Grace Gordon

Grace fell in love with the theatre at a tender age playing Goldilocks in nursery school. In high school she toured Macbeth and The Two Gentlemen of Verona with Montreal Shakespeare Theatre Company. Grace spent her summers exploring and cultivating her passion for classical theatre with the Stratford Festival’s Shakespeare School and Theatre Performance Intensive under the direction of Edward Darayni. In summer of 2011, she appeared in Ottawa parks and the National Arts Centre’s 4th stage playing Desdemona in Salamander Shakespeare Co.’s Othello.

Graduating in 2012 from Dawson College’s Dome Theatre Program, Grace’s hunger for challenging material was always satisfied during her time there, where she played an interesting range of leading and supporting roles – including Portia in The Merchant of Venice, Masha in Three Sisters and Alma in Tennessee William’s Summer and Smoke. She was honored to be chosen as the recipient of the Beryl and Willie Moser Award for Theatre in recognition of ‘outstanding acting ability.’ In her second year, she wrote the play The Art of Arousal, based on the life of modernist artist, Henri Matisse. The play premiered at the Mainline Theatre and The Factory Line’s 1st Gala for Student Drama – Grace was awarded ‘Best Actor’ for her role as Olga Meerson, and her dedicated team took home the grand prize of ‘Best Production.’

Constantly striving to further expand her talent, Grace is excited to explore every artistic possibility from stage to screen and looks forward to a long and fruitful career in the performing arts.

Check out Grace in theatre penumbra’s production of David Mamet’s Oleana, at the Red Sandcastle in Toronto, November 21 – December 3.

Twitter: @gracegordon1564
Instagram: gracegordon1

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Oleana Tickets: https://mametoleanna.bpt.me/

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Transcript

Welcome to episode 102 of Stageworthy, I’m your host Phil Rickaby. Stageworthy features conversations with Canadian theatre makers including actors, directors, playwrights and more. My guest this week is Toronto-based actor and producer Grace Gordon.

Grace will be seen in Theatre Penumbra’s production of David Mamet’s Oleana at Toronto’s Red Sandcastle Theatre starting November 21st and running to December 3rd. If you enjoy the podcast I hope you’ll subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Google Music or wherever you get your podcasts. If you want to drop me a line you can find Stageworthy on Facebook and Twitter at stagereallypod and you can find the website at stagereallypodcast.com. We rehearsed Monday and Tuesday and then we’re off today and tomorrow and then we start back on Friday and that’s going to be a bit of a longer day so we’re rehearsing a little bit piecemeal right now and then once November hits we’re in it.

We’re in it as much as we can be because we’re dealing with so many different artist schedules. Oh of course. Like I mean Allegra Fulton is constantly working.

If I could have half her career I would consider myself extremely lucky. After rehearsals she’s always zipping over to a recording studio to record a commercial or an audiobook or go into a reading for Studio 180 and I just wish I had half her amount of energy to be able to keep going because after rehearsals I can barely get to myself to the gym let alone have any brain cells left to do anything else artistic. And James McGowan who works constantly in film and television is always going out for auditions so we work around all the artist schedules involved.

Well you have to in an independent theatre right? Oh totally. So talking about all these people, are you intimidated working with these people? Oh highly, highly intimidated. I mean Allegra, I still get starstruck by her constantly in rehearsal.

We met officially about a year and a half ago, two years ago? I don’t know. But technically we met 10 years ago. She doesn’t remember.

I’ve expected her to whatsoever. When I was 15 and a couple years after that I did the Shakespeare School at Stratford and one of those days we had actors from the company come in to speak with us and one of the actors was Allegra Fulton and she was doing the Odyssey at the time with Peter Hinton and so we had the discussion of all the actors and I remember afterwards we took our break and she was outside just unlocking her bike to get wherever she was going and there was myself and two other students and she was just chatting about her show and how much she liked her show and how she hoped that we could all come see it and I just remember thinking like, how nice is this person? This person is so nice and talented. And then 10 years go by and I see her name come up in other plays and all those kind of things and then I get the opportunity to work with her when Humber River Shakespeare Company was doing their fundraisers which I don’t know if you know about the Humber River Shakespeare Company? So they have their fundraiser which is called Sonnet Show and what happens is different writers are given a sonnet and they have 14 days because of the 14 lines in the sonnet, they have 14 days to write a 14-minute play about the sonnet.

And so I was participating as an actor and Allegra was a director and I got paired with her and that’s kind of how our little story officially begins. When you tell her that story of meeting her when you were 15, does she remember even doing that? I’m not sure. I mean, I told her the story and she was very gracious when I told it but I don’t know exactly if she remembers that day specifically.

I think maybe there’s some kind of idea of, oh yeah, when I was there I did that thing with students. She probably remembers, she probably did a few of those. Yeah, absolutely, because there’s different groups that go in.

So, you know, I completely don’t expect her to remember me specifically from that day, like completely a nondescript 15-year-old awkward like Shakespeare camp student kind of thing. So I don’t, like it’s totally cool but yeah. So when you’re in, like when you’re working with people who are like, like you met when you were like 15, you were like, oh yeah, and you’re working with them, how do you keep from freaking out? Well, you know, I am always at all points freaking out on the inside, like completely.

