Profiles & Interviews

Just this past Saturday June 6, The Stratford Festival held ‘Black Like Me past, present and future: Behind the Stratford Curtain’ round table discussion involving 10 black artists on its social media channels. I didn’t get the opportunity to watch the discussion until Sunday evening, and all I am going to say is this is essential must-see viewing for patrons of the Festival. I was shocked, angered, annoyed (and these are only three words) to hear of the abuses suffered and endured by black artists. Absolutely deplorable behaviour on all accounts.

After I watched the round table discussion, I immediately sent a message to EB Smith who was a member of the panel to ask him if he might be available for an interview. I wasn’t sure if he would be up for one since he and the other artists shared emotional moments where I often wondered if they would even be willing to speak about them again.

As I was writing the message to EB, he started responding back to me. I was most appreciative when he said he would be interested in being interviewed. His calm eloquence combined with just the right moments where he made me laugh made for a fascinating Zoom discussion:

1. It has been the almost three-month mark since we’ve all been in isolation. Just yesterday I finally saw ‘Black Like Me: Behind the Stratford Curtain’ and, right now, I have no words as I am stunned. How have you been doing with this pandemic and now having to deal with this awful reality which has been obviously going on at the Festival for quite some time? How has your immediate family been doing during this time?

I’m doing great. This time is very interesting. The pandemic is hard in some ways. Routine has been shaken, and we’re all trying to figure out who we are in isolation. That’s a scary prospect for a lot of us as that requires navel-gazing and self reflection. But I think it’s also allowed people to listen in more genuine ways than they have in a long time. This industry because it’s stopped has been able to look at itself. For the first time in my career or education frankly, I feel like I’m not being gaslighted.

My immediate family is okay. My parents and my grandmother live together in Cleveland. I think they’re doing fine. It’s crowded in the house and they might be getting a little tired of each other. They get to be with people they love so there could be worse fates.

2. As a performer, what has been the most difficult and challenging for you professionally and personally during this pandemic?

Most difficult thing professionally for me, I guess, has been trying to figure how to get this message out. I think part of the reason why it’s coming to the surface for so many of us right now is the power structures of this industry have shifted fundamentally. Actors feel like they can speak their minds right now because they’re not afraid of any kind of retribution. Look, right now, there’s not a single artistic director in the world that can give me a job, so I have no fear of losing a job to anybody.

Reality is starting to sink in across the industry where folks are finally taking agency that they haven’t given themselves licence to take yet, and I don’t blame them. There are a lot of actors out there and very few jobs in the theatre. So, if you make those enemies of powerful people you run the risk of running afoul of them and losing employment. Losing the ability to do the work and it’s always been assumed that the price for doing the work is a forfeiture of your agency.

Personally, it’s a little weird going to the grocery store and wearing a mask. Trying to remember not to touch your face and all the other stuff we didn’t think about before. It’s strange when I really take a good look at this time of isolation, I’m doing better than I have done in years. And I think it’s because I don’t have to walk into a place that I have to convince myself every day isn’t harming me.

I love the theatre and what I do. The conditions under which we do this work are toxic and deadly. And there’s no reason for it. That’s ultimately what I’ve realized. I don’t miss being responsible for having to take care of people’s feelings, emotions, impulses that impinge upon my own agency, freedom, and ability to live. I don’t miss having to take care of that white fragility in the room. And that was an everyday balance you have to strike.

What I do miss is speaking the words and telling the stories. I miss playing with my friends on stage. That is why I do this.

I think my experience of this social isolation is unique in some ways. I don’t hear a lot of people talking about finding release in it. Financially it’s hell, and that’s a common experience. I used to think the financial stresses were the things that really stressed me out. I tell you something, I’ve been on the edge this whole time. And I’m fine.

The variable I was missing was walking into a rehearsal hall where I knew I had to be on guard 24/7.

3. Were you in preparation, rehearsals, or any planning stages of productions before everything was shut down? What has become of those projects? Will they see the light of day anytime soon?

We were in rehearsals for ‘Richard III’ and ‘All’s Well that Ends Well’ at the Festival Theatre. I was set to begin rehearsals for ‘Hamlet 911’ last week. We were well in process for a few weeks of rehearsal for staging and doing our thing. It was exciting because the new Tom Patterson was opening so these shows were going to be in the brand-new building.

It was jarring like being launched out of a canon and there’s no netting beneath you. We were in the middle of rehearsal and things started getting a little weird as there was some strange disease happening in the world. Then it got closer and closer and closer. We went through a few surreal days weird rehearsals where we tried to be socially distant and it didn’t work. It was very odd, but ultimately it was clear we had to stop. We walked away from the rehearsal halls.

I’m not an epidemiologist so I have no idea if whether Stratford will be able to present this slate of plays for next year. Personally, I think it’s probably ambitious. I hope Stratford does a season next year. The sooner we can get theatre going again, the better in terms of organizational health and the health of the industry.

I do hope that, in the meantime, we make some fundamental changes in the way we do business in this industry. The not for profit theatre is broken. Theatre is broken in general. The practices we employ are outmoded and catered to a white supremacist patriarchy that just isn’t helpful in making art. It needs to be addressed.

4. What have you been doing to keep yourself busy during this time?

Well, actually, I’ve been working with some friends of mine in launching a company called Ghostlight which is an online theatre training and education company. We’re trying to engage our students with material they won’t gather in theatre school. We want to develop and work with diverse stories.
We also have digital production services. We’re doing online live-streamed productions of theatrical work and interview style productions. I’m writing a pod cast with a friend of mine from Atlanta. Generally just trying to keep myself engaged in what’s happening in this industry and how to move forward with it once we’re able to resume.

The thing about this discussion this week – for me, it has been going on for twenty years for me. This has been my life for twenty years trying to say, “Look, something’s wrong.” I love this work but something’s wrong, so we gotta fix it, we gotta fix it, gotta fix it. And finally, those messages have gotten some traction from people of colour in this industry. Some of my white friends have been in touch this last week with me to ask, “Are you okay, this is a lot of work going on.” And I tell them, “I haven’t been okay since Rodney King got beat up. Since I’ve been old enough to recognize my relationship to the world as a black man, I’ve not been okay. I’ve been able to manage but I haven’t been good.

Is now what’s happening a new revelation for me? I got news for you.

And that’s why I said earlier in the interview, that’s why I’m not feeling like I’m being gaslighted by my industry and my chosen profession. It goes further. Part of the reason why this discussion was so impactful was the fact it was solution-oriented. It was the black artists’ decision to broadcast because we have to build the empathy first done through narrative first. When empathy is built, we have connection and then a solution with the motivation there to attack it. This was a unique opportunity to speak with the entire community.

5. Any words of wisdom or advice you might /could give to fellow performers and colleagues? What message would you deliver to recent theatre school graduates who have now been set free into this unknown and uncertainty?

Don’t panic. We’re going to come back. When is in question, but in the meantime tell stories however you can. Use your imagination – digitally, socially distant, online, YouTube, stream. Even telling stories around a campfire is the first form of theatre.

This isolation is a reset button. We’re giving a rebirth to the industry all over again.

At the end of the day this is about the people. I think the institutions can forget all that. You cannot have a play without the actors performing. I don’t care what the stage looks like. Get back in touch with that across the industry. That’s what’s critical.

6. Do you see anything positive stemming from COVID 19?

All of this is positive. Look, we’re sitting in a place where we have 18 months of reconstruction we can do. We can do nothing, sit around and let the theatre re-boot itself, or we can re-design this industry to be empowering, to be collaborative, and to be all that it hasn’t been for a hundred years. I think that’s an amazing gift, as tragic the cost of that gift, we’ve been given it and we have to honour that cost with really hard work. When we come back, we have to re-focus our energies on people and not profits.

7. Do you think ‘Behind the Stratford Curtain’ will leave some lasting impact on the Canadian/North American performing arts scene?

I’m reminded from a line by Shakespeare – “We know not what we do.” The Festival didn’t know the damage they had done. A lot of arts leaders right now are having this epiphany. When I hear of people’s reactions, white artistic directors about all this, I’m reminded of ‘King Lear’ – “I’ve taken too little care of this.” They’re realizing they’ve had a responsibility they’ve neglected in terms of the shepherdship of this industry.

So much of the power structure in the rehearsal room is an import that favours a top down patriarchy. It’s a way to do theatre, but not the only way to do theatre. But the buck has to stop somewhere. There are so many other practices to employ that would allow people to have a much fuller and freer engagement with the work.

Who are we talking to in the industry? Who is the master in this industry? It’s not just removing detrimental practices, but you have to replace them with something.

8. Some artists have turned to YouTube and online streaming to showcase their work. What are your comments and thoughts about streaming? Is this something that the actor/theatre may have to utilize going forward into the unknown?

Sure. I think so. We’ve been doing it for a long time. It’s not new technology. We’re figuring out ways of utilizing it, but it’s nothing new.

Look, one of things it has always been is theatre is inaccessible. And theatre has always touted itself as an exercise in empathy, universal experience. But, at the end of the day, you’re not allowed to come see a Shakespeare play unless you have $200.00. Or, you go to see Shakespeare in the Park.

To get the experience of something like Stratford, you need a lot of money. It’s a lot of money for some people. This online work can bridge that divide because everyone has a cell phone. Way more people have access to YouTube than they do to a theatre. If we can start to figure out how to utilize that accessibility, we’ll fill our theatres up again.

We’ve been looking at the writing on the wall for years that attendance has been dwindling at theatres. So, I think we need to be realistic about that and say, “It was time for a pivot, anyway.” No amount of outreach is going to do that. We need new practices, we need a new approach to how we tell stories and what the impact of live performance is. If we can figure out how to distribute the weight of what we’re doing across the platforms, it can only serve to help us. It’s a diversification of a portfolio. I’m all for figuring this stuff out.

