Michelle Langille

About This Episode:
This week on Stageworthy, host Phil Rickaby is joined by Michelle Langille, an actor, director, and burlesque performer whose journey has taken her from Toronto to Cape Breton. In this deeply personal and wide-ranging conversation, Michelle talks about her roots in musical theatre, what it means to redefine success on your own terms, and how returning to a smaller community reignited her creative spark. From lessons in understudy generosity to creating her burlesque persona “Honey de Mele,” Michelle shares insights about art, sustainability, and joyful reinvention.
This episode explores:

• Michelle’s early inspirations and love of musical theatre
• The journey through multiple theatre schools and cities
• How a move to Nova Scotia shifted her career trajectory
• Her experience as a burlesque performer and fundraiser producer
• Making theatre in small communities and the power of local talent
• Lessons in kindness, mentorship, and the importance of joy in the rehearsal room
• Her directorial journey leading to upcoming work at Neptune Theatre
• Thoughts on work-life balance and the future of Canadian theatre

Guest:
🎭 Michelle Langille
Michelle Langille is an actor/director born in Antigonish, who currently lives in Sydney Cape Breton Nova Scotia. Michelle studied Musical Theatre at the Canadian College of Performing Arts in Victoria BC and Classical Theatre at George Brown College in Toronto.

As a director Michelle just completed directing The Producers (Highland Arts Theatre) and Annie (Savoy Theatre). She is about to start rehearsals for Come From Away as a Diane (Savoy Theatre) then she heads to Halifax to direct her first show for Neptune Theatre, the Wizard of Oz then immediately heads back home to direct Frozen at the Savoy. Michelle was a member of Neptune Theatre’s Chrysalis project working on The Last Wife and Peter Pan. She assisted on the world premiere of Lo (or Dear Mr. Wells) a Nightwood Theatre production at Crows Theatre. Her first directing opportunity came with The Penelopiad at Hart House Theatre which garnered a number of Subscriber Choice awards including awards for lighting, set, overall design, favourite supporting actor and favourite director. She was a member of Nightwood Theatre’s Write from the Hip Playwright’s unit (2016/2017) with her play Ten Days which received a second workshop with PARC in 2019.

Favourite performing credits include Mary’s Wedding, Saltwater Moon (Single Thread) A Man Walks Into a Bar (Amblemore) Clique Claque (Pea Green/Next Stage Festival) Gray (Theatre Inamorata) Mamma Mia (The Savoy Theatre), The Sound of Music, Oliver!, Evita, The Wizard of Oz and Beauty and the Beast and most recently as Magenta in The Rocky Horror Show (Neptune Theatre).

Michelle is also a burlesque performer who appears as Honey De Mele and is the current and first chair of the Atlantic Burlesque Festival , the first festival east of Montreal which just finished its second sold out year.

Connect with Michelle:
📸 Instagram: @michelle_langille

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Transcript

[Phil Rickaby]
Hello, and welcome to Stageworthy. I’m Phil Rickaby, the host and producer of this podcast. Stageworthy is Canada’s theatre podcast, where I talk to theatre makers of all types, whether they are directors, actors, playwrights, stage managers, what have you.

As long as they’re in the theatre, I’m talking to them. And some of them you may have heard of, some of them are household names and others are people that I think you should hear of and you should know. This week, I’m talking to Michelle Langille and we’ll get to her in a second.

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You can do that by going to patreon.com/stageworthy. And I would love to have you on the team. My guest this week is Michelle Langille.

In this episode, we’re going to talk about her theatre journey, how she became an actor, the road that took her to moving from Toronto back to Nova Scotia and how moving back to Nova Scotia has really been great for her theatre career, for her creative journey. And so here’s my conversation with Michelle Langille. Michelle Langille, thank you so much for joining me.

I really appreciate you giving me some time today. Thank you. I wanted to start because I think there’s some big topics that that we’re going to get to and to get to those, I think we need to start with your story.

Let’s let’s start with how you got into theatre. OK, what is what is that? Like what what what’s your origin story?

[Michelle Langille]
My origin story. It’s like my superhero origin story. There was a bunch of small things when I was a kid.

The biggest influence was my grandfather, my opa, who was a physicist, a university professor who was obsessed with musical theatre and the arts. And I remember growing up watching Sound of Music, listening to Fiddler on the Roof on on on records. And that was sort of my first introduction to it.

And then we moved to Charlottetown when I was probably 12 or 13. And there was I mean, Anne of Green Gables is like I burnt out my cassette tape of the original cast recording. Yes, I am old enough that I had cassette tapes and I burnt them out.

And there was also this lunchtime show that was called Spirit of a Nation. And it was this multicultural sort of like celebratory national pride kind of show back in the early 90s. And these people were just so talented and so excited and having so much fun.

And I was like, I want to want to do that. So I started in a little drama club and then we moved again. And I got involved in down in the Annapolis Valley here, I got involved in the Annapolis Valley Honor Choir, and that sort of introduced me to some local professionals.

And I just fell in love with it. And my whole plan going through high school was, yeah, I’m going to be a lawyer. And then when it came time to apply to schools, I said, no, I’m going to theatre school because I want to be poor.

I don’t know. But that’s kind of how it started when I was a kid.

[Phil Rickaby]
I have I have two questions. You know, you at what point were you like, no, I’m going to be a lawyer? Like, was that your your narrative all through high school?

[Michelle Langille]
Well, it’s funny. There’s I think I still have it somewhere. In grade six, our teacher wrote this like little story of the future, like where we were all going to end up.

And I appeared in this story twice. And I don’t know if she messed it up or not. Just forgot that I was already in the story.

But when she read the story, like 20 years from when we graduated from grade six, I was taking a break from my law practice. And then a little bit later on, I was coming back from L.A. where I was filming movies. So I don’t know where the narrative changed for me.

I think it just when it came down to it. It’s probably in grade 11, grade 12, I was doing a lot of work with Neptune Theatre in Halifax through their they have an amazing theatre school that I was driving in and out of for I was like an hour and a half, two hour drive. And I would drive in every weekend to go do their their training programs and their performance programs.

And I don’t know, I just when it came time to apply for schools, there was just no no doubt that I wanted to try to do this thing that I loved.

[Phil Rickaby]
A lot of times in certain families. The coming out as an actor is it can be a big deal, right? Like, like, especially if you were like, I’ve talked to people who were like, yeah, I was going to go into math.

I was going to be like a mathematician. And then the last minute I went to theatre school. Was your family shocked, disappointed?

[Michelle Langille]
Oh, my God. No, they were thrilled. They thought it was amazing.

I will say that I do not suffer from like the parents who are disappointed in me. I think I suffer from quite the opposite. My parents who are so, so proud of me all the time that it’s kind of like, you need to encourage me to to be an adult sometimes.

And, you know. So I’m very lucky that my family was really excited, really supportive, you know, moved me back and forth from Toronto a couple of times. I went to school in B.C. They flew out to see me in B.C. Like, I was very lucky.

[Phil Rickaby]
Now, you mentioned listening to cast recordings. And it sounds like that was your gateway to theatre. I have a similar story where I was for me, it was My Fair Lady, Oklahoma and Godspell.