I will never ever try to like promote that I’m a cool person on the inside whatsoever. But one of the things I really like to do is whenever I come across moments in my life where I get to meet and work with such phenomenal artists who, many of whom have been inspirations to me as I’ve been growing up, particularly if they were at the Stratford Festival from about 2007 to 2011 or 12 when I was going there as a Shakespeare school student and in my formative years of theatre school and those kinds of things. And I have a bit of like, my mind is a steel trap in that I can sort of see an actor and go, oh, they were in that, that season and then that, that the next season and that the next season.

As I get older, I have it a little bit less so. Um, it’s horrible, but, uh, um, and so whenever I work with these people, I just try to remember or try to make myself think like, I wish that I could go back and contact my immediately post theatre school self who was freaking out about what the real world was and where are the jobs going to come from and where will I be in the next however many years and go like, you know, you’re going to be working with Allegra Fulton when you’re 25, you’re going to be working with so-and-so at this point, you’re doing this at this point. And I just kind of wish that I could go back and tell that person like, don’t freak out because this is what’s going to happen.

And I try to remind myself like in these moments where I’m having similar moments now, like who knows what’ll happen when I’m 30, 35, 40. What’s kind of interesting about that is like, if you told young, fresh out of theatre school, grace that like, it’s going to be okay. Worked as hard because freaking out can be the impetus that like makes you work.

You know, I think maybe, and I do believe that freaking out could be the impetus that makes you work. And I sold myself on that idea for a long time of that. If I was unhappy and if I was negative or if I didn’t like myself and constantly working to improve and I would get better, but then you’re just working from a place of you’re just working from a place of scarcity and that doesn’t help anybody.

Is that something that you struggled with? Like, Oh yeah. And even now, but now I’m more aware of it. So was theatre something that helped you escape that when you were a kid? Like, did you have have those sorts of that sort of feeling when you were a kid or was that like something that theatre school blessed you with? I think that I won’t say that theatre is what caused it, but I do think that, you know, there’s a lot of insecurity in our industry.

Fair enough. There’s a lot of wonderful things in our industry too, to make up for that. So I think that it might be a little bit of a by-product of that.

I mean, certainly I’ll say that as a kid, theatre helped me through other things. I was an only child with a single parent, didn’t come from a white picket fence, fantasy sort of home life. So I just threw myself into it.

And in high school, certainly whatever play that we were working on, the drama department, the kids who were involved really were a family. And so whenever we, or whenever I close a show, I always feel a great mourning for the lack of family, the loss of family. Also, you know, whenever I’m on set, even if I’m only there for a few days, it’s amazing how close you can become to people if you’re working for three intense days, you’re working right next to somebody for 13, 14 hour days, even if they’re just holding a boom mic.

It’s crazy how close you can get to someone. Yeah. Where did you grow up? Montreal.

I moved to Toronto in 2013. I think I was in Montreal for a year after I graduated theatre school. So you were talking about how, when you were 15, you did the whole Stratford thing.

But before that, what was it that drew you to theatre? Was there somebody that took you to theatre? So I can start from several places, but I’ll start at the very beginning. When I was four, my grandmother had her own preschool. It was a privately owned preschool.

She essentially rented a room out of a civic center and held her preschool called Jack and Jill Play School. And one of the big parts of that preschool were, I guess, putting on little plays. And I mean, now that I look back on it, it was putting on short performances, but it was all Jack and the Beanstalk, Goldilocks and the Three Little Bears, of which the two years I was there, I played Goldilocks both years.

So my first experience of nepotism. It was great. My play school crush always played The Prince if I was the princess in Princess and the Pea.

So got some special treatment there, I won’t deny it. But was really unaware of what theatre was, but that’s where that seed was planted. And then when I was 10, there were some difficulties going on in my life.

So theatre became a positive thing to do on a Saturday afternoon. I worked with a children’s theatre called Pegasus Performing Arts for a number of years and went to high school and was involved in every play I could be a part of there and then went to theatre school. Before that, went to the Stratford Shakespeare School, which I really feel shaped me as an artist.

I really attribute it to really being the greatest influence on me in all that time and all of that sort of pre-actor stage. And I went to theatre school and now I’m here and the rest is history. At what point did you decide that this was your life’s work? In Stratford, I think.

Before that, so I went at 15. And before that, I was really interested and curious about acting and about making it as a profession. And I really liked Meryl Streep.

Where I was introduced to her work was when she played Aunt Josephine in a series of unfortunate events, which is not her Sophie’s Choice role, but it was still a huge fan of those books. And then saw like, oh, who is this? And then the big nerd I am did all the research I could find on her at the time. And I would look at Meryl Streep and I would watch films like American Pie and I would say like, well, I know that these actors in American Pie and they completely have their values and whatnot.

