Profiles & Interviews

‘Joseph’ fever has struck the city of Toronto once again. Word has it the show is on its pre-Broadway run.

Thank you to Mirvish Productions for allowing me to e interview Jac Yarrow who will play Joseph and Ben Michael Turner, the Musical Director, of this newest production of ‘Joseph and the Amazing Technicolour Dreamcoat’

One tidbit of information. Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber gave his blessing to Yarrow to play the title character. How does Jac still feel about it:

“When Having Lord Lloyd Webber see my audition and think I was capable of being up on the London Palladium stage, playing this iconic character is still unbelievable to me. I will be forever grateful to Andrew for taking a chance on a new kid like me. It’s an experience that has shaped my life.”

Can you please share where you completed your training as an artist?

Jac: I attended The Arts Educational Schools, London (ArtsEd).

Ben: I read music at King’s College London; I received my performance training from voice tutors at the Royal Academy of Music, and I was a conducting scholar of Sing for Pleasure. In between rehearsals and performances here in Toronto, I am currently writing up my Master’s thesis – which I am also completing at King’s, albeit from a distance…

How are you feeling both personally and professionally about this gradual return to the live performing arts even though Covid is still present?

Jac: Naturally I’m so happy to be back on stage after such a frightening, unpredictable time. To share a theatrical experience with live audiences after so long feels so special. It’s something I won’t take for granted, ever.

Ben: Personally, and professionally, I am utterly thrilled about the safe return to live performance. The pandemic was a uniquely isolating time. Being able to come together once again, to create and share in the glorious experience of live performance, feels like a definitive, joyful step towards rekindling life as we used to know it. At the Princess of Wales, we are testing twice weekly, wearing masks backstage and adhering to the latest guidance; it feels like a very small price to pay for safely returning to work and be able to bring this gorgeous show to this wonderful city.

How have rehearsals gone so far here in Toronto as you prepare for this Toronto engagement of JOSEPH?

Jac: Rehearsals have been so exciting. We have Vanessa Fisher joining us here as the Narrator and Tosh Wonogho-Maud as Pharaoh. Along with a fresh batch of 16 Canadian kids (Two teams of 8.) It’s brilliant to see the new takes on these roles and to feel the buzz from these new cast members, who are raring to go.

Ben: It has been so lovely to rehearse in Toronto. Collaborating with the musicians here as we workshopped the new 14-piece orchestration was a personal highlight. Combining Andrew Lloyd-Webber’s music with these magnificent players has made for a truly extraordinary musical experience. Our young acting company (also made up of Toronto’s finest) has taken the challenge of learning this mammoth show in their stride. It filled my soul with pure joy to see our first audience shower them with the love and praise they truly deserved. n.b. they also took mocking my British-isms and pointing out my lack of Canada-appropriate attire in their stride, but that’s beside the point…

Is this your first visit to Toronto? What has it been like for you?

Jac: Yes, it’s my first time in Toronto! I love it here. I’ve been to a Raptors game, explored the city, shopped am desperate to try Puppy Yoga! I’m so glad we’re here for multiple weeks (10 weeks) so I can fit in as much sightseeing as I can. The people are also some of the loveliest people I’ve ever met. We’ve been welcomed here with open arms and it’s so lovely.

Ben: I have never been to Canada before and absolutely love it. It is frightfully chilly though, isn’t it? – and I’m promised it’s only going to get colder. Nevertheless, I’ve found that there are a few things here that can’t be fixed by a plate of poutine and a glass of ice wine. Our dark day is a Monday, so I begin my week living my best tourist life. I’ve started with the classics (the CN Tower, St. Lawrence’s Market, Niagara Falls etc.) – obviously – but we’re here until February and I’m a massive foodie so any niche ‘must-do’ suggestions would be hugely welcomed.

These last 2-plus years have most certainly altered the face of the live performing arts scene worldwide. Tell me how you’re both personally and professionally feeling and experiencing this JOSEPH. What is it about this new London Palladium production that you believe will make it worthwhile for Toronto audiences to see this Christmas and holiday season, and well into 2023?

Jac: Joseph is a timeless show. The music is so iconic and resonates with so many generations. That’s why I believe it has stood the test of time. This particular production of Joseph is not to be missed as the show has been completely reimagined for a more modern audience. The colourful story is presented on a huge, lavish set with beautiful, colourful costumes, athletic dancing, glorious voices, and real theatre magic. Direct from the stage of the London Palladium, our production of Joseph has all the excitement and surprises it did in London’s West End.

Ben: Joseph was Andrew Lloyd-Webber and Tim Rice’s first collaboration in 1968. Back then it was only fifteen minutes long and it was performed as a one-off pop cantata in a school in south London. This year we took Laurence’s Palladium production around the UK to eighteen cities, and it was truly remarkable to see the show’s fifty-year history sewn into the fabric of British culture. From the first ‘Any Dream Will Do’, two thousand people in the Liverpool Empire Theatre were singing along with the “ahs”, reciting the colours of the coat, clapping the accelerando in ‘Potiphar’, and dancing in the aisles to the ‘Megamix’.

Ben: At our first preview last Sunday, there was a wonderful exchange when the audience at the Princess of Wales let us in on their Joseph story: clapping, dancing, and singing along, just as they did with Donny Osmond in the nineties and with every Joseph since. To me, this new production, and its North American premiere, feel like the start of a glorious new chapter in Joseph’s history, as a new generation of theatregoers – led by lifelong fans of the show – take this iconic story and its music into their hearts. There is something irresistibly infectious about the joy that pours out of this show every night, we are so thrilled to have brought it to Toronto for the festive season, and I feel incredibly lucky to be a small cog in amongst it all.

Once JOSEPH has concluded its run, Jac, what’s next for each of you?

Jac: I can’t say as of yet. I’m trying to soak up my last few weeks playing the role after four years with the show. Joseph has been a huge part of my life and I will miss both the show and the role very dearly.

‘Joseph and the Amazing Technicolour Dreamcoat’ opens Friday, December 16 at The Princess of Wales and runs through the Christmas and holiday season to February 18, 2023. For tickets, visit mirvish.com or call 1-800-461-3333.

Bravo to the independent theatres outside the Stratford Festival that continue to produce the works of William Shakespeare. Shakespeare in Action is one such company.

Artistic Director and Co-Founder of Unchained Theatre Jack Burrill is pleased to continue presenting the Bard’s plays.

Recently, I had the opportunity to chat via email with the Centennial College graduate about the Canadian theatre scene and, more specifically, what’s happening in Toronto.   Burrill was pleased to discuss Unchained Theatre further.

The company is celebrating its fifth year this year. It strives to produce exciting, fresh productions in intimate spaces, specializing in classic works such as Shakespeare while exploring their modern relevance through innovative designs and passionate performances. Unchained emphasizes the importance of collaboration with the entire team, from production to actors, being creatively active in all aspects of the production.

The theatre company began when Burrill and artistic producer and co-founder Reuben Stewart were isolated together during the COVID-19 pandemic after a trip to the south. Within their containment, they watched, read, and even acted in works of Shakespeare to pass the time and decided to create the company. Unchained’s first show ‘Twelfth Night’ during the pandemic, teamed up with the local community theatre to build an outdoor stage so that theatre could resume even with restrictions.

To celebrate the five-year landmark, Unchained will stage another production of ‘Twelfth Night’ with some of the original cast returning. Reuben and Jack continued producing shows through theatre school, though… not without warning from our instructors. Now, the company is excited about the road ahead!

The Canadian theatre scene continues to change and evolve.  I’ve posed that same question to many artists through their profiles.

Burrill says he will always feel confident about the theatre and performing arts industry in the future despite the changes. He says the fact there are so many changes and the art form is still here speaks to the longevity of the theatre. In the future, he further adds:

“The reason I am so excited about the state of the industry: there are so many small, young companies doing great work who are rehearsing three times a week after putting in 40-hour work weeks. [These companies] save every penny to rent the $2000 space to do four shows, pay the team, support the design and market only to break even and do it all again in a couple of months.”

He’s always had a unique connection and affinity with the plays of Shakespeare. Jack calls the Bard’s works: “poetic examinations of the human spirit. What it means to be human hasn’t changed; therefore, the plays are allowed to be anything.” It is the allowance for Jack that Shakespeare’s plays speak to audiences. The plays are a safe place for actors and audiences to feel and to think to the maximum of themselves. Sometimes, if actors and audiences are familiar with the plays (having studied them in school), they can become excited by a new interpretation. 

One of Jack’s favourite plays is ‘King Lear.’ It’s also a favourite of mine. Jack says he has seen the play at least ten times, and he still cries when Lear carries his beloved yet murdered daughter Cordelia in his arms one last time.

Recently, Unchained Theatre produced ‘Romeo & Juliet’ with the setting in Toronto. Jack’s choice eerily spoke to the company of actors and crew. They discovered what Shakespeare said about fair Verona translated ‘scarily’ well with Old Toronto.

Collectively, what Burrill craves to see in the theatre is intimacy, passion and simplicity. The productions that excite him the most are the ones with three blocks as a set, an intimate space, and actors driving the play until the wheels come off:

“I love seeing actors work; I love seeing when the performances are raw. I love it when you listen to a line of dialogue, and it strikes with an immediate emotional response. Exciting intimate productions are what I aim to see always.”

Jack takes great pride in being multi-disciplinary. Acting is his staple, but he also loves directing, crafting a show and being in rehearsal. He loves rehearsal and wishes he had the opportunity to do more directing. He also shared a touching personal element:

“I started wanting to be a playwright. I had major stage fright as a teenager, but I loved telling stories. Behind the veil of a glitchy HP laptop did I lair myself. But I do see myself changing careers one day. One of my big dreams is to be an acting teacher and to open my own studio.”

Burrill is obsessed with the works of some of the great acting teachers, including Stanislavski, Meisner, Hagen, Chekhov, and Adler. He has read all their books and constantly re-watches their documented classwork films and clips.
Jack wants to keep the fire of acting alive, especially in the theatre, for the next generation to follow. He would consider that one of his life’s work.

For this year’s theatre graduates, Burrill advises creating your work and forming your own company. Do the plays you want to do and play the parts you want to play. Find the actors, directors, stage managers, producers and technicians. No one is going to do that for you. Theatre is a home, and everyone connected is a family. Go and make theatre with family. Don’t let expensive theatres or heart-stopping light shows deter you from what you want to do.

Jack’s also realistic as well. He knows he can’t make a full-time living just yet. Currently, he is a server for a golf course (which he calls an artist’s boot camp). Jack also tutors in English and drama for high school and college students, and he is trying to make steps into coaching, especially with Shakespeare’s texts.

As we concluded our email conversation, I asked what was next for Jack.

He has experienced a good year and is grateful for the artistic opportunities. Recently, he completed his participation in the York Corpus Christi Cycle at the University of Toronto, where he was part of three of the 33 clusters and directed one of them. Although exhaustion loomed over him, he says it was a life-altering artistic experience.

 Starting July 19, he will appear in ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’ in Lawrence Park, produced by Thaumatrope, playing the roles of Theseus and Titania.

Finally, from November 6 to 9th, Unchained Theatre will celebrate five years with a production of ‘Twelfth Night’ in which he will co-direct and play Sir Toby Belch.

Burrill has also written his first full-length that he hopes to share soon.
Ah, the love of live theatre. It is most heartening to see young people relish and revel in this beloved art form.

To learn more about Unchained Theatre, visit their Facebook page: Unchained Theatre Company. You can also visit their Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/unchained_theatre_company___/?igsh=em5lNWJ1Z2Zta2Jw#

Jacob James is one extremely passionate fellow in sharing how this pandemic has ultimately transformed his life. I wasn’t able to include every single bit of information he shared with me during our hour-long conversation as one topic sometimes dove into another completely different question or topic that I hadn’t even considered.

But that’s okay. At one point, Jacob poked fun at himself by telling me that I would glean from our conversation that he loves to speak with others who are just as passionate as he is about the arts and about the state of live theatre as we all move forward post pandemic.

He is an actor, director, drama professor currently at Queen’s University in Kingston, and creator of the YouTube channel Theatre Curation Project. He has spent seven seasons with The Stratford Festival, five seasons with Drayton Entertainment, five seasons with Videocabaret (Dora awards), five seasons with The Thousand Islands Playhouse, and has worked with Theatre Kingston, Soulpepper, Neptune, Globe Theatre Regina, Charlottetown Festival, New York Shakespeare Exchange, Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park, Cleveland Playhouse…and more.

As a teaching artist, Jacob has taught at arts institutions across North America for over 20 years including Michigan State University, St. Lawrence College, and Queen’s University. Please visit Theatre Curation Project on YouTube and subscribe, follow him on Instagram at @jacoboneilljames. Jacob is a graduate of The National Theatre School, Birmingham Conservatory (Stratford Festival), Second City Conservatory, and York University’s Teaching Artist program.

Jacob adores his six year old son, Henry, and still finds time to consider new and exciting ways to keep interest in the arts going. I plan to check out many of his passion projects with the links included at the conclusion of his profile.

We conducted our conversation via Zoom. Thanks again for the lively discussion, Jacob:

The doors to Toronto live theatre have been shut for over a year now with no possible date of re-opening soon. How have you and your immediately family been faring during this time?

I must say that many people are talking about the waves that it goes in. Sometimes I feel positive, inspired and motivated, then the next day I’ll sit the entire day in my pajamas at the computer checking social media.

I was set to do my third of ‘Billy Bishop Goes to War’ this time with Drayton Entertainment. We were supposed to start rehearsals March 26. I was in New York at the time. I’ve been splitting my time between Kingston teaching at Queen’s and in New York where my son’s mother was based. It was a harrowing lifestyle for the going on two years I’ve been doing it. The numbers in Stratford are low right now, but we’ll see what happens in the summer. Henry, my son, is 6 and he’s doing alright.

All to say, yes, there was such a downfall from theatre becoming disenfranchised and yet, at the same time, it meant that I got my son safely back to Canada. My son’s mother and I, we co-parent relatively well and decided to locate to Stratford. I spent my 20s as an actor and she owns a house here. On the one level, I have felt totally disenfranchised but on the life level really grateful not having to split my week between Kingston and New York City and all that travelling. Having my son back in Canada and in one place is good.

I’ve had ups and downs, but it has forced me to get innovative and thinking about ways about what can I do to help. Theatre is being diminished through this pandemic and there is a real danger of it being impacted permanently.

How have you been spending your time since the theatre industry has been locked up tight as a drum?

That sense of stewardship started to rise within me as a result of this worldwide epidemic. I’m not the kid anymore and it’s my generation to make the initiative to preserve and to curate what past mentors had shared with me. I wish they were here because I would really like to talk to them now as I reflect back and wish I could ask them things now, but obviously I can’t.

That gave birth to something I created on the You Tube channel called ‘The Theatre Curation Project.’ It started twofold. I got thinking about all the mentors whom I’ve had in this business who have now passed away. My original mentor, Valerie Robertson, was in Theatre Five. She is one of the mothers of Canadian Theatre. Here at Stratford, Richard Monette was my major mentor and influence.

Well, there are a lot of people who are still alive and have these stories and lessons. Why not reach out to those who were influenced by those who may not be here? Why not reach out to those who are still here and are leaving their mark on the theatre scene? Kenneth Welsh is a veteran of our time, but who was his mentor for example.

To my surprise, this avalanched into 40 + episodes of ‘The Mentor Series’ I’ve curated. I’ve about 20 in the bank ready to go. The idea here is to preserve these stories for future generations and from being lost forever when I’m gone.

I got to thinking about the conversations we would be having in the rehearsal hall, and I’m a big ghost nerd. I get into these conversations of did anyone ever work in a haunted theatre and what was their experience. I discovered a lot of people share that same curiosity and interest, so I created a second series for the You Tube Channel ‘Haunted Theatre Stories’. The basic format is similar to the Mentor Series channel.

The next phase of the Theatre Curation Project is the beginning of an online theatre school. Right now, we’re beginning with an online component. Eventually, I’d like to buy a building when we can be physically back together with that theatre school graduating into a theatre company, an apprenticeship school where there is an opportunity of doing.

So, preserving the tradition and maintaining community are important.

The late Hal Prince described the theatre as an escape for him. Would you say that Covid has been an escape for you, or would you describe this near year long absence from the theatre as something else?
Yes, it has been an escape for me in good ways and in bad ways. Being in Covid has been an escape from hopping on a plane and going to New York to see my son or only seeing my son for half the time.

It’s also been deprivation. I’ve been fortunate to have done a bit of tv and film over the interim since that has kept rolling. It doesn’t fill the void.

I love editing and I wonder I might have become an editor for film and tv if I had gone a different path.

I’ve interviewed a few artists several months ago who said that the theatre industry will probably be shut down and not go full head on until at least 2022. There may be pockets of outdoor theatre where safety protocols are in place. What are your comments about this? Do you think you and your colleagues/fellow artists will not return full throttle and full tilt until 2022?

I’d say that’s a very safe bet. Again, there are a lot of variables that could take us further ahead that could accelerate the process but there are a lot of factors that could set us back.

Of late, what I’ve been coming to terms with is the struggle. Certainly, in Canada and Ontario specifically, the colour coded roles and the numbers, these two things are not working together in tandem. My mom is still in Kingston and I talk to her regularly. When Kingston was opened up, even though Toronto was in lockdown, people in Toronto are going to Kingston to the restaurants.

I shudder to say it: If we created a uniform set of rules for the province, we’d be in better shape. If we stayed in lockdown since Christmas, we wouldn’t be where we’re at right now. There’s always that tendency of “Well, if I visit this person, it’s just me not everybody.” When Trudeau said at the beginning last year, “It’s time to come home”, we still need to be in that tone, or nothing is going to be done. I get the fatigue of it all but…

In the end, what is it worth if we can’t see our family next Christmas? My forecast for all this? There will be smatterings of outdoor theatre going on this summer. My thinking if rules are set that 100 or more can be in a theatre to watch a show, masked and social distanced, we could start seeing those small, distanced audience numbers in the fall, okay that’s a start. But back to where we were before with full houses and sitting next to people shoulder to shoulder? That won’t happen until at least 2022.

I had a discussion recently with an Equity actor who said that yes theatre should not only entertain but, more importantly, it should transform both the actor and the audience. How has Covid transformed you in your understanding of the theatre and where it is headed in a post Covid world?

It’s transformed me because empathy has been at the forefront of my mind because this is what is needed right now to help control this worldwide pandemic. If we’re not empathetic and care for each other and put ourselves in each other’s shoes, wear the masks, do the social distancing then it’s going to continue to be bad news.

I’ve been transformed because I used to be quite romantically optimistic about everything and had a lot of faith in humanity. I have to admit that the empathy is still there, but the faith in humanity has been dampened a little bit for me because it’s pretty simple. We’ve got a simple set of rules to follow to protect ourselves and each other, and yet there are people who are actively out to go against the grain. Here in Stratford, I’m seeing signs of NO MORE LOCKDOWNS.

I can’t wrap my head around it.

Where have I been transformed concerning live theatre? I’m all about theatre that engages as opposed to pacifies. Theatre needs to come from the inside out, not the outside in if it wants to be authentic and achieve any kind of vacuum quality acting level. The audience should feel like voyeurs, according to the late William Hutt.

The late Zoe Caldwell spoke about how actors should feel danger in the work. It’s a solid and swell thing to have if the actor/artist and the audience both feel it. Would you agree with Ms. Caldwell? Have you ever felt danger during this time of Covid and do you believe it will somehow influence your work when you return to the theatre?

I agree with Ms. Caldwell. We need to see a character begin somewhere and end up somewhere else. In order to do that, there must be conflict. The conflict is where the danger comes from.

It makes me think about an experience I had. I originated the role of Clown 1 in the Canadian premiere of ‘The 39 Steps’. I had a strange kismet with that play where I later played Hannay at Neptune in Halifax. When I got to New York, there was an off-Broadway production running and I was asked to understudy all three male roles. But then the show closed.

I assistant directed a Canadian production oddly enough with the guy who assistant directed the off-Broadway production and who I had been auditioning for in New York for the understudy job. Dayna Tekatch directed the Canadian premiere. She reminded us, excluding the role of Hannay, the characters can be as big and buffoonish as you want them to be, but they have to be rooted in playing a real objective to come from the inside out. They have to be real people and start as real people and not inauthentic lunatics. If these people are not real, there can’t be any danger. If there’s no danger, then there can’t be any stakes. If there are no stakes, then it becomes a bunch of silly gags and actors playing different characters. It needs to be that thriller.

If there is no danger in this particular play, it’s over before it starts.

I did a short film in Toronto over the last summer. It was the weird period of being in limbo between the first phase of the pandemic and not quite into the second phase. I remember thinking we are in this little window where we can do this. Productions have learned a lot since then; companies have learned a lot about how to do the protocols. We all had our tests on this film, but I was the stickler during the film ensuring that we would all be safe.

There are these stories about Douglas Rain, one of the original company members at Stratford. He got a bit reclusive in his last days. Apparently, he set up a little tent corner area when he wasn’t working. He didn’t want to talk to anybody. I was close to pulling a Douglas Rain on the short film I shot last summer. I didn’t want anyone to come near me because I did feel the danger in my being a stickler about safety on set. I was grateful to do a job but felt petrified the entire time. I went to length of during that whole shoot and the two weeks after, I isolated from my son.

The late scenic designer Ming Cho Lee spoke about great art opening doors and making us feel more sensitive. How has this time of Covid made you sensitive to our world and has it made some impact on your life in such a way that you will bring this back with you to the theatre?
The thing I’m most keenly sensitive about from all this is we’ve all been experiencing some degree of trauma on the spectrum of trauma. I recognize that and have seen it manifested in myself and in others. It manifests in unexpected ways and it has heightened our reactions to so many things.

Being a parent of a six-year-old, there are so many undiscovered epiphanies. I’ve been keenly aware of the other two kids who are in Henry’s learning pod through school. For those kids who can’t articulate the trauma they’re experiencing or recognizing it, I’ve learned how to be more sensitive especially towards Henry. He’s happy here in Canada, his socialization is fine with a good balance of work and play.

There was a moment where something wasn’t right and just a moment out of the blue. Henry is a good kid. He’s funny, got a good sense of humour and is sensitive, there was a moment where he came up and sat on my lap, and cuddled up on me and hugged me and squeezed me.

I asked him if he was alright, and he just started crying. He said he just felt sad. For ten minutes he went through that. It was hard, heart wrenching but it was good because he was having an emotional release. That led to a conversation of saying it’s a good thing if you’re feeling sad to cry because you’re letting it out of your system. He doesn’t understand fully what is happening to him.

And it suddenly dawned on me that what I was telling Henry, I should have been telling myself as well. Sometimes you forget that if you need to take a day to be in pajamas and watch mindless movies or play video games, it’s okay to not feel the shame and to take the time to not do anything.

How will this translate into my work? With my students I was working on a couple of different Shakespeare monologues. I gave them something dense and challenging from Richard III. In working with them, we looked at the two different Richards. We saw the adult and the child Richard. How did Richard get to this point? It started me thinking what this would have been for him?

That level of trauma would probably have created some arrested development and to lead to insane behaviour and the shutting off of emotions.

Again, the late Hal Prince spoke of the fact that theatre should trigger curiosity in the actor/artist and the audience. Has Covid sparked any curiosity in you about something during this time? Has this time away from the theatre sparked further curiosity for you when you return to this art form?

The Theatre Curation Project and Channel have made me even more curious. I’m a big theatre nerd. Long before I studied at the Stratford Festival, I had the books about William Hutt and renowned at Stratford and I was a big theatre history buff.

But looking at the journey and legacy of how we got from where it started to where we are now is at the forefront. What I’ve been recognizing as we’re 40 episodes in with more to follow, the similarities, the patterns and the story forming from hearing the accounts of these mentors, I’m realizing and now starting to map together the foundations of Canadian theatre and the commonalities.

It’s prompted me to perhaps have these stories come out as special presentations. Ultimately, I want to transpose a lot of these stories into books and volumes so they can be in libraries of theatre schools long after I’ve left this world.

I got thinking about this idea of the architects of Canadian theatre. At this point, I can count on two hands specific people who started it all. Almost in a Bible format, I’d like to write the ‘Genesis’ history of the architecture of Canadian theatre, the creation of Canadian theatre. One volume for example might be called THE BOOK OF HUTT (with great respect to William Hutt) and the impact they had then and now.

My drama students at Queen’s don’t know who are Val and Gord Robertson. This has to change. They have to know these names of the greats of Canadian theatre some who came from Kingston.

Just in terms of life as well has made me curious. There is re-inventing going on because of the pandemic. Rather than being defeated by all this, what can we do in spite of all this. Not only to keep it going and preserve the stories, but I’ve said in some of the faculty meetings with the drama department at Queen’s to look at online learning as an opportunity and silver lining that perhaps what we are doing online now will augment the learning of the students when they return in person.

To learn more about Jacob’s passion projects, please visit:

YouTube Theatre Curation Project: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCLhEdMQ-NVs_WC61tHYw7yQ?sub_confirmation=1

Facebook Group: Theatre Curation Project https://www.facebook.com/groups/645544769451393/

Patreon: www.patreon.com/theatrecurationproject

Follow Jacob James on his Insta: @jacobonielljames

I’ve known Jacob’s family for a couple of years through the school board where I worked before I retired from teaching.

The first time I saw Jacob onstage was in a wonderfully campy performance as the evil Puppet Master at Toronto’s Young People’s Theatre in ‘The Adventures of Pinocchio.’ Just like all of us who were missing live theatre in person, I saw Bad Hats’ Theatre production of ‘Alice in Wonderland’ produced by Soulpepper which included Jacob.

Jacob MacInnis is a Tkaronto-based non-binary performer and visual artist. After training for three years at Sheridan College’s Music Theatre Performance Program, Jacob has gone on to entertain audiences all over Turtle Island in countless musicals, concerts, and cabarets. In 2014 Jacob was nominated for a Dora Mavor-Moore award and won the Toronto Theatre Critic’s Award for best supporting actor in a musical for their performance in James and the Giant Peach (YPT).

This past summer, Jacob made their Stratford Festival debut in Play On! in the festival’s summer cabaret series. They currently work part-time at Sheridan College teaching acting tutorials.

Jacob will next appear this month and next month at London Ontario’s Grand Theatre in its production of ‘Home for the Holidays’.

We conducted our interview via email. Thank you so much for the conversation, Jacob:

Could you share one teacher and one mentor for whom you are thankful who believed in your chosen career as a performing artist.

A mentor/teacher I greatly appreciate—that is so tough to answer. Every contract I do, every show I perform in, every tutorial I teach, I am constantly inspired by my colleagues, directors, and students. The lessons I have learned over the years from each special person I look up to have served (and continue to serve) to shape the artist I am today.

I’m trying to think positively that we have, fingers crossed, moved forward in dealing with Covid. How have you been able to move forward from these last 18 eighteen months on a personal level? How have you been changed or transformed on a personal level?

The last eighteen months (as I am sure they’ve been for many) have been tough to say the least—The emotional ups, downs have been enough to give a person whiplash! However, there have been a few silver linings: The first few months of the pandemic brought my family of five back together after so many years of living apart, throughout the lockdown I was able to come out to my community as proudly non-binary, I wrote and produced my first pop single ( In My Dreams), I became a teacher at Sheridan College, and I was blessed enough to be a part of a handful of online workshops, and magical projects like Bad Hat’s Alice In Wonderland. Making my Stratford Festival debut was certainly near the very top of the list of blessings!

How have these last eighteen months of the pandemic changed or transformed you as an artist professionally?

With the murder of George Floyd, we watched as the world was set aflame with anger, disgust, and a cry for justice. We started to listen to Indigenous people and people of colour talk about their lived experiences and the racism they have endured in this colonial world. We finally started to see and understand the atrocities Canada and the Catholic Church inflicted upon Indigenous people with the barbaric Residential “school” system.

And now we are starting to see a shift toward anti-oppression in the professional Theatre landscape. We are starting to see stories of people who, until recently, have been ignored altogether. We are starting to see a move toward kindness in the rehearsal space with a focus on mental health. And we are starting to see how art can be made while avoiding trauma. We still have a long way to go, but we must not go back to how things were…. I am a human before I am an artist.

What intrigues/fascinates/excites Jacob MacInnis post Covid?

What intrigues me is seeing how theatre will be shaped as we start implementing more and more of the lessons we are learning … I am intrigued to see just how much we can decolonize this beloved art form and make it of use for the world we want to see.

RAPID ROUND
Try to answer these in a single sentence. If you need more than one sentence, that’s not a problem. I credit the late James Lipton and “Inside the Actors’ Studio’ for this idea:

If you could say one thing to one of your mentors and teachers who encouraged you to get to this point as an artist, what would it be?

To my mentors—thank you for believing in me when I wasn’t able to myself.

If you could say something to any of the naysayers in your career who didn’t think you would make it as an artist, what would that be?

To any naysayers, I say nothing! —“If they aren’t paying your bills, pay them no mind”

What’s your favourite swear word?

F**K!

What is a word you love to hear yourself say?

Delicious

What is a word you don’t like to hear yourself say?

Taxes

What would you tell your younger personal self with the knowledge and wisdom life experience has now given you?

Save your money and lay off the sugar!

With the professional life experience you’ve gained over the years, what would you now tell the upcoming Jacob MacInnis from years ago who was just in the throes of beginning their career as a performing artist?

Keep going!

What is one thing you still wish to accomplish both personally and professionally?

I would love to pay off my debt, do a show on Broadway, star in some film and television, and own a house complete with a wiener dog named Dijon.

Name one moment in your professional career as an artist that you wish you could re-visit again for a short while.

I don’t think I would go back to a time in the past even if I could… I have had so many beautiful experiences, but I am always looking ahead!

What is one thing Jacob MacInnis will never take for granted again post Covid?

I will never take my friends and family for granted post Covid.

Would Jacob MacInnis do it all again if given the same opportunities?

I don’t think I would do it all again! Like I said above: what’s next? Bring on the future.

You can follow Jacob on instagram @jacobmacinnis. You can check out their visual art @jacobmacinnisart, or listen to their original music on Spotify, Apple Music, or anywhere you listen.

I know of TAPA and its vision as the voice of theatre, dance, and opera in Toronto. I also know the Dora Mavor Moore Awards (known as the Doras) are presented by TAPA as they acknowledge and recognize outstanding Toronto theatre in 50 categories over 7 Divisions in General Theatre, Independent Theatre, Musical Theatre, Theatre for Young Audiences, Dance, Opera and Touring. The awards in each division are voted on by a jury of eight to twelve individuals drawn from the professional performing arts community.

What I was not fully aware of regarding TAPA was the tremendous advocacy of the arts AND the extensive programs it offers. I’ve only just begun to examine TAPA’s website and plan to spend time in perusal to learn more.

I was also pleased TAPA’s Executive Director, Jacoba Knaapen, was available for an interview for this profile series. She is a tireless arts leader who, throughout this pandemic, has, as well, spearheaded numerous campaigns to fight for the interests of the performing arts community she serves. The most current one is petitioning the provincial government to allow theatres to rehearse in advance for outdoor performances and record digital content in their spaces (as film and tv are allowed to do) PRIOR to the stated Stage 2 opening (likely in July) so that the outdoor shows & streamed content will be able to go on.

In addition to Executive Director at TAPA, and, as part of her role there, Jacoba is the Producer of the Dora Awards, and thus is the Producer for the Dora Mavor Moore Ancillary Awards which will take place virtually on June 16, 2021 at 10am on the TAPA YouTube channel. I will include the link for this presentation at the end of Jacoba’s profile.

The Ancillary Awards are not based on a specific performance season but acknowledge a recipient’s whole career – and encompass administrative as well as artistic roles. The awards that will be handed out are Leonard McHardy and John Harvey Award for Outstanding Leadership in Administration (LMJH), the Victor C. Polley Protégé Award, the Pauline McGibbon Award, the John Hirsch Director’s Award and the Barbara Hamilton Memorial Award.

Given her extremely busy schedule as you will see from her first answer, Jacoba kindly answered questions via email.

Thank you so much for your time, Jacoba, and for allowing us to hear your voice on these important issues as the arts community emerges slowly from this worldwide pandemic:

It’s a harsh reality that Covid 19 has changed all of us. Please describe how it has changed your understanding personally of the world you once knew and how your perceptions and experience have changed and transformed.