Streaming could be great and these immersive experiences that we might be able to create one day. Ghostlight is looking into that heavily right now because we want to free people from the Zoom window because it’s terrible. But there must be ways we can utilize technology in terms of innovation and theatrical experiences. The entire experience doesn’t have to happen in a theatre, perhaps part of it can happen online. Or it’s personalized. You can personalize with technology, but you can’t personalize for 300 people watching a live performance all at once. It’s going to take a lot of hard work, but that’s what professional theatre has the time for right now.

9. Despite all this fraught tension and confusion of Covid and of ‘Behind the Stratford Curtain’ reality, what is it about performing that neither of these will ever destroy for you?

We did a Ghost light broadcast called ‘Friday Night at the Ghost Light’ about a month and a half ago. In it, Torquil Campbell (son of Stratford Festival veteran Douglas Campbell). He played a song. Graeme played Torquil excerpts from an interview done with his father. Douglas talks in those audio clips about the ectoplasm. And that’s what I miss.

I miss those moments that you cannot recreate anywhere but on stage. I miss playing with my friends. I miss the opening scene of ‘Coriolanus’ where I sat across from Tom McCamus and got to mess with him. I miss those moments of the bar of soap look where the actor dries as if the bar of soap just slipped out of their hands in the shower. I miss the vitality. I don’t miss the building and the lights – it’s fun and beautiful. What I miss are the human moments.

With a respectful acknowledgment to ‘Inside the Actors’ Studio’ and the late James Lipton here are the ten questions he used to ask his guests:

1. What is your favourite word?

Fuck! (EB says this with a definitive tone in his voice)

2. What is your least favourite word?

No.

3. What turns you on?

Hmmm…A specific and excellent use of language.

4. What turns you off?

An unappreciation of the difference between there, they’re and their.

5. What sound or noise do you love?

I love the sound my dog makes when he sees another dog.

6. What sound or noise bothers you?

The sound of my cat scratching in the litter box. I hear a lot of these things right now ‘cause I’m not around other people.

7. What is your favourite curse word? Fuck.

b) What is your least favourite curse word? (thanks to Nigel Shawn Williams for this suggestion) – Least favourite curse word? Damn it, Nigel…you gotta give me a minute there, Joe…I don’t know. I love words. Cursing for me is one of the more honest forms of expression. My least favourite curse words are the ones they dub in on movies for television.

8. Other than your own, what other career profession could you see yourself doing?

I could see myself doing a lot of things. Pilot probably. I learned how to fly when I was a kid. I almost did it for a career but that would have involved going into the military and I didn’t want to have to kill anybody. So I became an actor.

9. What career choice could you not see yourself doing?

Accountant.

10. If Heaven exists, what do you hope God will say to you as you approach the Pearly Gates?

Oh, that’s a good question…”How did you get here?”

Follow E. B. on Social Media: Twitter: @starringeb Instagram: @storyforge

Over the years while working as a full-time teacher, I’ve travelled to Montreal to visit relatives and friends in the summer, (et parler francais aussi). I’ve only attended The Centaur Theatre sadly just once as the theatre was usually closed for July and August. Since I’ve been reviewing for On Stage Blog, I made it a point to get in touch with The Centaur again as I was receiving word there was ‘good stuff’ going on, and I wanted to check it out since my retirement from teaching.

I must credit a lot of the ‘good stuff’ going on for the last two seasons to Artistic Director, Eda Holmes, and her vision for the theatre.

From 2010-2017, Ms. Holmes was Artistic Director of Ontario’s Shaw Festival. Her curriculum vitae reveals extensive professional experience she has had across Canada. Her training at rather prestigious ballet schools in New York City, San Francisco and Houston, Texas plus her training at Montreal’s National Theatre School in Directing are quite impressive. When I attended opening night productions to review the last two seasons, Ms. Holmes eloquently opened each performance with a warm welcome to guests and patrons. I thought to myself here was a lady who genuinely cared about The Centaur and wants it to be a leading spot for theatrical creativity.

During this pandemic lockdown, Ms. Holmes still wanted to ensure audiences and patrons do not lose sight of the artistic and creative force of The Centaur. There are Saturday Salons where guests can listen to individual discussions. On Saturday May 23, the Salon features Playwright’s Workshop Montreal with Emma Tibaldo and Jesse Stong about our Queer Reading Series. On May 30, Eda’s guest will be Centaur’s former Artistic and Executive Director, Roy Surette. Roy is now Touchstone Theatre’s Artistic Director in Vancouver. We’re all looking forward for Eda and Roy to talk about their love for Centaur. The last Saturday Salon will be held June 6 with Imago Theatre’s Artistic and Executive Director Micheline Chevrier. Montreal’s Imago Theatre is a catalyst for conversation, an advocate for equal representation and a hub for stories about unstoppable women.

Ms. Holmes and I conducted our interview via email:

1. How have you been doing during this period of isolation and quarantine? Is your family doing well?

I feel really fortunate that I am home and well with my husband Tim Southam. Even though Montreal is a real hotspot of the pandemic we are lucky to live near the mountain where we can be out in nature a bit without having to go very far. For the first two weeks of the whole thing Tim had just returned from LA so he had to self-isolate and I was in Niagara-on-the-lake where we were supposed to start rehearsals for The Devil’s Disciple – which we ended up doing entirely via Zoom. I was able to come back to Montreal after 2 weeks and that felt really good. Now if it would just get a bit warmer outside, I would feel really hopeful!

2. I know that ‘Fences’ was shut down at The Centaur when the pandemic was declared, and everything began to be locked tightly. How long was the production in rehearsal? How far was it from premiere? Will ‘Fences’ become part of any future slate at Centaur?

Fences was supposed to start rehearsals 3 days after we closed the theatre on March 13th. At that point, the set was built and waiting in the theatre to be set up on the stage, the costume and set designer Rachel Forbes was in town and the costumes were just getting started. We had a video shoot planned for the first day of rehearsal as well to create a trailer for the show and the posters had just started going up inside and outside of the building. Since we didn’t really know the scope or scale of the situation yet, we decided together with our co-producers at Black Theatre Workshop to delay the start of rehearsals for one month in the hopes that things would calm down enough to make it possible to do the show a month later – how naive we were!

By the end of March it was clear that nothing that involved people gathering was going to be possible for quite a while so we paid the creative team and the actors their cancellation fees and postponed the show indefinitely. Quincy Armorer the AD at Black Theatre Workshop (who was also going to play Troy Maxson in the production) and I committed to finding a way to make the production happen with this cast and creative team in the future even if it meant waiting 2 years. It was initially sort of stunning but eventually the numbness gave way to real sadness.

3. What has been the most challenging part of the isolation and quarantine for you personally and professionally?

I think that the two most challenging things have been 1) trying to figure out how best to support the artists and core staff at Centaur as we navigate the upheaval of cancelling shows and finding ways to be authentically “online” in the short term, and 2) the fact that I did not get to have any creative time with all the artists that I was looking forward to being in a room with working on my show at Shaw. That said, the thing that has gotten me through has been the people both at Centaur and at Shaw – everyone has been so inspiring and supportive of one another it confirms that the theatre is the best family in the world.

4. What have you been doing to keep yourself busy during this time of lockdown?

Every day feels like a week and every week feels like a year. For me the thing that is kind of surreal is the fact that even though everything has supposedly stopped, nothing seems to have stopped for me.
I was rehearsing with the Shaw actors until May 10th by Zoom and at Centaur I have been planning and replanning how to keep the theatre creatively alive while we wait to see what is possible – something that changes almost hourly. I am hoping that it will all calm down soon and I will be able to at least read a bit, listen to music and spend some quiet time thinking, cooking and watching the Spring come alive. I might even dance a bit!

5. What advice would you give to other performing artists who are concerned about the impact of COVID-19? What words of advice would you give to the new graduates emerging from the National Theatre School?

Even though no one knows how long this extraordinary situation (where we are not able to gather in public) will last – I know that it won’t last forever and when it is over the need to share our stories and make each other laugh and sing and think will be immense. The thing that has been most impressive has been the way all the artists I know have simply taken what is in front of them in this crisis and looked to make something of it. It might be bread for everyone they know, it might be a new song or a series of photographs or paintings or it might even be a commitment to get back to the basics of their own lives without the crazy race that a life in the arts usually entails, but every one of them seems to be saying “What is in front of me right this minute and what can I do with it.” So I guess my advice is the same as I would give an actor in a play – be in the moment and listen – that is the only way that I know to bring the full force of your own ability to the table with real authenticity.

6. Do you see anything positive coming out of this pandemic?

I can only speak for myself on this one but I know that this crazy time has reminded me that you have to work with what you have and not lament what you don’t if you want to find a creative way forward. We can’t try to remake the world in its old image once this over – that would be a tragic waste of the immense toll the pandemic has taken.

Never before, in my lifetime at least, has there been a single event that has impacted people around the world the way this virus has. We can’t help but be affected by that. It may not all be positive – we are human after all – but it will change all of us and hopefully it will give us the courage to make choices politically and collectively that will provide a better future than the one we were heading toward before we were all sent home.

7. Do you believe or can you see if the Quebec and Canadian performing arts scene will somehow be changed or impacted as a result of COVID – 19?

It can’t help but be changed in both good ways and sad ways. I know that some companies will find it hard to survive or certain projects which were absolutely perfect before this crisis may fall away because the world will be so different afterward they are no longer as relevant.