But I was like, I don’t really see myself in films like this. And I know that one actor out of a trillion can have a career that mimics Meryl Streep’s. And when I would watch the Oscars, I wouldn’t see myself on the red carpet.

And so I kind of felt like, well, I want to act, but I don’t see where I fit in. And I liked theatre and I was, as I said, very active in theatre. But for some reason in my brain when I was younger, particularly around 10, 11, I thought that theatre was what you did to train before you were good enough to go into film, which is like, I was embarrassed to admit that now, but I mean, being a young kid, I guess, you know, you don’t, you’re not really exposed to theatre as a profession.

And then when I was 15, I went to the Stratford Shakespeare School. The very first show I saw there was Philip Aiken’s Othello. And I remember just being floored, floored.

I had seen a few Shakespeare productions before that, but mostly student productions, McGill University, that sort of thing. And this was the first time I had seen it professionally done. First time I had ever been exposed to Othello.

This is just the story of Othello, which was a complete another level of being floored. And I just kind of had a clicking moment where I sort of thought this is it. Oh, this is, you can make money out of this and you can make a career out of this.

And the day before that show, it was a Monday. So the theatre was dark. And we were, after our classes that day, we were on a tour of the festival theatre and the tour ends in the actual theatre.

And so we were all filing out to get to wherever we needed to be for dinner before going back to our dorms. And I remember looking back at that theatre and, or at the stage rather, and sort of seeing the stage expand and being so overcome with emotion that my 15 year old self couldn’t understand. And me immediately thinking that that was some sort of secret connection that I had at that moment.

And then later I read a book called Stratford Gold and Martha Henry gives an interview about how the stage would breathe and expand. And I wonder if that’s what I experienced that day. I don’t know.

What theatre school did you go to? Dawson College in Montreal, also known as The Dome. The Dome. Yes.

Was there something that drew you to that particular school? Did you audition for other schools? I did. So Montreal, I don’t know if you know, but their education, Quebec’s education system is a little bit different than the rest of the countries. We only go up to grade 11 there.

There’s no 12, 13. So you graduate high school at 17 usually. And then usually you go into something really quirky and weird called SAGE-UP, which most people go to SAGE-UP for two years.

As if it were a grade 12, 13, a pre-university course, and then they can go to whatever university after that. But SAGE-UP also has programs that are three years, which are career programs and made to just streamline you into the industry that you’re working in, which theatre was. So in Montreal, there’s two SAGE-UPS.

There’s John Abbott and Dawson. I at the time really wanted to go to John Abbott, but ended up at Dawson. I got into both, but ended up at Dawson.

And I’m a big believer that the universe takes care of you. And so I’m super, super grateful that that’s where I went. Just even to be exposed to downtown, because I grew up in a suburb of Montreal where John Abbott was deep in the suburbs and Dawson was in the heart of downtown.

So I did audition for other theatre schools, but I couldn’t in that year because I didn’t have a grade 12 equivalency. And even after your first year of theatre, as hard as I tried to push past the academic roles that you need to get into universities, after the first year, you don’t have enough credits to be considered to have a grade 12 equivalency. I auditioned for York and for Windsor and for Ryerson, and all the acting teachers approved me, but the schools didn’t approve me because I didn’t have what somebody coming out of grade 12 would have in their eyes.

That’s going to be really frustrating. Oh, it was so frustrating. Completely, completely.

And it’s not that I thought Dawson was bad, but it’s just that I kind of knew that I wanted to be in Ontario at some point. And I knew that I wanted to start making connections with people who were going to Ontario theatre schools. And so when you’re in second year in, say, Japan theatre, you do have enough credits.

I re-auditioned for some of the schools I got in. And then at the last second, I ultimately decided to stay at Dawson because some of my teachers who were great mentors to me said, you might as well just stay out the year. You’re going to get, you’re most likely going to get an agent at the end of the year and then start auditioning.

And lo and behold, that’s what did happen. So yeah, I’m glad. And I think to myself, I’ve been to the past couple of theatre Ontario showcases and I’ve kind of been tracking like, okay, had I have gone to Windsor when I got in, I would have been 23 when I graduated.

What have I done in my career and in my life from 19 to 23 that I wouldn’t have achieved had I gone to university? And so I’m just grateful that things worked the way that they did. Yeah. And what brought you to Ontario? Many things.

I mean, mostly there’s more work here than there is in Montreal as much as I adore Montreal and I love Montreal. Are you bilingual? Un peu, mais je suis très anglais. Were you bilingual enough to do French theatre? Oh gosh, no.

I know people whose first language was French and they are not considered French enough to do French theatre in Quebec. Yeah. I mean, really if you haven’t gone to either the French section of the National Theatre School or the Conservatoire, you really aren’t working on the French side.

So there was very little option for you? Oh, I would only ever work a UDA project if I was the anglophone butt of the joke. Right, right, right, right. Like with my accent, nobody has fooled that I’m not from Beaconsfield.

Right, right, right. Yeah. So you would have been like at some of the smaller theatres, the smaller English theatres.

