Sharry Flett Is Reflecting on 34 Seasons at the Shaw Festival
About This Episode:
Sharry Flett has spent 34 seasons at the Shaw Festival – long enough to have watched the company evolve through three artistic directors, raise a daughter who appeared on its stages, and welcome back former students she once coached as the people now directing her. In this conversation with host Phil Rickaby, Sharry reflects on what keeps drawing her back to Niagara-on-the-Lake, and what it felt like to walk into rehearsals for Wind in the Willows and find Fiona Sauder, André Morin, and fight director Jack Davidson Rennie – all artists she had mentored at George Brown College, now in positions of leadership.
This episode explores:
- What it was like for Sharry to be directed by three former students she had coached at George Brown College; and how she navigated that full-circle moment
- Playing Rat in Wind in the Willows: how the original Kenneth Grahame book shaped her approach to the character
- Why performing for children demands complete honesty and commitment; and how that discipline serves actors in any room
- The Shaw Festival under three artistic directors: Christopher Newton, Jackie Maxwell, and Tim Carroll, and how the ensemble ethos has remained constant through each
- Sharry’s path from medicine to music to theatre, including the moment picking up a flute sent electricity through her arm
- The importance of teaching; and what Sharry gains from students when she brings Shaw’s language alive in the room
- And much more!
Guest: Sharry Flett
SHAW 2026: Funny Girl, The Wind in the Willows; 34th season. FOR THE SHAW: Anything Goes, May I Have The Pleasure?, My Fair Lady, The Secret Garden, The Apple Cart, The Clearing, The Doctor’s Dilemma, Everybody, Cyrano de Bergerac, Man and Superman, Me and My Girl, Uncle Vanya, The Philadelphia Story, Enchanted April, Lady Windermere’s Fan, Come Back Little Sheba, Maria Severa, Age of Arousal, Sunday in the Park with George, The Little Foxes, Getting Married, The Magic Fire, Major Barbara, The Autumn Garden, Floyd Collins, Misalliance, Rebecca, Joy, The Seagull, Hedda Gabler, Berkeley Square. (Selected Credits) ELSEWHERE: leading roles in theatres across Canada, including Katherine in The Taming of the Shrew, Miranda in The Tempest, Stratford Festival. FILM/TELEVISION: Grey Gardens, Shades of Black, Full House with Sharry Flett, Jane of Lantern Hill. AWARDS: Gemini nominations (best actress), War Brides and Suicide Murders, CBC; Paul Reynolds award, Shaw Festival; Tyrone Guthrie award, Stratford Festival. TEACHING: Shaw Festival, National Theatre School, George Brown Theatre School, Queen’s University, University of Toronto, Brock University.
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Transcript
[Phil Rickaby]
Welcome to this episode of Stageworthy. I’m Phil Rickaby and I’m the host and producer of this podcast. Stageworthy is Canada’s theatre podcast.
And on Stageworthy, I talk to theatre makers of all kinds, from actors to directors, to playwrights, producers, directors, stage managers. If they make theatre in Canada, I talk to them. Some of the people I talk to are household names, and the rest are people that I really think you should get to know.
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There’s a new link in the show notes that would allow you to do that. But let’s get into it. I’m going to talk a little bit more about that later on.
But let’s get into this week’s episode. This week, I am talking to Sherry Flett. Sherry is a veteran of 34 years at the Shaw Festival.
This year, she’s playing Rat in Wind in the Willows, among other things. And we have a great conversation coming up about Wind in the Willows, about being a veteran at a festival and what that means and also the importance of teaching. There’s just so much in this episode.
I can’t wait for you to hear it. So let’s get to it. This is my conversation with Sherry Flett.
Sherry Flett, thank you so much for joining me. I really appreciate this. You are at the Shaw Festival.
I believe you’ve been there for 34 seasons.
[Sharry Flett]
Thirty four seasons. Yes. You’ve arrived.
I arrived in 1988. So there’s been some seasons in between. But essentially, that’s the number of seasons.
Yeah.
