The Rehearsal Hall

How long have you worked for Soulpepper/Young Centre and what is it that you do?

I’ve worked at Soulpepper/Young Centre for over three years as their in-house graphic designer. Prior to that I worked in the film industry designing and building props and as a freelance designer and illustrator.

When you’re not at your desk, what are you doing?

I’m usually in my studio working on my fine art efforts (jacobwhibley.com).

If by chance I’m not there I can be found cycling around the city, visiting galleries and hunting for various bits of ephemera that I use in my collages and sculptures.

What kinds of shows/productions/events have you been involved in and what have you been working on lately?

I’ve just finished working on my first solo show that opens February 4th at Wyatt Art Studios (wyattartstudios.com) in New Hampshire and I’m working on a variety of projects this year with my gallery here in Toronto Narwhal Art Projects (narwhalartprojects.com).

What do you love about being a part of the staff at Soulpepper?

Prior to working at Soulpepper I worked in an independent prop shop. It was extremely close quarters and had a very unique culture about it. My boss there said that after working for her I would be ruined for any kind of office job. She is more than likely right, but I like to think that Soulpepper is the exception that proves the point. We have a very unique situation here at Soulpepper – it is a very professional yet relaxed environment with a great sense of interaction and dialogue between the departments and the artists. We are all unified by our collective appreciation for the arts inside and outside of the office.

Gregory Prest is a graduate of the National Theatre School and has performed for Tarragon Theatre, Next Stage, and the Canadian Opera Company. A recent graduate of the Soulpepper Academy, Gregory has gone on to do a number of shows with the company including Death of a Salesman, A Midsummer Night’s Dream and Oh What a Lovely War – for which he received a Dora nomination. Gregory plays the role of Pascal in White Biting Dog, on stage now.

Gregory Prest & Michaela Washburn on stage in White Biting Dog. Photo: Cylla von Tiedemann

I only met Judith Thompson once before the first day of rehearsals for White Biting Dog. It was spring of 2002 in Montreal at the National Theatre School. She was there teaching the playwriting students and we were working on an in-studio end of first year performance of her 1997 play Sled with Sarah Stanley. She came to watch our first run through one morning.

After what was probably a four-hour affair, Judith pauses and says something to the effect of, “I’ve written the text very specifically and when actors don’t get it right or paraphrase or add a word here or there it makes me sick to my stomach and my ears bleed.”

I knew I was guilty. I prepared to be not asked back for my second year.

Side note: I have a vivid memory of the cover of the script for Sled. It was a photo of a tall beautiful woman in a red dress with long gloves and long red hair sort of floating in a forest of birch trees. I had no idea who the woman was but the image stayed with me. Little did I know that the tall beautiful woman would be such an important influence in my life – a Ms Nancy Palk.

Cut to: Several months before rehearsals start, I open my White Biting Dog script and read this note from the playwright:

“Because of the extreme and deliberate musicality of this play, any attempts to go against the textual rhythms, such as the breaking up of an unbroken sentence, or the taking of a pause where none is written in are DISASTROUS. The effect is like being in a small plane and suddenly turning off the ignition. It all falls down. This play must SPIN, not just turn around.”

Cue: cold sweats and internal hemorrhaging.

I knew Judith would be at the first read and throughout rehearsal. I didn’t want to be the kid that crashed the plane. Nancy, the tall beautiful woman, took a chance on me. I became determined to GET IT RIGHT. I would get it word perfect. Then I looked at the text:

Pick up a copy of the play – it looks like this:

WHAT DOES IT MEAN?  What’s the difference between THIS and THIS? Or t-h-i-s and T-H-I-S, let alone th-th-th-thissssssssss?  What does it MEAN mean?  HOW doooo I-inter-interpret the…FONT…font?  How DO I, nnnnnot C-R-A-S-H this plane PLANE?

Cue: colder sweats and external hemorrhaging.

Cut to: First read around the table.  I sat down, pulled out my script and was determined – if I was going down – fired – I’d be fired giving it my BEST s-h-o-t.

The first thing Judith says is, “Everyone open to the page with my note about crashing the plane…” I steadied myself.  “…and just take your pencil and cross it out. Just cross it out.”

Cue: a sound that shoots from my mouth – something between a giggle and a painful cry.