Yeah. Centaur, but not a whole lot of options. Well, there’s Centaur and there’s Seagull and then there’s Mainline, which is sort of like what Storefront was when they had a physical theatre.

Yeah. And then other than that, you know, the Fringe is great. It’s the best party.

Yeah. A best Fringe party, I think. But other than that, there isn’t a lot.

Yeah. And I got to a place where I would go to a Centaur opening and then I would go to the Seagull Center opening either the next night or the week after and I’d see the same people. Yeah.

And I adore everyone in Montreal and I miss them so much and I can’t wait until I do go back and work quite a bit, mostly in film and television in Montreal. But, you know, when that theatre project comes where I can be in Montreal for two, three months, I’m ready for it. Yeah.

Yeah. So you came to Ontario. Yes.

You’ve been working here. At what point did self-producing become a thing? Uh, so, um, my relationship to self-producing has been quite harried. I have tried to produce several different projects, mostly in Montreal or when I first, first got to Toronto and had them all fall flat.

And so I got to a place where I was like, well, I’m just not going to do it. It really takes people who are as 110% motivated as you are to get a show off the ground. And it’s really hard to do it alone and it really sucks.

Um, and then I was in an acting class in the winter, spring, um, and I was assigned a scene from a play called Toyer and I completely fell in love with my scene partner and we were excited about the play. And so we, we were both busy at the time with other auditions. So we really only got half the time in class to work on it as, as we could have.

And so finally we just said like, why don’t we just do it? Why don’t we just do it? Um, and I sort of brought myself out of producing retirement and we had been working on that for, um, a couple months. And then in the middle of the summer, he decided to bow out to focus on his YouTube career, which more power to him. He’s fabulous and it’s traveling across the world to promote his channel.

So absolutely no hard done. And then I was left with this decision about what do I do? Yeah. What do I do? And so you decided on Oleana.

Yeah. Okay. So let’s talk about, let’s talk about like why you chose to do Oleana before we get into any of the politics.

Um, well, like most of my decisions, it’s made very impulsively. Um, so yeah. Um, so I wish I had a more eloquent politically driven reason behind it.

Um, but mostly, um, between Toyer ending and Oleana, I thought about doing another play for about a, about a week. And then I decided that that play had too many characters involved. Um, and then I, I kind of just thought like, okay, what do I do? What do I do? Do I just let whatever deposit I’ve already put down go? Um, do I try to find something else? And then I kind of asked myself like, what else is there that I could do? And just sort of like a flash in my head.

I was like, well, you know, Oleana is one of those plays where I’ve been doing a monologue from it for a number of years, basically since theatre school, where I was first introduced to the play. Um, and I, I felt myself sort of aging out of the role. I mean, I’m like really three years older than what the character should be.

So I’m being a bit dramatic when I say that, but I kind of felt that that clock was ticking. I felt the clock ticking. And so I was like, okay, well, I’m going to see if the available and we’ll take it from there.

And I found out almost instantly about, about being granted the right. So I thought, okay, cool. Um, okay.

And I don’t know who else could play the part and I don’t have a director yet and I don’t have anything else. Uh, so, uh, what? And then I remembered, um, you know, I had run into Allegra a couple months prior. I had been meaning to send her a message anyways.

I was like, what if I’m just gonna, it’s just gonna be an excuse to write to her. It’s just going to be an excuse to write to an Allegra and maybe, you know, best case scenario, she can’t do it, but we’ll go for coffee. Sure.

Great. Great. And she said, yes.

And she said, yes. Um, and it, it kind of got rolling from there. So once you said, yes.

Um, what did you freak out at that point? Or did you freak? I’m freaking out at all points. Okay. And like all the forms, all the definitions are freaked out.

You can imagine. I am all of those definitions at all times in this process. Yeah.

Um, and how did you find your, your, your, your co-actor? Uh, well we auditioned, we, uh, put our dream list together, um, of actors that I knew and actors that she knew. And we put a call out through eDrive just to see if there were any, any other actors that we weren’t thinking about. And, uh, we had eight or nine very phenomenal actors come in each very different.

Um, each come could have completely been, uh, a great choice. Um, and that whole process opened my eye. It wasn’t the first time I was behind an audition table, but that process particularly, it’s like, well, this actor is phenomenal, but maybe they don’t make me seem as young as I should be.

Or like maybe we seem too similar in age. Don’t you think that, that like every actor should have some time on the other side? Oh, completely, completely. You learn so much about the audition process that you never knew.

And like really, really, it’s not trite when people say that you can bomb your audition from the first footstep you take into the room. Absolutely. And that’s one thing you don’t understand.

People don’t, you don’t understand it until you’re on that side of the table and somebody do it. Yeah. Yeah, completely.

I think when I was first auditioning, I’d walk in with this nervous energy of, Oh, like, I’m not, I’m not very good. And I’m, I’m nervous. And, and like asking, almost like asking, like, I want this part so that I can feel good about myself for that kind of thing.