[Phil Rickaby]
You’ve been there through three artistic directors, which is a fascinating experience to see what each artistic director brings to the table. I want to I definitely want to get into that. But I know you are also starring in Wind in the Willows at the Shaw Festival, which I think not only is it a wonderful book and series of books, that series is so, so beloved.
I remember having that read to me as a child. I saw a production of it at Young People’s Theatre many years ago over the holidays. So it’s it’s it’s a wonderful story.
What was your relationship to the Wind in the Willows like before coming to this play?
[Sharry Flett]
For me, it was my husband was actually in Toad of Toad Hall in 1983 at Canadian stage, and he played Chief Weasel as a Christmas gift. I gave him the book of Kenneth Graham’s book as a and it was a new it was a new publication. So it sat in our in our library for a very long time.
And then with Wind in the Willows this year, I pulled it out and started to read it, became enchanted by it. So I knew of Wind in the Willows through Toad of Toad Hall by A.A. Milne. And so to come to the book and to then read a little bit about Kenneth Graham’s life and his his son, that he would he would write these chapters and read them aloud to his son, Alistair.
So they were chapter by chapter, and each story would be a new a new story of the of the time by which he’d finished writing the chapter. So in reading through this book before we started rehearsals, I became absolutely enchanted by by the life, by the writing, by the fact that he didn’t apologize to his child for using big words. And and what Fiona Sauder has done with Bad Hats, Bad Hats production, Magnifico.
But as in adapting this from page to stage and adapting it through Toad of Toad Hall, she has not backed down from those big words as well. And children, we watch the audience become involved both for for all ages, and they are enchanted. They love the rhythm of the of the storytelling, and they love Bad Toad, and they they listen to the words.
So I think this is just brilliant of what Kenneth Graham has done in writing big words in these stories as well. I think kids appreciate when you don’t talk down to them.
[Phil Rickaby]
If you are brave enough to use those big words. They’ll work them out. Absolutely.
Yeah. You mentioned that production of Toad of Toad Hall, because I said I said what young people see it or but given that year, I think that was the production I saw. Oh, and then you must have been a child.
I was about 14 at the time.
[Sharry Flett]
Oh, isn’t that wonderful that you were introduced that way? That’s lovely. Yeah, it’s fabulous.
[Phil Rickaby]
Now, you mentioned Fiona. I talked to Fiona a while back, and I also know that Andre Moran is the assistant director. And you taught both of them at George Brown College.
[Sharry Flett]
Well, all three. So when I arrived. I was I was a part of coming into their third year for about three weeks just prior to Christmas.
And we did what was called Theatre Ontario and then became Next Generation Showcase. So we would coach and prepare these final year students for introducing themselves to the profession. So the all of the casting agents, artistic directors would come live to a particular theatre, and each of the schools would present themselves as a class.
And each student would then present themselves doing a contemporary in the classical audition piece. So I was working with a contemporary of Fiona Sauder and Jack Davidson Rennie, who is the fight fight director for us and the movement director. And then Andre Moran, who was assisting.
They all knew each other at George Brown. They were there were years between. But I was I coached all three of them.
So if you can imagine walking into that room 10 years later in life. And there they are, established young artists themselves. And I am I am being directed and suggested by them and coached by them.
And so it was full circle. So for me and for them, there was a pathway that we had to go through to get to the other side of, yes, I’m the actor being directed. And you are you are in leadership.
And they they were all wonderful.
[Phil Rickaby]
That is a fascinating two sides of the coin. Oh, yeah. As somebody who does teach quite a bit.
I’m sure this is not your first time working with somebody that you’ve taught. Is there a process that you’ve been able to come up with of trying to change in your mind between being the teacher and just being an actor? Is that a difficult?
[Sharry Flett]
No, because you meet them as as individuals, personalities who are arriving in the company, also as fellow actors, and you’re embracing their first time into the company and helping them along. This was a different type of of experience because I had to mentally let go of that history and remembering each of them in in that coaching position and allow myself to become vulnerable and to be directed by them. It was a very interesting experience, but eventually we quickly got to the other side of it all.