But the performing arts in Canada in general and Quebec in particular is full of intensely driven creative people who will be pushing at the gate to come forward and take on the new world and wrestle with what it all means. And the fact that Canada as a nation provides real effective public support for the arts at every level of government means that we have the best chance of coming out of this crisis ready to work.

8. Many artists are turning to streaming/online performances to showcase/highlight/share their work. What are your thoughts and comments about this? Are there any advantages or disadvantages? Will streaming/online/ You Tube performances be part of a ‘new normal’ for the live theatre/performing arts scene?

The thing that we all crave in the performing arts is the experience of being personally in the room with something extraordinary – a brilliant performance or a perfectly cast audience that hangs on every word or note or step with the performers. It happens in real time with each person on either side of the footlights making a million choices in 3-dimensional real time together. The online world cannot reproduce that real time impact we have on each other in the room. Also we are all very sophisticated consumers of recorded media which at its best is the result of a very selective creative process that results in an intensely edited 2 dimensional final product.

So I think that the theatre needs time to find authentic ways to create for an online platform – simply filming performances and broadcasting them will only work some of the time and only when the performance lends itself in some way to that selective edited final product. Painters have been playing with the surface of the canvas and all artists toy with the desire for or avoidance of verisimilitude all the time. It has always led the arts to innovate. I am sure that will happen during this period while we are not able to be in a room together – but it will never replace being in the room together.

9. As the Centaur’s Artistic Director, where do you see the future of Centaur headed as a result of this life changing event for all of us?

I want to see Centaur continue down the path we were building toward becoming the theatre for all Montrealers. This city has changed so much in the past 10 years. The old notion of two solitudes is being dissolved by a young generation of artists who speak at least 2 languages, come from a variety of backgrounds and who have a wide range of influences. It makes the work that comes from here completely unique and I want to put Centaur at the centre of that creative energy and offer our audience the highest quality and most relevant theatre in the world – as soon as we can make theatre again!

As a nod to ‘Inside the Actors’ Studio’ and the late James Lipton, here are the 10 questions he asked his guests at the conclusion of his interviews:

1. What is your favourite word?

Wicked

2. What is your least favourite word?

Nice

3. What turns you on?

Fierce Joy

4. What turns you off?

Laziness

5. What sound or noise do you love?

A purring cat

6. What sound or noise bothers you?

Music at the wrong volume.

7. What is your favourite curse word?

It is unrepeatable.

8. What profession, other than your own, would you have liked to attempt?

Chef

9. What profession would you not like to do?

Accountant

10. If Heaven exists, what do you hope God will say to you as you approach the Pearly Gates?

“You’re late.”

To read and learn more about Montreal’s Centaur Theatre, visit www.centaurtheatre.com.

Elena Belyea is the Artistic Director of Tiny Bear Jaws, an agile, femme and queer-run cross-Canadian theatre company.

Founded in 2015, Tiny Bear Jaws produces innovative, provocative, and engaging new works. It is committed to exploring the creative possibilities that exist exclusively in live performance. Tiny Bear Jaws creates theatre that’s transgressive in content and form. Past shows: Miss Katelyn’s Grade Threes Prepare for the Inevitable; Everyone We Know Will Be There: A House Party in One Act; Cleave; The Worst Thing I Could Be (Is Happy); I Don’t Even Miss You; and This Won’t Hurt, I Promise.

Recently, I had the opportunity to email performer Elena Belyer questions about their artistic work and background.

Belyea opens at Toronto’s Factory Theatre this week in ‘I Don’t Even Miss You.’ The show runs at Factory Theatre from October 31 to November 10 in the Studio Theatre. It then travels to One Yellow Rabbit’s High-Performance Rodeo in Calgary (co-presented by Verb Theatre as part of their 2024/2025 season).

According to the Factory Theatre website, the story centres around non-binary computer programmer Basil who wakes to a new world and devastating loss. Using live music, dance, and video, I Don’t Even Miss You is a bold exploration of grief, love, artificial intelligence, and legacy that asks how gender, identity, and family can exist without anyone to perceive them.

Belyea completed undergraduate work in Drama and Creative Writing at the University of Alberta before attending the Playwriting program at the National Theatre School of Canada.

What is it about the performing arts that continues to keep Elena focused and interested?

Whenever Elena watches or performs a play, one of their favourite parts is the knowledge that a particular moment or scene may or will never happen quite the same ever again, even if it’s a recording or coming back to watch something the night after.

For Elena:

“Something happens…. we’ll experience it together, then it’s gone forever. I find this really exciting. Before I step onstage, no one, not me, not the audience, knows for sure what will happen. We have an idea, but nothing is guaranteed. Anything could happen, which means everything is possible.”

In profiling the artist, I also like to ask who in their own lives has either influenced or mentored them up to this point.

Belyea was pleased to share the names of some mentors: Michael Kennard, Christine Stewart, Derek Walcott, Tedi Tafel, Haley McGee, Karen Hines, and Adam Lazarus. They also named artists whose work and writing they are inspired by right now: Makambe Simamba, Young Jean Lee, Anne Carson, Kae Tempest, Sophie, and Nick Cave.

I’ll review the Sunday matinee performance. on November 3. The press release for the show calls the production ‘dystopian pop.’ I was intrigued by this label and wanted to know more from Elena about it.
They shared the concept of the show. Protagonist Basil exists in a fictitious world where everyone else on Earth has disappeared – hence the word ‘dystopian.’ Basil creates and is now performing an autobiographical play about their life. After a thwarted attempt to star in a musical during their teen years, Basil decides the only way to summarize accurately their chronology is through narration, self-recorded videos, dance, and (pop) songs.

Audiences can expect synthesizers galore, boy band motifs, choreographed melodrama, and an electric ukulele from the performance.

Whenever Elena starts writing a play, a series of questions comes to mind rather than messages. I find this interesting myself—questions instead of comments.

What are some of the questions Elena asks of audiences in ‘I Don’t Even Miss You?’:

“What is a legacy? Can love, identity, and family exist with no one to perceive them? Is it possible to develop technology that could replace human connection? What are the physical, psychological, and spiritual impacts of loneliness? How does Basil’s transness inform the play’s content and form? “
Some heady questions, indeed. I’m always a fan of audience talkbacks about these kinds of questions.

There is a talkback with the audience on November 3. I like to stay for these as I learn more about the show and the artist.

Elena clarified that ‘I Don’t Even Miss You’ had a run of a very different nature in 2022. It ran again in Ottawa in 2024. But it’s hard for Belyea to know how the audiences will react. Their favourite part of the show is “Listening to the audience’s reactions and trying to identify what is landing when.” Once again, Elena clarified there were moments in Ottawa where an audience member would make an unexpected sound in reaction to something happening. Elena finds that impactful as the show’s writer, the performer and the character at the moment.

The life of a travelling performing artist can be tiring and exhausting. To be honest, I don’t know how these young people do it.

What’s next for this ambitious young artist once ‘I Don’t Even Miss You’ concludes its run:

“First and foremost— rest. I’m fantasizing about wrapping myself in a thousand blankets for a week at least, napping, reading, and playing non-stop video games with my partner and dog. After that, I will begin prep for “I Don’t Even Miss You” in Calgary and re-learn how to knit.”

To learn more about Tiny Bear Jaws Theatre: www.tinybearjaws.com.

To purchase tickets for ‘I Don’t Even Miss You’ and to learn more about Factory Theatre, visit www.factorytheatre.ca.

Eliza-Jane is an actor and singer based out of Hamilton Ontario. She is currently on “pandemic hiatus” from Come from Away where she plays Beverley Bass in the Toronto production. She has had an extensive career in the theatre in Canada, with some highlights including playing Maria in The Sound of Music at the National Arts Centre in Ottawa, Donna in Mamma Mia! The Musical at The Confederation Centre for the Arts, and Hold Me, Touch Me in the Canadian Company and First National Tour of The Producers. She is Dora nominated for her work in The Musical Stage Company’s Elegies and is a founding member of both Theatre20 and The Montreal Young Company.

Eliza-Jane is director and producer, having worked on such projects as B!TCH ISLAND at the Hamilton Fringe, A Misfortune which has its world premiere at the Confederation Centre for the Arts, Laura Secord at Festival Players of Prince Edward County, Les Belles Soeurs at St. Lawrence College among others.

She received her teaching degree in 2008 with focusses in both vocal music and theatre. She was Head of Theatre at Asbury College and has taught at St. Lawrence College, Carleton University, Randolph Academy and Sheridan College in their Musical Theatre Programs and courses. She received her BFA in acting from The University of Windsor.

We conducted our conversation via email, and you will see from her responses her bona fide sense of humour emanates strongly.

Thanks, EJ, for taking the time to add your voice to the conversation:

Many professional theatre artists I’ve profiled and interviewed have shared so much of themselves and how the pandemic has affected them from social implications from the Black Lives Matter and BIPOC movements to the staggering numbers of illnesses and deaths. Could you share with us and describe one element, either positive or negative, from this time that you believe will remain with you forever?

One element is the loss and grief around my Mother dying. She headed into long term care a week before the shut down. She died this January. When you are so intimately connected with grief and spend your days caregiving, you don’t have much left for anything else. Except maybe binging ‘Arrested Development’. Again.

Have you learned anything about human nature from this time?

I’ve deepened my belief that we are more the same than different and that it is our nature to empathize and listen to others. Wait, what did you ask me…

How has your immediate family been faring during this time? As a family, can you share with us how your lives have been changed and impacted by this time?

Well, sometimes loudly and with bluster, but mostly just tiny squeaky parfs that oddly can travel the entire house. Oh, wait. I thought you said farting.

But seriously speaking, my family is doing really well. We are healthy and lucky and are deeply appreciative to spend this time together.