And it wasn’t until I turned the tables on that, or was aware that that’s coming from a place of scarcity rather than abundance that things really started to shift in my career. It’s interesting to, to, to realize like how easy it is to do that. Cause you know, everybody’s nervous going in, but it’s almost like you have to like walk into the room with energy, but not too much until you, you need to exude, like you’re in good hands with me, good people behind that table.

And if you don’t do that, they’re like, Oh, totally. But even that being said, like you can have too much confidence and I’ve seen that shoot actors in the foot as well. So it’s riding that fine line of being self-assured, but not cocky, but also then just having the, the, a formal it.

Yeah. Yeah. Yes.

You have to have the actors can come into a room and it can be amazing, but not what you need. Just don’t have that, you know, that attraction, that chemistry, that it’s like dating. Yeah.

So much in this industry is like dating sometimes. And that’s something that we can discuss as we get further. I mean, it’s very much a part of display, but who did you eventually find and how did you find them? So James McGowan is a friend of Allegra’s.

He is predominantly a film and television actor, has done theatre. And I did this play in Montreal. He’s also from Montreal, which was a happy little accident.

He did this play at the Monument Nationale, I think like maybe 15, 20 years ago. Don’t quote me on that. And I’m nervous to do any research about that production, just cause I don’t want to start comparing myself to whoever played Carol in that production, which I’m a big comparer.

So that’s, that’s one of my, one of my things that I’m trying to work on. Um, so it was a friend of Allegra’s was the only actor out of the eight or nine that was completely unknown to me, which like some of the actors I didn’t know personally, but had seen them in shows or seen them around, or some of them were people that I was quite, quite close with. James was the only actor who came in, who was completely unknown to me.

Yeah. So it was, that’s got a certain amount of excitement when you know somebody, especially if you know them well, you kind of know what they’re going to give you. Oh yeah.

And then to have somebody you don’t know come in, that’s like, okay. Yeah. And I don’t know how to describe James other than very intense.

And that isn’t to say that he’s super serious because he’ll crack a joke faster than you can. You can even wonder how he came up with that punchline. Um, but just the way he looks at you is just very like with you, like he’s looking into you.

Uh, which is definitely a little intimidating at first, especially when we’re going into a play where we both have to be so naked with each other. Uh, not literally. Um, and especially having, having no prior interactions with each other.

From a certain point of view though. Yeah. That’s helpful.

Yeah. Totally. Because you don’t have any past history at all.

There’s no expectation of, of anything. There’s no, you know, that you’re there to work, you know, there’s no misunderstanding anywhere. Now Oleana as a play at this time given, um, uh, hashtag me too.

And all the discussions that are happening now is particularly topical. Yes. And just, just a little bit, just a little bit.

So, and I imagine when you started talking about doing it, it was not, it was not that topical. Like it was topical, but not quite where it is now. Oh no.

When I, I mean, I was talking about this in rehearsal on Monday, I think it was, or maybe like the week before. Um, I, when I wrote to Allegra and this was end of July, end of July, uh, I remember writing and saying like, Hey, like I have the rights to this play. It’s a play that I’ve wanted to do for a long time that I’m very curious to do.

And I also think that, you know, it speaks to what’s going on in the world today. And that was the end of July. Yes.

And now there’s it’s, it’s where, how relevant this play was in the summer is miles away from where we are today. It’s, it’s so, because I mean the conversation around the me too hashtag started with the Harvey Weinstein thing. And yet there are conversations separate from Hollywood that sort of need to happen around theatre, which is sort of like, you know, that as we were saying, how, you know, uh, auditions can be kind of like speed dating, but dangerously close because you need chemistry, but an understanding and things like that, um, combined with the fact that there’s a rise in the need for intimacy, uh, intimacy, uh, uh, coordinators, uh, uh, choreographers, um, which is a relatively new thing.

One actually, once you start to understand it, you’re like, of course you should have. Yeah. Um, but there’s the resistance to that industry.

Um, like now that it’s as relevant as it is, how do you feel about this play? Huh? I mean, there are a thousand different things I could say about it in regards to that. Um, I mean with the me too, it really caused me a lot of self-reflection, uh, particularly in regards to this play. Um, and I’m, I’m really cognizant of not giving away too many spoilers about what happens in the show, just because today I was even speaking with somebody who didn’t, who didn’t know it.

And who is somebody who is, um, you know, the play is 25 years old. It’s the 25th anniversary. Is there someone who is a little bit of the time when it was written and is somebody who might not be directly related in our industry, but is very culturally inclined and, and didn’t know about the play, which I almost don’t want to rob someone the chance to experience it for the very first time.

So I’m just gonna be very, very careful. Um, just very careful in general, uh, just cause you would be in such a sticky situation talking about this play and talking about all these issues, which I think is what’s so exciting. It terrifies me, but I also think that because it terrifies me that these conversations are what need to happen and, and people need to be wrong before they’re right, I guess, if that makes sense.

Um, so with, in regards to that, um, I’m, I’m aware of a lot of the criticism that Carol’s gotten as a character in terms of, uh, her actions and whether or not they’re justified. And, um, and I think that really comes down to the individual productions, the choices the actors have made and the particular staging of the event in question that happens in the play. Um, and I got really stuck in the mud for a long time.