[Phil Rickaby]
I mean, you kind of have to. I mean, being in a festival setting does give you a little bit more room to breathe, but not a lot. You still have to buckle down and get to work.
So you have you must have to get to that point as quickly as possible.
[Sharry Flett]
Oh, yes, absolutely. And, you know, with this production, Wind in the Willows, it’s so multidisciplinary and you’re also rehearsing in a repertory situation so that we would have maybe three or four hours, then there’d be a few days in between seeing each other again. We had time, but not a lot of time.
So in total, you were putting all of these disciplines together and then the Fiona Sauder Bad Hats personality is tempo, speed, rigorous. It’s very specific. So it’s meticulous in its in its direction and articulation of that.
So it was a it was a really very interesting process.
[Phil Rickaby]
Bad Hats work and Fiona’s work tends to be multidisciplinary. So it doesn’t surprise me that that carries over to this production. But Fiona’s work also really works around ensemble and collaboration.
How has that shaped the rehearsal process and even going into performances for Wind in the Willows?
[Sharry Flett]
Well, we are very much the Shaw Festival really honors and enjoys itself to be an ensemble company. So we’re already functioning as a as team players. And that’s a particular part of the joy of being here is is that team playing.
So we already had established that they were newcomers to the Shaw Festival, learning all kinds of things. Andre Morin has been an actor here for quite a few years. Fiona has been here as an assistant director for one season.
But coming into this process was new for them. And Jeff Newbery, who who is the the original creator of Sound and Music, also was new to the process here. And it’s exciting for them.
It was different for them. But I think we were able to help along the way as far as we are already an ensemble. So let’s get to work.
And and that’s been fun.
[Phil Rickaby]
As a veteran member of the company, is there something that you would want somebody new coming into the company to know? What does somebody who’s new need to know about the Shaw Festival?
[Sharry Flett]
I think just being assured, assured that. There’s a there’s an aspect of being able to learn. There’s you’re introduced to a large number of people all at once.
And it’s it’s fearful for them, I think, at the beginning. But also there is a slow introduction. There’s a period of time where they can come for, I think, about a week to two weeks before we actually start the season.
And they experience various people in the company and they work on things that are a part of expectations here. So it gives them an introduction. I think it’s just helping them to fear to feel less fearful.
[Phil Rickaby]
Yeah. I mean, because we’re all vulnerable, of course, especially when you come into if you’re new in an established company. That’s that’s pretty nerve wracking.
So it’s good that the Shaw Festival has that. The Wind in the Willows is largely a children’s play, and I’m sure that there are plenty of adults who come to see it, who grew up with the book, who’ve had experiences with it. And they’re coming for that nostalgia and they’re coming to experience that.
And they’re probably also coming to share that with their children. But how important is children’s theatre in terms of like the next generation of theatre goers?
[Sharry Flett]
It’s it’s absolutely vital to theatre today, especially. And and there have been shifts at the Shaw Festival. There were times where Peter Pan was done through Christopher Christopher’s time and Alice in Wonderland through Jackie’s time.
But since Tim Carroll has arrived, he’s really attempted to bring and invite and escalate the the whole experience of children being in the theatre and even more so in just in the last couple of seasons to really feel for everyone that this is their place to come to. And children are especially invited to to feel that this is your place. This is what you’re you are invited to to be experiencing.
And yes, those audiences with Wind in the Willows. It’s delightful because you see the grandparents, but they have come by themselves and they are laughing as well as the parents, as well as people who are just coming to see Wind in the Willows, as well as the children. So it’s this multi generational group in the audience.
And it’s a it’s a lovely, intimate theatre. And in the third, the third stage that we have are the Jack Maxwell Studio. So it’s such an intimate surrounding.
And so we are all having a lot of fun. And the more bad Toad is, the better it fits.
[Phil Rickaby]
What is I mean, it is certainly performing for children is a different experience than performing for a room full of adults. What is an audience of children? How is it different than an audience of adults?
[Sharry Flett]
I’m not so sure that it’s any different. What’s you don’t lie to children. You don’t talk down to children.