I know none of us can even begin to guess when professional theatre artists will be back to work. I’ve spoken with some who have said it might not be until 2022. Would you agree on this account? Have you ever though that you might have had to pivot and switch careers during this time?

Oh, geez, all we do as artists is pivot. We are well versed in this technique. I’ve pivoted so many times in my career that full circle isn’t just an idiom. It’s all or nothing, feast or famine (OK, those are just idioms)

Half the time you are working, you’re not actually working…you are just trying to get work. I’m constantly thinking about pivoting, and already am…at the moment I am teaching online education which has been a challenge.

How do you think your chosen career path and vocational calling will look once all of you return safely to the theatre? Do you feel confident that you can and will return safely?

Alright, for a brief and I said brief moment, I will be serious here. If the industry rebounds I will as well. I am a theatre person. It’s just who I am.

I love the theatre and everything in it…weellll…except the people. (I said I would TRY to be serious). I will run to it with open arms and hug the stitches out of it. I will never stop acting in the theatre…unless I get a series.

This time of the worldwide pandemic has shaken all of us to our very core and being. According to author Margaret Atwood, she believes that Canadians are survivors no matter what is thrown in their path. Could you share what has helped you survive this time of uncertainty?

Donut Monster, water paints, Covid testing, nature walks, Meditation, cottage porn, free farting, Ultra docs, SSRI’s, camping trips, running, baking, teaching gigs, sleeping, yoga, judging my cats, skiing, biking, Wah Sardaarji snacks. ALSO, taking my relationship with my pyjamas (co-dependant) to the next level and doing my son’s homework (also co-dependant). AND FINALLY, taking an online chemistry course and quitting an online chemistry course.

Imagine in a perfect world that the professional theatre artist has been called back as it has been deemed safe for actors and audience members to return. The first show is complete and now you’re waiting backstage for your curtain call:

a) Describe how you believe you’re probably going to react at that curtain call.

It is likely I will have a good cry. It is also likely I will flatten the first four rows crowd surfing.

b) There is a crowd of people waiting to see you and your castmates at the stage door to greet all of you. Tell me what’s the first thing you will probably say to the first audience member:

“So…I was your favourite, right…No hold on, that’s what I would be thinking. What I would say was, “Thank you”.

You can connect with EJ on Instagram: elizajanes and as ejfromaway.

“As an upcoming artist myself, one of the key things I’ve learned is trusting yourself. If you trust your ideas, abilities, and capabilities, you can push yourself to try new things, go new places, and get your work out there.”

Emily Paterson’s unique voice as an artist will ring loud and clear soon in the Toronto theatre industry.

Currently, she trains at the University of Toronto Centre for Drama, Theatre and Performance Studies.  She is in the final year of her undergraduate degree and will complete her dual degree in Drama and English Literature in Spring 2026.

Paterson is preparing Butch/Femme for its opening at Toronto’s Theatre Passe Muraille (TPM) this month.

She has received extensive advice, training and mentorship from a variety of notable Toronto theatre artists during her undergraduate years.  Emily credits Ken Gas, who has given some of the best advice, support and encouragement as a theatre artist. Gas has especially given Emily great insight regarding opening their own production company (The Green Couch Theatre) to produce Butch/Femme at Passe Muraille this month.  Paterson also credits playwrights George F. Walker and Moynan King, who have given extensive feedback and encouragement regarding writing practice and the development of Butch/Femme.

The one person Paterson speaks of fondly is Marjorie Chan, Artistic Director of Passe Muraille:

“Marjorie has been one of the most significant mentors in the development of my practice. She adjudicated the 2025 Hart House Drama festival, where Butch/Femme premiered. From there, [Chan] chose to bring [the production] to Passe Muraille. The trust [Marjorie] has in me as an upcoming artist, as well as the support and advice she has given me through the play development, has been integral to my artistry.”

Paterson puts it simply regarding Chan:

“If it weren’t for Marjorie, [Butch/Femme] wouldn’t exist as it is today.”

Emily didn’t know much about the Toronto theatre life when moving to the city three years ago and has learned a lot both in studies and experience. Fast forward three years, and what’s her current understanding of the Toronto theatre industry?

“I think the performing arts space in Toronto is very distinct and provides a space for experimentation, growth and boundary-breaking theatre. However, there is still a distinct lack of female voices in Toronto’s theatre scene. Most of the slates in other theatres feature more people who aren’t women than who are.”

What’s exciting for Paterson at this time about the opening night of Butch/Femme?  It’s the fact that women appear front and centre this year at Passe Muraille. Paterson also says that we don’t explore the inspiring aspects of Toronto enough anymore. So much contemporary theatre produced in this city is not Toronto – or even Canadian-centred. Paterson states that’s part of what makes Butch/Femme so special. Audiences can identify and locate the places the characters discuss in the play, gaining an intimate familiarity with them.

What is the story behind Butch/Femme?

From Passe Muraille’s website: “In the stillness of 1950s rural Ontario, Jenny’s (Annabelle Gillis) quiet evening is shattered by an unexpected visitor – Alice (Tessa Kramer), the woman whom Jenny thought she’d left in the past. In one tense night, the two reminisce, seeking answers from one another about their relationship, their past and their future.”

Emily is elated that Gillis and Kramer are part of the TPM production, as they have been integral to the script’s growth. The ladies are also undergraduate students at the University of Toronto’s Centre for Drama and Theatre Performance Studies.  Gillis and Kramer’s ability to perform to such a professional level speaks to their refined skills as actors so early in their careers.  One of the most integral aspects of Butch/Femme is the “beautiful tension” they create together.

Recently, I received a public relations release about Butch/Femme, which stated that it was essential to disseminate the following message about the show to as many people as possible. This release states that the message feels both urgent and underreported: the ongoing scarcity of sapphic spaces, which are especially rare in cities like Toronto.

I had no idea what sapphic spaces meant, so I had to ask Emily about the importance of these spaces and why they need to exist.

Emily was pleased to share what this term means.

Sapphic spaces are physical locations where lesbians, bisexual women, trans women, and other sapphic-identifying people can gather and socialize in a space free of the patriarchal dominance of men in queer and “straight” spaces. Space is a political construct that has been dominated by patriarchal standards throughout time. In this city, lesbians have historically always had “space”. Bars such as The Continental, The Rose, and The Pussy Palace, as well as theatre events like “Dyke City” at Buddies and Bad Times. Over time, we have watched these spaces disappear or “rebrand” to have a focus on queer men or a general queer audience for financial gain. Essentially, eliminating a place for queer women, who de-centre men, to have a space where they can feel safe, open, and be allowed to express their sapphic identity, free of the pressures that come with patriarchal expectations.  

This is a lot to take in.

Emily explains further:

“The idea I keep repeating regarding this show is focusing on the ways the past reflects the present. Although Butch/Femme is a historic story, the issues, insecurities, and tensions the characters – Alice and Jenny – face are still incredibly relevant to the present moment.”

What is it that Paterson hopes audiences will leave the theatre once Jenny and Alice’s story has been shared?

Paterson wants audiences to leave with the ability to reflect on how the nuanced aspects of queer identity, space, and relationships explored in Butch/Femme not only connect to their lives but also challenge the biases with which audiences approach these queer histories.

What’s next for Emily once Butch/Femme concludes its TPM run?

She plans to finish the degree and continue to grow as an artist. Pursuing graduate studies in theatre or writing at U of T, Toronto Metropolitan University, or York might also be in the picture. She says working at historic queer companies like Buddies in Bad Times would be a dream come true and a vital part of refining her artistic voice. She’s also had her eye on TPM’s emerging creators unit for a while. Writing for film and TV is also another path she could take to build a foundation as a working writer and share her voice with the world.

She also hopes to inspire up-and-coming young artists in the same way she has been inspired.

Butch/Femme runs September 20-27 at Toronto’s Theatre Passe Muraille, 16 Ryerson Avenue. To learn more, visit passemuraille.ca.

Headshot credit: Kieran Ramos

Actor, writer, and musician Eponine Lee’s maturity as an artist within the theatre industry makes me proud to see our Canadian young people move forward.

I saw her first onstage as one of the children in the annual Soulpepper production of A CHRISTMAS CAROL years ago (Nudge and wink to Soulpepper: please bring back the production).

When the Stratford Festival held productions outside during Covid with audience members sitting six feet apart in their chairs, I saw a very mature Eponine play Juliet in WhyNot and the Festival’s production of ‘R & J.’

Suppose I feel this surge of artistic pride for our country’s young talent. In that case, I can only begin to fathom the overwhelming love, delight, and gratification that her parents, Nina Lee Aquino and Richard Lee, must be experiencing. Their daughter’s accomplishments are a testament to their support and guidance.

Eponine and I couldn’t converse via Zoom this time as I have some family issues to which I must still attend. However, she was very kind in responding via email.

Born and raised in the theatre community, Lee feels incredibly familiar with this world and everything that is part of it. She uniquely understands how the industry functions and all the amazing possibilities that may arise when artists get together to make theatre. Through the creative, collaborative, and wonderful people she has enjoyed working with, Eponone adoringly spoke of the constant positive energy, openness, and passion in theatre that many other industries don’t seem to present.

As for the changes in the industry during the last four years, she sees accessibility, awareness, and adaptivity are necessary for the industry development in the future:

“As more people realize that the theatre industry is not perfect, these big and small alterations of how future generations can continue to produce shows in an environment that is less biased, less harmful and less devitalizing on one’s artistry will become more and more possible.”

In a 2022 online interview with Canada’s National Observer, Eponine stated, “to just ask around for any opportunities you can get and to say yes…Say yes to even the smallest of roles with the smallest of theatre companies…You just have to do it, you just have to go through it and grit your teeth through all the nerve-wracking things that come and know and believe that you take up space in that room and you matter,”

Two years later, she still feels the same way about the industry.