Uh, end of September, beginning of October, just feeling like, oh my gosh, like I just wanted to do a play that I thought was maybe a little relevant. Now it’s a whole different issue because we have to handle so many different things. Um, and, and I don’t want to, I don’t want to present a play where, where the woman can come across looking like such a monster or a whistleblower or someone who cries wolf, especially particularly in right now, where I feel like that’s detrimental to the momentum that’s happening in the Me Too movement and everything else.

And then Me Too happened. Um, and I was on my phone and I saw one or two friends post about Me Too and immediately I went, well, I’m going to post it if for nothing else in solidarity, because I’m lucky enough to have never experienced, um, a rape in the strictest sense. Um, and I’ve never gone to a hotel room where somebody’s answered the door without pants on, but it made me really question what is the actual definition of sexual harassment and start to reflect in moments of my life where maybe somebody in power put their hand on my hand in a particular way.

And this person, while I, I wouldn’t call this person a monster whatsoever. And at the time I would consider this person a father figure and a mentor, but you know, in the context that it was done and it was, you know, not a great situation. And then you enter into the whole, well, if I, if I don’t reciprocate, what happens if this person helped me find my first agent and is also represented at this agency, what happens there? And so it’s, it’s made me stop minimizing my own experiences and it’s helped me as an actor to not get into the mud of minimizing Carol’s experience in this play either.

Um, because as somebody who’s speaking to you now in an interview situation, I need to be objective to talk about the play, but as an actor, I absolutely cannot be. No, of course. And I don’t even need you to be objective because I mean, the thing is that I, I always feel like Oleana is a play that’s written by a man and is often presented with the male perspective.

Um, in which case I think a lot of times the Carol character can be seen as a manipulator or a monster, whatever it is that she can be seen as. Um, but in the hands of a woman actor, sorry, a woman director, but you know, the director giving their focus, uh, to the play and, you know, now it’s a play by a man directed by a woman, which I think might give it a different take. Um, do you, do you find that? Because I mean, obviously every time we’ve often, when we see it before it’s like from teacher’s perspective with a male director and it’s true.

I don’t know if I’ve ever, I’ve done a lot of research on past productions, mostly because it’s something that I like to do as an actor while I’m in the preparatory stages. Um, but also I’ve never actually seen this play done or on its feet or seen the film. My only experience has been reading it.

Um, and so one of the things I like to do is, is read past reviews of different productions to see if I can mine any information out of them. Um, and that was a positive and negative experience. We can talk about that after if you want.

Um, but it’s true. I don’t think I’ve seen a woman’s name on any of those reviews in the director position. But that being said, um, from day one, Allegra has really approached this play from a point of view, um, where they are both wrong and they’re both right.

And I think, I think, you know, I think it’s safe to say that Allegra is a feminist. Uh, we haven’t had that conversation, but having had multiple conversations with other things with her, it’s, I think it’s safe to say. Um, but I think at its core, really, it’s, it’s not a feminist story.

It’s a human story. And it’s, it’s a story about how two people who can have a fleeting connection can find themselves in such an awful position because somebody phrased something slightly the wrong way, or somebody didn’t leave the room when they maybe should have left. Right.

And that’s, that’s not to point fingers at anyone. It’s just, there’s, there’s a beautiful line in the play, which is we, we can only interpret the behaviors of others through the screen we create. Uh, which, which I think really puts the spotlight on the audience to see how they, they interpret things.

Um, yeah, so we can only, we can only really try to do our best with, with the material that’s presented with us. And while I can, I can sort of recognize why some people might say the things that they do about Carol as an actor, I can only be true to however I can justify them within myself and come to terms with that. I actually look forward to conversations after the play.

Which just to say, ma’am, I just state people, we will not be doing an official capacity where we sell tickets. People who are like when people leave the theatre, not a talk back, but when people leave the theatre and they’re having conversations with each other. Um, because there’s nothing like people interpreting the play that they’ve just seen, especially when a play is gracious enough to leave that up to them and to have them have those conversations as they interpret it, which is a great gift to give them.

And the play is shrouded in ambiguity. And in terms of more information for the actors, or even just to set up more consequences or make it more complex and more detailed, the way that Mamet’s written it is he just drops a little something in and then it never comes up again. So it’s a clue or a hint into what happens in between the three encounters that the play is told in that gives you more information.

It can also be a red herring. Um, but certainly I think, you know, it’s, it’s, it’s really up to the staging of it and to, to have the privilege and, uh, to have the privilege of being able to stage it and in what’s going on in the world today. I, you know, early on in rehearsals, but I’m, I’m really excited to see what happens at the end.

Well, I don’t think it’s interesting because the conversation around Me Too and everything else, this is not something that seems to be going away. And a lot of times, you know, we see these things, they come up and we talk about them and then we never address them again, but we’re seeing more and more and more of it. And I think because of that flirtation in the, in the, in the audition room, how that can be like speed dating and how sometimes because a lot of times we just let actors work out the physicality of the, of the, their attraction on stage together without an intimacy director.

