When I was 9 or 10 I wanted to be an artist. My Mom was always finding little drawings around the house of my doodles, rainbows, horses, people - you name it. As I got a little older it was Artist or Hairdresser (I was really shooting for the stars). I think my dad was a little dismayed in my choices, especially compared to my brother who wanted to be a paleontologist as soon as he was old enough to say the word, and then that morphed into a video game designer (he was fixing my parents computers from age 10 and on). I recall my dad once asking me if I was going to live in a cardboard box too - since a Hairdresser and Artist don't exactly bring home big pay cheques.
Once I got to high school I took an interest in a different kind of art - Theatre. I love acting, I loved directing, I loved the tech side, I loved everything about the stage. Actress wasn't really that much higher on the pay scale from Artist, and I think my choices remained a sorce of frustration for my father, who only ever wanted my brother and I to have the best. At one parent teacher interview with my Drama teacher my parents asked Mr. Jack point blank if he thought that I could be successful as an Actress, and Mr. Jack responded by saying "she is talented, and if she works hard I'm sure she can achieve what she puts her mind to". Excellent response Mr. Jack.
In 2002 I graduated from High school, and not only had a "best student" award in Drama for the highest mark 3 years running, I also had an educational video for the Calgary Board of Education under my belt, and I had been asked to audition for a teen version of "Inside Entertainment" (which never even got to the pilot stage before the idea was scrapped). I was feeling pretty good about my acting career, and decided that I wanted to further my knowledge with Post Secondary.
I auditioned for Mount Royal College with both a contemporary monologue and a Classical, but my shyness got in the way and I shook and stuttered through my whole audition, forgetting most of my classical monologue. When I had finished and I was standing there fighting back the tears, one of the judges softly said "well, you are hands down the most nervous person we have ever had audition for us". Needless to say, I didn't get a call back, and I walked out of the room and burst into tears.
I ended up in the U of C Drama Program primarily because the first year didn't require an entrance audition, and I knew that I wasn't at a place where I could comfortably audition for Mount Royal again.
During this time frame, I started seriously considering other lines of work, and in the back of my mind Interior Design started popping into my thoughts more and more. To this day I always say "If I had never gone into theatre I would have done Interior Design" - but more on that later.
So within the first month that I was at University, I had one of the techs for the lunch time theatre program ask me to stage manage for them. I told him that I had never done it before, but that I was willing to learn, and just like that I was a stage manager. The first show I stage managed was 3 one act plays that all tied together called Perennials - Roses are Red, Violets are Blue and Lillies are Pale. The show had a cast of 7, with 3 directors, sets plans, sets of props, and costumes - and some how it went off without a hitch!
It ended up being an awesome show, and was later submitted to the One-Act-Festival at the Pumphouse, and later won Best Technical, Best Male Lead, and Best Original Script. (fun fact, my old high school drama teacher, Mr. Jack, also had a show at the One Act, and yelled out when I went up to get the Tech award "I taught her at Forest Lawn!" and then came up to me in the lobby and asked "is there anything you can't do?" Which made me feel pretty God Damn Awesome!)
That was all I needed and I was in love with Stage Managing! I signed up to take the Stage Managers course the following year, as well as the Stage Make-up Course. At the same time as my confidence grew throughout the year, so did my acting and auditioning abilities, and at the end of my first year I auditioned for the Drama 300 acting class, and got in!
As well I called Anna to wish her a happy birthday on May 5th, and she asked me if I wanted to be in a play that summer that was going to tour through Winnipeg and Edmonton with the Fringe Circuit. Of course I said yes, and the next thing I knew I was dialing the number of the director (Dan) to set up an audition. Now at the time I'm writing this, I've known Dan for just over 7 years, and I know that he is fun, friendly, witty, kind and gentle, and I have no problem giving him a call to hang out or catch dinner together - but when I was 19, and still battling shyness, it took me a hell of a long time to get up the nerve to call him - and several times I had to talk myself out of just forgetting about the whole thing and throwing away his number all together. But man am I ever glad I called!
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Does this man look scary to you? |
With that phone call, I booked myself an audition, which later resulted in a roll in my favorite Scorpio show to date, traveling to Winnipeg and Edmonton, having a great summer, and making long lasting friendships with some of the best people I have ever had the privilege of meeting.