It remains her core mindset and mantra for everything; there is no audition room, rehearsal hall, or main stage that she walks onto and still does not feel what she said in the above paragraph. She tries to remember that she is here because she matters and is part of this space.

This month, Eponine will appear in THE FIXING GIRL by Kevin Dyer at Toronto’s Young People’s Theatre, where she will share the stage with Zoé Doyle and Eric Peterson. Rehearsals have gone swimmingly. She has no complaints – Lee has been part of previous iterations of the play from workshops, and that knowledge helped tremendously in the rehearsal process.

THE FIXING GIRL is a story about grief, loss, and navigating change as a family that certainly feels broken. A young girl named Meghan has lost her grandfather (Peterson). The play opens right after she has returned from his funeral. Meghan is determined to bring her grandfather back by locking herself in his old shed and fixing everything he left. Meghan’s mother (Doyle) needs her daughter to stay in the house while her grandfather has left his granddaughter with a task that may not seem as easy as it looks.

Given the story deals with grief, loss and navigating changes because of death, why does Eponine believe THE FIXING GIRL is an essential story for audiences to see:

“What’s so lovely about Kevin Dyer’s script…is that it will engage with the audience by planting the first couple of seeds about what it means when someone has passed away. I firmly believe that his play is the type of play that will generate meaningful conversations about topics that are rarely talked about—like death and mortality—long after it has been watched.”

To work on this production with director Stephen Colella has been fantastic for Eponine. He’s the kind of director that is specific and precise, but also open to ideas that people may have. From an actor’s perspective, Lee thinks Stephen really understands how to talk to her about almost anything (especially when doing “scene work,” which is just making certain sections of her dialogue clearer).

She adds further:

“[Stephen] treats me like an equal and an individual, which is quite important to me being the youngest person in the room — as all I ever truly want is to be respected in the same manner as everybody else. He has seamlessly created a space through his directorial and leadership practices where I feel safe, empowered, and able to show vulnerability without judgment.”

What’s next for Eponine once THE FIXING GIRL concludes its run at YPT?

She’s off to perform in the 2024 season of the Shaw Festival. She will appear in ‘Orphan of Chao’ (directed by Courtney Ch’ng Lancaster), ‘Snow in Midsummer’ (directed by Nina Lee Aquino) and understudying one of the ensemble roles in ‘Sherlock Holmes: The Mystery of the Human Heart’ (directed by Craig Hall).

For her music, she’s planning on releasing another album in the next couple of years while, in the meantime, making more covers of songs she loves (follow coco.penny_ on Instagram/TikTok and Coco Penny on YouTube for more).

THE FIXING GIRL runs April 15 – May 2 on the Ada Slaight Stage at Toronto’s Young People’s Theatre, 165 Front Street East.

To learn more about the production, Young People’s Theatre or purchase tickets online, visit youngpeoplestheatre.org.

An anticipated nervous excitement might be the best way to describe the ten minutes before I had the golden opportunity to be in the virtual presence of actor Eric Peterson, a highly respected artist from CBC’s ‘Street Legal’, CTV’s ‘Corner Gas’ and many stage productions throughout Canada.

The butterflies in my stomach flew away as he genuinely put me at ease quickly through much laughter in the interview that I was annoyed when Zoom informed me I only had ten minutes left in the conversation. I still had many things to ask him about his career and his upcoming work in Chekhov’s ‘Uncle Vanya’ to be staged at Crow’s Theatre in September and directed by Artistic Director, Chris Abraham.

I’m always interested in where artists have received their theatre training. Eric’s facetious response:

“So, you start off with a totally embarrassing question… I’ve never been formally trained.”

And when you are as good as Eric Peterson, who the hell cares whether he was?

He had one year at the University of Saskatchewan in the drama class which he says got him hooked on “this terrible, terrible profession I’ve been involved in now for 55 years or something like that.” (and I’m in stitches of laughter this early in the interview) Eric also completed one year at UBC. One of the great things he says came from his year there were meeting so many people like John Gray, the late Brent Carver and Larry Lillo. Eric once again had me in laughter when he called all of them many years ago ‘emerging artists’ and now they are ‘submerging artists’ where he put himself at the top of the list.

Peterson had lived in England for a while. He was stage manager for a time and an assistant stage carpenter. Peterson has learned about acting through participation in plays which is a good way as far as he is concerned because artists get to work with all kinds of different people. There were some years when he felt embarrassed because he had no formal training from places like NTS or the University of Alberta, or Britain. But those days are behind him right now as he considers how fortunate he has been in his career and says, ‘it’s a little late now to be concerned about the training.”

Eric jokingly spoke about his Dorian Gray years (and they were terrific, by the way) on CBC’s ‘Street Legal’ where he looks back at it when he had so much hair and thinner. But I agree when he says why should we rail against the passage of time.

I also wanted to get Eric’s personal and professional perspective on where he sees the trajectory of the live Canadian performing arts headed over the next five years on account of the continuing Covid presence and its new variants. Eric recognizes how the theatres are leaving it up to the individual choices of the audience members to wear a mask or not which seems to be working in helping to keep Covid at bay as much as possible. All this plus the vaccines and the booster shots are doing what they are supposed to be doing. From what Eric knows, there will be a couple of performances where masks are mandatory at Crow’s so those who wish to attend may do so and feel safe. This seems to be the reality we will all have to live with for now.

Will Covid demolish live Canadian theatre?

That will never occur and live theatre will never leave us because Eric believes [it] is too dear to our hearts. Peterson recounted back at Crow’s in June when he performed in George F. Walker’s ‘Orphans for the Czar’ and the heavy enthusiasm of the audience for just being out of the house and being able to attend live theatre once again. Eric compared this feeling to being at a reunion.

He also shared he had just finished reading a book about Christopher Marlowe where the theatres in Britain were closed on account of the plague. In a sense, live theatre has dealt with pandemics and disease. It’s just part of the environment. We here in this country are just not used to doing it in this modern age where we think we’re a fraction away from immortality.

I never got a chance to see his work in ‘Orphans for the Czar’ as it was covered by a colleague. In true facetious response again, Eric told me how marvellous he was in it (and my colleague most certainly agreed), but I did get to see his five-minute appearance near the end of an astounding ‘Detroit’ at Coal Mine Theatre. Eric loved his time in this production. He compared himself to ‘The Ghost of Suburbs Past’. ‘Detroit’ was a surreal experience for him because as he states: “I was kind of in another play where I came on in the last four minutes. I was a character nobody heard about and I began talking about people nobody heard about.”

And now he’s in rehearsals of one of the great masterpieces of live theatre – Chekhov’s ‘Uncle Vanya.’ I asked him how rehearsals are going at this time:

“They’re fantastic, fantastic, and interesting, very, very interesting. We have got a decent rehearsal time, so the stress and deadline of the opening aren’t as present which is always good in rehearsals because people don’t feel that kind of stress and are more open, easier going and more relaxed. The more relaxed you are, the more creative you are and there isn’t that fear of how am I going to get through this.”

Eric then spoke glowingly of his cast and how superbly talented and gifted a leader Chris Abraham is as a director because he is so well prepared with a thoughtful mind and amazing energy. This is not meant in a formulaic manner, but Eric is appreciative of the creative atmosphere Chris engenders and encourages during rehearsals. It’s a wonderful scary challenge, but so enriching that Peterson feels he’s part and parcel of something important. Eric then joked how he hoped Chris doesn’t read this article so he doesn’t get a swelled head. (and again I’m in fits of laughter).

As a theatre artist who is Artistic Director, Eric believes Chris’s programming is an absolute connection to the world in which we now live. In one way or another, any slated play is not going to be a museum piece but will be something audiences can relate to in a personal way or civic way. In other words, what we see on Crow’s stages are aspects of the world in which we all live in, that we read about in newspapers. Eric and I then shared a good laugh because there are no such things as newspapers anymore so it’s what the young people see on their damned instruments.

What has also made Eric excited about rehearsals and eventual performances of ‘Uncle Vanya’? No matter how long ago they were written, classic works like ‘Uncle Vanya’ still encapsulate absolute accuracy about the human condition in one way or another. These plays speak as loudly now to audiences as they did to contemporary audiences when they were first written. It is up to the production and the company involved to exemplify what was intended. Eric told me the company had completed its first ‘run through’ (or as actors call it a ‘stumble through’), and for him, it’s both a terrifying and awesome experience.

Eric’s theory as to why ‘Uncle Vanya’ still speaks to twenty-first-century audiences? The two and a half years we’ve experienced the absence of theatre because of the pandemic have left us contemplating ourselves and how we are doing and whether should we be doing anything differently. Each of the characters in ‘Uncle Vanya’ is doing exactly that. Each asks: “Who am I?”, “I don’t like what’s going on, and I must change”, “I can change, and I should change.”

For Peterson, questions like these may and do sound serious on the one hand but these questions are also incredibly comic. It’s a kind of entertainment that isn’t about escaping the human condition. It’s a kind of entertainment that looks at the human condition where an audience member can say, “Yes, I can see me in that, or I can see other people in that.” And along with these questions and discoveries, it’s also the ‘What the hell is going on here?’

So, for Eric, ‘Uncle Vanya’ is funny, it’s sad; there’s violence in that with gunplay, unrequited love stories, all of this kind of human activity that we all know so well. With a play like ‘Uncle Vanya’, we witness it, and we can imaginatively participate in the lives of the characters on stage and do what theatre does.

Eric believes audiences must come out to see ‘Uncle Vanya’ because he guarantees they will be transformed by it. Audiences will arrive at the theatre in one frame of mind wondering how we are, and we will come out the other end highly entertained, delighted and possibly changed in attitude about who we are.