OK, were the three.

[Michelle Langille]
Wow.

[Phil Rickaby]
And those were the I remember hearing those as a kid and then at some point realizing, oh, wait, these tell a story. And that was sort of my theatre gateway.

[Michelle Langille]
Totally. My aunt had and I’m going to there’s going to be some musical theatre people out here right now watching this who are going to judge me hard for this. But I promise I’ve come a long way since these days.

But Andrew Lloyd Webber was my gateway. Like Annabelle Gables and Andrew Lloyd Webber. My aunt had this like it was this Andrew Lloyd Webber classic collection that had like a couple of songs from a whole bunch of the most popular musicals that Andrew Lloyd Webber wrote in the 80s.

And. Yeah, like listening to that was like these songs are so exciting. I mean, you know, it was the late 80s, early 90s, you know, like the power guitar riff and the power organ riff in Phantom of the Opera, like was pretty exciting to, you know.

[Phil Rickaby]
I mean, you have to you have to acknowledge that that for whatever some people think about Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber, whatever their opinion is. Um. He brought a lot of theatre into the mainstream, right?

[Michelle Langille]
Yeah.

[Phil Rickaby]
There are people who know theatre because of his shows, and so we have to give him that at least we do.

[Michelle Langille]
And I mean, I will say, like my philosophy to this day still, like, you know, especially now, whatever gets people physically into a theatre, I will support it because it might make them take a risk on something else.

[Phil Rickaby]
So 100 percent. Yeah, 100 percent.

[Michelle Langille]
You know, it’s Phantom of the Opera is what gets you in there and then you stay to see something else exciting. Like we’ll take it. I’ll take it.

[Phil Rickaby]
Absolutely. There are too many people who like their excuse for not going to the theatre is I saw a play once. I didn’t like it.

So anything that brings people in and and gives them the courage to stay for something else is is a great thing.

[Michelle Langille]
I agree. I mean, yeah, that’s a bigger conversation. I’m going to step away.

[Phil Rickaby]
So would I agree now you decided you were going to go to theatre school? Yep. And what theatre school did you go to?

[Michelle Langille]
I went to one in Toronto first and was there for about three weeks when I realized that it was not the program for me. And I came back to Halifax and I joined Neptune Theatre had this it’s still they still have it, too, in a different format. But at the time they had this thing called the pre-professional training program, which was for people who were sort of like just out of school or were coming back to it.

And it was like a night class and it ended in a performance. And so a lot of the local people that were there would sort of train you in voice movement, scene work and all that stuff. And so I did that for a year to sort of keep it up and saved up a bit of money.

And then I applied and was accepted into the Canadian College of Performing Arts, which is in Victoria, British Columbia. So hopped on a plane, moved out west for two years, had only intended to stay for one, but they had introduced a second year program. So I took the second year program, which I was really grateful for.

Tried Vancouver out for a few months, wasn’t really my vibe, although like lots of people I love out there and there’s some really great theatre community out there now. Moved back to Nova Scotia and then it sort of goes a little this way and then this way, because I do eventually go back to theatre school when I was 29.

[Phil Rickaby]
And when you went back to theatre school, no, okay, let’s, let’s talk about the, the, the, what was, what was happening with the, the, the shapes in the.

[Michelle Langille]
Well, so I moved, so I moved back to Halifax after being out west again, like I, and so here’s a fun little, fun little tidbit. So that show Spirit of a Nation that I loved so much when I was a teenager, the people that created that were the ones who ran the Canadian College of Performing Arts at the time. And I confessed to them my deep love of the show and that it had, it had, it had spawned and it got me where I, where I was today and I said, you know, and I hadn’t done it in a few years and I said, we need to do this show again.

Like we really need to do this show. And they said, well, why don’t you make us help us make it happen? Cause I think it was like the, it was some sort of an anniversary year.

I can’t remember. It might’ve been like the 10th anniversary of it or something. And yeah, so we wound up making it happen again in Sydney.

So I actually got the help with the producing of it. I helped with a lot of the fundraising and the sponsorship stuff. And I got to actually be in the show that had like, got me excited.

So that was, that was pretty cool. Um, anyway, so back, I moved back to Halifax. I just, uh, I wanted to be back on the East coast.

Um, you know, miss my family and needs a little bit of a grounding time. Um, you know, sort of worked a little bit and, uh, eventually got my first professional gig at this wonderful little summer theatre here called festival and Ganesh, which is actually the place that I was born. So I was part of the young company there.

Um, and they got to do the wizard of Oz, which was the first time that I did it. And it was actually directed by Jeremy Webb, who is the current artistic director of Neptune. And, um, so I did that and then kids show this incredible little show called Belinda, the bicycle, which is actually was directed by the current artistic director at festival and Ganesh.

She took over a few years after that, uh, Andrea Boyd. So I got that. And then I got my first equity gig at, uh, Neptune and I was in the sound of music, although a milestone.

Um, and it was, I was the postulant like the young nun and I was surrounded by an incredible cast. I was the understudy for Liesl, which was obviously like my dream role at that time as well. And, uh, I got to go on for two performances, which was like wild.

Like my first professional show, the girl playing Liesl is a wonderful actress named Jenny Toolman, who is about a foot and a half shorter than I am. So the joke was that I was Amazon Liesl. I was free to make, cause I’m like five eight.

It’s about where they had to make all these big costumes, bigger, taller costumes for me. Um, and it was the most magical experience of my life. Um, the entire cast, they were in the wings, the entire show cheering me on.

Um, the director, Marcia Cash, like be lined down to the theatre to watch it. My parents were able to come up and sit in like some jump seats at the back. And I got to do like the afternoon show and the evening show.

And it was amazing. And the next day, Jenny Toolman, who was, I was the understudy for, uh, she came back. She was great.

And she literally launched herself across the green room to hug me and say, Oh my God, I heard you did so amazing. Tell me all about it. How did it feel?

And it was the first big lesson I think I had in how unbelievably generous you should be and can be to your understudies. And I have seen some really crappy stuff in terms of like the understudy actor relationship. And I, after that, I just knew like, that’s, that’s how you do it.

Like she gave me a huge lesson in how to just, you know, remember that that understudy is there to let you get better and that understudy is not there to take your role. They’re there to, they’re there to plug the hole so that the dam doesn’t burst apart. And if they were supposed to, if they were going to be in the role, they would have been cast in the role, not you.

So that was such a valuable lesson that I’ve kind of kept in the back of my head for years.

[Phil Rickaby]
Yeah. That one, that is a, that is a huge, a huge lesson. And I think again, it’s good that it happened, you know, like pretty early in the career because it’s those early lessons really teach you how, how you’re going to be in the theatre.

[Michelle Langille]
Yeah. I hope so.

[Phil Rickaby]
Yes.

[Michelle Langille]
You know, I mean, I’m not perfect. I did some stupid stuff in my twenties too.

[Phil Rickaby]
You know, things that you’re just, we all, we’ve all done shit.

[Michelle Langille]
I know. I’ve had a lot, I had a lot of really great stage managers that, uh, really taught me a lot. That’s great.