COVID 19 has changed everything and the awakening to systemic racism has changed everything. Although it has been a time of heartbreak and pain, it has also created a new future time. A time of possibilities that seemed impossible before. That gives me hope.

Personally, I have never worked harder and longer days in my life. I hear and read about folks baking bread, finding new hobbies, reading books, looking for ways to fill their time. That has not been my reality and for me there have not been enough hours in the day. The advocacy work at TAPA has been relentless and all-consuming.

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic circumstances, our ongoing efforts have expanded beyond TAPA’s usual municipal focus and included provincial work. Our entire existence seems to be all about advocacy. I feel privileged to be working and I am certainly not complaining, but these are indeed unusual and unprecedented times, and I am just now starting to carve out time for myself, which was originally prompted when my mom suddenly fell ill and I had to stop everything to take care of her.

Thankfully she is well and on track to recovery, but it was a real wake-up call for me to climb into self-care territory.

Of course (like everyone else) I am working remotely from a home office, and the large majority of communications have shifted to online, and I spend more hours on ZOOM than I ever could have imagined. The level of online exhaustion is high, and I miss in-person conversations and meetings. I have new folks on my team who were hired during the pandemic who I have not yet even met in person!

As a professional Arts administrator, how has your understanding of the arts industry of theatre, dance and opera been altered and changed professionally?

I think the professional theatre, dance and opera community in Toronto is extraordinary. There have been many shows that have been lost ­– that perhaps will never get the chance to be workshopped or presented on stage. The impact on individual artists and their careers is cruel, and acutely felt. Producers, managing directors, marketers, publicists, technical staff, bookkeepers – they have all been forced to pivot so many times that they have become expert alternate scenario planners.

It remains to be seen what will happen when audiences return to our currently-shuttered spaces (when it is safe to do so, of course) – how will that experience have changed for folks sitting together in a dark theatre?

As a professional arts administrator, what are you missing the most about the industry?

I miss many things. I miss seeing my team on a daily basis and being able to ‘jam ideas’ together, and on a very human level, sharing food together with them. I miss strategizing and sitting in person with the committee volunteers who are a critical part of the engine at TAPA. I am mostly missing seeing the community at live theatre performances, as well as dance and opera. The feeling of being with other people together in a theatre is impossible to replicate virtually.

Although I have enjoyed the digital content being created, in fact some of it has been personally inspiring, it is still not ‘live performance’ to me.

The magic of live, in person, is the best!

As a professional arts administrator, what will you never take for granted ever again?

Kindness. We cannot understand what is really happening behind those little ZOOM squares. The difficulties and personal stress individuals are experiencing is not apparent.

Please describe one element you hope has changed regarding the professional arts industry and community.

I don’t think we can fully know what the future looks like for our sector until we come back. But I do hope that we emerge as a community that is able to work equitably and with fairness. No one is interested in returning to an institutional status quo that didn’t work in the first place. I hope that we can come out of this with a sense of universal humanity that will give our artists and art-makers wings to take risks in their artistic exploration that was not previously possible.

And I believe that perhaps, as never before, the arts have become valued. I hope that the realization that arts and culture is an essential part of the overall mental health of a society will change attitudes toward financial support for the arts and the way that artists are paid. I hope that this new realization will end the cycle of poverty that so many artists face and their value will be recognized monetarily.

Toronto is a ridiculously expensive place to live and work on an artist’s salary.

Universal Basic Income!

As a professional arts administrator, what is it about your work that you would like members of the industry, the community, and future audiences to remember about you and your work?

I hope that folks will remember that TAPA has done its best to listen and to adapt, and to respond to the evolving membership needs.

I work with a very small, albeit hard-working team who are committed to serving the diverse needs of a membership that ranges from theatre to dance to opera. I am also fortunate to have an exceptional Board of Directors. Their collective wisdom is my compass.

I hope that folks will remember that always for me it has been driven by the love of theatre.

To learn more about TAPA (Toronto Alliance for the Performing Arts), please visit www.tapa.ca.

On his day off from final week of technical rehearsals for his upcoming one-man solo show ‘Boy Falls From the Sky’ (which had been postponed twice on account of Covid), Jake Epstein told me during our conversation that, once we were finished the Zoom call, he had stuff to do like laundry and clean his place.

I laughed because once I had finished speaking to him, I had the exact same tasks to do.

Performing artists also have the daily routines we all have.

What an enjoyable conversation I had with Jake this afternoon. He’s excitedly thrilled and feeling good for the opening of ‘Boy Falls From the Sky’. He says that working on the show has been one of the joys of his life in getting to turn this period he buried and didn’t talk with anyone into a show that is joyful and fun.

‘Boy’ is a show on Jake’s own terms as it celebrates the good and bad, and the absurdity of show business. and on his own terms

He had a normal life growing up in Toronto. One of the highlights he remembers were the yearly treks to New York City he took with his mother, father, and older sister (artist Gabi) to see Broadway shows. Epstein appeared for six seasons on ‘Degrassi: The Next Generation’ before he pursued further studies at Montréal’s National Theatre School.

He had applied to Ryerson (X) University and was accepted but wanted to attend school in Québec because there is a prestige as only twelve students are accepted. It was also a chance to move away from the comfort of home and try something new. Epstein also knew several of the Montréal faculty at that time who were and are remarkable artists: Marti Maraden, Alisa Palmer, Ted Dykstra, Kate Hennig, so that sealed the deal for him.

Jake’s dream was to perform on Broadway. When I asked him what advice he might give to the young people in theatre school now or who are considering a career in the performing arts?

“Life isn’t a fairy-tale. It’s not linear. Some of the best moments and career successes in my life have been complicated. A career in performing and show business is wonderful to get to entertain others and I count my lucky stars everyday I get to do what I love.

But after doing it for a long time, I hit a wall and had a hard time talking about the reality of the business. It is complicated. That quote you mentioned, Joe, from Lucie Arnaz: “It’s not all sunshine and autographs…I would put that on my wall. I’m not out to scare young performers because it’s one of the greatest jobs in the world plus it’s also one of the hardest jobs too. You have to be a hustler and have to be ready to take the good with the bad.”

Personally, how have he and his immediate family been faring:

“Knock on wood, everyone is doing okay right now. My sister had a mild case, but she is recovering so very thankful. My parents are doing okay. My wife, (actress) Vanessa Smythe, and I have had each other’s backs.”

Like all the artists whom I’ve interviewed for this Profile series, Jake has experienced his share of ups and downs when everything vanished and there was that initial state of panic and wondering if theatre was ever going to be a thing again. Jake and Vanessa were in the stages of purchasing a house so he wasn’t sure if he would be able to make mortgage payments when his work for a year simply vanished. He got a part time job as a transcriptionist.

How did the part time job fare?

“I was pretty bad at it. I was horrible at it, actually. I was transcribing people from all over the world in different dialects. I was very lucky when I got a film job getting to film a season of ‘The Umbrella Academy’ which is coming out on Netflix, so this work allowed me to quit the transcriptionist job thankfully.”

Epstein notes the preciousness and vitality of live theatre. It’s not a given in the world and it’s very special when it’s allowed to happen, and it becomes a big deal for all of us to see it in our third year of Covid waves. He appreciates very much the opportunity to perform ‘Boy Falls from the Sky’ even more.

The Mirvish website states the following about Jake’s upcoming solo show directed by Robert McQueen: “[dreams]… don’t always go as planned. Through a series of entertaining and soul-baring stories and songs, ranging from touring the US, to surviving ‘Spider-Man’, to withstanding steroid shots and Broadway boos, Epstein shares the rejection, stage fright and heartbreak behind a seemingly successful career in this showbiz tell-all.”

‘Boy Falls From the Sky’ began as a cabaret where it was a series of songs interwoven with some stories. Jake says he is a huge fan of Robert McQueen’s (director of the Toronto run of FUN HOME through Mirvish). Jake also recalled going to see ‘Life After’ a show McQueen developed at the Fringe which then went into further development with Toronto’s Musical Stage Company.

Epstein credits McQueen in taking what was very much a cabaret with ‘Boy Falls From the Sky’ and transformed it into a solo show with some various characters, some scenes and stories. For Jake, yes, it’s still a cabaret. But he also calls ‘Boy’ a stand-up comedy show, a solo show and a musical show.

Without spoiling the show, all I’m going to say is there are at least two big Broadway names whom Jake mentions – and what they said to him made me laugh out loud. Plus, there is also someone with whom Jake worked who is now making world headlines. You’ll have to see the show to personally experience the comedy of the moment.

Epstein also mentions a few other individuals in ‘Boy’ whom he calls inspirational. When I asked him who are some of those who now inspire Jake in his work and personal life, he paused and considered first before he mentioned Tom Hanks (who saw Epstein’s work in the touring company of ‘Green Day’) and Mark Ruffalo. Jake also mentioned Canadian singer/song writer Hawksley Workman, his favourite performer to see. Jake also looks to his older sister and artist Gabi Epstein (who appeared in the Stratford Festival production of LITTLE SHOP OF HORRORS) for inspiration in his life.

Jake finally got the opportunity to originate a Broadway role – he played Gerry Goffin, singer/songwriter husband to Carole King in BEAUTIFUL: THE CAROLE KING MUSICAL. Epstein recalls the first time Carole came to watch and to speak with the original Broadway cast in rehearsals. The first thing she said: “Who’s playing Gerry?” At this point, the look on Jake’s face on camera said it all to me. Part of ‘Boy’ also recalls his time in ‘Beautiful’ and how he responded to Carole’s wish, so you’ll have to come see the show to find out what happened.

Epstein recalls how amazing and wonderful it was to be part of ‘Beautiful’, to tell Carole’s story, and to play Gerry Goffin, an iconic singer and songwriter himself. Jake called himself a weird kid because he grew up listening to folk music and not listening to the music he ‘should’ have been listening to in his room. The Beatles, James Taylor, Paul Simon – that was Jake’s music.

What are some specific themes or messages he hopes audiences will walk away with at the conclusion of ‘Boy Falls from the Sky’?

First and foremost, for Jake, the show has to be fun and a piece of entertainment especially right now given the state of our world with the sixth wave of Covid and the horrible events going on in Ukraine. People want to come to the theatre to be entertained and to be moved. Performing ‘Boy’ has taught him how to let go of the expectations of how life goes.

Jake built up this whole narrative that he was going to make it on Broadway, and he will have the world by the tail. That’s not how the reality of how life goes.

Jake has learned when you let go of the expectations, all of a sudden there’s space to see beyond a disappointment and to appreciate life more, to appreciate both the good and the not so good.

That, for Epstein, is the heart of ‘Boy Falls from the Sky’.

‘Boy Falls From the Sky’ runs April 19 – May 29 at Toronto’s Royal Alexandra Theatre, 260 King Street West, Toronto. For tickets, visit www.mirvish.com or call 1-800-461-3333.

The last time I saw Jamar Adams Thompson appear on stage was in Cahoots’ Theatre Production of Steven Elliot Jackson’s ‘Three Ordinary Men’, directed by Tanisha Taitt.

I remember being so moved by that production that I could not speak for a moment afterward. Jamar was part of a terrific ensemble that kept me riveted by the story’s action. He was appreciative and humbled by the audience’s experience of ‘Three Ordinary Men’ at the time, and he says that experience will remain part of his heart forever. Knowing that Jackson’s story deeply touches audiences means the world to him.

We interviewed via email.

Jamar is a University of Windsor alumni and holds a BFA (Bachelor of Fine Arts) Honours in Acting.

He is smack dab in rehearsals for the upcoming Canadian premiere production of Peter N. Bailey’s ‘Tyson’s Song, ’ which opens April 26 at Toronto’s Factory Studio Theatre. This is Adams Thompson’s debut working with director Ash Knight and production company Pleiades Theatre.

Working on the production with a team that he calls passionate and intelligent has made the process both inspiring and challenging as an actor. He calls Ash Knight: “one of the most passionate directors I know who really speaks true to his convictions.” Knight is always keen on exploring the most interesting choice in a character’s objectives and motivations. For that reason, Jamar feels he has never felt more born for a role.

‘Tyson’s Song’ is a story about two best friends, two brothers, on one last big night out in the city. The play is a conversation not only among brothers but also one that is unspoken for many of the viewers who might relate to these characters. This conversation, this story, ultimately unpacks some very real issues in the Black male community of mental health, the absence of genuine emotional support and positive emotional outlets, and questions of masculinity, identity and self-fulfilment. It is a story of real pain but also one of hope.

Adams Thompson truthfully claims that ‘Tyson’s Song’ found its way to him. Unbeknownst to each other, two close friends of his had forwarded the e-drive submission about the show, demanding that Jamar audition.

When he read the submission email the next day, it was as if I was coming home after a very long pilgrimage:

“The email mentioned “Black men’s mental health” and “Brotherhood” and specifically sought second-generation Jamaican/Caribbean-Canadian artists. I have and will always remain an advocate for the continued discussion of mental health and support among all people, but to know that someone was finally writing a Canadian story for someone like ME was nothing shy of a dream come true.”

Excitement would be an understatement describing how Jamar feels about the upcoming premiere. He recognizes the pressure artists always feel when presenting new work. Still, as surreal as that may sound, this is the first time Jamar has had the chance to explore a character from his particular side of the Black diaspora.

Although many more stories are being told and written for his people in general, there is still so much more room for the stories of Caribbean people in Canada. Jamaica has influenced so much of the culture in Toronto, from its cuisine to music to art and, most notably, its cultural slang.

Despite this influence and the abundant population of Jamaicans in the city, their stories have not made footing in the theatre as they have in the poetry, music and dance scenes, or even the visual arts. One of his biggest hopes with the premiere of ‘Tyson’s Song’ is to motivate a greater ushering of Caribbean and Jamaican-Canadian stories within the city.

‘Tyson’s Song’ appeals to me for several reasons. One is to learn more about the stories of the Caribbean people in Canada. I also want to see Jamar’s work in a completely different setting from ‘Three Ordinary Men.’

I also have a personal connection to Jamar’s fellow actor, Kyle Brown.

I taught him when he was in high school:

“WOW! What a full-circle moment for you as well! You’ll be proud of him. Kyle and I hit it off very strongly from the auditions. We had the pleasure of working together in the callback, and right away, a palpable grace came with his presence. It was so easy to play off one another and help each other shine.”

Jamar calls Kyle an incredibly generous and honest performer. Their most significant discovery with these characters is their unique ability to relate with both of them. They each carry a bit of Tyson and Bryan and could easily have read for the other’s part. This unique empathy has allowed them to bridge many hidden gaps and barriers in connecting with the characters and each other in a way that he thinks has surprised them both.

What’s next for Jamar Adams Thompson once ‘Tyson’s Song’ concludes its Canadian premiere?

He jokingly stated in jest that a nap would be ideal, as I’m sure any actor who is presenting new work would.

But he’s not one to rest too long.

Jamar has been keeping busy in hopes of pursuing his MFA (Master of Fine Arts degree) quite soon. While his goal is always acting, be it on stage or in front of the camera, he is taking more steps towards participating in his own play premiere. Writing has not so secretly been a large aim in fulfilling his purpose as a storyteller! His hope is to have some scripts and anthologies that he has been working on come to life at a theatre near us.

He closed off our email conversation with a and said: “Stay tuned.”

‘Tyson’s Song’ runs from April 24 to May 19, 2024, in the Factory Studio Theatre (125 Bathurst St.). Tickets are pay-what-you-choose starting from $5, at PleiadesTheatre.org or FactoryTheatre.com.

James Dallas Smith is an actor, writer, and musician of Six Nations Mohawk and Scottish heritage. I’ve seen him several times on stage over the course of many years, the first with Soulpepper’s wonderful production of ‘Our Town’ several years ago.

Just this past year, I saw JD’s performances in two plays that continually raise and pique my interest in Indigenous theatre. The first was at Soulpepper in ‘Almighty Voice and his Wife’ directed by Jani Lauzon and the second at the Aki Studio Theatre in Native Earth’s visually haunting, ‘The is How We Got Here’ directed by Keith Barker.

Keep an eye out on JD as he alludes to some exciting projects he has once it’s safe to return to the theatre. We conducted our interview via email:

1. It has been the almost three-month mark since we’ve all been in isolation. How have you been faring? How has your immediate family been doing during this time?

I’ve struggled. I’m a person who loves to rehearse and perform in a room with other people. Different ideas and energies that can feed one another. Without these gatherings – with other artists or audiences – I’ve experienced a lot of frustration and anger about what’s been lost. And it’s never been so universal.

Other times I’ve been able to draw strength or inspiration by seeing a peer or friend do an outstanding piece of work. There just isn’t any of that anywhere right now and no clear timeline when we might get a chance to gather again.

That said, I know my problems are first world ones. My family is healthy, fed, with clean water, and safe. My woes are pretty tame compared to a lot of places near and far.

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

The lack of dialogue. I had a fortunate run of being in several really great projects (productions and workshops) that were having illuminating discussions about what the world is focused on in the middle of this pandemic, racism, and prejudice. I wasn’t leading these discussions. I was just fortunate enough to be in some great groups working on some incredible projects led by Jani Lauzon, Keith Barker, Taedon Witzl, Kaitlyn Riordan and Kevin Loring.

What was encouraging was these talks were happening in large institutions like Stratford and Soulpepper, and they finally seemed to be grasping the depth of the problems in a lot of our theatre practices. Those talks were gaining momentum and generating some really exciting new projects. I hope they’re not lost because of the need to pause live performance.

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?

Yes, I had a few projects in the wings I was excited about. The closest was about a month away at Soulpepper. A show called ‘Revolutions: Songs That Changed the World’. Mike Ross does a lot of the music at Soulpepper. He’s a gifted performer, a great teacher, and just a kickass musician/writer. He invited me to the project, and I didn’t hesitate. I hope it does come to fruition sometime later. I think music is a great conduit for teaching and this is a time where a lot of people need to be educated. That and I just love music.

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

We have a little boy who just turned 3. My wife is a director at a crisis phone line and she didn’t stop when the pandemic hit. In fact, she got busier (And promoted!) She had to make a downtown call centre into a work-from-home-for-each-counsellor program. And fast. She did a fantastic job, but it meant most of my focus was Daddying for a few months. If you have a kid, you’ll understand. If not, run a marathon and then do it again. And do a triathlon. Every day. That’s roughly the energy level required, anyway.

I’ve also managed to do some writing. Keith Barker is a friend and peer of mine (also a gifted writer and nominated two Doras this year – for his script and Outstanding Direction) who encouraged me to start writing stories a few years ago. Gil Garrat has also been kind and generous. It makes a difference to have that kind of support.

We workshopped my first play, ‘Crossroads’ at Native Earth’s 32nd Weesageechak Begins to Dance Festival this past fall and Blyth has commissioned it. The timeline’s pretty fuzzy now on when it might get done but I’ve finished a few full drafts of the script and it seems plausible now that I could be a writer. That’s an exciting revelation to me. So, I started a few other scripts as well. There are four that I’m really excited about.

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 given the fact live theaters and studios might be closed for 1 ½ – 2 years?

Now more than ever, try and generate your own material. Your own stories. They don’t have to be full-length plays or novels. It could be a ten-minute video. It could be a collection of those from several artists that relate. Experiment with form. And if it’s your own material you’re not infringing on anyone else’s rights or property. You can present your story in any format you’d like. But this is all if you’re able. A friend of mine who I write with sometimes told me he finds it incredibly to be creative now and “to write from a place of fear”. That’s ok, too.

Self-care was an under-discussed topic when I went to theatre school and it should be a huge topic. I’d also suggest reading or watching movies you might not normally be able to make time for. I’m learning that more perspectives only make you a better human and storyteller.

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

My wife and I had a discussion about this a few weeks ago. Yes. The fact that most of us are idle has allowed us to see a lot of things that the eye may have – in the past – glossed over as we return to our own daily grind. But now the world is watching together and the hatred and venom of racism that’s been around longer than we care to admit has come glaringly to the front of our attention. I hope it stays there until we have some substantial changes to the way we educate children about BIPOC and some systemic changes in the way we spend “the people’s” money. It’s made me very angry but I’m trying to channel that into educating myself and writing stories to leave behind that will teach the next generation more truth, more tolerance, and more generosity.

7. Do you think COVID 19 will have some lasting impact on the Canadian/North American performing arts scene?

I think it already has, sadly. I can’t cite specifics but a lot of small venues (bars, concert halls, theatres) have already had to close and some larger project they won’t survive the pandemic. I’ve also heard of at least two universities canceling their theatre programs FOREVER because they can’t carry the cost of a year with staff and no students. (A friend of mine who works at a University and I were talking about what the hell you do with students who are in 3rd or 4th year of a Performance program. The practical application of your studies – ie. performing – is supposed to ramp up in your final years, not fall to nothing.)

I think it’s possible we may see more small theatre programs and companies have to close unless there’s some manner of fiscal pandemic relief for them.

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?

My only concerns with streaming are the monetary ones. We’ve seen it with musicians already – how little they get paid from the larger streaming platform. It’s fractions of a penny per play. Most of them have to make money by playing live. The streaming platform is more like affordable advertising.

I like the accessibility and the potential to reach wider audiences, but it has to be a fair wage for the artist. Where we’re hung up now is that we’re crossing all kinds of existing union boundaries. Artists have different unions for theatre acting, film acting, playwrighting, film direction, screenwriting, etc.
If we do a performance of ‘Jesus Christ Superstar’ and we film it for live streaming, how do we pay the actors and musicians? TV rates? Movie rates? Theatre rates? That’s what we need to agree on but haven’t been forced to yet.

To me, as long as there are fair wages, it just seems like an extension of tv/film. I’d love to do it, but I think a lot of us are going to have to make some concessions about ‘ownership of content’. Which can be scary for a lot of people who have been exploited that way in the past.

9. Despite all this fraught tension and confusion, what is it about performing that COVID will never destroy for you?

There is nothing like a gathering of people focused on a singular story that may or may not go flawlessly that I can’t find anywhere else. Sometimes it’s more fun when things DO go wrong in live performance. No one gets hurt and it’s usually delightful to see the recovery.

As 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?

Generosity

2. What is your least favourite word?

Pork

3. What turns you on?

Music

4. What turns you off?

Prejudice

5. What sound or noise do you love?

My family’s laughter

6. What sound or noise bothers you?

Feedback. Ten years in a band will do that to you.

7. What is your favourite curse word? What is your least favourite curse word?

Billy Connolly taught us this. It offends everyone. “Jesus Suffering Fuck!” “Damn” is my least favourite.

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

Video game tester

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

Banking. I’m shit with numbers.

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

“Grab a beer…Mozart’s just finishing his set. I think Prince and Hendrix are doing something next…”

To learn more about James Dallas Smith he’s at Facebook: James Dallas Smith

Last week, I had the opportunity to interview James Grieve, the director of ‘Fisherman’s Friends, The Musical’ after the opening night show at Toronto’s Royal Alexandra Theatre.

According to his website j.grieve.com, James is a freelance theatre director and was formerly Joint Artistic Director and CEO of the UK’s national theatre of new plays Paines Plough from 2010-2019 alongside George Perrin. During their tenure the company produced 44 world premieres on tour to 291 places across the UK and internationally by playwrights ranging from debutants to Olivier, Tony and BAFTA winners staged in historic proscenium arch playhouses and student union bars, at music festivals and The National Theatre, in village halls, Off-Broadway, on BBC Radio and televised on HBO.

James’s freelance directing credits include a new production of Kander & Ebb’s CABARET for Gothenburg Opera in Sweden in 2020 and the new musical THE ASSASSINATION OF KATIE HOPKINS for Theatr Clwyd which won Best Musical Production at The UK Theatre Awards 2018. James’ new production of LES MISERABLES for Wermland Opera in Karlstad, Sweden, was described as “world class” by DN and played for nearly two years in two theatres. His production of Brian Friel’s TRANSLATIONS for Sheffield Theatres, English Touring Theatre and The Rose Theatre Kingston won Best Production at The UK Theatre Awards 2014.

In 2001, James founded the new writing company nabokov with George Perrin and Ric Mountjoy. The company forged an international reputation for presenting theatre events everywhere from pubs to warehouses to music festivals to Off-Broadway, including James’ production of Mike Bartlett’s ARTEFACTS in London, New York and on tour.

James trained as assistant and associate to Josie Rourke, and as staff director to Howard Davies at The National Theatre, and on The National Theatre Directors Course.

He was awarded an MBE in The Queen’s New Year’s Honours List 2020 for services to theatre.

This was my first opportunity to conduct a live interview after a performance so many thanks to Mirvish Productions for this opportunity to speak with James.

From what I could tell looking around me on the opening night of ‘Fisherman’s Friends, The Musical, the audience exited the theatre in tremendous high spirits because there was pure blissful joy emanating from the stage. What words of encouragement did James give to the cast before opening night:

“I just told them to enjoy themselves. When you spoke about that joy earlier, Joe, that’s very real on that stage. Although they’re acting as characters, these are very real human beings who love deeply and passionately performing and acting, but most of all singing. The musicians love making music and they change instruments in the blink of an eye.”

James then laughed and said he didn’t have to go and motivate them. They do it themselves before each performance.

James is equally as thrilled to be invited to this ‘beautiful, beautiful, Royal Alexandra’ and to be warmly welcomed by the crew and everyone here. The creative team for ‘Fisherman’s Friends’ had been in Toronto for just over a week and a half and it has been a thrill and a privilege to bring the show over the Atlantic and to receive such a wonderful reception.

Why does Toronto need a show like ‘Fisherman’s Friends, The Musical’ right now?

James calls the production a universal story about ordinary people who don’t seek fame and fortune but have extraordinary spirit and talent. Fame and fortune find them instead. ‘Fisherman’s Friends’ is a story about friendship, community, and love:

He further adds:

“In a complicated and oppositional world and difficult a lot of the time, there’s space for a story that reminds us of the real importance of the core values of being a human being. Family, friendship, community, and a love of music all play a part in this. Through telling the story of these guys, we’ve come to understand more of what they stand for as a group. The world needs some sea shanties now and then.”

As an artist for what he calls ‘twenty-something years’, James feels extremely fortunate to be part of the theatre industry which is not a straightforward profession. He feels tremendously fulfilled hugely and personally in doing something he loves and that is a rare and wonderful thing for him. For any aspiring artists, singers or dancers who might have seen this opening night show or who will see an upcoming performance, James tells them to work hard, delve into their passion and find out what makes them happy as an artist because the theatre industry is very competitive and a difficult profession.

How has he felt about Covid’s ongoing presence worldwide and its effect on the theatre industry?

As an artist, what James felt he missed the most was the sense of community that comes not only from working in theatre but going to the theatre. It’s extraordinary to be in a live audience that you can’t get from watching television at home. What James felt was missing was the ritual and the preparation of going to the theatre – getting dressed up, going to the city, getting a drink, sitting down, reading the programme, and waving to people whom you might know in the audience.

James has returned to the theatre with a renewed sense of theatre’s importance in a constantly shifting and changing world. Although we are still in the throes of Covid, this extraordinary special thing theatre does every night for audiences has almost a greater value than ever before at a time when people need human contact to experience something collectively.

‘Fisherman’s Friends, The Musical’ runs until January 15. After Toronto, the production returns to Nottingham, England, home of Robin Hood and continues its UK tour running through until June 2023.

One of the most exciting parts for James is the show’s return to the Hall for Cornwall in May. ‘Fisherman’s Friends’ opened there a bit over a year ago in its home county among the people whose lives and culture they are representing on the stage. James fervently stated everyone is excited to take the show back home to Cornwall.

What’s next for James Grieve once ‘Fisherman’s Friends, the Musical’ concludes its run?

“I am doing a new musical about the life of Silvio Berlusconi, the former Italian Prime Minister who has led an extremely colourful life. We are putting his story on stage in London and I’m really excited to do that.”

To learn more about ‘Fisherman’s Friends, The Musical’, follow fishermanonstage.com

What an enjoyable conversation with James Kall who appears as Nick and others in the Toronto company of ‘Come from Away’. And I even got the opportunity to be introduced to his beautiful dog, Harper. Gorgeous looking animal.

James Kall holds an MFA in Acting from Yale University School of Drama. He has appeared in numerous TV shows, films and commercials, including “Schitt’s Creek”, “Suits”, “Murdoch Mysteries”, “Salvation”, “Life with Judy Garland” and “The Christmas Market”. He has over 100 professional theatre credits including “By Jeeves” on Broadway, directed by Sir Alan Ayckbourne and national tours of “Mamma Mia”, “The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee” and “Fiddler on the Roof”.

He was in the original Canadian cast of the Tony Award winning musical “Kinky Boots”. James has worked at theaters throughout the US and Canada as both an actor and a director. He is a dual citizen of the US and Canada.

We conducted our conversation via Zoom. Thanks again for taking the time, James 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?

I’ve been mulling over this question for over a week since you sent it to me. I think I wanted to stay positive about it.

What will stay with me is that I realize how much I took for granted and how blessed I am in so many facets of my life not only professionally in terms of the privilege I had, the white privilege I had. There weren’t times when I worried, “Oh, are there going to be roles for white men in this business” whereas my colleagues do have to worry about that, my colleagues of colour.

Having been doing this for over 40 years professionally, it never really hit me like that until the BIPOC movement, and I thought how very fortunate I’ve been.

As far as the pandemic, I’ve been blessed that I have a home, I have food, utilities; I have companionship, and the things I took for granted like seeing my doctor whenever I needed or going to the dentist or meet with friends. I realize now this is eye opening for me.

I’m a fortunate human being and I need to appreciate it more.

Have you learned anything about human nature from this time?

What strikes me the most is that it seems like we are divided into two camps: first, those who put themselves first above all else, and the other camp: those who put others first which would lead to betterment for all of us.

I’m thankful to be in the second camp, and there are more people in the second camp which allows humanity to survive as long as there are more people in that second camp.

I’m a dual citizen as I can vote in both countries. To see what has become of the US and all of the selfishness that has risen to the top and formed a head in regard to masks, vaccinations, politics, white privilege, police violence, you’re either in the one camp or the other camp.

That’s what I think I’ve learned about human nature but there is quite a division right now.

I’m blessed to be a part of ‘Come from Away’ and its story of people helping others in the face of tragedy.

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?

My family in the US has remained safe and healthy and have been able to continue working. My family here, the person I worry about the most is my mother-in-law. She’s 98. She’s in a nursing home outside Ottawa that was hit rather hard early on and half of the residents succumbed to Covid. She’s been good and we were able to visit her until early November because there were socially distant outdoor visits. It was great. We tried to see her every week.

Since then, we’ve had to rely on Zoom and virtual calls which has worked, but she has shut down a bit because of the depression of being alone. She has people around her, but not seeing her family has been hard. We try to cheer her up online and keep her going until we can see her again.

I’ve lost a few colleagues of people with whom I’ve worked over the years to Covid which is devastating.

Harper is fine, and my partner, Randy, is fine. We’re all good here; we’re healthy.

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?

My answer changes daily, if not hourly, for what I see on the news. I’m going to hold on to the belief that some theatre will come back this year, and I hope the Toronto production of ‘Come from Away’ does just that. We’re fortunate in that our production is sitting there waiting for us.

I don’t think we will return until it is truly safe. So that’s why I’m disappointed with the roll out of the vaccines here in Canada. Nobody has really stepped up to the plate to make sure that they’re fixing whatever is not working.

In the U.S., Dr. Fauci is quite pleased and believes even with the new strains of the new virus that, by April, anyone who wants to or should get vaccinated can be vaccinated. Right now, they’re doing groups, high risk, seniors. By April, I thought that’s pretty amazing. (Note from Joe: Mr. Trudeau is promising September. Thus, the reason why James’s point and why he is disappointed)

We need that up here. In talking to our producers from ‘Come from Away’, we’ve had a couple of Zoom meetings, they really don’t want to compromise the show. They want to do it in the way it’s being done in Australia, intact as written. There’s so much close physical contact in the show that we have to ensure safety with this ensemble of 12 actors. We’ve done the show as a concert, which we’ve done, but it doesn’t serve the piece otherwise.

So, I can there being far few audience members until it’s completely safe, but I do think the Toronto production of ‘Come from Away’ will return this year.

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?