To conclude our conversation, I asked Eric what keeps him motivated in this industry with his 50-plus years of experience:

“Acting. We all question why we do it, and for me, I like to get up and show off in front of other people. I begin to wither unless I can grab the centre of attention. (and once again I’m in fits of laughter) I know that’s not a very honourable kind of motivation. Silence is my own sense of self-criticism and acting allows me to be someone else.”

Eric continued and I could sense his honest commentary:

“The economic and security rewards of the life of the artist can be problematic, but there is something incredibly valuable about people who enjoy together trying to make something interesting and beautiful and funny and entertaining, rather than making war on other people or doing this or that.

Artists bravely pretend. The arts serve a deep pleasure in humans regardless of how society may look at them. There have always been artists treasured by culture and society. That’s what joins us together through our imaginations in large groups, small groups, and individuals.

We do need people to help us stop life in the flow of life so that we can look at the life and then it can flow on again.”

Eric Peterson will appear in Chekhov’s ‘Uncle Vanya’ in a new adaptation by Liisa Repo-Martell and directed by Crow’s Artistic Director, Chris Abraham. The production runs from September 6 to October 2 in the Guloien Theatre at Crow’s Theatre, 345 Carlaw Avenue. For tickets and other information about the production or the new season, visit crowstheatre.com. To purchase tickets, please call (647) 341-7390 ex. 1010 or by email: boxoffice@crowstheatre.com.

Artistic Director Eric Woolfe of Eldritch Theatre thinks of himself as a guy who works in show business. He tries not to refer to himself as an artist.

Born into the performing arts profession, Eric grew up in London, Ontario, and worked at the Grand Theatre. His first professional job at ten was in the Grand’s production of ‘A Christmas Carol,’ given to him by Director Bernard Hopkins in 1982. Actor Barry Morse appeared as Scrooge as did London Ontario actor Tom McCamus as Bob Cratchit. By age fifteen, Eric took semesters off school and worked across the country for the last forty-some years.

Eldritch bills itself as Toronto’s only theatre company specializing in ghoulishly giddy tales of horror and the uncanny. During our Zoom call, Eric enlightened me further, saying ‘Eldritch’ is an old archaic word that means ‘strange and eerie.’ It became a bit of a joke that the name Eldritch was used as the title of the theatre company:

“Our first show was for the Summerworks Festival almost 25 years ago. It was called ‘The Strange & Eerie Memoirs of Billy Wuthergloom.” We were running overtime by about a half hour for the time limit the Festival gave us, so I came in with a hacked piece of the version of the script which fit in the time. Just as a joke for the director, I crossed out the title and wrote ‘Billy’s Eldritch Diary’ to shorten it, and we thought, why not call the company The Eldritch Theatre?”

Eldritch Theatre operates from Toronto’s Queen Street East’s Red Sandcastle Theatre. They were two separate entities until they married when Eldritch took over the space in December 2021.

The art form of puppetry remains an important part of Eldritch Theatre. The first show performed by Eldritch was a one-person show. Rod Beattie travelled with the Wingfield plays nationwide. Eric thought if he did a one-person show, he would play all the different characters while Rod did his own show. Woolfe compared it to writing symphonies in Vienna in the time of Beethoven.

Eldritch puppets are both strangely grotesque yet beautifully alluring simultaneously. That’s the trump suit for Eric. Yes, puppetry is an art form, but he quickly discovered that it exists in the audience’s mind. In turn, it is the audience that creates the performance:

“A puppet is an inanimate object being wiggled by someone. It doesn’t have sentience. It doesn’t move on its own and we know it … Nobody is fooled, but the audience creates the existence of that puppet character in your mind when you’re watching it…we imbue that inanimate thing with life.”

Woolfe’s extensive knowledge of puppetry kept me on his every word. Since the supernatural and horror plays into Eldritch’s season, using a puppet can connect further with an audience, more so than, say, a character in a costume. Eric spoke about an earlier play from Eldritch about Jack the Ripper. The first scene was a dream sequence of one of the last victims who was having a nightmare about Alice in Wonderland and a giant, 15-foot-tall caterpillar puppet. That puppet could be funny one moment, threatening, sexual, aggressive, angry, weird, and jump from these different tones and from word to word and line to line because he was a puppet. If that exact text were done with an actor in a giant caterpillar costume, the only thing that caterpillar could be would be vaguely stupid. There’s no same ability to stretch tone and get under people’s skin when using human beings.

Often puppetry and magic go together at Eldritch:

“Magic is an opposite art form of puppetry…if it’s a puppetry performance, we are complicit to suspend disbelief to make that puppet come to life because wonder has been created. If it’s a magic trick, it works when the audience resists suspending their disbelief and has no other ability to explain what has just been seen.”

The last three years for the theatre industry have been challenging for commercial theatre. Eric refers to himself as ‘the angry outsider.’ He despairs and feels terrible for those theatre companies that find it challenging.

Woolfe doesn’t find many things terrible right now in the larger sense regarding the industry for Eldritch. Everything has been pretty good. Eldritch shows are selling well at Red Sandcastle. The audience demographics for Eldritch are not all dying or people in their 80s. Eldritch audiences are leaving their houses and coming to see shows. People come because they feel the Sandcastle Auditorium is not a COVID trap.

His upcoming show at Eldritch is ‘Macbeth: A Tale Told by An Idiot.’ Directed by Dylan Trowbridge and coinciding with the 400th anniversary of the play’s premiere, show dates run from February 8 – 24 inclusive; Eric told me that Dylan has been pushing for a few years now that Eldritch should present a Shakespearean play.

Woolfe calls this ‘Macbeth’ a one-person, surreal, classic comic telling of the Bard’s classic with puppets and magic. He’s terrified about the upcoming production because it’s a lot. He plays every single character.

Here’s what he had to say about the state of the theatre:

“The real truth is I don’t like a lot of theatre. I find theatre artists are often really conservative in their imagination. I think in Canada, there are way too many plays set in kitchens and way too many stories about a broken family getting together at their father’s funeral. We’re reluctant as theatre artists to engage the imagination of our audiences…People interested in conservative theatre from years ago are not coming out anymore.”

Woolfe even believes that when tackling the classics, often, when theatre companies present Shakespeare, what they’re really presenting is a kind of museum piece where it isn’t even really the play they’re doing. It’s a comment on other performances of another production of another play. For example, Eric said there have been pieces from ‘Hamlet’ handed down from generation to generation. Assumptions have been based on the text that are not based on the text. Instead, these scenes are based on performances of actors making choices that are copied and copied and copied.

Younger, diverse audiences have not been reached yet, according to Eric. Why? The style of plays still echoes this old model of theatre viable in the 1960s and 1970s. Yes, ‘Macbeth’ is slated to begin performances shortly, but it’s a weird Macbeth. Eldritch’s idea is to blow up that preconceived notion of the old model of Shakespeare’s classic tragedy.

I’m most certain that, under Director Trowbridge’s artistic vision, ‘Macbeth’ will be ‘aggressively unconventional yet still rooted in the actual words.” The Scottish play was one of my favourites to teach because there are witches, ghosts, and magic. It’s also Woolfe’s favourite; however, he has never really liked any production he has seen. Instead, he likes versions of Shakespeare that upset people because the plays don’t obey the rules, don’t bluster, or don’t attempt to entertain.

He then made a most appropriate analogy:

“As people make theatre, we try to worry that it’s good for you. We’re trying to make healthy plays, and sometimes in theatre, we’re like restaurants: “We have the best broccoli. Come and get the broccoli. Eat our broccoli; it’s good for you, and all we’re selling anybody is broccoli.”

Broccoli is great, but it’s only one thing on the plate. There are all these other tastes and things you can serve. If the food happens to be good for you, that’s fantastic, but you don’t have to tell people. It shouldn’t be the selling point. The selling point is that this meal is wonderful and has broccoli that will taste good. Eldritch’s ‘Macbeth’ will be approached like this. It’s a horror play about fear with puppets and cartoon noises, and it’s everything that should be in a Macbeth without the bluster and stuffiness and attempting to do it properly.

There are four sold-out school matinees. A steadily growing demand for tickets extends the production to February 24.

Does he listen to feedback from audience members, reviewers, critics, and bloggers?

Woolfe prefaced his answer by saying he was always the kid in school who never liked to do the assignment the way the teacher asked. For example, if he wrote an essay, he would try to do something slightly different than the assignment. He spent a lot of time on it and did more work. Why did he do this? He thought the assignment may have been stupid or lacking any reason why it had to be done. So, when the graded assignment was returned, Eric was always that kid who was a tad annoyed when the teachers said he didn’t follow the conventions for the work.

Eric reads the reviews. He listens to honest feedback. If every feedback or review is five stars, no one will pay much attention to what is said in the article. Woolfe remembers every bad review as opposed to the good ones, but the thing to answer regarding feedback, whether it be from audience members, reviewers, critics, or bloggers:

“We are entering a world where people expect to be able to get entertainment that appeals to their specific tailored individual tastes…Theatre has to reflect this. Over the years at Eldritch, we are building our little niche market and our growing fanbase of weird nerds who don’t go to all theatre but like the horror stuff of comic books, Dungeons and Dragons, sci-fi movies and strange things with puppets and Tarot cards…This is our audience base. Everybody is welcome here at Eldritch Theatre, but it is a specific tent.”

What’s next for Eric once ‘Macbeth: A Tale Told by An Idiot’ concludes its run?

A series of play readings of some older plays from early on in Eldritch’s existence is happening through February and March. The season’s final show is ‘The House at Poe Corner,’ from April 11-21, 2024, written by Woolfe and Michael O’Brien.