You don’t. I’m trying to find the right word for it. You treat them as equals and you tell the story equally and they will come to you.
So to me. If anything, it might be rhythm. It might be a faster rhythm that that nurtures them, that seduces them, that titillates them.
[Phil Rickaby]
Yeah.
[Sharry Flett]
Their minds are so fast, very fast.
[Phil Rickaby]
I remember years ago when I was at George Brown College and we did our Christmas production, which was a children’s show. One of the first things they told us was the children were no, if you’re lying to them. And if you are not completely committed to this, they’re going to get bored and they’ll talk amongst themselves.
If they ask you, you they will not stand any bullshit.
[Sharry Flett]
No, they can see it so quickly. And I sometimes wonder how we lost that. I think I think most of the time we as human beings know, but it’s children are just so pure and and they just completely understand.
And, you know, doing children’s theatre in that second year at George Brown Theatre School, it’s one of the best exercises to do.
[Phil Rickaby]
It is such an exercise in not only being completely committed and truthful, but also holding an audience’s attention. If you can hold that room of children, that will serve you when you’re playing to adults, too.
[Sharry Flett]
Yes.
[Phil Rickaby]
Yes, I think so. It’s such a such a great experience. So you were playing rat in the wind in the willows.
How do you approach? That the character of rat.
[Sharry Flett]
I think I think the book influenced me the most. I just I just kept reading the book. And then I read this lovely description of rat.
By I, I think I think it was someone who knew Graham because he felt that rat was closest to Graham, the origin of the writer. And he said that he’s prone, prone to bursts, prone to becoming emotional, loves poetry, but also is meticulous in discipline and hardworking. And and also Graham just loved the boats.
And this is what rat loves to do. He’d love to be by the river. So the more that I just read about that description, the more and more engaged I became with rat.
[Phil Rickaby]
Is there something in particular that you love most about performing this show?
[Sharry Flett]
You know, I think it’s the the collective ensemble fun. We are allowed now that we’ve pulled all of the disciplines together and now that our our rhythm is is the rhythm that it needs to be. We also you you suddenly feel, OK, I can sit in the pocket.
So you stand waiting for the beginning. And Fiona Soder created and also our movement person, Jack, created this wonderful beginning where. There is a child and a nurse and the nurse is running after the child, but she can see what the nurse cannot see.
And that’s all of us. So we enter into the scene and wave at the child and the child waves back, but the nurse doesn’t see it. And so begins the play.
And so we go, it’s it’s just a lot of fun to to be a part of that.
[Phil Rickaby]
You mentioned Jack, you mentioned the movement director, and this is a particular challenge in a play like this. When. The cast are largely are all playing.
Animals, but still people. They’re animals that are wearing. Jackets and suits and all of the same things.
What kind of work went into creating a physicality for all of the creatures in the show?
[Sharry Flett]
It was a slow, a slower process because there was a lot, a lot of other things to do in terms of the fight and the movement and just moving from one scene into the other transitions. So there was a gradual independent exploration of what our our animals were. And so I find now that a few weeks into running this show, more animal characteristics are emerging from each of us.
And so it’s finding the combination between the people and the animal that lives inside of those characters. And that’s been a lot of fun. And so I’m seeing I’m seeing Lawrence Lebor as as Toad.
He’s he’s wonderful. He used to be a drummer. And he he apparently had a band when he was in England, came to Canada.
So he has he’s a dancer. He’s a singer. He’s played drums.
So he has this internal Carrie madness about him. And out of it is coming physical life that is completely Toad, but a crazy human being with enormous internal energy that’s just busting out at all of his seams. And at the same time, I see it Toad now.
So he’s he’s he’s absolutely delicious as bad Toad. We’re all trying to keep him in line.
[Phil Rickaby]
I find it fascinating. You mentioned bad Toad a couple of times. And you mentioned that the kids really like bad Toad.
What is it about bad Toad that you think the kids really respond to?
[Sharry Flett]
I remember one child towards the beginning of our show, because at one at one point in in the judgment scene, the children are reached out to and ask the opinion of what do you think of Toad? And should he go to jail? And the very first little person who said.