Set and costume designer Camellia Koo has worked with many companies including Tarragon Theatre, Cahoots Theatre Projects, fu-GEN Asian Canadian Theatre Company, The Shaw Festival, Modern Times Theatre, The Second City, and Lorraine Kimsa Theatre for Young People. Her work has previously been seen on the Soulpepper stage in The Guardsman, Waiting for Godot and The Caretaker. Camellia has won four Dora Awards, a Sterling Award and shared the 2006 Siminovitch Protégé Award.I don’t actually remember how it started, but during one of my very first meetings with Ted Dykstra, it came about that we were both interested in finding a new approach to interpreting Billy Bishop Goes to War, especially since both of the original creators, Eric Peterson and John Gray, were going to be performing it. It wasn’t interesting enough to simply re-stage it, with period accurate costumes and historical detail, and I was not interested in creating a make-believe-but-pretending-to-be-realistic “set” in which this play would be performed. We were more interested at looking at how to make it relevant to an audience seeing it today, and seeing it with the original creators at the very age that Billy is meant to be at the start of his storytelling at the beginning of the play. At the same time, we were also interested in making it relevant to both Eric and John back onstage together again; very likely the last time they would ever play these roles together again.

Onstage, there are props from the show, but not just props as dictated by the script, but also “prop” props that reference past productions and remounts of Billy Bishop Goes to War that Eric and John have done. The backdrop and floor is purposefully painted and hangs in isolation in the theatre as if it too is a piece of theatrical scenery. The set is decidedly not a “set” of Billy Bishop’s room, but more a collection of artifacts both from the history of the man and the history of this play being performed. The photos around the space as the audience walks in reference both Billy Bishop, the real man; and also Eric and John, the actors the audience sees onstage.

There were two simultaneous narratives that Ted and I were interested in telling that I hope comes across when the audience comes to see the play – the narrative of the life of Billy Bishop as originally intended when Eric and John wrote the play, but at the same time, the narrative of the lives of Eric and John playing these roles over the past 40 or so years. These two narratives intertwine throughout the evening as a result of the brilliant performances of Eric and John also embracing this idea of simultaneous narratives.

Normally, telling the creators of a previously proven hit how to reinvent the vision of their play onstage would be a daunting task, but Eric and John were very generous and open from the very beginning and everyone involved was up for this unique collaboration in the rehearsal hall.

Eric Peterson, C.M. began his long career in Canadian stage and television in 1971 when he helped found the collective theatre company in Vancouver, where he first worked with John Gray. Peterson moved to Toronto in 1974 and began collaborating with Gray again on what would become Billy Bishop Goes to War. On stage, Peterson has appeared in productions for Theatre Passe Muraille, Factory Theatre, the National Arts Centre and the Vancouver Playhouse. Peterson has also worked extensively on television programs such as Street Legal, Corner Gas, and This is Wonderland.

For over forty years, John Gray and I have had Billy Bishop Goes to War between us, as part of our lives and our friendship, and it’s this friendship that is at the heart of the joy I feel in doing the play again. It’s what also keeps the piece “a work in progress,” as we two old chums try to figure out what this play we created so long ago means to us today, a process we’ve been lucky to repeat every ten years or so. We first played it through our thirties, then in our early fifties, and now in our early sixties.

The play still remains the journey of a fictional, “real” Canadian war hero, a kind of “every Canadian” and his story of survival, with its theme of how surviving such great difficulties reshapes our self-awareness as individuals and as a country. What changes every time we come back to the play is how it is cast, with the parts being played by actors who are getting steadily older, oddly enough. The casting of a play unleashes a fate that the production is destined to fulfill. It’s not the only factor but it’s certainly a major one and Billy Bishop Goes to War is no exception. Those early productions, when John and I were thirty year-olds, spoke of youth coming to manhood, and I got to act “age” at the end of the play when Air Vice Marshal Bishop was an ancient fifty-seven. In our fifties, the fifty-seven year old Bishop was the bracket within which the play was told with all the modulations of an older man looking back on his past prime.

Now John and I are the same age the real Billy Bishop was when he passed away quietly in his sleep at the age of sixty-two, and so, it is a Bishop looking back on his life from the end of his life that informs this Soulpepper production. It has been a huge creative pleasure working on Billy Bishop Goes to War again and with the wonderful contributions of Ted Dykstra, Camellia Koo and Lorenzo Savoini, I don’t think John and I have ever had more fun performing it.

Photo: Cylla von Tiedemann.

Kat Chin is our assistant stage manager this year for two shows; the double bill, which includes (re)Birth: e.e. cummings in song & Window on Toronto, as well as The Aleph. Before that she worked on a number of shows with Soulpepper, such as Glengarry Glen Ross, As You Like It, The Odd Couple, and Uncle Vanya. Kat has also been involved in productions at Toronto Fringe, Summerworks, Next Stage, Stratford and the National Ballet, and takes a brief moment from the flurry of activity backstage to talk about her experience with the double bill.

There is “snow” everywhere. EVERYWHERE. In the costumes, in my shoes, in the instrument cases and I have to sweep it all up at the end of every rehearsal. Despite the opportunities to discover a more efficient way of cleaning up a pound of white confetti everyday, working on the double bill is quite a treat. I can’t explain how exciting it is to be a part of the gorgeous music and poetry that is (re)Birth: E.E. Cummings in Song AND the incredible fun and whirlwind of “what just happened?” that is Window On Toronto.

