Profiles & Interviews

The first time I saw Sabryn perform was with Jeremy Smith’s wonderful summer Bard’s Bus tour of Driftwood Theatre. During those summers, Sabryn performed in ‘Romeo and Juliet’, ‘King Lear’ and ‘The Comedy of Errors’. I remember watching these three performances and thinking Sabryn is destined for even more phenomenal roles on future professional stages in Toronto and across Canada.

And she has given exceptional performances over these last few years including ‘The Royale’ at Soulpepper for which she received the Toronto Theatre Critics Award for Best Supporting Performance in a Play.

Selected Film and Television: Two Sentence Horror Stories, Departure, The Expanse, Holly Hobbie, Carter, Taken, People of Earth, Black Mirror, The Girlfriend Experience. Selected theatre: Rose, Caught (Theatre Passe Muraille), Once on this Island (Acting Upstage/ Obsidian) as well as Caroline, or Change Romeo and Juliet, Three Musketeers, The Merchant of Venice (Stratford), Ruined (Obsidian/Nightwood). Sabryn has been nominated for several Dora Awards. As a director she’s directed shows and workshops for Summerworks, Shakespeare in Action, Obsidian and the Musical Stage Company.

She recently directed Contractions, an experimental play/film hybrid over zoom for the Studio180 At Home series. Sabryn also loves to read (especially out loud) and has now narrated seven audiobooks. She is a graduate of the National Theatre School of Canada, the Birmingham Conservatory for Classical Theatre at the Stratford Festival and the Actors’ Conservatory at the Canadian Film Centre.

We conducted our interview via email as she is one busy lady. Thank you so much, Sabryn, for taking the time:

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?

I’m feeling very disappointed and yet not at all surprised that the numbers are surging. I have a lot of anxiety and insecurity about what the future will hold. But I have to say, being a freelance artist who often lives paycheque to paycheque prepared me well for the whole ‘not knowing’ aspect of all this. I just wish the circumstances weren’t so dire and serious for so many.

We will absolutely emerge to some new way of living- it’ll be what it is for that time and place and life will continue on…how that will look I have no idea. I think (and hope) people will be a lot more cautious about illness, handwashing and mask-wearing in the vulnerable seasons forevermore and generally more conscious about the safety and wellbeing of folks. Also for me, personal space and physical boundaries shifting in a big way!

I, myself, have enjoyed the distance and the lack of expectation that I have to hug everyone or shake everyone’s hands all the time (especially strangers or acquaintances I don’t know well); that’s a surprising perk to all this for me because I find often in our industry, people assume everyone is comfortable letting them into their personal, intimate space for touch. I will say though that I am fortunate to have a husband and cats who I can hug all I want when I feel like it. Some people aren’t that lucky right now and I totally understand that- the deprivation of physical touch can be harmful for so many.

How have you been faring? How has your immediate family been doing during these last eight months?
I count myself very, very blessed-I can’t say that enough. I am faring just fine all things considered. I know that speaks to my privilege as I have been able to keep working, have a comfortable home and a partner who hasn’t lost work at all this year. Another odd perk was getting to spend so much time with my husband during the first lockdown- getting to take the time to eat lunch together everyday was a simple yet profound joy we wouldn’t have been afforded otherwise. It’s really made us value one another in a new way.

It has been difficult not being able to see my folks consistently who are in Saskatchewan, especially now that the holidays are around the corner and choosing to stay put to keep us all safe. They’re lucky that they’re in a very spacious place that isn’t as dense but numbers are crawling up there too, so…I just keep begging my parents to stay home and pray they’ll keep safe and healthy so we can be reunited soon.

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

Honestly, seeing all my peers struggling and not knowing how to help besides reaching out and checking in on people. The theatre companies, the freelancers, the people who rely on contract work not being able to have a consistent livelihood or have any concrete plan for the future has been really tough to witness.

Also, not knowing when we’ll be able to gather in a theatre again to watch or put on a play for an eager audience of patrons is unnerving.

And yet, and I’m unsure if it’s ignorance or naivete, but I seem to have adopted the “everything will be okay” mentality and am trusting that professionally my career will be where it needs to be when it can be there. I just hope that the many theatre companies and creative people who are taking huge financial hits right now are able to pull through and pivot in ways that can sustain them.

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 one of the few who didn’t have any concrete plans for 2020. I had made a conscious effort to lay off theatre for the year and focus on screen and voice and I was very lucky in that regard because all my friends and colleagues were losing work. It just felt like I was in the same position as I would’ve been anyways: having no idea what jobs would be coming or when I’d work again; with the huge caveat that lockdown definitely hindered any or all opportunities for actually being on set or a studio for a large portion of this year…but I was fortunate to have been working almost right up until March so was able to coast for a few months without worrying much about my financial situation. And thank goodness for CERB!

I did have a workshop of a new play in development I’m directing that we had to postpone for a few months and settled on doing a three day zoom workshop instead. It was useful for many reasons as far as hearing the play with actors and dramaturgy etc. but we were also hoping to do some physical exploration at this stage and that just wasn’t possible over zoom. The production is tentatively slated for fall 2021 but only time will tell if that’ll happen so all we can do is wait and see and come up with a contingency plan in case we have to postpone which at this point, is looking very likely.

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

Lots of reading, cooking, cleaning for those first three months and then I got really tired of being cooped up and feeling like I couldn’t find a satisfying creative outlet. I actually completed The Artist’s Way for the first time ever in the summer which was such a huge help. Even just writing everyday shifted my mental health in a big way. The artist dates I went on and the creative tasks reinvigorated me and my creative spirit which I so desperately needed.

Once things started opening up later in the summer, I was very lucky to have booked some work again on set and in the studio as well as a few directing gigs for virtual theatre including a zoom production of Contractions with Studio 180 which was another elixir I needed. Getting to collaborate with other artists and using my director brain after months of creative atrophy was the burst of a new energy I needed. It was such a joy and privilege to have those opportunities and although zoom can be challenging at the best of times, the constraints forced some really creative problem solving which I also didn’t realize how much I missed.

I also started doing some virtual teaching at Randolph College in the fall as well as some outreach work with Studio 180 and both been a nice side gigs that are safe to do from home. Teaching is something I’ve regularly done to supplement my income prior to Covid and I truly love it. The shift to zoom has been surprisingly easy if not a bit exhausting on the eyes, although I really can’t imagine doing theatre school training-most of which is so physical- over a computer. These students are so dedicated!

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?

For my fellow performers and colleagues, be sure to keep engaging in creative outlets and lean on your supports. Reach out to mentors, past collaborators or friends if you need connection or want to create something. I think a lot of people are eager to collaborate right now- I have friends sending scripts for feedback or brainstorming virtual projects just because they need the outlet and I think that’s a great way to cope. For some, they’re not in a position to do that right now so I would say making sure to do something that’s good for your mental and physical health and wellbeing everyday. Meditating, long walks with a great podcast, calling an old friend, baking something for a pal just because..anything that makes you feel happy, calm and engaged. Also, therapy has been a huge help for me.

As far as helpful resources and options since it’s difficult to find a therapist in these times, I know Equity launched LifeWorks earlier this year to support members https://www.caea.com/News#LifeWorks-June-29. For ACTRA members there’s a new Expanded Access- Mental Wellness Support Benefit I was just reading about that sounds promising. Info available here: https://www.afbs.ca/fraternal-benefits#additional-benefitsI

For recent theatre school grads I would say: stay positive and optimistic, stay ready, keep reading plays and pushing yourself to learn and engage as much as possible. Take a virtual class. Write those emails to casting directors, artistic directors, people in the community you admire…propose virtual coffees. The hustle to get your name out there has always been hard but now it’s even more of a challenge so it’s time to think outside the box and stay on top of it.

Stream those online readings and productions which there are no shortage of internationally but also here at home there’s lots on offer with shows streaming online with Acts of Faith at Factory Theatre, Contractions with Studio 180 (shameless plug J), Musical Stage Company’s Uncovered just to name a few. Look for inspiration everywhere as you might be surprised where you might find it. Write everyday if you can- it helps so much.

Do you see anything positive stemming from Covid 19?

As far as theatre goes, I think this time off has forced many organizations and companies to recalibrate; to look at how things are run and re-examine structure and operations that have oppressed so many for decades. The BLM movement and the protests in the summer shone a light on so many systemic issues within the world but in our community, it really inspired many to voice their experiences with the #inthedressingroom campaign.

Reading the many tweets and posts, I didn’t find any of these stories particularly surprising unfortunately as I’ve both experienced firsthand or heard of all the micro and macroaggressions towards artists of colour over my career. I think a lot of people are taking this time to stop and reflect on how they can better advocate for and foster, support, and protect BIPOC artists so that when we meet again in a physical space, there are some tangible practices put in place to change the trajectory forever.

I also think that having all this extra time at home, many are realizing that the six day work week isn’t necessary and that we can likely accomplish just as much in five days- arguably maybe more with TWO days off: one to do groceries/laundry/spend time with family and one to actually accomplish the work.
I know I definitely do not miss only having one day off a week. I myself, have found that this lockdown time has really changed my perspective on what really matters in life. Yes, I love my career and performing but getting to have quality time with family, connecting with friends whom I haven’t spoken to in ages, those are the things you won’t ever get back. Jobs will come and go but loved ones are what matters most to me. Balance and boundaries are key.

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

I think it already has on so many artists and companies. Many people leaving the business or finding a new livelihood out of necessity, companies having to shut their doors, losing their space and folding because they can’t financially sustain themselves…I think the fabric of our performing arts scene will forever be changed. However, I think this is such a fascinating time and will absolutely inspire and birth some incredible new work and from the ashes, new companies will rise.

It’ll just take time.

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?

I think it’s amazing the way people have pivoted so quickly. Even just having the ability to lean on streaming is going to be a huge asset to many as things may remain up in the air for the foreseeable future. It would be foolish not to utilize this; I think it is the only option for many actors and companies if they want to keep getting their work or name out there or maintaining audience engagement and some type of revenue.

Unfortunately, these things can be very pricy endeavours if quality is a priority and not everyone has it in the budget to outfit a full home studio right now or create and develop a streaming platform like Stratford. There is so much more content on offer online right now specifically because of Covid, so the challenging part is getting viewers.

I find it overwhelming sometimes to decide what to watch and who to support with all the choices. Streaming can also be pretty frustrating depending on if there are any technical difficulties or if you have crappy internet and I find it really hard to fully sit down and engage at home when I can be multitasking and doing a million other things at the same time which I can’t do in a theatre. Personally, I have also been trying to stare at screens less in my life since I’ve been forced to engage with work in this way now more than ever so I may not be a great target audience member lol.

But I think people have got to do what they got to do and if it’s helpful to utilize YouTube or streaming for the benefit of their spirit, creativity or livelihood, all the power to them.

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

I really miss the live feedback from an audience, that energy; the shared experience of people coming together in a space and breathing, gasping, laughing together (you know, all the risky and dangerous stuff right now). Heck, I even miss the oblivious patron unwrapping candy at the most inopportune moment which then in itself turns into another shared funny/baffling moment between audience and performers!

Covid will never destroy my desire to get together for several weeks and create something out of nothing with a talented group of people and sharing it with live humans in a physical space.

I think when I first step into a theatre again when it’s safe to do so, I won’t take it for granted ever again.

The Canadian company of the Broadway hit ‘Come from Away’ was still packing them in at Toronto’s Royal Alexandra Theatre before the pandemic closed the theatres. This story of 9/11 and the goodness of people shining through in the darkest of times is definitely a story that we all need to see and to hear too. When it’s safe to return to the theatre, I plan to get to see this fine Canadian group of actors even if it’s the last seat in the furthest row of the upper balcony.

Saccha Dennis lends her talents as Hannah and others to this wonderful ensemble of characters. I’m trying not to spoil the plot if you haven’t seen it yet, but apologies if this gives it away. At one point, Hannah sings on the phone to her fire fighter son, ‘I am Here’, and Ms. Dennis’ rendition of this number still brings tears to my eyes (especially when you know what happens at the end of the story).

Originally from Montreal, Saccha is an actor, director, and creator who has played in Canada, the US and abroad. She studied Musical Theatre Performance at Oakville’s Sheridan College. I also had the chance to see Saccha’s work as director of the Hart House production of ‘Legally Blonde: The Musical’. Tremendous fun.

Saccha and I conducted our interview via Zoom:

1. How have you and your family been keeping during this nearly three-month isolation?

You know, we’ve been doing good, it’s been a bit of adjustment with the routine down. We finally have a routine down after months.

2. What has been the most challenging and difficult for you during this time personally and professionally? What have you been doing to keep yourself busy?

I think personally speaking I went back into full time mother mode which included being teacher, therapist and all duties that come with it. Normally, my daughter is in day care 4 times a week. The adjustment was difficult as it has been some time since I’ve had her full time. It’s great to spend time with my daughter so I’ve been really thankful for that time with her.

Professionally it’s hard because in theatre we don’t know what’s going on and we don’t know what’s going to happen afterwards. It’s kinda scary. This is a profession I worked hard to get to and the fact we’re in limbo right now makes for interesting times. CFA is a story to hear right now. I’m sad that we can’t spread that message right now.

Besides looking after my daughter, I’m being creative. I’ve had little projects on the side in connecting with theatre companies or to direct for them. I’m writing my own projects and pieces. But now with having my daughter full time, I’m having to juggle these other pieces and projects once again.

3. Along with your work in ‘Come from Away’ in Toronto, were you involved in any side projects when the pandemic was declared, and everything was shut down? How far were you into those projects? Will they come to fruition some time soon? Professionally, has Covid changed your life regarding how you will approach future performances of ‘Come from Away’?

My projects are ongoing. I want to make sure my projects are thoughtfully and strategically planned. There’s no rush for them to come to fruition as of yet. Right now, there’s no urgency to get the projects up and running.

It’s interesting the week when things started to seem off and shut down, yet we were still performing because there was nothing official happening. We got the sense that a lockdown was coming, and we knew about Covid. Already the message felt different because of the content of the show.

The show was a huge and epic event from history and how were we dealing with it. It was an interesting parallel to do the show while all of this was happening around us. I think it will be the same when we go back because we will go back because something so epic happened and we did come out of it just like ‘Come from Away’, and what we do as human beings to help each other out in situations like this.

4. Some actors whom I’ve interviewed have stated they can’t see anyone venturing back into a theatre or studio for a least 1 ½ to 2 years. Do you foresee this possible reality to be factual?

It’s interesting. I’m almost in denial. No one can say what will happen. People can assume and I feel and I hope anyway that we will be up and running sooner than that. A company like Mirvish is thinking of all strategies, and I believe they have a plan. To what extent, I’m not sure. Does that mean that it’s worth it to seat a third of the house for the costs? Is it worthwhile?

I don’t know. I want to be hopeful and that it will be sooner. When we went into lockdown, I’m sure a number of us did some research to find out about the pandemic of 1918. Theatres were still open as people needed an escape. I’m not saying we should be running because everyone needs to be safe and to feel safe.

I try to remain optimistic because it’s what I normally do. I’ve been training for this role so this production better come back.

It’s definitely going to look different in the next couple of years, that’s for sure.

5. In your estimation and opinion, do you foresee COVID 19 and its results leaving a lasting impact, either positive or negative, on the Canadian performing arts scene?

I thought a lot about this. On a positive note, people will start to create new businesses. Something new will be formed out of this. Whether it’s digital theatre, whatever different form of theatre it might bring.
On a negative note, there will be change but that will look like? I don’t know. Will audience and cast get their temperature taken as they enter? Will audience members have to wear masks? Will backstage crew have to wear masks? Social distancing? This could be a new era of theatre that we weren’t ready for. It’s necessary for our safety and for us to sustain our livelihood.

Will the seating in the audience be in different capsules or different shelters for families? Nobody really knows.

6. Do you have any words of wisdom 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?

Be your own creator. I’m starting to recently discover that it is in creating things that makes me, ME. Creating makes me love what I do. It could turn very grim for all artists. For new graduates, don’t depend on other sources or companies to give you a platform. Create a platform yourself. We’re seeing it online, You Tube, streaming.

7. I’ve spoken with some individuals who believe that online streaming and You Tube presentations destroy the theatrical impact of those who have gathered with anticipation to watch a performance. 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?

I believe for me theatre is that live experience. That’s what it’s built on. We come together as a community to witness a story and to see performers take us on a journey. Digital theatre is alright, but it takes away from that experience of a community. However, there are positive aspects of online theatre that you can’t get from live theatre that actually help theatre in a way.

For example, the visual. If you want to present a visual that you know you can’t do on stage, the online theatre will allow you to do that. There’s the yin and the yang.

I’m old school and I think a lot of people are. I just hope theatre doesn’t become obsolete.

I hope theatre has a life after Covid.

8. What is it about the performing arts that still energizes you even through this tumultuous and confusing time?

I always go back to community. It’s been three months since I’ve hugged my friends. We all need that communal interaction. That’s what energizes me to experience something in real life where I can sit across from them and touch their hand or hold their hand. Community is a feeling of human interactions, and that’s what really gets me.

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

1. What is your favourite word?

I have a few – resonance, juxtaposition (it’s fun to say), and I love the word Yes. That’s my favourite word.

2. What is your least favourite word?

No.

3. What turns you on?

Kindness turns me on. Kind people, watching kind things unfold.

4. What turns you off?

Ignorance and hate.

5. What sound or noise do you love?

I love the sound of laughter. Love it.

6. What sound or noise bothers you?

Whining

7. What is your favourite curse word?

Bitch.

What is your least favourite curse word? I’m gonna say, “Shit” on all levels.

8. Other than your current profession now, what other profession would you have liked to attempt?

It has to be where I can help people – motivational speaking, teaching, interior decorating is something I also fancy.

9. What profession could you not see yourself doing?

Serving. Nothing wrong with serving as I’ve done it but it’s not for me.

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

“You did good, kid. You did good.” I need validation from God.

To learn more about Saccha Dennis, please visit her social media sites: www.sacchadennis.com, Facebook: SacchaDennisRobichaud or Instagram: @sacchafierce

I’ve been discovering the work of more and more worthy professional theatre companies where I would really like to attend their productions. I had heard of b current before but knew very little of the company until now.

From its website: “b current is the hotbed for culturally-rooted theatre development in Toronto. Originally founded as a place for Black artists to create, nurture, and present their new works, our company has grown to support artists from all diasporas. We strived over two decades to create space for diverse voices to be heard, always with a focus on engaging the communities from which our stories emerge. As a result, these communities trust our company and respect the work that we do. Whether our audiences identify with our work through ethnic experience, social values, or political awareness, these groups are loyal to our programming because they recognize the high level of cultural authenticity and integrity we foster in our artists and their works.”

With such an important focus, I also became aware that b current now has a new Artistic Director: Sadie Berlin.

She is a writer, director, producer and now the Artistic Director of b current. She has a practice in performance art where she focuses on durational work. The alphabet soup at the bottom of her signature alludes post-graduate and professional degrees.

We conducted our conversation via email. Thank you so much, Sadie, for taking the time to add your voice to this important discussion. I look forward to meeting you in person soon to say hello to you:

We are now one year in with very few signs at this time that live theatre will return fully any time soon. How have you been faring during this time? Your immediate family?

Although I am about as secular as one can get, I sometimes think the Fates have me in their crosshairs. I find it a whimsical way of thinking about the ups and downs of life; imagining biddies busying themselves at playing around with the next twist and turn of my life. After the first couple of weeks of lockdown, I started getting more work than ever. As an artist, you work, create, plant seeds, network, parlay yourself into better and better paying work. I thought the pandemic would stop my career in its tracks, the opposite happened.

My partner who would self-define as a recluse has gained self-knowledge on the limits of his need for isolation. My elderly mother, who still lives in my hometown of Montreal, had her first shot weeks ago and has been able somehow to keep her spirits up through the pandemic.

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

I never stopped working. When lockdown came, I was curating a series of articles, a covid-proof endeavour. When I was called back to work at The Lab of the Stratford Festival in the Spring, we worked on finding ways to support as many artists as possible through different initiatives, digital projects, and commissions. I have left the Festival to take the helm at b current and that, of course, is occupying all my time. It’s strange to be so fortunate through such difficult times and, of course, because the grass is always greener, I have moments when I envy those who have a chance to rest and think.

I am a firm believer in wallowing. When I get upset, I give myself a limited number of hours to feel sorry for myself. Capitalist democracy and its prescriptive optimism, happiness and creepy, exaggerated smiles has never aligned with me. It’s ok to be angry, frustrated and upset right now. And for theatre artists, I understand the feeling of dysphoria as people are at home watching Netflix without realising how much theatre and its artists contribute to the tv and film industries.

On the first week of lockdown, I posted the seven volume, original French version of Remembrance of Things Past and thought I would finally be able to get past Book ne. And then for Winter, I purchased a MIDI keyboard and thought I would compose music. I got wool for knitting projects. I purchased a fe Domestika courses just for fun. But there really hasn’t been any time for hobbies.

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 have keenly felt the absence of sharing space with other artists. In Pretend It’s a City, Lebowitz says that hanging out is the history of art. Forget social media or Zoom, nothing can substitute having a heated discussion about the nature of art at 2am in a dive joint. Until very recently, I was holding up better than most. I’m an only child and solitude never phased me. But I don’t feel liberated. I feel like I’ve been waiting outside my assigned gate at an airport for 13 months.

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’m not sure whether this story is true, but it should be: I once heard about an African ant that lives colonies of millions and is deadly to all organic matter. The ants follow the same path every year. And so, once a year, every village on the ants’ path, pack up their clothes and pets and livestock and move off the path of the ant for a couple of days. They villagers come back to pristine village.

I think how a western mindset would address this issue. I imagine the invention of poisons and extensive and environmentally impactful barriers. I conjure up Texans shooting the ants with their guns, an ungenerous but hilarious thought that might pass through my mind.

One thing Covid has taught me is humility. I am no fatalist, but I respect Covid, the same way I respect bears: by staying out of the way. I am watching and waiting and, to me, it feels insolent to make any prediction whatsoever. Like tempting the Fates.

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 actually feel the assassinations of Breanna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, George Floyd, Regis Korchisky-Paquet, Chantel Moore and so many others, have had a greater transformative impact on how I view my work. Covid doesn’t have a conscience, but society should.