I do feel confident that we will return safely, I honestly do, because they have proven that case by re-opening the show in Australia, but Australia has handled the pandemic a lot better on their continent than we have here.

The producers check in on us constantly to keep our spirits up and to ensure us that we have a job waiting for us. The producers want that we won’t return unless it is truly safe for us. Having been working in television since the pandemic came about, there are ways to continue in this business. In the face of the pandemic, it’s easier in film and television, but I think there’s enough energy and enough people behind restoring the arts.

The arts are essential. I do believe we will return. I do. And it will be safe. I assume all of us will be returning. And I applaud my friends who have found other creative outlets to keep going whether jewelry making, design, teaching or sewing. I’ve been really impressed with the creations coming out of this pandemic.

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?

First and foremost, my dog, Harper. I have to get out of bed in the morning and take her out. And I love her for that. She keeps me active and sane. We’ve explored new parts of Toronto safely along with new parks whether we walk or drive to them.

Certainly having my husband of 25 years, Randy, I thought being trapped together that this could be interesting. Really, it has improved our relationship. I realize how fortunate I am that we are together. It’s the perfect fit because we have gone through this year with just us and the dog and come out better for it, I think.

I can’t imagine being alone during this. That worries me because I do have friends who are really struggling because they live alone. I try to reach out to those whom I know are living alone.

I’ve been keeping busy because I’m going to learn Slovak. I’ve been brushing up on my Spanish and reading a lot. One of my passions is baking as the cast would probably tell that I would bring in some new baked goods once a week that I’ve experimented with.

At first I was doing some baking to take to the nursing homes or to some of my neighbours. Can’t do that now, but I’m still baking. I may not fit into my costume but I’ll deal with that when we’re back at.

And the usual stuff too. I sing a lot, talk to myself a lot, I volunteer. I found this organization called VOLUNTEER TORONTO and they send out, sometimes daily, notices where they need help whether delivering food, giving safe rides, or delivering goods to people who can’t get out. I miss that terribly that umbrella from our show COME FROM KINDNESS outreach program we started.

I miss that. I miss what we’ve been able to accomplish over the last couple of years. ‘Come from Away’ has become more than just a show. It’s become a movement. I highly recommend volunteering. That’s what I plan to do along with baking and rescuing dogs and enjoying life as much as I can.

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.

I think everyone in the cast could answer this. I will certainly be crying but have a big ass smile on my face.

I cry a lot. I have become a very emotional person and I cry at the drop of a hat. I cry during commercials, I cry if someone in the audience is crying and I can’t look at them when the show is going on.

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:

Ya know I’d say (in a Newfoundland dialect),

“God bless yer cotton socks for bein’ here, b’y”, or I’d say “Ďakujem” (Thank you in Slovak),
Gracias, Merci,

It has been an honour for Our Theatre Voice/OnStage Blog to have reviewed incredibly poignant productions either written or directed by Indigenous artist Jani Lauzon. I had the opportunity to review what I thought was a taut but bloody production of Shakespeare’s ‘Julius Caesar’ in which she performed.
Along with the black lives voices that are strongly being heard and listened, the Indigenous artist voices must also be given equitable and due respect both in hearing and listening with regard to changes in national theatre.

It was in June at the Stratford Festival where Jani had taken the lead in organizing and moderating the “Ndo-Mshkogaabwimi” panel entitled “Ndo-Mshkogaabwimi — We Are Standing Strong: Stories of endurance, resilience and resistance from members of the Indigenous circle at Stratford.” I did get to hear some of the panel discussion as I did the week earlier at the Festival with some black artists.

June was a month for Canadian national theatre where I recalled a line from Arthur Miller’s ‘Death of a Salesman’ where Linda Loman tells her sons: “Attention must be paid.”

The time is right and long overdue not only to pay attention but also to listen and to hear.

Jani, how have you been faring during this seemingly never-ending pandemic for the isolated artist? How has your immediate family been doing during this time?

I am blessed in that my daughter and her girlfriend have moved into my home in Toronto. We are pooling resources, cooking for one another, and supporting each other emotionally and spiritually. I am used to being on my own and have a strong spiritual practice and my sage and tobacco, so I am also surrounded by medicine, but I suspect that I would not be as strong and grounded as I am now without the companionship I have at the moment.

That being said, there are days when I feel a negotiation with despondency.

As a performer, what has been the most difficult and challenging for you professionally and personally?

When I was little my mother told me that when you hug someone, it creates electromagnetic energy that helps the world rotate on its axis. I think what she meant by that was the power that relationship brings.
Navigating relationship is an action. It can be very powerful. Double that with actors navigating with actors (and directors etc) and characters navigating with characters. That’s a whole lot of magic that permeates the room. I miss that magic, that feeling that we are doing something together.

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?

My play, ‘I Call myself Princess’, was running at the Globe Theatre in Regina. We were heading into an almost sold out final week. And boom. I loved working at the Globe and having the opportunity to direct my own work, which can be a good or bad idea. In my case, it worked out well. I still plan to connect Artistic Directors to the archival but am fully aware that theatre will not resume any time soon and, when it does, there will be a long list of projects that are waiting in a well-deserved queue.

I was also heading to Stratford to act in ‘The Rez Sisters’. This would have been the 2nd Indigenous written and directed production at Stratford in its entire history. ENTIRE HISTORY. Just need to capitalize on that. I have been told that Stratford is committed to the production. Whether I will be available for it or not when they do decide to produce is a bigger question.

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

I digitized all my old VHS tapes. I am doing the same for my HI8, DVC, and cassette tapes. I have also been doing a lot of beading which keeps my hands busy. And writing of course. I have 2 plays on the go. One is a co-write with the fabulous Kaitlyn Riordan called ‘1939’. The other is in the research phase.

I suppose the biggest thing I am involved in right now is advocacy work. Funny that. After almost 30 years of advocating for inclusion and getting tired of the tiny baby steps that we were able to accomplish I decided that I wanted to concentrate on my work. And then my work was taken away and I am back, fully engaged in advocacy work.

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 given the fact live theaters and studios might be closed for 1 ½ – 2 years?

My daughter, Tara Sky, is one of those recent grads having graduated from NTS in May 2019. She was also going to be at Stratford this season. She was loving the work and so honoured to be cast as Tiger Lily in ‘Wendy and Peter’. The great thing about my daughter is that although she goes through days when she shares in the collective despondency, she is finding ways to keep herself afloat.

My naturopath, a brilliant healer, gave me advice that I passed on to Tara and would say the same to anyone, get your tool kit ready. I know that feels redundant having just come out of school but now is the time to focus your mind, body, and spirit as well as your marketing tools.

Create your own demo reel, read as many plays as you can, watch what you can on-line, research actors who have come before you, read biographies. Be ready. When this opens up again, in whatever shape that takes, you don’t want to be scrambling. There is great power in silence and stillness. Much can be accomplished with visualization and clarity of thought.

Do you see anything positive stemming from COVID 19?

My hope is that we crave returning to the power of relationship. And of course, the ability to listen, learn and hear.

Do you think COVID 19 will have some lasting impact on the Canadian/North American performing arts scene?

Absolutely. There has been a big shift towards artists finding creative expression using a variety of mediums. We are now accessing work in a different way and more content to experience different forms of expression. For the majority of us, faced with desperate financial circumstances, we are doing whatever we can to remain connected to our artistic selves and to find ways of expressing that energy.
My biggest hope is that society will cherish the return to the communal experience of live theatre in a way that was forgotten. And that the artist in society will again be valued. After all, it is the artists that the world have turned to.

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?

I am one of many, I suspect, that have not felt compelled to add to the saturation of the medium. But I have enjoyed watching the work of others. My daughter and I were involved in a project with Urban Vessel called ‘The Homing Project’ which allowed us to collaborate together, combining our film, poetry, music, and editing skills together. That was an amazing experience.

My only word of advice would be that quantity does not trump quality. One small project that has a profound impact can be of greater value than a series created not for the art itself but for the purpose of marketing a career. I can see, experience, and taste the difference. And of course, I am laughing because I say this in the era of YouTube celebrities that have a different agenda which has served them well.
Perhaps the key to it is to be clear about two things: are you having fun doing in and does it bring you joy? Secondly, what is your hopeful outcome?

Despite all this fraught tension and confusion, what is it about performing that COVID will never destroy for you?

I will always think like an artist. I will always live my life creatively. No one can take that away from me.

As 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?

It’s a tie:
In Anishinaabemowin the word “Ahneen” or “Aaniin” is a greeting, like hello. But in English it is an empty greeting. A deeper translation of Aaniin would be, “I see the light in you”. It’s a different way to greet someone. To acknowledge them, truly, in spirit and body.

And my second favorite work is “sonder” which means, The realization that each passerby has a life as vivid and complex as your own.

2. What is your least favourite word?

Unworthy

3. What turns you on?

Nature.

4. What turns you off?

Assumption of superiority

5. What sound or noise do you love?

Bass. It’s my favorite instrument. That and the oboe. That having been said, I am awake every morning with the birds.

6. What sound or noise bothers you?

Construction. A necessary thing but really? 7 am?

7. What is your favourite curse word? What is your least favourite curse word?

Fuck and Fuck

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

I already have several. Actor, Director, Musician, Puppeteer, Artist Educator, Writer, Arts Administrator. What I regret was not having time to learn the medicines. Herbology I guess you would call it and wilderness survival.

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

10. If Heaven exists, what do you hope God will say to you as you approach the Pearly Gates?
I have my own kind of spirituality. I know it exists. And my focus has always been to bring that feeling of “heaven” to this earth. I figure…why wait?

What a kind, compassionate, and sympathetic individual is this Broadway and performing artist, Jason Danieley. And I am pleased, grateful, and humbled he treated me with the utmost respect in our nearly 45-minute conversation.

I saw his work several years in the truly wonderful original Broadway cast of ‘Curtains’. So much fun to watch and some excellent show stopping musical moments.

As you will see from the answers to some of the questions in our conversation, I found Jason to be a heartfelt deep thinker who has survived one of the most awful personal elements when he lost his wife (and marvellous performing artist), Marin Mazzie, to cancer a few years ago. But he is a man who (I believe) understands and knows how important it is in moving forward, even with tiny steps some days.

From his website: Jason appeared in the original Broadway company of ‘Pretty Woman’ by Bryan Adams, Garry Marshall, Jim Vallance and J.F. Lawton at the Nederlander Theatre. Along with Broadway and Regional Theatre appearances, Jason has also sung as a concert soloist appearing with the Boston, New York, and Philly Pops. I will include his website at the conclusion of his profile.

I held a Zoom call with Jason at his second home in Columbia County New York, that he and Marin had purchased, just an hour shy of Albany but right on the Massachusetts border. Weather was beautiful for him as it was here in Toronto. He told me he has all his deck cleaning supplies pulled out and said it was time to start spraying. Jason is a regular guy who keeps his house clean and likes to putter around outside on beautiful days.

Thank you, Jason, for sharing some personal thoughts and for adding your voice to the conversation.

We’ve come up on one year with the closing of live theatre doors. My heartfelt condolences to you as well, Jason, in the loss of Marin. How have you been doing during this time?

I won’t say I welcomed being isolated, but I have been able to find through an extended and forced isolation a gift of self reflection and introspection that I thought I had already set aside for myself. When Marin passed in the fall of 2018, I was doing ‘Pretty Woman’ on Broadway and, thank God, still had considerable months ahead on my contract. So that took me up to June 2019, and then I would set aside the rest of the year.

I went to India for a good chunk of July, trekked in the Himalayas and did some meditation and all the stuff that you would expect a widower to do. I had to go see the Taj Mahal, of course.

And then I said as soon as 2020 starts I’m gonna back to work. I had a bunch of symphonic concerts scheduled. I headed down to the Asolo Repertory Theatre in Sarasota to work on a new Ahrens and Flaherty and Frank Galati musical which I was starring in. 2020 was just ripe with promise and I was ready to get right back on. And then everything was just shut down.

We had one more week in the studio and then we were going to head into tech for this new piece and then were sent home. I think many people were thinking it would be several weeks or several months at most.
And then we became aware of really what was ahead of us.

I didn’t have much dread because we had springtime and the summer was ahead of us. The closer we got to the fall and winter, I thought, “Oh, gosh, here it comes.” We had no children and our dog passed away six months after Marin passed away.

It went from three and half years in watching Marin slowly deteriorate as well as our dog and then complete annihilation. I thought I had given myself plenty of time. Then through the fall and late winter, it really tested my mental medal because there was nothing to fall back on and nothing to distract me. So, it was welcomed because I was able to do work that I would have put aside.

I’m curious to how we move forward in the theatre, of course, but I think given the absence of the potential of work allowed me to do some deep digging. Now as the spring is coming, the smoke is clearing, and get my vaccination sometime soon, maybe now I’ll be ready to move forward with whatever my life is going to be.

Outside of the theatre and the industry, how have you been spending your time?

You know, I’ve found it a barren wasteland for creativity this whole pandemic. It’s very difficult to read. I know primarily there was so much buildup of the election. A big chunk of my whatever I had in reserve of my mental capacity or emotional durability was somewhat struck by the anticipation of the election, the closeness of it.

And then, January 6, the impeachment trial. I felt I couldn’t get outside of any of that OR be inside it and find some creativity, and I look at people who have done that and wonder, “How did you do that?”
Maybe it has something to do with being beaten down for the last five years of the last three and half years of Marin’s life and two years of grieving. It just felt like a continuation of it.

My therapist is so wonderful. She said, “You don’t have to do anything.” Not doing something is very difficult for me given our business as you’re constantly trying to find the next job, create a new cabaret. Whatever it is, casting your line out ahead, there was no there, there. Instead of beating my head against the wall I thought patch some holes in the wall, nail some holes in the wall.

I did a lot of outdoor activities. I was literally turning into Candide without the optimism angle. I was tending my garden, I was growing tomatoes and clearing parts of the property, sort of a physical manifestation outside the home that I was hoping to achieve for myself on the inside.

The late Hal Prince described the theatre as an escape for him. Just from what you’ve shared, Jason, yes, Covid has sometimes been an escape for you but I think the pandemic has been a lot of things for you. Can you also describe this near year long absence from the theatre as something else?

This time of Covid has been a forced exile from not only the business but also from the fact that I’m definitely not an actor who performs for adulation. I don’t need that. It’s a great gauge to know if I’m hitting the comic marks and if I sound in good voice and if people are getting it.

My father was a preacher and words are very important because they carry such great weight. My father was obviously for the congregations’ souls and salvation, so the stakes were high for two ‘shows’ that he had to write and perform. My mother played the organ. My parents weren’t showy, but they did things from the heart and helping people and whatever they were going through.

That’s not how I consciously approached becoming an actor, but looking at it, I thought, ‘Wow! I have a calling” just like my dad had a calling to be a minister. I think it’s reflected in the types of shows and work I select to do over the years. That’s what I’m missing.

This forced exile from something that helps me as much as I hope I’m helping others whether it’s a cathartic release from seeing ‘Next to Normal’ if they have bipolar spouse or lost a child at a very young age. You’re making them cry but you’re also making them feel they’re not alone. OR you present a musical mystery like ‘Curtains’ (NOTE: I LOVED ‘CURTAINS’ WHEN I SAW JASON IN THE PRODUCTION WITH THE ORIGINAL BROADWAY CAST) and everyone is distracted from the goings on, I don’t have that outlet.
There’s the exile. It’s not an escape but it’s set out to sea.

I haven’t given myself the amount of time that I’ve guessed I really needed during this last while. So I’m sitting out there on the deserted island waiting for my rescue ship to come in which is the vaccine hopefully, along with the new leadership in our country.

I’m ready to get off the island. The isolation has been ultimately, looking back in hindsight, good but I’m ready to get off the island!

I’ve interviewed a few artists several months ago who said that the theatre industry will probably be shut down and not go full head on until at least 2022. There may be pockets of outdoor theatre where safety protocols are in place. What are your comments about this? Do you think you and your colleagues/fellow artists will not return full head on until 2022?

I really don’t see us going back full tilt until 2022. I know everyone’s working full tilt to get us to whatever the first stage of coming back is going to be.

But if you’re saying full on, full capacity, doing shows like we did prior to the pandemic, I don’t see it happening until at least 2022, easily.

People are talking about getting back this fall for Broadway. If enough people wise up and take the vaccine, which I don’t understand in why people don’t want to take the vaccine. But if we can get enough people that herd immunity is a legitimate thing, then this all dependent on the audience as well.
The producers will do everything they can to get people back into the theatre but it’s up to the audiences as well. Will audiences want to come back and will they feel safe? Until those questions get answered, right now the way we’re shuffling forward in baby steps, well, Spring 2022 after next winter has worn off again and people are feeling optimistic and seeing the numbers hopefully down around the world.

I was supposed to do a cruise with Seth Rudetsky on a ship to Bermuda this last July and he’s asked me if I’ll do a cruise in January 2022. You know, I hope we can, but right now it sounds like I would be out of my mind if I wanted to get on a cruise ship.

I was supposed to sing with the Boston Pops with whom I somewhat regularly sing, and I just saw in The Boston Globe the Pops and BSO will do a limited season in Tanglewood, literally 10 minutes from my house here. I thought fantastic, outside, people will be distanced, and it will be a concert for Keith Lockhart’s (conductor of the BSO) 25th anniversary.

I thought this was a perfect opportunity and found out there will be no vocalists but only instrumentalists. It really punctures your tires when you think the outdoor venues might be a possibility but no, not even this year.

I had a discussion recently with an Equity actor who said that yes theatre should not only entertain but, more importantly, it should transform both the actor and the audience. Clearly, Jason, your life has transformed you personally. How will you take this personal transformation in your understanding of the theatre and where it is headed in a post Covid world?

I have been inspired to direct, I know that’s so cliché for an actor to want to direct. A lot of the concerts Marin and I did, we put them together, but I structured them and directed them essentially. Marin said, “You have to direct.”

Before she passed, ‘The Lyrics and Lyricists Series’ at the 92nd Street Y did an evening of Lynn Ahren’s lyrics and Lynn said she would only do it if I directed it, out of the blue without even knowing that I wanted to direct. So we did that, Marin was able to see it along with (the late) Terrence McNally.

That’s what I want to do. I had a couple of directing gigs that fell through this last year as well. There’s story telling and then there’s…it’s not about power but being in the business long enough and knowing and respecting what everyone does in the theatre – the crew, wardrobe, hair, orchestra, music directors, everyone that’s involved – I know what everyone does. If you take an interest, than you take an interest in what everyone does and contribute. I would love to be the filter for shows and to get the best out of everybody, because I’ve seen it done well, and I’ve seen it not done well.

And Marin was doggedly determined for me to do that, to direct more. We worked together a lot. We did ‘Next to Normal’ on Broadway, we did a couple of other musicals in California, but we did a lot of symphony and cabaret singing. And that allowed us to be choosy of which productions we would be a part of, we didn’t have to take any job, thankfully.

Now with Marin gone, there was a big question mark on whether I felt like I could continue just singing period. Moving forward, I do know that I can perform, but the concert aspect of it might not be as fulfilling or regular as it used to be. To fill that gap and to move on my own path, directing is something that I’m inspired to do.

I’m inspired to direct for this time we’ve been given that I mentioned earlier.

The late Zoe Caldwell spoke about how artists should feel danger in the work. It’s a solid and swell thing to have if the actor/artist and the audience both feel it simultaneously. Would you agree with Ms. Caldwell? Have you ever felt danger during this time of Covid and do you believe it will somehow influence your work when you return to the theatre?

Well, knowing Zoe only a little bit but knowing her enough to understand what she’s saying that it might be more. For her she was a very dramatic and very full throttle all the time.

So, I do agree with it in respect to certain parts, but it depends on what it is I’m doing. If I’m doing a dramatic part that requires danger; If I’m doing something entertaining, funny and light, I hope there’s no danger involved.

It’s Helen Hayes, I think, who is the actor who like to go on with a full bladder because it gave her a performance urgency – going on stage to have to pee, okay, I’m going to move this forward. Without having to drink a gallon of water and put yourself through the torture, when you’re doing a performance, a show, or presenting a piece, there has to be a reason for it. There’s no reason to dramatize or theatricalize a story if there are no stakes.

So, I think danger, for Zoe, or Miss Hayes, there has to be a reason to be there, and you’ve got to be right on your front foot at the beginning of that. So, there’s the drive – George Abbott: louder, faster, funnier. There is really something to that. He broke it down to the mechanics of it; (That’s sometimes where I have issue with over naturalistic performances on stage. I get it that sometimes it’s wonderful to bring the audience to you because the stakes are super high. Think of ‘Next to Normal’ and that first scene where she has emotionally broken down and making sandwiches on the floor in the first scene). Other pieces may not be so rich with conflict you may have to ratchet up the stakes.

Whatever it is – having to pee, danger, raising the stakes, I agree. Going forward, I’m not sure it’s going to be exactly the same as far as danger goes in the stakes.

The late scenic designer Ming Cho Lee spoke about great art opening doors and making us feel more sensitive. Just in talking with you this last half hour, Jason, you’re a very sensitive individual who has been through a great deal personally. How do you see taking this sensitivity and moving forward in a post pandemic world?

I think that sort of doubles back to wanting to direct. There are so many different kinds of directors and I’ve worked with so many brilliant ones over the years and they all have their strengths.

What I do have, as you have, Joe, kindly pointed out, that I am sensitive, super empathetic, sympathetic and without being a pushover or a wet rag. I think what I can do is funnel the empathy that we need as a country in a great amount – the Black Lives movement and the BIPOC community, the Asian community without co-opting their stories. If there’s a way that I can help facilitate them or if it’s telling a story of white community understanding and empathizing, that’s a huge thing that I’m hoping I can contribute.

I’m a pawn and puppet as some director who even worded it that actors are ‘meat puppets’, atrocious, but we are one part of the palette that a director and writer uses to paint the picture on the stage. I’m at their whim and will depending on what they’ve written. What I’d like to do is be in more control so I can infuse shows that might lack empathy, compassion with that whether it’s new or just needs a fresh dose of that.

Again, the late Hal Prince spoke of the fact that theatre should trigger curiosity in the actor/artist and the audience. Has Covid sparked any curiosity in you about something during this time? Has this time away from the theatre sparked further curiosity for you when you return to this art form?

I’m most curious about how we will move forward outside of the parameters of Covid with our community of people of colour who need more and better and stronger representation on stage. It needs to happen and it’s long overdue.

I’m curious as to what that means and how long that will take. I believe that the first people who will be in line for change are going to be the artists and the theatre people: a woman of colour as artistic director; putting more writers on the season whenever a new theatre season comes up.

What we don’t have is an audience of colour in that back pocket. We have people who love ‘Hamilton’ and those shows that will draw diversity in the audience, but how do we get more of the audience to be diverse in order to support this new kind of theatre that we’re hoping to see beyond the forefront. That’s going to take some time.

The impatience of actors and people in the theatre who like immediate response – when we come back to the theatre and everyone wants to make change, but we don’t have the audience yet. We don’t have a great number of actors or writers yet infused into the already existing body. We’ll have to have patience, but I’m really excited about it.

What does this mean for me? Not selfishly, a middle-aged white guy who’s in a business where there aren’t a lot of guys to begin with. There are plenty but that’s been job security for me without putting my finger on it. You’re always going to need a leading man or the love interest, but maybe not so much necessarily moving forward.

So what does that mean for me?

Maybe I should get those directing resumes out right now.

To learn more about Jason, visit his webpage: www.jasondanieley.com

Jason Sermonia is one extraordinary artist in the world of dance.

He has appeared in some memorable musicals at the Stratford Festival including ‘A Chorus Line’, ‘The Music Man’, ‘Jesus Christ Superstar’, ‘The Rocky Horror Picture Show’ and appeared in the Broadway production of ‘Superstar’ when it transferred.

I also saw Jason perform at Port Hope’s Capitol Theatre in a very naughty and adult production of ‘Snow White: The Panto’ which was a riot to watch and so much fun.

At 18 years of age, Jason appeared in the Toronto production of ‘The Lion King’. He also appeared as a dancer in the film version of ‘Chicago’ and performed in two Tony Award presentations in New York.
We conducted our conversation via email. Thank you for adding to the discussion, Jason:

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.

Over the course of the pandemic, I’ve come to realize that the world works heavily on a structured and scheduled way of life. We are always looking ahead and planning what’s next. Making multiple backup plans for every scenario or barrier that may get in our way.

The pandemic forced me to slow down and take life day by day because you never know what the future will hold. We live in a world where everything is fast paced. Everything has a time slot or time limit, to a point that it is no longer quality time well spent.

The pandemic taught me to take my time, use my time wisely and spend quality time with those who I love.

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?

No matter what the circumstances are in the world, artists will always find a way make art or use their amazing skills to find or create work. Artists are so versatile. We can wear many hats no matter what challenges are put forth.

Although the live theatre industry is at its worldwide interval, nothing has stopped me from continuing my training. I will be ready when those curtains open again. The world needs live theatre. The world needs that reality check out.

Art will always survive, and I believe that the industry will be stronger than ever when it returns.

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

As much as I miss performing in front of a live audience, what I miss the most is the rehearsal space. It’s the place where you get to create art onto a blank canvas, explore your craft, tell stories, crack jokes and most importantly build a community… build a family.

It’s where all the magic happens.

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 the last time you perform on a stage may be your last. Embrace every moment. Enjoy every moment. Be grateful for every moment.

As an artist, every job, every gig, every opportunity is temporary. It has a beginning and an end. I always think that every time I hit that stage, I am possibly changing someone’s perception and possibly someone’s life.

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

I hope the live theatre industry continues to represent more and more BIPOC artists not only onstage but offstage as well. I hope the live theatre industry continues their efforts to celebrate diversity and embrace all kinds.

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

I would love to accomplish becoming a choreographer within the industry. My love of dance and movement is itching for the opportunity to choreograph a musical or dance piece for film and tv.

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 believe that it’s too soon. It’s too close to home.

Live theatre, yes, is to relate to stories and themes of our society but I think live theatre should focus on getting patrons back into the theatre and give them an opportunity to escape reality just for a moment. I think live theatre should and will present Covid themed stories but just not at this time.

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

I would want people to remember me for my love of the arts. How I danced and performed my heart out every night on stage. My joy of creating works with friends not for money or fame but for the love of art. How I was a strong leader and team player.

I felt it was time after a month to continue discussion with professional theatre and performing artists to see how they’re doing. It’s now getting turbulent in Ontario and it has been the arts community so far that has helped us endure the emotional volatility of the pandemic. So I thought of a new title to begin new conversations.

But who to ask first?

When I reviewed Calgary’s Storybook Theatre production of ‘Annie’, I thought why not ask Director Jayme Armstrong to see if she would be interested and available to share her thoughts. And I was pleased she agreed.

Jayme’s zeal, enthusiasm, and love for and of the theatre industry was highly infectious, and that’s something I wish all of us would catch from her. She and I had a good laugh when I told her I remember her from her work on CBC’s ‘How Do You Solve A Problem Like Maria?’ where she made it to the top three finalists to play Maria in the Mirvish/Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber production of ‘The Sound of Music’ at Toronto’s Princess of Wales over ten years ago.

But enough living in the past for me.

Jayme has been one extremely busy lady as you will see from our Zoom conversation. She is a staple performer at Ontario’s Drayton Entertainment plus she has just received her master’s degree in Arts and Cultural Management. She and I both agreed that the production of live theatre, both at the professional and non-professional/community theatre is going to look so different when we emerge from Covid.

Thank you so much for the good conversation, Jayme:

In a couple of months, we will be coming up on one year where the doors of theatre have been shut. How have you been faring during this time? Your immediate family?

I will say that it has been a journey. As theatre artists we’re used to almost over functioning because we’re self-employed. Our level of busy generally exceeds what the average person’s level of busy is. Going from that to absolutely nothing was shocking. It was totally shocking almost to the point where a lot of artists didn’t know how to function.

One of the beautiful things that happened and that we saw, and I expected, were the artists who stepped up during this time. They were the first to step up online and provide the content, free classes, things to do. So many theatre creators and artists do so many other things. They wear many hats in order to sustain themselves as yoga, dance and art teachers. They draw on their bag of tricks to see what they can offer in times of peril.

I was really moved by all this because this is humanity to me. In times of struggle, we always see artists who step up. It is the most beautiful thing about the industry in which I work and, for me, it is one of the most addictive things about the industry. There are so many challenges about the industry and some things that work against my personality as I crave stability and consistency.

The theatre industry can be a bit tricky because you never know where your next job is coming from. Having that faith it will come, that it will be there and you’ll come across people who will see things the way you do can be tricky. The initial challenge of Covid was the unknown. When will it come back and what will it look like? And ironically here we are, approaching a year later, and we still have the same questions.

My immediate family has been doing well. As someone who is used to being incredibly busy I’ve had a lot of extra time to spend with my immediate family. My father has had a varied health existence over the last while. I lost my mom to cancer when I was 26 years old. The focus on family for me has been huge because as I’ve gotten older I’ve realized just how fast time passes. Covid has put a new influence in my life to focus on that which is important. Really, we’re so quick to overprioritize our work and our commitments and so many things going on in our lives. Simply put, the thing that we really missed were the people. The other stuff can go and the things that mattered were nearest and dearest to our heart.
I’m incredibly grateful to re-focus on the other aspects of my life that perhaps I’ve ignored in the quest for this career I’ve chosen and the sometimes-all-consuming thing I’m doing.

Scarlett, my dog, is doing better, thank you for asking, Joe, and for supporting. It’s so hard with animals because they can’t tell us what’s going on and what’s hurting or bothering them. They hide their pain from us because they don’t want us to feel it.

How have you been spending your time since the theatre industry has been locked up tight as a drum?

Well, I’ve directed a production of ‘Annie’ for Storybook Theatre in Calgary. One of the things I did very quickly was pivot my side business. My side business is ‘Enchanted Entertainment’ and we do characters for birthday parties and children’s events. It’s my labour of love. I started ‘Enchanted’ because of my mom. She was an incredibly charitable person.

When I really started starting to get busy in my career in my mid twenties, I found that I needed another outlet, something that wasn’t consuming me in the way the theatre world can consume artists. The theatre world can become innately obsessive as it’s something we really have to put ourselves into. And yes, at times, the theatre industry can be a little toxic for ourselves if we’re not careful and taking on self criticism and all of the doubt and uncertainty.

I needed an artistic outlet that wasn’t that.

I needed something that was happy and that had an opportunity to give back to others in the way I had been so lucky to receive.

The first thing I did when Covid started was I immediately pivoted and shifted things online. Not for the purpose of our benefit as our tiny company, it was for charity. What I knew would probably happen was that families would be struggling for so many reasons. Yes, we saw the effect on the elderly and senior citizens, but I also saw the effect Covid would have on the kids. With the kids, they’re at such an influential point in their lives to be without any artistic influence potentially for two years PLUS that is enormous. I thought in my own little way, this was my way to give back.

I partnered with companies like Hospital for Sick Children and Make a Wish Foundation to grant wishes to kids that weren’t able to have their Disney trips. With children who were terminally ill, we were able to do a Zoom call for them with their favourite character. My wish was to bring some joy to the kids in a very dark time. Getting to watch not only the kids but watch the parents seeing their child have that moment of happiness in this bleak, grey time, my life is forever changed.

If I’m truly being honest with myself, why I did this was simply for the reason I didn’t know what else to do. I didn’t know what to do with myself with the loss of everything in my life. It was my way of coping. As Covid went on and summer approached, things started shifting and there was a lot going on with Black Lives Matter here in Canada and the US. Everyone was thinking “I need to go to my own bubble and close the window for the summer and get outside”. We pared back for a bit in the summer as we got tired online and so was everyone else involved.

I’ve never experienced anything such as what we did for the kids. It filled my heart in a way that nothing else can. I’ve never experienced anything like it. Doing this totally for free, voluntary, and to see the expressions on the kids’ faces was far more important in that moment. It was a privilege what we do.

The late Hal Prince described the theatre as an escape for him. Would you say that Covid has been an escape for you or would you describe this near year long absence from the theatre as something else?
(Jamie chuckled and then stated) This is such a loaded question.