What do you think of Toad? Toad is very naughty. And so that is that’s what it is.
It’s the naughtiness of Toad. Toad’s breaking the rules. And yet and yet he doesn’t mean to.
It’s just his his his effervescent love of life and curiosity. And he’s on to one thing and then another and another and another. And you can’t keep him down.
And the children just love that. So the the naughtier he is, the better.
[Phil Rickaby]
Well, I mean, it must be there’s a certain liberation in watching someone be naughty when sometimes children aren’t allowed to be a little.
[Sharry Flett]
Exactly. Exactly. There’s a lot of glee to that fun of breaking the rules and being yourself.
[Phil Rickaby]
Yes. Yeah.
[Sharry Flett]
Just being yourself.
[Phil Rickaby]
Is there in your mind, is there really much difference between performing in a quote unquote kids show?
[Sharry Flett]
And performing in a show for grownups, I know I you know, it’s been a very long time we used to. I don’t know if you remember this yourself, but we used to pack up the bands and move on. This was at the very beginning.
And this was many decades ago that I remember packing the van and moving on to the next school. And and thinking to myself, I don’t think I want to do this anymore in terms of children’s theatre. And now doing this because it’s been a long time since I’ve done something like this.
It is the greatest joy to to do it. And to me, there’s there’s not a dividing line between. Just doing a play and doing Winds in the Willows.
[Phil Rickaby]
Yeah, I mean. I sometimes wish that adults could approach theatre with the kind of energy that kids bring to a show. You know, sometimes the it can be an overwhelming wall of of energy that comes from kids that are truly excited to be at a at a play.
Years ago, I did a I did a show that was around a beloved children’s television character, and we would walk out on stage and the wall of energy that would come at us.
[Sharry Flett]
And you don’t get that from other audiences because they were so familiar with what they were expecting to see. Yes. Yeah.
Yes. No. And and that’s delicious.
And we find we find our audiences have more of a wonder because how how familiar are you with Toad Hall or Wind in the Willows? I think for a lot of the the children’s audience, they are discovering. And so there’s a sense of wonder.
And then they become mesmerized because they are so intent on listening. And when things go wrong or when Toad is naughty, then you you hear them erupt. But it’s the story is unexpected for them.
So they all go away cheering after they have they’ve experienced the show. But it’s such a sense of wonder for them. And I just I love that.
[Phil Rickaby]
It’s so fascinating and such a such an honor, I think, to be part of a child’s first experience in the theatre. And I think that wonder is a huge part of it. How do how does this happen?
Who are these people? What are they like? I remember seeing a show years ago with a four year old and it was a children’s show.
And after the show, they kind of wondered. Like, are those where those people come out and they’ll be the same people like where where do they go now? And they were like fascinated both by what they saw on stage and then what happens after is it’s so fascinating to watch a child wrap their mind around theatre.
[Sharry Flett]
Absolutely. Yes. And and a child, as you meet them, not as whatever character you were and you look at them eye to eye, their eyes look at you as if.
They’re trying to understand the connection. Absolutely, you’re right. But they also have this, again, this sense of.
I believed so much in the character I saw and there you are and you were that character, so it’s fascinating for them. And they said, I think that’s all a part of the joy of introducing theatre to them as well.
[Phil Rickaby]
Absolutely. Absolutely. And the best part is if they have fun, they’ll ask to do it again another year.
[Sharry Flett]
But also, you know, it’s that experience of coming together. I think that this it’s it’s the whole idea of what theatre is and and bless theatre, because I think it will remain alive. And there’s always been that question of what will happen to theatre.
But as children coming into a space and a collective space, and it’s all live, live, live sounds, live people. It’s it’s so deeply important for them. And you can you can feel that experience is quite special.
And and they want more of it.
[Phil Rickaby]
Yeah. I really think, you know, as we talk, as you know, as the world keeps wrestling with A.I. and what that means and what it’s going to do to entertainment industries, I do think that there is an opportunity for theatre. Because it’s the one medium.