I’ve always hesitated between pursuing a life in the arts and working in social justice. The arts won but I will no longer work on projects that reinforce the status quo. I will no longer apologize for harping on about race and politics. Whatever the future holds, I will be a different person in it. The Hindu goddess Kali, the goddess of destruction and creativity is a great guide for me.

Covid has given us a chance at self-renewal – gosh, I feel terrible writing this as I think of frontline workers, indigent children with poor wifi who are barely getting an education right now. It’s fair to imagine that most don’t have the luxury to ponder lofty cogitations.

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?

Before Covid, “safety” had been a buzz word in theatre for some years. I feel we are shying away from any kind of danger, be it physical, emotional, aesthetic… it will change the art that we make but I don’t see any other way. This is the culture right now.

I was in Berlin just before the pandemic became known to the world and every play, I saw, would have resulted in a call to Equity on the first day of rehearsal over here. And the entire culture is concerned about safety and that will affect the arts as well. Would Robert Mapplethorpe be the artist that he became without clubs like The Mineshaft?

The possible de-radicalisation of art keeps me up at night. Because safety is never radical. Because safety is not visceral. On the other hand, do I want to see artists in “danger” of any kind or any form? Of course not.

My outlet is my performance art practice where safety is a dirty word, the important distinction being that with performance art, every artist gets to own and control their process.

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?

God, I hope not.

Actually, what I hope for is the pandemic and everything around it to course its way through my corpus callosum until it is forklifted to deeper recesses of my mind. From there it can work its way back into a related but perhaps unrecognisable idea.

Again, the civil unrest of the last year has had a much greater impact on me than the pandemic. More sensitivity is the last thing I need, especially after hearing Tennessee Williams’s adage that the secret to happiness is insensitivity.

Seriously though, I believe in the great French adage: “chassez le naturel, il revient au galop”. In other words, we never really change.

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 not sure it is possible to be more curious than I am in normal times but, as Covid forced me to get out and go for walks instead of the gym, my relationship with nature has deepened.

I am very privileged to have access to the natural world where I live and, without Covid, I’m not sure I would have spent as much time pondering life’s cycles and our place in the natural world. I think of everything in more holistic terms now and I am sure this will affect my art practice.

To learn more about b current, visit www.bcurrent.ca. You can also follow b current on its Facebook Page: @bcurrentLIVE; Twitter: @bcurrentLIVE; Instagram: @bcurrentlive

To follow Sadie Berlin at Twitter: @artysadie and IG: @sadiediamorphine

Samantha is an Indigenous contemporary dance artist, choreographer, and teacher based in Tkaronto. She is from the Ktunaxa Nation in British Columbia. Her ancestry is Ktunaxa and Scottish/British Settler. She completed the Arts Umbrella Dance Diploma Program in 2018, the pre-professional program. She has worked as a guest artist with Ballet BC and an associate artist with Red Sky Performance. Samantha explored what aspects of her Ktunaxa culture, history, and traditional knowledge can be pulled into her choreography. She has presented works at Matriarchs Uprising by O.Dela Arts, and the Paprika Festival.

However, I have more to learn and appreciate about the art of dance and I’m appreciative of those artists who are taking the time to share with me and others what is it about the art of dance that continues to fascinate and intrigue them.

Samantha laughed as I asked her to start with the big question – what about the world and study of dance still intrigues her as a performing artist?

“Overall, it is a universal language. It doesn’t matter where you come from or where you’re at in your life. You can watch movement and watch a body move, and that will trigger some kind of reaction within us. It doesn’t matter what language we speak as dance is understandable. As an expression, [dance] reads as it’s a way to express the human experience using this human vessel we all have, and we all share that similarity.”

From Samantha’s perspective, movement is an extremely satisfying experience for her. Dance and movement keep her happy and when she tends to dance her day gets a little happier personally.

How is Samantha feeling about this gradual return to the performing arts even though Covid still envelopes us for the foreseeable future? She’s excited about the return and remarks how it appears that the city of Toronto seems to be excited about its return. Even though Covid is still present, Samantha says these last two years have given all of us an awareness of our own health in how to engage with people.

Yet Samantha is not turning Pollyanna because artists are aware there are some fears, but if we follow regulations in what’s happening around us, then that’s all any of us can do going forward. There is a safe ambition as we return because we have to trust that those who aren’t feeling well don’t come around those who are feeling fine. Let’s embrace the changes that we’ve seen over the last two-plus years. The arts need to be experienced because if artists are afraid of getting back into the studio, then there is the possibility the work, the experience, and the artistic connection could die out.

Samantha is most excited about presenting a premiere dance work kaqwiⱡȼi as part of the late-night dance series NIGHT SHIFT co-presented by Citadel + Compagnie and Fall for Dance North (FFDN). The piece she will present works in her native Ktunaxa language. Samantha has been learning her traditional Ktunaxa language over the past two years via Zoom.

“Learning my language is something I need to do,” Samantha states, “but I wasn’t always sure how or when I was going to be able to do it, so I’m very happy I am learning the language now with my teacher, Alfred Joseph.”

About a year and a half ago, Samantha recalls in one of her classes they were given the body parts vocabulary list, and this triggered an idea in her brain. As a dancer herself, Samantha says she thinks about the body parts and how could she translate Ktunaxa words to movement. She shared next what she would do.

All of this language learning begins with the study of the body parts and then meshed into a solo dance piece built from a practice of translating words into movement. Samantha works with an audio recording of her grandmother, Sophie Pierre, and another Elder, Marie Nicholas, of them having a conversation in the traditional Ktunaxa language. Sutherland then translates the story and the full sentences of the ladies into movement, and this is what is being presented. Samantha also uses her own voice in speaking the traditional language and dances along with her own movement as well.

What are some of the ways Sutherland approaches translation into her traditional language?

She looks at the shape of the letters and then uses her body to form that shape.

How many syllables does the word have? If three, then the movement would have three parts.

If she had the word ‘river’ in front of her and she heard her grandmother say river, then Samantha uses her hands to show a free-flowing fluid movement of the river. Other vocabulary words she said with me during our conversation:

ʔa·kⱡam – head (sounds like ahk-thlam)
ʔa·kiy – hands (sounds like ah-kee)
ʔa·kⱡik – feet (sounds like ahk-thlick)

Samantha likes working with text because there are so many ways to approach a word either how it sounds or looks on paper, or whatever it means and then using movement to define the meaning. She describes the process as fun. She is excited that she gets the opportunity to continue to present it. Earlier this spring, she had made this production for the Paprika Festival and got presented at ‘Sharing the Stage’ at the National Ballet and she gets to continue it for Fall for Dance North and the Citadel.

Within the five-year trajectory plan of where artists see themselves, Samantha hopes that she continues to collaborate with other Canadian artists and get to create whether solo or with others. She loves the Indigenous dance community not only here in Toronto but Canada abroad. As a new choreographer herself, Samantha hopes to meet and to create within the next five years.

Sutherland hopes one day that her story presented by Citadel and FFDN can also be presented live in her home nation so that her relatives and other Ktunaxa folk can see her work. She is excited to share the work with her classmates and teacher and relatives.

What’s next for Samantha Sutherland once this show is complete? She has a couple of other shows coming up in Toronto and the area for the fall. She teaches full-time as well so she’s excited to be getting back to seeing her kids. Mostly, however, Samantha will be performing her works at a few upcoming festivals.

To learn more about Samantha Sutherland’s production visit www.ffdn.com or citadelcie.com.

Red Sky Performance founder Sandra Laronde celebrates another significant achievement in her artistic career. You can read about her many successes at www.redskyperformance.com.

She has received the Lifetime Artistic Achievement in Dance by the Governor General’s Performing Arts Award.

A prestigious acknowledgment indeed.

An online email conversation allowed me to chat with her for a few minutes about how she feels about this honour.

While she is deeply honoured and grateful to receive such meaningful recognition for her work in Canada and the world, the acknowledgment came as a wonderful surprise for her: “I am truly moved by this powerful vote of confidence in what I do as an artist. I am both thrilled and humbled by this incredible support.”

Laronde’s growth as an artist has been shaped by a constellation of people rather than a single mentor. She calls it” “like a wonderful web than anything. It’s been a network of individuals who have informed my artistic path.” She then mentioned Tomson Highway and Rene Highway. She knows Tomson in real life but has never met Rene, as he only appeared in her dreams. Yet both have strongly influenced her—Tomson in theatre and Rene in dance.

Sandra says, “it was more through osmosis than any kind of formal mentorship—just being around Tomson in the early days, socializing with him, listening, learning, and absorbing.”

Laronde continues to develop and tell Indigenous stories of resilience, hope, and inspiration on the Canadian and world stages. I questioned her further about why it is important to continue spreading these messages:

“Stories of resilience and hope are powerful reminders of our capacity to adapt, grow, and create meaningful change. We artists have an extraordinary ability to ignite the human spirit. More than ever, we need stories of resilience, hope, and inspiration. The world is at a crossroads, facing growing fears about social, economic, political, and environmental challenges. Yet, this is also a time of transformation. Instead of riding waves of decline, I hope we can find creative and pragmatic solutions that consider the well-being of the next seven generations. We must never give up and continue finding ways to feel inspired — and the arts have a profound way of doing just that.”

I’m always eager to attend Indigenous theatre whenever possible. A couple of weeks ago, I had the chance to speak with another Indigenous artist. I told this individual I still have much to learn about the Indigenous community. The person responded that’s alright since the learning should never cease.

Laronde echoes what this Indigenous artist told me. Indigenous stories are compelling, exciting and unique and the learning should never cease. She makes another comment I highly respect:

“As Indigenous people, I truly believe we are the DNA of Canada; we are the heartbeat. This means that Canadians will never know who they truly are without knowing Indigenous stories, perspectives, and ethos. Our storytelling is born and inspired from this land. Our stories are not transplanted from elsewhere, they are from here. How could Canadians ever know who they are without stories from source, from its roots? Our stories are very much connected to the power of land, magic, pain, and promise.”

She has also penned a debut novel ‘She Holds Up the Stars.’ Laronde says, “I penned with a single purpose: to spark a life-long love affair with stories. I craved the very stories that I now write – ones that mirrored my cultural roots, love of land, and the journey of a sensitive young individual. My hope is that this story fills a void and resonates with those who also yearn for positive stories reflecting their experiences. I simply want young people to have the stories that I did not have and to inspire a generation of young minds.”

It appears the inspiration has already begun.

As a visual writer, Laronde finds that ‘She Holds Up the Stars’ naturally adapts to live stage performances.

She has also been invited to speak at numerous schools, in person and via Zoom about her book. Laronde loves engaging with young people about the novel as they ask the best questions.

As a retired Ontario English Language and Literature teacher, what Sandra told me next warmed my heart.

‘She Holds Up the Stars’ is already being taught in some Toronto classrooms, and there has been some discussion about the novel being taught as a core text in Ontario classrooms.

What another honour and privilege to have one’s work widely recognized.

And still other exciting news from Sandra about her debut novel.

‘She Holds Up the Stars’ is newly commissioned by the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, in collaboration with the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra and TO Live. Laronde’s company, Red Sky Performance, will create a live stage adaptation of the novel featuring life-sized puppets, actors, puppeteers, and approximately 50 musicians on stage. The production will premiere in April 2026 at Toronto’s Roy Thomson Hall in partnership with the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, followed by performances the following year with the Vancouver Symphony. The live production of the story will captivate tens of thousands of audience members between 2026-2027.

What’s next for Sandra Laronde that she hasn’t achieved?

She made a laughing emoji and replied: “I’m exhausted just thinking about it. I get incredible ideas and then turn them into fully fleshed-out lives.”

Laronde also plans a documentary on Indigenous dance featuring Miigis, which Red Sky toured across North America. She also has a new dance show set to premiere at Canadian Stage in 2027.

The incubation process for a play she’d like to write is also growing to fruition.

Let’s stay tuned to see where she’s headed next.

To learn more about Sandra Laronde, visit : https://sandralaronde.com.

Since I’ve been reviewing for On Stage, it has been most rewarding if I become aware that Canadian professional actors and artists are following the blog and reading the articles. I was pleased when I received a message that Sarah Dodd started following me on Twitter. I had to think for a minute as I did recognize her name. And then it came to me that I saw Sarah in a wonderfully crafted performance of ‘The Front Page’ at the Stratford Festival last summer.

Just this past fall, I had read Sarah would appear in a production of ‘Marjorie Prime’ at Coal Mine Theatre in the winter with a stellar cast that included Martha Henry. Sarah speaks highly about her experience in her profile. This play was one I did not want to miss. But I did as another On Stage Blog reviewer really wanted to see the production. And by opening night, most of the tickets were gone. Note to self: Don’t do that again if you see the cast is a dynamite powerhouse.

In our line conversation, Sarah told me she likes to work on new plays as it is her favourite to do. Her professional background is quite impressive. Since 1996, she has been working off and on at The Stratford Festival and has worked with some of the country’s finest performers including Brian Bedford and Martha Henry.

Other appearances include Tarragon Theatre and Nightwood Theatre. Sarah is also a recipient of two Dora awards, one for her work in Daniel McIvor’s ‘Marion Bridge’ and directed by Mr. McIvor himself, and the other for her ensemble work with thirteen other women at Nightwood for ‘The Penelopiad’.

The more online interviews I’m conducting, the more I would love to meet these individuals in person. I’m hoping that will begin once this pandemic is lifted:

1. How have you been keeping during this crisis, Sarah? How have you and your family been doing?

At the beginning, I didn’t do well. I walked into a grocery store after rehearsal around March 13th and everything was gone. No milk, no toilet paper, no meat, no canned goods and I immediately had a panic attack. I called my husband and he helped me through it. I came home empty handed and he got up at 6:30 am the next day and found the things we needed. He’s an incredible guy.

Since then, I have tried to think of this time as exactly what it is…time. I get to be with my son, and I get to be with my husband. We are healthy, we love each other, we laugh a lot and there have been many desserts baked. The most important thing we have done is allow each other to have bad days. You want to stay in bed? No problem. Don’t want to talk? That’s fine too. Need to cry? Here’s a shoulder and a chocolate brownie.

2. As an artist, what has been the most difficult and the most challenging for you at this time?

Seeing all of our community lose their jobs. It is overwhelming and devastating. I worry about how artists are going to pay bills and unexpected expenses. I worry about lost opportunities for younger actors who were about to explode onto the scene. I worry about the new work that has been cancelled and may never be seen. I worry that some theatres will have to close for good. Also, I desperately miss my friends and the rehearsal hall.

3. Were you involved in any projects (pre-production, rehearsals or production) when the lockdown occurred? What has become of these projects?

I was in the first week of rehearsals for Susanna Fournier’s ‘Always Still the Dawn’ at Canadian Stage. It was two one acts, directed by Severn Thompson and Liza Balkan. I was in a room with three brilliant actresses: Sochi Fried, Fiona Sauder and Krystina Bojanowski. Across the table were two remarkable directors and the astonishing Susanna Fournier. Heaven!

We started on Tuesday and by Friday it was over. Gone. It was shattering. Brendan and Monica at Canadian Stage were so good with us and very transparent about what was happening. I am forever grateful for their care. I have been told that we will be back, I just don’t know when. I was also going to do ‘Meet My Sister’ by Bonnie Green at the Lighthouse Festival. Liza was going to direct this, too. So, needless to say, Liza and I have had some virtual cocktails. We have heard that the show will be in the 2021 season.

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

My son is going into high school next year, so I’ve been helping him with his homework. He has approximately 4 to 5 hours a day. I help him with the math and science, my husband helps with English and French. I’ve also been doing a lot of gardening, walking the dog and reading. Lately, I’ve been attempting yoga, which has proven harder than the algebra. I like the lying down on the mat part and breathing. I also stay busy by panicking and drinking “a glass” of wine.

5. Do you have any words of wisdom or sage advice to performers who have been hit hard by the pandemic? Any advice to those new graduates from the theatre schools who have entered the industry at this tumultuous time?

For graduates, I wish every theatre program in the country would set up a mentorship program. When you graduate you are given a mentor whom you can contact in times of uncertainty.

For performers, I have no idea what advice I could give. I am at a complete loss and I think that’s okay. I have no clue what each day is going to be like and I’m reluctantly learning to take this one day at a time. I do know that as soon as this is over, I’m going to see a lot of plays.

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

I hope that the government takes a long hard look at the treatment of vulnerable persons. The elderly, women, and children in violent homes, the homeless. I’m hoping that long term care facilities will be overhauled, and that affordable housing will open up. It was easy enough for the government to say, “Stay inside”. Now, they need to provide safe and affordable places to do it. On a lighter note, it’s been nice to be able to hear cardinals without the din of traffic.

7. Will COVID-19 leave some lasting impact on the Canadian performing arts scene?

I hope not. I think initially it’s going to be very difficult for institutions to assure audiences that it’s safe to come back. Once, we are able to assuage any fears, I think everyone will be overjoyed to get back in their seats. Artists are a sturdy folk. As soon as we are given the “all clear”, we are back at it with hearts open.

8. Some artists have been turning to You Tube or streaming/online presentations to showcase and share their work. What are your thoughts and ideas on this? Do you see any advantages or disadvantages?
Will You Tube and streaming become part of the ‘new normal’ we are hearing so much about?

My son and I have been watching the National Theatre and Stratford Festival live YouTube casts. It’s been great way to introduce him to different plays and interpretations of Shakespeare. He loves a good lighting grid and raucous stage fight, but even he said “it doesn’t feel the same”. He’s 13. The audience and the performers feed off each other, we create the space together and because of that, every night is different. You can never rebroadcast that experience. I think it’s a great advertisement tool. Anything that draws more audiences in is fantastic.

9. What is it about performing you still love even through these uncertain times?

I am really lucky because I was performing ‘Marjorie Prime’ a few weeks before the closures. It was one of the best times I’ve ever had. We were welcomed by Ted and Diana at The Coal Mine Theatre with such trusting and open arms. Stewart Arnott directed us into his delicate and moving vision of the play with such heart and humor.

Martha, Beau, Gord and I were a loving quartet. We shared a dressing room, laughed our butts off, shared stories and experiences and we kept Martha well stocked with chips. If anyone missed or jumped a line (and we all did it), without a beat the other person just moved on. We listened to each other, we trusted each other, and we respected each other. It was perfect. That’s what I love. That is what keeps me going.

That is what I hope for every artist: Love, Work, Community, Respect.

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

1. What is your favourite word?

Welcome

2. What is your least favourite word?

Actually

3. What turns you on?

Invitations

4. What turns you off?

Explanations

5. What sound or noise do you love?

My son’s laughter

6. What sound or noise bothers you?

Shouting

7. What is your favourite curse word?

Dick

8. Other than your own at this moment, what other profession would you have liked to try?

Architect

9. What profession could you not see yourself doing?

Masseuse

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

“I loved you in ‘Paradise Lost’”

Sarah Garton Stanley is highly respected among the theatre community as the links found at the conclusion of her profile reveal her prolific status.

We conducted our conversation via email as she is one extremely busy lady right now.

I knew Sarah was the Associate Artistic Director for Ottawa’s National Arts Centre, English Theatre, but that’s all I knew of her work. Her bio from the NAC told me far more about her work in the theatre: “[She is a] Director, dramaturg and conversationalist, originally from Montreal, now lives in Kingston and works from Ottawa. Sarah is the Curator for The Collaborations and leader for The Cycle(s). Sarah co-founded and is creative catalyst for SpiderWebShow, (where Canada, the Internet and live performance connect). She is also a former Artistic Director of Toronto’s Buddies in Bad Times Theatre. As well, Sarah is also Executive Producer of FOLDA (Festival of Live Digital Art) whose mission it is to support artists creating theatre in a digital age.

In the course of her award-winning career, Sarah has worked across Canada and overseas. Most recent directing credits include Unsafe (Canadian Stage); Out the Window (Luminato/Theatre Centre); Kill Me Now (Royal Manitoba Theatre Centre production in collaboration with NAC English Theatre); Bunny (Stratford Festival); Helen Lawrence (Canadian Stage, Brooklyn Academy of Music, Munich Kammerspiele and elsewhere) and We Keep Coming Back (Jewish Culture Fest, Krakow, Poland and Ashkenaz Festival, Toronto).

Sarah received the 2016 Literary Managers and Dramaturgs of the Americas’ Elliot Hayes Award, the 2017 Manitoba Theatre Award for best direction for Kill Me Now and the 2018 Honorary Member Award for Canadian Association for Theatre Research.”

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

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.

Between March 13 and 20, 2020 I watched a future disappear. What I was doing, was to be doing, and in the planning stages for what might come after that, all of it changed. The one constant was my relationship with my partner. But even that went through enormous change.

We started off in Vancouver, I was there directing David Yee’s brilliant ‘carried away on the crest of a wave’ at the Arts Club. The set was on the stage, tech rehearsals had begun. This was March 13. March 20 we were on a flight to Toronto. At the airport the cancellation of my upcoming production of Erin Shields’ ‘Paradise Lost’ at the National Arts Centre became clear.

By March 25th we had moved to Kingston and the FOLDA festival that I co-curate along with the Green Rooms pivoted to entirely online offerings. On April 13th we brought home our pandemic puppy, Matzo. And on June 17 we arrived in Nova Scotia to live off grid at Birchdale. We stayed there until November 30th. We still have an apartment in Toronto, but now live in Yarmouth Nova Scotia. All of my work in the theatre has happened online since March 17th, 2020

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?

My career was characterized by travel and meeting new people and seeing old friends and family. I have been incredibly lucky to work in many parts of this amazing land called Canada. Those experiences of change and return were a huge part of my joy in what I get to do as a director and dramaturg.

Shifting to online has flattened a lot of my personal connection to the theatre. I liken it to a heart monitor. It still beats but without much drama. That said, I have truly loved seeing and participating in the creative shifts we have been making to face this moment. FOLDA is a great example of this excitement but so too are the wide-ranging outpourings of social justice creations that have more capacity when working in the digital realm. (or at least this is how it appears to me).

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

I miss the dust on the floor in the rehearsal hall. I miss having to wear pants. I miss awkward conversation with incredible people. I miss trying to avoid opening nights. I miss eating weird snacks in tech. I miss watching actors work. I miss going into the room at the beginning of a process and coming out into a lobby just before an audience is about to come in and asking myself, “How exactly did we get here?”

I miss feeling shitty at opening night cards and gifts and I miss feeling sad and oddly relieved when a show closes. I have always believed that theatre gave me life, offered me a sense of family. I have missed my family.

