On Friday, 21 May 2021, at 1pm EDT, Stephen Johnson talked with Sasha Kovacs about her first experiences with Performance--her 'First Gatherings.' That conversation is included below, in full. You can find out more about her life, scholarship and performance practice here.
Sasha was born and raised in downtown Toronto, and all of her early experiences of the theatre were in the 'doing.' Her Kindergarten class created a production of Phantom of the Opera--a statement that should raise interest! From there she found her way into dance classes for children at Opera Atelier, then a small drama school on Yonge Street, all the while becoming involved in theatre in school, at Deer Park Senior Public school and North Toronto High School. Sasha was raised in a home where involvement in sports was very important, and she was a competitive swimmer and golfer, all while she was involved in theatre--that other kind of performance. I find several things striking about this narrative: the serendipity of involvement in theatre, a kindergarten class leading to dance class leading to acting class leading to school theatre; the number of brushes with theatrical culture through classmates who were involved in professional performance; and the singular importance of teachers--Sasha could name every one of her influences, from the beginning. There was no particular path clearly visible for involvement in theatre--it partly appears by chance, and perhaps the path is partly cleared by our strong attraction to the form. As for Sasha's attendance at the theatre, as an audience member, in her case this came later, and she is not entirely clear how it came about. Her earliest recollections of class trips are vague, unclear as to what show she saw, her memories more about the trip and the town (Stratford, Niagara-on-the-Lake) than the performance. But at some point in her teenage years, she became a very active audience member, somehow--from recommendations by friends and teachers, from pouring over the pages of thee free newspapers Eye and Now as a personal ritual. And as I have found in other conversations, it was one form of public event that could be acceptably engaged in alone, purchasing the tickets, making the trip through town, and sitting in a crowded space in the dark--at Tarragon Theatre, Factory Theatre, Theatre Smith-Gilmour (a life-changing experience of their Chekhov Shorts), the early Soulpepper, and the Fringe Festivals, all of these affordable, welcoming.
When the time came to attend a university, theatre won out, and she attended Queen's University.
A full transcript will be posted later.
A Conversation with Sasha Kovacs
TRANSCRIPT
GATHERINGS: ARCHIVAL AND ORAL HISTORIES OF PERFORMANCE
First Gatherings Project; Interview with Sasha Kovacs by Stephen Johnson
On 21 May 2021. See website recording and introduction
Full consent given by both parties for posting.
***
[00:00:06.110] - Sasha
Hello.
[00:00:07.190] - Stephen
Hello, Sasha.
[00:00:08.150] - Sasha
Thank you very much for agreeing to do this interview. I wonder if we could just begin with you giving just a little bit of intro about yourself, describing yourself, your training, your theatre going, early theatre going, where you grew up in particular, just in a few words, really.
[00:00:27.770] - Stephen
Okay. My name is Sasha. I grew up in Toronto, born and raised, different areas of Toronto, but grew up in an apartment at Yonge and Bloor. And my early theatre training--maybe we'll get to this in more detail. My early theatre training probably started when I was about twelve or 13. I went to this little theatre school called the Drama Workshop. It wasn't YPT, but it was on Yonge Street near Summerhill. And then from there, I just did a lot of theatre in school and got very interested in acting.
[00:01:18.110] - Sasha
When I was in high school, I did some television and this truly fueled my love for acting and then I decided to do a theatre degree at Queens University, which wasn't a conservatory. It was a University degree. And then from there, I got really interested in devised theatre at the end of my work at Queen’s and then worked as a professional actor in Toronto, generally got a lot of work in film and television so that I could pay to do all the weird devised performance work that really interested me in the theatre.
[00:01:55.670] - Sasha
And then now I'm a professor at the University of Victoria across the country where I teach theatre and theatre history because Steven Johnson made me a theatre historian. That's you.
[00:02:09.650] - Stephen
Right. Well, I'm not sure I'm solely culpable.
[00:02:16.130] - Sasha
It was an exercise and conversion to become an academic.
[00:02:20.510] - Stephen
That's exactly what I wanted to hear. Not the last part, necessarily. But I wanted to hear that kind of introduction, because whatever you talk about now, it can be placed into that kind of context.
