OSSD News Room Archive
May Showcase productions 2006
In order to give you a bit of an inside look behind some of our May Showcase productions, we’ve done interviews with the directors of “42nd Street”, “Tales from a Tokyo Veranda”, “Connections” and “Work: Jobs in Progress".The interviews will give you a glimpse into the thought process, vision and challenges behind each of these unique productions.
| Select below to read interviews... |
"42nd Street" |
“Connections… It isn’t much fun for one” |
“Tokyo Veranda" |
"Work: Jobs in Progress" |
The Interviews
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"42nd Street"
May 4 & 5: 7:30 p.m.
by Harry Warren, Al Dubin, Michael Stewart and Mark Bramble.
The OSSD Musical Theatre Company
Directed by Natalie Fraser Purdy
Choreography by Emmanuelle Zeesman
Musical Direction by Sally Robinson
Alumni Theatre, Carleton University
Admission by donation (suggested donation $12.00)
Natalie, why did you choose to work on this musical?
What really excited me about “42nd Street” was that it gave us a chance to bring the ensemble and the chorus together. It provided a challenge to everyone because it meant that our advanced students could learn dance steps they’d never done before. OSSD has never put on a show that has a lot of tap dancing in it, so right away, that was a huge challenge. Also last year we did a “heavy” show. Les Miz was great, and the students did an amazing job, but this year everyone wanted to do something lighthearted, something that would make us smile. We’ve really got that with “42nd Street
You mentioned the “ensemble”. What does that mean to you, and why is it so important?
In an ensemble, the actors and crew have a responsibility to each other. They all have to understand what happens beyond the stage. This is also reflected in the work that the actors need to do on their characters. There are some characters who do not have as many lines but they are of vital importance to the play. They support the whole thing. That provides an excellent opportunity for students to explore character analysis.
The ensemble is actually in the whole nature of this play, and that’s reflected in the way that we work together. Everyone has to take care of “Peggy”, and in our rehearsal process we’ve emphasized the need to take care of each other.
What is the play about?
I think it is about becoming an artist, about the beginning, living and ending of a performing artist’s career. It is about choosing love; whether that love is the love of a person, love of a career or the love of performing. It is also about chance, about working your hardest and seeing the opportunities that lie in front of you.
But I think that the play is also about the joy of being a part of the chorus, and about caring for the people around you who matter. At the end of the play, Peggy doesn’t go to the party with the “leads”. She parties with “the kids”, the chorus that has always supported her and who will always be her true friends. I think the central message is about the kind of choices that we make in theatre, in a career, in a life.
What has been most exciting to you as a director about doing this play?
What has been really exciting is how everyone has come together in the ensemble. Everyone is engaged – there is no lack of commitment. Everyone is equally excited to learn as they are to perform.
I also love being in such a supportive environment. There are so many people working so hard. There isn’t a huge budget for such a large show, so everyone makes up for it by working incredibly hard and giving so much.
I love it that the students get to meet professionals from the theatre community and that they get a taste of the “real world”. Of course that will really hit when we move into the theatre at Carleton University.
What is your vision for the play?
I am really working on getting across the flair of the period (1930’s). It was the Depression and there was not a lot of money, but there were these great shows. And of course what I really want to come across is the high energy.
What do you think has been the greatest challenge for the students?
At first I think it was hard for them to trust the process. Last year, the show that we did was completely sung. This year there are real scenes, and the actors have had to do a lot more in terms of creating their characters. It has been a bit hard for them to trust the process and to get down to the independent work required by an actor. It isn’t just about learning the songs, the dances, the lines. I try to teach them to rely on themselves, and not to spoon-feed them. I help them to learn how to analyze the text, but then they have to do their work to build the characters and the arc of the play.
It has also been a challenge for them to learn about their own time management. They are just realizing how much they have to do. This is a huge project – more that 2/3 of them had never put on a pair of tap shoes before. They hadn’t heard most of the songs. And there are whole styles of dance they didn’t know. We are also asking them to create their own characters -- I mean it is crazy what we are trying to do! But look at them! It is truly amazing. They keep saying that they want to be pushed harder. They seem to be limitless in their desire to take on new challenges.