Um, there can be crossed signals and misunderstandings and things like that that lead to an increased need to have the continued conversation around Me Too. Oh, completely. Um, uh, and that’s, uh, it’s a good thing and it’s an important thing.

We’ve avoided having it for a very long time. Um, so hopefully this play continues to, to, to help feed that. Absolutely.

Yep. Uh, you did mention, um, uh, how looking at reviews of past shows was a, a certain thing. Can you talk about that? Um, so from the positive perspective, um, you know, I just like hearing things like, you know, if the review reviewer talks about a certain choice of the director, the director of the actors made now again, taking everything with a grain of salt because of, you know, having been a part of shows or seen shows where I didn’t necessarily agree with what the reviewer had said.

Like anyways, it’s, it’s just more information to put in the pot. Uh, but then I started reading the comments, which I don’t, I don’t realize why I didn’t know beforehand not to read the comments, especially for this. And I was reading the original New York times review for the original production.

And I was like, well, the New York times people must be educated in the know. Like, I can’t wait for more information to hear what people think. Um, a couple comments in, um, there was a comment that, that essentially said that Oleana was their litmus test for whether or not someone was a sociopath, if they had sided with the character of Carol or not.

Jesus. Oh, I know. And they thought that how could anybody be behind this, this, this monster of a person and how could this girl do this? And I just, it’s just, I had to put the computer away completely because it doesn’t serve me and it gets me into a funk.

Uh, and it’s, it’s not a play about one person. It’s a play about two people and about the complexity that’s involved in an altercation, um, that spans over three interactions. Uh, and I don’t know, I had to, I had to put it away.

And that was that. Did you, did you stop reading comments after that? It also makes me want to go. I want to find these people and sit them down and say, no, but then there’s this moment where this happens in the tax store.

I just want to defend it all to everyone at all points and be like, well, maybe it wasn’t staged like this and it could be like this. So she’s, she’s not anyways. So it’s interesting how, and you know, commenters, I love when if there’s a commenter who’s like willing to comment on theatre, fuck, thank you.

But yeah, you, you do hope that they’re more, uh, uh, that you get intelligent, uh, uh, discourse and, you know, that’s not to discredit them, whoever, whoever they are, you know, it, it’s not to say that his comment wasn’t intelligent. I mean, also to, to refer to the me too movement, some of the comments I was seeing on Facebook were pretty atrocious. I had a couple of male friends who wrote posts about, you know, if I’ve ever done or said anything wrong, you know, I am sorry.

And, and they were commenters about, well, what about, what about all the men that have been harassed? Why is it only women? Why is it only women? Why is it only, and you know, I can say that they, that those are awful comments, but again, we can only interpret the behaviors to the screen we create. And that is that person’s point of view because of their reasons. And, but this is, I mean, this is the kind of response that comes almost always from white men in a position of, in a position of power that, that is the response to, uh, it’s like, uh, it’s the same thing that happens with the black, black lives matter movement.

And, and instead of like addressing the issue, deflecting it into something that is about them or, uh, uh, prove to me that this is a thing I’ve seen that too. I also saw the, uh, some people saying, oh, this is a, this is a conspiracy because, um, this is the, the feminist conspiracy because, uh, white men are the most, uh, uh, uh, disadvantaged people. And I was like, this is something that people actually believe that, that white men are experiencing, uh, some form of discrimination that’s unprecedented in the world.

And it’s the kind of thing that, that, that is like, you just really want to shake people and go wake up, wake up, wake up. Equality does not mean disadvantage to another person, which is unfortunately how they see it. Um, so like you, you’ve got some intermittent rehearsals and you’re, um, in November, once you really start delving into it.

And I mean, you open November 22nd. Yes. And so you’re like, once November hits, it’s like a steamroller, it’s a steam train heading straight towards opening night.

Well, and the play is that just steam training of itself. It’s 70 minutes, no intermission, straight through, um, of just text that just cascades. Um, the first act is just riddled with so many mammonisms of half lines and shared lines and going back to secondary thoughts when you start to speak and it’s awful to learn and we’re having a great time doing it.

Uh, but yeah, it just goes straight through. How do you learn texts like that? Um, well, um, I can’t, I can’t speak for James, even though I’ve been roping him into some of my, some of my tips and tricks, um, or more tricks, I should say for me, it’s just, it’s a lot of, um, private study. Um, you with texts like that, when your line is, I don’t, I, why I don’t what, um, you need to know what you’re saying, why you’re saying it and who you’re saying it to.

It can’t be a process of, excuse me. It can’t just be a process of learning the lines and then in rehearsal, what do they mean and finding out all those sorts of things and learning them by rote and all of that. Um, you have to know exactly what you’re doing at all times and at least make a choice so that you can, that you can ingest those lines.

Um, yeah. For something like that, you really like, you have to feel the way to know it is would be to know like all of those little things about who, what, and why are you talking like that? Oh, completely, completely. And, uh, it, it’s, it’s almost a gift because then when you’re in your rehearsal and you’re, you’re consistently missing the same line over and over again.