Straighten me out when I would do really stupid shit. Like I can remember one night, um, uh, you know, I was in my twenties and I was like, you know, single and like to go out after the show every night. And I remember I had my hair curled for a show and I had a bit of downtime in the second act and I wanted my hair straight when I went out.

So I straightened my hair in the middle of the second act. And when I came out for the bows, my hair was straight. And the stage manager at the time, uh, was like, what the hell is wrong with you?

Like you are not done that show until you walk off after the bow. If you ever, I was like, Oh my God, I’m so sorry. Holy crap.

Just to me, it just, it never occurred that like, you know, I was like, I’m in the same costume, I don’t understand who I am, who cares? And it was like, again, such a silly little thing, but like never forgot it.

[Phil Rickaby]
And it’s one of the things that you, I mean, you didn’t know.

[Michelle Langille]
Yeah.

[Phil Rickaby]
You don’t know what you don’t know.

[Michelle Langille]
It’s true. So true. Yeah.

[Phil Rickaby]
Now, at what point did you go back to theatre school?

[Michelle Langille]
Oh, right. Okay. So, uh, I was really lucky.

The artistic director at Neptune at the time, Ron Ulrich, um, hired me three more times and I got my equity card. So I did, uh, Oliver, uh, for the second time, played the same role 10 years later that I had played in like a community theatre production, my first big, big show, uh, I played the undertaker’s daughter for fine. Um, and I did Evita and I did, uh, Beauty and the Beast.

Um, and I met some incredible people, um, from Toronto who’d come in to do the show. So I made a bunch of connections and they were all sort of like, Hey, Michelle, like, what are you doing in Halifax? You should probably move to Toronto.

That’s where all the opportunities are. Like, that’s where you want to be. And like, yeah, you’re right.

I do. I want to be in Toronto. Uh, so I moved to Toronto in 2008.

Um, and I was just auditioning, uh, working in a bar. I used to manage a Russian vodka bar in Toronto called Pravda, which anybody who’s watching this podcast has that agenda for after is probably like, Oh, wow, I don’t remember, I don’t remember any of the time I spent there. Um, and yeah, I did a bunch of like smaller shows, like some, uh, you know, collectives and stuff.

I was really lucky to immediately meet a good community and do some, do some good work, um, you know, came home a couple of times to work in Neptune. And then in, I guess it would have been 2000, 2011, I’d been there for a few years and I just was, I don’t know. I just wasn’t feeling the, I don’t know.

I just didn’t feel like I had enough training. I didn’t feel like I had enough of a grasp on what I wanted to do as an actor. And I was, I was really interested.

Like I had musical theatre training, um, but, uh, I just felt like there was more than I wanted. And so, uh, George Brown college, um, had, has a spectacular program, a very difficult program to get into and get through when I went there. And I, I don’t know, I was kind of doubting whether this was what I wanted to do, cause I wasn’t, you know, I wasn’t big, I didn’t have an agent at the time.

And I just kind of said, you know what? I feel like I need more training. And I know the school is really hard to get into.

And I know I’m 29. I don’t care. I’m going to audition.

And if I don’t get in, then I don’t know what I’m going to do, but I’m gonna do something different. And if I do get in, then I feel like it’s a sign from the universe that I must keep going. And so I auditioned and I got in and, uh, yeah, so that’s what happened.

And it was really interesting because at the time I was not the oldest person in the program, which was kind of cool. There was, um, two years ahead of me, there were, uh, at least two other actors who were my age or a little bit older. And I knew that there had been other older people in the program.

And so it was really nice to know that there was a space for me to train again at that age. I mean, you know, 29 is not a little bit, but it certainly felt that way. But I also like our class range from like 16 to me.

Uh, and it was, it was absolutely the right time for me to go back to school.

[Phil Rickaby]
Yeah. It’s funny because, uh, when I was, when I went to George Brown, I went to George Brown many years ago, like right out of high school, you were, you were, you would have been at the Young Center and we were at the warehouse that no longer exists at King and River that was, you were in that first location, but at a time Peter Wiles would look at us as all of us, all of us being, um, you know, 19, 18, 19 around there. And he would lament who’d be like, I wish you would come back to me when you were 30. So it’s kind of amusing that, to think about people being like, I don’t know if I can go to theatre school because I’m 30 or I’m with 29, you know?

[Michelle Langille]
I know. So it’s funny the year that I was there, Peter Wilde came back. We had Peter Wilde.

There was two years that had, that were, I think maybe three that were blessed with, uh, Peter Wilde, who did a text workshop and, uh, I love Peter very dearly and he was very, very, he did like me a lot, I think, because that was a middle.

[Phil Rickaby]
Probably, probably.

[Michelle Langille]
Yeah.

[Phil Rickaby]
And we had him, he was, he was the head of acting and he also taught our, uh, um, uh, the history of our theatre history class from memory.

[Michelle Langille]
I was actually really hoping that you were about to do a Peter Wilde impression, uh, when you were, but no, no dice.

[Phil Rickaby]
No. My Peter Wilde impression is, is not, is not up to snuff. There are people who would do better.

Uh, one of my friends, Richard Bowen, who was a year ahead of me at theatre school, wrote a sonnet for Peter Wilde in his first year. And the first line was something like, his eyebrows enter the classroom first.

[Michelle Langille]
Oh, I love it. I did.

[Phil Rickaby]
So you went through the, you went through the program at, at George Brown and you know, then did like what happened after you graduated? Did you find, uh, what did you find that, uh, gigs opened up? Like what happened after?

[Michelle Langille]
Uh, well, I mean, it was hard. It was like the first two years I found were a little easier at what the first year was, was very, like, it felt good. I felt really confident at the end of the first year.

And then second year was harder. Um, again, like it’s, it’s a tough program and it really was at that time too. Like, you know, you know what it was, you know, at that point in time, like you weren’t always asked back.

Um, so, and I mean, again, I could go on a tangent about that style of, um, education. I don’t think it works because I think, and I have on this program. So, oh, okay.

Well, I mean, like, truthfully, like I met some amazing people. I had some incredible teachers that I’m still connected to today. Um, you can’t, you can’t be free and creative when there’s an ax hanging over your neck.

[Phil Rickaby]
As I’ve said, you cannot make art when you’re living in fear.

[Michelle Langille]
No, I, and I completely agree. And that was definitely, and I kind of thought like, I was a little, a little arrogant with myself saying, oh, that’s not going to get to me. I’m never gonna, I’m not gonna let that bother me.

It totally got to me in my second year. And then in my third year, it was, uh, it was really hard just like, you know, coming to the end of it, I had this like little safety net and then it was definitely like, Oh God, like, is anybody going to want this old lady coming out of theatre school? Um, who was playing all the old ladies, even when I was told that that wasn’t what I was going to be doing.

But to be fair, I did play some really fun old ladies. So, um, I’m cool with that. Um, well, I actually met three other women in theatre school.

Um, uh, and we sort of decided we were going to start a collective and it was the three of us that were three, the three of them were, sorry, the four of us, the three of them were older than me and I graduated a couple of years ahead of me. And so we were all kind of like, yes, we’re a little bit older, we’re a little bit, whatever. And so we started this company called theatre in a Murata.