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“Connections… It isn’t much fun for one”May 6, 13 & 20: 11:00
a Collective Creation by the Young Actor's Company.
In partnership with the Museum of Nature,
Directed by Kristina Watt
The theatre at the Museum of Nature
240 MacLeod Street
Tickets are free with admission to the museum.
Actor Kristina Watt is directing “Connections (It isn’t much fun for one)” with the Young Actors’ Company. This special project is a first for OSSD. In collaboration with the Museum of Nature, students are developing a theatre piece that will be performed at the museum as a part of a new exhibit this spring. The exhibit, “Mates Have To Meet”, opens in May. OSSD students have visited the museum and worked with museum staff and researchers to help them to create their piece.
What is this play about?
Basically, we are looking at how animals behave in order to procreate. What we’ve developed is a play about communication. We are looking at animals, but we are also looking at the parallel behaviour of humans as they, too, seek not to be alone.
It is a movement based piece. There is some text, but there is a lot of sound and movement. The actors have to be extremely versatile. They are all on stage, all of the time. We are also working with live music. James Richardson (Artistic Director of Third Wall Theatre) has worked with the students to help create a soundscape.
Why did you want to be involved in this project?
This project was an important next step for me. I had directed a junior page to stage production last year (Emily Brontesaurus), and I was ready to work with one of the production companies, with students who audition to be in the program.
This project really gives me a chance to try something new. I mean I love scripts. I love “linear” theatre. But the opportunity to do this kind of dance theatre, where there is no script, where you have a clear pallet and you are using voices and bodies to respond to a theme – this is a really rare opportunity.
I’m not a director –I am more of an artistic guide. It is really exciting to watch how a group creates together.
What kind of challenge do you think this presents to your actors?
Well, first of all, the opportunity to do this piece at the Museum presents a whole new level of challenge. It is a lovely theatre, but they will be performing for the general public, in a whole new environment. It definitely takes them out of their comfort zone! We also have a responsibility to serve the exhibit, as well as serving what the students need as young actors. They’ve been given a theme, and we are asking them to do a kind of theatre that they are not used to. They have to make quite a leap of faith as actors.
What do you how the audience will get from seeing this piece?
I hope that they see that as creatures, we are all on the same boat. As humans, we use intellect and will, whereas animals use instinct, but there are connections between both of our worlds.
I hope that the audience feels the magic of the work that we are trying to create. It is an experiential piece, rather than a story, and I hope they allow themselves to experience it.
But most importantly I hope that they come away with an appreciation of what these young people have done.
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“Tokyo Veranda"May 17, 18 & 19: 8:00 p.m.
by David Overton & John Arnold.
The OSSD Performance Company (senior acting students)
Directed by Barry Karp
Natalie Stern Studio Theatre, OSSD
Admission by donation (suggested donation $10.00)
Barry, why did you want to direct this play?
It has been on the backburner for a number of years. I think that it is moving and universal, with messages that I wanted to get out to the world.
What is it about?
It’s about life and death. It is the struggle of one person coping with the last moments of his life. We get to see the world through his eyes. He’s had a rough up bringing and through the course of his struggles he ahs fallen in love with the Buddhist faith and with the culture of Japan. So the play brings forth ancient Japanese myths while it looks at the dangers of certain kinds of decisions that we make over the course of our lives.
What has been most exciting to you, as a director, working on this play?
I am introducing the company to a completely different style. They have to push thresholds and boundaries to learn a whole new approach as actors. They are having to stretch themselves in ways that they can’t even articulate.
And they also have to learn how to sing! It is not musical theatre, but most of the piece is sung, so they have to really stretch themselves as actors and learn, for most of them, a whole new skill. 60% of it is sung. I didn’t really realize that until we started working on it. It is very hard, but the music is integral to it. It defines different moods that create atmosphere and transitions. The music occurs in the “other world”, so it brings in the ghost stories and the myths. It is the bridge to that world. The tempos and rhythms are challenging. The actors have to learn how to reveal the soul of their character through song and gesture.
