My Theatrical Experience
I consider my career in theatre to have started in high school at École Secondaire in Beaumont, Alberta, from 2010-2011. I switched schools for my final year, specifically with the goal of joining the musical theatre program. I landed the role of Marty in that year's production of Grease and found myself deeply in love with the stage. After the curtain fell on Grease, I was stuck between completing my high school diploma requirements and preparing for the school’s One-Act Theatre Festival. I found myself inspired and stayed up all night writing my first play, a 50-page monster, written entirely in rhyme and even included a dance number that my two left feet choreographed. I named the play La Porte and let it free on the world. To my surprise, I won the in-school competition, then the regional competition at Ardrossan, which took us to provincials in Red Deer, where I won the award for “Best Playwright.” In total, La Porte won 11 awards.
After I graduated high school, there was exciting news: The American Theatre Festival Association would be offered two spots to participate in the International Edinburgh Fringe Festival in 2011, and École Secondaire was offered a spot. Led by our fearless leader, the late Keith Ewasiuk (a.k.a “Mr. E”), a rag-tag group of rowdy yet dedicated teenagers worked over a series of weeks to put together a fringe-friendly edition of the play Suddenly Shakespeare, a comical one-act retelling of four famous Shakespeares plays: The Tempest, Romeo and Juliet, Macbeth and Twelfth Night (written by Kim Selody). Once rehearsals were done, we all packed our bags, hopped on a plane, and spent 12 days in the UK. We performed our show for only a few select nights in the beautiful Church Hill Theatre. Once that was done, we took our well-deserved bows, we set off to watch other fantastic fringe shows, explored Edinburgh and even saw the Royal Tattoo perform at Edinburgh Castle.
Once I landed back on Canadian soil, I quickly learned that Edmonton’s premier professional theatre house, The Citadel Theatre, offered a program for burgeoning young playwrights called “The Young Playwrighting Company.” I submitted La Porte and some other forgotten piece of writing, and to my delight, I was accepted. I spent four magical years, every Tuesday evening from 6-10 pm, learning how to craft a play under the mentorship of the prolific Heather Inglis and the director of the young companies, Doug Mertz. Our lessons often included teachings from professional playwrights such as Mieko Ouchi, Colleen Murphy, Vern Thiessen, Beth Grahm, and more! Heather Inglis and Doug Mertz are still active within the Canadian professional theatre scene, and amazingly, my cohort from that first year are all, to some degree, writers, playwrights, directors, dramaturges or jack-of-all-trades thespians. Over my time in the Young Playwrighting Company, I wrote six plays, ranging from quick one-acts to my first full-length piece. I consider my four years spent at the Citadel Theatre to be my “unofficial degree” in playwriting.
Before becoming overtly chronically ill and an official “spoonie,” I spent a year at the University of Alberta majoring in Drama in the Bachelor of Arts program. I poured myself into my full-time course work, volunteered in behind-the-scenes productions at the University New Works Festival, landed a role in one of the student-written plays, Shadowlands (written by Savanna Harvey and directed by Julie Murphy), and even won a place in the New Works: In Development Series for my play Paper Bones. University theatre was a step up from my high school theatre days. It tested me in ways I never anticipated and encouraged me to experiment and learn as much as possible. Shadowlands received critical acclaim from The Gateway (the official student newspaper at the University of Alberta), and my play Paper Bones had its time in the sun with private dramaturgical workshopping through the brilliant then-MFA student Elis LaCroix, a directed workshop with volunteer student actors, and a semi-professional reading, audience included. While I had to leave the degree temporarily due to health reasons, I eventually found my way back to theatre and the University of Alberta, this time minoring in drama. It seems that no matter what happens, you can take the girl out of the play, but you can’t take the play out of the girl.
ShadowlandsWritten by: Savanna Harvey | Directed by: Julie Murphy | Costumes by: Katy Lukey | Photos by: Kelsi Kalmer & Claudia Kulay