What is your role on this production? I am the stage manager for Shatter. The way I usually explain my role to people is a behind the scenes HQ. Myself along with our assistant stage manager, Becky, are the eyes and ears in the rehearsal hall. We connect the artistic side of the process that Josh is going through with the reality side which is our amazing designers and technicians actually making it happen. We also make schedules along with the director and production manager and communicate with actors. Usually that ends up looking like endless e-mails and schedule making. During the show the ASM is backstage taking care of props and costume as necessary and I’m in the booth calling lighting and sound cues.
What is your background in theatre? At Walterdale? This is my first Walterdale show! I got to know Josh and Bethany while working on Sweeney Todd in the spring and I jumped at the chance to work on this show. I have been working in theatre for almost my whole life. My dad is a musician and carpenter so I often would help him set up shows and build things. In junior high I helped build and design sets and acted as an ASM. Then in high school I started Stage Managing and immediately fell in love with the job. I completed a year of the BFA Stage Management but decided I wanted to focus more on education so I’m currently transferring into a BEd. However, I still work on a number of things around the city and continue to stage manage.
What brought you out for this show? Josh and Bethany are both amazing creative people so I was so excited to work on any team that they were a part of. I thought it was really important to showcase young faces at Walterdale which Josh and I absolutely are. We are also both First Nation and I love the idea of having two big roles on a production team being filled by aboriginal individuals. We both feel that aboriginal presence in theatre and art is really important and has so so much to offer. On top of all of that the script and cast are just so brilliant. I really couldn’t say no!
What do you think audiences will take away from this show? Why should they come and see it? I think that this show offers so much more than just a historical representation of an event. Audience members will be able to relate so so much to the characters on stage. Whether it be audiences thinking about their own coming of age story or what pushed away from naive innocence or audiences thinking about raising kids and seeing that all happen it’s really relatable. Also just the idea of the evolution of relationships and friendships is something everyone can understand. It’s a lot of highs and lows and everyone can relate to that in some way. I also think that a lot of our principals are strong females and that’s super important. As a young female in this industry it’s so great to see complex strong females on stage that are real and imperfect and unique and just their own person.
Shatter deals with a major event in Canadian history that Canadians today might not know too much about. Are there any other major events in Canadian history that you feel we should know more about that we do? For me Indian Residential Schools are something that I think we’ve just started to really understand and dissect as a country. I’ve been privileged enough to do some work with the Truth and Reconciliation Commission and it’s always so unreal to me that people still don’t know a lot about it. I think there’s still a long way to go in understanding inter-generational trauma and how to move forward cohesively.