the tradition of Trickster, and stories that examine our morals and the choices we face. The project will be an exploration of what this cultural character evokes and inspires in an Indigenous artist.

A Tender Thing
By Ben Power
March 21 to April 11

What if Romeo and Juliet had lived? This is the question Ben Power poses in this delicate and profound “remix” of the greatest love story ever told. The premise is simple – rather than taking their own lives, the young lovers have grown old together, their dazzling love undimmed, to endure a more commonplace tragedy. Shakespeare’s timeless poetry creates a new, deeply romantic and powerful play, and a strikingly different love story.

Nashville Hurricane
Written by Chase Padgett & Jay Hopkins
April 18 to May 09

Forty years ago a mysterious guitarist appeared from nowhere, conquered the music industry, and then vanished without a trace… until now.

Hot on the heels of his smash hit 6 Guitars, virtuoso actor and musician Chase Padgett becomes a manager, a mother, a mentor, and the guitar prodigy himself as each one tells their side of the rise, demise, and resurrection of the best damn guitar player you’ve never heard of: the Nashville Hurricane.

509
By Justin Many Fingers
October 3 to October 12
Season add on in Partnership with Making Treaty 7

Still in creation, 509 is an examination of a young man’s connection to his Blackfoot ancestors, a connection he only discovers as he lays dying. The show will be a dance theatre piece, mostly in the Blackfoot tongue. This piece is part of a triptych created by Justin Many Fingers, supported by Making Treaty 7 Cultural Society and Lunchbox Theatre. This show is an add on to the 2019/2020 season, presented at The GRAND Theatre.

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LUNCHBOX THEATRE: Lunchbox Theatre is one of the most successful noon hour theatre companies in the world. It aims to provide patrons with a unique theatre experience by producing one-act plays that engage and entertain audiences. Lunchbox Theatre produces six plays per season, as well as the Stage One Festival of New Canadian Work and the RBC Emerging Director’s Program. It is one of Calgary’s longest-running professional theatre companies and is located in the heart of downtown at the base of the Calgary Tower.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Interview with Mark Bellamy and Sayer Roberts: A Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder at Stage West

Posted on May 29, 2019October 28, 2024 by James Hutchison

A Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder by Robert L. Freedman and Steven Lutvak at Stage West Calgary is one of the most entertaining and fun shows I’ve seen on a Calgary stage. This production is outstanding, and I guarantee you’ll be delighted and amused and laughing at the exploits of Monty Navarro as he plots and murders his way into high society.

The Tony Award winning A Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder tells the story of Monty Navarro whose mother was cast out and disinherited by the D’Ysquith family when she married for love. Monty and his mother are forced to live in poverty as the D’Ysquith family remains unmoved by his mother’s appeals for reconciliation. When Monty’s mother dies and Monty learns the truth of his birth and that he’s eighth in line for an earldom he sets about to avenge his mother’s death and take his rightful place as head of the family.

The book, songs, and music from a Gentleman’s Guide are smart, fun, and witty, but having great source material only works if you have an exceptionally talented cast to pull it off, and director Mark Bellamy’s production has assembled a stellar cast that works seamlessly together. Kate Blackburn as Sibella and Ellen Denny as Phoebe are pitch perfect and hilarious as the women in Monty’s life who tempt him, tease him, and manipulate him based on their own desires and ambitions. Tyler Murree shows he has a real gift for farce as he portrays every member of the D’Ysquith family with an air of comic pomposity and entitlement. And Sayer Roberts plays Monty Navarro with all the charm of Cary Grant and the elegance of Fred Astaire making Monty one of the most gracious and likeable rogues you’ll ever meet.

The play is filled with memorable and smart songs including, I Don’t Understand the Poor, Better With a Man, and I Will Marry You as Monty knocks off his relatives one by one on his quest to become the Ninth Earl of Highhurst. Will Monty succeed or will he get caught? Will fate lend a hand? Will he marry Phoebe? Will he always love Sibella? You’ll have to see it in order to find out.