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Not at all! He's one of my favorite people! |
I really owe so much to Scorpio, and all the wonderful people in it, as they helped me get through one of the toughest summers in my life. You see on June 17th at 1:05am my father suffered a fatal heart attack which turned my whole world upside down.
Those tours, and those people gave me the distraction, and love that I desperately needed at the time, and I'm so very thankful for them. But that's for another story.
Back to the "life Path" storyline.
So in September 2004, I entered into my second year in a daze. I don't really remember much about the first few months of school, just little snippets. Like hearing my dad's song on the radio and sitting in the parkade crying and missing my 9am class. Or staying up until 4am talking to my mom trying to make sense of the new hole in our lives, and then arriving late for acting class in the morning. Truth be told I was a horrible student at that time - it probably would have been a good idea to take some time off at that stage, but I didn't, and as a result, I screwed some things up for myself. I pulled away from people, didn't want to be hugged, or touched. I broke up with my boyfriend after steadily pulling away from him and finding his small gestures "clingy". And I destroyed my University acting career.
I was late every day, I was flustered, and emotional. I couldn't concentrate, I let down my partners, and over all I just pulled away. I felt like I didn't have anyone I could talk to. No one could understand what I was going through, and I didn't want to be on the center of any stage right then. At one point we were preforming monologues that we had rehearsed, and one of my class mates did a monologue about talking at his son's funeral, and I cried through the whole thing. By the time it was my turn to preform my cheeks were tear stained and my voice was shaky.
I pulled away from acting, and spent more time on the tech side of things. It was easier for me to be backstage, I had my binder and my notes, and sat silently for most of the rehearsal process. I organized things, scheduled costume fittings, prop meetings, filled out rehearsal reports and over all just stayed out of the spot light. Overall, I just dove into being super organized as a way to distract myself and deal and as it turns out - I'm an awesome stage manager.
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Assistant Stage Manager for Newhouse 2005 |
As well I took on Scene Painting, and did some Stage Make-up for shows. I was on the stage less and less and I was okay with that, and by the end of my second year I decided that I wasn't going to audition for the next acting class, and that I was just going to concentrate on tech.
Fast forward to now, and I'm still a stage manager, I'm a make-up artist, I'm sometimes an actress, and I am even a little bit of an interior designer too! (I completely re-designed my parent-in-law's kitchen, and I've been going crazy designing our new house too!)
And the end result with my father? Well months after he died my mom told me that he came home from giving me a ride one night, and he said he wasn't worried about me anymore, that a conversation we had had showed him that I had a good head on my shoulders and that I knew what I was doing, and that he was really proud of the person I've become. It's nice to hear, and it would have been better coming from him - but that's for another post too...
I remember that conversation exactly. Dad asked me "so what's a Drama degree going to do for you?" and I laughed and said "not a damn thing - It's a piece of paper I'm going to put on the wall to make you happy! It's not about the degree, it's about the experience I'm getting! I'm not just studying acting, I'm studying stage management, directing, make-up, scene painting, and whatever else I can learn. And I'm being taught by some of Canada's best in the business. Actor's are a dime a dozen, but techs are worth more, and a good tech is hard to find. I will always have work as a tech."
These days I'm more into the Make-up Artist side of things, but that's mainly because I am still a little nervous to take the leap into the Edmonton Theatre Community (I don't know anyone here, and it's nerve racking to just walk into a theatre and say "Hi, I'm Heather, I'm a stage manager"), but I'll work up to it. It's definitely a love of mine, and I will be back :)
So what did I want to be when I was little? An Artist. What am I? A Make-up Artist. Same title, different medium - Go me, I guess I did end up staying on the same path! I just got a little distracted along the way!
Sweet Lion of Zion, would you look at the gut on me in that second picture... on second thought, don't. Don't look at that.
ReplyDeleteIf it hasn't been made clear, I'm super glad you made that call too. We had a blast working with you. Now I request, nay, demand that you get to know Shadow Theatre in Edmonton. I want to see you in a David Belke show, dagnabbit.
Especially now, when I've hit a point where I no longer fear being seen as a second rate Belke wannabe. I'm a second-rate Aaron Sorkin wannabe and proud of it!