Uh, which we were like, yes, we’re going to take over the world. Uh, we did a couple of workshops and one production. Um, and we were very proud of it.

It was this adaptation of a picture of Dorian Gray that, uh, someone had done. It was mostly female cast. I saw that.

Oh yeah, that was, uh, yeah. So it was like, you know, it was, it was kind of experimental and edgy and like some people hated it. Some people loved it.

And that’s kind of great. That’s what you want. Um, interestingly enough though, this theatre company launched me into my burlesque career.

So here’s how that happened. Um, so I, I’ve always loved burlesque and, and that kind of art form. And, uh, I saw a little bit of it in Halifax before I left.

And then in Toronto, uh, it was really like, and it was kind of everywhere. And I was like, I really want to try burlesque, but I don’t, I don’t know how to do that or how I feel about it or whatever. And, uh, uh, so as any good person does, you rope a bunch of people into doing it with you so that you’re not on your own.

Uh, so we needed to make some money. We were trying to make some money for this, this, um, this project that we wanted to do. So I said, okay, guys, I’ve got a great idea for a fundraiser.

Uh, we’re going to do burlesque, the four of us, and we’re gonna do it for the first time inside of an audience. And here’s that, here’s the pitch. Virgin burlesque.

You never forget your first time. That’s the name of the event. And, uh, I convinced two of them to do it with me.

One of them held out for a few years. And, uh, so we did it at Prompto, the bar that I worked at. Very cool space that has like aerial silks and stuff hanging.

So we did, there was like comedy, drag music, um, some burlesque, like us little newbies and, uh, this incredible performer, Belle Epoque, who’s considered my burlesque mama. So she, I met her through a friend and she mentored us all. So help us create our routines and everything.

And the frigging event sold out. Like it was wild. It was so packed.

So many people were there and, you know, we all went through the like, Oh God, like, what are we doing? But I’m not going to lie. The moment, the final moment I did this little like 50s housewife baking routine.

And the moment before my, the moment that my apron came off and my little cupcake pasties were out. And there’s lights in my eyes. I can still remember it.

And the crowd went wild and it was the most incredible experience of my life. It was the most like body positive, like sex positive, just like, I feel like it burned in my brain. And we did five of them total.

We did them annually for five years. And the coolest thing was, is that a couple of days after the event, like we were actually going through a little bit of a shame over, over like, Oh my God, what did they do? I took my clothes off in front of people.

Holy crap. What does that make me? Like, again, I could talk a whole lot about that too, but then we started getting messages from people that were like, just so you know, if you do this next year, I want to be one of the virgins.

Like we had people like knocking down the door at wanting to take the clothes off. And I was like, this is amazing. And I was so proud of it.

And so after two or three years of that event, uh, I kind of decided that I wanted to like create a burlesque persona and start performing. So that’s how my burlesque alter ego, Honey Demel was created. And again, you know, in a Marata sort of, we have all gone very different ways.

Um, I’m here, one girl’s in Winnipeg, one girl’s in Waterloo and one girl still lives in Toronto, but she’s, you know, working in film like crazy. So, you know, we did the one production, a couple of other things, and then they just, you know, life happens. Um, but it got me into burlesque.

[Phil Rickaby]
Yeah. Yeah. Um, now we’ve, we’ve gone through that, that history.

And then at a certain point you decide to move back to Nova Scotia.

[Michelle Langille]
I do. Um, I was doing a production in the Next Stage Festival, a show called Quick Clack, uh, which is written by Mark Brunel and directed by Sue Liner. And it was such a dreamy show.

And halfway through the run, my grandfather passed away. And it was really hard. My parents were actually up seeing the show.

So I was really lucky that they were there to, we could all sort of address it together. And he, like this man was, he was amazing. He was 90, I don’t even know, he might’ve been 92, 93.

And like the man, he was, he was a monster. He was, you know, he was so smart. He spoke four languages.

He walked everywhere. He believed in good health and he was swimming in a Speedo right into his 80s. And like, you know, he, like Opa was pretty amazing.

So he’d been, you know, kind of the last couple of years with life were kind of rough. And so I think when he went, he was ready to go. So it wasn’t, it wasn’t a surprise.

It just was kind of like a, oh shit, that’s life. Sorry, I just swore. Okay.

Whoops. Um, uh, but I couldn’t go home for the funeral. Um, for a couple of reasons, um, I was doing a show at the time and, um, and that being away from home and that sort of, and it’s still persistent.

Sometimes I find in theatre that like the show must go on kind of thing. Um, I don’t know. Being so far away from my family made it feel kind of, yeah, I just, I wasn’t, I was kind of done with living away from my family.

I love Toronto’s great. I had, luckily had a very cheap, good apartment and amazing roommate. I lived with for 10 years.

There was a lot that I loved about Toronto, but I just, I went home the following Christmas and I went, okay, I’m coming home. Um, there was a new artistic director at Neptune, Jeremy Webb, uh, who I’ve known for years and is actually one of my very close friends. Like he performed my marriage sort of ceremony a couple of years ago.

Um, you know, that was certainly not a guarantee. Believe me, he’s not cast me in a lot of stuff. Um, but I was excited by his vision for Neptune and his vision for sort of like Halifax theatre community.

And, um, yeah, I just kind of said it was time. Um, and just as I made that decision, I got offered, uh, I pitched a directing gig at Hart House. My very first directing gig.

I said, I’m gonna try directing. And somehow they were like, yeah, sure. We’re gonna let you direct the penalty.

I’ve never directed anything before. Here we go. Like, whoa.

Uh, and hilariously that season, they, uh, Jenny Walls directed her first big musical as well. Um, or her first big show. So the two of us were talking a lot about the fact that we were absolutely scared crapless.

And then like, look at her winning a Dora this year. Like, so, so proud of her. So we all, it’s just kind of nice when that stuff happens.

You get to see your, your colleagues succeed. That was, that was pretty exciting. So anyway, I got, I got that gig and I came home for the summer and then went back and directed it and then said, adios, I’m in Halifax.

[Phil Rickaby]
There is a statement that you made when you reached out to me, which is about how moving to a small town reignited your career and there’s, there’s, there’s the myth that if you’re going to, and it’s the one that it’s the myth that pulled you from the East coast to Toronto, which is if you’re going to do this, you have to do it in the city. You have to do it in the big city. There’s no way to have a career if you’re not in Toronto.

[Michelle Langille]
Yeah.

[Phil Rickaby]
Um, tell me about like when you made that decision to move home, were you concerned?

[Michelle Langille]
Uh, yes and no. Well, cause my original plan was to live in Halifax and there’s quite a bit of film happening in Halifax at the time. Again, this is all pre pandemic, so this is 2018.

So, um, I moved home and, you know, auditioned for a couple of things, kind of got my bearings. Um, I booked, uh, Rocky Horror Show at Neptune in 20, it was going to be in the 2020 season. It had just been announced.

I was directing at the, I was directing at the theatre school, Hobbit, and I had about eight months with a contract lined up, like, and they were just kind of, it was just continuing to roll in and then the pandemic hit. So during the pandemic, I met my husband. We were working in a grocery store together.