Theatre is often described as an escape. That’s our job in the theatre – ‘to provide escape for people’.
In terms of Covid, it’s had periods of time as being as escape for me because life has looked so entirely different. However, the state of the world we’ve experienced during Covid, I don’t know if I would describe that as an escape. There are so many things in the world right now that have come crashing into our existence. I honestly believe for myself was Mother Nature’s way of correcting what was happening in the world – some of the selfishness, some of the unkindness, it’s been a chance for the whole world to stop and have things taken out of their everyday reality and examine the hardships all over the world. We needed to look beyond ourselves and the end of our own little nose.

Covid doesn’t discriminate. No one is immune. So, in terms of the escapism, yes, for me personally, I can recognize even as a self-employed artist (sort of the bottom of the barrel) that I lead an incredibly privileged life. I’ve been incredibly lucky. I’ve living a beautiful career; I’m one of the few artists I know who owns my own home, on my own. I can recognize in many ways as a Canadian, how privileged I am to live in this country, just to be born here. The fact that I was born here, into my family, my ability, my intelligence, my heart makes me privileged.

In terms of escapism, I can only say there’s been periods as the world has come crashing in at a few points. There has been some beautiful movement in my life in learning to relax, in learning to accept that as an over achiever, over worker and over thinker, I cannot control the outcome. It doesn’t matter what I do right now, I can’t make my industry come back. I can’t go back to work the way I want to. I just have to wait and be patient and there’s nothing I can do about that.

I’ve interviewed a few artists several months ago who said that the theatre industry will probably be shut down and not go full head on until at least 2022. There may be pockets of outdoor theatre where safety protocols are in place. What are your comments about this? Do you think you and your colleagues/fellow artists will not return until 2022?

I will say that this is a very fair and accurate prediction that we won’t be back full tilt until at least 2022 for a number of reasons. It will depend on the roll out of the vaccine. From an arts administrative perspective, Alex Mustakas (one of my mentors from Drayton Entertainment), always says it is called ‘show business’ not ‘show fun’. Yes, it is fun and a privilege, but you cannot continue to do it unless you are making money doing it. That is how we sustain productions and produce and create more and satisfy our audiences while growing them.

Realistically it’s more like three to five years before theatre will come back. The majority of these theatre companies will produce less shows, smaller shows, less rehearsal time. They’ll be looking to pare down their costs because many of these companies are not supported by the government or external funding. They still have to continue paying their overhead and their staff to run so many areas.

The unfortunate reality for arts organizations is that they are suffering, bleeding and they are going to continue to do so until they can get back to a place where they are producing. That also is impacted by people’s expendable entertainment dollars. In terms of live performance, we’re in the fortunate situation that people will be ready to get out and do things and return to experiences that feed their heart.

I do believe that live theatre is a totally unique experience for that. Although I enjoyed directing Annie that I knew would be transferred to film, it’s not the same as live theatre. There’s an energy and magic at live theatre that you cannot replicate on film.

I had a discussion recently with an Equity actor who said that yes theatre should not only entertain but, more importantly, it should transform both the actor and the audience. How has Covid transformed you in your understanding of the theatre and where it is headed in a post Covid world?

The one thing that I was always taught growing up – if you want to remain in the theatre industry, you have to be a lifelong learner. There is always going to be somebody younger, prettier, more talented coming up behind you. And that can instill a huge sense of fear in you or it can light a little fire under your butt moving forward.

Keep growing and changing. Finding my way to Drayton put me in a situation where Alex Mustakas sees no limits in what you can do. In an industry where you’re often typecast into certain types and performers, Alex sees ability and then trusts the person and the ability. There’s no limits. As a result, I haven’t been typecast into anything.

I now play such a huge variety and it’s challenged me to grow. In playing such a variety of characters, now that I’m transitioning into directing, I’m now more in tune with what it’s like to play a variety of characters and to explain it to people, let alone the transition to directing which is difficult to begin. How do you convince somebody to trust you with their multiple thousands of dollars, and you arrive at that first rehearsal in a group of friends who now you are in charge of to ensure the show goes forward.

What I ended up learning was the only way to be myself. I wasn’t any different and my duty was not to try and be anything else. It was to just give everything in my heart that I was lucky enough to be a part of.

The late Zoe Caldwell spoke about how actors should feel danger in the work. It’s a solid and swell thing to have if the actor/artist and the audience both feel it. Would you agree with Ms. Caldwell? Have you ever felt danger during this time of Covid and do you believe it will somehow influence your work when you return to the theatre?

I do agree in a sense about feeling danger in the work, but my phrasing would be a little bit different. Danger equates a fear-based mentality, and I really do my best not to lead through fear. There is enough fear generally in my industry to really put themselves out there and to remain incredibly vulnerable. I do my best not to equate things from a fear perspective.

Danger does equate to fear so that’s the first part to this question. Fear challenges us to function outside of our comfort zone, and that is something I am for. When we function outside of our comfort zone, it challenges us to change and adapt and that makes us grow as people, as performers and as creators.
On top of that great theatre should inspire great change in the world. That’s why we produce theatre to inspire change. It’s an interesting thing right now in terms of what’s happening in the world in general. We’re working hard as a society to correct and right some of the injustices, things that are wrong. But if we go back and change our entire theatre history, how do we know how far we’ve grown?

Isn’t great theatre also saying, ‘Wow, isn’t that something from 40 years ago?’ Have we come far enough? I get concerned sometimes that we just take things that no longer serves us and say that doesn’t exist anymore. But that’s a great barometer for change and whether we’ve come far enough.

The truth is we can always do more, we can always do better.

So, I do agree with Ms. Caldwell’s statement, but I would phrase it differently.

The late scenic designer Ming Cho Lee spoke about great art opening doors and making us feel more sensitive. Has this time of Covid made you sensitive to our world and has it made some impact on your life in such a way that you will bring this back with you to the theatre?

I speak a lot about vulnerability now because the truth of it for myself is that I’ve discovered that I’ve had an enormous fear of vulnerability. That is the truth. I wouldn’t be vulnerable as a performer.

Eventually, through circumstances in my own life, I’ve learned that your greatest power is your vulnerability. As an artist, it is essential to be vulnerable. I would not have been able to make this transition to director if I did not discover my vulnerability as a performer. It is an enormous gift and power to share your vulnerability. It is not weakness.

Sometimes we are taught through the industry and other means that expressing vulnerability makes us appear weak. As female leaders, that’s definitely something we are shown – don’t be vulnerable, sensitive, weak.

My greatest power is potentially (and I’m discovering it in real time) learning to lead through female energy NOT through male energy.

To become the best leader and arts creator I can be, I need to trust in my vulnerability because that’s going to make me the best female leader that I can be.

Again, the late Hal Prince spoke of the fact that theatre should trigger curiosity in the actor/artist and the audience. Has Covid sparked any interest in you about something during this time? Has this time away from the theatre sparked further curiosity for you when you return to this art form?

We talked earlier about the trajectory of theatre and when it will possibly be coming back and realistically what it will look like. It’s another unknown.

I’m proud of the way my industry has adjusted given what Covid threw at it with limited number of resources. The curiosity I found in myself was through my experience in directing ‘Annie’ for Storybook Theatre, completing my Master’s in Arts and Cultural Management and discovering this art administrative perspective that I’m very interested in discovering.

This time has been very transformative in discovering these things for myself. Nothing is the same. The theatre industry is not the same. When it comes back, it will innately look different because it will have to.
And the way we produce. Will we go back to the way we produced things before? I doubt it because are used to being in their homes and having things accessible at their fingertips. There will be more variety made available online whether or not I personally view it that way or not.

I’m a purist when it comes to theatre innately, but to touch and reach people we’re going to have to figure out how to do that and what it looks like.

I’m really inspired by the growth I’ve seen in the short time. I know this will continue.

I have a new interest and curiosity in how to produce live theatre in sustainable ways to reach more people. Producing theatre is expensive and do people really realize this. You can stream Netflix or buy a $35 + for a ticket to a professional show. So why would people want to purchase such a high-ticket price?
Yes, there is magic in the theatre and it’s not for everybody. But that’s why the ticket price is a tad higher than Netflix.

In order for the industry to move forward, what I see coming out of Covid is that we are going to have to get very good at sharing resources and I’m curious how do we go about doing this. I tagged up with Storybook Theatre because I was curious in working with young people to ensure they don’t go without the arts in their lives for at least 2+ years now.

Yes, we realize that our seniors are our die-hard supporters of the theatre, but what are we doing tor ensure young people become supporters and subscribers as the seniors are? The seniors may be fearful upon returning and I’m curious how we accomplish to make the seniors feel safe plus ensure we begin to appeal to a younger audience.

Jayme welcomes connection to her social media accounts through Facebook: Jayme Armstrong and Instagram: jayme_and_scarlett

What a delightful chat I had recently with Choreographer and Co-Artistic Director of Toronto’s Opera Atelier, Jeannette Lajeunesse Zingg. Last year I had the opportunity to interview her husband, partner, Director, and the other Co-Artistic Director Marshall Pynkoski. The two of them were delightfully charming and engaging, and I could tell they were both very keen on having not only me but also many new audience members attend the opera this coming year.

Many Torontonians who attend the opera call Marshall and Jeannette ‘royalty’.

I now understand why.

Jeannette is gracious, open, and articulate. Her passion and dedication to the opera and ballet were strongly evident during our conversation.

The theme for this year’s Opera Atelier season is ‘Passion Returns’ which is an appropriate one. It is the company’s passion for returning to the theatre through productions of ‘Dido and Aeneas’, a passionate love story and ‘The Resurrection’, the story of the Passion of Christ.

I began our conversation and asked her how she felt about being called Toronto’s ‘opera royalty’:

“Well, we’re very flattered, to begin with. We have dedicated our lives to Baroque Opera, French Baroque in particular, and we will continue to bring Baroque Opera to Toronto and worldwide.”

Like all the artists who have been asked this same question about the gradual return to the performing arts given the unknown about Covid, Jeannette did point out one thing clearly that I respected: “The media is not our best friend when it comes to things like that for sure.”

However, Jeannette remains quite optimistic going forward. The subscription goal was modest but Opera Atelier had reached it. Now the company is selling single tickets. Opera Atelier has done quite a bit of reaching out to newer markets. For example, at the beginning of our conversation, Marshall also appeared on camera to say hello for a few moments before he dashed off to students from Catholic schools who were attending workshops today. Jeannette would join him once our conversation had concluded.

The workshop involved some demonstrations and a very brief background on how dancing fits into Baroque Opera. Then to top it off, the workshop concluded with students getting up to dance the minuet. Jeannette was pleased there was full and active participation from these Grade 6-8 students who asked very intelligent questions along with active participation in the dance and who are eager to learn since the pandemic cut down on this type of experiential learning over the last two-plus years.

What a terrific way to get twenty-first-century youth interested and involved in the world of opera where they can experience things up close first and ask questions about the art form and receive an immediate response in a small group.

Jeannette also spoke of the work Opera Atelier does in Europe quite frequently. Productions there sold out and masks are optional and rarely worn.

She recognized that North America is always a bit behind but will follow suit. Going forward, we must ensure people are not so frightened when they attend a live theatre production of any kind, especially older people. Yes, this fear does come from the media, but Lajeunesse Zingg confirms we have to start somewhere getting back, and this appears to be the first logical step going forward. Once again, she remains optimistic people will want to come for a good show, and there is no need to be fearful as we return.

What a marvellous choice Opera Atelier has made in selecting ‘Dido and Aeneas’.

The story itself is from Books 1-4 of Virgil’s ‘The Aeneid’. Dido, the Queen of Carthage, has been widowed and has sworn never to marry again. Aeneas has been fleeing his burning city of Troy with a group of men and lands there and he thinks perhaps it’s his destiny to re-found Troy. Dido’s courtiers are pushing her to marry Aeneas because he has fallen in love with her and she is with him. The courtiers feel it will strengthen their kingdom which at the moment is a little unstable after having lost her husband, the King.

Of course, it is not Aeneas’s destiny as his destiny is to found Rome, but he doesn’t know that. The destiny is put into the form of witches who want to undo Dido in this particular telling of the story, so they trick Aeneas into thinking that Mercury, the messenger of the Gods, is telling him he has to move on after he has already committed himself to Dido.

Aeneas comes to tell Dido he has to leave, and she is appalled and very angry. Aeneas says he will change his mind to defy the gods, but Dido says it’s too late and he has to go as she has been spurned and humiliated. Aeneas leaves and his men are happy to leave and get back out on the sea and find a new place. There’s a lot of dancing as the men are happy to return to the sea.

Dido feels she has been so humiliated that she feels she has to take her own life. There is that very famous aria at the end of ‘Dido’s Remorse’ that many great opera singers have as part of their repertoire.

And what is it about the beautiful art of opera and ballet that still fascinates and intrigues Jeannette:

“I can’t imagine not being intrigued. It’s part of our identity and who we are. We live with culture and culture is part of life and opera has so much to offer in culture, music, acting, dance, sets, and costumes. It’s part of worldwide culture and it’s something that we want to have as part of our lives. It’s intriguing because there’s something new to find, always some new ideas to get from these older pieces from a different era where the thought processes were different from our [twenty-first century].”

She still affirms the artists and the company still has so much to learn from these pieces. Even though Opera Atelier holds a huge repertoire, the artists will never be finished delving deeper into them ceaselessly. During the pandemic, OA did switch to film and there was a commission of one piece so the learning and growing are continuous.

For some reason, there appears to be this misunderstanding that if one doesn’t have an extensive background or education in the study of opera and ballet, then it’s not worthwhile attending.

Lajeunesse Zingg firmly disagrees.

One doesn’t need to have any background to enjoy and appreciate Baroque Opera. It’s lively, it’s dramatic, the music is beautiful, and the costumes are beautiful. Baroque Opera is a feeling on every level.
Why is it important for all audiences to attend, and that includes those who would like to attend but might be a tad reluctant:

“It’s a big part of our culture”, explains Jeannette. “Culture and art are the highest point of humanity that we can achieve. Everybody should be able to be a part of that.”

‘Dido and Aeneas’ opens on October 20 and 22 at 7:30 pm and the final performance and October 23 at 2:30 pm at Toronto’s Elgin Theatre, 189 Yonge Street. The performance running time is one hour.

To learn more about Toronto’s Opera Atelier, visit operaatelier.com.

Over the years in attending Toronto productions, I’ve seen Jeff Ho’s name either as a writer or a performer. I had the chance to see his work in an extraordinary online production of ‘Orestes’ in 2020 through Tarragon Theatre.

Earlier in the pandemic when I began compiling this series, I was encouraged by someone to get in touch with Jeff simply because his work as an actor and playwright speaks for itself.

Before we began our Zoom interview, I asked Jeff how he had been faring during this time. He paused for a few seconds before he began to answer and I could just sense, like all of us have been feeling, that Jeff had a great deal on his plate during this year plus long absence from live theatre that he was unable early during the pandemic to be a part of the On-Stage Blog conversation. I so wanted him to be a part of this series and to add his voice to the discussion that I was determined not to give up in asking him.

When he finally sent me a message saying he would love to chat and to add his voice, I was elated and immediately blocked Zoom time with him.

Jeff is a Toronto-based theatre artist, originally from Hong Kong. Acting credits: Orestes (Tarragon Theatre), trace (Remount – NAC/Factory Theatre), Ophelia in Prince Hamlet (Why Not Theatre, national tour: Canadian Stage, PuSh Festival, and National Arts Centre), Hana’s Suitcase (Young People’s Theatre, tour: Toronto, Montreal and Seattle), Unknown Soldier (lemonTree creations/Architect Theatre), Murderers Confess at Christmastime (Outside the March), Kim’s Convenience (CBC), The Handmaid’s Tale (Hulu), and Orphan Black (BBC America).

As a playwright, his works include the critically acclaimed Iphigenia and the Furies (On Taurian Land), produced by Saga Collectif; Antigone: 方, produced by Young People’s Theatre; and trace, produced by Factory Theatre, b current, and the National Arts Centre. His work has been developed with the Stratford Festival, Tarragon Theatre, Young People’s Theatre, Human Cargo, Factory Theatre, Cahoots, the Banff Playwrights Lab, Nightswimming Theatre, and he is the current OAC Playwright in Residence at the Tarragon Theatre. His plays are published by Playwrights Canada Press.

Jeff is the Company Dramaturg with Outside The March. Jeff is grateful to have been honoured with a Toronto Theatre Critics Award for Best New Canadian Play (Iphigenia); the Jon Kaplan Legacy Fund Award for a Young Canadian Playwright; the Bulmash Siegel Playwriting Award (Tarragon Theatre); nominated for four Dora Awards, and a Harold Award (House of Nadia Ross).

He is a graduate of the National Theatre School.

Thank you again for adding your voice to the discussion, Jeff:

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 completely changed, different priorities personally and some of these are also tied in professionally.
I just wanted to acknowledge, Joe, and thank you for reaching out earlier in the pandemic. That’s something that is really true and, at first, it was difficult to reach out and talk to anyone about the feeling, the isolation and just trying to navigate all the cancellations the artists had to go through. It was really quite difficult.

Family was also important. I have a baby niece who I am lucky have been able to meet a lot and to see and re-connect with my family before the pandemic. During the pandemic it’s been really distant. My niece is talking, well, she’s babbling but she’s walking. It’s a huge joy to see her at this time. Thank God for technology that way.

There are missing moments that I can think we can all identify with because of the pandemic, and it’s been more than a year now. We adapt quickly. Some things remain really difficult to parse through.

With live indoor theatre shut now 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?

(Jeff paused for a few seconds and I could tell from looking at his face on camera that this would be a challenging question for him)

I’m both really optimistic for multiple reasons because of the creativity folks have been able to adapt with through the pandemic. There’s been some really great virtual showings.

I felt really fortunate to have worked on ‘Orestes’ with Tarragon Theatre, that was a huge experiment. It was wild because everybody just went in together to collaborate. We made something happen, whether it was equivalent to live theatre or not, I’m not sure. But at the same time, I feel really optimistic that, in all of the adaptations and all the ways we’ll persevere, when we come back live, we’ll be really triumphant, beautiful and joyous.

But, at the same time, I have a deep sadness for a lot of the shows that, who knows if they’ll be able to come back or if we’ll be able to see them. My biggest worry is sometimes with, I think of the newest generation of students who just graduated theatre school last May, and the ones graduating this May, and the ones who are in school right now, how it feels to be training over Zoom.

It’s [The theatre industry] is a very hard industry to enter, and so I worry about a generation lost and the stories we might miss on. Ultimately, I’m hopeful and I’m trying my best to remain hopeful because it’s so important to do so. Theatre artists are really creative and adaptive.

I certainly miss an audience, being in an audience.

The [theatre] industry is not dead but Zoom theatre or You Tube theatre is not live theatre, by any means. What I’ve been grateful for with these platforms is at least the connection with the community that can chat with virtually or to see a performance live, even though it’s not live and in person. Through a small technical delay, it always fulfilled a few criteria of going to the theatre but never that full package of being sensationally with an audience, feeling the heat of the lighting design, and the actor really going at it full throttle.

Zoom and You Tube can’t capture that heat of live experience, but it always held little bits of that experience that always made the missing part a little deeper each time, but at least I’ve been able to see other artists over Zoom. Or chat with other audience members I’ve seen over the years. The fun is having national audiences and national connections through the internet. That is something I hope we take forward where we can workshop a play with other artists around the country

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

So many things, but the first that comes to mind is the pre-show experience and immediate post show experience, and the actual show, of course. Those were the moments especially in the preshow you’d be like, oh, there are people I want to connect with, the ritual with the programme that is given to me in recognizing someone I’ve seen earlier or a new face on the stage whom I haven’t seen. Sitting and waiting for the lights to go dark and lose whatever was carried in from the outside world or sometimes you’ re carrying it fully on account of the show you are seeing.

And the moment after, where there is always that ‘moment’ of celebration or that moment of judgment, or for better or worse, I have taken all those moments for granted. That moment of discussing what we just saw with friends.

Ultimately, it’s the community in the preshow and post show experience that builds into an audience and then magically dissipates until the next time, whether it’s the next performance next day, next week. Every theatre does its preshow differently. I love the preshow experience at The Theatre Centre with its café or outdoors.

What I also miss is the shared laughter and the shared tears. When we come back it’s probably going to be incredible laughter at any joke and any actor who tries to make a joke, and we’ll all be, “Yes, thank you very much for that.” And the actor just instinctively knows to stop for the laughter and everyone is going “Yes, we’re all in this together and we’re right there.” And the actor just picks it up on a dime.
Oh, and also the shared complicity when we see something tender and felt and we feel that tear in the corner of our eye.

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?

So much of it…(Jeff paused for several seconds and again I could just sense that he and me too are missing live theatre so much)

I never want to take for granted the experience and privilege of having a platform on stage and telling a story. I never want to take a story for granted again.

It’s wonderful that we’re chatting right now, you and I, but it’s been a heavy week of stories in the news cycle for real both nationally and internationally.

It makes me think of the stories that while I was rehearsing or while I was writing, we get exhausted because we work really hard. The artists put in so much time out of passion over economics. At times, it felt like okay I’ll just put it up and just do the thing, I’m just going to rehearse it.

And I never want to take for granted whatever the story will be, that chance to connect and share something in a laugh, or something really ridiculous, to celebrate the small joys. If I make a mistake on stage, I also don’t want to take that for granted. It felt like that in training as an artist for so many years that there is that pursuit of perfection, like there’s a perfect way to tell a story. This last year plus away from live theatre has shown us how we can embrace those imperfections and adjust to them, that’s all part of the story.

Even in live theatre when an actor ‘corpses’ or a prop breaks in performance on stage, I don’t want to take that for granted again. That’s a moment to connect and think, “Look, we’re in a theatre. Things don’t always go as planned. Isn’t this beautiful?”

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

Yeah, hmmm…. It’s really exciting and also sad, I’m not sure if sad is the right word, but there’s a monumental shift that’s going on with the theatre nationally too.

Every week so far has felt like there’s been new news of departure of artistic director who have been leaders for twenty years. There’s a major shift around of who’s helming these theatre companies that are also in quite a vulnerable position, programming wise and resource wise. And so, with those shifts in leadership,

I also see a shift in what artists are identifying quite simply, I’m just going to name them, reckoning equity and diversity inclusion that we’re seeing across many companies. Last summer it was pretty hot with Black Lives Matter, at times informative and at times really felt an active way of change.

More recently just this past month with ‘Stop Asian Hate’.

There’s been a different way to see how the companies are reacting politically and seeing sometimes the inaction of it. Empty words. And sometimes seeing individual artists rise up and speak and demand the change within theatre.

I hope there’s a more embrace of those real-world politics and real amplification of artists who have those stories and the urgency to tell them, and the space for that to happen to really and honestly and safely and bravely engage with those conversations in the theatre in a way that we haven’t been able to achieve in the past.

I feel it’s all connected to the new leadership we will see in the coming years.

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

(Jeff carefully pauses and thinks) Must accomplish…oooo… (several seconds to pause and to think)

In a really selfish way, one of the cancellations last year that really broke my heart was I slated to perform in ‘M. Butterfly’ at Soulpepper directed by Nina Lee Aquino. I was to have played Song Liling. This role has been my dream role since theatre school, since I was 17.

That cancellation really wrecked me in a real personal way. Since then, ‘Orestes’ at Tarragon was my one acting experience, but I’ve been very, very grateful to be able to maintain playwrighting commissions and begin new plays with different theatre companies I haven’t had a chance to work with.

And so, my personal must accomplish, is in some capacity with whatever company, I still hope to tackle that dream role and play one day. ‘M. Butterfly’ is so beautiful, and I so wish to share that story and I’ve been yearning to play it.

So that’s a real personal must accomplish and, in the scheme of being connected to the companies I’m in service with right now, yeah, I feel like I must accomplish my playwrighting duties. It’s my passion, playwrighting. Duties isn’t quite the right word. I both love serving and writing for my Chinese Canadian community and really specific ethnic stories to really broaden these representations on stage.

But I also love adapting Greek classics, and I really love adapting classics from the Euro central canon, and that’s part of the interrogation of why I adapt them. My two Greek play adaptations are being published by Playwright’s Canada Press this fall, and already I’ve had conversations with universities or theatre school students who always have to go to theatre school auditions with a classical monologue.

But now I can provide, even in some small way, a Chinese specific Antigone so that Chinese specific students can still find a classical monologue that somehow sees through this culturally specific lens just a little bit more. That’s something I feel I can accomplish is to continue adapting new stories that speak to a community that’s close to my heart, and then to also, with a lot of whimsy and mischief. adapt a canon that I want everyone and folks who have felt other from it, to feel safe in tackling them and grappling them, with a lot of fun and with a lot of play.

That feels like a little passion that I have.

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 think it’s inevitable, and I think the theme will be more surprising than we may think. There will be ones that will go into the isolation of the experience, but I also think about the experience of the audience. I keep on thinking how we always have a cougher in the audience. That’s now going to have a different meaning when we go back. When the actor and the audience now hear the cougher, it’s now going to be “Ummmm….”

In terms of stories, however subtle or however on the nose the Covid reality is, ideas around isolation, ideas around being hermit at home, ideas around hygiene in our going to the theatre, that’s going to shift. I think it’s inevitable that we’re going to have a series of plays that will capture this moment.

Or through the lens of Covid, there might be some plays that examine some of the things we’ve talked about during this interview because it’s been a year of great strife and inequality, and it’s all been through the lens of us being often at home, unable to take to the streets or in limited ways to mobilize with communities.

We’ll hear those stories with a touch of reality that Covid is.

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

That’s a tough question.

I’m not sure. Okay (and Jeff pauses again for a few seconds)

I want everyone to remember joy, mischief, and that trickster quality that’s both really sad – laughing until we cry until we laugh. That’s what I hope people will remember from some of my plays in a real, simple, human way.

But I also don’t mind if I am forgotten quite honestly because that is the cycle of things and the cycle of life.

But I hope the books will live on even if my name is lost, it’s okay.

Follow Jeff on Twitter: @kjeffho.

Born in Surrey, British Columbia, but having spent the last 30 years here in the GTA, Jeff Madden is one busy guy. He holds a BSc in Human Biology from the University of Toronto and a Master of Education in Curriculum, Teaching and Learning (OISE, University of Toronto). In between, he was taking private lessons in acting, dance, singing and audition techniques.

First time I saw Jeff on stage was during the long run production of ‘Jersey Boys’ for Dancap Productions in North York. He won a Dora Mavor Moore Award for Outstanding Performance, and most deservedly so, for his work as Frankie Valli. Jeff has also appeared across the country in numerous performances from Shaw out to Stage West Calgary and to Charlottetown. He has appeared on television in ‘Mayday’ on Discovery and ‘Murdoch Mysteries’ on CBC. Jeff was also nominated for another Dora award for Angelwalk’s ‘I Love You Because’.

Even though the theatres are now closed for the pandemic, Jeff appears as Kevin T. and others in the Canadian company of the smash musical hit ‘Come from Away’, a truly remarkable story of human kindness following the terror of September 11. I saw Jeff in this production at the Elgin Theatre before it transferred back to the Royal Alexandra. For me, ‘Come from Away’ is one of those musicals that still tugs at my heart strings because I know there are kind people out there amid all the world’s confusion. How we need stories like ‘Come from Away’ to keep reminding us that goodness still exists in our darkest moments.

Jeff is a busy family man as you will see from his answers, but I was pleased he was able to take the time for our interview via email:

1. It has been just over two months right now that we have been under this lockdown. How have you been doing during this period of isolation and quarantine? How is your immediate family doing?

Thank you for asking! First and foremost, everyone in my immediate and extended family and my circle of close friends has remained unharmed by the virus. But dealing with all the change right now has led to some mental health challenges. Luckily, my wife and kids and I are doing OK at managing those challenges.

2. Along with your work in ‘Come from Away’ were you involved in any side projects before the pandemic was declared and everything was shut down? Were you involved in the planning stages of any new projects? How has the cast been doing for the most part?

Most artists, even those fortunate enough to have long-term gigs like I have, are always hustling. Yes, I was working on a few ideas and projects – but nothing I can talk about publicly right now. At the time of the shut down, I was also teaching part-time in the musical theatre program at Sheridan College, something I’ve been doing since 2013. I love it tremendously. I finished that work about a month ago, which was great, but unfortunately my upcoming work in the summer semester was cancelled due to Covid-19, and my Fall semester opportunities are still up in the air.

The ‘Come from Away’ family is large and spread out, and honestly, this new crushing reality has hit us pretty hard. We got used to seeing each other six days a week for over two years, and then … nothing. Looking on the bright side, no one to my knowledge has contracted the virus, and it seems like the producers want to bring us back when it’s safe to do so.

We stay connected like everyone is doing these days – social media, group chats, phone calls, etc. We’ve also done a couple of rewarding group events, including a two-night cabaret fundraiser for Newfoundland’s Daffodil House and the Canadian Cancer Society that raised well over $12,000. If people want to re-watch the two nights, they’re here, on Greg Hawco’s Facebook page:

https://www.facebook.com/ghawco/videos/10158046082246011/

https://www.facebook.com/ghawco/videos/10158050811526011/

3. What has been the most difficult and/or challenging element of this period of isolation?

In a word – uncertainty. It’s there, casting its shadow in virtually every aspect of our lives now. I don’t think I need to elaborate – and even the thought of giving you examples is making me feel uneasy, so I’m going to just leave it at that.

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

When everything came to a grinding halt around March 13th, I still had my teaching contract to complete. Sheridan College suspended classes for a week to figure out how to finish the last month of the term. I was fairly occupied for the first three weeks with lots of meetings and a couple weeks of teaching online. For the rest of the time, I was battling against that uncertainty. Following the news, but realizing that I can’t watch too closely… Being concerned about the crisis, but not giving into fear… Realizing that all I can truly control is the present moment…

But honestly, I’ve actually been very busy. I live in a 2-bedroom condo with my wife and two daughters, aged 12 and 13. My wife is in the midst of a long-term neck injury, so in addition to taking care of her needs, I am running our home. I do all the shopping, cooking, laundry and cleaning for the family. I spend a few hours every day helping my kids through their online schoolwork. We’ve also re-organized our living space about a dozen times to try to maximize the space. You name it, we’ve cleaned it out – cabinets, drawers, cupboards, closets, bathrooms, storage units. We rearranged our living room furniture to give us space to exercise, which we do most days. And we try to get outside every day to play together, too, which has been great. And at night, we’ve been watching a lot of movies together – some favourites from my youth, like the Back to the Future trilogy and Spaceballs, and thanks to Disney + we’re working our way through the 287 Musicals and Marvel movies lol. So, weirdly, time is flying by for me.

Career wise, I’ve been trying to stay connected to my craft and our business. I warm up and sing every couple of days, I’m playing the piano more often and even brought out my old trumpet and flugelhorn to mess around with. I’m listening to more music and thinking about the kinds of shows and roles that I’m beginning to age into. I’m watching some online content, some of which has been incredibly moving, some less so. Occasionally, I’ll talk with friends and colleagues about the present and future and ruminate on everything. Honestly, there’s so much inspiring art to watch, read, listen to, learn from, and it’s nice to have a little more time to do that.

5. Any words of wisdom or sage advice you would give to other performing artists who are concerned about the impact of COVID-19? What about the new theatre graduates who are just out of school and may have been hit hard? Why is it important for them not to lose sight of their dreams?

Well, firstly, I don’t think anyone can truly describe the impact that Covid-19 will have on our business right now. In time, we’ll be able to look back and see all the ways the business has changed. And, I’m not too sure I possess any wisdom or sage advice about coping right now… but for me, I try to avoid focussing on the minutia and instead look at the big picture of life.

I’ve always believed it’s important to be a well-rounded person with a few outside interests – family, health, relationships, nature, sports etc. In many ways, those are more important than our jobs. But of course, we are artists… we are creative, sensitive people and have hopes and dreams for the future. But I believe any day where we’re able to create art is a good day, whether it’s on a Broadway stage, a film set, or in our living room. We should remind ourselves that we knowingly chose to live a life that will have many highs and lows, and many periods of financial distress. Even right now, when we’re all facing the same brutality together, we have government subsidies to help us through.

For me, I remain optimistic. Society needs what we do. Look how everyone is turning to the arts to get them through this time! Music, streaming, shows, you name it have never been more popular. So I say, instead of dwelling on that which we cannot control, we should do things that bring us joy and inspiration, and remain diligent by practicing our craft. Because when that day comes and phone rings, things are going to take off again. I know that when things improve, we will all find our way in that new reality.