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?

What it takes for every single person to participate. What the pandemic has shown us is the facts of our lives. Our kids, our pets, our homes, our personal demands. We have, through the transition to online, seen so much more of what each of us goes through to live a life. So, when I think about the theatre, I think more deeply about what an artist has to organize to get to an agreed upon meeting time with countless others. And I think the same about the audience. What did they have to do to make it possible to get to the show?

I think the future will see a split experience; some who will make it to the theatre and some who will want or need to see it on demand from home. But what I will never again take for granted is what is required for a group of people to gather at an agreed upon time.

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

I hope how the industry has responded historically to social inequities has been forever changed. I hope that the industry will continue to be populated and led by more and more IBPOC artists. I hope the industry can be the changemaker it wants to be. AND I hope it can offer up MORE and MORE joy.

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

Oh god. Joe! what a question!

When the pandemic hit, I felt like I had both hit an incredible streak of work AND like I was not going to be able to sustain the pace for too much longer. And like so many of us, the pandemic forced a lot of things to happen. I was a non-stop mover who has now stopped moving.

I am currently working on my PhD in Cultural Studies at Queen’s University. I am working on a creation project called: ‘Massey and Me: Conversations about the end of theatre in Canada.’ It is a work that I hope will illuminate some of the issues we continue to contend with and hopefully it will offer some insights about possible ways forward. It is a “show” and “research event” that I truly do hope I will be able to pull off. And, if it goes really well, I aim to publish the work.

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.

Hmmmm…I really have not thought much about that.

I hope and trust that there will be a lot of work on our stages that reflects a breadth of experience and while Covid is bound to make its way into most creation and interpretation for the foreseeable future, I think this pandemic period has highlighted for me the enormity of social change that we are experiencing in this country and the world over. I expect that a lot of work in the next set of years will be a reflection of the dynamic power shifts that we are witnessing and experiencing in many corners of our day to day lives. Perhaps that is aspirational, but I really hope that is what floods the stages upon our return.

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

I want people to remember the conversations I ignited through my work. I want people to remember how I played with form. I want people to remember how much I loved making work with other people and, if I am really lucky, I hope people will remember some brilliant moments of stagecraft and a few good quotes.

To follow Sarah:

Twitter: @saragstanley / FB: @Sarah Garton Stanley / Insta: @sarahgstanley / LinkedIn Sarah Garton Stanley

web site saragartonstanley.com web site spiderwebshow.ca web site folda.ca

web site birchdalelake.com web site green rooms

Sarah Orenstein’s extensive and impressive resume caught my attention. I saw her work in ‘Oslo’ and a simply fine production of one of my favourite scripts ‘God of Carnage’ through the Mirvish series – a fascinating play with tremendously talented artists who soared that performance high.

We shared some good laughs while I listened to Sarah’s at times candid and frank responses.

Born in Halifax into a well-known local arts family, her mother an actress, father a visual artist, Sarah began her own professional career at five years old. She is a familiar face on stages across Canada.

She studied at the Vancouver Playhouse Acting School. By email, Sarah stated it was a “fantastic institution. Short lived, but amazing group of artists came out of it.”

Veteran of The Shaw Festival (13 seasons) and The Stratford Festival (6 seasons), Sarah has starred in ‘Possible World’, ‘Heartbreak House’, ‘The Millionairess’, ‘Shakespeare in Love’, and ‘Playboy of the Western World’. She makes frequent appearances on Toronto stages, most recently in ‘The Normal Heart’ (Studio 180 /Mirvish) ‘The Message’ (Tarragon). She is thrice nominated for Dora Mavor Moore awards for her work in ‘The Retreat’, ‘The Hope Slide’ and ‘The Collected Works of Billy the Kid’ and won for her roles in ‘Patience’, ‘After Akhmatova’ and ‘Scorched’. She won the Capitol Theatre Award for ‘The Doll’s House’. Other favorites are ‘My Name is Asher Lev’(HGJT) and ‘The Glass Menagerie’ (Grand Theatre, London, Ontario)

Sarah is committed to development of new Canadian works over the decades and giving her time as script dramaturg and actor in writing workshops in Vancouver, Banff, and Toronto.

Recently, Sarah starred in the independent feature film ‘Albatross’ and co-stars in Incendo’s ‘You May Kiss the Bridesmaid’. She is currently filming Paramount’s ‘Station Eleven’.

She makes her home in Toronto with her husband, actor Ric Waugh.

We conducted our interview via Zoom. Thank you for adding your voice to the discussion, Sarah:

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 would say utterly.

Not to be overly dramatic, but my new mantra is ‘I don’t actually know anything about anything anymore’. I used to think I knew things, and I don’t know anything about anything.

I grew up in the theatre (my first gig was at Halifax’s Neptune when I was five). I grew up in a family that worked in the theatre so it’s where I went after school instead of babysitters and waited for my mother if she was at a rehearsal before we went home.

I’ve been lucky enough that I’ve worked in theatre all my life. I think this is the longest time (aside from finishing grade school) that I’ve been not involved in a production of some sort at same level. I only took a year out when I had my children, and this pandemic has made things longer.

So, it’s a bit like walking around in an alien world. I don’t understand myself without that.

It’s been a time of huge reflection, some days great and some days not, sometimes I’m quite philosophical about it but it is a little bit of going, “Well, who is Sarah when she’s not in the theatre?” I don’t have an answer for that yet. I was going so full tilt with a very heavy schedule, not just acting but doing some assistant directing and script work that it really took a while to realize that I felt quite lost.

Now that doesn’t mean I don’t love my life and my family and there’s always stuff as I keep very, very busy. Personally, it has been incredibly challenging to re-define myself, I suppose.

That’s the long answer. (and Sarah and I share a good laugh)

I’ve been very lucky as I’ve also been doing some filming so it’s not that I’ve been without work. 98% of my work is in theatre. I’ve quite enjoyed the filming and I’ve been involved with some Zoom readings and some Zoom script work. Every time I do it, I enjoy the connection, but it doesn’t replace 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 and changed?

I will say I feel it is yet to be revealed. Truly.

I know absolutely that theatre will come back. It’s just who we are as human creatures – we need it. It’s how we tell stories and we’ve always done it in some version, and we always will.

Theatre can’t be replaced digitally because it is a very different experience for the audience, and what society and humans get from going to the theatre with that hope of being transformed and carrying away, in the best cases, we’ve placed a little flame or little idea in everybody who has agreed to come together to be transformed.

And then you take it away and people process it as they do, sometimes immediately, sometimes it takes years, and we still say that story stays with us. Why does it?

In that sense, I do know that theatre will always be.

But because of the shuttering stoppage, it’s like stopping an ocean liner in the middle of the ocean, that start up is going to be a little messy. I don’t think everyone will come back. Some people will do it of their own choice, some will not. Some theatres won’t be able to come back. I worry about some of the smaller theatres, but I hope they do.

There will probably be a few lean years in the start up again.

But my hopeful side is that change is in the air. Change is always good; it is also very scary. The particularities of that change, I think we can guess that some of them will lie in the opening of walls which is always good for art, inclusionary practices but not just with the faces on the stage but right up to the administration.

I think some of that was starting before the pandemic hit, but it’s really sharpened the pencil on that.

All of the arts, including theatre, love to be on the van guard of society must change so, goddamn it, so are we.

I imagine there will be some missteps and some mistakes in moving forward, but I think in the end it will give us a lot more richness but there’s certainly going to be some rough times in getting everything up.

I’ve been lucky enough, and I don’t mean decision wise, but to be involved in a lot of the conversations towards what Stratford is doing. I imagine all theatre people everywhere who are responsible to keep the institutions going, when I hear how exhausted they are by how many white boards they have made, erased them, started again, and erased again, and wiped and redone.

The spirit is very alive to open the arms of theatre to all of the social changes that must be addressed but also with that desperate awareness of how hard it is to pay the bills on a theatre.

I am full of hope. When everything is up and running, I know in the theatre we will have some rough times.

I think it’s a brave act of hope with every shortened production, smaller casts, being outside. A brave act of hope.

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

Every single part of it because I’ve been around it so much all of my life.

I miss the buildings. Of course, I miss the people. I miss the rhythms of rehearsal, that’s my calendar usually.

I miss the collaborative and the collective way of living because every single show has its own set of problems that you come together to solve to tell the story, whether full production or just a reading.

When I think of it, I truly miss everything, I miss sitting inside empty auditoriums before everything is happening. And why is that? I think it harkens back to when I was a kid and wait for my mom to be done work, and I’d sit at the back waiting, and there’s a certain sound and a certain air, a theatre that’s not ready for the public yet. I miss the tannoy being turned on and hearing the audience talking and mumbling.

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 think it will be how much I need other people to tap into my own creativity. I suspected it, but I didn’t realize how deep that symbiotic relationship was.

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

So much has been happening with change right now over this last year.

This has been part of my awareness since I was young because I am a woman in the industry. And I’m not even going to say that I’ve been particularly or poorly treated in a certain kind of instance, but I’m always looking for and hoping for more women in directing and, therefore, that leads to artistic directorship, not as a replacement but it’s not equitable, and there are very different stories that will come out.

I’ve joked with my very dear, dear friend David Fox (he’s older than me) that over our careers of working together that I’ve played his daughter. I’ve moved on to play his wife. We keep pretending if I’m ever going to play his mother. It has something to do with the seven ages of women are yet to be truly explored. I don’t want to discount some of the roles that are out there for women because it is part of society, but they start tapering off because you can’t be the love interest.

More women in writing, directing, and at the artistic directorship level, please, so that we can explore the female stories later in life without it just being Grandma making something in the kitchen.

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

That is the hardest question you gave me to think about before our conversation today.

The flip thing is I wouldn’t mind a fantastic run in a show that I’m a lead in that’s an amazing Tony award winning, writing piece of Broadway or the West End. That would be nice (and Sarah makes this wide grin that makes me laugh)

On a serious note, I just want to work for as long as I want to work AND as late in life as I want to work.

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 a theatre goer yourself.

I will elaborate.

I do not think this will happen. (and Sarah emphasizes each of these words) I don’t, at least I hope it won’t.

We are so tired of it all. Everybody’s home is a 12 act play on experiencing Covid personally. It’s not to ignore it, but personally I would not be rushing to theatre to see shows that I know are someone working through how they lived through Covid.

That being said, I think it is undeniably part of the fabric of any story that is written from here on. I don’t think we need to shoehorn it into every re-staging of ‘Taming of the Shrew’ or something. I think anything written from now on, even if it’s not a central theme, it will have to refer to that time, or where you were, or what happened to you, or what crazy psychological thing that character is wandering around, in the same way that wars have done that or political movement or any kind of trauma.

A lot of people are getting through this pretty good. Depends on who you talk to. Some are messed up, some aren’t. We also recognize how lucky we are if we’re able to hold on to your stuff and not have to sell anything and figure something out.

In the best case, this time of Covid will become fodder for good writers to find another universality for us as humans. If a writer gets the right idea of what Covid and the pandemic shutdown, loss and the mismanagement and what it has done to society, that kind of theme if it finds it way into some real psychological drama, that would be interesting to see.

I want to stop talking about Covid when this is all over.

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

Oh, you’re wicked…. (and we share a good laugh again)

Let’s hope they find my work fahhhhhhbbbbuuuullloouussss. (and another good laugh)

Okay, if I’m going to be good and serious, I would say I hope that the people, because I do a lot of mentoring and coaching, I’ve worked with whether they’re actors or from other departments of the theatre, remember me as someone who delved deep into the work with them, but also helped pass on the trade.

I really believe in that. I come from a family of creatives and different aspects. One of my sisters is in textiles, costumes, and designs. We talk about we find it interesting that we are at the point of our careers where we are really passing on the trade, without formally teaching in a classroom which is also good.

Acting is a trade. The best way to teach someone is to do it in front of them and have a little conversation about why that is tricky over there.

I’d like to be remembered that way by my fellow workers. I just hope audiences, even if it’s not remembering me, I hope my work resonated enough that they remember a moment on stage, a scene, a play.

(I can attest at this point Sarah is correct as ‘God of Carnage’ at the Panasonic Theatre was astoundingly good.)

When you know you’re in the company of a compelling raconteur, you don’t want the story to end because you’re on every single word this individual speaks.

Thus was my conversation with artist Scott Wentworth where I was on every word he spoke.

I’ve seen so many productions at the Stratford Festival in which Scott appeared. I can’t list all of his accolades here as both artist and director because there are so many, but I do recall vividly his performance as Gloucester in ‘King Lear’. I was still teaching high school at the time and had brought students to see the matinee. I remember the students asking how you think they will deal with the plucking out of Gloucester’s eyes, and I also remember telling the group that you’ll just have to wait and see how it’s done.

It was a horrifyingly magnificent moment of stage craft that remains with me today.

Scott Wentworth is an American actor and director who immigrated to Canada in 1986. His first production at the Stratford Festival was in 1985’s ‘The Glass Menagerie’. He has also gone on to play Iago in ‘Othello’, Shylock in ‘The Merchant of Venice’, the title role in ‘Macbeth’ and has directed at the Festival ‘Romeo & Juliet’ and ‘The Adventures of Pericles’.

Scott also appeared in Neil Simon’s ‘Lost in Yonkers’ at the Richard Rodgers Theatre in New York City. Other US appearances include ‘Red’ at the Hubbard Stage in Houston, Texas and ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’ in Santa Cruz, California.

We conducted our conversation via Zoom. Thank you for taking the time to add your voice to the conversation, Scott:

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.

This is a difficult question (and Scott has a good chuckle) …I notice it’s the first one so get the really hard one out of the way (and we two have another chuckle).

It’s a little intimidating, frankly, as an older white CIS male person belonging to a community that has traditionally held a microphone. I’ve spent most of my pandemic months keeping my mouth shut and listening and reading and ruminating, so to be asked to opine on some of these very important questions, at the moment, makes me feel a little uncomfortable, not reticent necessarily, but a little uncomfortable so forgive me if I stammer my way through this. (Note: Scott is extremely articulate in sharing his thoughts and ideas with me)

To say that the pandemic is unprecedented is so obvious that one doesn’t need to say it. But I think it’s been important for me anyway to understand that essentially, we’ve just stopped, particularly those of us in the arts. But in many ways, the best way of dealing with this emergency has been to stop and to be still. (Scott emphasized clearly these words)

I’m not sure how we’ve changed yet.

I feel like I’m going to learn that about myself and my community and my world more completely once we’re moving again. It’s very difficult in the moment to have any kind of real understanding of how this has changed my perception of the world. As you know, Joe, one of the gifts of participating in the arts, whether as an activator, active participant, or an audience member, is that one is constantly in a state of re-evaluating oneself and one’s world, and one’s relationship and connection between the two.

I’ve always strived throughout the pandemic to try to look on it as a little gift rather than as a trial so what are the benefits to me personally, and to the other humans that I know and don’t know.

What are the benefits of standing still for a time? As our world becomes more and more connected and fast moving and quick changing, what are the benefits of standing still? What are the benefits of stopping?

I’m not a young person anymore so at my age it’s a different experience than friends of mine who are in their 30s and 40s who are starting families, in their first release of energy into their careers or indeed in a very different experience from young people who are just beginning.

So again, my perception of all this is quite biased but frankly I don’t know how my understanding of the world has changed yet. I’m hoping to get some insights into that soon.

I really don’t know.

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?

It’s going to be a process because there’s been a near two-year gap in gatherings, and when will individual people feel comfortable to do that? I spent many years doing outdoor theatre in Santa Cruz, California, where in the summer it never rains so you go out and do it. We don’t have that luxury here in Southern Ontario.

There’s not going to be one day where we’re all going to shout, “Okay, we can open the doors. C’mon back in.” I frankly don’t think anything will be back to normal.

Again, we’ll see if my understanding and perception as an artist have changed. There’s a lot of conversation going on at the moment over Zooms, not unlike this, about how the theatre can change, be more humane, better serve communities that haven’t had access to it or have had limited access to it. Much conversation has also ensued on developing and looking for healthier relationships on account of crushing practices that have long been unquestioned within the community that makes theatre.

Because it’s literally stopped and, at the moment, there really isn’t any theatre it’s hard to say what has actually changed yet. It is great that these conversations are taking place. I think these kinds of conversations have always taken place, but because we have been given the luxury of space where we don’t have to do a lot of the stuff we normally have to do, they can take more room and therefore can be more far reaching.

But at the moment all this stuff is theoretical, and we have to see what happens when we try to put them in practice. Is it enough? Is this a cosmetic solution? Is there a systemic problem that is causing this one thing?

Again, at the moment, it’s so easy to equate everything to science and doctors because we’ve been so inundated with that reality, but it’s very similar. Are we taking care of the patient holistically? Are we treating the symptom with a cast on the arm or asking questions about how the arm got broken in the first place? Those are all questions that will be answered and hopefully more questions asked once we’re in practice again.

When it begins again, theatre will undoubtedly and, hopefully, be profoundly so. The very nature of theatre is that it constantly re-defines itself. This is a process that has always happened. I suspect there will be fundamental changes but I’m not sure what they will be yet. I can’t imagine anyone really does.

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

It’s a silly answer, but ‘everything’.

I have worked in the theatre since I was 22 years of age. I’m 66 now. It has defined and affected every aspect of my life. Just on a personal, emotional level, I am missing what has heretofore been an enormous part of how I have self-defined.

There are two ways of looking at how one defines one’s working life. There are jobs and careers that allow you to do the things you need to do – put a roof over your head, look after your loved ones, put food on the table, pay for bills and things you need – but those activities, even though they may be important to an individual, are not necessarily the defining core of an individual identity. Then there are other endeavours that are less a job than a kind of calling. For those individuals, those activities can become and usually do become very central to who you are, and how you see yourself and indeed present yourself.

There are benefits and negatives to this kind of understanding of how one fits in and serves oneself and one’s community.

I miss the rehearsal process, the collaborating with fellow artists. I also miss the other side of the equation of telling stories to audiences every night.

There’s not one thing I miss. It’s the whole thing because I do feel that a large part of how I’ve always identified myself hasn’t been available to me for a long time. I never thought I’d retire as long as I was healthy, and as long as somebody was willing to ask me to do something with them. And so, being in a sense forced into a kind of retirement has brought up all sorts of questions about how one spends one’s time, what is the nature of time.

Actors are used to unemployment, but then there was always the knowledge that theatre was going on and that someone was working. Both a possibility of future endeavours and just the notion if it’s not me, it’s somebody. But now that that’s gone, it’s a real adjustment because it’s not simply about me.

It’s about the larger community and the endeavour that I’ve spent my life engaged in. There’s a profound sadness. I don’t know if I give myself to magical thinking, but there’s a part of me that feels (I don’t think this but I feel it) that there is some kind of correlation between the fact theatres stopped and the world went crazy.

Theatre is not the primary form of how people hear stories these days. At times it can be thought of as elitist, but I wonder if there’s not a tipping point that enough people in the world were going to the theatre to keep the world in a kind of balance. And then when it stopped, that ballast was no longer available and so we’ve all gone a little crazy.

A ridiculous theory, but nevertheless… (and Scott emits a quick laugh)

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?

This is a great question.

I will never take for granted that the theatre will always exist. Clearly, we’ve just seen how a medical emergency can put a stop to it. We alluded a few minutes ago to a fundamentalist religion gaining government power can stop it. There are climate emergencies that could or would essentially stop it.

And I think in a larger sense if I have gained some kind of wisdom about the world is that one can’t take anything for granted there will always be a theatre, there will always be a seashore, there will always be a sunrise. We have to work to ensure that these activities, institutions and events that we cherish continue. They’re alive so they have to be nourished, and they can’t be taken for granted. We have to constantly re-invent them and question them.

We have to constantly re-engage on a profound level. We perhaps ought to stop asking “What kind of theatre” that we have and perhaps we should now ask “Why should we have it?”

My hope is that we will always answer that in the affirmative, but the why will always change and lead us to a deeper conversation of “Why do people feel the need to gather together and tell each other stories? What’s that about?”

That to me is the real question we need to ask ourselves culturally why are we doing this? We need to ask this question before we go to rehearsal. We need to ask this each night before we go on stage. It has to be a deeper reason than simply how we spend our time or how we entertain ourselves. As our technology has increased, theatre is the least cost-effective entertainment platform that I can imagine, so there must be something beyond how the theatre functions commercially; there must be something beyond simply the surface entertainment value that humans respond to when they get into the same room each other, and breathe the same air, sit shoulder to shoulder both scary now and tell stories.

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

Again, I’ll get back to “We’ll see”. (Scott takes a long pause before he continues)

Maybe my issue with this question is the word ‘hope’. I find the word ‘hope’ is kind of inactive. I think we have to work to make these changes happen.

I suspect that what we may discover is that we actually haven’t gone far enough in re-imagining how theatre can function in a post-pandemic 21st century world.

What I hope and plan to do if and when I plan to get involved again in this work is one of things I’ve been really thinking about and contemplating for most of my career in the theatre which is, like most institutions in the 20th and 21st century, the theatre has become more and more and more of a top down organization where decisions are made by a small select group of people that are then filtered down to a larger group of people.

Because the theatre is the most collaborative of art forms, it’s difficult to make change if you’re not a position to make change. The effect that has on the collaboration at times might be impossible if people feel like they are in this kind of trickle-down dynamic.

My hope and my continued work are to come up with practical strategies and work practices that will help to allow the real collaborative nature of theater to become more important than it is at the moment. We’re hearing a lot of conversations now where theatres are saying that we need to ensure that people are heard and seen.

I want to counter that with maybe it’s better to think of it in terms of “I don’t want someone to feel heard. I want to listen to them.” “I don’t want someone to feel seen. I want to look at them, I want to see them.”

Those kinds of changes, I think, are necessary particularly when so much of our theatre in North America is so much a product of colonialism. All of the contracts that we currently work under are very much a matrix of the commercial theatre.

I hope we stop defining what is the majority of the theatre and continue to define it by what we want it to be, not what we don’t want it to be. We want a theatre that offers something to the artist and audience to collect together and share stories, and that’s why we need to reach out and collect more stories shared. We listen to the stories that we heretofore have not paid enough attention to, and we need to re-tell old stories that speak directly to the world we live in, and not to a world that no longer exists.