Cause I was like, I cannot sit on my butt right now. I will go bananas. Like I was living, I was living by myself and I was just like, I’m never going to touch another human being.

Like I was, you know, you know, all that stuff. And, uh, so I went to work at this grocery store around the corner and my husband worked there and I saw him across the store and I was like, Whoa, who’s that tall drink of water? And so, you know, a few months in, we went on a few hikes.

He, uh, cooked a portobello mushroom and made it taste like a steak. And I was like, I am in. Um, so, you know, things are going really well.

And I, we, we moved in together and we lived together and I, you know, the Rocky Horror Picture Show, a Rocky Horror Show eventually did happen at Neptune. And it was great. It was, you know, it was one of the first big musicals back there.

It was doing really well. And then my husband got, um, promoted and transferred to Sydney, Cape Breton, which is even smaller than Halifax. And, you know, he said, are you coming?

And I said, are we getting married? And he said, okay, I guess so. And so, you know, it was actually more romantic than that.

And we, you know, we had more of an adult conversation. We fist bumped and said, Hey, we’re doing it. Um, so I moved to Cape Breton and this is actually where moving to a small town reignited my career because I moved up here and I took a government job because I said, okay, I don’t know what’s going to happen, you know, like maybe it’s time to be an adult.

And there’s two really amazing theatres up here. So there’s the Savoy Theatre in Glace Bay, which is this almost a hundred year old theatre, 700 seat venue. It’s gorgeous, like red.

I can’t even describe it. If you can Google it, Google it, look at the pictures, it’s stunning. And then there’s the Highland arts theatre, um, in Sydney as well, which is sort of like, it’s built in an old church and it’s like a little more like scrappy kind of thing.

And I sort of knew, I knew Wesley who runs the Highland arts theatre. And I, I met Pam who runs the Savoy and I was doing a little bit of production management work for her on the side. And I said, you know, just so you know, I’d like to direct something if if anything comes around and she said, well, we’re doing Jersey boys.

It starts in two months. Do you want to direct Jersey boys? I was like, um, sure.

Okay. Why not? And it was all local, a couple of, you know, like professionals, if you will.

And it was incredible. And the response was incredible. And it was so, it was so much fun.

And we had people like, it was the talk of the town. I’ve never experienced that before. And what was so wonderful about it is that the talent up here is unreal.

I found a guy who can sing exactly like Frankie Valley. The guy’s name is Ian Furlong. He’s six foot two, exactly.

Not Frankie Valley physically, but he opened his mouth and I was like, well, I guess my Frankie Valley is going to be six foot two because I can’t not use that voice. And he was incredible. And we had like a slew of other incredible performers in it as well.

But the show was wild. These people were, you know, everybody has a day job. And so it’s kind of semi-professional, but the joy and the commitment and the, like the way these people strive for excellence was unreal to me.

Like, I’ve not even seen that in professional rooms. Like, and it was such a great show. And we had such a wonderful experience that I started getting offers to direct other things.

So I just finished a crazy couple of, well, since January, I haven’t really stopped. I directed Annie and then I directed, I was in Mamma Mia last summer here. And then I just finished directing the producers at the Hat.

And now after some people coming up and seeing the work that I can do in these big spaces with these big shows, Jeremy Webb called me and offered me the holiday show at Neptune to direct the Wizard of Oz, which is like such a homecoming on so many levels. And to be fair, when I moved, when I did move back to Halifax, I was able to get a bit of an apprenticeship at Neptune in their directing program. So it’s not like I’m coming in totally blind.

Like they sort of know who I am and I’ve been there since I was 18. So, but interestingly enough, the work that I’ve been doing in Sydney has built for me the confidence and allowed people to sort of see what I can do. And it also allowed me to develop my own sort of practice, you know, in a way that’s so full of joy and so full of, I don’t even know what the word is.

Like, it’s just, it’s, it’s, it’s insane to me how much work these people do up here in this community when they all have other jobs and they’re just, they’re on board and they’re here for it. And they’re happy to come to rehearsal. And it just feels, it’s just reminded me of how lucky you are to get to do some of the stuff that you love.

So all this stuff that happened to me in Cape Breton has now, I don’t know, kind of launched me back into some bigger stuff.

[Phil Rickaby]
Yeah. Yeah. Now you, you’ve mentioned that previous to this, you spent a lot of time waiting for other people to make things happen for you.

Um, did moving to Cape Breton make you realize that you could make stuff happen on your own?

[Michelle Langille]
Yeah. I mean, I feel like I’ve always kind of made small things happen. Um, you know, but it’s always been like me putting up my own money or me like organizing these things.

Um, but what’s the nice here is that I’m sort of gaining the confidence to ask for the things that I want or, um, you know, put myself forward for projects that beforehand I would have never thought that I could tackle, I guess. Um, and it’s been, uh, it’s just been a lot of discovery and there’s like some, there’s, you know, there’s some really great people that live in Cape Breton. Um, there’s this other director who lives here who I’ve been lucky to be directed by and are about to be directed by and come from away here.

Uh, named, um, Ron Jenkins, who’s like an incredible comedian, theatre director, like Semenovich prize nominated, you know, is directed across the country and his family lives here in Cape Breton, like just down the road or Blackup Lake, right. And, uh, I would, I would never have met him if I hadn’t moved to Cape Breton. And he’s, you know, he’s someone that’s, you know, he’s shared a lot of really interesting perspectives with me and it’s, it’s incredible to, you know, have those kinds of connections.

Yeah. And it’s, even though I’m four hours away, I still feel really connected to Neptune and the community in Halifax, which has been really nice. Um, four hours doesn’t sound like a lot, but it is.

Um, and I think that, yeah, I don’t know if it’s so much that I’m just not waiting for people to make things happen for me. I think I just, I have, like, I still have my government job. Like I still work 8.30 to 4.30 Monday to Friday. But I, I’ve somehow managed to find the time to do these things on top of that. And it’s actually invigorating. Like I don’t, um, you know what I mean?

Maybe, and maybe it’s because I have a sort of steady job at a pension right now. It allows me the freedom to say, you know, I don’t, I don’t know if it’s like maybe out of the desperation that I always felt like I, I certainly always felt like asking for things I’m like, Oh my God, I’m gonna look so desperate. But learning that it’s like, well, no, I can just ask for it.

If it doesn’t happen, it doesn’t happen. But maybe it’s more of like a security or something in a weird way.

[Phil Rickaby]
Yeah. I think it, I think that more people in the theatre need to come to terms with the fact that you can have a day job and still have the theatre career that you want instead of working seven part-time jobs and never really having a break. And, you know, working yourself into the ground.

[Michelle Langille]
Yeah. I mean, I think, I think part of that is true. I think that, I mean, I also like, I will say my job is, I love my job, but it’s, it’s incredibly inflexible with the union job and I’m sort of like in the middle of the ladder.

So, you know, like I, I have X amount of time off. I can’t, I can’t just say, you know, my restaurant job, which I had a restaurant job all through my twenties and thirties, you know, or I’d just be like, bye, I’m gone for two months, like, see you when I get back. I can’t really do that here.