This is easily a five-star production and worthy of two thumbs up. In fact, it’s so good I’m seeing it again, and I’d highly recommend you see it before it closes, because you’ll have a darn good time, and this production won’t be available on demand. Theatre and live performance is the ultimate “here for a limited time” experience.

I sat down with the director of the show Mark Bellamy and actor Sayer Roberts who plays Monty, the Wednesday before the finale of Game of Thrones, to talk with them about the play, musical theatre, and our predictions of who will sit on the Iron Throne.

Mark Bellamy – Director and Musical Staging – A Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder at Stage West Calgary

JAMES HUTCHISON

How did you both get involved in the Canadian premiere of A Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder here at Stage West?

MARK BELLAMY

I’ve loved this show from the minute I’d heard about it. I love the music and I’m a huge fan of this style of musical theatre. There’s a lot of old school techniques that have been put into the writing and the structure of it. So, I learned they were doing it while I was here directing Baskerville last year, and they announced their season, and I was like, “Ah you’re doing Gentleman’s Guide.” And Kira Campbell who’s the Artistic Associate said, “Yeah we’ll get you for Gentleman’s Guide or for this other show, and I’m not sure which one to put you on.” And I was like, “Oh God, please put me on Gentleman’s Guide.” And they did.

SAYER ROBERTS

I saw it ages ago when they did the performance on the Tony Awards, and for a lot of Canada that was the first time any of us had seen or heard anything about the show. And I remember watching it and asking, “What is this amazing show?” And then I got a chance to see the show a couple of years later on Broadway, and I instantly knew that this was one show that I would very much like to do. And the fellow doing it too – he wasn’t the original – he was a replacement – but he was incredible, and I thought, “That’s what I aspire to be as a performer.” So, when the audition posting came out that Stage West was doing this I know that myself and almost every other Canadian was, “What? They’re doing this. I have to be a part of it.”

JAMES

The stars aligned.

SAYER

Exactly.

MARK

Yeah, they sure did.

SAYER

So, I went into the audition with a healthy dose of the cynicism that you always have to have as an actor, “This isn’t my show yet. I’m just going to lay down what I can do and show them what I would bring to the role, and if it happens, it happens, and if it doesn’t you move on.” But as soon as I walked into the room and Mark was there and Kira and Konrad Pluta, the musical director, and we started working on material I really felt like Mark gets this show, and I really wanted to work on it. It was a really fun audition, and I just felt good about it regardless of if I got the part or not, and as an actor you have to take that as a win. It doesn’t matter if you get the show or not. That’s not in your control. So, I left the audition going, “That was really fun, and I had a good time, and I feel like I established a good relationship with the people who are in the room and if that gets me the job that remains to be seen.” It was just one of those things where I felt this could work really well.

JAMES

Mark, I’m curious about how much you look at the individual and how much you look at the chemistry between the actors when you’re casting a show?

MARK

That’s hugely important to me. I’ve always said that one of my superpowers as a director is that I cast really well. And you don’t just cast the individual roles. You have to cast the rehearsal hall. You have to cast people that are going to work well together and especially in a show like this that has a long run you have to cast people who are going to get along well, and after many years of doing this I have a pretty good sense of who a person is and how they’re going to fit the room. Like Sayer said, so many people were excited to do the show – we had over seven hundred submissions between Toronto, Calgary, and the West Coast, and we saw probably two-hundred of those people either in person or via video because everyone wanted to be in this show. So, I was really fortunate that I got to pick from an incredible pool of talent.

JAMES

Have you ever had that amount of choice before?

MARK

Never.

JAMES

Are you spoiled now?

Kate Blackburn as Sibella, Sayer Roberts as Monty, and Ellen Denny as Phoebe in the Stage West Theatre Production of A Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder

MARK

Yes. (Laughs) I’m really spoiled. Especially after working with these guys because there are some really distinct requirements for this show. You have to have people who have legitimately trained voices. Who can sing without a pop sound and these guys all can – as you’ve heard. Especially Sayer, Kate, and El – that trio of voices has to be so clean and they’re extraordinary. And I can’t actually think of anybody else in Canada I’d want to do this show with other than these people. I’ve been saying this – even before rehearsals started – that I have the best cast in the country, and this will be the cast that you will have to beat from now on.

