The Soulpepper Theatre Company won’t be using rehearsal space at U of T’s Helen Gardiner Playhouse now that it has a new 46,000-square-foot home, but that doesn’t mean the company (which specializes in the classics) is forgetting about the university’s drama students.
“We are definitely going to be staying in touch with that department,” says Soulpepper’s director of education Claire Loughheed, noting that many U of T alumni have worked on the company’s shows since it was established eight years ago.
Part of the company’s mandate is to foster young talent-a good reason for entering into a partnership with George Brown College to create the $14-million Young Centre for the Performing Arts in the Distillery District (in the King St. E. and Parliament St. area), which opened to the public last week with a production of Thornton Wilder’s Our Town.
Since Soulpepper was founded in 1998 by 12 famed Canadian stage actors and directors, the company has garnered much acclaim for its 35 productions to date that have been seen by more than half a million local theatregoers.
Their impressive new space, designed by architect Thomas Payne, was erected inside the skeleton of an 1832 whiskey factory in the Distillery District. In the lobby of the modern, streamlined two-storey building, there’s a lot of natural light, wood, and exposed brick.
“Albert says every home starts with a hearth, so there’s ours,” Loughheed smiles, pointing at the fireplace by the front doors while giving a visitor a tour of Soulpepper’s new home. She’s referring to actor/director Albert Schultz, Soulpepper’s founding artistic director and the man credited with pushing the project.
Three days before the first show opens at the new location, Schultz is busy preparing for Our Town, but says: “A key piece of the vision when we first founded Soulpepper was the creation of a long-term, in-depth training opportunity for young professionals. Around here, to see the academy coming together is a dream come true.”
The Soulpepper Academy is a one-of-a kind chance for professionals with four or more years of theatre experience to spend two years training while getting paid $30,000 a year.
“We’re counting on learning as much from them as they will from us,” Schultz says.
Ten apprentices ranging in age from 26 to 35 have been selected. Their backgrounds are as varied as the places they come from, though all are Canadian.
Their training starts in June, and within 24 hours of arriving at the school they will be performing for the community.
“They are going to hit the ground running, and it’s not going to stop,” Loughheed says.
The multi-disciplinary program gives participants the chance to explore different areas of theatre.
That’s exactly what apprentice Lorenzo Savoini, a stage designer, is most looking forward to.
“I’m interested in doing something risky and uncomfortable, and hopefully I’ll come out as a more dynamic designer,” he says.
He says the idea of stepping outside his experience as a costume, lighting, and set designer and into other roles-perhaps as a director or producer-makes him nervous, but in a good way.
“I want to be someone who can come at a script from multiple perspectives,” Savoini says.
Joining the academy presents him with a personal challenge as well. It will be the first time he and his girlfriend, actor Sarah Wilson, will be working as peers. The two met while working at the Stratford Festival, but never had the chance to share the stage until now. He jokes that they’ll have to be extra nice to each other at work if they’re going to have dinner together at night.
Soulpepper has a tradition of married people within its group; for example, founding members Joseph Ziegler and Nancy Palk, both involved in Our Town, are a couple, as are Schultz and playwright Susan Coyne.
Savoini is also taking a bit of a pay cut to join the program, but after meeting some of the other applicants during the final selection weekend in December, he realized: “Who cares if I’m living in a closet and eating macaroni and cheese? This is the right thing to do.”
Fellow apprentice D’Bi Young, a playwright, actor, and dub poet best known for starring in local hit da kink in my hair, describes herself as a storyteller. She wants to learn more about voice, movement, and theory during her time with Soulpepper.
“I’m interested in stories of liberation. Whether it’s through Lady Macbeth or something Jamaican, so be it,” she says.
She considers Soulpepper’s selection of apprentices “political,” noting that the company should be congratulated for moving away from Eurocentric casting and opening its doors to more diverse performers and creators.
“I think they are doing their company a huge service by being progressive and actualizing the rhetoric by changing the face of theatre in Canada to reflect what Canada really is-a land of immigrants,” Young points out. “At my most hopeful, we will create work that is most challenging to our own ‘isms.'”
The first-time mother of a 20-month-old son, Young is glad to have the security of living in one place for the next two years. At its core, being part of the academy is about “growing up, opening up, while being rooted in myself,” she says.
National Theatre School alumnus Stephen Guy-McGrath will also be balancing parenting with work at the academy, as dad to a 5-week-old daughter.
After 11 years in showbiz working at places such as the Great Canadian Theatre Company in Ottawa as well as many other regional playhouses across the country, he’s also looking forward to the chance to take stock of his craft.
“I felt I’d been out of formal training for too long. Professional training is just what I needed,” Guy-McGrath says. “It’s an opportunity unlike anything I’ve ever seen before. It’s a master’s program in a conservatory environment.”
Back at the former Gooderham and Worts site at the Distillery, Loughheed is talking about the usefulness of the sprung floors in dance classrooms that can easily be converted into performance spaces. Each of the eight performance halls has broadcast capabilities, and even the front foyer and the courtyard can be used for shows.
The careful planning that went into the Young Centre for the Performing Arts translates through to Soulpepper’s vision for the future, a big part of which involves the young apprentices at the academy, Loughheed says.
“We want to give these artists an opportunity to discover what they have, because they’ve already found out what they need,” Loughheed says.
“We want them to have a network in place so that they’ll just keep working. If we just do that, we’ll have been successful.”
Our Town opens Thursday at the Young Centre for the Performing Arts. For more on Soulpepper, visit soulpepper.ca.