[00:02:36.110] - Stephen
I really appreciate you doing this. I sent you a list of questions or some things to think about. As you were thinking about your early experience, your first gatherings, singular or plural, is really up to you. And I'm sure you have thought about that. And maybe I'll allow you to just begin to talk about that first experience in the theatre. If there was one that was particularly resonant and then start from there.
[00:03:07.010] - Sasha
Yeah. First experiences in a theatre. It's an interesting question because it made me think when you asked the question, what theatre? What is the first experience in a theatre? Both my parents had no relationship to theatre.
[00:03:24.770] - Stephen
Zero.
[00:03:26.270] - Sasha
My dad was an electrician. My mom was like a construction worker. She was the first female construction worker in Ontario. Actually.
[00:03:36.110] - Stephen
Fantastic.
[00:03:37.010] - Sasha
Yeah. So no background relationship to interest in theatre. And then I guess when I was in kindergarten. So my relationship to theatre, I got started in school, and I don't know if this is the kind of answer you want to this question because maybe you're looking for a show.
[00:04:01.470] - Stephen
No, I'm not looking for a show.
[00:04:04.650] - Sasha
Okay.
[00:04:05.970] - Stephen
If that's the experience for some people, it is one particular theatrical production, but not for everyone.
[00:04:12.510] - Sasha
Yeah. For me, it wasn't like theatre-going necessarily that got me hooked. It was actually theatre making from a really young age, and it was in school. So when I was in kindergarten, we did a production of Phantom with Mrs. Bradley, who was my kindergarten teacher, and Mrs. Cook, who we affectionately called Cookie. And probably the reason I remember these people is because of working on this show. And, yeah, they had us do this production. By production I mean, what does that even mean? It was on a little wooden raised stage in the back of the classroom that they had constructed with random costume pieces that were brought in.
[00:05:01.810] - Sasha
And I guess it was the time at which Phantom was, like the show to go to in Toronto.
[00:05:08.470] - Stephen
So what year? Approximately.
[00:05:10.570] - Sasha
I was born in 85. So this would have been I was probably five years old. So it would have been 1990. I was four or five years old.
[00:05:20.470] - Sasha
And so we did this really weird production of Phantom of the Opera with a bunch of four and five year olds, which all I remember about it was wanting to be Christine. And I don't think I was cast as Christine, which is pretty well. My theatre history is not being cast as the things I want to be cast as. So that was a good introduction to theatre. So yeah, Mrs. Bradley, Phantom with four and five year olds. And like, I remember the mask.
[00:05:54.010] - Stephen
So there was a mask. There was enough of a production design that there was a mask. And did the mask look like the mask? Do you remember it?
[00:06:05.770] - Sasha
[ comment: ] Yes. And I remember there was a mother. So I think her name was Anne [Restay] [Note: the spelling of this name has not been confirmed], and she had been working with Opera Atelier. Opera Atelier was just starting, I think. They had a kids class that they ran at a Church on Bloor Street. Just passed Bloor. And I guess it would have been Bloor. You know that Church by Rosedale Heights?
[00:06:39.070] - Stephen
Yes.
[00:06:39.550] - Sasha
The Church just before Rosedale Heights on Bloor Street? Yes. So they did a class there. And Anne [Restay], I did all the costumes for Opera Atelier, and her kids were in our primary school. I think if I remember correctly, she worked on some of those costumes for that show as a mom, not as a professional costume designer. That was really fun.
[00:07:04.810] - Stephen
It was. So, just to get this straight. You were all singing the roles?
[00:07:12.730] - Sasha
Yeah. I think we didn't do the through composed musical. I think we likely spoke certain lines, but I remember we did engage in, like, song. We had songs if I'm remembering this correctly, but it was a seriously truncated version. I'm sure we got through one scene, and then someone had to go pee and we all took a ten minute break. I'm pretty sure that's how it all panned out.
[00:07:45.310] - Stephen
And was this done in front of the parents?
[00:07:47.350] - Sasha
Yes, it was done in front of all the parents. And it wasn't done in the auditorium. It wasn't done in the school auditorium. It was in the classroom. In the classroom, at the back of the classroom. You would enter through the back door and we had a backstage. They had, like, constructed the backstage that we'd enter and exit from. I remember being very excited by the idea of being backstage and changing a costume backstage. That was something I hadn't done before, I think as a kid.
[00:08:20.230] - Sasha
So all of that was very cool. So that's probably my earliest memory. Is as a four year old.