JAMES

This needs to go on tour.

MARK

I would put this production on any stage in Canada.

JAMES

This is one of my favourite shows I’ve seen at Stage West in the last ten years.

MARK

I think it’s one of the best things I’ve ever seen here. And not that I’m biased because I directed it – but I am. (Laughs) I love the show, and because it was the Canadian premiere we worked really hard, and I was able to get these incredible performers. I was like, “We have to make this good. We can’t compromise anywhere. We have to push and push and push to make it as good as we possibly can.”

Elizabeth Stepkowski-Taran as Miss Shingle and Sayer Roberts as Monty Navarro in the Stage West Theatre Production of A Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder

JAMES

I’ve been telling people about it and saying you’re going to like it – young or old you’re going to like this show. What do you think are the elements in this play that make it work so well?

MARK

I think there is something about a charming villain that we love. He’s like the antihero. But he is supremely charming, and we root for him. It helps that all of the people he offs, for the most part, have a slightly despicable edge to them or are deserving of their deaths in some way. But I think we love to see someone who’s an underdog and a bit of an outsider succeed in spite of all the odds, and it satisfies that part of our soul that goes, “I know he should get caught but he’s not going to and that’s so great!”

SAYER

The writing is why it appeals to me. It’s the book and the lyrics and the melodies. And it’s like a mixture of Oscar Wilde and Noel Coward and Noises Off and the classic British farce and Gilbert and Sullivan. It’s just such a perfect marriage of all of the mediums coming together to create such an exquisitely written piece. And I think, just like Mark was saying, the antihero charmingness – the fun farce side of it – he’s murdering people and yet this is fun, and there’s the underdog story, and it’s all bouncy and light from the beginning. It’s an entertaining show.

MARK

And there’s a lot of great humour in it. So, there’s that aspect and also the aspect that we have one actor, Tyler Murree, playing all of the D’Ysquith family. That’s a fun little tour de force. And it plays into that theatrical convention, and it gives the audience a bit of that, “Oh we know what’s going on. We’re in on the joke.”

Tyler Muree as Lord Adalbert D’Ysquith and Katherine Fadum as Lady Eugenia D’Ysquith in the Stage West Theatre Production of A Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder

SAYER

As if the show isn’t funny enough already it just bumps it up so much more once the audience starts to catch on that that’s the same guy…

JAMES

…and he’s playing all the parts…

MARK

…and it’s really clever, and it starts out really slowly, and as you escalate towards the end of act one you just suddenly start to rip through these people. Like literally in scene eleven – which is the ultimate finale of act one – there are four times where he changes characters and comes in and out.

JAMES

Well, on a show like this just how vital is that backstage crew for you?

SAYER

This show would not be possible without a dynamite costume crew and running crew.

MARK

There are two crew members who are dedicated to doing nothing but changing Tyler Murree into all the D’Ysquiths. And all of those costumes had to be constructed.

SAYER

So, he might be wearing a full suit, but it’s all connected with a zipper in the back.

MARK

So, shirt, tie, vest, jacket it’s all one thing.

JAMES

One piece that he can step into and out of.

MARK

Because for some of his costume changes he’s literally got fifteen seconds.

JAMES

That’s part of the magic for the audience. Didn’t he just leave and then he comes back.

MARK

I think we’re so good at it that sometimes people don’t realize what just happened, because it’s so seamless and he’s coming out so calmly that sometimes you don’t realize he’s just made an immense costume change.

Tyler Muree as Lady Hyacinth with her entourage in the Stage West Theatre production of A Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder

JAMES

So, in terms of the production, how do the costumes and the set add to the overall experience of seeing the play.

