Jordan Allison is a showbiz veteran at the tender age of 20. A triple-threat actor, director, and producer, he’s putting all his show-business lessons to the test by producing and directing a reworked version of Cabaret, which hits the Toronto stage (at the New Yorker Theatre, just down the street from campus) for the first time next week.
The classic musical sets issues of community and contribution against a backdrop of glitz and grit in pre-WWII Germany. Allison’s motivation for mounting the production here includes some similar concerns, particularly the Toronto theatre community’s inability to provide experiences for new performers.
“Toronto does not have enough work to accommodate the amount of performers here,” declares Allison over coffee last week. “Why are all these theatres empty? There is an audience out there-it’s a matter of going to get it.”
He was spurred by a desire to give “all of these people opportunities… We have actors and people on the production team [for whom] this is a first show,” working alongside very experienced people with major production credits.
Allison, who spent last year as a University of Toronto drama major before dropping out to pursue showbiz full-time, feels that this intermingling is essential to artists’ development. “There’s no formal book or school or way to learn,” he says. “The knowledge you ultimately need is gained by watching others do it, to see ‘this is what works, this is how you do it.'”
Asked about his experience at U of T, Allison is forthright: “I hated it!” he grins. Instead of waiting for a prof’s instruction, students should “just go for it,” he suggests. “Don’t wait a couple of years before you go build up the courage to get an agent or take an acting class; and if the work’s not there, go and find it!” Aspiring performers could look to community theatres or film student projects to find venues for new-read cheap-talent, he recommends.
Or, like Allison, you could take a big leap and create your own opportunities. Producing a show that looks and feels like a multi-million-dollar endeavour on a less-than-multi-million-dollar budget involves “a lot of nagging and bugging and getting people who are working on it to tap into their resources. And getting those people to tap into their resources,” he explains. So the project quickly became a collaborative effort, with many people getting behind Allison’s vision despite his youth and inexperience. “Yeah, a lot of people are sceptical” because of his age, he admits. “But the response and the feedback is even greater when it does happen, coming from [that] uneasiness.” Plus, producing always involves a lot of uncertainty, “a lot of playing it by ear.” It’s difficult to know whether promotional efforts are getting a good response, he says, so “you just keep putting more out there.”
Tapping into other people’s expertise has been key. Directing is “frustrating!” Allison notes. Everybody has input, he explains, and the biggest challenge lies in explaining what he wants to achieve. “You need to be able to delegate,” he says. Being able to trust the more experienced members of the production team, particularly the choreographer and musical director, has been critical.
The fact that he already knows the process from his experience over the past 8 years as a performer on stage, film and animation has also helped. It’s added unique pressures, too. “It’s kind of surreal,” he explains. “It’s like taking all the respect that I’ve built up, and going public with this… I feel like I could sit up there and write [an] exam in front of 20,000 people.”
Even though he’s no longer in university, Allison often still pulls all-nighters, working as a director-producer in rehearsals till midnight and preparing for auditions for upcoming acting gigs in the morning. “It’s not so much about that specific audition,” he says, but rather “the work that you do… it really isn’t easy.”
“If you’re not working, you need to be into something-you need to be improving your craft so it can get to the point where you can be working all the time. Too many actors take too many breaks.” He adds, “I personally get to the point where I feel that I don’t push myself enough, because that possibility’s there.”
Despite his hectic schedule, Allison seems energized by the potential of directing commercial theatre. “I like to be a little bit of an activist in my work and [to] make comments on what’s happening in society and on the ideals and values that we come to expect,” he says.
Some of the material in Cabaret is “pretty raw and out there and pretty blunt,” Allison claims. As the action on stage moves between the glitzy Kit Kat nightclub and the ‘real’ 1930’s Berlin, he hopes audiences will make the same shift between the action ‘on stage’ and in their own lives. As Cabaret confronts sexuality, race, and the body at the Kit Kat, the contemporary audience should also question, for instance, why there is still some shock value to the staging of a queer kiss.
Wrapping big questions in the glamour of showbiz is what Cabaret is all about-mirroring that dynamic is Allison’s leap into the big leagues with this show. Will he succeed? If his tenacity and ambition are any indication, he’ll be soon singing along with one of Cabaret’s big numbers: “Tomorrow Belongs To Me”.
Cabaret opens Nov. 10 at the New Yorker Theatre (651 Yonge St.). For tickets, call Ticketmaster at (416)872-1111 or visit the theatre box office.