[00:08:30.190] - Stephen
That's a pretty amazing thing to do in kindergarten. I have to say.
[00:08:35.170] - Sasha
It was pretty cool.
[00:08:36.730] - Stephen
Yeah. And probably you did it in part because of the people who were students in that class and the parents who were the parents for that class. That's very interesting.
[00:08:51.910] - Sasha
Yeah. And it must have had something to do with that whole Phantom-mania. Everyone was seeing Phantom. I remember that being a big deal. I remember seeing Phantom, but I don't remember when. I remember the chandelier.
[00:09:04.210] - Stephen
But it wasn't then.
[00:09:06.010] - Sasha
No, it was later. Must have been later.
[00:09:09.130] - Stephen
Yeah. So did you have a sense, do you remember whether you were even aware of Phantom?
[00:09:17.710] - Sasha
No. I don't think I was even aware.
[00:09:21.790] - Stephen
And I know I'm reading into this, but did you have a real sense of the plot of this thing?
[00:09:29.110] - Sasha
No. Nothing. I had a sense of some music. I had a sense of the costumes. That was what I probably cared about most.
[00:09:40.810] - Stephen
Okay. So you were in a costume.
[00:09:44.470] - Sasha
We were in costumes. Big dresses.
[00:09:48.250] - Sasha
Yellow. I think I remember yellow dress. Great yellow dress, puffy things.
[00:09:56.350] - Stephen
Yeah.
[00:09:57.550] - Sasha
All the stuff. I guess little girls like to some little girls like to be in, especially when you grow up with a tomboy mother who doesn't let you wear dresses. It's really fun when you get to go wear a big dress.
[00:10:10.390] - Stephen
And there were boys in the class.
[00:10:12.430] - Sasha
There were boys in the class, boys in the production. We all did it. I think if I remember correctly, we just switched roles. I don't think anyone really knew that it was, but it was like role switching and doubling. All that kind of stuff was happening. And I remember it being very short and like, I had to go on and say, my one line. And then I'm sure there was another person who came on and did another line. So it was probably likely certainly horrible. But as I was reflecting on that, I was like, yeah, what's the first moment?
[00:10:51.430] - Sasha
And I guess that is of theatre. And then because of that, I ended up doing ballet classes with Opera Atelier. They did a ballet class in that church on Bloor Street because of the connection to that mom.
[00:11:10.870] - Stephen
Okay.
[00:11:11.530] - Sasha
Who was the designer for Atelier, what was her name? Who was the principal dancer? I forgot them. They're a couple.
[00:11:23.990] - Stephen
Well, that can be filled in.
[00:11:26.090] - Sasha
She had a long neck. That's what I remember. She had a really long neck, and we did shows. I mean, we did recitals, I guess. [Note: The instructors name was Jeannette Lajeunesse Zingg, co-founder of Opera Atelier.]
[00:11:36.470] - Stephen
So you took a ballet. So based not based on your performance.
[00:11:41.390] - Sasha
Connection to that experience
[00:11:45.650] - Stephen
You started taking ballet classes, not because your parents moved you to do that, or, it was that you decided you wanted to do it because you had been exposed to it at this production. So that production has a lot.
[00:11:59.270] - Sasha
Yes.
[00:11:59.870] - Stephen
It had a big influence. So you took ballet classes and you had and how long did you take ballet classes with Opera Atelier?
[00:12:07.370] - Sasha
I probably took them for two or three years. And then I had a really bad knee since I was a kid. I had a weird knee. So dance wasn't for me. I started to do theatre. I'm trying to think of when my mom, we were walking down Bloor Street or down Yonge Street one day, up Yonge Street towards St. Clair, and we stumbled upon this place called the Drama Workshop, which was above what was then a Fabricland. It was a Fabricland just past that bridge that Summerhill Bridge with the old LCBO.
[00:12:51.950] - Sasha
And upstairs there was a little drama school that had three rooms. I remember it so clear. You went up the staircase, you turned left, there's a little waiting room. And then there were three rooms that we would just do acting classes in. And that was probably like grade, maybe grade six or seven. I started doing that.
[00:13:21.870] - Stephen
And how often did you go to the school?