6. Do you see anything positive stemming from this pandemic?

Personally, I’m much closer to my children than ever before, which is a huge positive. But to answer your question in the broader sense, the cynic in me says that those with money and power will work hard to retain it and try to get things back to ‘normal’. But here’s what I hope – a lot of us have become aware of just how connected we all are as a society.

We are nurturing our relationships these days, and society will become more empathetic to each other. I think we realize how badly we need people, how important it is to have close relationships, to love and be loved. Hopefully this leads to a more giving, more charitable society. Like most people, I also have a ton more respect for teachers, health care workers, grocery store clerks … I mean the list goes on and on. Hopefully people are seeing where the good is being done and will work towards celebrating that which is truly important in life.

7. In your estimation and informed opinion, will the Canadian performing arts scene somehow be changed or impacted as a result of COVID – 19?

Yes, I believe it will change, but in ways we can’t know right now. However, I am positive that society needs artists to tell stories, to create and disseminate ideas and beauty and laughter and tears and context for what it means to be human. No matter what happens, there will be ways to share our craft and earn a living.

8. Many artists are turning to streaming/online performances to showcase/highlight/share their work. What are your thoughts about this format presentation? Any advantages to doing this? Disadvantages? Are you participating or will you be participating in this presentation format soon?

Yes, I’ve seen how they are gaining popularity right now. Personally, I’ve put together a couple performances on video. This one with my talented friend Chris Tsujiuchi was seen over 2000 times on Facebook (I just put it up on my YouTube channel https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jHZMrpEjNRw), our Come From Kindness fundraising Cabaret (I can be seen singing 2 songs on Facebook links in Question 2 above), and I also did a livestream appearance on Chris Wilson’s Big Girl and Friends that featured four live performances songs (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JDhU7-2RA1s). I enjoyed doing them, if only to practice and share my craft.

But online performances are interesting to me in a couple ways.

They’re great for right now, but I’m not certain they will have lasting power. If these types of experiences are going to be a large part of the future, then we’ll all need to better understand the technological requirements and the importance of quality electronics, software and hardware. There needs to be more options to artists for monetizing these events… and the big IF is will the public be comfortable with paying us to watch, rather than just sticking to free content provided elsewhere.

The other interesting aspect of this emerging trend is how it might be leveling the playing field. Whether it’s Lady Gaga, Lin Manuel Miranda, myself or anyone else, we’re easily compared now. This online content has no bells and whistles – they’re recorded on an average camera, with an average microphone, in an average living room; it’s often just a voice and a story to be told. Discerning audiences may be starting to understand that ‘celebrities’ or ‘stars’ may not have any more talent than the grade school teacher or nurse who went viral and, consequently, the value we place on them in society may diminish, while new voices may be catapulted up. I think this trend may place a premium back on actual talent… which is a good thing, even if it becomes disruptive. Anyway, lots to think about and time will tell.

9. I’ve seen your work on stage both in Jersey Boys and CFA. What is it about performing you still love given all the change, the confusion and the drama surrounding our world now?

I’ve been incredibly fortunate in my 22-year career to work with some of the world’s top theatre practitioners on a fairly regular basis. I’ve had a multitude of experiences in the performing arts, ranging from performing in front of 40,000 people to five people.

Ultimately, I’m an artist and collaborator by nature. I’ve worked hard at honing my crafts as an actor and singer both for my own personal fulfillment and for the enjoyment of others. Nothing challenges me quite like preparing for an audition – trying to learn the material and pinpoint the qualities within to bring to light. Nothing excites me quite as much as a rehearsal process – digging into a new or beloved old piece with a room full of passionate, intelligent artists. And nothing is more rewarding than sharing the result of those efforts with a room full of people six days a week. I’m eagerly looking forward to continuing these things when the time is right.

With a respectful 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:

a. What is your favourite word?

Sasquatch

b. What is your least favourite word?

Curmudgeon

c. What turns you on?

Passion

d. What turns you off?

Ignorance

e. What sound or noise do you love?

An audience erupting together (positively, lol)

f. What sound or noise bothers you?

Jackhammers echoing off skyscrapers

g. What is your favourite curse word?

Fuck!

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

Baseball announcer/writer

i. What profession would you not like to do?

Politician

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

“What took you so long? Come on in!”

Jennifer is one articulate artist who is most passionate about what she does. After our hour plus long conversation the other day, I got the impression that not even Covid can ever destroy her zeal for the arts.

Jennifer is a Toronto based actor, director, producer, and voice actor. She is also the host/co-producer of Singular Sensation Online.

A graduate of Sheridan College’s Musical Theatre Performance program, Jennifer’s diverse career spans almost two decades. She has been featured in the Globe and Mail and the cover of NOW Magazine for her work in Toronto theatre and gained critical acclaim for both her portrayal as Liza Minnelli in her solo show Liza Live! as well as her autobiographical rock cabaret Jagged Little Me, based on the music of Alanis Morissette. Before the pandemic hit she was slated to make her debut as a writer at The Victoria Playhouse Petrolia.

As a director, she led the teams behind Hart House Theatre’s hit productions of Heathers the Musical and The Rocky Horror Show as well as Mandy Goodhandy’s Just Call Me Lady. She was also the Assistant Director with Talk As Free Theatres’ production of Into The Woods. As a producer she has worked with many Fringe solo artists including Rebecca Perry and Adam Proulx as well as with Tweed and Co., The Musical Stage Company, The Toronto Fringe, Pride Toronto and Second City Toronto. She was also a producer for the Sunday Cabaret Series at the 120 Diner which was forced to close its doors due to the pandemic. As a voice actor she is the voice of the Family Channel networks.

Currently, she is the host and co-producer of Singular Sensation Online, a live monthly musical theatre event (celebrating its tenth year this March) turned online performing arts talk show. Originally a live weekly event at Statler’s on Church (now The Well) turned a monthly event at the 120 Diner for just over a year when the pandemic hit, Singular soon went online combining their live and online presence into an online show.

Since April 2020, they have produced 20 episodes celebrating the inspiring efforts of the theatre community during the pandemic with conversations, performances and sign-up guests including appearances by TSN’s Michael Lansberg, Juno Award nominee Stacey Kay, Broadway choreographer Marc Kimelma and director/choreographer and advocate David Conolly. The show’s mission is to continue to offer a safe and supportive platform for marginalized voices and make the world more accessible for the theatre community through new segments dedicated to self-care and world issues. Season 2 will be debuting in February of 2021.

We held our conversation via Zoom. Thanks again, Jennifer:

In a couple of months, we will be coming up on one year where the doors of live theatre have been shut. It was a year ago the first case was reported. How have you been faring during this time? Your immediate family?

It’s crazy. I was at the gym and I was thinking, “Oh, that sounds scary.” And here we are. I guess we didn’t see it coming even though the signs were all there, and we still wonder where it’s going.

Like anybody, it’s been up and down and a bit of an existential experience. There’s been a lot of practices in mediating emotions.

To give you a succinct answer I’ve been doing okay, a bit of a roller coaster in dealing with an extreme loss in our entire community and world and trying to mediate everything’s that happening. I’m very lucky, fortunate and blessed my health is fine. I’m not special in my experience.

My immediate family is fine. They’re healthy. My mom works in long term care. She’s a PSW but there haven’t been any cases where she works luckily. I’m from a small town where I am now so I’m helping her out a bit. My mom’s really tired but doing well, thank goodness, and thank you for asking.

How have you been spending your time since the industry has been locked up tight as a drum?

I’ve been really lucky to be out of the city for the most part which has been a blessing because it’s tough to social distance in the city when everyone is close together in Toronto. I’m based in Toronto. For the first weeks, it felt like a vacation maybe a couple of weeks, just a bit of hanging out. And then things started to shut down and lock up.

As of April, we took my show ‘Singular Sensation’ online so that’s been taking up the majority of our time. My partner and I co-produce the show together and it’s been a really uplifting way to spend our time. I’ve been teaching online. I’m a voice coach and learning. I also do voice work for The Family Channel.

I’ve been lucky to have some sense of normalcy which has been good but trying to re-examine what I’m doing with my life, so it’s been part normal and part existential crisis.

And listening to the conversation being held on what’s occurring in the world and re-discovering what the show is all about and using our platform wisely in a way that is conducive to working online. I’ve always wanted to be able to combine my interest in journalism along with my degree from Sheridan, so it’s been a gift to bring the journalistic aspect to ‘Singular’ and celebrate the work people are doing or celebrating the community hub of the show.

The late Hal Prince described the theatre as an escape for him. Would you say that Covid has been an escape for you or would you describe this near year long absence as something else?

I don’t think I’d call this time an escape, more a suspension of reality but we have to move forward. It was a bit of a vacation. I’d been burned out when Covid hit so yes, it was part an escape for a small amount, but it was also tough because my partner and I were on the doorstep of the biggest seasons of theatre in our careers. He’s at Stratford and I was about to direct and make a debut as a writer. You work so hard towards these milestones and then to have it taken away from us….. Wow!

I didn’t want to escape from this, but I was happy to escape from a joe job. Okay, it was an escape, but I didn’t want an escape from the milestone my partner and I were about to experience. I love what I do, and I didn’t want the summer off.

It’s hard with all this because I don’t know what direction to travel when everything was shutting down and we were thinking two-week shutdown? Three-week shutdown? Do I pursue a new discipline? Do I get a part time job through all of this and weather out what’s coming? How do you invest in your future when you don’t know what it is? It feels like treading water.

I’m grateful for the diverse skills set I’ve recognized that I’ve had so that’s been a good thing about Covid. It’s allowed me to work through this time, yes at a limited capacity as I’m not making millions, but I’ve been able to keep a sense of normalcy.

I’ve interviewed a few artists several months ago who said that the theatre industry will probably be shut down and not go full head on until at least 2022. There may be pockets of outdoor theatre where safety protocols are in place. What are your comments about this? Do you think you and your colleagues/fellow artists will not return until 2022?

Oh, Joe, if I had an answer for that I’d be making millions off it. (Jennifer started laughing and so did I) I wouldn’t need to work at theatre ‘cause I’d be rich.

I’m a big believer in manifestation and that makes it hard for me to be realistic. If I say 2022, am I going to manifest that? I struggle between my belief in manifestation and my rational realistic part of my brain.

I don’t know, I don’t know. We have this vaccine, and we have this one school of thought that by the fall things may look very different. It’s that suspended and I don’t know how to answer that and I’m afraid to have it placed here in print. I know this sounds ridiculous, but we hold on to whatever hope gets us through the day.

I don’t know. I think it’s really complicated as there are a lot of things to take into consideration from actors to audience to technical crew, it’s almost like four different industries in one.

Before it’s back traditionally in the way we saw it before, yah, maybe, that could take awhile. Yes, there might be pockets and new ways of performing theatre as you mentioned earlier, but the full experience? I think there might be some realism to that prediction, but God I hope it’s before….

My epidemiology degree is about as imaginative as my Tony that I received. (Jennifer has neither, by the way )

I had a discussion recently with an Equity actor who said that yes theatre should not only entertain but, more importantly, it should transform both the actor and the audience. How has Covid transformed you in your understanding of the theatre and where it is headed in a post Covid world?

I understand it’s transformed me to needing a bigger pant size. My experience has been up and down. I’m running again so that’s a positive start for me.

This is an interesting question. We’ve done 20 episodes of ‘Singular Sensation’ and our goal is to chat with people about what they think will happen in the future and transformation of marginalized voices, inclusion, equity and creating the theatre these theatre companies want to see. I feel privileged to get to see these initiatives from the ground up through Singular Sensation.

This pause has given us a time to reflect from where we have come from to where we are going, and to what needs to change. This time is allowing us to look and see what are we doing, what’s the result and how do we move forward. And it’s obvious we need to do something different. The transformation is coming in the way we see traditional theatre – I’m a big fan of non-traditional theatre and this is a positive step forward.

‘Singular Sensation’ has been transformed in the way we see creation and performance. We can’t do open mic online, so we had to figure out how to go from open mic to online performance talk show that morphed into bringing on new theatre companies focused on perhaps marginalized creators, for example. When I graduated from Sheridan many years ago, it was either Mirvish or bust. Now, that has all changed as theatre companies are springing up.

At Singular Sensation, we have a platform that is safe and supportive to all artists and for all artists, but our goal is to show how the arts are transformative. We’ve had guests on from Broadway and from Mirvish, but we are also reaching out to the newer companies that did not exist when I graduated from Sheridan but have every right to have their voices heard.

To be transformed, we have to listen more to each other and to hear each other’s voice.

The late Zoe Caldwell spoke about how actors should feel danger in the work. It’s a solid and swell thing to have if the actor/artist and the audience both feel it. Would you agree with Ms. Caldwell? Have you ever felt danger during this time of Covid and do you believe it will somehow influence your work when you return to the theatre?

Danger is a big word here. I wonder when she had said this because words and context can mean so much given what has happened.

This is a really tricky question. I would prefer to use the word ‘thrilling’ rather than ‘danger’. I feel danger has a real connotation to it whereas thrilling – movies are called thrillers, they’re not called dangers, but there is danger in thrillers.

This is a touchy subject for me to answer as the world we know right now is in danger of all sorts. In my understanding, I wouldn’t agree because we are in a time right now where we are examining verbiage and position. It’s too easily misunderstood right now. Thrilling feels more responsible to me during this time instead of using danger.

I’ve felt danger many times during Covid but that danger feels like that I might lose my home or will I be able to afford my home or pay for my taxes. If I claim CERB and yes we have to pay it back but this has real endangering consequences and circumstances for some artists. The time we’re living in now is dangerous, and theatre is supposed to be an escape but now, in Covid, why do I want to be reminded in a theatrical piece about danger if I know I’m living in endangering circumstances.

This is a polarizing question because I have felt danger during Covid because we went from seeing empty shelves at Walmart to many of us not taking this time seriously about wearing or not wearing a mask. We live in a world steeped in danger right now.

When we understood the world or some of it, then we could be enticed with danger since our world wasn’t in danger. I can see the want for theatre to feel dangerous when the world is not in danger as a general state of being. Right now, people want to feel nostalgia, comfort, and joy rather than be reminded of the danger. Danger has visceral consequences whereas theatre shouldn’t. That’s the polarity of the question for me.

When I emerge from this pandemic, my partner and I are leaving for sunnier destinations. (Jennifer laughs). Seriously, we’re focusing on ‘Singular Sensation’ right now as our immediate future. For us, we really want this show to stay past Covid in order to bring the struggle of the artist. If we aren’t able to understand what is happening in our industry, that is dangerous. Hopefully ‘Singular Sensation’ can offer a life raft and place things in a succinct platform to offer insight.

The danger in theatre is not evolving and when we come back, hopefully, we will be aware of those issues that might be troublesome or a potential hazard. The danger is being stagnant.

The late scenic designer Ming Cho Lee spoke about great art opening doors and making us feel more sensitive. Has this time of Covid made you sensitive to our world and has it made some impact on your life in such a way that you will bring this back with you to the theatre?

To be completely honest, it’s what has helped ‘Singular’ in the resonance of our show, in our work, in having these conversations.

In the beginning we identified with the fact that yes we wanted artists to come on ‘Singular’, but we’re also cognizant of the fact that an artist will also be reminded of the fact he/she/they have lost work as well. It’s complicated and heavy and we never know where someone is at.

At ‘Singular’ we’re trying to be sensitive and cognizant and aware of the loss of the artist when they are invited; however, we understand everyone is at a different place so if the artist only wants to chat and not perform, that’s perfectly fine as well. No pressure. We are being sensitive in the way we conduct our show. That’s a big part of our mandate.

In having this sensitivity, we’ve been able to have 20 episodes of the show and not pressure artists not to be anything other than who they are at that moment.

In my producing, mentoring and coaching I try to be in tune with other artists. I have anxiety myself so I find that I’m extra sensitive to people’s needs because there are days when I struggle. It’s tricky. We’re going mental health shows right now which comes from a place of sensitivity. It’s important people feel comfortable and not have to present if they don’t have that desire.

We can’t be so product driven right now. We have to be sensitive to ourselves and each other. And I hope this brings us to a more compassionate and humane industry when we emerge from Covid.

Again, the late Hal Prince spoke of the fact that theatre should trigger curiosity in the actor/artist and the audience. Has Covid sparked any curiosity in you about something during this time? Has this time away from the theatre sparked further curiosity for you when you return to this art form?

I’m very curious as to how all of this revolution will be put into practice. I feel we are coming up to this understanding of what is this renaissance going to look like.

We’re speaking out about things that don’t work, systems that are in place that do not work, so let’s fix that and how is it going to be applied.

I’m really curious to see how this is all going to be done. We’ve had so many glimpses of what that renaissance will look like through ‘Singular’, through conversations with our guests, even pre-conversations before recording.

How will this transformation, this pause, this new understanding be practically applied? And what kind of industry will we come back to after all this? I’m really curious about it, and how to implement it.

I think it’s needed. It’s going to change the theatre experience. We have the opportunity for more people to see themselves represented on stage which is so important. People are speaking up and are being brave and courageous.

What is the ‘Last Supper’ painting of the theatre industry going to look like? We have the potential to change the game and I hope we do. I hope Covid is not for nothing. I hope this pause is for nothing and to allow us to open our minds and hearts a bit more and go in a new direction where people feel safer, valued, included, heard and seen and that the audience feels valued in that.

To connect with Jennifer at Instagram: @jeniwallsto and the handle for her show Singular Sensation is @singular_senation.

“Be kind, but humble. Be rigorous in whatever ways make you feel jazzed.”

Jesse LaVercombe’s appearance in Sarah Ruhl’s Letters from Max, a ritual was a moving experience I will never forget. Staged by Necessary Angel, the production was the Canadian premiere of the play (based on the book) by the playwright and MacArthur Fellow Ruhl and her student Max Rivto.  Directed by Alan Dilworth, the production featured Maev Beaty as Ruhl and LaVercombe as Rivto.

The play is an epistolary journey between Ruhl and Rivto. Their correspondence, through letters, cards, and email, was marked by humour, urgency, and humanity. The catch that hit close to home for me? Max Ritvo Ewing sarcoma, a rare form of pediatric cancer, had returned. LaVercombe’s performance of a young man cut down in the prime of his life by this disease rang clear, accurate and genuine.

LaVercombe returns to the stage once again this month. He will appear with actor/artist Ahmed Moneka in the award-winning hybrid theatre production King Gilgamesh (and the Man of the Wild) for a three-week engagement at Soulpepper Theatre in Toronto’s Distillery District. A co-production with Soulpepper and TRIA Theatre, Gilgamesh was an audience- and critic favourite. Moneka, LaVercombe and Seth Bockley wrote it. The production was nominated for five Dora Awards in 2023, winning in the category of Outstanding Music and Sound.

Seth Bockley, a New York City-based artist, directs the upcoming production. The production seamlessly merges the ancient Mesopotamian Epic of Gilgamesh with a modern story of an unlikely bromance set in Toronto.

Recently, I had an email conversation with LaVercombe to learn more about him and his part in Toronto’s theatre industry.

LaVercombe trained at Montréal’s National Theatre School and The Canadian Film Centre. Graduating from the school and emerging from the Film Centre, he loved acting and felt fortunate to be able to do it. But he wasn’t at all convinced that theatre was somehow vital to its audience.

That realization brought him to what Covid did to the theatre:

“Since Covid’s isolation, since phones have done a serious number on our attention spans, and since the fad of thinking that we cannot understand each other passed our differences took hold…Now I think theatre may be more vital than it’s been in a very long time, and I’m proud to be a part of it.”

Jesse isn’t reluctant to state that he has so many mentors from whom he still learns all the time. Coming out of the National Theatre School, Jesse’s most formative teacher was Adam Lazarus. They continued to work together on the short horror one-person play, Preacher Man, that he made with Adam at the theatre school. Adam then directed Jesse’s first one-act, one-person play, Love Me Forever, Billy H. Tender. Lazarus taught Jesse the primacy of the performer-audience relationship. According to Jesse, Lazarus’s humour is fearless, his heart is big, and he may quite possibly be insane, all of which is still inspirational to this day.

Does Jesse have words of advice for youthful actors who want to pursue this sometimes-tenuous industry?

“Be kind, but humble. Be rigorous in whatever ways make you feel jazzed.”

Is the theatre profession worth the effort and time for the hopeful performing arts graduates?

“If it’s [the profession] not really fun, at least some of the time, then no, I don’t think that it’s worth your effort and time.”

How does he feel about Gilgamesh opening soon?

“Pumped, bro. So many people didn’t get to see it last time, so we’re here to fix that.”

Jesse then shared a brief description of the Epic of Gilgamesh so that upcoming audiences will have some knowledge of the tale.

It is an ancient Mesopotamian poem recounting the adventures of Gilgamesh, the tyrant King of Uruk. Gilgamesh is challenged by Enkidu, a wild man sent by the Gods. Instead of remaining enemies, the two become close friends and embark on heroic quests such as slaying the forest guardian Humbaba and battling the divine Bull of Heaven. When Enkidu dies, Gilgamesh is devastated. His grief drives him to seek immortality, only to learn that no one escapes death. In the end, Gilgamesh returns to Uruk, transformed, realizing that true immortality lies in building a meaningful life and leaving a lasting legacy.

Moneka will play Gilgamesh, and LaVercombe will play Enkidu.

What was the play’s genesis?

Jesse met Ahmed at Driftwood Theatre (under Artistic Director Jeremy Smith). Moneka was an Artist in Residence for Driftwood, having recently arrived in Canada unexpectedly from Iraq. LaVercombe was a Writer in Residence working on (what he calls): “a three-act play about addiction and religion that was very ambitious and never really came close to making any sense at all.”

LaVercombe recalls with fondness how, at a cabin weekend with the company, his and Ahmed’s stoned eyes met across the fire while Ahmed sang and played the daf. Later, the two of them talked about working together. Ahmed wanted to create a theatre piece about Saint-Exupéry’s The Little Prince. When Ahmed first started talking about that story, he began referring to the Epic of Gilgamesh instead. That sounded pretty darn cool to Jesse. He then introduced Ahmed to Seth Bockley via Zoom. Bockley liked the vibe from these two guys. He told them to interview each other about some of the themes of the play – mainly death and sex – and then the three of them (now TRIA THEATRE) started meeting up in different cities in what Jesse calls: writing, creating, fucking around, getting to know each other, falling in love, etc.

Now, eight years later, here they are ready to open King Gilgamesh again.

What message does Jesse hope audiences will take away from seeing the production?

He quotes a line written by Seth that appears in the production:

“Eat good things – lamb and pomegranates – dance and make music, night and day. Feast and rejoice. Wear beautiful clothes, take long hot baths, cherish the children who hold your hand, and make love to your wife. That’s the best you can do. And honestly, it’s pretty good.”

This cheeky response makes me smile.

As we concluded our conversation, I asked, ‘What’s next for Jesse?’

He’s going to spend the winter living in a cabin in Michigan with his ‘kick-ass’ 90-year-old grandmother Judith Guest in his stage adaptation of her novel Ordinary People. Yes, that novel and film with Timothy Hutton, Mary Tyler Moore, Donald Sutherland and Judd Hirsch.

King Gilgamesh plays at Toronto’s Distillery District in the Michael Young Centre for the Performing Arts, 50 Tank House Lane. Presented by Soulpepper and TRIA THEATRE, performance dates are September 13 – October 5, 2025. For tickets: soulpepper.ca or call (416) 866-8666.

I’ve seen some of the extraordinary work from The Stratford Festival in which Jessica performed: Mother’s Daughter, All My Sons and one of my favourites: ‘The Crucible’

Jessica is an actor and writer. She holds a BA from McGill University in English Theatre Studies and is a graduate of Stratford Festival’s Birmingham Conservatory for Classical Theatre. She has been a member of the Stratford Festival for the last five seasons. Performing lead roles in The Comedy of Errors, Brontë: The World Without and Mother’s Daughter, and appearing in The Crucible, Paradise Lost, The Changeling, All My Sons, and Bunny. When Covid closed the theatres last March, she was entering her sixth season with the Festival and preparing to play Lady Anne in Richard III and Helena in All’s Well That Ends Well.

Film and TV credits include The Boys, What We Do In The Shadows, Slaxx, On the Basis of Sex, and Hero: The Life and Times of Ulric Cross. She’s a recipient of the Mary Savidge Award that recognizes an actress who has shown outstanding dedication to her craft.

Fluently bilingual, she works both in English and French in theatre, voice, film, and television.

Her first play, The Dark Lady, is currently being co-developed with Shakespeare in the Ruins and The Stratford Festival, with support from the Manitoba Association of Playwrights and Shakespeare on the Saskatchewan. It imagines a modern take on Emilia Bassano, the woman who allegedly inspired Shakespeare’s Dark Lady sonnets. The idea began as an intertextual poetry reading put on as part of the outdoor Here for Now Theatre Festival in Stratford, last summer.

We conducted our conversation through Zoom. Thank you once again, Jessica, for the opportunity to hear and to listen to your voice about these important issues.

In a couple of months, we will be coming up on one year where the doors of live theatre have been shuttered. How have you been faring during this time? Your immediate family?

(a frustrated sigh first from her)…Let’s go with okay. I think we’ve been very, very lucky. My immediate family and I are healthy. We’re taking every precaution we can navigating through this. Of course, we get cabin fever, we get bored and sometimes depressed and frustrated but we’re getting better at dealing with it and helping each other deal with it.

Sometimes it’s as easy as, “Oh, let’s go for a walk”, and other times it takes a bit more time. It comes in waves; I think everyone is starting to feel that. It’s not always easy to stay focused or motivated but I feel very, very lucky that I have my family nearby here in Montreal. The curfew is still in place here. We’ve don’t have any real reason to leave the house after 8 pm here in Montreal so that hasn’t really affected us, but it’s more the idea of the curfew which is sometimes hard.

How have you been spending your time since the theatre industry has been locked up tight as a drum?

Oh, boy, okay. I guess I should start from the top. Well, the first few months of spring were terrible. We had been going full speed ahead in rehearsals at Stratford and suddenly it honestly felt like slamming into a brick wall. It was shock. It took a while to overcome and to get my bearings back.

What really saved me creatively was suddenly having to write a play on a tight deadline. The Here for Now Festival is based in Stratford. They reached out to me in June, I think, and asked if I had something I was working on they’d like to present for the small outdoor crowd in July. They were banking on the fact we could still gather outside, and I had nothing, but I said, Yes, anyway.

Whether it was Insanity, depression or yearning, and I spent a month pouring myself into an idea I guess I always been thinking about but never crystallized into a proper idea, but now I had the time to delve into the script.

It was a really interesting time because the Here for Now Festival in Stratford was probably one of the first outdoor performances coming out of lockdown, and everyone was still feeling quite tentative. We got to perform the script four times to this amazing and generous crowd of people, just the sweetest audience, so so generous.

I think that was the spark I needed to keep the fire burning for me. It reminded me of how important and special it was to gather, that magic of sharing an experience with an audience. I thought, “Well, just because I can’t perform doesn’t mean I can’t work.” This idea of writing and generating the work allowed me to work on my craft in an exciting new way and to develop as an artist even if I can’t perform. Just because there is no performance doesn’t mean there is no theatre.

The late Hal Prince described the theatre as an escape for him. Would you say that Covid has been an escape for you or would you describe this near year long absence from the theatre as something else?

I wouldn’t call it an escape. A break from performance, but theatre, storytelling and ideas are everywhere all the time.

I use the word ‘reflection’ or in French we use the word ‘ressourcement’, the idea of returning back to sources of inspiration. Covid has given us a lot of time to reflect, to take stock, and to contemplate and replenish our creativity as much as we can. We never wish for this much time between gigs as we always have this frenetic pace in going from one job to the next. So, it’s un-stabilizing to have this much time and uncertainty.

Since we’ve been given this time, I can’t help but want to use it as best I can.

I’ve interviewed a few artists several months ago who said that the theatre industry will probably be shut down and not go full head on until at least 2022. There may be pockets of outdoor theatre where safety protocols are in place. What are your comments about this? Do you think you and your colleagues/fellow artists will not return until 2022?

I can’t make that call as I have no idea. I’d love for this to be wrong and to be pleasantly surprised.

If Covid has taught us anything, there’s nothing set in stone, right? I think it’ll be bumpy and lopsided as we return. We’re not all in the same boat, but we’re in the same storm. Because of the fluctuating protocols and case numbers and vaccine roll outs now, some theatres might re-open before others. There’ll probably be a game of stop and start as well, so I don’t think we can see it as a linear path just yet.

I had a discussion recently with an Equity actor who said that yes theatre should not only entertain but, more importantly, it should transform both the actor and the audience. How has Covid transformed you in your understanding of the theatre and where it is headed in a post Covid world?

Transformed is the word, but it’s a metamorphosis. It’s a feeling of the experience itself before it becomes wisdom (if that makes any sense), knowing something is important while it’s happening but not quite sure what part of the story you should be holding onto.

I feel like I’m a completely different person from whom I was last March, and I’m sure I’m not the only one who says that.

The most important coming out of this, for me, is a sense of responsibility. I’ve been thinking a lot about the stories we tell in the theatre and how we choose to tell them. What is that responsibility that comes next?

We’ve been given this time to re-imagine what theatre is and can be. It’s going to be transcendent.

The late Zoe Caldwell spoke about how actors should feel danger in the work. It’s a solid and swell thing to have if the actor/artist and the audience both feel it. Would you agree with Ms. Caldwell? Have you ever felt danger during this time of Covid and do you believe it will somehow influence your work when you return to the theatre?

Well, the danger should be in the work, and not in the reality. For the work to be dangerous, we have to feel trust, security and safety in the rehearsal space. No good theatre will come out of actors fearing for their lives or for their loved ones.

This also ties into how do we come back with precautions on how to return as safely as we can. It’s going to take time probably to feel safe again.

I think the fear, the grief, the isolation, the frustration, that sense of danger you’re talking about, can’t help but make its way into an artist’s work, the ethos, I’m not sure how yet as we’re still in the thick of it, but I’ll have to see where and how it comes.

The optimist in me wants to think that all that danger we’re living through will help create the most extraordinary and electric and profoundly intimate art. After months and months of isolation, watching people connect on stage will be healing and exhilarating.

The late scenic designer Ming Cho Lee spoke about great art opening doors and making us feel more sensitive. Has this time of Covid made you sensitive to our world and has it made some impact on your life in such a way that you will bring this back with you to the theatre?

I had trouble with this question….Hmmmmm….. There’s an openness that I felt; this willingness to just let the feelings do their thing – to be vulnerable, authentic, ugly, brutally honest. And it’s a realization, upon a realization, upon a realization that you can only really live in the present moment.

I keep thinking of Rilke’s poem: “Let everything happen/Beauty and terror/Just keep going/No feeling is final.” It’s all material; it’s all raw – the stuff of what you can build out of (if that makes sense). It’s all raw material that you can source from later on.

I’m already a sensitive person to begin with. I’m a hugger and I don’t just hug out of formality. I need to feel a connection to the other person. I need to feel that fleeting moment of a shared presence like, ‘Yah, that’s here.”

Hugs might be gone for awhile. We’re going to have to open ourselves for a new definition of theatre when we get back because it’s going to take time. Outdoor theatre is where it starts.

Again, the late Hal Prince spoke of the fact that theatre should trigger curiosity in the actor/artist and the audience. Has Covid sparked any curiosity in you during this time? Has this time away from the theatre sparked further curiosity for you when you return to this art form?

Oh, hugely so because I’ve always wanted to write and I’ve never given myself the time to do so. The fall and winter has been developing my curiosity in my playwright’s voice. I’m developing a whole other side and artistic practice.

It’s all curiosity. It is what has been keeping me going and getting curious about connection between different art forms, about different sources of inspiration and letting ideas bounce off each other. Things that don’t necessarily connect are now interconnecting in ways I hadn’t thought possible which surprise me and excite me.

There’s so much baggage from Covid. It’s isolated us as a community, everything from meeting each other to practicing what we love. There’s so much time right now to get curious about things and that’s the silver lining to this whole thing of Covid.

When things get going again, I still want to hold onto that feeling of openness in being curious about other things. I’m back into drawing and sketching.

