While I was doing my undergraduate degree, I was very focused on learning the skills and best practices of acting and physical theatre. I wanted to be a great actor.  But I also had begun directing and creating devised theatre, thanks to several brilliant mentors I was fortunate to study under.  Even so, my main goal was still professional stage acting for the first few years of my training. However, once I was accepted to the best directing program in Canada to do my master’s degree, things changed.

My new goal was to take my keen interest in the experimental work I had begun creating as a director and learn to temper it with more traditional theatrical practices, in order to make it more accessible to a wider audience. The kind of theatre I had been creating—devised theatre and collected creation—was somewhat edgy, often controversial, and definitely an alternative way of telling stories. My work was considered quite ‘artistic’ I guess you could say, and community theatre simply did not fit my personal aesthetic.  Also, at that time in my journey, I was focused both on my own company, the Etcetera Theatre Collective (ETC), and my budding career as a university instructor.  Community theatre didn’t move either of those two goals forward for me, so I wasn’t very interested in it.

In addition, I was living in one of the best theatre scenes in Canada. There was an abundance of professional, semi-professional and indie theatre happening all year round. Theatre festivals of all shapes and sizes lived there, too.  Street festivals, new play festivals, indie festivals. The second largest Fringe festival in the world was literally on my doorstep. I even founded a season of indie theatre from multiple companies that ran for a few years. Theatre was everywhere, and I easily took in 30 plays a year, plus ran a company that created its own work.  I saw some of the best (and some of the worst) stage performances I’ve ever seen, without having to travel outside my city.  It was home to me. The whole theatre scene was my home, and I loved it all.

Confession

Now, I have to be honest and confess to another reason I wasn’t all that interested in community theatre.  I really thought it just wasn’t good enough for what I was doing, for what I’d been studying, and the way I love to work. I love creating moments on stage with physical and visual storytelling.  I love dramatic lighting, soundscapes, direct interaction with the audience, incorporating video, and other alternative approaches that were not common in most professional theatre, and certainly not in community theatres.  But most of all, I loved working with the artistic collaboration that happens when you work without a script, like with devised theatre.  It is a very risky but highly rewarding approach to making a play, and I didn’t see myself doing conventional plays in a traditional manner very often.  I wanted to tell stories that moved an audience, surprised them, challenged theatrical conventions, and helped people see the world in a different way.  I also loved working with trained actors and professionals who knew what they were doing, so that when I challenged them to do something a little different they could jump right in without the safety net of a polished script. People who know the basics, who have good solid fundamental training, are much more likely to succeed when stretching themselves into the unknown or the unorthodox.  This may have made me a theatre snob; I have to accept that that might be true.  It’s not something I’m proud of, but I recognize it as wanting to be the best I could be, and do the things that I love so much to do.  So, I guess I can cut myself a little slack, there.

What Changed My Mind

In 2011, my husband and I moved to Vancouver Island, in an area where professional companies were scarce but community theatres more common.  This is very unlike the rich theatre scene I had enjoyed in Edmonton. I found myself artistically adrift for a while, and dealing with some unpleasant health issues, so theatre took a back seat for a few years.  I did manage to teach some private classes on my own, though, and found that there were eager novice and veteran community theatre actors who were looking for someone to help them up their game on stage.  And I had my eyes opened.

What I realized from teaching these interested thespians, is that there is a great deal of passion and true dedication in people who make theatre purely for love, for the joy of coming together to create art.  They do it for each other, and they do it because they love theatre.  The performers come to rehearsals for weeks (or months) with such commitment, and they rarely complain. They come with coffee and a bright smile, and they do whatever is asked of them, even if they don’t know how or it makes them uncomfortable. They are eager to learn and excited to grow as actors. They get together on their own time to help each other learn their lines. If the show is short-handed, they’ll sew costumes, paint sets, make props, and hang posters, as needed. Then there’s the production crew, a group of equally passionate individuals who are willing to spend hours upon hours learning the tech, studying the play, hanging the lights, finding sound effects and music, building sets and waiting patiently back stage for cues.  And I haven’t even gotten started on the director, producer and stage manager; those are some weighty roles! Yes, this all happens in professional theatre, but rarely does anyone in community theatre receive a dime for their trouble. Most community theatre artists don’t have any formal training to fall back on, either. In spite of this, they are totally enthusiastic about coming together, as a collective, to make the show the best it can be for their community, for their art, and for the entire ensemble. They care about each other, and they go above and beyond to show it.  Suddenly I was not adrift any longer; I was inspired, and frankly, humbled by the devotion these people had for my beloved art form.

Gratitude

In the years that followed, I taught classes, coached groups, held workshops, adjudicated festivals, founded and ran performance-based fundraisers, directed some plays (both traditional and devised), and attended dozens of productions. I came to love and understand community theatre artists and the groups they worked with. I realized that the entire community benefited from their labours of love, and saw it could change hearts and open minds, just as it could in the professional world. It became my mission to help community theatres raise the bar on their performances and plays, so they could do what they loved as well as they could. So that their theatres could thrive and succeed.  So that they could achieve their dreams. And so that audiences would be moved to laughter, tears, and thoughtfulness, which can literally help to right our upside-down world.

I do what I do for them, because I love theatre and I am blown away by what they are willing to do for it. Community theatre people have a desire and a spirit that can’t be silenced or stilled.  They are generous, loving and passionate people, and I adore them. Most of all, they opened my eyes and gave me a chance to redeem myself, and I will always be grateful for that.