[00:13:25.290] - Sasha
Once a week? Once or twice a week? I may have started once a week and then at night. And then I may have done more than that into - it must have been grade seven, eight, because I think it was actually, because I had a friend who
[00:13:43.950] - Sasha
Yeah, It's so funny how you date these things. I had a friend in that class who actually died of meningitis. And I think it was in grade seven. So it must have been grade 5 6 7 8, probably, before high school. And those classes, they made me fall in love with theatre. There was a woman, Mary Francis Moore, who's now, I think, the artistic director of theatre Aquarius, or one of those theatres. She was teaching there when she was really young. She was probably in her 20s or something. She was teaching there with Annabelle.
[00:14:25.230] - Sasha
I think her name is Annabelle Fitsimmons and Alison something. They did a musical called BitterGirl. So they were doing fringe shows. And I think were just trying to hustle up some ways to make money while they were doing their shows. So they were teaching kids classes.
[00:14:47.410] - Stephen
And what were those classes like?
[00:14:53.270] - Sasha
They would start probably at, like, seven or 06:00. They would go to, like, nine to maybe 2 hours, maybe three hour classes. I know, because I would go with my mom after to some restaurant and get cake. And, yeah, they were, like, improv. We did a lot of improv. We did games, lots of theatre games. We would create lots of image theatre. At the end. We'd usually do some sort of public presentation- sometimes it would be monologue. Sometimes it would be just short pieces. They did a musical theatre class.
[00:15:41.290] - Sasha
And so we did You're a good man, Charlie Brown. But like, by "we did" - it was in a room. There was no production. There were no lights. We did. Oh, gosh. What's the show with the big plant that talks and the dentist?
[00:16:15.210] - Sasha
[singing: I'll be your dentist, fitting braces] That one.
[00:16:16.950] - Stephen
It's all going to come back to us in the middle of this interview.
[00:16:21.630] - Sasha
Yes, it'll come
[00:16:22.590] - Stephen
recorded interview.
[00:16:24.690] - Sasha
Yeah.
[00:16:26.310] - Stephen
I have the movie downstairs. Jack Nicholson played the dentist.
[00:16:30.030] - Sasha
That's it.
[00:16:30.630] - Stephen
Right.
[00:16:33.090] - Sasha
I keep wanting to say Rocky Horror Picture Show.
[00:16:35.970] - Stephen
Except it isn't that at all.
[00:16:37.410] - Sasha
It's not that at all. Anyway. So that place really, yeah. That place, the drama workshop. I don't know how long it lasted. It closed at some point.
[00:16:51.270] - Stephen
So there were kind of recitals for the parents at the end of a term.
[00:16:59.830] - Sasha
Yeah.
[00:16:59.830] - Stephen
And did that recital include scenes of anything?
[00:17:04.270] - Sasha
Scenes? There were sometimes scenes. I'm trying to think of what scenes we performed.
[00:17:10.210] - Stephen
Little Shop of Horrors, by the way.
[00:17:11.350] - Sasha
By the way, little Shop of Horrors. That's it.
[00:17:15.490] - Stephen
Let's not sing the title song.
[00:17:18.370] - Sasha
Yeah.
[00:17:20.050] - Stephen
For now. So you did scenes from plays, from musicals.
[00:17:31.330] - Sasha
Musicals, there was a musical theatre class. So we did just scenes for musicals for that class. And then for the other class, I think it was usually like if I'm remembering things, it was often devised by the group through games. And Annabelle taught that class. And Mary Francis Moore taught that class. It was mostly scenes that we generate.
[00:17:57.010] - Stephen
Right.
[00:17:57.730] - Sasha
So maybe that's where my interest in devised theatre actually started because we would be making a lot of stuff. Sure. In those classes. Yeah. And I mean, YPT like, I don't know why my parents didn't put me in YPT. So that's kind of weird when I think back, like, YPT was the kind of place if you were interested in theatre and living in Toronto as a kid, you went to YPT. So I don't know why they didn't do that. Probably because they were disinterested. And they were like, this place is down the street.
[00:18:32.830] - Sasha
So it's more convenient.
[00:18:35.650] - Stephen
Of course. If they're not well versed in theatre pedagogy - and who is? - then they're not going to know the difference between YPT and this particular school. And you just said that it was closer. So why wouldn't you be going to that one? They'd think that probably they had more of a handle on it because it was close by.