I think the best way to do that is to ask why we’re doing theatre in the first place, and to try and set up a situation where we are more actively collaborative with the artists who are actually responsible for putting this together and have a real critical look at what is the role of the actor? director? designer? We’re at the beginning of pulling this apart. We’ve been given a gift of time to examine what it is.

We have to keep working, and we have to be keep WORKING.

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

Ah, well, on a technical level, there are still stories I want to tell and still stories I want to hear. There are still parts I want to play.

It’s very interesting the word ‘accomplished’ that you’ve used. I’ve been doing some writing myself over the months of pandemic. I’m an occasional ‘journaler’ and have been re-reading stuff that I’ve written about how to act stuff, how to direct stuff, and why I think classical theatre is still a good thing, and how Shakespeare might continue to speak to us.

The other day I was doing a bit of writing about a speech from ‘Henry V’. Shakespeare uses the word ‘accomplish’, and I found out the original meaning of the word ‘accomplish’ was to make something out of metal. So, we were talking about armours accomplishing the knights with hammering them into these suits of armour.

Sometimes, I think that personal accomplishments in the theatre is not unlike a suit of armour. It is something that everyone can see, it is something that we wear, and it is something that protects you from the dangers of examining these plays and putting on these plays, and trying to tell the truth to each other, and eventually to an audience.

I’m not looking to accomplish things so much as I am looking forward to continue questioning. I still have lots of questions I want to ask. Sometimes they’re about specific roles – what’s up with Willy Loman? Or as a director, what’s going on in ‘Measure for Measure’?

What’s that line from ‘Chorus Line’ – Am I my resume? This list of accomplishments in an actor’s bio can so easily be something that actually functions like armour as it might stop somebody from touching you, or you from touching somebody, as you have to get through the armour of your accomplishments. You have to get through your accomplishments in order to make contact and let the play touch another person.

Sometimes, as an audience member, they’re simply “I want to hear your story. I don’t know of anyone who has had your life experience.” I have questions about that as what’s it like to be you?

What I want to accomplish is to continue to do what I’ve done in the theatre which is questioning new plays, old plays, myself, the people I’m talking to.

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 frankly don’t think there’s going to be any. I really don’t.

I think there’s going to be a tsunami and onslaught of new plays. I think a lot of people are writing. I think a lot people who have always wanted to tell a story and haven’t for lack of time, lack of courage lack of access have suddenly gone, “Yah, why not?”

I suspect there’s going to be a lot of new writing that has come out of this time. I expect there will be a lot of one person performance pieces that will come out of this time which is interesting.

If anything, for most of us, this has been a period of stasis for some people that have suffered dire economic hardships, dire medical suffering, and death of loved ones, but that’s the stuff of life anyway. There will always be stories about that.

My mother passed away in November. She lives in the States. I live up here. Very difficult to get there. She was in LTC that had an outbreak of Covid and even if I was there, I couldn’t see her. I have felt in the six months since she died a kind of disconnect with her death, for instance. I still find myself going. “Oh God, I haven’t called my mother in such a long time, or I should call her to share this with her as she’d appreciate this. The rituals of completement were unavailable to me.

Now, if I wanted to tell that story, is that a Covid story? It’s only superficially a Covid story but it’s how our modern life sometimes doesn’t allow us to participate in these interpersonal rituals because of events that are outside of our control.

I suspect a lot of the new writing that will appear post pandemic will probably be more political than it’s been for awhile. That also goes in phases and cycles, but obviously and culturally we are grappling with and dealing with. I wouldn’t be surprised if most plays had that political or cultural political aspect in their plays than perhaps the interpersonal relationships.

I think certain sensibilities we’ve had to deal with during Covid, I find myself thinking about mindfulness. We’re talking about mindfulness in these cultural conversations we’re having, uncovering individual and unacknowledged biases and how we need to be more mindful of that and mindful of the language we use because we’re now aware of how dire the consequences could be if we are not mindful and aware.

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

(With a good laugh, Scott says) I feel like I keep throwing spanners into these questions, so I’m going to continue my role as spanner thrower.

I’m not sure I will be remembered and I’m not sure I ought to be remembered.

(Scott then proceeds to tell me a fascinating story of one summer years ago when he was watching create Da Vinci life sized sand sculptures of The Last Supper. Scott remembered as he was walking home late one night around midnight where he saw the sculptures on the sand and noticed the wind on the beach had softened the features of these sculptures and, by morning, these sculptures were lumps of sand.)

(Scott’s comparison of this moment of the sand sculptures to the theatre was intriguing).

We who work in the theatre are sculpting out of sand; we’re inviting people to watch us create these characters and stories out of nothing, out of sand, and they come into incredibly sharp focus. So, as you watch the face of Jesus, of Judas appear out of the sand as this sculptor created was an extraordinary moment to watch and to participate in because we’re in the moment watching this sculptor do it.

I found it really liberating to work in a medium (of theatre) that is all about time, and that only existed in the moment. I couldn’t go back and visit the creation of the face of Christ in the sand. It was an experience that I shared, and it lived with me, but I couldn’t go back and look at it again in the way I could go to Europe now and look at the actual painting of the Last Supper.

Theatre doesn’t have the sociological impact of the mass media of film and television to immediately change peoples’ perceptions on a large scale – how we dress, how we behave. Theatre has a unique ability partially because it only exists in the moment and exists in the space between the artist and the audience. I think it has a unique ability to affect the human soul.

The power of theatre is perhaps less apparent than some of the other platforms for creativity, but on an individual level, it really does have the possibility to get people to change the way they think just a little bit, just move that bias in a slightly different arc.

And so, to answer the question you asked, the people who occasionally stop me who say, “I’ll always remember certain roles you’ll play” will carry that experience as these are wonderful plays. Hopefully my inhabiting of the character(s) at that moment had an affect on those people, and perhaps changed on a tiny little level, the bias of their lives.

But those of us that work in the theatre know that once the people who have seen our work die, that’s kind of it. The giants of the theatre a century ago (Ellen Terry, Edwin Booth) are forgotten now, which is as it should be, because theatre is the now, it’s about the moment.

I don’t want to be remembered. I want people to continue experiencing the now.

When I closed out the ‘Moving Forward’ series in November 2020, I was extremely grateful both Donna and Colm Feore graciously gave of their time to answer questions via email on how they had been faring during this last year of tumultuous upheaval especially in the live performing arts industry.

I am appreciative both Seana McKenna and Miles Potter agreed to close out the 2021 series of ‘Looking Ahead’ and offer their understanding of what has gone on these last 16 months for them, and how they see the professional live theatre industry in a post pandemic world.

Seana is a graduate of Montreal’s National Theatre School. I’ve seen her work on stage in many productions over the years at The Stratford Festival. She has graced the stages of other companies across Canada. It was the production of ‘Doubt: A Parable’ in which she appeared that encouraged me to direct John Patrick Shanley’s hard hitting drama twice on the community theatre stage.

Miles is an actor and director who has worked in the industry for over 35 years at many of the illustrious venues across Canada. He directed the original production of ‘The Drawer Boy’ in 1999 at Theatre Passe Muraille. As a director, Miles has envisioned over 40 productions and acted for three seasons at The Stratford Festival where he was in the original company of Elliott Hayes’ ‘Homeward Bound’.

We conducted our conversation via email. Thank you, Seana and Miles, for sharing your thoughts and perspective with all of us as we look ahead:

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.

SM: My view of the world, like so many things over the pandemic, has been up and down. At one moment, filled with despair at the loss, the ignorance, the cruelties that abound. And then fervently optimistic about the world, its young people, and their hopes and dreams. I think I am still a realistic optimist, which may very well be a cynic in the end. Work for the most; hope for the least

MP: When I view Covid from my personal perspective, I have to acknowledge that a): I am an extremely lucky person, and b): my experience of Covid has been very different from a large part of the population. As an older person, of course the initial risk was very present for me (I told my adult son my main objective was to ’stay off the trachea tube’)

But fairly quickly I became aware that I was assuming the role of an observer, as theatre people often do, and I became very aware of how other people’s lives and livelihoods were cratering around them. My heart went out to those young people and mid career artists whose worlds shuddered to a halt.

I do, however, think that a perception I had early in the pandemic is still true today: if you compare the number of teeth gnashing and wailing done by, let’s say, the financial industry in 2008 compared to the theatre industry in 2020, the theatre industry with an unemployment rate nearing 100%, compares favourably, attitude wise. Especially as we had nothing to do with the destruction. This is to say my most recent perception of my fellow workers is that they are flexible, realistic, and often stoic, which is something decades in an uncertain industry can prepare you for.

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?

SM: I think live inside theatre is still in cocoon form, just starting rehearsals in various cities to open outside, or hopefully, for autumnal indoor theatre. It will have changed, I think. There will be more diverse storytelling, more awareness of the social justice issues that have been front and centre over the pandemic and possibly, less of it, due to the theatre’s economic devastation.

Hopefully, it will be a kinder, more welcoming place to everyone and their viewpoints. Many theatre people will, I think, leave the theatre, having found other more stable jobs that are not so challenging. They may have realized how truly marginal we are in our society, especially in Ontario, one of the largest theatre-going centres in the world. Yet theatre practitioners were not even considered in Ontario’s original opening plan, unlike sports teams that needed to “practice”.

MP: Part of the above answer to this question may apply, but I also think I have come to be very aware that despite the heroic efforts of people to keep working on video and zoom theatre…it ain’t theatre.
There is no replacement for sharing air with your audience; the air carries the sound waves as well as droplets; no electronic equivalent can do the exact same thing as hearing a live voice speaking directly to you; I suppose one might quibble those microphones do the same thing…sure, but I hate microphones.
As a professional artist, what are you missing the most about the live theatre industry?

SM: People. The huge collaborative exploration of the complexities in any given piece of theatre. The continuing discoveries made with the audience present, moment by moment. The joint purpose of everyone involved in putting on a play, onstage, backstage and behind the scenes. The camaraderie of colleagues. The listening. The way of life that every theatre person understands.

MP: What do I miss? Being in the room. In an interview about his films, Ingmar Bergman was once asked “Don’t you do plays as well?” And apparently, he really perked up: “Yes; now, being in a room with a group of artists working on a great text; that is work for adults.”

I agree.

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?

SM: The theatre’s very existence.

MP: You know what? Not to sound smug, but I don’t think I ever took anything for granted. I never felt anyone owed me a job; I was always grateful to work; every time I opened a show or entered a rehearsal hall, I always made a point of being aware that this could be the last time…and this time, maybe it was.

Describe one element you hope has changed concerning the live theatre industry.
SM: I hope it will not be a scary place, that love will conquer fear, that we will feel safe to take risks, that we will find strength together to do what we love and what we believe in.

After the theatres in Britain were shut down, not by the plague, but by Cromwell, change came: women were allowed to appear on stage, playing roles previously forbidden to them. Positive change came after a period of great repression.

I hope that happens again, that theatres flourish, and enjoy even a fraction of the government subsidies offered to so many corporations!

MP: There is so much change happening right now in the world, and the theatre that is meant to reflect it, it is hard to pick one; I suppose my hope is that the ability for a group of people to be in a room and trust each other to take risks and share their vulnerability will not be swallowed up in the current tide to express and define one’s individuality.

Putting on a play has always meant allowing one’s ‘presence’ to feed into and serve the whole. Right now, the ‘whole’ feels fractured.

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

SM: I don’t really have the appetite for “accomplishment” much, anymore. Continuance, yes. Especially teaching, which I have done since my twenties. I have also done some Zoom teaching and mentoring and loved it. You learn so much working with young actors, and it forces you to articulate what it is you think you do.

I am also directing again this year, for Here for Now Theatre and for the University of Windsor. This is the longest time since I was about five that I have not been on a stage: I hope I can still act. So I hope to be on a stage again one day, with old friends and new colleagues.

Out of theatre-school, when asked in an interview why I went into the theatre, I said: “To change the world”. I think, oddly, my goal is still the same. Even if it is only one person’s world.

MP: My goal in the industry ever since I decided that I could direct plays, was to try, to the best of my ability, to make and to allow the people I am working with to be better. To be honest with them, and in a respectful manner to guide the production and the acting and all the elements to a positive finish.

If I work again, that will still be my goal.

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.

SM: “Must be prepared”? That sounds rather onerous, doesn’t it? You don’t have to go if you don’t like the subject matter.

I am not sure that we will see a flood of Covid themed stories right away: we are in the middle of it. We may need some time and distance.

Playwrights and collectives may want to go in the opposite direction, to escapism as entertainment did in the twenties and thirties after the Great War and the depression. But plays can be more current than film.
We might be ready for Covid-themed stories-it is, sadly, a universal theme. I would go see a Covid-themed story… if it’s a good story. Or if I have friends in it! I don’t think I would like a steady diet of them, though…

MP: My friend Mark Crawford has written a one person show that is a terrific story with lots of characters and humour and suspense; it happens during the summer of 2020 and Covid is definitely present. I’m helping him with dramaturgy and staging; it should go on this summer. It is not a ‘Covid play” but Covid is in it. I think in a contemporary story written this year, Covid can’t be ignored.

I have enjoyed the few movies made during lockdown that feature lockdown. How far into the future will people want to hear about the pandemic? If it is anything like the Spanish Flu, not long. But it remains to be seen.

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

SM: Future audiences? I hope past audiences may remember a moment or two. I would like them to remember that I was glad they were there with me, and hope they felt, if only for a moment, that I was speaking to them and for them. I hope I shared enough, so they might, in our shared experience, have felt something, and ultimately, felt less alone.

MP: As a performer and as a director, I have always tried to serve the play, and the playwright, even when I was doing collectives, which can really encourage a ‘everybody for themselves environment’(despite the name of the genre.)

I would hope that there are some audience members, especially younger ones, who might someday say: “Hey, remember that amazing MacBeth we saw? Or remember when Seana McKenna creeped us out as Medea? Who directed that, anybody remember?’

That will be enough for me.

Sedina Fiati held quite an interesting conversation today. Before this pandemic hit, she talks about how she was on that proverbial hamster wheel of ‘busy ness’; we both agreed on the fact that this isolation allowed us that opportunity to sit and just ‘be’ amidst the craziness of it all.

Proudly black and queer, Sedina is a Toronto based performer, producer, creator and activist for stage and screen. She is deeply invested in artistic work that explores the intersection between art and activism, either in form or structure or ideally both. She is the former co-chair of Diversity Committee & Councillor – ACTRA Toronto (2013-2017), 2nd VP Member Engagement & Councillor – CAEA (2015-2018) and named as part of 2014 Dyke March Honoured Group – Toronto Fierce Femme Organizers.

We held our interview via Zoom:

We’ve just past the three-month mark of isolation and now slowly emerging from quarantine. How have you been faring? How has your immediate family been doing during this time?

It’s been really difficult for a lot of us, but there’s a lot to be thankful for. I’ve been working throughout and haven’t stopped. I’ve been doing a lot of online facilitation and a lot of online Zoom calls. It’s been hard to be cut off from a lot of things that we used to be able to do and not be able to see our friends or our families. Here in Canada, we’re lucky for the health care system, the emergency benefits. In the grand scheme of things, it’s been a hard-few months, it’s been a hard three months but in the grand scheme of things, I’m 39, I’ll survive three months of hardship (laughs).

I’ve been ok and so has my immediate family. I live with my partner, so we’ve just been isolating with each other. My mom is in a retirement residence, so I’ve been able to see her a couple of weeks ago with a physical distance. I’m looking forward to seeing her again, so yeah, everyone’s been ok.

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

It’s been a time. I wear a lot of hats and it’s hard for me to talk just as a performer. It’s been hard not to go and see shows. I really miss that. It’s also been a good time of contemplation, of next steps. I feel like I was going to be quite busy throughout this spring, so this has allowed me to slow down as a performer, breathe and think through things. During this slow downtime as a performer, I’ve been thinking about training, about craft and how I’ve let that fall by the wayside for the last while and been wanting to reconnect with that and with practicing.

Personally, my partner and I have been reconnecting with each other. I’ve been calling people and text on a regular basis with family and friends. I’ve done my share of Zoom calls. I haven’t done many social Zoom calls to be honest, a few for sure, but for professional reasons I use Zoom a lot instead. I appreciate not having to look at a screen if I can help 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?

Yeah, I was. There were three things that were supposed to happen. One of them has been postponed where I was assistant directing with a friend on a project that she was creating that was going to happen at the Railway Museum in the spring. I was also supposed to do a workshop of a new play at YPT by Alicia Richardson called ‘Sweeter’. Alicia is the Canada Council playwright in residence there. I was supposed to direct a workshop of that play and that has been postponed to the fall. I was producing a reading of a new play called ‘Leopards and Peacocks’ by Gitanjali Lena. We did an online sharing of two scenes a few weeks ago to do something and to commemorate the 11th anniversary of the Tamil civil war.

There was a conference in Banff I was supposed to go to. That ended up being online with 3 seminars and video sharings.

A lot of things postponed and moved around. Performance wise I had nothing. I had thoughts about putting a cabaret together.

I thought about this schedule and thought, “That’s a lot.” I would have gotten through it all and would have been fine, but it’s probably better to chill out. I’ve been appreciating the time to do a few more things.

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

Personally, I’ve been cleaning up a lot. So, my apartment is really clean. Just been watching things a little bit – lots of audible podcasts. I have more time to do things. More cooking, lots of baking. The stuff that I would squeeze in here and there I’ve had more time to do. A lot of cleaning.

I’ve always been inspired by Marie Kondo and, in general, makeover shows. Watching ‘Queer Eye’ has inspired my partner and I to change our space around. In addition to that, it’s been a lot of Zoom calls and online facilitation.

I work at Generator as APT. We moved to online – 2 sessions a week – until mid-May. I’m now in prep for a children’s piece theatre. We’re moved the session to be online this year. I know Camp TO is happening but I’m not anticipating the day camp to be open.

The weekends I really don’t have any energy left for work. I feel just depleted by the time Friday rolls around. I don’t think I’ve been on the screen so much since all this happened.

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 is a time of disruption where what we were doing before is not even possible. To the professional theatre school grads: “To be fair and honest, to be so honest, it takes a long time to build up a career anyway”. That was my experience and thinking back to 2004 when I graduated from theatre school. I did an indie show right out of school and other Fringe shows. I wasn’t paid a lot but that was okay because I wanted to do them.

To the graduates and to fellow performers and colleagues – those opportunities will come back. It’ll feel like, “My career is delayed but so is everyone’s”. We’re on such an individual trajectory anyway so who’s to say what you would or wouldn’t have gotten?

In the grand scheme of things, if you’re in a career for the long haul, you’ll be fine. Even with a year off, you’ll be fine. Life happens to us for any reason why your career will take a break. Be ready for those moments when your career takes a break. This time of the pandemic has made me aware that we may have to be doing other things with our time.

My overarching answer: “You’ll be fine.” Maintain yourself care in terms of your sanity and whatever you can do for your creative practice, but you don’t have to overdo it.

I do anticipate live performance for an audience may not return for a little while, unfortunately, but I can’t see performers being off for a really long time. It’s hard to be a performer so that’s why I’m glad to be wearing a producer’s hat as the stars have to align for a show to happen. There are always things you can be doing. Still taking the classes, exploring video performance. Dance class, singing. You should always be doing these things anyway. The work never stops. You can make an audience online.

Do you see anything positive stemming from COVID 19?

For all of us, it’s just a time of collective pause and think through who and what it is you want to be. I feel personally that I was on a hamster wheel and still on there. Just thinking about my trajectory, I didn’t even take a break until I graduated. So the positives for the new graduates: Journal, refill the well, develop those self-care practices, find positive elements to sustain yourself. You can take that break too.

Don’t feel like you’re actually missing out. This is your time, your trajectory, your career. This is a part of how your career has unfolded. Really take the time to contemplate. Others have had their own set of challenges too just like you. When things start back up again, you’re grounded and in a space of joy because that is, I think, the space where some of the best work happens.

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

Yeah, it will. Tonight, I’m a guest for the Indie Arts Coalition in an open space – a series of ongoing conversations about how we want to move forward in a better and different way. Things are in the air that haven’t been there in awhile. A big thing that’s happening is the contemplation of what we’re doing and why, and who it’s benefitting in terms of the independent artist. The system set up, nonprofits being set up, and making sure independent artists are recognized somehow, financially.

With anti-racism, systemic oppression. Black Lives Matter, there’s a real spotlight on issues. I’ve been working on this for quite some time and so have other people before me. I don’t think we can come at this the same as we had.

It’s also a tough time because I don’t know how funding will be affected by the economic downturn. Will there be the same amount? Which institutions will be left standing after this? The ones that are left are in a space of reckoning that we can’t do things the way we did before.

We’re really going to have to work hard and pull innovative approaches to bring our audiences back to collective spaces, and to welcome people back.

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?

There are so many things to say about it good and bad. I have questions about the commissioning of online performance from larger institutions and are people being paid properly for that work. There was an immediate response, at first, of the proliferation of work online to try to address the fact performances were canceled and people were out of work they might have had.

Now that things have settled, online performances are a good thing and especially because what alternative is there? I would rather see fewer performances that were well promoted, and artists were well compensated than seeing a bunch of performances. I can’t keep up with everything that I’m seeing online right now, bam, bam, bam…. who’s next?

It’s still a valid format, but I would rather people took the time to explore the medium and what the possibilities are and that things were properly promoted. Streaming removes the barrier of participation of people who might not have money and presence for whatever reason for those who can’t attend live performances.

The Zoom reading, I don’t know how that will fare when COVID is over. Yes, Zoom has allowed artists to collaborate from all over and that’s good. The Zoom reading will probably not endure to the extent that is happening now.

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

The ephemeral nature of performing. There’s something deep within the human history of storytelling that we can never erase that is deep within our DNA as humans. We need to share our stories with each other. We need to share emotions with each other. My parents were quite artistic so it appears that I’ve followed suit. The way we tell stories may differ, but we need to tell them. This will never be destroyed.

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?
Breath

2. What is your least favourite word?

Moist; it’s just kind of a funny word. It’s a great word, but it’s still a funny word Prime Minister Trudeau even pointed out what kind of a funny word it is.

3. What turns you on?

Sharing, honesty, generosity, kindness, joy

4. What turns you off?

Dishonesty, misplaced anger, meanness, excluding people, trying to feel better than somebody else.

5. What sound or noise do you love?

I love laughter, children’s laughter, and children playing.

6. What sound or noise bothers you?

Styrofoam rubbing together. That one really gets me.