SAYER

Well for me as an actor whenever I put on a costume it instantly amps up by twenty percent whatever the character was before in rehearsal and that’s particularly true when you’re doing period dramas. Costumes give you the aesthetic, and it definitely adds to the British sensibility of the show, and it changes how you move, how you sit, how you stand. I know for the women wearing those kinds of dresses and with their trains behind them it completely changes things for them. I didn’t have to deal with that as much because I simply wear high waisted suspender pants which I could live the rest of my life in very comfortably. (Laughs) And Monty goes from poor to slowly getting richer and the changing of the jackets really helped with that. That’s a real juxtaposition from starting with a rather old well-loved jacket that literally has pockets that are falling apart to ultimately finishing in a tux.

MARK

I think the set and the costumes are so vital to this show which was another challenge for Stage West because we need these Edwardian costumes, and that’s not something Stage West has a ton of sitting in their storage room, because they don’t do a lot of shows like this. So, a lot of this had to be created. Leslie Robison-Greene who is our costume designer is a genius. It was just incredible what she came with, what she was able to construct while she was here, and what she was able to adapt.

JAMES

Are there any particular songs that you just love and why?

MARK

I’ve Decided to Marry You, I think, is the pinnacle of the show.

JAMES

Is that the one with the two doors where he has Sibella in one room and Phoebe in the other room and he’s trying to keep them apart?

SAYER

Yes. I think with the exception of the bench scene from Carousel between Billy and Julie there’s no better example of musical theatre than the doors. I shouldn’t say of any musical theatre because there are lots of different genres but going for musical comedy there’s nothing better than that door scene.

MARK

It so hits the peak of the farce that the show is and that kind of encapsulates the whole thing. I think one of the things that’s beautiful about the music is that even though it echoes the British Music Hall and it echoes Gilbert and Sullivan it does it in such a way that it’s a homage that doesn’t copy it, and it doesn’t feel antiquated.

SAYER

It’s accessible.

MARK

It’s accessible and very modern and every single song carries the story forward and that to me is the hallmark of a really good musical.

Sayer Roberts as Monty Navarro and Kate Blackburn as Sibella Hallward in the Stage West Theatre Production of A Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder

JAMES

It reminds me a lot of My Fair Lady.

MARK

Yeah.

SAYER

It’s very Lerner and Loewe.

JAMES

I Don’t Understand the Poor really reminds me of…

SAYER

Why Can’t the English

JAMES

Yes, but it feels fresh and original.

MARK

I’m a huge fan of the Golden Age Musicals of the late fifties to mid-sixties, and this really does echo back to that era when all the great American musicals were being produced.

JAMES

So, what is it about musical theatre that adds to a theatrical experience? What does the music bring?

SAYER

Well, there’s an old saying, or a piece of wisdom, or whatever you want to call it, that says, “When you have something to express you speak it. If you can’t speak it – you sing it. If you can’t sing it – you dance it.” And the progression of that so perfectly encapsulates what musical theatre is. And in good musical theatre there is a reason the character is singing. I love speaking Shakespeare. I love speaking monologues and straight plays, but there is nothing quite as deep as you can get into, in my experience, as you can in musical theatre when you sing words that are accompanied with some kind of soaring melody that is an expression of the turmoil or the joy or whatever is going on inside the character. Scientifically music evokes a different part of our brain so the audience tunes into it on a different level. So when you mix the emotion that you can gain from poetry and the emotion you can get from a piece of orchestral music and you put that together that’s double the amount of emotion you could have alone by itself.

MARK

Music is visceral. It just is. It affects you in a different place, and I think it carries emotion in a way that a scene – I mean not that scenes can’t – but it just heightens everything, right? Which is what I think that saying is about. As you continue to heighten and heighten and heighten – the song heightens the scene and the dance heightens the song. And I think it’s thrilling to watch, and I think it’s also thrilling to watch really talented performers who can sing the way that these guys sing, and when you hear these voices it’s stunning, and it’s beautiful. So, I think that’s part of it because I started my career as a performer doing musicals, so they hold a special place in my heart because I think you can move an audience in a way with a musical that you can’t with a straight play.

Sayer Roberts as Monty Navarro in the Stage West Theatre Production of A Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder.

JAMES

Well speaking of moving an audience, why should an audience come see this show?