Follow Jessica on Instagram: @jessicabhill AND Twitter: @bhilljessica

Follow Jessica on her website: www.jessicabhill.com.

It was Carey Nicholson, Artistic Director of Port Perry’s Theatre on the Ridge, who encouraged me to reach out to Jewelle Blackman for a conversation. As soon as Carey mentioned Jewelle’s name, I remembered this lady who was the Assistant Director for ‘Jesus Christ Superstar’ in Oshawa, Ontario, Canada several years ago. In an email Jewelle sent to me, she told me she was considering looking into directing at that time and found the experience of working on ‘Superstar’ at the Oshawa Little Theatre a ‘great experience’.

Jewelle appeared in the Tony/Grammy winning original Broadway company of Hadestown playing the role of “Fate”. She is now playing the role of Persephone in the Broadway company.

I won’t spoil her answer here in what was happening when the Broadway theatres were closed. She is a multi-talented artist from Toronto who has played the violin for more than 30 years and graduated from Queen’s University with a Double Major in Music & Film. She also completed a Summer Performance Certificate Program at Berklee College of Music.

Other favourite credits include The Who’s Tommy (Acid Queen); Jacques Brel is Alive and Well and Living in Paris (Jewelle) both at the Stratford Shakespeare Festival; We Will Rock You (Teacher); The Lion KIng (Nala/Shenzi) Mirvish; The Wizard of Oz (Mrs. Banks) Young Peoples Theatre; Dreamgirls (Deena Jones) The Grand Theatre/Stage West. Film/TV: Nine Lives; The Coroner; Kim’s Convenience; Shadowhunters.

We conducted our interview via email:

It has been an exceptionally long five months since we’ve all been in isolation, and now it appears the numbers are edging upward again. How are you feeling about this? Will we ever emerge to some new way of living in your opinion?

I’m trying to take it day by day. If I try to plan too far ahead it becomes somewhat overwhelming because how can I plan for the future when the present is so uncertain and unpredictable? Covid has been around a lot longer than I think any of us truly expected and there is no definite end in sight at this point in time.

That’s a lot to swallow.

Will we emerge to a new way of living? We already are, aren’t we? We’re all adapting as best we can and navigating the unknown some days with more hope than despair. The situation is fluid.

As I always say the only thing constant is change.

How have you been faring? How has your immediate family been doing during these last six months?
Some days good, some days not so good. March and April were particularly difficult. But early on I participated in a virtual group mediation group which I think really helped to calm me and force me to look at and approach life with a new eyes.

My immediate family have already remained healthy which I am very grateful for. I have also been navigating a lot of personal changes which greatly affect my son and myself. But we are all here still thriving.

As an artist within the performing arts community, what has been the most difficult and challenging for you professionally and personally?

I would say being seen, recognized and appreciated as an artist. People have their opinions of you and what your limits are based on your sex or for me, specifically my race. It feels like a constant battle at times.

Personally, this affects how I view myself and my worth. I’m working on this because regardless I should feel strong and confident in my value regardless of what others think or believe.

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?

Well as I was on Broadway in Hadestown’, I will never forget March 12. I was in the middle of my last understudy rehearsal for the role of “Persephone”. My put-in was the following day along with another understudy and the producers literally walked in on us and announced the news. We were all shocked…I think we all knew and felt that something was going to happen, but the reality of it all struck really hard.

I believe that Broadway will re-open again and Hadestown will be there in full force, and I will get to bring my “Persephone” to life….I just don’t know when.

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

Hanging out with my 9-year-old son Zion. Working on my own passion projects. Hanging with my family. Supporting the “Black Lives Matter” movement…. And walks…I take lots of walks to clear my head when it begins to feel like too much. I’ve also done quite a few online performances. Oh, and auditioning for film/tv quite a bit.

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 given the fact live theaters and studios might be closed for 1 ½ – 2 years?

Spring will come again….this pause is an opportunity to really focus on what about this business really fuels you. What can you do to change it and make it a more just and equitable and comfortable space for all performers. Especially your colleagues and friends of colour.

Theatre will re-emerge and thrive…but the goal should not be to go back to before but to go forward with the intention of change.

Do you see anything positive stemming from Covid 19?

Personally, this has given me so much more time with my son which is so valuable and that I am entirely grateful for. On a global level it has definitely seen the rise of voices that have been silenced for so long the opportunity to be heard, and also the chance for people to reflect on how their own actions in the past may have been hurtful or detrimental to others.

Do you think Covid 19 will have some lasting impact on the Toronto/Canadian/North American performing arts scene?

I think more care and concern will be given to what stories are shared on stages and that it is not white male-dominated any longer on stage, behind the scenes and in boardrooms….that is my hope.
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?

If it works for you definitely do it. If it feeds your soul do it. Just remember to get compensated. This is your gift and your craft and your career. It has value and it has worth and should not be consumed for free.
Donating your art is one thing but being paid for a service that is provided should also not be ignored.

Despite all this fraught tension and confusion, what is it about performing that Covid will never destroy for you?

The ability to create.

The ability to share.

No matter the size of the audience…there is a feeling that nothing, not even Covid can dampen.

You can follow Jewelle on social media :@elleshelley on Instagram AND @jewelleblackman on Twitter.

Jillian Keiley was the former Artistic Director of the English Theatre of Ottawa’s National Arts Centre who has led an illustrious career in the theatre.

She is an award-winning director from St. John’s, Newfoundland, and founder of Artistic Fraud of Newfoundland. Jillian has directed and taught across Canada and internationally. She assumed her role as the Artistic Director of Ottawa’s National Arts Centre, English Theatre, in 2012, and her productions there have included A Christmas Carol, Twelfth Night, Oil and Water and Alice through the Looking Glass.

Thank you, Jillian, for participating in this series as On Stage appreciates you taking the time in your busy schedule:

We’re over the four-month mark now with most places entering Stage 3. How have you been faring during this time? How has your immediate family been doing during this time?

Through a series of unlikely circumstances, I ended up in Newfoundland, where I’m from, at the very beginning of the pandemic and I haven’t left since. I live on a farm when I am here, and I get to spend time with old friends and my family, so I consider myself really lucky. The first few months were hard on my daughter, but now she is able to spend time with a few friends, so we are ok. Thanks for asking!

As a performer, what has been the most difficult and challenging for you professionally and personally?

I’m not a performer but as a someone who works very closely with performers I am really worried about my colleagues. We are losing some extremely valuable colleagues right now and it’s such a loss. We are working on making opportunities for audiences to re-engage in live performing arts again in a really serious way – and I hope we have at least a few more COVID Friendly works on the way in the very near future.

I recognize how lucky I am to have a contract that keeps me deeply engaged and employed right now. I hope I am using this time to help make things a bit brighter for some other artists.

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 loading in for a beautiful production of ‘Copenhagen’ when it all came down around us. I’m sorry about that, it was a challenging, strangely beautiful version of the show, that surprised me in its emotional content. Everything is ready to go if we are ever able to remount it. I hope we can.

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

At work we have been reinventing what we imagine theatre to be. Challenging our internal systems of white supremacy, reading, learning. All of that is deeply personal work, and work on behalf of the institution. Outside of that and the also large job of being a mother, I learned how to make good snowballs (the coconut and cocoa kind) and powerballs (the prune and mixed nut kind) and peanut butter balls (the oats and peanut butter kind) and I learned how to do a herring bone braids and fancy buns for my hair which is good because I can’t find a hairdresser who’ll take a new client.

Otherwise I spend a lot of every day trying to do things in the theatre and undo things in the theatre. It’s been a greater labour than I’ve experienced in a long time, probably ever. I’m never bored.

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 given the fact live theaters and studios might be closed for 1 ½ – 2 years?

I’d suggest to them that they go make something. Somehow. And keep making the things. And then when someone has money sometime, they will say, “Hey that young person –they make things! Go ask them!”

I find myself a lot of the time, seeking out people who are doing cool things that cost little in materials but were ingenious theatrical acts. Sometimes it is in theatres, sometimes it is posted to the internet. People who have contracts and grants to award eventually do find out who the people are who are doing things in towns and cities and communities. The people who are shining, especially shining despite these hard circumstances are so valuable.

When I was younger we had no money to advertise this one show, but I knew someone who had an in at the hospital laundry, and I knew that they had these bags and bags of torn sheets going to the garbage on the regular. So to advertise the show, I got about 20 friend who pulled their shirts down and their pants up and made a giant toga parade using this sewn together band of old hospital sheets with the name of the show painted on it. It certainly brought a lot of attention to the show! I don’t recommend doing anything with hospital sheets these days but… .I’m always personally on the lookout for people who are willing to go the extra mile.

Do you see anything positive stemming from Covid 19?

I think the wakeup call of Black Lives Matter and addressing white supremacy in the arts is a tidal shift that will never let us return to where we were before. It’s a very positive shift. I hope we can see real change and I hope I am allowed to be some part of that change.

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?

I don’t love it. I believe theatre has ritual around it, and I believe that there is a deeper spiritual aspect to it that disappears online. But I have appreciated the educational opportunities of watching shows online. I have tuned in to shows from theatres I haven’t been to before, and that’s interesting.

But I am really, really looking forward to being with people experiencing some art and going through the spiritual, ritualistic aspect of theatre again.

Despite all this fraught tension and confusion, what is it about performing that Covid will never destroy for you?

I love the creativity and resilience of performers. We have performers still doing their things on line, in cars, in drive ins, on roof tops, over the radio, in parking lots, in theatres with unprofitable configurations in the audience, for one person at a time, for pairs, for plants. Storytellers, mythmakers, meaning and metaphor purveyors- are simply amazing. You just can’t keep them down.

As 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?

Yes (and here’s how)

2. What is your least favourite word?

No (and here’s why)

3. What turns you on?

Good puppetry.

4. What turns you off?

Men who talk over women who are already talking.

5. What sound or noise do you love?

My kid laughing.

6. What sound or noise bothers you?

Harleys with holes in the muffler.

7. What is your favourite curse word?

Gentle Jesus

What is your least favourite curse word?

Bullshit

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

I would like to go into palliative care, or Funeral planning. I’m a fairly upbeat person, but I feel like the dying aspect of living is not done well in our society and I think I could help. I used to do something like it years ago, and I felt useful.

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

A Butcher

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

“You used up 98% of it, girl! That’s pretty good!”

Jim Millan has had quite the diverse career in the theatre and beyond, and his work has taken him to some places that I would love to see one day.

I knew he had founded Toronto’s Crow’s Theatre and directed some productions there, but I had no idea of how extensive his work has been. He has directed comedy, dramas, magic and musicals on 5 continents in 38 countries in 17 languages and premiered over 185 new works in his career.

Jim has a long series of innovative creations in theatre, comedy, magic and variety that has taken him from Canada to the West End to Radio City Music Hall, Las Vegas, Broadway and beyond. His unique talent is in demand as director, writer, producer, deviser of diverse and unique new entertainments built on his decades of experience in the traditional and less traditional theatre.

In the 90’s Crow’s Theatre had produced the Best Play winner at Toronto’s Dora awards 4 out of 6 years. During this period Jim made his reputation directing such daring plays as Unidentified Human Remains and the True Nature of Love, Come Good Rain, High Life, The Chet Baker Project, Dali and others. Praise for Crow’s Theatre and Jim Millan included USA Today calling it “everything theatre should be, dangerous, daring and disturbing.” He directed the Canadian premieres of Hedwig and the Angry Inch, Shopping and F*cking and numerous other revolutionary new works from New York and London. Crow’s Theatre in Toronto has continued to thrive under new stewardship and is now a multi-million-dollar hub of cutting-edge theatre. He also was one of the founders of the Toronto Fringe and Crow’s was its corporate parent in the first year.

Outside of his company, Jim began a decades-long collaboration directing the Kids in the Hall comedy group, which started in 2000. This work brought him to the attention of US producers. Five North American tours and special headlining performances have kept the 1990s comedy icons in the public eye, and they are now writing a new AMAZON TV series.

Among his more explosive creations, Jim teamed with Adam Savage and Jamie Hyneman to create Mythbusters Live, which sold out across North America and toured Australia and New Zealand multiple times.

Among his favourite experiences, he worked alongside Teller and Todd Robbins on Play Dead off Broadway, Mexico City and at the Geffen in LA.

Another large-scale adventure was as the original Creative Director for The Illusionists, which opened in New York City in December 2014 and set an all-time record for a magic show on Broadway.

As a comedy writer/director he created with his comedy partners SPANK: the 50 Shades parody which played over 400 cities and it has been produced in Australia and Poland. Jim’s love of comedy and unique entertainments were displayed in Off Broadway hits, The Marijuana-Logues with Doug Benson, Arj Barker, Tony Camin and Tommy Chong, and the Korean martial arts comedy Jump.

Jim is also in demand as a creative consultant, having stepped in on SPIDERMAN: Turn off the Dark on Broadway working with Bono, Edge, writer Glen Berger and the creative team to help save the biggest musical in Broadway history. It ran for 3 years after its revamp.

He is also a creative producer of the Governor General’s Awards Gala in Ottawa (which are Canada’s Kennedy Centre Honours). Past entertainers he has celebrated at the awards include Michael J. Fox, Martin Short, Sandra Oh, Andrew Alexander, Catherine O’Hara and Ryan Reynolds

In development for the next twelve months, he has a play he co-wrote and will direct based on the book The Darkest Dark, by Astronaut Chris Hadfield, that premieres at Young People’s Theatre when possible. He is also collaborating with Lucy Darling on a new TV comedy and also with Penn and Teller for a touring project inspired by their TV show Fool Us.

We conducted our conversation via Zoom.

Thank you so much for adding your voice to this important discussion about the evolving world of live theatre in a post pandemic world, Jim:

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.

I see the fragility of the world we’ve all lived in up to this point differently. Lots of us tended to tie our self-worth to our work, our status, that things are either progressing or regressing in our work lives. That work was disproportionately important in what many of us thought success or happiness or contentment was.

I’ve got a teen daughter and a pre-teen son as well. What became very clear was that the pandemic gave me a pause to see where I really was in my life and where my kids were in their lives.

My work has been international for quite a while, so there have been times where I’ve been away three or four months during the year. And so I am grateful for this time and this has felt grounding to be here at home and to help the family and other people who need it.

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?

Well, when we come back, the gatekeepers will have changed. A lot of the organizations will have had to do a lot of soul searching. And so, we will have the traditional crisis of live theatre, which is how do you balance all of the challenges of attracting an audience, building an audience, making an audience care and balance it with the influx of new priorities and realignment of so many of our assumptions. To me, that’s an exciting time.

There’s going to be a lot of people who don’t come back. There will be a lot of people who will step away, both audience and artists. I think there will be a huge attrition in the audience attendance. I was an Artistic Director in Toronto after SARS. At that point, before SARS happened, you could have 6 or 8 hit plays going on in Toronto that would be sold out. There’d be a review in the newspaper and the next day the first half of the run would be sold out because people would just get on the phone and know that if they wanted to catch that production, they would have to be quick or there might be limited availability ‘til such and such a day. Well, that went away. We’d lost the habit. I hope it’s the opposite and there is instead a pent up thirst.

That’s a little bit of weather forecasting and the one thing the pandemic has taught us: we don’t know anything. An image that I have nostalgia for is that lots of theatres around the planet have things are set on stage exactly the way they were on March 13, 2020. Costumes on hangers in the wings, things in dressing rooms, props on tables, sets; we didn’t come back as quickly as we hoped.

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

I miss the people.

I realized a number of years ago that one of the skills or changes I’ve observed in myself is that I’m a better collaborator than I’ve ever been. And because being in this business for a while is humbling, and it’s energizing and defeating and you certainly learn, if you’re fortunate enough to be able to work with great people, that the experience, the journey of making something is equal to whatever the output is, if not more important to you as a person.

And so, I miss that adventure terribly. Also, I think when all of the things converge correctly that honest exploration, that adventure process you go through with the other people ends up, no matter how exhausting it is, giving you a lot more than you put in because of the sum of the energy of the group.

I just miss people. I miss the fun of it. I miss the laughter. I miss rehearsal halls. I miss having a problem that’s insurmountable, and then gifted people working together, take it apart, parcel it out, solve it, surprise each other and then you go on.

A big challenging production is like the film version of ‘Lord of the Rings’. A huge number of small incidents, victories and defeats and somehow just getting to the end without too many people dying along the way is your duty. And pretty exciting.

Crisis reveals character. Some say it builds character and yes, over time that can be true. And what has been interesting to me is that the people who have been able to flourish have found a way to take their creative energy and be of service. That has been a salvation for me. Being of service to my family, to my children, other artists that I know and just community people that have been hit far harder than I have by this storm has been key.

As artists, as this clarifying, challenging time is upon us, when we come back, those of us who are able to come back, will have a greater sense of purpose and perhaps will have refined our values because of what we’ve all been through.

When we get back into a room again, we’ll be looking at all kinds of people who have been traumatized in all kinds of ways. There will be a lot of laughter, a lot of healing. I hope there will be renewed sense of purpose and renewed joy in making things. We’ve been through a storm that has affected all of us differently, and I hope there will be a kindness and generosity of practice. We’ll work on it together.

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?

Being busy. (Jim laughs again)

I’ve been really, really busy for around 20, 30 years. I always knew I was blessed to be that busy and have opportunities and be able to complain about having to travel so much. I also miss working in different situations and cultures with artists whose careers and taste and experiences are vastly different. I love being surrounded by people smarter and wiser than I am. Also, the challenge of making something original with fun people.

Describe one element you hope has changed in the live theatre profession.

Oh, I think it was a tremendously hierarchical organized creative endeavour. That’s not even taking into account the more commercial world I’ve often worked in, in the States and other places.

I hope the assumptions of privilege are shattered – whether that’s white privilege, male privilege, class privilege and the pomposity of some of the folks who having been doing it longer. I’ve long observed that change was coming. This last year, I think, “the theatre” has been shaken to its foundations, which is a good thing.

I don’t think I’m the only person who is curious as to what happens next. As the business of theatre, as the cultural force of theatre re-opens and touring begins (I’ve directed a lot of things that have toured significantly) it will be interesting to see what the audiences choose. Will they go on the new journey being offered by new artistic leadership like the late 60’s and 70s because the work connects with both existing audiences and emerging audiences?

I’m ready to lend a hand. We’ll see.

Crow’s Theatre was born in the second wave of founding of Canadian theatres centered on Canadian voices in the 80s. We were looked at skeptically. Brash new voices.

So I hope this re-emergence will be a new wave of Canadian theatre. I’m ready to help and certainly know a lot of people who are in that world and there will be a time and place. I’d like to spend more time in Canada now. I’m not planning to do as much of traveling as I used to do. Let’s hope that there’s an opportunity for all of us to find ways to support this next wave.

We won’t know what the needs are. The challenges are post-pandemic and that’s why I think it will take a multi-layered effort from not just the artistic community but also the audience, the funders, particularly the philanthropists, the corporations. If we don’t rise to the moment, we’ll see theatre fall back significantly. I think in the short term it will take a lot to get people back, and then it will take very nimble minds and strong backs to carry us through this next period and do the next, ultimate thing – attract young people – to come to see it.

If we’re not getting young people to come to see what we do, then it’ll be the progress of 50 years of significant Canadian theatre production lost. I witnessed Canadian work being culturally important, and not just being a side bar knowing that plays, playwrights and our artists can make a difference.

For that important progress not to be diminished, we need to have a lot of hands on deck.

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

I need to keep lifting up younger artists. I need to keep surprising people and myself. I need to lead by example because the best artists I encountered when I was young were ones able to teach me without it always being necessary to explain themselves. The people that were inspiring were able to talk the talk and walk the walk.

You need to be inspired because art needs to be brave. Artists who last and also keep challenging themselves need to keep having fun, idiotically persevering and be generous of spirit. If we keep playing the game the right way, the next generation will play the right way. It’s not as if the game doesn’t evolve and we don’t evolve, but there’s just something to be said for those who have done it for a while, and to be open hearted to sharing how we do it, humble in the face of it, as it’s been a privilege to be able to do it this long and still have a chance to do it.

My next Toronto-based project is a new play I’ve adapted from one of Chris Hadfield’s books ‘The Darkest Dark’ for Young People’s Theatre. It was supposed to have been on stage and running at this moment if all of our plans had come together. It’s scheduled for when it’s safe for all of us to gather. It’s nice to be doing a show about bravery and courage. It’s certainly got an inspiring message. Magic and wonder are what artists need to accomplish now and always.

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 don’t believe there will be a wave of pandemic plays.

(Jim then laughs and says) I don’t think anybody is going to be doing a lot of those.

I think when the Fringe, which I helped found, happens in person again 15 months from now or whenever that will be, I think the person who gets into the Toronto Fringe by lottery and announces “My Pandemic Days” will have exactly zero people in line to go see it. That’ll be a hard “no” from all of us who lived it. (And Jim laughed again).

I’m very curious to see what some of the writers who have been able to flourish have been up to. I hope those others who have been maintaining their energy and just hanging on will get busy again.

I think it’ll be indirect, and I think there will be a lot of plays about revolution. I think there will be a lot of comedy, which I look forward to. We all are looking forward to some comedies.

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

I think the work was daring. I think my work has a great sense of humour. At least to me, and luckily, some other people think so, too.

A boldness. Creating an honest and challenging question with the form and a playfulness with the audience so the show isn’t just like everything else.

That I did my very best to surprise them.

Jimmy is a member of the Muskeg Lake Cree Nation; he is of Plains Cree and French settler heritage.

Born and raised in Tiohtià:ke/ Montreal, Jimmy graduated from Concordia’s Theatre Performance Program. He is a seasoned stage and film actor. He has worked professionally for over 10 years, for companies like The Stratford Festival, The Centaur, Geordie Productions, Porte Parole and La Licorne. Jimmy’s most notable tv role was playing Watio for five seasons in APTN’s hit series ‘Mohawk Girls’.

Jimmy is also a writer, director, mentor, and coach. He was the Indigenous Artist in Residence for the 2016 Students On Ice Expedition to the Arctic. Jimmy successfully completed the Indigenous Artist In Residence at The National Theatre School of Canada in 2019.

He is the current Artistic Director of Montréal’s Geordie Theatre.

I had the opportunity to interview Jimmy the day after I had seen ‘Celestial Bodies’ which he directed at Toronto’s Young People’s Theatre. My review of this solid production can be found here: https://www.ourtheatrevoice.com/items-7/’celestial-bodies’-by-jacob-margaret-archer

There were at least two school groups in attendance the afternoon I had seen the production. I was curious in wondering what has the reaction been from the school groups in attendance. ‘Celestial Bodies’ which has existed for two years was done as a part of Geordie’s live-stream tour. When the pandemic hit, ‘Celestial Bodies’ was one of the offerings to schools and it could be streamed live.

At YPT, this is the first time the production could be staged for a live audience. Jimmy acknowledged he had received a couple of reports from the Stage Manager and from Molly, the Senior Education Manager at YPT who said she had heard from students whom she followed down the stairs:

“I gotta be honest. That was pretty lit.” (Translation: ‘Lit’ means the students liked it.)

Jimmy jokingly stated from a middle-aged man’s perspective (meaning him), he said it was great to hear.

Blais acknowledges how tough it is to navigate as we are still in the throes of Covid. As an artist himself, Jimmy missed the theatre dearly. There were only so many Zoom readings of plays that could be done. As the Artistic Director of Geordie, he is ecstatically happy stories are being shared once again with audiences and people are back in live theatres watching shows.

He further added:

“I think we’re doing a really good job making sure everyone still feels comfortable. Depending on where audience members are within the country, shows will be offered either as ‘masked only’ performances or patrons will be strongly encouraged to continue wearing them while in the lobby and theatre. The most exciting thing for me as Artistic Director is to ensure we get that exchange of energy back between the actor and the audience.”

Blais felt Geordie Theatre had done a good job in continuing to bring theatre to students during the pandemic. Based in Montréal for the last forty-two years, Geordie has been involved as the longest-running tour theatre in North America. During Covid, Geordie was still live-streaming shows to students in their classrooms. Blais received feedback that students and teachers appreciated the experience of streamed theatre in the classroom, but for him “there’s nothing like getting back into that room and sharing that energy between actor and audience.” The response from students and teachers has been phenomenal as they all wanted to come back to the live setting of the theatre, and teachers wanted Geordie to tour shows to schools.

For Blais, it’s a good sign the demand and need are there to return to a live setting.

‘Celestial Bodies’ is a powerful monologue that deals with body imaging and how young people see themselves regarding it. Do youth experience more challenges regarding their understanding of their body image today compared to twenty-thirty years ago?

Blais paused for a moment to think. He then said yes to the question on account of the pressures of social media. For those of us who are on social media regularly, we are constantly bombarded with images of people taking photos of themselves or posting photos others have taken of them. For Blais, there is this constant comparison that is innate within certain platforms. On top of that, we have crazy apps on our phones that beautify people, that alter the constructs of our faces or ‘slimify’ ourselves or add makeup all to fit what societal standards deem to be beautiful or handsome.

On the flip side of this not holding this much weight, there is a bit of a better understanding of how society does pressure us to think in certain ways, specifically someone like the artist Lizzo. She is popular and has succeeded in carrying herself in a certain way to break down stereotypes of body image empowering youth to try to do the same. In ‘Celestial Bodies’, the character Stella has an athlete parent. Stella is not like her mother at all, and the pressure is on Stella to try and conform to what society dictates, and Stella will not do that.

What is one message that Jimmy hopes all audiences will have gleaned from ‘Celestial Bodies’?:

“It’s important to remember no matter how people or society sees you, our dreams are just as valid as anybody else’s dream.”

What’s next for Jimmy Blais once ‘Celestial Bodies’ concludes its run at Young People’s Theatre?

As Artistic Director of Geordie, there are some things in the works. There is Geordie Theatre Fest, an annual mini-theatre festival running in Montréal that will kick off the week of January 23. Blais also sees co-productions between YPT and Geordie in the future. The two companies are always in conversation about what’s going on in their season since both companies have the same audience base.

‘Celestial Bodies’ continues until December 9 at Toronto’s Young People Theatre.

Early in the pandemic, I spoke with artist Joelle Peters when I was still writing for OnStage Blog about how she was faring in 2020 when we all wondered what was to become of the state of the performing arts. Like all of us, she felt this need for connection through one of the darkest moments that each of us has experienced.

You can read Peters’ first profile here:

https://www.onstageblog.com/profiles/2021/2/1/theatre-conversation-in-a-covid-world-with-joelle-peters

Fast forward three years and Joelle Peters is now one very busy individual who has established many connections since 2020. You can read about her background and training on the Native Earth Performing Arts website: www.nativeearth.ca.

She’s excited yet quite overwhelmed about the return to live theatre even though we are still in Covid’s embrace. In her words: “It’s like Everything Everywhere All At Once: Theatre Version”

What has changed for Joelle since 2020?

She is the Interim Artistic Director for Native Earth Performing Arts making bigger decisions than she was previously. With all this change and adjustment in her career, she’s trying her best not to burn out and also find some time to enjoy the opportunities coming up.

One of these opportunities is her script ‘Niizh’ which opens at the Aki Studio this week. ‘Niizh’ is a coming-of-age comedy. Set on a reserve in Southwestern Ontario, the play follows the youngest of the ‘Little’ family, Lenna Little, who prepares to leave home for the first time. Amid this, she meets Sam Thomas, who has returned to the reserve after many years away.

‘Niizh’ and Joelle have been on quite a journey with a lot of support.

The play began its germination at the Paprika Festival to Native Earth’s Animikiig Creator’s Unit, to the Indigenous Playwright’s Nest at the Banff Centre, a commission from the Blyth Festival and back to Native Earth for a sound workshop. Through the pandemic, a lot of work that went into the script midway, and later in the process, was done online. She felt this was probably the biggest challenge because ‘Niizh’ is a comedy with bits of movement and tons of props. If something landed weird or awkward in a Zoom reading automatically made Joelle feel she might have been a bad playwright and if the script would be ready for an audience.

But thanks to what Joelle calls ‘wonderful’ actors in the rehearsal hall, ‘Niizh’ persevered. The response of the first-read audience was so warm and a huge sigh of relief for her and the story.

What messages does she hope audiences will take away from ‘Niizh’?:

“I’d like the play to remind audiences that it’s okay not to have everything figured out as we are all on our own journey. We can put some big expectations and be kind of hard on ourselves, but it doesn’t have to be that way! “

‘Niizh’ has been a big reminder for Joelle of how intense those feelings were as a young adult – getting ready to go off to college, and how big the world felt at the time. Anything was possible back then. It was all new, scary, and exciting.

I concluded our email conversation on what’s next for Joelle once ‘Niizh’ completes its run at Aki Studio.
She will be off to shoot a television commitment and then will jump back into some Artistic Director responsibilities for Native Earth. And after that, she’s off to make her Stratford Festival debut in ‘Women of the Fur Trade’.

Joelle knows she has a fair amount of juggling artistic responsibilities, but this is the work that she is most excited about. For her, that’s one of the most important goals of life in the theatre.

To learn more about Native Earth Performing Arts and to purchase tickets online for ‘Niizh’ visit: www.nativeearth.ca.

First time I met John Jarvis was many years ago on a Sunday afternoon during an ‘Open Doors Toronto’ where audiences got the chance to speak to several professional theatre artists who graced some of Toronto’s finest stages. The late Al Waxman (CBC’s King of Kensington) led a group of us around to the theatres. I remember sitting in the Bluma Appel listening to John speak about the history of The Bluma Appel and some of the actors who worked on that stage.

I can also recall some of us were given an opportunity to get up on the stage and ‘perform’ a scene with John. He was gracious and kind when volunteers came up on the stage and allowed each of us to have our ‘moment’ there on the Bluma Appel stage which I can recall as huge.

Since then, I’ve seen John’s work in several productions at Toronto’s Soulpepper Theatre including ‘Innocence Lost’, ‘Orlando’, ‘Spoon River’ and ‘Of Human Bondage’, both of which he had the good fortune to perform to great success in New York City. John has also taught acting at George Brown College. Television and film credits include Seasons 6 and 7 of ‘Suits’ and ‘Business Ethics’.

At this moment of writing his profile, I recall with much fondness John’s work in Soulpepper’s ‘A Christmas Carol’ which has become a holiday and Christmas favourite of mine. John has been the narrator in this production since its inception and plays the three Ghosts Scrooge meets on Christmas Eve. I let John know that perhaps we need a little ‘Christmas Carol’ this year to help move us out of the pandemic; ergo, Weyni Mengesha and Luke Reece – please take note this writer would love to see ‘A Christmas Carol’ on the slate again this year (provincial health conditions obviously in place)

John’s recent television and Film include ‘Stockholm’, ‘Suits’ (Season 6 and 7) and ‘Business Ethics’. He also has taught acting at one of Canada’s premier theatre schools, George Brown College.

He studied at Montreal’s National Theatre School of Canada.

We conducted our conversation via Zoom. Thanks again, John, for such a quick interview and turnaround in time:

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.

Initially, I was quite taken aback by the global community recognizing the existential threat of what this was. For probably the first time in the world’s history, so many communities of people agreed to shut down, to cut off, to retreat to their homes. I was quite astounded by that global group activity.

Then the fissures began, and people pushed back, and we’ve had such a very complex result. Friendships have been lost; family members have argued. While I was in Shopper’s Drug Mart today, there was a guy in front of me who was on his phone, and he was quite vehement in his call to someone saying, “No government is going to tell me what to do anytime!”

And I thought, ‘C’mon, it’s the dilemma of Me, and what I want to do.” Or it’s my shared sense of protecting everybody in the group.

I think the group is holding firm and, although we get attacked for being fearful coming to a power of government and this cultural war, I think people have found some strength in Covid that when it comes out the other end there will be a renaissance of ideas and activities. There will be a bursting forth of people wanting to come and see theatre and theatre artists in an expression of joy in wanting to get back on stage.

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.

What I have delighted in is that so many companies, small and large, have put out product of some kind. Profile has been maintained that the artists are developing some kind of theatre to keep the profile of the company in the public view.

But behind the scenes the money they will require to begin again to contract actors and designers and playwrights and the sheer enormity of producing a play, where is that dough going to come from? So far, we haven’t seen too much collapse of companies walking away. I know that some artistic directors have reached certain levels of exhaustion, and some have decided it was time to leave anyway.