7. What is your favourite curse word?

Oh, Fuck, for sure. It’s so versatile.

What is your least favourite curse word?

Cunt ‘cause it’s a good word.

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

On line facilitating. Through various means, I’ve been teaching Zoom for Beginners to laid-off hotel workers. It’s all people of colour who worked in hotels who have been laid off so it’s been a joy to help these people figure Zoom.

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

Hmmm. This is a good one. I don’t think I’d be a very good accountant. (laughs) Too many details.

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

Oh, this is a fun one. “Here is all of the foods you love. Here are all the people you love who are now dead. It’s a party.” (laughs)

You can follow Sedina on Facebook: Sedina Fiati, Twitter and Instagram: @bwheelsheels

I’m slowly beginning a check-in on theatre artists whom I’ve profiled. Here’s the link to the first I compiled on Sergio Di Zio: https://www.onstageblog.com/profiles/2020/5/14/the-self-isolated-artist-series-toronto-profile-of-sergi-di-zio

Fast forward three years from our world ‘being on fire,’ as he called it this past summer. The SAG (Screen Actors’ Guild) Strike was still in full swing at that time, and Sergio shared his thoughts:

“It’s so similar again to what the pandemic felt like. Testing was stopped on everybody on site…People were terrified about what the industry would look like…and it didn’t help that there was so much on the internet about things over which there was no control. Would it have been a long or short strike?”

Like everyone, Sergio has moved forward personally and professionally on many levels. But he has battle scars like all of us.

He still doesn’t know what the industry will look like after all this post-pandemic change and trusts the universe will work its magic in ways he can never understand to keep him active in the business. His father was ill during the pandemic and sadly passed away. Di Zio was also in a long-term relationship, which ended.

But he chooses to keep going.

Sergio calls himself lucky. He is genial, and he is affable. He seems to avoid negativity and always seems to look for kindness. He does yoga most every day. Daily rituals keep him ready and focused when the work comes. He continued working through the pandemic as an actor and is genuinely grateful for that.

He was a guest star in a recent ‘Law and Order Toronto: Criminal Intent’ episode just before Christmas and set to air in the spring. He also appeared in the Christmas Movie “We’re Scrooged” on UPtv. He’s also thankful for the Ontario Christmas movies he has filmed, respectively from last year’s ‘Undercover Holiday’ (Hallmark) and starring roles in ‘Angels and Ornaments’ and ‘Anything but Christmas.’

Di Zio’s words for these faithful viewers: “God Bless Them, Everyone.”

He appears in an independent LGBTQ2 film called “This Time,” directed by Robert Vaughn, that will be making festival circuits at the time of this article.

This month, Sergio is part of a generation-spanning ensemble in ARC Stage’s production of the Canadian premiere of Joanna Murray-Smith’s ‘Rockabye’ from January 26 – February 11, 2024, at Toronto’s Factory Theatre. Directed by ARC’s Co-Artistic Producer (and Artistic Director of Port Hope’s Capitol Theatre) Rob Kempson, the production is billed on the website as “a satirical and dark portrait of our self-involved, celebrity-obsessed culture.”

Di Zio says it’s gold if any actor can work in January because things usually dive in winter. He likes the work ARC has produced over the last while and says:

“It makes me smile when I think about ‘Rockabye’ and what the company has accomplished. ARC selects really good material and interesting projects. The part I will play in ‘Rockabye’ is something I am really looking forward to exploring.”

Sergio will appear with Megan Follows in the Canadian premiere of ‘Four Minutes Twelve Seconds’ directed by Mark McGrinder and presented by Studio 180 Theatre at Tarragon Extraspace from April 20 to May 12, 2024. Appearing alongside Di Zio and Follows are two rising talents: Jadyn Nasato and Tavaree Daniel-Simms.

He also stars in and produces a terrific web series, ‘I Will Bury You,’ that I finally had the chance to watch over the Christmas and holiday season. Its birthing process was fascinating.

In a no-budget filmmaking world, Di Zio, Colin Glazer and writer/director Ravi Steve Khajuria created ‘This is Not a Drill,’ a short film that defied its financial constraints. It played in several festivals that garnered much interest for the film’s limited budget and crew. Because of this fervent interest, the three of them continued with another short, ‘You Hired a Hitman,’ which played a few more festivals. Audiences loved how they were diving into this darkly comic series. A third short film was then shot – ‘The Grave Decision’.

Following these three shorts filmed over two years and into the pandemic, the team received funding from Ontario Creates and The Canada Media Fund. These funds allowed the opportunity to shoot the five-episode “I Will Bury You Season 2,” which connects to the YouTube link at the bottom of this article—a ten-day shoot with a paid crew over the summer. I recommend ‘binging’ it all in one fell swoop. There were moments of dark humour where I knew I shouldn’t be laughing, but I did. I wanted to see where the story was headed next.

Di Zio glowingly spoke about the element of play and the joy of exploring creatively with somebody else while filming the web series.

The story follows two brothers (Di Zio and Colin Glazer) who attempt to carry out their late mother’s (Clare Coulter) wishes to bury her ashes in the places she loved…if the brothers can only figure out where those places are. ‘I Will Bury You’ pushes dark comedy and humour to another level as these two brothers aren’t necessarily bad people; they are making very bad decisions that left me in fits of laughter.

So far, the series has had over 350K hits. You can subscribe to the ‘I Will Bury You’ link at the bottom of this article. If these numbers increase, there is potential for a third season.

The performing arts industry is still in recovery from the last three years. Audiences are slowly returning to the theatre. From my experience, I’ve discovered they want stories they remember to help uplift them. And that’s great. Many audiences are also looking for stories of challenging material that will confront pertinent social issues head-on.

These kinds of scripts and stories are the gifts of the performing arts and remain why Di Zio chose to become an actor. But these last three years have also taught him a valuable lesson as an artist:

“The goals happen as you go. You can’t re-create a red carpet…it’s letting go and do with what’s actually happening and finding the creative life in all of this.”

Our conversation then turned to some terrific summer theatre around the province where whip-smart and knowledgeable Artistic Directors understand the temperament of their respective communities.

Does Di Zio have any interest in performing summer theatre?

He spoke of frequenting a favourite coffee joint at the corner of Danforth and Broadview and its proprietor, Saverio Cosenza, who sold the business to open ‘Downtown Espresso’ in Huntsville. Cosenza told Di Zio there’s a summer theatre in Huntsville and that the actor has to come to do a show. Although the summer is a busy time for actors for film and television work, Di Zio said he’d consider the drive to Huntsville because he missed the coffee and the hangouts.

Might he consider summer theatre?:

“As actors, we don’t have that control as the career is going to do what it’s going to do… Stay open. That’s our job as actors; allow whatever happens to come in and ‘act’ on it if required.”

Does Sergio have any thoughts regarding writing or directing in the future for film, television, or the theatre?

He has.

He loves reading and writing and has been journaling since he was sixteen. He was finishing Alan Rickman’s biography and found it fascinating as it delves into the actor’s notes about returning from rehearsals with questions and comments about the day on set or in the theatre.

Sergio grew up with stories. He ponders the responsibility of putting pen to paper to tell the story of the last few years of his late father’s life. Di Zio proudly stated that his grandmother was one of his best friends. When he was younger, he would sit and listen to his grandmother tell stories about her holding Sergio’s mother’s hand and running when the Allies bombed small Italian towns because the Germans were hiding munitions in these small villages. Sharing these stories is important because it’s part of who we are.

Writing intrigues Sergio, but it’s hard when one has chosen to be an actor. The process of writing requires attention. Sergio has found he’ll start to write, and then he gets a big job because he’s creatively open as an actor to take on that task. The writing then goes to the side while he works on a film or a television series.

Periodically, Sergio will post online the final product of a cooked meal. I asked him if he had further thoughts and considered a YouTube cooking series for novices like me who want to impress others.

He laughed uproariously and added:

“No thoughts. If you want to watch somebody screwing it up more than ever, then sure. Cooking is new to me…my partner loved cooking, and I learned by cooking with him. The pride came from learning together. When I found myself alone again, I felt I had to learn how to cook for myself; otherwise, it’s going to be takeout all the time. Cooking has been a good process of learning how to do, and it’s been good.”

As we concluded our conversation from the summer, I told Sergio I was headed to New York City the next day to review Lucie Arnaz Luckinbill’s “I Got the Job: Songs from My Musical Past.” He appeared rather excited for me and thought it was awesome that I would write my first Broadway nightclub review at 54 Below. Sergio had listened to a podcast about the life of Lucie’s parents and her younger brother, Desi, and how life transformed them into the individuals they are. I’m surmising that he also grew up watching all the Lucy series when he was a kid.

Di Zio said he was to have gone to New York City in the fall for an acting seminar. When he heard Arnaz-Luckinbill was already in town, he wondered if she might make another appearance. If she did, Sergio would undoubtedly be there.

And as for that acting seminar in New York City, Sergio, it’s great that you never stop studying and honing your craft. He’s back at classes on Monday night in Toronto, and that’s never changed. For him, studying and learning is not a one-off, nor does he ever intend to stop.

If you did make your Broadway debut, that would be fantastic.

Canadians and Ontarians know you’re one of us. And I know you’ll never forget where you came from.

To follow Sergio on ‘X’ and Instagram (and see pictures of his cooking): @elisasboy72.

To recap Sergio’s stage appearances and web-series:

ROCKABYE (An ARC presentation at Factory Theatre). Tickets are now available: https://www.factorytheatre.ca/shows/rockabye/#tickets

FOUR MINUTES TWELVE SECONDS. (A Studio 180 Theatre presentation at Tarragon Theatre’s Extraspace.) Tickets are now available: https://tarragontheatre.com/plays/current-season/upcoming/4-minutes-12-seconds/

I WILL BURY YOU. To watch and subscribe, go here: https://www.youtube.com/@iwillburyyou

Artist Shauna Thompson is a multi-disciplinary artist. I’ve had the opportunity to catch some of her work on stage.

She opens this month in ‘Bad Roads’ at Crow’s Theatre with quite an extraordinary cast and dedicated crew led by director Andrew Kushnir.

Thompson completed her formal acting training at Montréal’s National Theatre School. She also took as many acting classes as she could fit into her schedule at Guelph University prior to attending the National, but she was not a theatre major. From the Factory Theatre website: “She’s played Romeo in Repercussion Theatre’s ‘Romeo and Juliet: Love is Love; she’s also performed in three seasons at the Shaw (‘Man and Superman’; ‘Victory’; ‘The Devil’s Disciple’ etc.) and has also appeared in several world premiere productions including George F. Walker’s ‘Orphans for the Czar,’ Michael Ross Albert’s ‘Beautiful Renegades’ and Paolo Santalucia’s ‘Prodigal.’ She also appeared in ‘Vierge’ at Factory.

I connected with Shauna via email as she was smack dab into rehearsals for ‘Bad Roads.’

First, she told me she’s excited to be back in the theatre as it feels like coming home. She has made great reconnections with her fellow arts workers and audiences.

When I saw the cast list for ‘Bad Roads,’ I could just sense how much excitement has been building for the production. I had the opportunity to profile Director Andrew Kushnir during the pandemic. Just this past summer, I also saw his ‘Casey and Diana’ at Stratford, which left me bereft of emotion.

I’m expecting ‘Bad Roads’ to do the same.

Shauna feels very lucky to be sharing the space with those involved on the stage and behind the scenes:
“Everyone attached to this production has brought a ton of care, compassion, joy, vulnerability, thoughtfulness, and passion to the rehearsal process. Everything that makes for a great work environment and even better theatre.”

Crow’s Theatre website provides information about this North American premiere: “In the Donbas region of Ukraine, a war is raging, and people want to understand why. Based on astonishing testimonies from the outset of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2014, BAD ROADS explores the heartbreaking effects of conflict on intimate relationships and a country’s social fabric. Ukrainian playwright Natal’ya Vorozhbit deftly intertwines themes of love, sex, trauma, loss, and resistance through powerful and darkly comic episodes exploring, most of all, what it is to be a woman in wartime.”

Thompson hopes that more than anything, audiences are moved by the immediacy of ‘Bad Roads’. It’s not a history or dystopian play. She says of the play: “This is now,” as stories such as the ones depicted in this piece are happening today. From her perspective, she sees Andrew’s vision for the play rooted in the relationships between the characters but with a very focused understanding of Ukrainian culture, language, and history.

She also adds:

“The chosen words in this translated version of the text will always come across differently depending on where and who is involved in the production because how people communicate with one another is influenced by how and where they were raised. So, it was important to make it accessible to Canadian audiences while maintaining the integrity of the show’s Ukrainian roots.”

The show is broken into six episodes that present characters navigating loss, love, old and new varying relationship dynamics, and challenging decision-making, all in the context of an ongoing war in Ukraine. While the play is set and focuses on the war, Thompson says the subject matter stretches beyond those borders, especially today.

She plays three very different characters: a teenage girl, an army medic and a young woman looking to right a wrong before the start of the war. Kushnir’s vision has enhanced her involvement because he continually offered vital insight and knowledge that only someone with a direct connection to both Canada and Ukraine could offer. He has been the vital bridge to both worlds that this production requires. She’s appreciative of this opportunity to present this story. This invitation has allowed her to explore and perform in a way that she feels like she’s contributing to the extension of that vital bridge.

What’s next for Shauna once ‘Bad Roads’ completes its run?

She’ll work on ‘Rockabye’, a co-production between ARC (Actors Repertory Company) and Factory Theatre. Well, another play features an exciting cast and crew led by ARC Artistic Director/Capitol Artistic Director (and director of ‘Rockabye’) Rob Kempson. Stay tuned for more information about ‘Rockabye’, which runs from January 26 to February 11, 2024, at Factory Theatre.

‘Bad Roads’ runs November 10-November 26 at Crow’s Theatre, 345 Carlaw Avenue. For tickets and other information, visit crowtheatre.com.

Toronto performing artist Shawn Ahmed currently appears in the Shaw Festival’s production of ‘Mahabharata’ in conjunction with Why Not Theatre and in association with the Barbican, London, England.

In reading recent reviews of the production, I hear tremendous praise about the five-hour show. Yes, five hours, but there is a break in between the two performances. More about this shortly.

Ahmed earned a Specialist in Economics at the University of Toronto. When did his desire to become an actor enter his mind?

He says it was always something in the back of his head:

“I just had no tangible way of achieving that goal. Before university, I attended Wexford School for the Arts. I had a huge introduction to the musical theatre there, to acting, dancing, and singing. It was always something I really loved in creating stories, listening to stories, watching stories, reciting stand-up.”

Ahmed had an agent at this time, but he didn’t really see a place for himself in the industry. That’s when he attended U of T to study Economics. He remembers his agent telling him that she could still send him out to auditions since he was in Toronto. He could do commercials and make some extra pocket money which he thought was a good idea. He did that and while he studied at school Shawn was auditioning. In his second year that’s when he booked the substantial job of filming ‘Flight 93’ in Vancouver, the first film made about 9/11. (Side note: I did see the film and it is worth viewing. You can YouTube it).

Shawn recalls being treated like an actor in that film. The experience was so profound for him that he had to decide how to make the industry work for him. He finished his degree, part-time over the next four years while doing sketch comedy, auditioning, and writing things. He also recalled working in the backs of bars wherever he could.

Once he finished his degree, Shawn shifted focus and dove headfirst into the industry and moulded his life around how he would make a living in this business.

He is very excited to be back in the theatre doing what he loves even though our world is still in Covid’s embrace. Hesitant about the theatre for the last couple of years Ahmed focused on the film and tv industry. However, in the last six months, he feels there has been a resurgence in theatre in Toronto and at Shaw. He feels there is an appetite as audiences and artists are hungry for live theatre again and for its storytelling. Voice and storytelling at its core, the really simple stuff, carry us forward while the other elements of the production lift it up.

Currently, he is deep into performances for ‘Mahabharata’ at the Shaw Festival billed on the website as: “a contemporary take on a Sanskrit epic that is more than four thousand years old and foundational to Indian culture. This gripping story of a family feud is an exploration of profound philosophical and spiritual ideas.”
When I asked Shawn to describe the plot synopsis, he had a good laugh and said: “If I distill it to one line, I would call it Indian Game of Thrones.”

The Mahabharata is a 4000-year-old Sanskrit poem that has been told for obviously a very long time. If recited in its entirety, Ahmed says it would take 21 days to recite it. The production is a condensed version of the poem.

For Shawn, what’s interesting about the story? It’s an Eastern story but it’s being told at a Western theatre for a Western audience by predominantly artists who grew up in the western hemisphere. It’s an event. At times, it’s a spectacle. The challenge is to honour what is in the original text, but the vision is to make it palatable for a western audience.

‘Mahabharata’ is many different stories, some related and some not, that have different lessons. Each story can be dissected in different ways. Each story is meant to be heard, listened and digested over and over again because you’ll get something different out of it every time. At its core, ‘Mahabharata’ is a love story where two people fall in love. As a result of that love, there are two different brothers that lay claim to the throne of Hastinapura. Each of these brothers has children and these children, who are cousins, will fight for what they believe is their rightful place.

Ahmed describes the Shaw performances as ambitious but fantastic and adds: “It’s been a very difficult process, not from a place of tension but from a place of being expected to do a lot. The artists have had to do a lot. I’ve been pushed personally I think further than I have been pushed as an artist physically and emotionally, and mentally just timewise more than I’ve been for another show that I’ve done in recent memory.”

Shawn stipulates he likes working hard for things he likes to do. It’s been a great learning experience. He’s proud of ‘Mahabharata’ and praises the work of writers Miriam Fernandes and Ravi Jain. Jain also directs the work. What Ahmed has found remarkable is the element of trust that has been established from and in everyone within the room towards Miriam, Ravi, and their vision for the work. An international cast has been assembled for the show and Shawn also finds that exciting. The expectation hopefully is to tour the show to as many audiences as possible.

The story is very special to Shawn, and he reiterates how important it is to see both parts. Audiences are into it. The current production is told in many ways. It’s not simply a stand-up story. For example, there’s dance, music, opera, and clown influence.

Outside of his work as a professional artist, Shawn heartfully spoke about his involvement in helping marginalized youth and young people break into film, television, and the theatre. He calls this initiative a community and it is a beautiful thing to him. It helps support everyone in that community and makes their lives better, their careers better and their quality of life better.

Community is a two-way street for Ahmed. You have to put something into it to get something out of it. He sits on the board of directors at POV Film, a charitable organization founded in 2007 by Edie Weiss and Jeff Kopas. He proudly recalled how a lot of people stepped up along the way to help him out. Now, Shawn wants to give back and help marginalized youth break into the film and television industry through training, mentorship, job placement, and professional development.

Shawn also co-founded Crazy Shirt Productions. This is a place for him and his creative peers to write, direct and produce. His projects have toured festivals worldwide and garnered awards and accolades. He just wrapped on the feature, ‘Sanctuary’, a Get Out-esque thriller, which he produced. (Hmmm…something else to watch for in the future).

What’s next for Shawn Ahmed after ‘Mahabharata’ has concluded its run:

“I am producing a movie that my buddy Scott Leaver wrote and directed called ‘The Devil Comes At Night’, a feature-length horror film we shot during pandemic times. We went to a cabin with a bunch of actors and crew for two weeks and shot it out. It had its premiere at the Blood and Snow Festival last November with Super channel and will have some sort of a release this year. There’s another show I produced called ‘Right Under My Roof’ through POV Films. It’s a six-part series told through found footage. The story is told through social media essentially.”

And on a personal note, Shawn shared: “There are wedding bells in the future.”

Always great news to hear.

‘Mahabharata’ runs until March 26 at the Shaw’s Festival Theatre. The production is divided into two parts. To learn more and/or purchase tickets, visit shawfest.com or call 1-800-511-SHAW.

Shawn and I conducted our conversation through email. When he sent me his headshot, I kept thinking I have seen his work onstage, but where?

Forgive me, Shawn, but I had to do a bit of research to see where I’ve seen you before on stage. And then it came clear to me as I remembered his performance as Geppetto in Toronto’s Young People’s Theatre production of ‘The Adventures of Pinocchio’. You brought a tear to my eye as the father who never gave up on his son no matter the odds. And I did see the original Toronto cast of ‘Jersey Boys’. I wasn’t reviewing at that time but loved every minute of that production.

Nice work.

Shawn holds an Honors B.A. in English Literature from the University of New Brunswick. Mid-career, he trained at Shakespeare & Company in Massachusetts.

Other credits include: London Road, The Arsonists (Canadian Stage); the title role in Pal Joey (Theatre Calgary), Les Miserables,; 7 seasons at Stratford Festival; 6 seasons at Shaw Festival; 2 seasons as Matthew in Anne of Green Gables (Charlottetown Festival), Lord of the Rings (Mirvish); Mamma Mia! (Original USA cast); Jersey Boys (Original Toronto cast); Ragtime (original Broadway workshop cast), Oleanna (TNB); Mikado (Pacific Opera); Next to Normal (MTC); Anne of Green Gables (Charlottetown Festival); Oliver! (NAC).

Playwright: Ghost Light (published by Playwrights Canada Press); seven productions so far, including a nomination for the international LAMBDA award. Awards: Dora, Guthrie, Newton, MyEntertainment plus many Broadway World nominations.

Thank you for taking the time, Shawn, and for adding to the discussion of where you see live theatre headed in a post pandemic world:

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.

Ok, that’s a two-part question. The world I knew? What was the world I knew before March 13, 2020?

On March 12, 2020, I was in the midst of a four-month Canadian tour of a play I’d written entitled ‘Ghost Light’. In May and June 2020, I was supposed to act in “On Golden Pond” with two of my childhood idols, Hal Linden and Michael Learned.

In July 2020 I was supposed to start “Harry Potter and the Cursed Child” in Toronto. I was happy that after a few months on the road I could walk to work from my own condo in a show that was projected to run for a few years. I was single. I was happy with my lot in life.

After March 13, 2020? Ghost Light closed on the road; my upcoming shows were postponed until God knows when. I flew back to Toronto, collected CERB while waiting for college zoom teaching jobs, joined a dating site and met someone great (still together one year later), followed all the important and necessary social and cultural movements with awe and hope, felt happy for the small strides that were starting to happen in that regard, started to reckon with how white privilege was a factor in keeping me working all these years, taught acting by zoom at a few colleges, did a few voice over jobs and commercials, wondered if there would be a place for me in the theatre again, and …oh, yeah,…basically worried day and night about breathing the wrong air and dying.