Where you you can’t fake it with A.I. It’s it’s it is always live. It’s always real people on the stage. It’s always it’s always us and the audience together.
And I do think that people. Will grow hungrier for that reality.
[Sharry Flett]
I agree. I agree. And I I think it’s just a matter of.
Them being there in the seat and experiencing it live and one thing leads to another.
[Phil Rickaby]
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I think I think exposure to theatre is the best advertisement for theatre. It’s just sometimes hard to get everybody into that seat sometimes.
But it is it is the best the best way forward. I want to ask you a little bit about your time at Shaw, because. You know, you mentioned there was a break in there and you’re you’re 34 years at the Shaw Festival, but 34 years is a long time to be at a one festival.
Is there anything in particular that that made you want to stay at the Shaw Festival?
[Sharry Flett]
I’ve had more decades of work before I came to the Shaw Festival as well. So when I arrived, I was introduced to Christopher Newton. I certainly knew very much about about him and his work.
I had some seasons at Stratford. So by the time I arrived at Shaw, I was also introduced to Bernard Shaw. I certainly knew of him as a writer, but not as someone acting in a play by Bernard Shaw.
And I became enthralled by this writer. And enthralled by his his his politics, his social standing and to realize that time. Has not changed.
So he became a very contemporary writer for me and. And I think the way in which Christopher Newton, by this time, directed Shaw was was very exciting as well. Also, I was invited into an ensemble.
I was invited into a team playing, which has has always continues. Whether it was Jackie Maxwell or Tim Carroll’s time, that sense of ensemble. And I think some of the some of some of Bernard Shaw’s philosophy, which Christopher Newton really honored at the very beginning of Christopher’s time, he was not an advocate of Shaw.
He was he he was he was. I what’s the word for it? He was a.
A slight adversary to Shaw, but he was he was seduced by Bernard Shaw, and he became one of the finest directors of Bernard Shaw because he understood it and he understood who Shaw was. He understood the times. He understood that the history, the philosophy.
So to me, some of his his productions were were so exciting. And it was great to be a part of all of that. So I found it seductive and I to stay.
And of course, I went away. But then and I had our child, Michaela, a beautiful, wonderful young woman now. And he wanted me to come back.
And then he also asked for my husband, Anthony, to come back, to come to Shaw. So we arrived as a family with a six month old. And and it and life continued is so you’re only as good as your season.
You know, once the season’s over, you may be hired again. You may not be hired again. So one season led to another season, to another season, to another season.
And we remained as a family. And in fact, our daughter, Michaela, ended up in two productions under Jackie Maxwell’s artistic directorship. So life became such an interesting community with Shaw and living in a small town.
I would then finish the season and go off and do some teaching somewhere or and then we would be invited back. So suddenly, 34 seasons later, you’re going, how did that all happen? How did I end up being at the Shaw Festival for 34 seasons?
That’s a big question. And it’s gone so fast.
[Phil Rickaby]
That question of of of at the end of the season, will I be asked back next year as as early in a career? That must be relatively nerve wracking, especially if you if you’ve put down roots in a place like Niagara on the lake. How do you or how did you deal with that uncertainty?
[Sharry Flett]
I think for me, I arrived understanding all of that. I think when when you are just coming out of school, when you’re just beginning to find your feet and and desperately want your impassioned with wanting to be an actor, a good actor. This place offers a lot of different angles to improving your craft, to meeting good directors, good, extremely good designers of all sorts.
Wonderful musicians. So it’s a palette of of enticement, especially for the young person. We had to be very philosophical about it.
And there were times where I was at Shaw and my husband was not. And you recognize. The actor’s a nomadic breed as as it is, you you end up becoming a nomad, though you don’t want to be a nomadic.
And sometimes you’re putting children into a car and driving off to some other city. It’s there’s there’s an oddity to all of that. And and yet when you are young and just entering into the business, it’s sometimes extremely good to leave the Shaw Festival and go off and do exactly that.
And and see what life is on the other side.