SAYER

I think it’s probably because they’ve never seen a show like this before. And if you like British Farce, if you like musicals, if you like comedy and drama – you’ll like this.

MARK

It’s got a bit of everything. And I think it’s probably one of the most entertaining evenings you’ll spend in a theatre for a very long time. It’s ridiculously fun. It’s ridiculously entertaining.

JAMES

Okay, quick question for both of you – off topic – do either of you watch Game of Thrones?

MARK

Oh, God yes.

SAYER

I haven’t started yet.

MARK

Not any of it?

SAYER

No.

JAMES

I’m interviewing you now, but by the time this gets published the finale will have aired this coming Sunday. So, Mark who do you think is going to end up on the Iron Throne?

MARK

Oh, God.

JAMES

I’ll tell you who I think.

MARK

I don’t know. If you asked me that two weeks ago I would have had a different answer, but now after seeing what just happened…I think it’s going to be Arya.

JAMES

Oh, interesting.

MARK

I think she’s the only one who isn’t conflicted in some way who can actually do it.

JAMES

Interesting choice. My choice is Tyrion in the South, Sansa in the North, and Jon goes back to his direwolf.

MARK

I read a whole article comparing it to Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings and how you know Frodo doesn’t stay – he ends up going to the Gray Havens and that Jon Snow is Frodo and he won’t stay. He wouldn’t be happy on the throne. But that’s an interesting theory – that it splits. That might be it.

JAMES

Who knows? I’ve been wrong about so much.

MARK

Who saw any of this coming? Who saw that last episode coming? It will be interesting to see what happens. I had this random thought the other day that the only other person it could possibly be is Gendry because he’s actually been legitimized.

JAMES

Oh yeah.

MARK

She made him a Lord. He’s actually been acknowledged as a Baratheon. Spoiler! He’s the last and technically the Baratheons are kind of still on the throne. Anyway…

JAMES

…we shall see.

SAYER

I just love that.

MARK

People are so invested.

SAYER

And it just shows you that people need this stuff in their lives so much so that here we are talking about something fictitious and completely meaningless in the rest of the trajectory of our life and our world and politics and everything and yet it matters so much to us what happens to these characters and that’s why we’re engaged, and that’s why entertainment is not frivolous.

A Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder

Book and Lyrics by Robert L. Freedman
Music and Lyrics by Steven Lutvak
Based on the novel by Roy Horniman

CAST

Mark Allan – Ensemble, The Magistrate, Mr. Gorby & others
Alicia Barban – Ensemble, Miss Evangeline Barley & others Understudy for Phoebe D’Ysquith
Kate Blackburn – Sibella Hallward
Emily Dallas – Ensemble, Tour Guide, Pub Owner’s Wife & others Understudy for Sibella Hallward
Ellen Denny – Phoebe D’Ysquith
Katherine Fadum – Ensemble, Lady Eugenia D’Ysquith & others Understudy for Miss Shingle
Sarah Gibbons – Ensemble, Understudy for Female Ensemble roles
Jeremy LaPalme – Ensemble, Understudy for The D’Ysquith Family
Luke Marty – Ensemble, Tom Copley, Dr. Pettibone, Guard & others Understudy for Monty Navarro
Tyler McKinnon – Ensemble, Detective Pinckney, Pub Owner & others
Tyler Murree – The D’Ysquith Family
Sayer Roberts – Monty Navarro
Elizabeth Stepkowski-Tarhan – Miss Shingle

THE BAND

Konrad Pluta – Musical Director/Keyboards
Rob Hutchinson – Bass sub
Jonathan D. Lewis – Violin
Jim Murray – Trumpet sub
Keith O’Rourke – Clarinet
Sean Perrin – Clarinet sub
Jason Valleau – Bass
Andre Wickenheiser – Trumpet