I’m mesmerized by the magic of E.E. Cummings. I’ll easily admit that I’m not a big reader of poetry, but the enchantment that the ensemble weaves over the audience is something that I cannot escape. I tend to get lost in the music, sitting in the wings, waiting for my cue to move an instrument. I sing along quietly, and listen with some awe, to the ensemble that is so talented and engaging.

Sitting “backstage” in the rehearsals for Window is a sight in itself. I have no doubt that Soulpepper could sell tickets for the show that happens behind that wall. I’m sure the audience has no idea of the mayhem that occurs when eight actors race around a confined space performing quick change after quick change after quick change.  The carpentry shop made custom racks to facilitate the 289 costume pieces and 115 props in the show. On average, each actor has at least 30 costume pieces that they throw on and off to create dozens of characters. They make it seem so effortless.

The show is so funny and full of clever little moments that are over in the blink of an eye! One of my favourite bits in Window is when Trish Lindström leaps into Brendan Wall’s arms, kisses him passionately, and exclaims how much she missed him. Brendan mouths to the audience that he doesn’t know who she is and they quickly move out of view. The show continues with new customers in the window, but mere seconds later, a slap is heard, and Brendan walks by in the background, rubbing his cheek. I often wonder how many audience members will catch that brilliant little moment. I hope they all do! And I get to witness it from atop a ladder.

Window is possibly the hardest show I’ve ever had to run backstage. Due to sightlines, I have to do a lot of crawling to do handoffs and receives, to mop up water or pick up newspapers & bags and my knees are bruised and achy – and I have a new first: wearing kneepads to run my track. I admit, I do some complaining, but I wouldn’t trade working on this show for anything. You put up with a lot for shows & casts that you fall in love with.

I leave rehearsal humming “Lily Has A Rose.” There is snow in my hair.

Jeff Lillico is a Dora Award-winning actor who has been with Soulpepper since 2006. Despite his young age, Jeff has been involved in many productions with the company, including Salt-Water Moon, American Buffalo, A Month in the Country and King Lear. Jeff has also performed in five seasons with the Shaw Festival, and has worked with Tarragon Theatre, Acting Up Stage Company and Chicago Shakespeare Theatre. Jeff reprises his role as George in Our Town.

I’m half way through rehearsing Thornton Wilder’s Our Town. This will be my third time taking part in this production and I’ve been asked to talk about what it’s like to revisit a play in this way.

Act I ends with George and Rebecca Gibbs standing atop a ladder representing George’s bedroom window. The two stare at the moon, which on this night has transfixed the whole town in a way that one might guess isn’t particularly different from any other evening in Grover’s Corners when the moon is clear and full. Rebecca, 11, tells George, 16, of a letter a girl in town received from her minister when she was sick. “The address on the envelope was like this: It said: Jane Crofut; The Crofut Farm, Grover’s Corner’s; Sutton County; New Hampshire; United States of America-”… At which point George interrupts and says, “What’s funny about that?” (Quite exasperatedly and carelessly in my hands, perhaps this comes from memories of growing up with my own younger brother.) Rebecca continues, “But listen, it’s not finished: the United States of America; Continent of North America; Western Hemisphere; the Earth; the Solar System; the Universe; the Mind of God – that’s what it said on the envelope.” George responds in wonder, “What do you know!” to which Rebecca adds, “And the postman brought it just the same.” Again George says in wonder, “What do you know!” We’re left to ponder this notion at the end of the first of three acts.

This passage is very present in my thoughts and to me encapsulates my hopes and ambitions in approaching the work as we re-embark upon this journey. The minister’s letter conveys the enormity of all existence in such a profound and awe-inspiring way. I think it’s possible for every moment of this play to carry that level of dimension. The play depicts entirely ordinary moments in life but, taken on another level, is a ceaseless series of simple miracles. In the final act when Emily returns to relive her childhood in Grover’s Corner’s she will learn that the overwhelming beauty of these miracles is unbearably painful to witness. Thankfully, I find it not at all painful to revisit a production as powerful and beautiful as Our Town under the direction of Joe Ziegler, but an incredible gift. The great joy for me in returning to this piece is that rather than looking at any moment as though it were an address ending in “The United States of America,” I have the continued joy of investigating every moment as though it were an address ending in “The Solar System, The Universe, The Mind of God.” May we all be so blessed to have the opportunity to go deeper than the surface and strive for something as far reaching as the address on Jane Crofut’s letter. Excavating the possibilities in an incredible piece such as this is a never-ending task and one of which I can hardly imagine tiring. As I see it, that is the great joy of a life in theatre.