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?

How has my understanding of the theatre changed? Well, large productions (which have been most of my income) will take longer to get going than smaller productions (where i make some but not most of my income). There will be (hopefully) more of an equal distribution of casting in terms of an actor’s race and gender and size (which is good) but probably not of an actor’s age (which might be bad….for me).

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

I miss the laughs in the dressing room from the half hour call to the places call. I miss the satisfaction of a full day’s work in my chosen field.

I miss the boisterous rush of adrenaline-fuelled chat walking from the stage to the dressing room after a curtain call.

i miss the fitting rooms with designers.

i miss the glorious relaxation of being in a character I wear well in front of an audience.

Well, ok, the industry and the art are two different things so….hmmm, what do i miss about the industry per se?

The opening night parties, seeing my name on a poster alongside artists I admire, being part of a community that rallies at the drop of a hat to help a failing theatre company or an ailing colleague.
I miss the memorials because we can’t gather right now. In February 2020, we had a lovely send off for Mary Haney at a neighborhood pub. It was sweet and touching and raucous and full of love for Mary.
There’s a queue of dear others for whom we are waiting to do that.

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?

Having a job in theatre. Having audiences come to our plays. I never really took those things for granted anyway.

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

That everyone feels heard and represented.

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

“Must” still accomplish? I don’t think in terms of ‘must’ anymore.

I’ve been proud of the career I’ve had pre-Covid because it’s been exceptionally varied but I’m most proud of the fact that for over 30 years I’ve been able to make a full time living in the theatre. I WANT to keep accomplishing that. I guess I MUST accomplish that to pay my bills.

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

I’d be grateful to be cast in a Covid themed play. I’d be happy to watch a Covid themed play.

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

I’d like to be remembered as an artist whose work was heart-felt and detailed.

To follow Shawn Wright at Instagram: mistershawnwright / Facebook: Shawn Wright

Controversial and complex, artist, educator, filmmaker, director, and writer Sky Gilbert has undoubtedly influenced the Canadian theatre scene. Although I haven’t had a chance to see any of his plays at this time (but am hoping to catch some soon), I have heard from others and read online Gilbert’s literary works from novels to scripts become often raw, quite funny and intensely vocal.

I’ve been wanting to profile Sky, his voice, and his work for some time but wasn’t sure how to get in touch with him. A workshop production he is directing will premiere shortly, and it was fortuitous he was available to chat with me via email since he is busy in preparation.

Gilbert holds an Honours bachelor’s degree in fine arts from York University, and master’s and Ph. D degrees from the University of Toronto. He has been teaching in the School of English and Theatre Studies for 24 years at Guelph. He is now a full professor and will retire in a couple of weeks. He was co-founder and Artistic Director of Toronto’s Buddies in Bad Times Theatre for 18 years.

Given that we’re returning to live theatre, albeit slowly, Sky feels terrified because in his words:

“I’ve seen so much bad stuff…I am wanting to be shocked, angered, challenged, stimulated, not to have all my views and attitudes to life affirmed. I go to theatre to NOT be confirmed as a good person but to question myself.”

I must applaud Sky for his honesty and candour here. He believes politics is killing theatre in Toronto and this means bad theatre. The theatre he sees assumes that the audience has the same ideas they do and confirms them over and over, so it is pessimistic for him.

Given his frank observation regarding the state of theatre in Toronto now, I asked Sky where he sees the industry headed over the next five years. He gently corrected me by saying that he doesn’t see theatre as an industry but as an art. For him, art is so overrun by commercialism, meaning the digital megaplex.

Art has been whittled down to a message that it has to be a ‘good’ one and judged on that and that alarms Sky because he says: “artists are self-censoring because they think that they have to deliver an approved message.”

So, have we as an audience forgotten what art is? Sky believes so and that’s what he’s afraid of right now.

How does he view art?

“Art comes from the unconscious; it is unscientific, and it is a lie. It is an irrational connection with the irrational. It doesn’t mean things — things — that can be put into words as much as provide an experience.”

I received a release recently that details Gilbert’s upcoming workshop presentation ‘Kink Observed’:

“Kink Observed explores what ‘kinky’ sex — and sex itself — means to gay men, (and hopefully, ultimately to us all) by considering these questions: “why do we push ourselves to the limit, sexually?” and secondly “can an audience watch a representation of ‘kinky sex’ without demonizing the players? It will challenge recent misleading and myopic representations of gay sexuality by putting three gay men onstage who place their sexuality directly in your face.”

For Sky, he had written audiences don’t see much gay male sexuality in Toronto plays. Instead, we see gay men adopting children and acting like straight people. But even though there was AIDS there are still bathhouses, and sex in washrooms and parks, and there is a culture of HIV-positive men who have a lot of sex, no longer with condoms. Because men can hook up easily online, our sex lives have become less visible — unless it is demonized in things like the horror of the Bruce McArthur murders — or of course in the recent very popular Jeffrey Dahmer TV Show. People just seem to love gay serial killers, but they are a little bit wary of looking at the real sex lives of real gay men who are not murderers.

Would audiences perhaps push back at this workshop presentation of ‘Kink Observed’ or are they open to discussion and seeing the material? Again, Sky had written the portrayal of gay male sexuality should not be controversial in 2022. He reminds us there is porn on the internet and that we should also look at what the kids are watching! People have their heads in the sand and it’s time to become aware.

The workshop (billed as provoking and immersive theatre experience) offers audiences an opportunity to view gay male sexuality performed live and up close. ‘Kink Observed’ comes from the real-life experiences of the gay men who are actors in the play and, in that way, it is a very honest and revealing account of what real gay life is like today. Of course, it is fiction, it is a play, and the gay men are using their lives as fodder for art and poetry — they are not just ‘being themselves’ or repeating their real-life experiences. But there is a brutal and I think important honesty here, that needs to be seen.

Sky is hoping the production will get a Canada Council grant to pursue the workshop further to a full-length production. He speaks glowingly about the artists who are involved in the production. He has known Ryan Cunningham as a friend but only recently started working with him. He didn’t know why that occurred but it’s great that it has. Ryan is a producer and former artistic director of Native Earth. Gilbert discovered recent theatre school graduate Ray Jacildo for his production of ‘Who’s Afraid of Titus? in the summer and says he was AMAZING. Brandon Nicoletti is a filmmaker whom Gilbert auditioned for this project and feels he has a lot of insight and brings a great deal of honesty to the work.

While they all had fun creating the improvised scenes in the summer. Sky writes they are working on: “the kink demonstrations’ where the audience will get to see some real kink stuff happen and even participation — however slightly — in the goings on! Hopefully, it will be a rare and interesting experience!”

THE DETAILS ABOUT ‘KINK OBSERVED’

WHAT: ‘Kink Observed’, a collective creation directed by Sky Gilbert and devised (with Sky) by Ryan Cunningham, Ray Jacildo and Brandon Nicoletti, who also perform in the production. Live music is by Lyon Smith, props by Trixie and Beaver, and costume consultation by Marty Rotman.

WHERE: Deanne Taylor Theatre, 10 Busy Street Toronto

DATES: Nov 25, 2022 at 08:00 pm – 09:30 pm (Fri)

Nov 26, 2022 at 02:30 pm – 04:00 pm (Sat)

Nov 26, 2022 at 08:00 pm – 09:30 pm (Sat)

Nov 27, 2022 at 02:30 pm – 04:00 pm (Sun)

Nov 27, 2022 at 08:00 pm – 09:30 pm (Sun)

For more information: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/kink-observed-tickets-450934365827

‘Slava’s Snowshow’ returns to Toronto for the Christmas/holiday season from December 22-31, 2023.

I was elated when I heard the show was returning.

It has already been to China, France, Italy, and the Arab Emirates this season and, from what I have read and heard, it will continue to have a busy touring schedule in different parts of the world in 2024.

According to a recent press release I received, the show is the recipient of more than 20 international awards including an Olivier Award for Best Entertainment, a Drama Desk Award, and a Tony nomination. In addition to widespread public acclaim, the production is a darling with critics who have declared it “a thing of rare theatrical beauty not to be missed” (London Daily Telegraph), “a meditation on lost souls and a red-nose spectacle with heart” (Toronto Globe and Mail), “one of the most innocent and simply beautiful pieces of theatre” (Herald Sun) and “Dazzling! Guaranteed to make even the glum thaw with happiness” (The Observer) with the New York Times confessing, “my heart leapt… [‘Snowshow’] induces waves of giggles and sighs of pleasure” and the Daily Telegraph advising, “if there’s only one show you get to this year, make it ‘Slava’s Snowshow’ and take the whole family.

I concur with everything in the previous paragraph.

I saw the show at Toronto’s Bluma Appel Theatre in December 2018, a couple of years before our world changed on account of COVID-19. I remember calling it at first a puzzling theatrical art form, but strangely alluring to watch as I couldn’t take my eyes off the performers. Their movements are precisely choreographed and timed to the music or the sounds echoing throughout the auditorium.

Most importantly, from what I remember, the Toronto audience loved it at the performance I saw.

And that’s the most important thing.

I researched online later about the art of clowning incorporated into the production. Clowning is an art form that requires stamina, endurance, and concentration in its execution of theatrical magic. I’m sure I’m missing other requirements.

Artist Slava Polunin was available for an email interview about the show’s return to Toronto. I am most grateful he could answer my questions about the show.

A bit of background information about the artist himself intrigued me even further. According to that same press release, Polunin discovered the art of pantomime in high school. As he grew to adulthood, he developed an eccentric version of pantomime and dubbed it lovingly ‘Expressive Idiotism’.

I can’t help but smile and laugh at that term.

Polunin has also been involved with Canada’s Cirque du Soleil as a featured performer from 1993-1995.

He has been involved with ‘Slava’s Snowshow’ since 1993.

What about the production keeps drawing him back to tour with it?

I smiled when I read Slava’s response:

“This show, just like all the others, is my favourite child. It’s been bringing me joy over these 30 years and I just love going on tour with it each and every time.”

He added the show is strong, in very good health and resistant to viruses. It never had COVID-19 and will arrive in Toronto in perfect shape.

What is it about the art of clowning that still appeals to a twenty-first-century audience?

According to Polunin, the art of clowning is an ancient form. The forebearers of modern clowns, such as various satyrs, jesters, jugglers, and histrionics, skomorokhi and Pagliacci, have performed in front of the public since time immemorial. The art of clowning is democratic for Slava. It’s not very difficult to understand and most often provokes laughter and brings a good mood. People have always loved clowning and continue to love it.

I remember the absolute joy of watching the production in 2018. There’s a windstorm and a snowstorm during the performance that filters towards the audience. It will take you by surprise when it occurs.
And when it does…just sit back and let it take you wherever it wants to take you. Yes, the art form of clowning is a unique theatrical form, but it’s fascinating to experience. It truly made me smile and laugh and just be a young child again.

Slava reassures the main line of the show remains unchanged. There are surprises born out of improvisations at each show.

However, in Slava’s words once again:

“I don’t know what patterns the actors will begin to embroider around the show because that differs with every performance. Improvisation is key in the show and will depend on the particular actors involved at that matinée or evening. ‘Slava’s Snowshow” has never had two identical performances.”

I am really looking forward to seeing it. I’m thinking I might even go twice.

Show One Productions presents ‘Slava’s Snowshow’ at Toronto’s Elgin Theatre, 189 Yonge Street.

Performance dates and times:
· Friday, Dec. 22 | 7 p.m.
· Saturday, Dec. 23 I 2 pm.
· Saturday, Dec. 23 I 7 pm.
· Sunday, Dec. 24 I 1 pm.
· Tuesday, Dec. 26 I 7 pm
· Thursday, Dec. 28 I 7 pm.
· Friday, Dec. 29 I 7 pm.
· Saturday, Dec. 30 I 2 pm.
· Saturday, Dec. 30 I 7 pm.
· Sunday, Dec. 31 I 1 pm.

To learn more about Show One Productions, visit www.showoneproductions.ca.

To learn more about ‘Slava’s Snowshow’, visit www.slavasnowshow.com.

To purchase tickets, please call 1-416-366-7723 or go to TOLive.

For the last three years, I have been trying to get in touch with Soheil Parsa for an interview, but I never knew where to turn. I wanted to learn more about this Iranian Canadian theatre artist and his vision.

Thank Goodness for theatre publicity rep Suzanne Cheriton who made it easier and asked if I would like to speak with him about his upcoming direction of Aluna Theatre’s ‘On the Other Side of the Sea.’

I jumped at the opportunity.

From his Factory Theatre bio: “Soheil is the co-founder and former artistic director of Modern Times Stage Company and has directed over forty productions for the company since its inception in 1989.” I’ve seen several plays he has directed, the most recent being Daniel McIvor’s ‘Monster’ and David Paquet’s ‘Wildfire’ (for which he won the Dora Mavor Moore Award for direction).

Parsa started his theatre school training and received three and a half years at Tehran University, Iran, in the Faculty of Fine Arts, Theatre Department, prior to the Iranian/Islamic Revolution in 1979. After the Revolution, Soheil was in his fourth year. He was honest with me and said he was kicked out of the university because he did not support the Revolution. The other vital aspect also in play was his religious background. He and his family come from the Bahá’í minority under severe persecution.

His journey from Iran to Canada was not an easy one. He fled Iran in 1982 amidst severe persecution due to his Bahá’í faith. He arrived in Canada with his family in 1984; he was twenty-nine then. Not knowing English, he faced the daunting task of learning a new language in a foreign land. Despite the challenges, he enrolled in an undergrad program and completed a second Bachelor of Arts in Theatre Studies at York University. His determination to learn English and continue his education in theatre reveals his resilience and passion for the arts.

On a personal note, Soheil has never had a mentor. Directing has been self-taught, so he proudly states he never stops learning about the theatre. He’s always searching, seeking, and investigating different forms and traditions of theatre. He laughed (and so did I) that as we age, we slow down a bit in our learning. But Soheil doesn’t stagnate at all in the arts. One doesn’t stop learning, no matter what age. He believes artists must keep updating themselves.

Although taking workshops is challenging since he continues to be busy directing, Soheil reads a lot about the arts and the theatre. He goes to see a lot of productions and watches the younger generation of theatregoers (whether on stage or in the audience):

“New generations and different generations of people bring something different, and I think for [we] senior artists, it’s always important to stay updated. There’s no way an artist can stop and say, “I’m done. Now I’m perfect.”

As an artist going forward, how does he feel about the state of Canadian theatre amid its changes in the last three to four years?

Soheil agrees it has been a challenge in Toronto and across Canada. The industry hasn’t recovered entirely, but live performance art remains necessary in connection with others. It may take another couple of years to recover, hopefully without any more pandemics. He still believes that audiences will return to the theatre.

Will there be further changes in the industry moving forward?

“Definitely. When I started my theatre company (Modern Times) in 1989 with Peter Farbridge, the situation then wasn’t like what we are currently experiencing now. There’s no comparison. Yes, there was a bit of a struggle in the first ten years of Modern Times to produce and create shows because whatever I did was labelled as either Persian or multi-cultural, and I hated those words…Change is promising…There weren’t a lot of opportunities for artists like me back in 1989.”

Change is also happening in the leadership within the theatre community, and that’s promising as there weren’t a lot of opportunities for artists of colour back in 89.

Even though Soheil does see the changes for artists of colour, he also gets a bit worried because it’s not just about diversity for the sake of diversity. Art is the bottom line. Whatever artists promote or showcase must be exciting. Whatever is happening is fine, but as an artist of colour, Soheil believes he can speak the truth in saying we’ve gone to the far extreme on the other side now; however, he hopes in a few years that balance will be found in that artists will be supported for their work and for what they do.

When he started Modern Times, he wanted to be recognized and supported for his work as an artist, not because he’s an Iranian-born theatre director. It’s not diversity for the sake of diversity. Theatre must keep growing and flourishing. We have to create good art.

Theatre previews are always exciting. I’m looking forward to seeing Soheil’s next production as director for Aluna Theatre’s ‘On the Other Side of the Sea’ starting February 7 at the Theatre Centre. Written by Salvadorian playwright Jorgelina Cerritos and winner of the 2010 Casa de las Américas Prize for drama based in Havana, Cuba, the play is described on the Theatre Centre website as a powerful, minimalist drama celebrating courage, conviction, and life itself.”

Aluna is thrilled to produce a play from El Salvador, representing the first time the company will produce a work by a Latin American artist not residing in Canada. The plot is not realistic, but the characters are real. There is a fisherman with no name and a civil servant at her office desk, oscillating between loneliness, memory, and reality on a journey toward human connection and renewal.

Beatriz Pizano and Carlos Gonzales-Vio will appear in this Canadian premiere. Rehearsals have gone well. Soheil says he’s lucky to have them for this premiere. He has worked with Beatriz and Carlos before. He calls them generous. Although the process of exploring during rehearsal wasn’t easy at times, the actors kept exploring the text and what lies underneath it. They know how much Soheil values subtext and its importance, so that has been rewarding overall for everyone involved.

Any play has to be challenging for everyone involved, not only for the actors but for everyone involved. If it’s not challenging, what’s the point of doing it?

Parsa calls ‘On the Other Side of the Sea’ a remarkable, poetic, magical, and fascinating piece. The influence of the Theatre of the Absurd on the play is undeniable. He was introduced to the play before the pandemic by a friend who told him: “Soheil, I know your work. This is your play. You have to direct it.”

When he first read the play, Parsa was confused about what was happening. When he read it the second time, he fell in love with the “lyrical beauty of the words and the evocative style. The play is deceptively simple. It’s about hope, and that’s what fascinates me about it.” In Parsa’s words: “Simplicity is simple. You have to achieve it.”

As we began to wind down our conversation, I asked what kept Soheil still excited about the theatre:

“The live connection between the audience and the actors. I think that’s the most irreplaceable art form. We don’t have any art form like theatre to have this direct, live human connection between the creators and the audience. That’s what fascinates me the most. The theatre will always survive no matter how far we advance in the digital or YouTube world.”

What’s next for Soheil once ‘On the Other Side of the Sea’ finishes its run?

There have been requests from theatre schools to direct their shows. Last year, he directed two shows, one for Humber and one at the University of Ottawa. This year, he is teaching part-time at Brock University. Next fall, he will direct a show at Brock University for fourth-year students. Nothing has been finalized yet, but there is a possibility he might be directing for Tarragon Theatre.

‘On the Other Side of the Sea’, presented by Aluna Theatre, runs February 7 – 25 at The Theatre Centre, 1115 Queen Street West. For tickets, call (416) 538-0988 or visit theatrecentre.org. To learn more about Aluna Theatre, visit their Facebook page or website: alunatheatre.ca.

What an enjoyable conversation I had today with the bubbly and effervescent Steffi D. who truly is thankful and grateful for the many opportunities where her career has led her.

I did a bit of online research about this George Brown College student who was the fifth-place finalist in the 2006 Canadian Idol reality based show.

After Canadian Idol, Steffi has performed on stage in musical theatre roles, including national tours of Spring Awakening and in 2013 she received a Dora Mavor Moore Award nomination (similar to the Tonys) for best actress in a musical for her appearance in Toronto’s Young People’s Theatre production of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s ‘Cinderella’. Steffi also has a recurring role in the forthcoming television series ‘Crawford’.

Steffi currently appears in the Toronto production of ‘Come from Away’. We conducted our conversation via Zoom:

It has been an exceptionally long six 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?

Uh, ok, I feel like this is tough because I feel as if we knew this moment was coming that the case numbers were going to spike again. I feel nervous, I feel a little bit anxious. When this all started I don’t think any of us thought we’d be sitting in our houses six months from now. When I got a text message from my Stage Manager on March 14 saying “Hey, don’t come into work today.” Who knew that it was literally to be six months from that moment? I don’t think anybody knew that was going to happen.

I will say the one thing that makes feel a little bit more at peace when it comes to this is the entire world is going through the exact same thing. Everybody is in the same boat right now; everybody is going through the same thing. I guess, as far as this goes, yes, it’s unnerving the numbers are going up. But again, I feel as if more and more we need each other whether it’s over Zoom, either six feet away on a walk.

A new way of living? Hmmmm…well I will say what seems unlikely right now. Giving someone either a hug or a handshake when you meet them sounds like it’s going to be a thing of the past. I think that’s really stressful and sad because we don’t get to connect in the same ways that we used to be able to connect for so so long. It’s going to be a little bit odd as we’re going to have to re-adjust the way we think of things.
Who knew when cold and flu season rolled around, nobody thought to wear masks and not to get sick. Everyone was just rolling with the punches, get your flu shot.

Honestly, I will never take my health for granted ever, ever again.

How has your immediate family been doing during these last six months?

My immediate family has been doing okay. My father is a radiologist so he’s still going to work at the hospital. My mom is technically retired now so she’s been spending a lot of time at home. My brother is a gastroenterologist and he’s working. As you can see I come from a family of a lot of doctors so all of them have still been going to work.

I think everyone has been feeling okay. We had a bit of a scare. My grandmother is in a long-term care home. There was an outbreak there. Thankfully, she was totally fine so knock on wood that remains the case. I think everyone in my family has been really responsible so that’s good.

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

Okay, I feel like they go hand in hand those two things, personally and professionally. Specifically, it’s a big lesson I’ve had to learn during this time is that I think Covid made me realize that I’m so intertwined with my job and my career, and performing is so much a part of my identity that I feel like it’s been really hard to be forcefully separated from that during this time. And understanding who I am without performance and who I am without my career being the biggest part of me.

I think that’s been a really challenging thing for me to understand that I’m a person outside my job and what I do. It’s been an interesting and fascinating journey to go ‘Who am I underneath all of this?’

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 had booked a contract that didn’t end up happening because it was supposed to be on camera. Unfortunately, I can’t disclose what it was.

Other than that, ‘Come from Away’ has been my bread and butter for the past three years. We had done 850 shows at that time we stopped. Honestly, who knew it was going to be such a hit? I’ve loved every moment of being a part of ‘Come from Away’ and telling that story. I realize how deep of a void it has left when we weren’t able to continue on with the show.

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

Well, that’s a great question. There has been a lot of things going on. At the beginning of all this, I actually was having a pretty nice time. I caught up on things I haven’t had time to do because being at the theatre eight times a week is grueling, demanding. You have to be responsible.