And if you miss one, I, I, or anything like that, the whole train goes off. The whole train goes off the tracks. Cause then you mess up the other actor too, because you need to be right on top of each other and listening for your cue and listening so inherently to, to, to what the other person is saying that you need to be right on top of it and you cannot miss it.

Uh, if James has a line that it’s just well period, or if you even miss a mammoth pause, the musicality goes right out the window. Yeah. So if there’s a line that you’re missing consistently, is that because usually it means that you, it’s an indicator that you aren’t a hundred percent sure why you’re Yeah.

Yeah. It’s a case for having to know, like, you know, sometimes as actors, we can, we can fudge, we can know exactly what I’m saying. As long as I’m saying it, as long as it looks like I know, but you can’t fake it.

Oh no. And I’m an actor who I think that I work off, um, instinct a lot. And in terms of like, let’s just learn the lines and play and get these books out of our hand, but you need to know first before going in or at least, you know, um, Allegra talks about throwing everything at the wall, throwing 200 things at the wall and seeing whatever stays there at the end of it.

Yeah. So are you on the social medias? I am on the social media. I got the Twitters.

Um, so theatre per number, the, the company that’s producing this play is on the Twitter. It’s on the Facebook. Um, so take a look for those and like, and follow those pages.

I have a personal Instagram. It’s grace Gordon one. Uh, so follow those.

So you do, you do the, you do the grams, not the twits. Uh, I’m it switches. It switches.

Uh, I like the grams. I’m also on the twits, but, um, I deleted it from my phone to make room for whatever, because my phone is constantly running out of room. Um, and I didn’t miss it for a long time and I’m back now and I like it, but I just, it’s just so time consuming checking all of them.

Oh my God. You, you almost can’t, you’ve got to, you’ve got to like figure it like at what point in the day do you check? Oh yeah. Can’t do it.

Oh yeah. And, and one of the things that I liked about Twitter is I’d see an article and I’d be like, Oh, I want to, I want to remember that. So I like it or, um, like just to read it later.

And then I would like stockpile these 50 articles. And by the time I got around to read them, they were all obsolete or storage changed or whatever. And I just wouldn’t have time to get through them all.

Yeah. I always found that like, just like look through Twitter and be like, Oh, I need to, I want to check back on that. And then you’d like lose it in the stream of everything.

You’d be like, okay, I’m going to follow this hashtag, but everything is all over the place. How do I follow it? So it can be a little overwhelming at times. Um, so those are, you’re, you’re really more on the, on the Instagram than the Twitter right now.

Uh, personally I am. Uh, but theatre penumbra is more on Facebook and the Twitter. How do you, I mean, are you managing those? Yeah.

How, how do you find the process of like managing basically two personas, the theatre company and yourself? Sure. Uh, I mean, it’s, it’s making sure that the voices are a little bit different. Um, I mean, I’m sure that the majority of our followers on theatre penumbra are friends of mine.

So I don’t think that Baneer needs to be there. Um, but managing, managing something, social media, especially when you’re promoting something as a full-time job on top of everything else. And thank God for scheduled posts.

So I can do whatever I need to do at five in the morning before I go to the gym, before I go to rehearsals, before I then have to go to my Joe job or whatever, so that it can come out at noon when the interwebs tell me that more people look at their Facebook at that time. Is that, do you Hootsuite for that? Hootsuite? No, you can, uh, there’s a little thing on Facebook pages where, uh, before you post it, you can click something and say scheduled. The annoying thing is, is you have to do it within that day.

Like, so I do a lot of stuff, you know, at artist hours. So 12 AM, 1 AM, that kind of thing. Uh, but if you’re doing it at like 1130 or 12, I guess 1130, you, you can only do it before it hits midnight.

So it’s changed that Facebook. This is mine. Yeah.

Anyways, that’s why I use, I use Hootsuite, which allows me to schedule a whole bunch of things in advance. Okay. That’s a whole other thing I have to learn.

I’m not good at learning things. Tried Snapchat. It wasn’t for me.

Oh my God. Snapchat is like, I’m only on it because it’s like the kids at work are on it. I feel like it’s a thing I got to be on.

Yeah. And I mostly don’t, I don’t snap. Yeah.

I don’t chat. Yeah. I just let them do that.

Okay. So I think we can do without it. Well, Instagram has kind of killed Snapchat, hasn’t it? Instagram has in a lot of ways killed Snapchat, but that was because a lot of the things that people were using Snapchat for Instagram started doing like Instagram stories became like, that’s what Snapchat is.

And so Snapchat, I think is probably dying a slow death. Yeah. Um, it’s going to go eventually because Instagram is owned by Facebook and you can’t stop.

You can’t stop the Facebook juggernaut. I don’t want people to lose jobs. I don’t want, I’m sure that they’re going to find jobs.

Okay. I hope so. Someone’s going to come along and take care of them.

All right. I’m glad. Okay.

I’m good. Good. Good.

I’m glad. Well, thank you so much, Grace. Thank you.