I, you know, I, I figured out a way to be able to take off a month to go do that. But I mean, there are so many things that you can do that don’t involve being in a restaurant. Um, I think, I mean, I think that the industry is unsustainable in so many ways and I’m sure a lot of people would agree with me, like it’s, you know, I.

One thing I never loved about being in Toronto, um, and I still don’t love about film auditions is how quickly they happen. Like, you know, it’s like, oh, I need you to throw this like six pages or whatever on tape for tomorrow. And, and I’m like, I can’t, I’m working until five 30 and then I have like, you know, like I have to walk my dogs.

I have to, you know, I have to do these things and I, I, I really hate those timelines that make me wild. Um, the show that we do up here, like, again, most of them are semi-professional. So, um, we usually do two, two and a half months of rehearsals, a couple of days a week, and the reason I love that, I mean, obviously that’s not a sustainable model for a professional, I totally get that.

That is not what I’m saying, but I think that one of the things I love about up here, this sort of like, I don’t know, the semi-professional world is like, you know, you’ve got these people who are, I don’t know what their day job is, but they’re incredibly wildly talented. You know, you’ve got a guy that just finished his ECE who can sing like Frankie Daly, like what the hell? And if I was going to do a professional rehearsal period for that, like the three weeks, four week rehearsal period, like he, he doesn’t get to be on stage and he deserves to be on stage.

Um, like there’s a lot of people up here who deserve to be on stage. And I love that part of the way that I’m engaging with the theatre community up here is being able to create those opportunities and say, yeah, we’re going to rehearse for two and a half months so that you can all take care of your kids and do your day job and, you know, live your life. Cause I think there’s not enough theatre up here to sustain a full-time career.

Um, you know, I, I’d love to, you know, I’m, I’d love to get back into freelancing. I’d love to get back into like auditioning for contracts and maybe, you know, directing other shows, like I I’d be happy to, to get back, you know, to Toronto for a month or, you know, somewhere outside of Toronto and Ontario or BC or anywhere I’ll go anywhere for four weeks, like as a director, absolutely. Um, but I want to live here in Sydney.

I, I love it here. We have an amazing house and we have a pool. I like how cool it’s wild.

Um, and I could, I would never have this in Halifax, like, you know, real estate in Halifax is wild. And so I don’t know, like this, the quality of life I’m eight minutes from my job. I’m, you know, 20 minutes from theatre and it’s, the people here are really kind.

The community here is really, really, you know, fun and funky. And, you know, I think there’s lots of cool stuff happening and I’d love to be able to, you know, travel a few times a year, but come home to Sydney.

[Phil Rickaby]
There is something, I mean, you mentioned about how the, how theatre is, is unsustainable. And I think that, um, part of the issue is how much theatre kind of demands from the people who do it in, in, in, in the cities, right. Um, you know, a little less in, in a, in a place where you have the semi-professional, but like, not just like the auditions for film where they give you, um, the sides and tell you that you have to have it in by nine o’clock tomorrow morning or something like that, but like, just, there are a lot of expectations and there’s a lot of, a lot of demands that, that are, that’s put on the time of the actors.

[Michelle Langille]
Well, and I mean, it keeps getting shorter and shorter. Um, I think, you know, I, I’m sort of in the, in that middle ground where it’s like part of me wants to be a bit cranky and say, well, you know what, that’s how we’ve done it and I did it and that’s that, but there’s also a big part of me that’s like, you know, it would be great. A fine day rehearsal week, you know, it would be great.

Like six shows a week. Um, and, and it’s, you know, and I do, I do a bit of producing. I do understand how budgets work.

I understand, you know, I understand how, you know, I’m not saying that and being like, oh, well, you know, just make the money other ways, cause I know you sell tickets, funds and seats, funds and seats. Um, but I don’t know. Like, I think it’s so much has shifted.

And I think that, you know, work-life balance is, is so important. And that, you know, I think it’s like, there’s like a scarcity mentality, right? So it’s like, oh my God, I’ve got a contract.

I got a contract. I get to do a show. So you know what?

I’m just gonna, I’m gonna hook it up and I’m gonna, you know, I’m gonna do the six day weeks and I’m gonna, you know, like, cause. You know, and it’s part of what, it’s part of what the gig is, right? You know, you, you book a show, you book a contract, you’re doing eight shows a week and you have to be able to do those eight shows a week.

And that’s part of your job. Your job is to be rested, be vocally ready, be, you know, physically capable of doing the role. And that’s like, that is part of the work.

And so you can’t discount that. Um, but, uh, I think that, you know, I feel like since the pandemic more and more understudies go on more and more often in, in, in some good ways. Because I think that, you know, I’ve seen people do shows and pop off stage and puke or like, you know, they’re, they’re croaking out a song and then they can’t speak at the end of the show because, you know, that’s how they’re getting through it.

And I think that, and then everybody else gets sick because no. So I think that I sort of admire the people that are, that are, you know, taking themselves out of shows at the right time and doing it for the right reasons, I think that that’s admirable that we can have that, but as budgets go down, you know, you don’t have as many understudies, you know, you don’t have as many swings. Um, and so, uh, yeah, so it’s, you know, to me, I’m like, well, wouldn’t wouldn’t two days off a week, maybe allow people that time to really rest.

And would it not cut out some of that? Like if you weigh the cost of what it costs to throw on an understudy or cancel a show or whatever, I mean, again, I don’t have all the solutions, but from the outside eye, that’s kind of where I think that kind of balance would be really amazing.

[Phil Rickaby]
Yeah. I mean, a number of times I’ve done a show and then when the show is over, I immediately get sick because I’ve, I’ve exhausted myself in this show.

[Michelle Langille]
Yeah.

[Phil Rickaby]
That’s the kind of thing that happens. And I, you sort of mentioned about like how, you know, this is how we do it. That’s how, you know, the kind of the, and, and this is the way that theatre has kind of operated for a very long time, which is, well, this is how I was taught that we do it.

And so I’m teaching you, this is how we do it. That’s why people are often so miserable. The theatre schools is because their, their teacher had a, had a, had a cruel teacher who had a cruel teacher at a cruel teacher, and it’s all been passed down, which is why up until very recently, um, people were like, were asked to leave courses.

People were, um, uh, you know, the, the class size was whittled down. People had terrible experiences because they just were expected to, to suck up the shitty theatre school experience to get through it. And I think that with a little bit more compassion in our rehearsal halls and in, uh, you know, the six show week or something like that, we could not burn our artists out and we could have people have, you know, a life, you know, I remember, you know, in theatre school being told, well, you’re going to miss weddings, you’re going to miss funerals.

And that’s just the price of being in theatre. And it shouldn’t be.

[Michelle Langille]
I know. And, and I agree. And I think that there’s, you know, and again, that’s a budgetary thing too.

Cause it’s like, you know, if I’m going to take a weekend off to go to my best friend’s wedding, man, it’s going to cost the theatre money because they have to pay for the understudy. And I mean, I know that there are ways that you can work that out, but I think that’s a lot of it. And you know, it’s again, it’s that scarcity mentality.

Like, you know, there’s 70 other people right behind me, ready to take that role. And if I don’t take it or if I prioritize, if I prioritize myself or my life or my family there’s that fear, well, they’re not going to ask me again. And like, I will say that I, I am starting to see, like, I’ve seen some incredible shift in the last few years.