[00:19:04.810] - Sasha
Yeah. And I remember you had to pay to enroll in those classes. And I remember I think I had a scholarship or something or they helped my parents out a couple of times with funding that. So that was really helpful as well. Maybe it was less expensive. All those things are part of it, too, but it's really fun. And, I mean, there was no stage. There were a bunch of ... There was in this one back room. There were some halogen lights that were, like, shifted to shine upon this little platform stage that was made of just basically just theatre blocks, just a flat kind of.
[00:19:52.870] - Sasha
And the chairs would be brought out when parents came for these little showcases. But a lot of people who were involved in theatre in my high school had somehow gone to the drama workshop because I went to North Toronto at Yonge and Eglington. I had a friend, Susan Spratt, who became an actress. And Dan Levy. I don't know if he went to the drama workshop, but he lived right around there. He went to high school with me. We did all our school plays. Dan Levy, myself, this guy named Alistair Scott.
[00:20:33.250] - Sasha
We did all the school plays at North Toronto. And so that drama workshop really fueled my interest in theatre and got me involved in it in high school.
[00:20:46.450] - Stephen
That's very interesting. And whether or not these other people who were in high school took classes there, some of them did. So it was kind of a feeder school, but not from primary school or public school, because there was no real drama for you to take. And I'm assuming that in high school, you did lots of drama in high school.
[00:21:11.170] - Sasha
We had a drama class and a great teacher, I think her name was Cate Boutilier-she was the drama teacher in the first couple of years. And she always did really interesting ... She had the students doing, like, absurdism and sort of stuff that would blow your mind right when you were whatever, 13, 14 years old. And we did, like, No Exit with her and cool stuff. And then Susan Freeman took over as the drama teacher, when Mrs. Boutilier stopped working.
[00:21:54.130] - Sasha
But Susan Freeman then led that drama program after, and we did some plays. But it was mostly the students who did the productions.
[00:22:11.950] - Stephen
Really, including No Exit.
[00:22:15.370] - Sasha
Yeah. Including No Exit.
[00:22:18.010] - Stephen
Wow.
[00:22:19.510] - Sasha
Yeah. So bad. I remember it so clearly. And we did The Bad Seed. That terrible play, The Bad Seed. Oh, yeah. And that high school was interesting because in our English classes, we also did, there was always sort of a drama interest. So Courtney Walker, who was George F. Walker's daughter. She and I were in the same class together. So we did this play, which, if I can find, I think it was pretty good. We wrote this play together called, like, 39 Floors Up, and we did it in our English class on top of the desks.
[00:23:04.030] - Sasha
Courtney and I and we would hang out at her dad's apartment on Spadina writing this play. And I, of course, had no idea who George F. Walker was, right. So I'm like, there we're writing this play. He's like, maybe think about this guys, maybe think about this. And then only 15 years later, when I'm now teaching Canadian theatre and teaching his plays, I'm like, oh, yeah. Maybe we should have listened to him, his advice.
[00:23:37.290] - Stephen
Very quickly. I'm saying this not to read into everything you told me, but you've gone from no exposure, no family exposure to the theatre. It just wasn't a part of the culture to being completely immersed.
[00:23:57.090] - Sasha
Totally absorbed, obsessed.
[00:24:00.510] - Stephen
And not entirely based on one kindergarten production of Phantom. But from that, you go into a ballet class. From ballet class, you go into a drama class from drama class, you start doing high school theatre. And, of course, in high school, it didn't follow that you had to do theatre in high school.
[00:24:20.430] - Stephen
I'm sure there are lots of people who went to North Toronto High School who didn't do theatre. But you immersed yourself. And then got to know all the people there who are interested in theatre,. So you became increasingly involved in it. What about attendance at the theatre?
[00:24:37.270] - Sasha
Yeah. So I would go see all the shows at Tarragon. I remember that that was pretty formative. I don't know what it was about that company that felt accessible. I don't know if they did some sort of thing with the schools, but I remember going to see shows alone at Tarragon throughout high school.
[00:25:00.130] - Stephen
Okay.
[00:25:00.370] - Sasha
I would go see the whole season. And my friends were like, what are you doing tonight? And I'd be like, I'm going to go see this theatre show. And I remember Fringe became really important in high school as like an accessible thing that felt like I could go to. I don't know when Soulpepper started doing all those shows at the DuMaurier. But I remember being like, oh, I'm going to go down past the Gardener Expressway and see these shows by this new company. So I remember seeing their early stuff.