I’ll be curious because governments will come to the plate to a certain degree. And for the big companies, where will they get the money? There’s all the will in the world but when a large company says a million dollars is needed, what’s going to happen next?

I haven’t heard the behind-the-scenes despair of the financial departments of theatre companies.

A year ago, many actors, myself included, didn’t have a sound studio or filming studio in their basements. I do voice over work as well, so I had to get an expensive microphone and all the other accoutrements where I now have to do self tapes of lighting and sound and cameras. All actors are their own production company and their own editing suite now.

It’s been active in television and film as there is a 37-page protocol that has allowed production companies to go ahead. It was always ironic that a theatre company was not able to rehearse and film a production of a play. But a film company could rent the theatre, come in and shoot a film or movie. It’s always been a head twister.

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

Well, it’s the flesh and blood. It’s the only card we have on the table that we’ve had for 2000 years.

It’s a piece of human breathing, audio flesh in front of us.

I’ve watched some Zoom plays and have tried to engage as much as I can, but it started to pull away because I just need to see the actors. I want to see the play and watch the spittle come out of their mouths.

My voice teacher said the Greeks had brass urns on top of all the aisles so that the human voice would ring through those brass urns and send pillars into the cosmos to hold the thing together. So, the sound of the human actor is holding it all together.

People will be hungry to hear that sound of a real, live voice.

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?

I remember reading some of the profiles in this series, Joe, and some had some very funny answers.

I’ll never take for granted that the joy of being in front of an audience is a celebration rather than a paranoia of performance or the worry of how I’m doing.

I think all of that worrying now appears to be of little use, and that the chance to just be in front of people is a new psychological entity that I never really thought of, and I’m sure that’s what a lot of actors are saying that they need to be in front of people who will laugh and cry in the way that a story is told.

Because this commonality of Covid that the audience and actor have gone through together, we are equally as hungry to meet each other. Whatever the fourth wall, it will have been of little or no use to people because they know that I haven’t been performing in front of audience, and I know that the audience has been watching television, Netflix or listening to the radio, and that there’s a genuine humility to be with each other again.

I think that will be quite exciting.

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

The discovery that theatre can happen anywhere; it can be on a bicycle zooming by, in a park, on your front lawn, in the driveway. Artists can go up to the balcony of your house; they can make an event happen anytime or anyplace and people will stop and be engaged.

It is interesting through this societal change of Covid with the politics and the social justice issues spinning and boiling, I always thought that the theatre was moving towards this change. Before, many other arts industries were always trying to draw in the diversity of the cities we live in. As a veteran actor myself, the glory days are shifting and there’s new blood coming in, and new energy.

If it takes telling the disparity and the dystopia, and the dilemma that the new culture is finding within the story, that’ll be the stories of the future.

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

In the contemplation many of us have had to think about one’s career, one of the allowances of many hours of time that we’ve had during these last 16 months, you are as good as your last performance. There’s a new play coming up and you have to prepare for that audition and performance.

When Ralph Richardson at 92 was asked about his career, he said, (in a British accent) “Good God, ol’ boy, I’m only halfway through the fucking thing.” (Uproarious laughter from me).

I’ve much more to learn.

With that contemplation, I’ve a new degree of expression that might reveal itself to people and I look forward to seeing what did that year do to one’s emotional world and the capacity to express the worries, the fears.

During these last 16 months, I’ve read some of the great literature – ‘War and Peace’, ‘The Count of Monte Cristo’, ‘Our Mutual Friend’ that had no electricity in it and no sense of what was going to happen in the 20th century. So now that I’ve read about these incredible people in these incredible novels, what’s next.

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 was sitting with my family the other night, and somebody said, “Oh, I bet you when we go back to the theatre that somebody will enter with a mask, and someone says to take the mask off. I don’t want to see a play about Covid.”

I don’t want to see Covid used as a metaphor. I want this story of Covid to be over. I don’t want Covid to be a pivot point into a story.

I want something different. I want a new story. I don’t want anything as a reminder because we’ve all quite had enough.

I’m sure there will be a brilliant playwright who will find a brilliant way of incorporating the lonely person sitting in a basement trying to figure out what to do to tell a story or to engage.

The cultural dilemma of Indigenous Canadians, Caribbean Canadians, Asian Canadians, it is their time to find their stories and to share it with us.

Susan Coyne and Stewart Arnott delivered a beautiful two hander recently on Zoom about a virus. It was really quite beautiful, but we’ve seen enough about Covid. Susan and Stewart have already done it.

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

Ah……….

“John Jarvis did his best. He gave his all.” (He says with a gleeful grin)

In the quiet solitude of the basement, there are great days of remembering performances you loved and cared and gave it your all. And there are days where you think and remember for whatever reason you stumbled through maybe because you weren’t focused, and you know you didn’t give it your all that you should have done.

I would say that I poured my sense of life and my sense of humour, and my sense of joy in people, and I poured it into everything I did.

That’s what I hope future audiences will remember.

John Ng appears next month in the Canadian premiere of ‘The Chinese Lady’ by American playwright Lloyd Suh.

It was one of those rare occasions when I was running late to interview John as traffic was terrible and I felt awful about my tardiness. An actor’s time is precious especially if he or she has had a full day of rehearsal and then has other responsibilities.

What a most accommodating individual. John was more concerned about me because I ran into the room huffing after running from the taxi to get to the rehearsal room where we would speak.

After I composed myself, we got into John’s love of performance and why he wanted to be an actor. He has appeared in CBC’s ‘Kim’s Convenience’ (2016), ‘Rising Suns’ (2020) and ‘The Swan’ (2020).

Ng completed his training in the Honours Programme in Directing at the University of Ottawa. He laughed and told me it was a five-year plan for him in theatre studies. His goal was not to go to New York City but to come to Toronto and do a show at Theatre Passe Muraille, at Factory and Tarragon Theatres. He has done all that. In that respect, John feels he has fulfilled a goal upon graduation.

Coming out of university, he was getting roles in acting. He wrote plays, one of which was performed at the Toronto Fringe in 2001. The production did quite well, and John proudly stated the Fringe play was his launching pad into the Toronto scene which was the start of the golden era of Chinese Canadian theatre in the city. Marjorie Chan who will direct John in ‘The Chinese Lady’ appeared in Ng’s Toronto Fringe play.

‘The Chinese Lady’ (a two-hander) is his first show in three years. This time around, he is working with Rosie Simon and director Marjorie Chan (Artistic Director of Theatre Passe Muraille) at the helm. He’s worked with Rosie before and describes her as fearless. She fights for things and she always comes out ‘rosy’. He has so much confidence in Simon and Ng draws on that.

John describes Marjorie Chan as ‘a great people person’. She gives an actor lots of room and is very perceptive. Because she has worn every hat in the theatre, Marjorie has such a vast toolkit for the actor. An actor can trust Marjorie when she speaks because she knows what she is talking about.

After a three-year absence from the theatre, (his last show in the fall of 2019), John smiled when he said he thought he still knew what was involved in the theatre rehearsal process. He also joked he hasn’t performed in a two-hander since his undergraduate years, so he has been quite attentive.

For him, there has been a seismic change in the theatre at the top post-Covid. Many theatre companies and artistic directors have stepped aside and opened up to be more inclusive. These changes in the theatre are for the next generation of theatre artists and theatregoers.

John then shared a personal story about how he felt with the return to the theatre even though we are still in Covid’s embrace:

“I have to be honest. I was ready to give it up. I was ready to just pack it in. I didn’t think I would return. I didn’t think theatre would return even to the extent that we’re in now. Those were dark days. How would we ever get back to theatre especially when I had heard of actors getting sick when theatres were allowed to return? So many shows were lost over these past few years.”

Ng’s honesty and candour are startling but a stark reminder we’re still not out of Covid. He still muses ‘The Chinese Lady’ might very well be his last show. Or, if he does another show, that could be his last one. That’s how he’s looking at it.

The rehearsal room has been exciting and fun. John praises director Marjorie Chan for keeping rehearsals light in the room. Everyone is comfortable with each other and there is no pressure to perform. There’s a sense of creation and exploration.

According to John and Crow’s website, ‘The Chinese Lady’ is the first documented Chinese female, Afong May, to arrive in the United States from Guangzhou Province in 1834. She is 14 years of age. She has been hired to promote merchandise. Purportedly the first Chinese woman to set foot on U.S. soil, Afong May has been put on display for the American public as “The Chinese Lady.” As the decades wear on, her celebrated sideshow comes to define and challenge her very sense of identity. Alternatingly dark, poetic, and whimsical, the play is a searing portrait of Western culture seen through the eyes of a young Chinese woman. John compares ‘The Chinese Lady’ to being an absurdist play. Periodically, the fourth wall is broken and the characters speak to the audience.

What message does John hope audiences will take away after seeing ‘The Chinese Lady’:

“That’s a metaphysical question for discourse and, for me, that’s what the play’s about. I hope audiences will leave and think about in terms of how they perceive things in reality and question how much they have been influenced by advertising by propaganda and social influencing.”

What’s next for John once ‘The Chinese Lady’ has completed its run?

Nothing has been confirmed, but a couple of projects will hopefully get the green light. The one thing John will confirm – he will go home and tend to his cat.

Produced by Studio 180 Theatre in association with fu-GEN Asian Canadian Theatre Company in association with Crow’s Theatre. ‘The Chinese Lady’ runs May 2-21 in the Studio Theatre at Crow’s Theatre, 345 Carlaw Avenue, Toronto. For tickets, visit crowstheatre.com or call (647) 341-7390 ex. 1010.

To learn more about Studio 180 Theatre, visit studio180theatre.com.

To learn more about fu-GEN Asian Canadian Theatre Company, visit fu-gen.org.

Artist John Wamsley is excited to dive deeply into the world premiere of ‘Rez Gas’ at Port Hope’s Capitol Theatre. Billed on the website as a world premiere musical about discovering home, Wamsley plays Destin.

After moving away from his home reservation to pursue a music career, he’s struggling, Destin returns to town with his girlfriend and has to face the people whom he left in the town and tried to forget. The central hub of activity is the ‘Wide Wigwam’ diner.

Written by Cale Crowe and Genevieve Adam, Music Supervision by Jeff Newberry and directed by Herbie Barnes (Artistic Director of Toronto’s Young People’s Theatre) ‘Rez Gas’ has also been described as a cross between CTV’s ‘Corner Gas’ meeting the blockbuster ‘Come from Away’. John also made connections to a blend of the music from ‘Hamilton’ and ‘Waitress.’

‘Rez Gas’ will be a beautiful expression of Indigenous joy with a hip-hop-infused, unforgettable score. John says he doesn’t perform in musicals often so that’s a bit nerve wracking. He has been part of new Canadian works. John believes audiences are energized by these new works. Audiences want to know more about the theatre. There’s a desire to experience something new and for the first time; so being part of ‘Rez Gas’ is very special and an honour to be part of something to which he connects so deeply.

A member of the Alderville First Nation Wamsley is of Ojibwe and British settler descent. He earned an Honours Bachelor of Arts Degree in Theatre and Drama Studies at the University of Toronto Mississauga. Upon his graduation, he then earned a Diploma in Acting from Sheridan College. Wamsley’s website also states he also completed the Social Media Marketing Program at George Brown College Continuing Education.

He certainly understands the life of an artist is one where you might not be working for awhile and there are times when you will be working constantly.

Currently, John is now in Port Hope for rehearsals of the musical.

Is there anyone else in Wamsley’s family who is an artist?

There was a twinkle in his eye, and I thought he was going to say that there are other family members who are part of the industry.

His response:

“No, no, I’m kinda the only one. Everyone else has stable, secure career paths and I was the only one foolish enough to do this.” He had a good laugh as he finished off the last part of the sentence.

John mentioned that members of his family often rely on him to provide comic relief when appropriate. He expressed satisfaction in embracing this role, finding fulfillment in entertaining others and bringing levity to various situations. Wamsley noted that pursuing a career as a performing artist felt like a natural progression for him. His family also expressed their appreciation that one of their own had chosen to become a performing artist.

Does or did John have any mentors or leaders to whom he could turn when he was in theatre school?

He credits the community of people with whom he surrounded himself. That was the biggest thing for him – the friendships he made, the relationships that he had were really what got him through. Theatre school was a hard time for John, yet an incredibly formative one in his early 20s where he completely threw himself at this career path. It was an emotional time with a lot of self discovery that happened. John felt that creation of a community of people to whom he could turn was extremely important for support or to celebrate.

What advice would he give to young actors exiting from theatre school now?

“Oh, dear…”(and he paused…we shared a good laugh, and I told him I know I put him on the spot).

John continued:

“Theatre school is a great foundation for young people to build the rest of their career on, but it’s not everything. You can curate your own practice as an artist and become the artist you actually want to be when you are in the field doing it in the community and building relationships with like-minded artists. The career really begins and your expression as an artist begins post theatre school. It’s a great training ground for flexing and strengthening that muscle and building those skills. But in terms of building yourself up as an artist, that continues to happen for many, many years beyond graduating.”

Wamsley isn’t naïve to think the theatre artist continually works. There will be periods of time in this long-chosen career where there’s going to be no work, or the artist will have to create his/her/their own work. This roller coaster of no work and abundance of work will continue to happen for most of this long career so young performing artists will have to get used to what he calls: “the weird cycle of feast or famine.”
If an artist is in love either with the thrill of the feast or famine, or the no-work versus the abundance of work of the theatre industry, then it’s all worthwhile.

Wamsley has been a working actor for the last ten years. I complemented him as I thought he was in his mid-late twenties. Does he have role models in his career? Does he feel comfortable speaking to anyone who has been in the business?

He credits two: Sarah Dodd and Mike Shara. John met them both when he worked at the Stratford Festival.
Working at the Festival was a big dream for John. He never thought he would be able to work there so early in his career, and it was an amazing experience for him.

When he arrived at the Festival, John said everyone was welcoming and supportive. He was able to work with Dodd and Shara in his first season. Dodd and Shara took Wamsley under their wing. He would go to them for advice, had drinks with them, and caught up with them often. Again, he credits Sarah and Mike for teaching him about the theatre industry and being resilient in this career path. Dodd and Shara value hard work, and Wamsley said he will always be grateful to them for sharing their knowledge with him and allowing him to grow into the artist he wants to be.

When our discussion focused on the upcoming opening of ‘Rez Gas’, the light in John’s eyes sparkled. He said he connected immediately with the character of Destin. He understands the character and his desire to leave a life behind. Destin carries a lot of hurt within him. Sometimes, when traumatic things happen in our lives, there’s an instinct that we try to forget what happened or that it even exists. That’s not often possible, and many have to carry those traumatic events for a very long time whether it’s wanted or not. Destin has that same desire and personal feeling of wanting to create a clean break from something painful and create something new.

Wamsley believes a lot of people can connect to this feeling. It’s a story about coming home and about embracing our hurt from the past and letting in love. As cheesy as it may sound, John says we need joy, spirit and family now more than ever because our world is in such a sad state of affair. If the cast can make audiences laugh and sing for two hours, then it has done its job.

He hopes audiences will fall in love with ‘Rez Gas’ at the Capitol. John believes a tether will connect the audience to the emotional action on stage. He has admired the Capitol’s Artistic Director Rob Kempson for a long time. Working with director Herbie Barnes (Artistic Director of Toronto’s Young People’s Theatre) and the Rez Gas creative team is incredible. John kicked his feet with excitement when he heard Barnes would direct this world premiere of this musical:

“I love Herbie. He’s so funny, so generous. He’s just a really great guy to be around. I’m really excited to work with him and develop a friendship with him.”

This cast had done a workshop week in February of this year. John got to know Herbie a little bit better that week.

Members of the Rez Gas cast include Nicole Joy-Fraser, Vinnie Alberto, Michelle Bardach, Jonathan Fisher, Emma Rudy and Dillan Meighan-Chiblow.

To learn more about the upcoming musical, visit capitoltheatre.com. To learn more about John Wamsley, go to his personal website: johnwamsley.ca.

It took me many weeks online to get Stratford resident Jonathan Goad and pin him down for an interview. I was so pleased and grateful when he thanked me in an email for not giving up on him since his schedule was an extremely busy one when the pandemic hit, and life changed for all of us.

I’ve tremendous respect for Jonathan’s work at the Festival and remember his extraordinary performance as Atticus Finch in ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’ which left me in tears at the standing ovation. Jonathan also directed another personal favourite of mine at the Festival, Arthur Miller’s ‘The Crucible’, whose message is still connected to our world today.

Jonathan also appeared on one of my favourite CBC shows ‘Republic of Doyle’ as Jake Doyle’s (Allan Hawco) wayward brother, Christian, who returns home.

It was also nice to learn that Jonathan attended Bowmanville High School and knows about the Durham Region and the fact his parents attended local community theatre productions in Durham.

We conducted our interview via Zoom. Thank you again, Jonathan, for taking time to chat with me as we all move forward in this pandemic:

It has been an exceptionally long eight months since the pandemic began, and now the numbers are edging upward again. How are you feeling about this? Will we ever emerge to some new way of living in your opinion?

Well, I mean (and then there was a somewhat nervous laugh) I’d have to be half crazy to say that there’s anything about it that I like, ya know, in terms of disease and disease progress. I’m not entirely surprised and I don’t think anyone else is. We were warned of the second wave.

I think we did a pretty impressive job in Ontario in getting things essentially in a much better place in the summer but clearly this second wave is a doozy. What it requires of us is an even greater fortitude and bearing down and being brave and doing what we have to do, at best, mitigate and contain to the best of our abilities this virus.

To be succinct, it’s not good news but at the same time it’s also not necessarily unexpected. And what I’m hoping is that maybe around 1,000 we can start to see the precipice of this hill and get on the other side of this wave and maybe, somehow, stymie a third wave. I’m definitely an optimist about our prospects for ultimately beating this thing. I think science minds all over the world, despite not always being helped by some of the political bodies out there, some of the greatest minds are working on it because they all care about humanity.

I think humanity cares about the majority of humanity so that energy alone will ultimately prevail in this thing.

For awhile I was checking the numbers every day just out of my own fascination and to make good personal and community decisions and those for family as well. I wasn’t obsessive about it, but I was checking because I was trying to see how this thing was shaping up. Now I find I’m doing that less and what I’m checking on is vaccine progress and therapy progress, and just checking on how people are finding ways creatively to continue to live and feel like there is life. I’m more focused on these things.

It’s a weird way to use the term ‘happy medium’ but we’re probably not going to get a vaccine as quickly as they thought. I don’t think it’s going to be nearly as long as the initial prospects were when people were talking about a vaccine taking 5-10 years. Miracles are happening in the science field. Now, does that mean spring? Summer? Fall? 2022? I don’t really know, but I do feel we will get back to a new but utterly to a normal that won’t feel like we’ve had to cash in on everything we’ve believed in and savoured about life and freedom.

I’m always an optimist, almost a foolish optimist but not a naïve one as I believe it’s always worthwhile going now we’re going to fix this sooner than you think. With the right will and energy, miracles happen.

How have you been faring? How has your immediate family been doing during these last eight months?

All things considered, pretty good. We’re lucky we live in Stratford as it has been a little bit of a bubble in that we haven’t had the same sort of evidence of the disease in the community. That said, from what I’ve experienced, and I’ve been out in the community since this thing began, people take it quite seriously which is really good.

Generally speaking, people are pretty adherent to masks here in Stratford and care about each other in the community. There was a part of me that was concerned about impact on the kids because kids are antithetical to the nature of this virus. Kids beautifully embrace each other at close distances. Kids don’t wear masks literally and figuratively as they are open souls and so the idea of mask wearing and fearing the person standing across from you is antithetical to how kids embrace life, I think.

That said, kids are pretty cool and pragmatic and can find fun in anything if you help them. Kids have made a thing about being pretty smart in wearing masks, hand washing, social distancing and even about protecting one another. Kids care and that’s a really inspiring thing.

My own kids have been pretty good. They have moments where they quite rightly express they can’t have the birthday they wanted or that they can’t do this and that’s to be expected. For the most part, my kids and all the kids around them have been amazingly brave and got on with the business of living.

As an artist within the performing arts community, what has been the most difficult and challenging for you professionally and personally?

(Jonathan paused and thought a great deal before responding) I’m definitely a mid career artist and I’ve had a lot of great fortune. I’ve been utterly blessed in this profession. If anything, I haven’t felt sorry for myself. I don’t mean to say that like I have such nobility, as I’m just fine. I’ve mourned for the loss of some personal projects, maybe. More so I feel like I’m at a stage in my career that I’ve had an opportunity to do a lot of things. I’ve a lot more I like to do.

The hardest thing has been to watch other artists around me, some friends, and even just young artists I know simply through their work get stopped as they have. This immediate shutdown of our industry which was quick and severe can be difficult especially when you’re an artist that is just emerging, an artist that is about to do their first big part in a play. Some artists I was working with just landed their first contract and first season at the Stratford Festival in one of the musicals. That has been one of the hardest things to watch that.

Ultimately you can offer words as a balm but what you really can’t do is much about it at the moment. The reality is so evident. In the world of the theatre it’s impossible to deal with as there is no simple or easy fix for the situation. Theatre is more vulnerable to this particular thing than anything else. I’ve been on a film set a couple of times in this pandemic. There are big adjustments, it’s not perfect and even that industry is working at a quarter of what it was, but it is crawling back. It’s quite possible with the calculated risk in television and film is lower.

But theatre is the quintessential communal artistic endeavour. It thrives on its aliveness and certain forms of close proximity.

All that to say, the hardest thing is to think of friends, colleagues, and particularly young people on the crest of their first big show or any part and everything stopped. I find it hard to decide what to say about it.

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 three weeks into rehearsal for ‘Spamalot’. Just from the way it worked out in terms of scheduling, I was only doing ‘Spamalot’. While it was a wild, vigorous, challenging, and hilarious rehearsal process, once I opened ‘Spamalot’ I was going to have a pretty sweet summer. We would have done four shows a week and a show that is about as ludicrous as they come and is designed 100% to ensure that we never take ourselves too seriously in this life. It was a real gift on so many fronts. We had just staged a great deal of one of the massive, massive numbers where they go back to Camelot for debauchery.

I was to play King Arthur.

I have no idea what the Festival’s plans are regarding a future staging of ‘Spamalot’ or any of the productions. I’m sure the Festival is spending a portion of their days coming up with a series of contingency plans based on how things roll out, how we navigate this crisis.

I don’t know. My feeling is that the Festival is committed for many reasons to do everything they had planned this year at some point in the future. That rollout will probably be over the next number of years. Whether ‘Spamalot’ makes the cut or not, I’m not sure. It all depends on the theatre they plan to open.

The challenge for Stratford is that they were on probably five, six or seven of their major shows they were probably 80% or more built. They invested all that time and money up front and, of course, there is no return until people are in seats, so it was a bit of a perfect or terrible storm (as you might say) for the Festival. On that level, they are committed to doing these things because they have the beautiful sets, the costumes, the props designed. If next year, the Festival only opens two of its theatres the shows in those theatres last year might be the only ones they would consider. Even then they might not be the right fit or reduced company sizes.

I feel they might make an outdoor space next year and ‘Spamalot’ could certainly work outdoors. I think it’s a great initiative if they consider doing some outdoor theatre. I directed a show this summer, a one woman show, that was part of a small festival here in Stratford. When I first saw outdoor theatre, that’s what I think really inspired me to go into the theatre. Certainly, particularly, in sort of a Shakespeare bend.

The fundamental beauty that happens in an outdoor setting when a group of people is telling a story to another group of people is almost second to none. Of course, I love indoor theatre as well as there are some challenges to outdoor theatre that you wish weren’t there. In the end, outdoor theatre is not a compromise. It’s not some sort of lesser form, it’s actually the roots of what we do and maybe the roots of why we do it.

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

I’m crazy about building. I’ve got a whole series of projects that I was finishing up. I’d always promise the girls I’d build them a playhouse in the back, and it became an ethic project.

Home building projects, many of which have been started, are much closer to their completion. Spending as much time with my family as I could which is always been my priority and now there’s no way around it. In many ways, the challenge of parenting hasn’t got any easier. You may have more time on your hands, but you have to be more creative in how you deal with things.

I directed a play in the summer and helped out in any way I could with this ‘Here For Now’ Theatre, a local young woman started with a couple of friends and it ended up being a real success. They worked hand in hand with the local health unit, all outdoors in a safe endeavour and environment, tiny cast ( 1 person show). A local improv group also did one of their shows.

What was inspiring and illuminating was the hunger that people were craving for this experience. The numbers are humble compared to the Festival but a ton of people came out with their love and generosity and their hearts to see the shows.

This fall I’ve been auditioning for film and tv. I’ve had a couple of voice over stuff and just recently I’ve returned to set for a couple of episodes of things, so yeah, no shortage of busy.

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 given the fact live theaters and studios might be closed for 1 ½ – 2 years?

I don’t know if it is sage, but I don’t think my advice would change from what I would tell a group five years ago or five in the future, and that is ‘To Keep At It’ Never stop dreaming. We will come through this and the optimist in me says we will come through stronger, more resilient with a greater sort of passion in our hearts, maybe a greater passion for the grand project of humanity.

If there’s a definitive in this, it’s the fact we are all in this together. The enemy is no longer each other; I say that with condition as not everyone is on board with that. But I do feel what this brings home is that truly we are all in this together. It took me a long time to come round to living a life in the arts. I had incredibly supportive parents, but I grew up in a small class working town (Bowmanville) and it took me a long time for me to say that performance is my job. This is a legitimate thing to do with my life.

If anything, this pandemic has re-affirmed for me the value of artists in society and that we’re in this rare position of your job requires utter vulnerability, and at the same time resilience.

Never forget as an artist that vulnerability is at the core of your being, your willingness to share, to be open, to pursue personal and societal truths. These are the things to define an artist. And so, what I would say to young people or any artist (and I certainly say this to myself), ‘Keep going. Keep moving forward. If you feel as if you are about to give up reach out to another artist friend and talk to them, or any friend. This is temporary, but how long is temporary? I would never be so bold as to say. We emerge from this as artists stronger and more resilient and as society and focusing on bigger and more eternal truths.”

Do you see anything positive stemming from Covid 19?

I sort of have a belief and speak directly about the work in the theater because I’m part of The Company Theatre in Toronto, our work with that is all about incubation. Incubation is happening all over the place. It always does happen, but it’s happening in a profound way. Crows Theatre has a number of initiatives in that same regard.

Theatres everywhere are going, “Ok, we can’t perform”, but they can still do things, we can think, reach out, we can write, collaborate, share. The collaborations are happening everywhere. People are sowing seeds in the field. That’s a real positive.

When you realize you can’t make money at this time, you’re reminded of the essence of theatre anyway in that it’s not really a commercial venture. We scratch out livings from it, but in the end there’s something much bigger, much more profound about what it’s like to pursue a life in the theatre. And no one goes into the theatre for money away (and Jonathan and I share a good laugh over that statement). If they do, then I’ve got some swampland to sell them.

Ya, there are the Andrew Lloyd Webbers out there, but even ALW probably didn’t even know he would be Sir ALW. And to his credit he believes in making theatre all the time and he gives a lot of people jobs.

We don’t get rich from this thing, but hopefully not to sound too cliched, we hopefully become spiritually rich and enriched where we live a life of meaning.

Do you think Covid 19 will have some lasting impact on the Toronto/Canadian/North American performing arts scene?

On a bigger sense of things, for those of us who have lost work overnight and find ourselves faced daily with the notion that our career is on hold, we inevitably will find make work projects but we will still be busy with other things.

This pause on a grander scale does offer time for reflection which is very important in a job where you are essentially and always on the hustle. Theatre is a hustle.

I think most artists probably have had a moment or numerous moments to reflect on the bigger questions on why we do this job of performing and the life you want to make. There’s real value in that and you come out of that more informed, more involved person. There are great gifts in that.

Even just gratitude that is something that I’ve made a point of focusing on is what to be thankful for daily, and that’s not easy. That’s an evolving process.

In my experience I’ve been around hard workers all my life. I worked on farms when I was younger. But it is in the theatre industry where you find the hard workers. That’s not to say they’re the hardest workers but they are out there working hard. The hustle can put you in a frame of mind where you never take a moment to just breathe it all in and think about why you do the things you do.

This time is a gift in that way. I do feel no matter how difficult this has been, there’s nothing more difficult than being in the ground. That’s something I have to remind myself constantly of each day. I may have lost some work and having had to make some hard choices and we’re all in this boat to varying degrees. At the same time, we have enough examples of people who have had a much harder go in this pandemic for the obvious reasons. We owe it to them to keep our own dreams alive and contribute to as little spread of this disease as possible until we find a really good way through it.

Some artists have turned to You Tube 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?

As this pandemic becomes prolonged and the restrictions around performing for each other inside spaces clearly is something that’s not going to happen tomorrow, the initial nature of online work was a way to keep the ghost light on as Graham Abbey’s initiative is.

Some of those efforts were around whether it was the Festival putting up the series of plays or even people getting together and do readings, it was a way of getting together and keeping spirits up.

I feel that no matter what level kind of technical savvy online streaming comes to or fantastically filmed versions of theatrical performances that I really enjoy watching, them, they are nothing compared to the real thing. They are a different thing

I’m thrilled that they’re out there, but I don’t see them as a viable alternative, maybe as a complementary to live theatre. But I don’t think they are the future of theatre by any means. I just think because they become something else. And so, that said, live streaming is a great way of reminding us about theatre, but it is not THE THEATRE.

Despite all this fraught tension, confusion and drama surrounding the pandemic, what is it about performing that Covid will never destroy for you?

Well, if anything, Covid has affirmed for me the need and the desire for us as humans to tell stories, to share our stories. The roots of lighting the fire and having some food, we’re around the fire and tell a story.

It’s an essential behaviour to communicate and share. That can take a lot of forms as theatre is a profound form for me as is film and tv. Theatre is so raw in its essence. Covid doesn’t take that away.

What we really want is that human contact and the sharing of feeling and story is as essential as virtually anything. Covid just forces the artist to re-affirm that for themselves and to dig even deeper into their soul for the day when we can commune in a freer capacity again.

It was great fun to reconnect with Jonathan Wilson once again after I had profiled him over two years ago. If you wish to read the first time he and I spoke, please go here: www.ourtheatrevoice.com/items/jonathan-wilson

We both agreed on how important it was to try to remain positive in the changes once again regarding Covid. Jonathan’s doing all right these last two years and adds:

“Life is good. You’re always reinventing yourself even when you think you’ve finished the work. It’s always a new challenge. The other day I was speaking with someone about starting at zero periodically. That’s not meant to sound negative in any way, but it’s a reminder we’re always learning and always moving forward.”

For the first time in forty years, Jonathan doesn’t have an agent. The agency changed and moved on, and he thought this was a good time to self-represent, really go solo and really create his own work in a way that has been “fantastic and very empowering”.

During these last two-plus years, Wilson says the positive side was concentrating on solo writing as a self-creator. Back in his Second City days, he learned that as a writer he could hire himself. Additionally, Studio 180 has also assisted him in developing a new solo piece entitled ‘A Public Display of Affection’ that was filmed and, just this past spring, there was a public screening of it at Toronto’s Paradise Cinema on Bloor.

Wilson says the lockdown has provided new learning opportunities for himself and his craft regarding digital capture of a theatre performance without an audience.

He recently re-visited The Rivoli on Queen Street, one of his old haunts, where he did sketch comedy and improv. He got to perform a section of his upcoming show in front of a live audience, and he was thrilled he had the chance to do that.

With the upcoming production of ‘Gay for Pay with Blake and Clay’, Wilson is looking forward to having a live audience in front once again.

A press release stated the following about the upcoming production:

“Every actor knows there is nothing more prestigious than bravely playing gay. But is your pesky heterosexuality getting in the way of booking a one-way ticket to award season? Join Blake and Clay, two seasoned gay actors, as they teach you to play gay and make LGBTQ about YOU. Go from straight to straight-up booked! Let their lived experience get your acting career off life support! Because representation matters, but their representation hasn’t called in ages.”

The Toronto Fringe sellout of ‘Gay for Pay’ won the 2022 Second City Award for Outstanding Comedy and Patron’s Pick. It opens on November 16 and runs to November 27 at Crow’s Theatre.