[Phil Rickaby]
There’s certainly an excitement to the early years of the acting career of traveling around and moving from place to place to fulfill each contract. A contract. I know for me, as I get older, that is that is far less attractive as time.
Absolutely.
[Sharry Flett]
Yeah, absolutely.
[Phil Rickaby]
I would much rather do good work at one place than then be chasing good work in many places.
[Sharry Flett]
Yeah. Yes. And I think we all naturally come to that understanding.
[Phil Rickaby]
I think so, too. No, we mentioned that you’ve you know, you’ve seen the festival under three different leaderships, Christopher Newton, Jackie Maxwell, and now Tim Carroll. And it’s clear that the ensemble feeling and the ensemble ethos has been a part of that throughout.
Hey, are there differences that you as an actor in the company that you’ve felt as leadership changes or does it largely remain we are an ensemble and everything that those concerns of the changes don’t really affect you?
[Sharry Flett]
I think the changes that are happening now are are are quite defined under Tim Carroll’s artistic direction and Tim Jennings. And also what is happening is we are having changes in in venues. So the George Theatre, which is the small, smaller theatre on the main street, is now a hole in the ground.
So there is a whole new concept and idea and a building that in three years plus, perhaps, will be there inviting inviting the public to become more a part of the interior of what goes on in the theatre. And I think they’re trying to to cross those borders between that fourth wall, what they call the fourth wall. If you come into the theatre, you sit in the space and you watch what’s going on on stage.
But there’s an invitation to cross that border more and more, I think. And I think that that theatre is that is happening globally as well. It’s also the the artists in residence is not just for young artists, but for all ages, for finding the artist inside of yourself.
So a lot of programming may start to change quite a bit. I’m not quite sure where where that goes outside of you have good theatre in the theatres. And then also there will be there is a whole new building called Artists in Residence, the Burton Centre for Learning, which is inviting people of all ages to enter into what what is this?
What is the art and what is art forms and seeing what the artist is inside of you?
[Phil Rickaby]
Yeah. I think that you were mentioning the the the that crossing of the fourth wall, the the bringing people in. I think that that’s one of the ways forward for theatre, because what we do is kind of like magic to people who don’t do it.
You know, they always have so many questions. You know, how do you learn all those words? How how do you how do you get changed so quickly?
What is like all of they all have questions about how it works. And and just like back when I was growing up, they used to have, you know, behind the scenes specials on like the latest movie. And so you can see like the how the special effects were done.
I think people are fascinated by how it’s made.
[Sharry Flett]
Absolutely. They they want to know and especially don’t you find people with when there’s puppets or magic that there’s such a wonder and curiosity as to how all of that works. I was I went to see Heartbreak House, which is at the Jackie Maxwell Theatre by George Bernard Shaw.
Heartbreak House. I love that play. It was directed by Tim Carroll.
And I had two opportunities to see it. And what he did with it and what the actors were doing with it. Made me sit there in wonder, and I thought to myself.
How do they do that? I would really like to do it that way, I said to myself. How are they doing that?
And so I had the same question sitting there. And I love the production of Heartbreak House. I think it’s just beautiful.
[Phil Rickaby]
When magic happens, we all want to feel how it’s done. Right. That kind of it’s it’s like.
Not just the magic trick, but like the magical you mentioned puppets. The way that a child can see the puppet being operated and completely ignore the person operating it, because the the puppet is the only thing that’s real, which is like one of those fascinating things that the child’s brain can do. And it’s it’s it’s one of my favorite things.
I would love to talk about. About you a bit more specifically.
[Sharry Flett]
Is it true that you almost went into medicine? I yes, I mean, it was an expectation just because medicine was in family. I just assumed that that’s what would happen to me.
And so I was moving towards in that and moving in that direction. But I have to say, I was in high school and I was forced into taking music. And I thought it was it came from the public school, the elementary school teacher who saw something in me.
And she disallowed whatever option I was going to take. And when I got to high school, I found I was put into music. And I thought.
Well, I didn’t ask for this, and then I picked up a flute. We had to each choose our instrument. I don’t know if you remember this.
Chose the instrument. I picked up the flute. And this electricity went through my arm.