[00:25:39.530] - Sasha
What did I see? I think The Dumb Waiter. I don't remember when that production was when Soulpepper did it, but it was at the DuMaurier (Harbourfront). So all those shows became really important to me.
[00:25:55.130] - Stephen
that you don't know ... Why you first ...
[00:26:00.230] - Stephen
Was going to the Tarragon really the first time you went to the theatre?
[00:26:03.830] - Sasha
No.
[00:26:05.450] - Stephen
When you were much younger, did you go to anything?
[00:26:09.470] - Sasha
Where did I go to when I was younger?
[00:26:12.590] - Stephen
And the answer may be no, of course.
[00:26:18.390] - Sasha
When I was really young. I'm sure my parents took me to some theatre, although not really. I mean, they took me to sports events. So sporting events were things we went to. That was performance for sure in my family. I mean, that was their connection to theatre was thinking of it probably as performance.
[00:26:44.210] - Stephen
Absolutely. Yeah. So what kind of sporting events did you go to see?
[00:26:47.450] - Sasha
Baseball, soccer events, any sport. And I was also while I was doing all this theatre stuff, the rule in our family was you always had to be playing a sport. Literally. This was a rule. So I was a competitive swimmer the whole way through.
[00:27:07.910] - Stephen
Right.
[00:27:08.570] - Sasha
And then I was a competitive golfer because my mom became a golf professional. So I was doing theatre kind of, like, secretly on the side. Okay. And then my parents were like, you should get a golf scholarship to go to a school in the States. You can get a full ride. Because when you're a woman golfer, it was very easy to get a full ride scholarship at a University in the States. What University was the question? But then I got into Queens and said, I'm just going to go do drama at Queens.
[00:27:44.670] - Sasha
And they were like, what? Why would you do this to yourself? And that's kind of how that happened. So, yeah, I'm trying to think though, what shows did I see? Like, I remember seeing Joseph. You know, class trips. We all went to go see Joseph. I remember the actors coming out into the audience and doing their calisthenics in the aisles.
[00:28:09.870] - Stephen
So the theatre that you went to, I'm glad you brought up the sporting events and performance because you went to performance events. You went to sports. You were involved in a kind of performance, all kinds of performance, actually, sporting events. In addition to which you did some dance. You did some theatre, you did all this other kind of training. But you didn't attend that particular kind of performance event regularly until you started attending something. Until you went to Tarragon? I'm saying that with a question mark.
[00:28:50.790] - Sasha
Pretty well.
[00:28:51.270] - Sasha
Like, I'd say the first things that I went to that I said, I want to go see this. We're probably that. And I would see stuff at Factory, maybe a bit earlier, probably in high school, like, grade nine. I was going to Tarragon. I was going to Factory. I was going to Fringe. That was stuff that I found. I would find it. I mean, my parents, wouldn't, they'd drop me off and be like, see you later. And that was that. And then when you're in high school, you can go yourself.
[00:29:24.430] - Sasha
And before that, I guess it was school trips. That was my experience of theatre. So it was going to go see Joseph with the class, going to school theatre trips. Theatre that was brought into the school. But it was really high school where I could go see the stuff I wanted to see that I thought was cool.
[00:29:47.170] - Stephen
And I'm interested in the fact that you say you often went on your own or you basically went on your own.
[00:29:57.430] - Stephen
Because.
[00:29:58.750] - Stephen
Honestly, that's come up in other discussions I've had. This idea of going on your own and you just started going. And you don't remember any particular impetus that caused you to do that a particular play you wanted to see.
[00:30:19.150] - Sasha
I remember seeing Theatre Smith Gilmore stuff, probably in grade nine or ten, like, really pretty early. And I remember, I don't know what brought me to Factory.
[00:30:33.490] - Stephen
Probably.
[00:30:33.970] - Sasha
My parents were like, oh, yeah. Check out this playbill because they'd find something. I mean, they were supportive. So if they'd come across something, they'd be like, oh, here. Or I used to also read. I remember when I was in early high school, I'd read those Eye magazines. Eye and Now. So I would bring those to the school cafeteria. And I would just read Eye and I would read Now magazine, and they would say, oh, there'd be a review of some show. And so I figured out a way to go see it.
[00:31:05.110] - Sasha
Right. Those were really important. I remember that. So maybe that's how I figured out what to go to.