Wilson worked with co-creator/performer and actor Daniel Krolik seven years ago on a Studio 180 piece for the PanAm Games. They became friends and Daniel encouraged Wilson to continue writing and self-producing. This past spring, Daniel was writing a Fringe show with co-creator Curtis Campbell and approached Jonathan to ask him if he would ever consider doing a Fringe show. They produced some online material. Jonathan saw the online material and it made him laugh.

Curtis does a character named Alanis Percocet (and I had a good laugh over that). Jonathan started his career in Fringe shows. He only had to think for what he calls two seconds to agree to do the show.

According to Wilson, Krolik and Campbell went away and wrote the show, a fake fun acting class. The premise? Two theatre performers have found an assigned gig and are teaching straight actors how to play gay. When he read the script, Wilson said he laughed so much and considers the rehearsal process and performance a real gift as an actor. He has a chance to continue honing his comedic skills as an actor.

There’s improv in the show as well. There’s a community group effort with a lot of give and take with the audience in responses only. Wilson says:

“It’s been a lot of fun and a reminder that in the theatre world comedy is overlooked. If anything, we need laughter right now.”

Jonathan reassures that audience members will not be pulled up or ‘picked on’ to participate in the action of the production. As an audience member, he doesn’t like when that happens, and he doesn’t think it’s right for him to do that to an audience.

At the Fringe, ‘Gay for Pay’ was sold out every night and Jonathan had a fantastic time doing it then. He credits and thanks Crow’s Artistic Director Chris Abraham for opening the door once again to perform it in the east end.

Was there a reason the title does not use the names of the actors?

Jonathan was looking for significance when he got the script wondering why the two characters are called Blake and Clay. Co-creators Curtis and Daniel said they both thought it sounded funny. Jonathan plays Clay so he wondered if he is supposed to be able to be moulded like clay in helping the students in this class take new forms. Director of the production, Curtis Campbell, told Jonathan: ‘Whatever! If that works for you, Jon, go ahead.”

Jonathan then jokingly poked fun at himself by saying to give actors some seed and off they go to grow in whatever form they want. He’s having a great time with the production.

Performances of ‘Gay for Pay with Blake and Clay’ run to November 27 at Streetcar Crow’s Theatre, 345 Carlaw Avenue (Toronto) in the Studio Theatre. Running time is approximately one hour with no intermission. For tickets, visit crowstheatre.com, click the WHAT’S ON tab and purchase tickets online. You can also call the Box Office at (647) 341-7390.

I’ll be reviewing the production this week. Look for my review to follow shortly thereafter.

I finally had the chance to play ‘Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon’ with Toronto based artist Jonathan Wilson. I’ll explain this connection in just a moment.

I remember Jonathan’s Dora Award winning work as Timon in Disney’s ‘The Lion King’ when it made its Canadian premiere at Toronto’s Princess of Wales. A wonderful show which made me feel like a kid again for a couple of hours.

Although I never saw the production, Jonathan penned a stage production ‘My Own Private Oshawa’ about growing up gay in the automobile city of Ontario. The play was also nominated for The Governor General’s Award. The film version of ‘My Own Private Oshawa’ was also nominated for two Gemini awards.

Jonathan has also been nominated for six Dora awards as a writer and actor, two Chalmers awards, and one New York Drama Desk award for his play ‘Kilt’. I also found out that Jonathan provided the voice for The Pillsbury Dough Boy and the voice of Crackle for the Rice Krispies commercials.

Not bad for someone who, at the age of fifteen, moved to Toronto. Eventually, Jonathan attended the theatre program at Ryerson as a mature student.

Now, for the six degrees of separation connection. Jonathan is the brother in law of my good friend, Randy, whom I have known for over forty-five years. Christine, Randy’s wife, and Jonathan are siblings. Jonathan has worked with many of Toronto’s finest actors and creative individuals, and it was fun to learn that I was only one to two degrees away from these artists.

We conducted our interview via telephone:

1. How have you been keeping during this two-and-a-half-month isolation? How has your immediate family been keeping?

Thanks for asking as my partner Freddy and I have been taking things day by day. It’s part of our narrative right now and we keep looking for the conclusion. We’re trying to keep things fresh, but trauma and grief have been part of this time.

My beloved niece, Jodie, passed away suddenly in January before the pandemic hit. My family and I miss her terribly and there are many moments when her absence hits all of us really hard. This quarantine and isolation haven’t helped either since we can’t all be together to grieve. It has been a struggle but, as I said earlier, we keep taking things day by day. Jodie brought so much joy and fascination to all our lives. She would have wanted us to keep moving forward, but there are moments when that is so hard to do.

Freddy and I also help out my mother by taking groceries to her, helping to keep her yard clean and tend the gardens, cut the grass, all the stuff that comes with owning a house.

2. Were you involved in any productions that were cancelled as a result of COVID? Were you in rehearsal or pre-production/planning stages that have been temporarily halted? If so, what will become of this work?

Yes, I was to have worked at The Blyth Festival this summer. I was scheduled to perform two plays in repertory. We had just been sent the scripts and the offers when the summer season was cancelled. I was really disappointed as I was looking forward to working on two shows in repertory since theatre is my first love.

The Festival was holding out for as long as it could before the notices were sent to us there would be no season. It’s completely understandable why it had to be done. I have this fantasy that in my mind that perhaps we might be called back to perform. It would certainly be lovely if that fantasy came true.

3. What has been most challenging personally during this time? What has been difficult personally during this time? What have you been doing to keep yourself busy?

The most challenging personal element is not being able to be with my family and grieve. Life has certainly put many things into perspective as I want to be there and spend time with my sister, but I can’t on account of the fact we can’t gather. A loss of this nature made my career become secondary.

I also lost my stepfather as well before all of this, a nice man, and not being able to be with my mother has been difficult.

I have been trying to keep busy in moving forward. I enjoy gardening, bike riding and helping to look after my mother as much as possible. I also set up a home recording studio and that was a huge task accomplished since I struggle with all that stuff.

I’ve also started to write a play, a silly little farce, but it’s something that is so very much needed during this time. I’ve also been developing a play over the last couple of years with Studio 180 so there’s a great deal of work going on there.

4. In your estimation and opinion, do you foresee COVID 19 and its results leaving a lasting impact on the Canadian performing arts and theatre scene?

Yes, absolutely as I’ve seen some streaming and online presentations that have worked extremely well. The salute to Stephen Sondheim was really done well as there were some excellent performances.
But there is nothing like live theatre. The concept of theatre will survive, but the paradigm may shift. Streaming and online presentations are another way of storytelling and artists will have to learn how to navigate this ‘new normal’ of presentation.

5. Do you have any words of wisdom to console or to build hope and faith in those performing artists who have been hit hard as a result of COVID 19? Any words of sage advice to the new graduates from Canada’s theatre schools regarding this fraught time of confusion?

I’ve been in this business for forty years as performer, producer and writer. I’ve been involved with some Fringe shows and provided voice work for animation. After graduation from Ryerson, I’ve also worked with Second City and really learned a good deal of the craft through participation with them. As an independent artist, I’ve learned to re-negotiate all the time who I am. So it really hasn’t been that different for me.

I can’t even begin to imagine the angst of those artists who have worked at Stratford or Shaw for a long time and how they are coping.

But as actors, we have to self care first. We have to be kind to ourselves first and foremost. If it’s any consolation, we will find ways to return to story telling. It may be in a new format or medium, but the need for story telling will always be there.

Any words of encouragement to the young theatre graduates – you will find a way. Generate your own work if you can. Don’t wait for any of the big companies to say yes they want you. When that occurs, that’s great and yes you go for those long runs to get that steady paycheque.

Remember, graduates, (and even the seasoned artist/actor) – You are in charge. Generate and make your own work. Don’t wait to be told to do it.

6. You Tube presentations, online streaming seems to be part of a ‘new normal’ at this time for artists to showcase their work. What are your thoughts and comments about the advantages and/or values of online streaming? Do you foresee this as part of the ‘new normal’ for Canadian theatre as we move forward from COVID 19?

Since I’ve had to set up my own recording studio for voice over work and in animation, what became apparent to me is the fact the young actors will have to learn the technology in order to generate the work for themselves. If the actors have friends or colleagues and acquaintances who know all about the technology, great, take advantage and use those individuals to help you generate your work. The key here, though, is to learn the technology.

Depending on the story the actor/artist wishes to tell, some of the media may work stronger than others. For example, I’ve been watching a lot of old movies and paying attention to the way they were filmed. I’ve also been listening to some of the radio dramas from the 1930s. Let’s not forget these radio dramas were all performed live. Orson Welles terrified people in 1938 on the radio with ‘War of the Worlds’. People at that time thought this story was actually occurring in real time
.
Don’t get me wrong, though, as there is also the live connection of the performer in a theatre with a live audience that can never be replicated when watching a streamed, online or You Tube production. Hearing the laughter generated from humour or hearing the silence as the story unfolds is also thrilling too.

7. Given all this confusion, drama, tension and upheaval about COVID, what is it about your career as a performer you still like?

It’s that pure connection a performer makes to an audience (whether live or not) in creating a character and overcoming the obstacles in telling a story that is wonderful in the making. Yes, laugher is wonderful to be heard (if live) but so is silence (if live) as an audience listens to a story unfolding in the theatre.

Learning new technology as a performer for animation and voice work allows the song to be sung in a new medium.

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

1. What is your favourite word?

Yes (and)…

2. What is your least favourite word?

No

3. What turns you on?

Human contact

4. What turns you off?

Ignorance

5. What sound or noise do you love?

Laughter, joyous laughter

6. What sound or noise bothers you?

The Indy 500 race that some drivers feel they must accomplish on these now quiet streets on account of Covid.

7. What is your favourite curse word?

Fuuuuuuck

8. Other than your current profession now, what other profession would you have liked to attempt?

Architect or city planner

9. What profession could you not see yourself doing?

Police officer (although I have the greatest respect for the force)

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

“It went better than expected, you lucky bastard.”

Like most of the professional performing artists who were knocked sideways on account of this worldwide pandemic, several of them relayed to me in conversation they have had their good days and not so good days. What has kept these artists going has been a focus on the positive side of things while learning new skills.

National Theatre School graduate Jordan Pettle and his family have also experienced those ups and downs during these last seven months like all of us, but they have tried to remain positive. I’m pleased to hear this down to earth and decent man and his family have done just that because I am looking forward to seeing his work again on stage very soon. I quite enjoyed his work at Soulpepper in ‘A Christmas Carol’, ‘The Heidi Chronicles’ and ‘Betrayal’, but a quick look at his bio showed me how extensive Jordan’s work is both as an actor and director in Toronto, across Canada and in television.

When I interviewed Liz Callaway and Cynthia Dale several weeks ago, they were advising actors to find their entrepreneurial side during this grand pause from the theatre. I’m pleased to report that Jordan Pettle has done just that during this hiatus by making ice cream at his home. Freshly made ice cream sounds good to me.

For local neighbours and families where he lives, Jordan has come up with ice cream subscriptions. He relayed he is in the process of deciding upon a web site, Instagram account (and hopefully a Facebook account too). Jordan did tell me a possible name for his business, but I will not divulge it in case there is a change.

Hopefully Jordan will start expanding his ice cream service to many of the theatre goers who have seen his performances over the year. Once he has announced his business is up and running, yes, I will indeed take out a subscription and make sure I have some home made fresh ice cream in my freezer.

We conducted our conversation via Zoom. Thanks again, Jordan, for the conversation.

It has been an exceptionally seven long months since we’ve all been in isolation, and now it appears the numbers are edging upward again. How are you feeling about this? Will we ever emerge to some new way of living in your opinion?

Well, nervous about the climbing numbers, obviously. My wife, Shannon, and I have two kids in school now and they’re just getting back into the swing of things, so the thought of going into lockdown again is pretty hard given what Dr. Eileen de Villa was talking about today.

We’re coping well as a family but there’s so much uncertainty and some anxiety wondering about another lockdown. Every day is something new to deal with.

I do think we will emerge to a new way of living. I don’t know what it will all look like, but on some societal level it is strengthening us for the amount of creativity and how people are adjusting to all of this.

There’s resilience and adaptability people are showing. To me, I try to draw inspiration from that because humans are incredibly adaptable and finding ways to make work and stay healthy, and that includes psychically and emotionally. Things are going to change. Things will start to get local. In my particular community in the neighbourhood where we live, my family and I are getting to know our neighbours more than we ever have. We have a park by our house and there’s a community which has really grown there.

Depending on which day you get me, I try to remain positive no matter what. True, I do worry about the economy, my kids’ future, how my family is doing, the debt that our province and country will be in when we come out of all this. On my good days, I see strength and resilience on a societal level. I see it happening with my kids, their friends and the community here.

How have you been faring? How has your immediate family been doing during these last six months?
Ya know, overall, Joe, to be honest we’re doing well. We have a house, we have a backyard which has been a saviour for us. In the early days of the pandemic, we were out in the backyard a ton playing sports. I finally planted a garden that we’ve been wanting to plant for years.

My wife has a part time arts administration job that she has been continuing to do. She has been working from home. If we were talking April 18, things might have been different as we were on a different path at the time with so much noise in the house. Yes, there were some hard days in the spring. We were on top of each other all the time. We’re a good family, but like all humans we need our own individual space at times, and we weren’t getting that in the early spring when it was challenging at times.

As an artist within the performing arts community, what has been the most difficult and challenging for you professionally and personally?

The uncertainty about the state of theatre and its future. Job prospects for the next couple of years have just changed dramatically. Theatre was my bread and butter. I’m lucky that I do teach and that I do voice work as well, so I have been able to work throughout this. Theatre is my first love, my passion and where most of my work comes throughout the course of the year, so it’s very hard to see friends lose all kinds of work and all the anxiety that is coming out of our community.

On a professional level it’s been so hard to watch how all of the performing arts have been hit so hard.
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?

I was supposed to have started rehearsal for Studio 180’s production of ‘Indecent’. It was going to be a co-production with the Mirvishes. Rehearsals were to have started March 30.

Right when all of this started, Joel Greenberg from Studio 180 started emailing all of us in early March that we were still going to go ahead; however, as the emails came more and it became clearer what was going to happen regarding the pandemic, the production was cancelled. That was my spring gig for a couple of months.

Luckily, the Toronto Arts Council provided some money for artists who lost work plus I also got the CERB money. I’ve been very lucky there has been support for us.

I had some singing lessons in preparation for this production as I was going to be singing in Yiddish. I was deep into preparation for this production, so it was really hard to lose work anytime.

I don’t know if ‘Indecent’ will see the light of day, Joe. I hope so. Who knows when but I know Joel was very passionate about the project and, if he has his way, ‘Indecent’ will go ahead at some point. We had a reading of it in early May, a Zoom reading, with all of us and it was very bittersweet. It was a chance to get a taste of where we were headed, where we would have gone with it.

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

Well, besides being husband, dad and friend, I’ve doing a little bit of voice work. My wife is also a voice actor and we set up a voice studio in our pantry. She says it looks like a tsunami hit a duvet shop.

We’ve been wanting to do it for awhile and it was something that necessity forced us to do immediately. In the early days of the pandemic, our voice agents were saying if you don’t have a home studio you can’t work. We’ve both done commercials from our pantry right to Zoom. I’ve been doing lots of auditions from there. Voice work has continued. It hasn’t been a huge amount of work, like with every voice work it’s a bit of a crap shoot and audition for a bunch of things and some work does come in.

I’ve been doing some teaching as well. Graham Abbey and Dylan Trowbridge started GhostLight. Vanessa Porteous, former AD at Alberta Theatre Project, pitched this class to Graham and Dylan for GhostLight entitled ‘Building the Actor-Director Relationship’. She and I co-taught this class for GhostLight which was great on Zoom. It was the first time I was learning to teach online.

Vanessa and I taught an eight-week session over the summer with 6 actors and 6 directors. We built this structure where they would work on a monologue where I would have coaching with the actors and Vanessa would talk with the directors. We paired up actors and directors, they would come together, but the focus of the course was how to build that relationship between the two.

Now I’m teaching at Wexford Collegiate for the Performing Arts, a performing arts high school in Scarborough. I’ve been doing it for several years now. The school has been bringing me in as a guest artist. I direct the Grade 12 show and I was just working with the Grade 11s on scene study, some online. The teacher has been doing a great job keeping the students engaged during this really strange time.

I’ve also become obsessed with making ice cream. It’s my side hustle right now. I’ve started this ice cream business out of our basement. I make small batch ice cream and I’ve been selling it to friends in the neighbourhood. I’ve been using herbs from our garden, olive oil, rosemary. It’s been really fun. I’ve just wanted to experiment and create, and I love ice cream. I’m also learning and stretching my entrepreneurial muscles during this time.

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 given the fact live theaters and studios might be closed for 1 ½ – 2 years?

It’s a good question. I do some teaching at George Brown and I’ve been thinking about those students. I completed an online video clip to say congratulations to them at their graduation.
I can’t imagine how hard it is for them to be stepping into the world right now during this time. Where is the work? What am I walking into?

What I’ve been trying to tell the students is the work is going to be really, really important in the years to come. There’s going to be a lot of healing that is going to happen and to be needed. A connection is going to have to be made where people are going to see theatre. Seeing live human beings on stage is going to be really important.

Down the road once we get out of all this, we’re going to need storytellers about human connection. I imagine for a long time we’re going to be processing this entire pandemic as artists and playwrights, screen writers and story tellers.

Be patient and know that the devotion we give and do to actors is going to be necessary in the long run. It’s hard right now where there is so much uncertainty and so little work.

Do you see anything positive stemming from Covid 19?

The sense and feeling of community that has grown in our local park is one positive element stemming from Covid. Socially distanced music is happening in our park now which is another positive element. Resilience is another factor. Humans are adaptable and are resilient. We actors are also a resilient group too.

The strengthening of community, the bonds we’ve created in our neighbourhood, we’ve gotten to know our neighbours more than we ever have. I hope this will all continue, this sense of pulling together as a society, will continue.

Hopefully, some delicious ice cream will come out of all this. (side note: I plan to place an order with Jordan and hopefully readers will also place future orders)

My kids ask me if this pandemic will be in the history books 100 years from now or will people talk about it, and I believe this will happen. We’re living through an extraordinary time.

Do you think Covid 19 will have some lasting impact on the Toronto/Canadian/North American performing arts scene?

That’s a great question as I’m sure it will. It’s going to take awhile to make audiences feel safe about returning to the theatre again. The creativity that is already happening will lead to different forms of story telling. I think we’re going to see a lot of small cast shows probably for awhile. When we do come back, it’s going to be hard for theatres to take risks on big, huge cast shows for awhile. So economically, there will be some impact.

The majority of theatre goers at live theatres are an older audience. Is that audience going to be comfortable? My wife, Shannon, is an administrator for ‘Music in the Afternoon’. It’s a women’s musical club in Toronto and they do a chamber series of music, and they’re talking about how to keep audiences engaged and so are many of the larger professional arts organizations.

Once there’s a safe vaccine in place, people will be craving to go back into the theatre. They will want to see something live. There’s a need for live story telling. I have to believe that.

There will be small smatterings of live theatre socially distanced being offered, but I can’t foresee anything on a larger scale coming back until at least 2022.

Some artists have turned to You Tube 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?

That’s a good question. I did watch some stuff early on in the pandemic. I saw some of the productions from Stratford.

To be honest, that’s not how I like theatre. I prefer my theatre live. As far as being an audience for streaming? I don’t love theatre to watch it in that manner. I would prefer to watch a good television or a great film, stories that are meant to be in that medium.

I understand people wanting to put their work out as it’s the only way we can do it at this time. I’ve been learning to teach online. It’s not the ideal way to teach, but that’s what we have at the present. We adapt and we do it. If people feel the need to adapt and do it, then by all means.

Again, I don’t search it out online. There are so many other things that I’m taking in right now. I don’t love it as a venue for theatre. Yes, some of the streaming has worked and some hasn’t, but I can’t imagine creating a project for myself that’s meant to be on You Tube or streamed. I’d rather put my creative energies in some other place.

And yes, I need to find ways right now to bring in an income. Depending on the streaming and You Tube, there’s little to no payment involved.

Despite all this fraught tension and confusion, what is it about performing that Covid will never destroy for you?

(a bit of chuckle) Well, I’ve loved acting for a long time now and that’s not going to go away. That’s not going to change on account of the pandemic.

It’s been one of the biggest passions of my life since I was a kid and will continue to be. I’ll act and find ways of doing it. I do miss going to the theatre and that experience and my friends’ work, but I’m in it for the long haul as I have been for some time.

I feel like this is big hiatus, a big pause in the trajectory of the performing arts. Other things will develop with the entrepreneurial side, but my love of acting is not going anywhere.

I always loved the name of this theatre company – Shakespeare Bash’d.

Recently, I had the chance to interview Julia Nish-Lapidus, the director of the company’s upcoming production of ‘The Merchant of Venice,’ via Zoom, along with husband-and-wife Hallie Seline and Cameron Laurie, who play love interests Portia and Bassanio.

Even before discussing the upcoming production, I wanted to know more about the significance of the theatre company’s title.

Nish-Lapidus states that the company was not interested in presenting Shakespeare as it had been done in prior years. Too often, that felt somewhat pretentious and disconnected. Instead, the company aimed to discover excitement in Shakespeare’s high-energy plays and how they resonate with modern audiences.

The word ‘Bash’d’ means two things. When the company first started, the plays were performed in bars, so audiences went for the show and the social element of discussing the play afterward. It was a party atmosphere.

The other meaning of ‘Bash’d’ is that it was dismantling preconceived notions and ideas about what Shakespeare was believed to be. It wasn’t necessarily a time to sit back politely and watch. The company wanted audiences to lean forward and engage with what they were watching.

The apostrophe (Bash’d) felt more Shakespearean.

Clever, very clever.

‘The Merchant of Venice’ can be a confusing title. It refers to Antonio, a merchant gentleman who loans three thousand ducats to his friend Bassanio (Laurie) so that he may try to win the hand of the lovely Portia (Seline), a wealthy heiress who has a host of suitors waiting to win her hand.

Why is the title confusing?

High school students, for some reason, usually recall the story to focus on the secondary character Shylock, the Jewish moneylender, who accepts and will loan Antonio the three thousand ducats. There’s one condition – if Antonio is unable to repay the loan, then Shylock can claim a pound of flesh from Antonio.

Such a barbaric act will kill Antonio.

Moreover, Merchant is classified as a comedy. Hmmmm….this has always puzzled me.

I have always enjoyed teaching the play to high school students. I was looking forward to this online discussion, which would enlighten me even more, even though I’ve been retired from teaching since 2017. It doesn’t feel like a comedy in 2025, even though it might have been classified as one over 400 years ago.

Hallie Seline and Cameron Laurie attended the University of Toronto at Sheridan College in the joint Acting Program. Julia also attended the same program but smiled and said she was a few years older than Hallie and Cameron.

After four hundred years, why do Seline, Laurie and Nish-Lapidus still believe ‘Merchant’ is a story audiences need to see?

Cameron says the cast has been digging into the text and always discovering certain things about the plot and the play. For him, ‘Merchant’ is a story about who determines what justice, revenge, love and mercy are and what each term means. These themes resonate strongly with Cameron.

For Hallie, what excites her about ‘Merchant’ is the team that Julia has assembled. The team has all conveyed how the play intrigues and unsettles them. They’re all eager to dive into it. It genuinely feels like a collective of artists coming together at their respective points in life and exploring what ‘Merchant’ signifies for them.

To Julia, after 400 years, ‘Merchant’ continues to feel relevant, even though structurally it feels confusing and uncomfortable. Nish-Lapidus seeks to reimagine it for this upcoming production. The visceral connection to certain scenes and the characters’ language feels contemporary. Historically, for Julia, ‘Merchant’ has been used in various ways, often to the detriment of Jewish and marginalized communities. Numerous Jewish artists are involved in this production, each discovering their own voice and identity as they bring their perspectives to the play in a way that resonates with today’s audience.

For all three artists, the world is a pretty horrific place right now. Julia doesn’t believe a play can heal or fix the animosity of those who feel certain things towards those who practice Judaism. This production of ‘Merchant’ will not reflect on anything specific. Instead, it is to try and tell a story of marginalized people and assumptions about people. It tells a story of how we treat each other and what cruelty can do. Different people will take different things from that.

Julia says some audiences may become upset with what happens to the characters in expected and unexpected ways. No one can predict anything in the theatre, as ‘Merchant’ has a history, and people have varying opinions on it.

For Nish-Lapidus:
“Our aim is to investigate the play. We’re not fixing or re-writing ‘Merchant.’ We’re exploring it as a group, which is why this team is so remarkable. The hope is that the audience will join the actors in this exploration at every performance. What audiences take away will vary for each individual. The actors’ goal is to provide additional perspectives for this investigation.”

This play features two storylines: one involves the merchant Antonio, Shylock, and Bassanio, the lending of money, and the bond, while the other centers on the love story involving Portia, Bassanio, and the suitors. Julia finds that most of the scenes start during a conversation. It is the audience that has to catch up on what’s going on.

Hallie finds it intriguing that the title refers to Antonio, yet the focus of the play is on Shylock and his quest for revenge regarding his money. Hallie and Cameron further discussed how the actors explore the tension within the play, particularly in the courtroom scene. During rehearsals, the actors genuinely notice harsh comments and actions taking place.

Some high schools may pair ‘Merchant’ with Harper Lee’s ‘To Kill a Mockingbird,’ highlighting the importance of understanding another person’s perspective by stepping into their shoes. For these three artists, discussions about hatred, mercy, and justice are valuable for young people, regardless of the lens used. As a director, Julia also highlights how much care and thought must be given if ‘Merchant’ is taught to secondary school students, especially considering the numerous horrific tropes associated with the character of Shylock.

Although no high school student matinees are planned, Lish-Napidus said some university groups are attending the production.

As we concluded our conversation, I asked what’s next for the three once ‘Merchant’ concludes at Toronto’s The Theatre Centre.

Cameron spoke about The Vault, a new play Incubator Space in the same building as Coal Mine Theatre. He will work on Michael Ross Albert’s new play, ‘A Little Closer, ‘ in March. He and Hallie also run The Howland Company. They plan to announce the fall show shortly. The day after ‘Merchant’ closes, Julia and her husband James start directing ‘Romeo & Juliet’ at the George Brown Theatre School.

Shakespeare Bash’d presents ‘The Merchant of Venice’ at The Theatre Centre. Just a heads up, the website appears to show that all performances are sold out. However, you might want to take a chance and see if there are any returns on the day of the performance.

To learn more about Shakespeare Bash’d: https://www.shakespearebashd.com/

To check if tickets are available for ‘The Merchant of Venice’: https://theatrecentre.org/tickets/?eid=142100

‘There are other voices in today’s world right now that are more important than mine for them to tell their stories, and for them to lead and be seen leading.”

Justin Stadynyk’s final comment during our recent conversation resonated strongly with me. He is more than happy to allow these voices to take their course and proper place in society. He hopes to still be performing in the next five years but also hopes to take that creative bug he has to be on the writing team of a show or the re-creation of a show.

I applaud artists who will do their best to make something like this happen and I believe Stadnyk will do just that.

He and his wife (who owns a few Winnipeg dance studios) have one newborn and one toddler boy in the house. He stated that he prefers shorter work contracts for now as he doesn’t want to be too far away from home. After we ‘zoomed’ each other, I did a bit of research and discovered I had seen him perform in 2009 at Toronto’s Royal Alexandra in ‘The Boys in the Photograph’ (formerly titled ‘The Beautiful Game’ when I saw the show in London’s West End). I wished I had told him that during our conversation, but it’s here now in print and that’s the important thing.

He will appear in September for three days in Barrie Ontario’s Talk is Free Theatre’s ‘Giants in the Sky’.

Just what is ‘Giants in the Sky’ aside from a song title in ‘Into the Woods’?

Over September 9-11, 2022, and September 16-18, 2022, culture, music, and theatrical performance are bringing rooftops, balconies, and fire escapes of the city of Barrie, Ontario to life, and it’s all free.

Performing in some manner has always been a part of Justin’s life. He reminisced that he sang on the playground when he was a “young, young kid.” He attended a Winnipeg high school that had a good performing arts program. He jokingly stated he didn’t follow in the footsteps of his two older brothers and decided to go somewhere else. As soon as he graduated high school, Justin relocated to Oakville, attended the Musical Theatre Program at Sheridan College, and graduated in 2006.

This thing called Covid still hovers around all of us, including the performing arts. For Justin, these last two-plus years of absence from live entertainment have placed a lot of things into perspective for him. Justin proudly states his path during the pandemic slightly veered as he and his wife had two boys born during this time. One was born days after the initial shutdown and the other was born five months ago.

He calls these last two years a re-shuffling in a perspective shift: “it feels nice that things are slowly getting back in, and it seems as if people are okay with that. Before there was the hustle of the artist trying to get the work, and now, for me, the work seems more meaningful and has a weight to it. Talk is Free’s GIANTS IN THE SKY will allow me a three-day event of musical theatre songs that I love and love to showcase.”

What was it that drew Justin to the upcoming ‘Giants in the Sky’ project?

He found this a great welcome back for the artists to come together to share their voices in this festival. He recognizes artists are trying to find their comfort level returning to performance as it is nerve-wracking since one can’t just simply return and pick things back up again.

Not only does he consider his 45-minute performance set ‘Corner of the Sky’ a nice welcome back to theatre, but also the vast array of programming that has been put together by Talk is Free for the two weekends is fascinating from drummers to poetry readings to opera singers, jazz singers, musical theatre artists, impersonators. Stadnyk calls ‘Giants in the Sky’ a great chance for the artists to ‘wet their whistle’ again with arts and not be forced to put an entire evening aside for one style.

Stadnyk will perform outdoors in a back alley for the comfort of those who might not be ready yet to venture indoors into a packed theatre. He has selected an array of songs from the musical theatre canon from classic to pop. He doesn’t have to stick to one genre of the musical theatre category in case a specific song might not be someone’s cup of tea.

Additionally, Justin is also a ten-year entrepreneur and works in Yoga and Meditation. He completed his teacher training for Yoga in Brazil in 2011/2012. According to his website, his primary business is: “just music™ . It has become the “go-to” music editing company for choreographers all over North America and the world. The mission of just music™ is to provide a resource for the creative arts and sport communities to create non-jarring, seamless music edits along with providing other music services in order to allow choreographers the time and head space to flourish as just that, the choreographer.”

Justin started Yoga when he was playing Gilbert Blythe in the Charlottetown Festival’s production of ‘Anne of Green Gables’. It was called Moksha Yoga then and now it’s called Modo Yoga. He fell in love with yoga as he discovered it helps with his singing and dancing in his musical career. What he didn’t expect from yoga was how much it would help in his acting because of the ability to practice letting go of everything and being in yoga for however long the session:

“It is the same with acting.” Justin explains: “One has to let go of the day and be in the moment for the length of the performance. This is hard as there is so much going on in our lives especially surrounding the pandemic now. It’s important not to be able to push down your feelings and stories but to shelve for that moment so you can pick them up later for performance if necessary.”

He smiles and concurs how good of a question it is to ask someone where he/she/they see themselves in the next five years. His favourite part of the arts is creating. Some of Justin’s favourite shows have been world premieres and not re-creations of something. He would love to start working on the other side of the table as part of that creative process and perhaps become a writer, an assistant director or a director. If these opportunities presented themselves in the next five years, Justin would like to dabble in them more.

And finally, what’s next for Justin Stadnyk once ‘Giants in the Sky’ is complete and he returns home to Winnipeg and his family:

“I’m working on ‘Into the Woods’ with Winnipeg’s Royal Manitoba Theatre Centre. The pandemic has made many companies realize they need a bigger insurance policy with standbys and understudies. This is a different role for me as I will be a standby for two of the roles: the Baker and the Narrator and the Mysterious Man. So, in true form to what I said about my five-year plan, I’m really looking forward to the creative process where I get to sit and watch all of these people create and then I get to learn the roles…It’s going to be a new experience for me to be sitting taking notes up in the back and rehearsing things, but I’m excited to be doing it in Winnipeg. I’m happy this is happening more and more in theatre companies.”

To learn more about Talk is Free Theatre’s ‘Giants in the Sky’ festival, visit www.tift.com.