When we had this big intermission and this big break, I thought to myself, ‘Hey, why not do some stuff that I’ve always wanted to do that I haven’t had time to do.” So I actually learned how to cook a little bit which is something I’ve never learned how to do. I can make a mean coconut cream pie now. I’ve made a great pasta sauce and chili to name a few things. I also re-decorated my apartment. I decluttered my entire place from head to toe. I took all the time in the world to go through every cupboard, every drawer, every closet, everything.

One of the biggest things I’ve done is start this online talk show with the stage manager of ‘Come from Away’. Her name is Lisa Humber. And we started this online talk show called ‘Check In from Away’ where every week, every Tuesday, a new episode comes out on the Mirvish You Tube Channel. We interview different artists, people who work backstage about what they’ve been doing during the pandemic, other shows they’ve worked on at Mirvish, their favourite memories, what they miss the most about theatre, stuff like that.

I have to tell you it was a saving grace for me to remain creative in some kind of way and also to connect with people whom I’ve met and there are some whom I haven’t met which was really cool. This has been my biggest project. We’ve released 17 episodes so far, so it’s been keeping us busy, but I’ve been grateful for it.

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?

Ooooo, this is a tough one…I’ll start with the theatre grads…

I feel so bad for the theatre grads because it must be so anti-climactic to graduate school and to literally walk out into a global pandemic and not be able to do what you love the most. I can’t even imagine.
I’ve been so lucky to be able to do this for many years and the void that I’m feeling in all this is huge.

Words of wisdom? Honestly, just try to stay sane, and try not to drink too much. I realize there’s not a lot to do some days, but we do have to keep our wits about us a little bit and whatever that means to you, keep connected to others around you, how difficult or annoying it might be over technology.

And stay creative in some way. Find a little project, something to read, honestly anything to keep your mind exercised. It’s been difficult to keep the acting and singing chops alive if you’re not performing and can’t be on stage.

Do you see anything positive stemming from Covid 19?

Yes. I think a lot of things, actually. I think the world right now is literally and figuratively on fire. I feel this is an amazing opportunity with the social movements, the racial movements that really good things will come out of this. Since there has been so much time at home, we’ve had time to think and a lot of discoveries have been made that didn’t have the space to happen when everybody was in a ‘busy body’ kind of world, always hustling and moving.

When you take away all that ‘busyness’, you realize what things are really important, and I know that’s happened to me. This pause in the world was also good for me for people to do a lot of self discovery of the world, other people. We’re learning to understand each other and I think things will be better at the end of the day when we come out of this and hopefully no more casualties.

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

I feel optimistic that people will be creative and find ways. This is what I hope, my dream and hope is that people will want to connect with the performing arts even more than they did before. After sitting home and finishing Netflix, I’m sure everyone is going to want to see a live performance or a musician playing or a concert, or a musical or a play.

I’m just going to leave it at that because there’s no point in focusing on the negative as I’m an optimist. There’s plenty of negativity going around.

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?

That’s a very interesting debate you just mentioned about some artists doing whatever it takes and those who say they will wait until they return to the theatre safely.

Honestly, I’m all for whatever makes people feel happy, comfortable and creative. So if an artist wants to stream their work, that’s amazing to give people an opportunity who may not have that opportunity or the funds to go see a show, or a concert or a musical to access their stuff online. I think that’s incredible.

I will say the only thing that sucks about Covid is theatre is all about live audiences and feeding off reactions and hearing laughter and tears. I find that’s the thing that suffers the most with streaming. Unfortunately, streaming doesn’t give you that instantaneous rapport and relationship with the audience. That’s a shame and that’s what I miss about theatre so much.

Film and tv are fine but you don’t get the instant gratification that you get when you perform live.

To be compensated properly for an artist’s work is an interesting debate I can see why this would divide people. If you’re volunteering your talents and feel comfortable and happy with that, I think you need to follow your gut and your intuition. If you want to share something and have a story to tell, by all means do it.

Obviously, compensation is nice when it happens, but I think that’s a case by case decision basis. It depends on the project, the artist and what’s at stake. I can’t put a label on it either way because there are different outcomes of some of these projects.

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

Covid will never ever destroy my undying musical theatre nerd love for all things theatre. I’m a huge musical theatre nerd, I’m a theatre nerd. Nothing will ever replace the feelings that I have felt sitting in an audience with a programme in hand waiting for the production to begin, hearing the orchestra tune, seeing the performers enter the stage.

It’s really un replicated. You can replicate that feeling anywhere else, just the feeling of the lights going down, a story beginning. For a couple of hours, you get to follow another story, forget any baggage you may have brought to the theatre, you can laugh, cry, whatever it makes you feel.

It’s just solidified my undying love for theatre. Truly. I miss it so much every day. I will never ever take it for granted ever again. The moment I will have the chance to walk into the Royal Alexandra once again to tell the story of ‘Come from Away’, I will weep tears of joy and relief and sadness.

I’m just going to be the happiest girl when that happens.

You can follow Steffi on Twitter: SteffiD3 Myspace.com/SteffiDBowPower

It was time to update the questions for the profile column series. Now who to ask to be a part of this new discussion?

Enter Steve Ross.

Steve commented on one of the profiles I had submitted to a Facebook posting this week. When I saw his name, I was positive that I’ve seen his work before at Stratford but had to do a bit of research. That research culminated in remembering seeing Steve in some momentous productions at Stratford including To Kill a Mockingbird, The Music Man, The Rocky Horror Show, Billy Elliot, Little Shop of Horrors. An impressive resume which is only a mere introduction to this artist’s work.

Steve went to the National Theatre School and graduated in 1991. Prior to that he spent two years at Brock University studying theatre and this past fall returned to Brock (online) to complete that BA…thirty years late but happy to have done it.

2020 would have been his 16th season at The Stratford Festival. Steve’s favorite productions here have been The Grapes of Wrath and Crazy for You. He was part of the ensemble of London Road at Canadian Stage in Toronto and won the Dora Award for best ensemble.

Steve was also part of the highly successful production of Assassins presented by Talk Is Free Theatre in Barrie, Toronto and Winnipeg. This is perhaps the favorite show of his career. He emailed me how he misses it so very much: “I miss the character, I miss the cast, I miss every single thing about that production. Even though he did four separate runs of the show it was never enough.”

Thank you for this gentle reminder, Steve, for me to get in touch with Talk Is Free this summer.

We conducted our conversation via email. Thanks, Steve, for connecting and for adding 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 think this great pause has given us all time to think. Without this time, I don’t know that we’d have been able to truly evaluate the horrors that are in front of us at the moment. Black Lives Matter NEEDS to be heard and acknowledged. We need to make forward strides. The United States is just broken, and we need to fix that…not Canadians specifically but, it needs to be addressed. I’m grateful to have had the time to sit and reflect and learn from the generosity of my colleagues with regards to race and inclusivity.

Have you learned anything about human nature from this time?

I can’t speak for all of humanity, but I know I’m much stronger than I thought; much more resilient. We’re not meant, as human beings, to be in crisis for this long a time and I am witnessing extraordinary strength in people. We’re all just…getting through this…one day at a time.

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 immediate family has been doing all right. I think we’re all into this next phase of things just going on too long. I think we’re all just sick of it but there’s nothing really to be done about it. It’s a big waiting game.

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?

I’m hopeful that smaller companies might find ways to “bubble up” before 2022. I’d love to see some Christmas work come around. I considered “the pivot” but I’ve decided to stay the course for a while longer. I am pivoting within the profession…branching out into teaching and writing…which I didn’t foresee but I’m enjoying both very much.

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 think we can return safely. But that will be on each individual. I’m very curious how things will look when we get back in a rehearsal hall. Will masks become the norm? How will we get back to any sense of intimacy in scenes? There are so many questions that I suppose we will just have to wait to have answered.

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?

Shakespeare. I started to read and watch his plays and it became such a balm for me. On particularly tough days when nothing else seemed to help, I would turn to Shakespeare. It sounds pretentious and I don’t mean it that way. But it forced me to listen and be present and as a result I forgot about the current situation…if only for that three-hour play. I am so grateful for this.

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:

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

I want to be grateful. I never again want to complain about the long days or the uncomfortable shoes or any of the little gripes that I have been guilty of complaining about. I want to stand there at the curtain call and be reminded that this is why we all do this wild profession. We do it to share stories with others…in a dark room…and then that night will never exist again.

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:

Whew! I’m so glad we could both be here. I’m missed you so, so much!

Steve Ross’s headshot by Trish Lindstrom.

In the Covid summer of 2020, I had the opportunity to watch my first online Fringe production where I was introduced to the world of playwright Steven Elliott Jackson and his fascinating historical audio drama: ‘Sarah/Frank’.

Summer 2021’s online Fringe production of his play ‘The Laughter’ featured Kate McArthur and Brandon Knox who played respectively TWO of entertainment’s biggest names in the biz, as they say – Lucille Ball and Lou Costello.

What’s that adage? Three times a charm? Well, I’m certainly hoping so when I heard Steven’s latest play ‘Three Ordinary Men’ produced by Cahoots Theatre will be staged at Toronto’s The Theatre Centre in June.

Steven had participated via email in an earlier Profile Pandemic series I compiled back in 2020. When I had heard about ‘Three Ordinary Men’, I wanted to speak to him again because the plot intrigued me a lot especially considering so much societal change in the last two years. More about the plot of ‘Three Ordinary Men’ shortly.

And what a life Jackson’s leading right now.

First off, he’s one of the jurors in the General Category for this year’s Dora Mavor Moore Awards. Wow! That would be another personal bucket wish list item for me. Steven then shared some rather humorous personal anecdotes about his involvement with the Doras which had me in fits of laughter.

One thing he did say about his involvement as Juror:

“I’m tougher when it comes to the General category as you really have to impress me.”

Regarding the re-emergence of life in the theatre, Steven says he hasn’t been less creative because he writes A LOT. Sometimes he can come back with a play four days later. During Covid, he moved to Kitchener. He then shared another humorous moment where he heard of some writers who were uncertain and didn’t know how to proceed during this time.

Steven’s response is brief, curt and to the point, but he says it best:

“You’re a writer, you write. You find a way to work through it and you do it. Move on.”

Covid changed things for him as Steven moved on. The theatre industry in his words: “went over to one side”. He recognizes it’s going to take some time to find stability and be realistic in the Toronto theatre scene again but followed his own advice during the pandemic and kept busy with projects. If he doesn’t have a project to work on, Steven will find one whether it be play readings or preparing for summer Fringe shows.

Jackson stated how he and Cahoots’ Artistic Director, Tanisha Taitt, (who is scheduled to direct ‘Three Ordinary Men’) have a great relationship.

How did the two of them meet?

Tanisha was on the jury for the new play contest as part of Fringe when Steven had submitted his script ‘The Seat Next to the King’. She had picked this play as number one for her. Right after the contest, she kept thinking about the play as she loved it so much and wanted to direct it, even though she had no intention of directing a Fringe play ever again.

But she did direct ‘Seat’ and, with fondness, Steven recalls how the two of them developed such a positive and healthy director/playwright relationship during the rehearsal process as he quotes: “We both get each other”. They were honest with each other; they were able to take critique from each other; they had to listen to each other and realize they may not be able to get what they want, but that was alright with him.
It was during rehearsals for ‘Seat’ that Jackson recalled doing some research about ‘Three Ordinary Men’.

He recalled being blown away by his research and says this story of the three civil rights activists who were murdered became even more relevant after the tragedy of the killing of George Floyd.

Going forward, ‘Men’ seems to be more and more relevant for Jackson as it is a necessary story we need to see and to hear in how we bring forth social issues. He felt it and ‘The Laughter’ were both organic as their different plots are “one of coming together and connection to others who are not from the same world but must come together and do something.”

That’s what Jackson likes about the theatre industry. What excites him the most about this return to live theatre (but still in Covid) is the connection and the thrill with what’s happening on stage and you forget about distractions around you. He compared the experience of being at the theatre as meditative because you become absorbed with what is playing in front of you.

Steven loves plays about people dealing with stuff onstage. He loves opposites and controversial figures. He loves when audiences say about a character: “I hate you, but I understand where you’re coming from.”

What fascinated Jackson when he started to write ‘Three Ordinary Men’? Everything he read mostly relayed to what happened after the murders of these three individuals and not who the people were. Yes, these events were shocking, but Steven says he wanted to know more about who these men were and what made them want to change the world in the way they were doing it. This was more fascinating to write which in turn led to uplifting messages in the script. However, Steven’s not sure if we have that same kind of energy now that these characters exude in the play. That’s something of which audiences will have to be aware as opening night approaches.

It took five days to write ‘Three Ordinary Men’, a scene per night, but the last scene took the longest to complete as it was really hard. Jackson recalled writing the play at the Toronto Reference Library and tears welling in his eyes as he was typing away the last scene on his I Pad because it was so difficult as it was such a tragic ending to these men’s lives.

Steven stated he was a tad naïve a bit because he didn’t realize just how strong, powerful and personal this story of the three civil right activists was for Tanisha. She is so eloquent herself, and Jackson values and respects that about Tanisha. While she’s passionate about what she believes, Tanisha can also see the sides in the story.

Again, he recalled how she read the first stage direction and then called Steven saying: “You wrote a play about them; you wrote a play about them.” To which Steven simply said: “Yes, it’s the last day of their lives. That’s what the play is, and not knowing that you’re going to die.”

The two of them had quite a profound moment talking about these men, the tragedy in the loss of their lives and the script itself.

Steven then entered ‘Three Ordinary Men’ in the Hamilton Play Contest. He once told an aspiring playwright that if he couldn’t handle rejection in writing plays probably 95% of the time, then walk away right now. Steven followed that same advice regarding ‘Men’. He submitted it and waited to see what would happen because people will either take the play or not take it.

And then he and I shared a good laugh about reviews of plays and decided that would be discussion for another evening.

‘Three Ordinary Men’ won the New Play Contest in Hamilton. Although he believes he writes a lot of American stuff, the story transcends the border.

Then Covid happened and he was approached to stage ‘Men’ digitally which was a definite No for Steven at that time. He and Tanisha had no idea if theatres would be open and then considered perhaps a digital show might be possible, but ‘Men’ deserves to be seen live. It may be filmed in the future, but that’s not up for discussion right now. There was also discussion if the play would reflect Cahoots’ mandate when Tanisha assumed leadership of the company three months before the pandemic hit. Steven said his feelings would not be hurt if Tanisha felt the script could not be performed at this time. Again, Jackson spoke of the respect the two of them have for each other in not pushing each other.

‘Three Ordinary Men’ had a first reading a few weeks ago and Steven said it was glorious to hear the words read aloud. Hearing the ending crushed all of them at that first reading as Jackson didn’t believe there could be that much silence on a Zoom camera.

What’s next post ‘Three Ordinary Men’?

He goes right into Fringe with two shows. The first ‘The Garden of Alla’ is the story of silent film star Alla Nazimova in the 1920s and the making of ‘Salome’ and what happens to Alla, her husband and her lover. Steven calls the play a glorious time of sexual freedom that was happening before the world of censors and scandal robbed us of it. For him, there are some gloriously very different queer lives coming together and having the freedom to be who they were, not necessarily on the screen.

The second ‘The Prince’s Big Adventurer’ is a kid’s show Steven wrote years ago that he has wanted to do for so long. It’s a story of a prince who is forced by his dad to rescue a princess from a tower. His dad knows his son is not good at this sort of thing, so the father hires an adventurer from the town and chaos ensues. Steven calls this one “A Gay Fairy Tale”.

‘Three Ordinary Men’ opens June 14 and runs to June 26 in The Incubator at The Theatre Centre, 1115 Queen Street West. To purchase tickets: https://theatrecentre.org/event/three-ordinary-men/

To learn more about Steven, visit his webpage: https://www.stevenelliottjackson.ca/

As I have been posting these “Artist Profiles’ series on social media, I have been seeing some names appear underneath who are liking or loving the article. Some of the names and faces I’ve recognized and some I haven’t.

When I saw Sugith Varughese’s name and photograph, I kept looking at both and wondering where have I seen this gentleman before?

And then it dawned on me.

Sugith Varughese appears in a recurring role in the wonderful CBC comedy ‘Kim’s Convenience’. I also had the chance to see him perform in two memorable productions of ‘Men in White’ at Factory Theatre and ‘Animal Farm’ at Soulpepper. When I kindly asked him to send me a brief biography of his education and training, Sugith’s highly impressive and professional account speaks for itself. What struck me about his high caliber of work is the fact he was the first graduate from Canada’s first MFA program in film at York University and the first minority writer-director of the prestigious Canadian Film Centre’s feature film programme where his short thesis film ‘Kumar and Mr. Jones’ was the first CFC film nominate for a Genie and went on to win three international awards.

Previously I’ve mentioned how I’d like to have a beer sometime with Norm Foster and a glass of wine with Bruce Dow and just talk to these guys. I’d have either a beer or wine with Sugith Varughese sometime soon (and I hope he would feel the same way too) and just talk to him about everything and anything.

We conducted our interview via email:

1. How have you and your family been keeping during this two-month isolation?

My spouse and I have been stuck at home as her business is hair and mine is the arts, and they both have shut down indefinitely. I think we’ve been managing pretty well, and we are lucky to live in a place large enough that we’re not in each other’s faces. I think late March through April was the hardest as the weather sucked in Toronto and we are trying to go on long bike rides or walks once a day, (masked of course.) Otherwise it’s a lot of reading and obscure cooking shows on some streaming service or another. Missing all social contact desperately. All things considered; it could be much worse.

2. What has been most challenging and difficult for you during this time personally? What have you been doing to keep yourself busy?

To be honest, fear of what we will face if or when our industry starts again. One of my great pleasures in working comes from the way theatre or TV or film create an instant family. That family has a kind of professional etiquette that I fully understand, endorse, and get great joy in participation by having worked long enough in the industry. I mean, we hug as colleagues.

I appear in CBC’s ‘Kim’s Convenience’ and our number one, Paul Sun-Hyung Lee, hugs every single person on the set before he leaves for the night. There’s all sorts of behaviours that I took for granted over the last 30 years of my career that I won’t be able to any longer. So, I stay up late wondering what our future will be like and even if we will have a future.

Keeping busy has been a problem. I have had a few voice auditions since the quarantine began, but otherwise, most of my work has been responding to interviews such as yours. So hardly a full-time activity! I was writing a new spec screenplay when Covid hit and I have been working on that as well, but that’s difficult because it’s set in a hospital and I just don’t have a clue what that will mean post-Covid. So, are creators making period pieces set in 2019? Or do we speculate on a new post-Covid dramatic story world we don’t know about yet? In the face of this existential questions, I retreat to the occasional cooking show.

3. Were you involved in any professional projects when the pandemic was declared, and everything was shut down? How far were you into those projects? Will they come to fruition sometime soon?

Professionally, has Covid changed your life regarding all the work you have completed or may have had planned?

I was in rehearsal for ‘The Seagull’ at Soulpepper in Toronto when the pandemic shut us down. We were just about to go into tech. We had one run through of this incredible play, (it was a new translation by Simon Stephens that had been done in London 2 years ago), in our rehearsal hall before we got the news that we were cancelled.

I’m sure Soulpepper would love to reprogram the play but it’s difficult to know whether they could get the same cast together. And they may have moved on from the themes of the season that got cancelled by the time they can restart their programming. After all, so much has happened like the #blacklivesmatter movement that may be part of any new season for all I know.

I would also have been filming season 5 of ‘Kim’s Convenience’ now and hopefully season 2 of ‘Transplant’. Both are TV series where I have recurring roles but, like all TV production, have been suspended indefinitely. Covid has frankly brought my career to a grinding halt with no word if or when it will be restarted.

4. Some actors whom I’ve interviewed have stated they can’t see anyone venturing back into a theatre or studio for a least 1 ½ to 2 years. Do you foresee this possible reality to be factual?

It’s impossible to know when it will be “safe” to return to work. I suspect we are facing, absent a cure or a vaccine, a new normal where we will have to live with Covid in our every day lives, let alone professionally. I think if actors are saying they won’t work until there’s a vaccine, then 2 years is possible, but who knows?
We’ve had AIDS for 30 years with no vaccine. So it may never be “safe” to return risk free.
I am preparing to return to a new way of doing things, and I think it will be sooner than two years, only because I am part of ongoing enterprises in my TV series that have far more people than me determined to see them return. But it won’t be the same as before and I don’t know what it will be like.

But the issue for theatre: it’s not just actors who need to be safe, but also the audience. And that raises a whole bunch of questions. If you are in the lobby before a show at Soulpepper, you are as far as possible from social distancing as you can be. Even if seats were able to be removed in the theatre to enable the audience to be spread out, how do they assign tickets or use the washroom at intermission? And even if that can be resolved, how do theatres survive with every other seat taken out so the theatre can only have a maximum 50% house? What business model will enable that? That may have more to do with a return to work in the theatre than any risk in the rehearsal hall.

5. In your estimation and opinion, do you foresee COVID 19 and its results leaving a lasting impact, either positive or negative, on the Canadian performing arts scene?

I think the risk to our live performing arts scene is truly frightening. The fine arts, theatre, dance, opera and symphony are not popular like professional sports. They always needed assistance even if they sold out. If social distancing must be our new normal, I don’t know how the performing arts survives. I mean, salaries for actors in the theatre are minimum wage level for many. If you’re lucky enough to work at Stratford or Soulpepper it’s a bit more than that, but if they lose half their potential audience to social distancing, how do they pay Equity rates? Or any of their current union costs? Do the unions then lower rates? I couldn’t afford to do theatre at all if that happened.

The other interesting question is how Covid affects the arts creatively. We are in the middle of a war now, but will creators feel compelled to make art about this war? Will audiences want to see that? Or will they want to escape from what they went through? I know that right now, I don’t want to experience dark content. It’s hard on my heart and soul when I know so many are in pain or struggling. I’m not able to project myself into something dark right now. But we need that kind of art too. But will we be able to take it in?

I have way more questions than answers now.

6. Do you have any words of wisdom 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?

The arts are not for the faint of heart at the best of times. But for those who have been hit hard as a result, I just hope they know they aren’t alone. We have all been hit hard. The difference lies only in the resources we each have to cope with all this.

I know that financial, psychological and spiritual assistance is out there, and artists need to reach out and accept that help if they need it. (I’m talking about things like the AFC, CERB, CAMH.) This is a tough time for all, and no one should feel they need to be a hero. This WILL pass and we need to take care of ourselves and each other so we are ready once it does. I hope my friends and colleagues feel they can reach out to me and I know that I will do the same and that’s where the hope lives.