[00:31:10.330] - Stephen
Yeah, that's very interesting.
[00:31:12.190] - Sasha
But I saw Theatre Smith Gilmore's Chekhov Shorts. I remember that show. That show was really important to me. I never knew theatre like that existed. I never knew a whole bunch of people could be in a room together. And I remember Dean Gilmour and Michelle Smith turning a table. They had this tablecloth that they made into a table. And then with the physical theatre, Lecoq thing, it would be a flower. And then it would be this. And then it would be that all that, like, Capital R, romantic, transformational, Lecoq theatre.
[00:31:50.110] - Sasha
And I was like, I couldn't believe it. That stuff floored me.
[00:31:55.990] - Stephen
That's great.
[00:31:56.890] - Sasha
Now it's so silly.
[00:31:59.770] - Stephen
Why do you say that?
[00:32:01.690] - Sasha
Oh, well, it speaks to a certain time and place.
[00:32:05.950] - Stephen
Yes, it certainly does. But it's a very powerful form of theatre, as you've just illustrated. The fact that you didn't know it. You didn't know about it.
[00:32:18.910] - Sasha
I didn't know how to be a spectator. I didn't know anything about it. But that company was really interesting.
[00:32:28.090] - Stephen
And did you see this company? And did they come into the school?
[00:32:32.050] - Sasha
No. They were in the back space. I remember it. It was in the Factory Theatre Backspace.
[00:32:44.270] - Stephen
That's very interesting.
[00:32:45.350] - Sasha
Maybe, like, I don't know why I saw that. Maybe in high school. My teachers probably told me what to go see, but it wasn't a school trip. I think we did a school trip when I was in grade eight. We all went to Stratford, but I don't remember what we saw going to Stratford. All I remember about school trips to Stratford and Shaw were like buying candy on the street. To be honest, that's actually what I remember about those trips. I don't remember the shows very well.
[00:33:17.490] - Sasha
Well, I remember the experience of being a tourist in a small town and going to the bookstore.
[00:33:25.110] - Stephen
Do you remember anything about the theatre at Stratford or Shaw? I say that because it's a fairly universal Ontario, Southern Ontario experience.
[00:33:36.390] - Sasha
Yes.
[00:33:36.690] - Stephen
The festival theatre, climbing on the bus and going and being [inaudible] .
[00:33:42.510] - Sasha
The horns.
[00:33:42.930] - Stephen
The horns.
[00:33:43.410] - Sasha
The horns. That was a big deal. What? That means the show is starting. Yeah. Well, actually, interestingly at that school. So when I was in grade eight, all these weird connections, right. Six degrees of separation. There was a friend of mine. Her name was Alison, and she was very involved. She was a child actor. Alison Pill. She's an LA actor now.
[00:34:20.690] - Stephen
Yes I know.
[00:34:22.430] - Sasha
So we were in the same class together in grade seven and eight. She was in the school play. She played Sandy. We did Grease. And so she and I were, like, interested in taking everyone to theatre stuff. And our moms took, organized this trip to Stratford on a school bus. I think my mom was just like, I should probably do something to be supportive of my child. Yeah, but so we were friends. We haven't been in touch since then since she went on to just focus on acting work.
[00:35:00.230] - Stephen
But I'm intrigued by this school trip because it was grade eight.
[00:35:05.750] - Sasha
Yeah. It was grade eight that's early. Yeah.
[00:35:08.930] - Stephen
People in grade eight in my experience, didn't go on a school trip to Stratford.
[00:35:14.090] - Sasha
Yeah. That was middle school. That was Deer Park. That's why I remember that. Because it was like, just grade seven and eight. Like, you went grade one to six in Ontario, and then you're in Toronto. Then you had seven and eight, this middle school and then nine. So. Yeah, that was weird. We did go to Stratford and grade eight because my teacher was this. She was really supportive of the idea.
[00:35:35.210] - Stephen
I remember that my home very interesting because it's young.
[00:35:39.650] - Sasha
Yeah. I forget what we saw. I could find out, like, maybe it was West Side Story. For some reason, I'm thinking it was West Side Story because I was obsessed with West Side Story. So maybe that's where the obsession and during the pandemic, actually, my obsession for West Side Story has reignited. Well, I just been listening to that book, like, again and again and again on repeat. I don't know why, but yeah, maybe it was West Side Story that we saw. Maybe we were reading Romeo and Juliet or something.