To learn more about Eldritch Theatre, visit eldritchtheatre.ca. You can also find the company on Facebook.

Tickets for ‘Macbeth: A Tale Told by An Idiot’: https://www.ticketscene.ca/events/45534/

A recent conversation with Dora nominated choreographer and dance artist Esie Mensah certainly opened my eyes to what is occurring in the world of the professional performing artist especially in moving forward to ensure inclusion, equity, and diversity of and for all members.

June 1 will mark two important dates – the first is the premiere of the upcoming short film ‘Tessel’, commissioned by Fall for Dance North and Harbourfront Centre. National in scope, this short film features 14 Black dancemakers from across Canada in a crucial conversation on what it means to be an artist in this unprecedented historical time.

The second marked importance for June 1 is the one-year anniversary of ‘Blackout Tuesday’ where organizations around the globe publicly committed to institutional change to help the Black community.
‘Tessel’ was conceptualized and directed by Esie Mensah, so I felt it was important to highlight the prolific work of what she has captured.

I was quickly introduced to her work through a CBC Arts Segment on her work as a choreographer and dancer, but it was her TED Talk “My Skin was too dark for my profession, so I changed the story” which caught my attention: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dgGQv4efnI8

To begin our conversation, Esie let me know her immediate family has been doing well and in her words: “So far, so good.” They haven’t been hit too hard, but she is sadly and consciously aware how this medical epidemic has affected each of us in some way. Her family are healthy and when it has been allowed, they have been able to see each other on different occasions when they could. At one point during our conversation, Esie re-iterated what many of us are hoping – we “keep looking to the horizon where it feels safe for everybody, but we’ll see how things go the next few months…even years.”

Such true words spoken.

Just like many artists to whom I’ve spoken throughout this pandemic series, Esie’s professional world also came to a halt as many of her upcoming projects or solo works were either cancelled or postponed to who knows when. And like many of the artists, Esie felt it was a really good question in asking her what she has missed the most about performance during the lock down. She paused for a few moments before she responded. To dance is her first love, and what does she miss the most:

“There’s a feeling that you get when you’re on stage live…because I’ve been choreographing so much, I wasn’t always performing and dancing, but there’s that synergy, that energy you get when you’re either creating in a room with people or you’re on-stage dancing with people and the audience is receiving you. The faces to me are such an invigorating and affirming experience as a dancer.“

I was grateful how Esie felt comfortable in speaking about the TED Talk and how her skin was ‘too dark’ for her profession, so she changed the narrative to keep moving forward. She spoke candidly about some of the limitations she encountered early in her career:

“I attended George Brown College for the Commercial Dance Programme. That first year I came out of school, I felt the doors opened up and I experienced what I thought the potential of my career could have been. After that first year and over the next two and three years, I realized the reality of the business that I was in as a dark-skinned black woman. What I noticed through the work (since I’ve been in this for so long) was that people place a commodity over dark skin and for whatever reason, they don’t think it’s the same value as somebody with lighter skin.”

I’m going to be honest and say that I was rather surprised by Esie’s revelation and I listened intently as she continued:

“I had people bluntly tell me that, yes, they think you’re too dark for this music video, and that video was for black artists…when I was applying for a four-month contract in China, same thing, well they really, really love you, but they just think you’re too dark for television…this was the first time I had to contextualize and swallow someone telling me, very candidly, that you’re too dark so we can’t take you. It’s almost as if you could change that one thing the doors would open.”

Conversations like this were something Esie said she was used to swallowing, but it wasn’t until giving her TED Talk that this was an issue and real problem.

Clearly, this shook the foundation she was on, and it became the catalyst she was on that pushed her to be so good, so amazing, so undeniable that her shade was never be an issue so that people can’t say they want to hire her despite her shade. In other words, I want to hire her because it’s her and that her shade is never an issue.

This issue has been a roller coast for Esie as “this issue made me feel very, very small, marginalized or pigeon-holed because of it which, now her skin colour is my superpower.”

And as we continued our conversation, I saw how she is a determined and strong woman who took agency in her own hands to carve out her path as a professional artist regarding these limitations of skin colour. What she has done specifically is “to become my own boss, essentially.”

I wanted to quote Esie directly for the rest of the questions I asked her because it’s important to read her voice in her own words:

How else specifically have you taken charge of your professional artistic journey and path:

Becoming my own boss started when I was in the commercial dance scene because I recognize throughout those two to three years where I was waiting for somebody to call me and waiting for somebody to say that I was good enough or if somebody cancelled then I got in for the certain jobs that were coming out, and I was like that I can’t be sitting here waiting for the next job. I want to be in charge of my own life.

That was the shift of me in becoming more of a choreographer.

As the industry shifted and I shifted, I began more intrigued to tell my own stories and say the things I had experienced, the questions I wanted to have answered or that I wanted to explore through art making, through dance, through theatre. When I was in school at George Brown, I did some acting, but for the amount I’m doing now has just been absorbed through working in theatre.

I was really intrigued by it. My first production was a dance play I was writing. That was my first experience in creating my own stories, real true experiences doing work at Harbourfront Centre.

Friends of mine were saying I should take this experience and start applying for grants and building my own shows. I was trying to figure out what I wanted to do.

My first impulse was to start writing, and I did and started creating stories to ask questions about as a first-generation Ghanaian child, my parents come to Canada, but nobody ever desires to go back. To me, we can’t really be surprised by the fact that our home countries are not progressing because all of the knowledge is now in the diaspora.

That was the first set of conversations and that transformed into ‘Shades’, the next thing that happened because of a movie film I had done – I had done the ‘Rocky Horror Picture Show’ remake that had come into Toronto a number of years ago. A friend of mine and I both got the film roles at the audition and we were questioning how many black girls were going to be on the project. There were four of us they seemed to like, and we didn’t think we would get it, and we did.

I remember talking to the assistant choreographer. He overhead us at the audition. He quizzed and asked why we would say this, and we told him something like this never happens, having four black girls on a project that are medium to dark toned, never happens. He was shocked and he’s been working in the business for decades.

This is a huge conversation about ‘shadeism’, and I know I can’t change everyone’s mind on it but If I can get people to question it, and the ‘why’ behind it, that I think is really important.

I am looking forward to seeing ‘Tessel’ Tell me about this short film and why it is so important for you as a person, as an individual and as a professional artist.

This short film project was a springboard to everything that has been going on over the past year and beyond.

I hit a point last year and recognized as an artist and creator that the space for conversation may not always be there for everybody. When Ilter Ibrahimof from Fall for Dance North called me, he wanted to do something to amplify Black voices.

I said, “Great!” Well, if we’re going to do that, I need to bring people together in conversation, and that’s it not just centered in asking people to film themselves and splice something together. I wanted there to be depth and truth. I work as an Artistic advisor, so I’m working in the equity, diversity and inclusion stream that has been popping up over the last year for everybody especially within arts organizations.

When I recognized being entrenched in that conversation is that we all have questions, and some people are scared to ask those questions. Some people are scared to step forward with an ignorance to say I don’t know; I didn’t know about your experience; I didn’t know what it was like what you went through.
The majority of the artists in the film didn’t know each other which was wonderful, so everybody is meeting new people. The whole group hasn’t met officially yet because some artists came on two different days. Over those two days, we ended up with a seven-hour conversation, and it was so humbling. People needed the space to talk, to chat and knowing people are feeling the same thing I’m feeling and understood my experience.

What does it mean now to amplify Black voices? It can mean different things to different people. For me, within my community and my close circle, conversation was the thing that pulled me through last year. I started a group chat with some friends, and it gave us space to have honest, candid conversation.
If we’re going to take steps to change, we really need to be more attuned to those conversations and open to hearing the truth of those conversations. For me, giving Black artists a chance to speak and getting our artists to really listen was so important.

Now these were the words of only 14 dancers and people We’re not speaking for all the Black community across Canada. We are saying there is a commonality of everyone’s experiences of pain, a heaviness but there’s also a lot of joy and being able to find freedom through movement.

Having this conversation and being pushed forward through dance shifts it for people. Talking about racism is never easy but to hear from people and see their bodies move or stillness in looking at the camera, that solicits a response from the audience altogether. We’re starting to see the person behind the skin, behind the artist. We’re seeing the reality and I hope this leaves a lasting impression with the film.

How do you see ‘Tessel’ continue to challenge the global discourse on race?

With a lot of my work, there’s been that consistency of sparking a conversation. I really want there to be a conversation and want people to feel inspired to come together and discuss.

This is the first time we’ve had Canadian dance presenters on one project. This has never happened before, and so I hope everybody continues to understand the urgency and that it takes continual work consistently to open up new doors and allow other people to fill in the gaps that are present.

I hope there’s some real honesty and perk up from people. I hope can receive that honesty. Talking is important, but also the listening is far more important.

As we slowly emerge from this pandemic and look toward the future, what is it about your work that you would like future audiences to remember about you?

Hmmmm… I would hope that future audiences can feel changed from my work, and that it’s an experience. It’s not merely coming in to watch a show or film, it’s an experience they can take with them and it sparks change, a way to care, to love people more, to be more empathetic.

I hope my work inspires growth and that the seeds I plant within my work that I hope it continues to flourish in people’s lives.

I hope that stays consistent with my work.

‘Tessel’ premieres June 1. Please go to www.harbourfrontcentre.com to learn more how to access the film online.

In chatting with artist Evan Buliung (graduate of George Brown Theatre School and the first Stratford Festival Conservatory Program), I felt like I was having a cup of coffee with an old college buddy whom I hadn’t seen in years, but I knew what he was doing up to that point. We laughed so much during our conversation that, yes, sometimes the language did turn a tad ‘colourful’ on both our parts; that was okay because Evan made me feel quite comfortable around him.