Like, you know, I look at some of the people that are teaching in the institutions now, like friends of mine, colleagues of mine who I know to be kind, generous, challenging the status quo. And so I suspect that the theatre school experience is very different from even like I graduated in 2014. I think that it’s probably very different from even when I was there.

And I, I, I don’t, I definitely don’t want to be part of the, the, well, this is how we’ve done it club. So I think that, you know, I do see, I do see shifts and I do see a lot of, you know, hope there, but I think it’s also so hard because, you know, theatres are struggling so much because, you know, we’re competing with, and again, this is like tales all the time. We’ve been talking about this for years, but you know, who wants to leave their house if they don’t have to.

And I mean, I could probably going to swing super far in the opposite direction at some point, like we’re all going to be so sick of our screens that we’re just going to, you know, we’re going to desperately need that, that, that human connection. But I think the other thing too, like, and again, I so hard. I, you know, there’s so many things I’m like, I like to talk about that.

I’m so passionate, but I also don’t want to get all soap boxy because I don’t have all the answers. I just sort of have my own limited perspective. Um, I think actually there was this really cool series of, um, essays that came out, I think they started just after the pandemic, it was, they’re written by always Lightwalla and, uh, I think it’s Sarah, Sarah Garton Stanley.

Um, have you read these, the manifest manifest for a theatre? I think it’s called.

[Phil Rickaby]
I don’t think so.

[Michelle Langille]
No, they’re really cool. If you look it up, like it’s, it’s really interesting. And they had, they had one essay that was really about the audience because we don’t have theatre without the audience.

And I, you know, then people are always like, oh, well, we don’t have theatre without the actors. And I’m like, I know, I agree. But if there’s no one there to witness it, then you’re just doing theatre, you know, for an empty space and that’s not helpful.

And I think that we have to listen to our audience as painful as it might feel sometimes, because, you know, as actors, we’re, we’re studiers of humanity. We are, you know, we want to experience that. We want to share that.

And, you know, a lot of us want to go to those deep dark places and, and, you know, help sort of create that opportunity for catharsis. And I think that that definitely is needed, but it’s such a balance. Like what are our audiences telling us?

You know, our audiences are telling us that a three and a half hour show is too long or audiences are telling us that a two and a half hour show is too long. Like you give me a sweet 90 minutes and I am sold, baby, you know? And so I think that we have to listen to our audiences.

[Phil Rickaby]
Yeah. And we have to find that, like you were talking about that balance and we have to give, you know, you can give a lot of times when I’ve talked about the fact that we don’t have like popcorn theatre in Canada so much. We don’t have that kind of thing in a lot of our theatres.

Um, and people kind of get angry about that. They sort of think that, that theatre is too important for, for that. We need to give people, we don’t give them what they want.

We give them what they need. And I often think like, yeah, but if you don’t give them what they want, they’re not coming, so you’re not giving them either, you know, you have to find the balance between entertaining them and, and giving them the catharsis that you want to give to them.

[Michelle Langille]
Well, there is, um, it’s so interesting because I think the two worlds can converge. I think that we just, we have to be more intentional about it and we have to really think about it. Um, one of the best pieces of theatre I’ve seen in the last few years.

And I I’d been somehow I just kept missing it every time it came around was, uh, Cliff Cardinal Huff. Have you seen it?

[Phil Rickaby]
Uh, again, I’ve missed it so many times.

[Michelle Langille]
Okay. I promise you don’t miss this show. Um, I, I was a little scared of it because of, um, uh, because of what, I don’t know.

I, I don’t know what to expect. Like, you know, I had this idea that it was going to be really dark and it is really dark, but it’s super funny and you’re laughing and you’re feeling a million things and it’s, uh, yeah, it was brilliant and it’s just, it’s just him on stage and I was like, I kind of, I mean, I hesitate to say that anything is perfect, but it was kind of a perfect meeting of all of those things. And I don’t know.

I was just like, I couldn’t believe that I hadn’t seen it so long, but I think maybe I just saw it at the right time when I was ready to like truly appreciate it. And so I think that we can, we can talk about important things. We can do important theatre, but it can also be, you know, it can be a mixed bag.

Do you know what I mean? I feel sometimes, I mean, I also feel like our funding structure in Canada feeds that to like, you know, very few people, very few funding bodies fund the next great comedy. You know, a lot of them want like, you know, experience plays and, and, um, you know, I, I think that we forget sometimes the value in pure entertainment.

[Phil Rickaby]
You know? Absolutely. Absolutely.

Because, um, the audience, the first and foremost, the audience has to be entertained to want to come and we need to want them to come to the theatre. Um, we can’t act as though, you know, theatre is like taking your vitamins. You have to do it.

It’s good for you. Cause there’s so much effort that goes into going to the theatre. You have to leave your house.

You have to have pants on. You have to like decide, am I going to eat at home? Are we going to have dinner?

How am I getting there? How late is it going to be when I get home? There’s so many things to consider.

Instead of like staying home on your couch, we have to, we have to bring them out because they want to come. Otherwise they’re not going to.

[Michelle Langille]
I agree. And again, like I, I, yeah, like I said, I hesitate to say the word perfect, but I will say in my opinion that I thought Huff was pretty close to perfect. Like it just, it hit everything for me.

Like it was, it was, there was important themes. There was like, there was some heartbreaking moments. There was some absolutely hysterical moments and it was, it was told in such an innovative way.

Like it was, it was really great, you know? And I think, um, I think everything sort of has its place. Like, I think, you know, there’s, but I think what you’re saying is right.

Like we have to, we have to bring them in and trust us to take chances on things. Like, um, I’m not gonna lie. I’m super excited to direct The Wizard of Oz for a multitude of reasons.

Not the least of which is that it is so simple and beautiful. And I feel like we’re doing it right now at a time where if I had kids, I would want to take them to see The Wizard of Oz because that’s what I grew up on. And so there’s sort of that really cool, um, with The Wizard of Oz is one of those shows where it’s like such a little intro piece, you know, like someone is going to come see that and hopefully think, Oh my God, I want to, I want to do that when I grow up, I want to be silly and funny and, you know, I think there’s lots of beautiful moments in it.

And it’s, it’s one of those, it’s one of those like tradition building shows where like, for me, it was The Sound of Music when I was a kid, that was like a tradition building show for me. Like I, I grew up on that show, watching that show and then being able to do that show and all that stuff. Like, I think The Wizard of Oz is similar.

Like hopefully someone will see The Wizard of Oz and that’ll be their gateway drug. I mean, that’s it.

[Phil Rickaby]
I, yeah, you know what I mean? It’s, it’s funny cause sometimes I’ve, I’ve made the illusion, uh, with theatre, uh, about Hollywood and Hollywood gives us blockbusters. It gives us popcorn and it also gives us like serious boogies.

And as soon as you mentioned Hollywood, people are like, why don’t you just give people like, you know, they get really angry about the idea of, of, of giving people like, just like pure entertainment, um, because theatre is too important for that. Um, but what you’re, the thing that you’re saying about is so like The Wizard of Oz and people are going to come to see that some people are going to bring their kids and some people are going to go just because they know that show from when it was on TV, um, at Easter or Christmas or whichever, whenever it was on and it has a hot, they have a soft spot for that show and they’re going to come because of that.