CREATIVE TEAM

Mark Bellamy – Director & Musical Staging
Konrad Pluta – Musical Director
Howard Pechet – Executive Producer
David Fraser – Set Designer
Leslie Robison-Greene – Costume Designer
Norman Macdonald – Wig Designer
Anton de Groot – Lighting Designer
Michael Gesy – Sound Designer/Head of Audio
Shane Ellis – Scenic Artist
Kira Campbell – Production Manager Artistic Associate
Sean D. Ellis – Technical Director
Ashley Rees – Stage Manager
Darcy Foggo – Assistant Stage Manager
Jennifer Yeung – Apprentice Stage Manager
Taisa Chernichko – Dresser
Chris Cooper – Followspot Operator

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Christopher Scott and JC Charlton: Come Home

Posted on April 29, 2019July 15, 2023 by James Hutchison

“Everything I do is to survive. What’s going on out there, and what’s going on in here. You think I’m not counting down the days? I can feel my mind unravelling at the seams. Waking up in the night, cold sweats, my heart pounding so hard I think my ribs are gunna’ crack. I can’t tell what’s fucken’ real anymore there’s this banging and drilling on the walls like someone’s hammering away – is it real? I don’t know.”

CONNER from the Play Come Home by JC Charlton

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Living in Australia and working on the oil rigs far from home Connor Evans a young Calgary man finds himself falling deeper and deeper into a life of drug abuse and criminal activity. Come Home is a raw and honest play about addiction, the importance of friendship, and second chances.

Christopher Scott working the Rigs in Australia

The play is based on the real-life experience of Christopher Scott who along with his friend JC Charlton presented the play at the 2017 Calgary One Act Play Festival and the 2017 Alberta Provincial One Act Play Festival where it won several awards including Best Overall Performance and Best Original Script.

Now two years later the play has been workshopped and expanded and is being presented by Urban Stories Theatre from May 1st to 11th in the Motel Theatre at the Arts Commons. Tickets are $20.00 for adults and $15.00 for students, seniors, and artists and are available online at www.urbanstoriestheatre.org

Sally Cacic and JC Charlton in the Urban Stories Theatre Production of Come Home by JC Charlton. Directed by Nova Lea Thorne.

I sat down with JC and Chris, while they were in rehearsals, to talk with them about how the play came about and what message they want audiences to remember.

Christopher Scott musical artist and sound designer.

JAMES HUTCHISON

Come Home is inspired by your real-life experience of becoming involved in the drug trafficking world in Australia when you were there and eventually being given a second chance. Why did you want to tell your story?

CHRIS SCOTT

For the longest time, it was like a dark spot on the soul. I still held it deeply internally and it just started to eat away at me. I didn’t talk about it to anyone but when this opportunity arose to tell this story as part of the Calgary Regional One Act Play Festival I thought what better way to make something creative and positive come out of something dark and negative.

JAMES

How much of the play is based on real life and how much is poetic license?

JC CHARLTON

We’re saying it’s inspired by a true story. We’re not saying it is a true story. For example, we combined two different people from Chris’s life into one character that became our antagonist. The events we show were events that happened to Chris but at different times and with different people and we just lumped them together so we changed the timeline, so we could tell a story that had a solid beginning, middle and end.

JAMES

I know it’s a personal story but was there some sort of moral message you wanted to convey in the telling of the story?

CHRIS

Yes, you always have to stay positive because there’s always a light at the end of the tunnel it’s just sometimes you have to tough it out to get there. Looking back one thing kind of led to another and I’m surprised by how deep and dark it went. You just have to hold onto your friendships and stay away from nefarious people.

JC Charlton actor and theatre creation artist.

You often watch a movie about drug addiction or drug trafficking or crime and it’s going to have a depressing ending. It’s solely a cautionary tale where you see the characters suffer and lose it all, and in this story – yes there’s suffering – yes there’s loss – but in the end – it’s the belief in this person by his friends and family that pulls him out of it, and I think that’s what separates our story from other stories.

CHRIS

The bonds that we have for each other can save us.

JAMES

The play has a whole soundscape that accompanies it. What was the process like for creating the music and sound for the production?

CHRIS

It was a lot of trial and error. We’d try to capture the feeling of what section we were working on and then we would tweak the soundscape and the music to try and enhance that feeling or that mood.