We also played a game of six degrees of separation when we discovered that Evan had chummed around in his younger years with the son of my first cousin who lives in Brantford. Another point of interest, he and artist, Lisa Horner (who appears in the Toronto production of ‘Come from Away’) are the only actors in history who have played all of the Mirvish theatres.

I had seen Evan in a tremendously moving production of ‘Fun Home’ with the Mirvish Series at the Panasonic Theatre several years ago. Evan also appeared in ‘Dear Evan Hansen’ at the Princess of Wales. I was so sorry to have missed that production because I heard it was extraordinary. Evan has also appeared at the Stratford Festival for 12 seasons.

Evan believes the world of live theatre will come back. It’ll just be different and that’s probably a good thing because theatre was getting, in Evan’s words, “fucking stale”.

I also went off script and asked Evan what he would be doing if he wasn’t an actor and artist. He told me he probably would have been a soldier. He was in army cadets when he was younger and was fascinated with war, even though he was a sensitive kid and probably would have quit the war. As he looked back on that time, Evan now believes he was looking for some kind of discipline.

We conducted our conversation via Zoom.

Thank you so much for your time, Evan:

It’s a harsh reality that the worldwide pandemic of Covid 19 has changed all of us. Describe how your understanding of the world you know and how your perception and experience have changed on a personal level.

It’s been, I hate to say it, actually been one of the best times of my life – allowing for introspection and some more work that needed to be done for myself personally.

I don’t mind isolation, so it doesn’t really bear into my soul. I know a lot of people struggle with it, and I get that. I’ve been preparing for it my whole life.

I say that from a very privileged standpoint that I’m not in a financial hole.

I find it quite profound and quite a time to be alive. Things could always be worse, and that’s the Sagittarius in me, the eternal optimist.

My parents are okay, they’re in Brantford. The numbers aren’t really high there. My brother and his wife and their kids, they have a lot and it’s a struggle for them, they’re busy. I don’t have kids so I’m not in that arena.

Thanks for asking. They seem to be doing alright. Knock on wood.

With live indoor theatre shut for one year plus, with it appearing it may not re-open any time soon, how has your understanding and perception as a professional artist of the live theatre industry been altered and changed?

I’ve always been one that I like to vary my craft and learn new things. Years ago, I stepped into film and tv pretty heavily and I’ve been doing that ever since and more dabble in theatre now.

Someone once said to me, “Theatre is a young man’s game.” And I get it.

Some of those seasons doing three shows…The last season I was there I performed in ‘Guys and Dolls’ and ‘Romeo & Juliet’ thinking “Yah, I can do this” and forgetting I was 40. By the end of the season, I was exhausted. It’s a lot of work. “Guys and Dolls” is massive.

So, I’ve been doing other things to be honest. A wise man said to me years ago, “What’s going to happen if you walk out the door, get hit by a bus, and can’t act anymore?” Because I was.

I was identifying myself with my job which is a bit tricky, but we have that ingrained in us as actors.

I hope Stratford is able to pull off their outdoor projects this summer. They’ve selected good works and they’ve got great people on board. Those people deserve to work, and I hope things go well for Antoni [Cimolino] (Artistic Director) because he’s put so much fucking work into that place with blood, sweat and tears and the new Tom Patterson Theatre that should have been open for all of us. What a feeling of being kicked in the nuts that so much work has gone in especially to open that brand new theatre along with the work and nothing came of it.

(I then asked Evan about the appropriateness of some titles of Stratford productions in a patriarchal world)… It’s funny, well, it’s not funny, when we were performing ‘Guys and Dolls’ in the middle of the summer is when the Harvey Weinstein story broke. I remember walking out the stage and feeling, “Ugh”. It just hit me…“Why do we do it?”

I even thought that before. I asked Donne [Feore, director of the production] in the audition why are you doing this show? Now, mind you, it’s a fantastic show. The stuff with the other two is some of the funniest writing in musical theatre, and the music, obviously, is gorgeous.

It’s tough to answer this question. I’ve felt this coming on for about ten years. In all of classical theatre, I can’t see this being sustainable in the direction that we’re going in terms of equality. Unless we figure out a way to do it that we have to address the patriarchal nature of the classics. It’s just the way it is and clearly white favoured…yah, it was just a matter of time before it happened.

I don’t know what’s going to happen in the future. I’m not an Artistic Director so they will have a lot to consider. After Antoni’s term is completed, hopefully, it will be a woman who will assume the role of Artistic Director. The Festival needs female energy behind the lens, especially in light of some of the patriarchal nature of some of these plays, and I think it would really help.

As a professional artist, what are you missing the most about the live theatre industry?

God, I miss the people more than anything, they’re really good people. Opening nights are fun. (Evan laughs and then says) I don’t know if theatre misses me, so I don’t really miss it.

There’s new voices and new stories to be told, and that’s great. I’ll be part of it, but I don’t need to be centralized in it.

I’m really enjoying doing film. I’m taking a lot of classes and working on that skill. I’m taking classes with a great teacher in Los Angeles. If I’m taking film and tv classes, I thought GO TO THE SOURCE. And I’m learning shit here that I wouldn’t learn in Canada. That’s their game, so why not go right to the source…at times, it’s terrifying and fucked, but really good and really exciting.

If you don’t keep learning, what’s the point?

I don’t miss ‘The Crucible’. I don’t need to see ‘The Crucible’ ever again (he says with a laugh). I don’t need to see ‘Long Day’s Journey into Night’ ever again. I get it, I get what it’s for, and I’ve performed in it.

As a professional artist, what is the one thing you will never take for granted again in the live theatre industry when you return to it?

That’s a really good question. I won’t take the people, the experience, for granted.

I don’t know if I ever did. As we all know times moves very quickly and it tends to double as each day goes by.

I certainly won’t take for granted the responsibility I have to the next generation to mentor or teach or be of service to them, to be the person that I wanted when I was that age. It’s hard because the younger people can do it themselves.

It’s finding that balance.

Describe one element you hope has changed concerning the live theatre industry.

Well, so much has changed, I don’t think it needs my help. (Evan says with laughter. And then I re-phrase the question with one element Evan is glad that has changed concerning live theatre)…

I’m glad that first and foremost, behaviour in rehearsal halls. And the treatment of other artists.

I was never really a whipping boy but there were, sometimes I was but I was able to laugh it off and deflect it, but some people weren’t as lucky. So I’m grateful that’s being addressed, and I don’t think people can get away with that behaviour as much as well as like teaching in theatre schools.

In theatre schools there’s no need to tear someone apart in order to make them a good actor. That’s just bad teaching because you don’t need to rip the person apart and rebuild them in some sort of structure that makes them an actor. There are other and better ways to get around and not do that destructive behaviour in teaching.

Explain what specifically you believe you must still accomplish within the industry.

Well, in the past number of years, I’ve really enjoyed teaching Shakespeare. I teach it with Cathy MacKinnon who’s the head of Voice at Stratford and we teach at colleges, and we also taught at Etobicoke School of the Arts, and the Conservatory at Stratford.

I love teaching that. I love giving back what was given to me, and I love seeing people go, “Oooohhhh!” because once you get the keys to Shakespeare it’s like (and Evan makes a kaboom sound), “Holy Fuck!” and you get inside the language and come in underneath it and make it a part of me. Then you can actually sound like [Stratford veterans] Tom Rooney or Tom McCamus or Stephen Ouimette speaking Shakespeare as opposed to someone who doesn’t sound like these fucking guys.

There’s a way in for everyone and I keep saying to Cathy this is our tagline: “Give me an afternoon and I’ll make you a Shakespearean actor guaranteed.”

Now, that being said, it takes about ten years to become a good Shakespearean actor.

Teaching is my next foray. I still would love to play MacBeth some day, and Lear and those old fuddy duddies….

I tell you, this pandemic is giving me a whole new perspective on King Lear.

Some artists are saying that audiences must be prepared for a tsunami of Covid themed stories in the return to live theatre. Would you elaborate on this statement both as an artist in the theatre, and as an audience member observing the theatre.

I’d rather shoot myself (with a good laugh) than go to a Covid themed play. God, we’ve all been here. What the fuck do I need that for?

This is the last thing I want.

Maybe, but who’s gonna go see it? What the fuck are you gonna tell?

I don’t know. I can think of a fresher hell than go to a Covid play. Let’s move on.

As an artist, what specifically is it about your work that you want future audiences to remember about you?

Oh, wow! Jesus. Well, I mean I think what I’ve discovered is that my work has been a journey in actualizing my emotions. Coming from generations of alcoholism and different forms of dysfunction within the family unit, I haven’t had a drink in 15 years, but it’s always gone parallel with my profession is mental health and discovering these feelings that I wasn’t able to discover as a child through no one’s fault.

I would hope that, for instance, when I was in Mirvish’s ‘Fun Home’ I had some people say you’re not homosexual so how could you play that. That’s not what it’s about. To me, the play is about shame and living with deep rooted shame regardless of its shame-based living.

I’m hoping when audiences see this that this is somebody working through the states of being in their work that mirrors life. Our responsibility is to hold the mirror up to nature, no more no less. If an audience can resonate with that, which a lot of people did especially in ‘Fun Home’, if we can have an effect on an audience as those three girls did at the end of ‘Fun Home’, then that’s successful.

Otherwise, what’s the point of doing it?

I remember Peter Hutt said that to me years ago when I was younger. He said, “I don’t know why that guy doing it in this business; I know why that guy is in this business.”

And he looked at me and said, “I have no idea why you’re doing this.”

And it made so much sense to me. Because truly I was never in it for anything other than trying to figure out my life. And it just seemed like a really good way to do it.