I also think it is great to work on a piece that has only ever been done once before. And it is Canadian.
What do you think has been the greatest challenge for your actors?
It has been hard for them to make it a part of their lives. They wanted to do this piece but they’ve had to learn how to accept a culture, and values, that are foreign to them.
Here, we live through action on stage. But in Japan, less is more. Moving the head a quarter of an inch says more than a line of dialogue. It has been very hard for them to trust this, to learn how to work more carefully, more precisely, more sparingly.
What do you hope the audience will come away with?
I am still discovering that!
I hope that they will come away having lived in the moment, learning to be where they are and appreciate life. The play is deeply, deeply moving and very subtle. The stupid things that we do in our lives are captured in the myths – the promises we make, the selfishness of our behaviour, our ridiculous decisions. The play shows us what chance has to offer us, if we allow ourselves to accept it.
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"Work: Jobs in Progress"May 4, 5, 6: 8:00 pm, May 6: 2:00p.m.
Created by the OSSD Pre-Professional Acting students
In association with CUPE.
Directed by Bruce Bissonnette
Natalie Stern Studio Theatre, OSSD
Tickets $12.00
($10.00 for students, seniors and underemployed)
“Work: Jobs in Progress” is directed by Bruce Bissonnette with co-direction from acting and voice coach Patricia Tedford and movement coach Peter Ryan. The students in this piece are from the Pre-Profession Acting Program, OSSD’s intensive acting program for adults. The piece combines text and movement to examine the nature of work. “Work: Jobs in Progress” asks the fundamental questions: Is work inevitable? Do we have a choice?
Bruce, I understand that the whole group researched this piece together. I know that you had a hard time deciding on what material to use. In the end, what are you including?
We’ve included scenes and monologues about as many different occupations as we could. We go from mining to prostitution. We look at managers, bosses and workers, people with power and people with none. We look at what it is to be fired, and to have to change occupations.
Toward the end we look at the relationship between home and work. We have a great movement piece about going home from work. At some point in the day, we all go home from work and that poses its own questions. When you are home, that is where the choice about work begins. Most people work because of what is going on at home, so we really needed to include that element.
Sounds like a bit of a downer.
No, not at all. It’s a mixture of comedy and drama. Mind you some people think that work is a “downer”, and certainly we wouldn’t be telling the truth if we didn’t show both sides. But I think we can laugh at our situations, too.
As a director, what did you find most exciting about working on this project?
I love the creative process – taking current, published material and, through a creative process, putting it together and finding a through line where there wasn’t any. When artists work together there are these great moments when it all comes together, when it seems it was “meant to be”.
I also really love working with the collective, and trusting in that process. Saying yes to ideas. I am not a director who insists on my way or the highway. We work together and in that way the actors know that they are involved in the whole process.
What do you think your actors found most challenging about working on this piece?
I think they found the process difficult. I mean we weren’t just presenting them with a script. They had to work together to create this. They also had to learn about patience as an actor.
What do you mean by that?
Well, the minute that you are doing a play, it is no longer about the individual actor. We had spent the first semester working with the students as individuals. It was all about them, about their needs as they worked on developing their skills. Now it is about the ensemble. They still have to do all of that individual work, but they have to do it as homework and bring that to the table. We are going from being an individual to being part of an ensemble. Individuality becomes lost in the making of the production. The choices that get made now are about the whole piece, not about the individual ego. It is a really hard transition to make when you are mid training.
What do you hope the audience will come away with after seeing this piece?
I hope that they can reflect on the choices that they have made, and are making. Our theme “Do we have a choice (about work)?” is one I hope they can look at in their own lives. I hope that the audience can laugh at themselves, and also perhaps gain a bit more empathy for the other people in their work environment. I mean, I hope that bosses can look at their employees differently, and workers, perhaps, understand their bosses a bit better.