There’s one section where the main character is having a panic attack envisioning all the terrible things that are going to happen to him, and the only thing that pulls him out of it is his girlfriend and, we’ve got this lovely piano melody that comes in there that’s very separate from anything else we’ve heard in the play up until that point. And then that melody keeps coming through the remaining pieces until we lead to the climax of the play.

JAMES

So, how different is the production that you’re presenting at the Motel compared to the one you did a couple of years ago at the One Act Festival?

The script was in its infancy at the one-act festival. Since then we got in touch with Helen Young from Urban Stories, and I was blown away the first time I talked with Helen, because we wanted to get it into their play festival, and she told me couldn’t because the play was more than twenty minutes, but straight off the bat she said, “From the sounds of it we might want to do this for a mainstage show.” So, we sent her the script and went for a coffee with her, and the next thing we knew it was all in the works. We had them producing it. We’re going to be at Motel. We had a dramaturg come in, and we were fortunate enough to be given enough time to work on the script and develop it further.

Christopher Scott and JC Charlton (foreground) in the Urban Stories Theatre production of Come Home by JC Charlton. Directed by Nova Lea Thorne.

We workshopped the script with Caroline Russell-King, who is a very talented dramaturg, and we completely changed the vehicle for the narrative. Before it was in the form of somebody telling their story to a friend, and now it’s all happening in the moment. And we’ve changed what the play is really about. Before it was focused on a single friendship and this friendship progressed the narrative, but now we’re focusing more on the individuals that Chris knew in Australia. The ones that kept him going when he was completely isolated. We get to know more about them and that changes the outcome of the play so now we have a new emotional climax – which I’m not going to spoil – but the main difference is that we’re including so many more characters and people responsible for bringing Chris home.

Sally Cacic, JC Carlton and Justin Many Fingers in rehearsal for the Urban Stories Theatre production of Come Home

JAMES

So, why should people come see it?

It’s a unique show that combines theatre, electronic music, text and it’s inspired by a true story that happened to a local Calgarian here. Helen’s given us a lot of freedom to develop the play and to assemble a pretty talented production team. Our director is Nova Lea Thorne, and our lighting designer is Neil Fleming. Alexandria Inkster is designing the set, and Justin Many Fingers has come in and been a guest choreographer for us on a couple of occasions.

CHRIS

It’s an excellent tool for healing and also a way for us to express and showcase ourselves theatrically and artistically.

When we did the show two years ago we were lucky enough to have a police officer come and see it, and what he said to me after the show was, “You know in my job it’s real easy to get jaded doing what I do, but after seeing this I’m going to remember that the next time I’m arresting a crack head or a drug dealer is that everyone has a story.” And I was surprised by how many people came up to me after the show with tears in their eyes and said that they had a family member that’s gone through the exact same thing. And that’s really what we’re trying to accomplish here. We’re trying to give an entertaining performance, but we’re also trying to do something that’s going to change the way people see people who are going through a hard time.

+++

Urban Stories Theatre presents Coming Home by CJ Charlton May 1st to 11 in the Motel Theatre at the Arts Commons. Tickets are $20.00 for adults and $15.00 for students, seniors, and artists and are available online at www.urbanstoriestheatre.org

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Come Home
By JC Charlton

CAST
JC Charlton
Christopher Scott
Sally Cacic

Directed by Nova Lea Thorne
Set Designer by Alexandria Inkster
Sound Design by Christopher Scott
Lighting Design by Neil Fleming
Guest Choreographer – Justin Many Fingers

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JC Charlton

JC is an actor and theatre creation artist based in Calgary, Alberta. JC is a University of Lethbridge alumni with degrees in education and fine arts. He has dedicated his career to acting and the development of new Canadian works. He has trained in advanced direction under his mentor Gail Hanrahan. Selected theatre credits include; (Kaahsinnoniks, dir. Justin Many Fingers), (Moon, Moon, No Moon, dir. Blake Brooker), (Come Home, dir. JC Charlton), (Okotoks, dir. Justin Many Fingers), (The Bear, dir. JC Charlton), (509, dir. Justin Many Fingers). 2016 Calgary + Provincial One Act Best Male Actor.