[00:36:20.990] - Sasha
Sure.
[00:36:24.450] - Stephen
But you're fairly certain it wasn't Shakespeare you went to see.
[00:36:28.590] - Sasha
I'm fairly certain it was likely a musical.
[00:36:32.070] - Stephen
Yeah.
[00:36:37.690] - Sasha
But it was a lot of friends. It was a lot of friends who had a parent that was in some way very connected to the theatre that I always sort of turned to, I guess. In primary school, it was Anne [Rustay], who was the designer for Opera Atelier. And then in middle school, it was Alison, who was working as a professional actor who was kind of like, oh, Sasha, this is what it's all about. And then in high school, it was Courtney Walker, her dad, this playwright, who is like, Sasha, this is what it's all about.
[00:37:15.350] - Sasha
This is how you find out information about this. It was always kind of this network of people. I feel like that were really important.
[00:37:23.630] - Stephen
Yeah.
[00:37:24.410] - Sasha
To telling me what the theatre was about.
[00:37:27.710] - Stephen
And I'm struck by if this is the right word, the serendipity of it all. If you turned a corner and met somebody else, that wouldn't have happened.
[00:37:39.630] - Sasha
Yeah.
[00:37:41.550] - Stephen
Unless we want to say that you were drawn to the theatre in some .. for more visceral experience, that you wanted to be exposed to performance of all kinds. And then you found the people. I mean, you could say you could argue that - I'm not arguing that - because who knows?
[00:38:10.750] - Sasha
Who knows, I don't know.
[00:38:11.470] - Stephen
But you certainly- I will say, though, the fact that you went to the theatre, I'm guessing quite often in high school in your teenage years on your own and just did it. So it wasn't a social event. You weren't influenced by other people. In that respect, you just decided you wanted to see as much of this stuff as you possibly could.
[00:38:37.150] - Sasha
You can kind of do that right with theatre in ways that you can't do it with other extracurricular things in high school, you can just go. You could just go to the Tarragon. You get tickets for, like, $5, because they always had a student ticket rate. You could just go and you just sit there and see stuff, and then you could go home. You didn't have to do drugs or do crazy stuff. It was just, like, pretty safe. I think my parents were like, okay, this is okay.
[00:39:13.390] - Sasha
If this is what she decides to do on a Saturday night. Great. Hang out with a bunch of other 70 year old people who are watching stuff at the Tarragon. Awesome.
[00:39:26.750] - Stephen
But what I find interesting about what you just said, but that whole line of inquiry is that theatre was different, even though I think I would argue that theatre is a very social experience. You could go alone. And how many other kinds of public events were there where you could go alone? Well, sporting events, you could go alone. But did you?
[00:40:01.310] - Sasha
No, no
[00:40:02.810] - Stephen
There are musical events. I mean, these are all performance events, so it all fits. But musical events, people can go alone. Certainly dance performances. You can go alone.
[00:40:15.290] - Stephen
So that kind of performance. But there's so many other things that you just wouldn't think of going to a public place full of other people who are all strangers. And I'm now officially leading the conversation.
[00:40:31.910] - Sasha
Well, no, it's true.
[00:40:32.690] - Stephen
Because that's what I draw from that.
[00:40:35.330] - Sasha
I remember going to Fringe in the summers, and, yeah, I would go see shows alone all the time, or I'd tell a friend that I was going, and maybe we'd meet up there, but it didn't have to be something where you needed a buddy. You could just go. There was something so great about that. Because when you're a teenager, everything is about having to have other people doing things with you. It's really nice to have moments where that wasn't a requirement. You didn't need a buddy.
[00:41:14.970] - Stephen
We've now talked for almost 50 minutes.
[00:41:19.530] - Sasha
Oh, goodness.
[00:41:20.670] - Stephen
And we could keep going. We can. But perhaps that's not a bad place to end it. We've covered a lot of ground, and I really appreciate it. Unless there's something else that's come to mind that you really wanted to say about your early experiences in the theatre.
[00:41:39.990] - Sasha
I'm trying to think. No.
[00:41:46.190] - Stephen
We can always do it again. Sasha, there's nothing to stop us.
[00:41:51.290] - Sasha
I hope it's valuable for you. I don't know.
[00:41:53.630] - Stephen
It's very valuable. Thank you very much.