As for sage advice for new theatre grads, well, I don’t know if I have any advice, except to say that everyone’s story is different, and you are the lead player in the story of your life. Use this time as best you can. One thing I feel is terribly lacking in young entrants into the arts that I meet is a lack of real understanding of what’s gone before. A lot of people try and reinvent the wheel. But when I would teach young people, I found that their terms of reference were often so shallow and limited due to a lack of well, reading, and comprehension that much of my teaching involved getting them to read the great plays.

I can’t tell you how to get work, but I can tell you that if you read the Greek plays, Shakespeare, Chekhov and restoration comedies between the time you graduate and your first audition, you will be far more prepared to work than those who didn’t. Read. Study. Learn what you didn’t think you had to learn or didn’t have time for or didn’t care about when you were in school.

I guarantee you didn’t read enough while you were in school so now’s the time. I once had the chance to go to dinner with Ben Kingsley and Bruce Myers (one of Peter Brooks’ company who sadly recently passed from Covid.) And as the dumb colonial at the table, all I could do was listen as they told stories about playing Shakespeare and traveling with Peter Brooks’ company and understanding the literature of their profession in a way that most scholars did not. It was breathtaking and I realized how much they brought to the work because of what they knew.

There’s no excuse for a recent grad not to bring themselves to that level. And it will give you something concrete to do. Action is character.

7. I’ve spoken with some individuals who believe that online streaming and You Tube presentations destroy the theatrical impact of those who have gathered with anticipation to watch a performance. 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?

I work in film and TV most of the time and I do a play every year, so I feel qualified to comment. While streaming may be a critical way of keeping theatre present during quarantine, it isn’t theatre. There is no theatre without an audience, a live audience in the room with the actors. Every show I’ve ever done was different each night because the audience was different. I always felt I could pick each audience member out of a police lineup. I’d often come in at intermission with a compliment of someone in the 4th row who was laughing at the right time or complaining about the guy in the back who kept coughing right on my good line.

It’s an intimate relationship and actors aren’t kidding when they tell someone, they were a good audience. If theatres resort to zoom monologues as their new season, I understand why they must, but it’s not theatre. It’s a film, I suppose, which is also a legitimate art form, but it’s not theatre.
I hope it’s not the new normal for Canadian theatre. I hope we find a way to have live performances for live audiences again.

8. What is it about the performing arts that still energizes you even through this tumultuous and confusing time?

Well, I love acting. I love writing. I love directing. The hope to be able to do that is what got me through my career. I didn’t need Covid to have long stretches of unemployment. After I was in the business for 10 years, I added up the number of days I’d been on set for something I acted in, wrote or directed. Because that’s all I wanted was to work. Be on set or on stage. In some way.

After ten years, I counted that I’d had 75 of those days. 75. In 10 years. That was it. And that was enough. I am energized at the possibility of working, just as I always was.

With a respectful acknowledgement 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?

Home

2. What is your least favourite word?

Never

3. What turns you on?

The blank page

4. What turns you off?

Pretension

5. What sound or noise do you love?

A baby’s laugh

6. What sound or noise bothers you?

A bomb blast

7. What is your favourite curse word?

Jesusfuck

8. Other than your current profession now, what other profession would you have liked to attempt?

An astronaut or a heart surgeon or a chef

9. What profession could you not see yourself doing?

Working on the pork cut line in a meat packing plant, (only because I did that in the summers in university and it cured me of ever wanting to work for a living.)

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

“There are a lot of people who want to meet you, and your dad is over there.”

To learn more about Sugith, visit his website: http://sugithvarughese.com.
His Twitter handle @SugithVarughese includes interaction and stuff about ‘Kim’s Convenience’, ‘Transplant’ and post progressive political tweets.

His Instagram handle @sugithvarughese and Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/SugithVarughese

I met Susan Ferley several years ago where she and I (along with others, including Derrick Chua) were asked by Jeremy Smith to judge Driftwood Theatre’s Trafalgar 24 (held at Whitby, Ontario’s Trafalgar Castle School). Susan is a highly articulate and intelligent individual when it comes to the live theatre industry, and I was sincerely hoping that I would have the opportunity to speak with her again and share in her love of the live theatre industry.

That opportunity did render itself when I later learned she is the Artistic Director of the Cameco Capitol Arts Centre in Port Hope, Ontario. Since this profile, Susan has stepped down from her role as Artistic Director.

I was grateful Susan was honest in saying it’s been a bumpy ride at the Capitol especially when Covid arrived over a year ago. She has a great deal of respect for the extraordinary Board of Directors and what they’ve done for the survival and flourishing of the Capitol Theatre. Even before we delved into the scripted questions, Susan and I discussed how theatre will change as a result of Covid. She believes virtual theatre will be part of the future, and it’s a challenge not only for her but for all of us who have grown accustomed to loving and to seeing live theatrical shows in an enclosed space on the stage with an audience.

Susan studied in England and received her Master of Arts in Actor Training and Coaching.

We conducted our interview via Zoom. Thanks for taking the time, Susan, to add your voice to the conversation:

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’ve realized how connected I am to work and collaboration. I live on my own; I think of myself as a private person. I know I can survive on my own, but I feel diminished in some ways. It’s striving to find outlets. I’ve been cooking and baking more and realizing how, because I’m so focused on the work, friendships and family relationships were set aside. I’ve realized my personal need to connect with other artists and also with friends and family, and nature.

Do I think of myself as someone in love with nature? No, I’ve often been in dark theatre rooms. Almost every day I go out for a walk. I’m looking out my window right now and seeing the trees glow green; the leaves aren’t fully out but you see that journey walking around and seeing the flowers starting, the forsythia, tulips popping up and daffodils in full bloom, and listening to the birds.

The river here, The Ganaraska, is extraordinary. The sound of it too. If all else fails, I would walk along the river in the downtown area. Right now, because of the current stay at home, barriers have been put up. They don’t want you walking along the river because that’s what draws people to our community often. So, I can’t get close there right now.

This community is so beautiful and has so much to offer.

That’s been lovely, but I’ve had to re-assess who I am, where I am, what’s important and what I’ve missed in my life journey.

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 artistic director of the live theatre industry been altered and changed?

Phew…I’ve always felt the theatre plays a vital role in a community and I think, for me, it’s heightened that awareness.

I’ve been reading. There was an article I read talking about a theatre in San Francisco where it spoke about theatre being an ‘empathy gymnasium’ where we learn about compassion; whether as an individual or as a community, for me, theatre provides an emotional gymnasium, a place where we can release.

I know people are often looking for entertainment and want to laugh, and how important that is to gather in a room and to share a story and find an emotional release. It’s not always laughter, sometimes there are tears, sometimes memory. But just what an important role, for me, but also the arts play in the lives of individuals in a community and also more broadly in a community.

It’s shared journeys, shared stories.

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

(Susan laughed as it appears she just answered the question earlier) Gathering in a room, artists, actors, creative teams, technical teams; it’s the collaboration that is so important to me, that interaction where creativity is sparked. That certainly is missed.

Heightened communication that is intellectual, emotional, psychological; sharing stories and also taking the creation (the production/the story being told) and sharing it. Through the sharing of the story there is also being informed and stimulated creatively as you learn from that interaction more about the creative process that goes into it.

As a professional artist, what is the one thing you will never take for granted again in the live theatre industry when the doors re-open?

(Susan laughs) Just that, the human interaction and communication, the heightened communication, enriched communication through stories. The ability to gather and share an experience.

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

It’s offered time for reflection on how we do what we do. Certainly, and this was very early, with the murder of George Floyd the awareness that has been brought to my/our collective attention. Our failings as artists working with other artists, playing with other artists.

The failings of our institutions. Theatres are creative places and gathering places and welcoming and compassionate, and there have been failures, major failures. And so, hopefully, through reflection and the time being offered, there will be changes in how we work.

Just thinking of theatres as institutions I find offensive, you know. It’s about creativity, challenge and shared stories, and a place going back to whether it’s that idea of gymnasium where things are shared, and out of the exercise of coming together and sharing a story we leave with greater understanding and compassion.

I think there is potential for change, but lots to do. Watching the IBPOC/BIPOC round table from the Stratford Festival last summer was so heartbreaking at times. And then we don’t want to just wallow in that, and then you go, ‘How, what, has to happen to move forward from all this?’

Whether professional or non-professional the need to open, welcome, and be willing to hear, to listen, and to see other stories outside of our own story, and outside of our lens. We now have, one hopes, a heightened awareness of artists of colour.

As a friend pointed out to me, there’s also diversity on other fronts. That awareness is starting to parallel with BIPOC/IBPOC artists so that we hear the artists.

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

Well, with a greater awareness, to support and encourage. With my involvement with the High School Project (from my time at London Ontario’s Grand Theatre) and going off to England, and training and taking a program that was actor training and coaching, to enrich the skills that I have to support artists in development, artists that are emerging.

I know that’s an area I’m interested in working with young and emerging artists, if I can be of assistance in helping them to reach and claim that potential and soaring. I’ve had opportunities to work in training programs and I always am exhilarated by that. The schools certainly have an increasingly responsibility in terms of assembling the IBPOC/BIPOC teachers so that the students of colour see themselves reflected in the faculty and trainers.

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 artistic director, and as an audience member observing the theatre.

I think there will be some Covid themed plays. I’m looking at to see if I can try to bring it to the Capitol Theatre is ‘February: A Love Story’ by Sudden Spark Collective.

The artists involved with that project, Ellen Denny, is someone who came out of the High School Project in London, Ontario and has pursued a career as a performer, but more recently as a writer. She and her writing partner, Emilio Vieira, have created a love story in times of Covid. They describe it as a romantic comedy, and it very much is.

But it’s also about life in the midst of Covid. So, while in my head, I might go, “Oh, I don’t know if this would go work on the subject of Covid,’ I think there will be some. This particular piece, ‘February: A Love Story’ is playful and filled with love and hope. Those are key things to get us through this time.

Because of Covid, the play was also filmed. It may be on a Stratford platform so keep your eyes open.

I think because of the isolation, and certainly I feel it as an individual, but I don’t think I’m alone in that shared experience of isolation from community and shared experience, that theatre can offer that potential for catharsis. Whether that’s coming together to laugh out loud, or whether to come together and through the experience find an emotional release whether laughter or tears.

That is something that we need and want desperately to come together especially during this time. There’s a need to get back to that emotional gym for an emotional and psychological workout. It’s been hard on individuals, human interaction and communities. Theatre will play an important role and if it takes a Covid themed play to do it, so be it. Shakespeare was pretty good at it too when ‘King Lear’ was written during a time of plague and pandemic.

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

Oh, dear, I’m never good about this sort of question, I’m afraid.

I hope I’m viewed as having had a generosity of spirit. A joy and a passionate love for what I do and that’s whether in creating work with a group of people that is shared with another group of people.

A sense of play and a love for all that theatre can offer, all that sharing stories can offer, all that creating and playing together can offer.

To learn more about Port Hope’s Cameco Capitol Centre, visit Cameco Capitol Arts Centre – Experience Entertainment (capitoltheatre.com).

Facebook: Capitol Theatre Port Hope; Twitter: @CapitolPortHope

The first time I saw Susan Gilmour’s work on stage was as Fantine in the extraordinary production of ‘Les Misérables’ at Toronto’s Royal Alexandra Theatre that claimed instant fame in Toronto in the 1980s.

And again, I’ve seen her work since then and her resume is impressive.

I also saw her work in two other productions: the fascinating ‘Larry’s Party’ at CanStage where she performed in fine ensemble work with the late Canadian theatre icon, Brent Carver, AND in ‘Man of La Mancha’ at the Royal Alexandra where she performed the role of Aldonza/Dulcinea. Susan has also performed the role of Fantine on Broadway, in Los Angeles, and in the Asian/African production.

Susan’s training includes Grant McEwan Music College in Edmonton, the Edmonton Musical Theatre and in New York City’s American Musical and Dramatic Arts Academy.

We conducted our conversation via Zoom. Thank you so much for the conversation, Susan:

Could you share the names of one teacher and one mentor for whom you are thankful.

Yes, well, teacher wise there have been two who have been very important. One I’ll start with because she was at the very beginning and that would be (the late) Dasha Goody, founder of the Edmonton Musical Theatre. When I got out of Grant McEwan College I started working in bands and I had a duo with a girlfriend (Carmen Lindsay) and I had a party band, and then I had a jazz band. I got engaged to this amazing piano player and thought my life was set and I was so happy.

Well, he decided he didn’t want to marry me and he moved on, and my life fell apart. I was really, really lost. Dasha had been one of my teachers when I went to Grant McEwan, and I hadn’t seen her in about six years since then. I was singing in a Bar Mitzvah band, really unhappy but doing my best in my life. She and her husband waltzed by and she slipped this piece of paper at my feet. I read it at intermission. The note said, “Hi, Susan. It’s been a long time. I’m sitting at table 150. Why don’t you join us and we’ll have a chat at intermission?”

So I went and chatted with her and she encouraged me to come down to Edmonton Musical Theatre to see what we were doing. Dasha felt it would be a perfect fit for me. I made that decision to go and a whole new world opened up for me.

I trained with them for a couple of years and felt I needed more training after that so that’s when I headed to New York where I attended the American Musical and Dramatic Academy where I had two and a half years of amazing training which brings me to my second teacher – Karen Gustafson. She taught a class (all the classes there were amazing) there that has helped me the most in musical theatre in approaching a song as how you take it and bring it to life through taking it apart, looking at the music, what does the music tell you, take the words apart and find the subtext.

In other words, take the song like a monologue.

That particular skill has really made a difference here in my career in Canada. I’ve been able to build all my characters knowing how to do that and how to make them come alive through the songs we sing.
Everyone we work with mentors us on some level through discussions, sharing onstage and backstage. We are all like a big family, we support one another.

To choose one mentor – Lorraine Foreman. I met her at Charlottetown during the run of ‘Anne of Green Gables’. She was playing Rachel Lynde and I was playing Miss Stacy. This was my first professional production coming back from the States and I had a lot of questions and unknowns.

Lorraine and I shared a house in Charlottetown, and we developed these friendships that have lasted our whole lives. We’ve stayed in close touch and have worked together many times. She has helped me to pick myself up, dust myself off; she’s a straight-ahead character, takes no nonsense and she loves fiercely. She’s really helped me through the bumps. Just being around her and soaking up everything she has done, the things she knows and experienced and shared with me. She’s in her 90s and still performing, most recently at Koerner Hall doing ‘Follies’ a month ago. All my life, I’ve said I’ve wanted to be just like Lorraine. She’s been a wonderful friend and mentor my whole life.

I’m trying to think positively that we have, fingers crossed, moved forward in dealing with Covid. Some days are harder than others. Disregarding all these high numbers both in Ontario and Alberta, 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?

Well, the year before Covid hit, I had several little injuries on my knee and I had another one and it ended up I needed to have a knee replacement. Even before Covid hit, I had to take a rest from theatre and performing.

I had some work lined up in the spring six months after my operation in 2020 but I had to pull out because I wasn’t able to do my best to be prepared for the work. Then Covid hit.

I was already in a state of mind since I wasn’t working of thinking about who am I and who am I now in this stage of my life, and where do I see myself going. For me, Covid coming gave me more time once my knee healed, and I didn’t have that nagging at me and making me feel like I wouldn’t be able to work again, can’t dance, it was hard.

I still had another two years to actually be still and think about those things. Funny, when you’re still things come to you and take time to breathe and be silent and go inward a little bit, things start to become clearer and happen. One of the things I’ve been hoping is that I would meet somebody. I’ve been on my own for many years since I’ve been divorced from (the late) Michael Burgess. The industry means we have to pick up and go at a moment’s notice so it’s difficult for relationships, and I thought in the last third of my life it would be nice to be with somebody.

And sitting in that stillness came a wonderful person. I’ve had this time also along with inner searching to get to know this wonderful man and have this time to spend together and nurture a relationship. I’m thrilled and extremely happy. While the world was falling apart with so much anxiety and fear and grief in the world, I had this almost exact opposite experience personally in own little bubble here of love and growth and inner search and setting the tone and figuring out.

I haven’t got all the answers yet where I’m going in this next stage of my life.

Covid gave us that opportunity to just sit and be because we’re always on the go in this industry all the time to stay current on all levels. There’s never really any time to be, to read and to follow a path you haven’t followed in a long time. For me, it was learning to play the piano again. If I can play the piano for the rest of my life and accompany myself and sing for the rest of my life, I will be content until the day I die.

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

Well, as an artist as I’ve spoken to other people too, there was a time where I lost my voice and thought it’s gone. I was asked to do an online concert and I was going to do this one song which was going to be funny, and I was going to throw in some Covid words.

It was as if my voice had disappeared. My bad, I hadn’t sung a note in several months, so I had to pull out of that online concert because I was just so scared of what was happening with my voice. That was a little bit of a wake-up call to start singing again.

And that’s what partly led me back to the piano because I was playing scales and singing and then I thought it would be nice to play a song. So, I got out a book, plunked out a few chords and thought, “Geez, I’m really terrible.” So, I bought this course, and I have a private piano teacher now all online for as long as I want, and I’m learning to play again.

I also picked up my guitar again and started plunking around on that and learning new finger picking methods and just allowing myself to follow the trickle of whatever interested me without any pressure whatsoever which has been really, really lovely. I’ve even dabbled in some writing, and I’m not a writer but I thought let’s give it a try.

In your professional opinion, how do you see the global landscape of professional Canadian theatre changing, adapting, and morphing as a result of these last 18 months?

I think it’s going to change a lot. This time of gestation for a lot of people is going to create a lot of incredible stories that have to be told.

You add that to what’s going on in the world with inclusivity of all different peoples, everyone has a story to tell and they all should be told.

Whether or not that includes me, I don’t know. And that’s okay.

I’m just excited to see what is going to come out of all this sadness and global strife. Nobody has been untouched by this. The artist of the world, the poets, the writers are going to build an incredible amount of amazing work that we are all going to experience. A lot of my friends have been busy writing shows and writing stories, songs, poems, and books. There’s going to be so much and that’s exciting.

Theatre is always going to be there. I never thought for a moment that theatre was dead or that Covid was going to kill it. I knew that Covid would make difficulty for some of the smaller theatres. Theatre will live because people will demand it. Our audiences will come back when they feel it’s safe to come back.
And they already are starting. It goes up and down and that will probably continue for awhile.

There will be some much-needed changes, and it’s thrilling and exciting and I hope I can be part of it.

What intrigues/excites/fascinates and interests Susan Gilmour post Covid?

Wow!….hmmmm…we’re not quite post Covid yet…

What excites me post Covid is I want to travel more. Now that I’ve got this amazing man in my life (and by the way we just got engaged!!!!!), there’s a wedding coming up and some travelling in the future.

That’s exciting for me. I’m excited to see how I can fit into the post Covid theatre community through I’m hoping mentoring, coaching, some teaching on my own, and also performing should it come my way, and continuing on developing my own skills.

I’m going to start jamming with some musicians which I haven’t done in a long time. Part of me wants to revisit all that.

What disappoints/unnerves/frustrates Susan Gilmour post Covid?

Global politics. Looming war. People’s selfishness, I suppose, but I try not to be judgmental as fear is a real thing as people are doing the best they can, and I know that.

I really hope and pray there isn’t going to be a huge division between the vaccinated and unvaccinated. It doesn’t upset me or make me angry in that way as I try to be understanding of all that.

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?

“Thank you” for one.

“Thank you for believing in me, for pushing me, for inspiring me.”

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?

Well in another way, “Thank you” because I’m the type of person who says you can’t do something I’m like, “Oh, yeah? Just watch me!”

I did have one of these individuals in my life and they did make me work harder, made me want to prove that they weren’t right.

What’s your favourite swear word?

Well, it’s the ‘f bomb’ I have to say. (and Susan and I have a good laugh). My brother says I’m sounding like a truck driver so I’m trying not to use it as much.

What is a word you love to hear yourself say?

“Yes”.

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

“Can’t”

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

I would tell her to follow her dreams, to be patient, to listen, to have no fear and to be kind to others.

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

To breathe, to relax a bit more, to work hard, to say focussed. To observe everything in life around you and soak it in for characters, accents, stories, everything you can use and put in your pool to draw from as an actor.

Stay focused and work hard, but always remember it’s supposed to be fun.

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

To accomplish personally, I want to learn to be a better cook. I’ve already started. Personally, (and Susan starts to laugh) we never think of things on a personal level anymore…

I want to be here for my husband. I want to have a fulfilling relationship for the rest of my life. I want to be close to my family. I want to mentor my nieces, I’ve got two beautiful nieces (they’re 15 and 17 now) and starting to question and wonder about life. I’ve told them that anything they can’t talk to their mother about, they can talk to me. So I want to be here for that.

I just want to keep going with the things I’ve started to do during Covid – cooking, gardening, I’ve picked up knitting and needle point. Oh, and having time to read. I want to travel too.

Professionally, I just want to go where the road leads me because I don’t know what that looks like for me yet, but I know there’s something and I can feel it. I’m just going to stay open and walk down whatever road appears before me.

I’m going to say Yes and allow those experiences to come to me whatever they are, and that will be in theatre, in mentoring, in teaching, in writing, in expressing myself through music whether playing or singing in a piano bar.

I’m going to do it and do it with all my heart.

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

Ohhh…there are so many…

This moment, I would love to go back to the very first production of ‘Man of La Mancha’ that I did. It was at Neptune Theatre in Halifax. It was the second show I did since I got out of school. Tom Kerr was the director, and he was like a teacher to me. Ed Henderson was Music Director and was an amazing teacher as well. I learned a lot there.

To work with (the late) Brent Carver – he was Don Quixote, and I was Aldonza. Brent was the seasoned actor and I learned so much from him, and from that entire company. There were so many wonderful people in that show.

I would love to go back and do it one more time, just to experience the magic we made in that show together.

That would be amazing.

What is one thing Susan Gilmour will never take for granted again post Covid?

Life and freedom. I will never take for granted life; it is so fragile or freedom. To be locked in your house and told you can’t go anywhere or see anyone, touch, hug or kiss anyone, or sing with anyone, was torture.

Life and freedom.

Would Susan Gilmour do it all again if given the same opportunities?

(Susan says assertively) Absolutely 100%. Even the bumps along the way.