[Michelle Langille]
And, and it’s almost like, um, I have, uh, I have a couple of books that I consider like, um, they’re like cozy blankets that when I feel a little overwhelmed or, you know, the world is a little too much, I read this book. Uh, my, my cozy book is called, uh, the Fiona of our tapestry. It’s by this Canadian author named D Gabrielle Kay.

It’s a fantasy book that was written in the eighties. And it’s, it’s, it’s my comfort blanket. And I feel like a show like The Wizard of Oz is similar, you know, you know, what’s going to happen.

I was, I was actually what, um, I think, was it a podcast or an article or something I was reading? Yeah, I think it was an article I was reading about why people watch the same TV shows over and over again. Especially in times of trauma.

Um, I’m not going to lie during the pandemic, I rewatched all of Buffy, the vampire slayer, because I am totally a Buffy fan. And it’s because when everything feels overwhelming, sometimes you need that comfort of what you know. And I feel like The Wizard of Oz is one of those shows.

It’s, you know, it, you know, and yeah, that’s kind of how I feel about it.

[Phil Rickaby]
I mean, it’s similar to like, you know, why do we watch the same movies and TV shows at Christmas every year? Like we, these are things that sit in our heart and we love them. So why wouldn’t, you know, something like if the theatre can do that too, then we should, we should do that as well.

[Michelle Langille]
I think so. And I think that, um, yeah, I just think we’re so, you know, again, this is going to sound super cliche and it’s not something anybody hasn’t said before, but you know, the world’s a bit of a floating dumpster fire right now. And so anything that kind of douses that fire a little bit and gives us a little bit of joy, um, and, and brings us, gives us a little bit of escapism.

Like there’s nothing wrong with that. There’s nothing like less artful about, about that, I think. And again, like listening to our audiences, like looking at your regional theatres, what’s selling out.

Oh, frozen is selling out. You know what? Then great.

Too frozen. Frozen’s awesome.

[Phil Rickaby]
Yes. I’ve been having conversations with my girlfriend who’s an artist. She’s a visual artist and we’ve had these conversations about, um, how do you make art in these times, like when things are dark, how do we make art?

And I think what we’ve come around to is we have a responsibility. And if our responsibility is to, is to, for a moment, give people a reprieve from the dumpster fire, even for an hour, an hour and a half, two hours, that is, that is our role in this society. That is the thing that we contribute is to give people a break, to show them another world.

And that is the thing that, that if that, if, if after that, they’re ready to go back out into the world and like face the dumpster fire that we’ve done our job, please tell me you’ve seen that meme with the dumpster flyer. Well, 100%, I know exactly what you mean about the floating dumpster. As soon as you said it, I saw it in my mind.

Um, probably one of my favorite meme. It’s so good. And it’s so appropriate.

Um, as we sort of draw to a close here, I wanted to ask you, um, if there are lessons that you’ve learned leaving Toronto and moving to, uh, a smaller town, uh, what’s the last, what are a couple of the lessons that that’s taught

[Michelle Langille]
Um, that doing theatre is important no matter where you do it and who you do it with, I, I feel like the theatre that we’re doing at like the Savoy theatre up here in Cape Breton is just as important as what’s happening on the Stratford festival stages. Is the production quality different? Absolutely.

I’m not saying that we are better than the Stratford festival. I just want to be really clear about that. What I’m saying is that the community here in Cape Breton that’s coming to see our shows may have never been to the Stratford festival.

And so this in a 700 seat, almost a hundred year old theatre, these productions that are so full of heart and incredible talent, like, you know, I don’t want to blow smoke, but seriously, some of the people in these shows are just incredible. Like we had this 12 year old girl play Annie recently, and this kid, her voice, it’s unreal. Like I, she had all of us in tears at the audition and you know, I’ve seen incredible kids on stage and this kid was mind blowing.

She just comes out of nowhere and glazed me Nova Scotia. So, uh, Frienne Guthrow is her name and everybody should keep their eye out for Frienne Guthrow. Um, but all that to say, like, I think that the biggest lesson for me is that it’s humbling because, you know, I was very much of that.

Well, I must move to Toronto. I must do theatre in Toronto and I must, I must try to work at these spaces because otherwise the work that I’ve done isn’t of any value. And that’s complete and utter horseshit.

I think that I’ve, one of the other lessons I’ve learned is just about redefining what success is, you know, like is success being on that big stage that you’ve always dreamed of being on or is success, um, being able to curate and create a rehearsal space and a production that is full of heart and, and kindness and generosity and full of people who are all on board with you. And I think it also taught me a lot about, um, um, Patience and expectation and managing those. Um, a lot of times just with myself too, like with my own, my expectations of myself.

Um, and I think that it’s really reminded me of, or taught me a lesson about the, the true, like a little Pollyanna moment, um, the true core of theatre, which is community and people coming together to tell a story and doing it collaboratively. And, and that’s, that’s been the really nice thing, you know, like we have limited resources, we have small budget, we still do, I think amazing things, but you know, it’s like, I remember when we did Jersey Boys, um, the, uh, we, we did like a little music weekend blitz where the, there was only 13 people in the cast and they learned the music in three days. And then we came in and we did the table read then because the music’s so integral in that show.

And I’ll be honest, I didn’t really know Jersey Boys before I started directing it and I was just like, all right, great. Four guys singing. Awesome.

Oh, but oh my God, I love this show. I would direct it anywhere. So anybody listening that wants to hire me to direct Jersey Boys, I will direct it anywhere.

Um, but we did the sing through and it was wild. And I, I said to the cast afterwards, I said, guys, we could literally do this in a black box in our pajamas. And I think people would get their money’s worth based on what everybody did at that point, which to me was like, oh, this is great.

We just get to have fun. Because we were just, everybody was there and they were in it together. Like they were so, that team was so in tune with each other.

And again, like, you know, you always try to take everything with a grain of salt, but we had people that were like, I’ve seen the show seven times, I’ve seen it on Broadway and your production was the best and, you know, your Frankie Valley sounded like Frankie Valley. So, you know, yeah. Like, and that’s, I don’t say that with any ego or anything.

I, I, I mean, I, I say that with like total kudos to this group of 13 local actors who sang like shit out of this show, like wildly. Yeah. So those are some of my lessons.

[Phil Rickaby]
Yeah. Well, thank you. Cape Breton awesome.

[Michelle Langille]
Like awesome. And, and Cape Breton is also awesome. You know, they are from the same place, but I will delineate Cape Breton.

[Phil Rickaby]
Well, one is in these four hours away from, from it is true.

[Michelle Langille]
You can actually fly. There’s a, there’s a, uh, there is a plane you can take, but I don’t know that it takes any less time if you factor in boarding and all that stuff. It’s still four hours.

[Phil Rickaby]
It might not. Well, Michelle, thank you so much for joining me. I really appreciate it.

Thank you. Wonderful conversation. Thank you.

[Michelle Langille]
I really appreciate it as well.