Christopher Scott

Christopher is a musical artist based in Calgary, Alberta. With a passion for melodic and bass heavy electronica he aims to create unique soundscapes and exciting experiences in a combination of theatre and sound design. He is a part of the new electronic duo, Mannequin. Chris has worked in a variety of fields from the drilling rigs in Canada and Australia to landscaping and construction here in Calgary, he has completed his training and holds certificates in the Fundamentals of Firefighting and Hazardous materials/ WMD incidents.

Sally Cacic

Sally Cacic is a West Australian actor. She is a graduate of Company of Rogues Actors’ Studio Master Class Program and StageMilk Drama School, and an ongoing member of StageMilk Drama Club in Sydney, Australia. She apprenticed in the Meisner Technique under her mentor Stacie Harrison, which she applies across her work in both theatre and film & television. Select theatre credits include Laughter (Urban Stories Theatre), How To Almost Be An Adult (Urban Stories Theatre), Late Night At The Plaza (Late Night Productions), and Australian productions A Chorus Line (The Old Mill Theatre), and Beauty & The Beast (The Ballet Company). Select film credits including Bright Hill Road (Nevermine Films), The Little Things (Shotlist Films), Joy To The World (SAIT Film Productions) 2017 AMPIA Rosie Award Finalist, and The Hundy (SAIT Film Productions) 2017 AMPIA Rosie Award Winner.

Nova Lea Thorne

Nova Lea is excited to be working on her first show with Urban Stories Theatre. She is grateful for the opportunity to direct this exceptional piece created by JC Charlton. Although much of her career, of late, has been in the area of stage management, she began her career as a performer, with Theatre New Brunswick, and has been involved in performance training and directing artist in residence programs, in Alberta, since the late 1990’s. She has instructed young performers with Quest Theatre, Theatre Calgary, Triangle Theatre School, as well as Theatre Works School of the Arts, a musical theatre school that she co-owned for twelve years. Nova Lea is the proud recipient of the Duval Lang Theatre for Young Audiences Award, a Betty Mitchell Juried Award.

Alexandria Inkster

Alexandria is a Calgary-based artist comes to performance through visual arts. She obtained her BFA in Sculpture in 2014 from the Alberta College of Art + Design (now the Alberta University of the Arts), and her MFA in 2016 from the University of Calgary. In her creative|research practice, Alexandria investigates the activation of agency and collective mobilization by enacting experiences of ambivalence, intimacy, freedom, and magical ideation. These investigations most often take the form of live performance and/or sculptural installation, where somehow her body always seems to become enmeshed in the work. Come Home is Alexandria’s first stint as a “set designer,” and she is absolutely thrilled to have the opportunity to work with its amazing cast and crew.

Neil Fleming

Neil is delighted to be part of the Come Home artistic team helping Chris and Jeff bring this story to life. Primarily a playwright, Neil sometimes likes to stretch his theatrical design muscles. Some past design credits include: Okotoks (Niitsitapi Dance, MT7), Gruesome Playground Injuries (Ground Zero, Hit & Myth), A Mid-Summer Night’s Dream (CYPT), The Vajayjay Monologues (Urban Curves), Shopaholic Husband Hunt (Lunchbox Theatre), Almost Perfect Thing, Kitchen Witches, In A World Created By A Drunken God, The Attic, the Pearls, & Three Fine Girls (New West Theatre), And So It Goes, Goodness, Bone Cage, Arm’s Length Embrace (Downstage).

URBAN STORIES THEATRE

Urban Stories Theatre supports local playwrights writing about social justice and humanity issues by nurturing their ideas from first draft to finished production. The company is made up of a core group of local artists who will oversee all productions and workshops. Budding actors, directors, stage managers and designers will be encouraged to share their ideas by becoming part of the team on a show by show basis.

Vision: To give local artists a voice in creating theatre that tells stories about real life.

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A Christmas Carol at Theatre Tarleton

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