And I thought. Even before I played it, I I said. This is what I want to do.
This is this is it. I want I want music. I want the arts.
And my brain just aligned with that for the rest of the time.
[Phil Rickaby]
How how did that connection with music lead you to theatre?
[Sharry Flett]
I think because music went to voice and I was singing and also thinking towards the classics, I went to McGill and went and have two degrees in music. There was moving towards opera. But and as a result, also just experimentation.
When I was at McGill, I was trying everything. And so it was in that and discovering theatre and music. And also opera is so aligned to theatre as well that when I was auditioning in Europe for for opera schools and and teachers, my last audition was at a theatre school that morning that I’d managed to get and I had done this audition tour.
And that’s the thing, too, is that there were no theatre schools. There were no schools in Canada to really rely on. So you were in a way enticed to go off to England, which I did, or to to New York to study.
And it was that final day of my final audition tour of my audition tour, that final day that I suddenly thought, I want to go to theatre school. I want to find theatre through music, not music through theatre or music through theatre, not theatre through music. So so it reversed itself.
[Phil Rickaby]
But what was your first experience of theatre? Do you remember when you first saw a play and or what? What what was that first that first thing that you saw?
[Sharry Flett]
I actually think it was somewhere in the 60s, and I think it was Richard Burton in Camelot in Toronto. That suddenly I just thought, oh, what is this? You know, and I I I became fascinated by it and also going to Stratford in high school.
[Phil Rickaby]
Oh, I was asking about your connection to the classics, actually. I think there’s a thing that happens now because we do a lot of studying of Shakespeare when we are in high school. And I still think we teach it badly.
Oh, badly. And yeah, we we teach it in such a way that the kids are not connected to it at all. And then we take them to see a show and they behave poorly.
What but what was your connection to the classics like when because you mentioned going to to to the Stratford Festival when you were in high school? Did you connect with it then or did that come later?
[Sharry Flett]
You know, again, again, it was being in that space that that beautiful. Theatre. And if as a young person, you’ve never experienced a space like that, it’s extraordinary.
So you’re drawn in to the experience from the space onto this extraordinary stage at the Festival Theatre. And then you start to hear the play. And you hear it as if you’ve never heard it before.
And everything that was in a book, in a classroom where you were closing off your attention span after two pages. Was it complete difference of of experience? So I don’t know what needs to be done, but it’s certainly people need to understand.
The aspect of the play in the first place as a teacher, what what comes alive. And there are only a very few teachers that are capable of bringing that. Page off the page on into the space, into the room into those children’s minds and hearts.
Very few people can do it. So I think it just it does need that experience of going. To the space and experiencing the play.
[Phil Rickaby]
I agree, I think I’ve said for a while, because I remember when I was in high school, they made us like. Read it out loud in class, and that’s how we studied it. And we wouldn’t even read like whole sections.
It was like, you read this bit, the person behind you will read the next. So there was no consistency. And it was like and we didn’t know what those words meant because the words weren’t spoken by somebody who understands the language.
[Sharry Flett]
Exactly.
[Phil Rickaby]
And when the words are spoken by somebody who understands it, the audience understands it. And yes, I’ve always I’ve said for years now that we were doing it wrong. We we should expose the kids to the performance and then have them study it rather than have them study it and then maybe take them to a performance later on.
[Sharry Flett]
I think the teacher that’s impassioned with arts will do that. But otherwise, even even someone who is literary may not really be able to bring the imagination to the the experience of the play. What what what exists between people as they’re trying to communicate with each other?
It’s yeah, it’s it’s it’s fascinating, isn’t it? How you bring that young person to become impassioned about the word on the page or impassioned about thought and and gathering, being able to gather words to put together into thoughts and the deliciousness of debate or the deliciousness of conversation and finding language, finding the passion within your own language, whatever it may be.
[Phil Rickaby]
Absolutely. You mentioned impassioned teachers and you are a teacher. You you mentioned in the in the off season of Shaw going off to teach at various schools, you’ve taught at George Brown College, the National Theatre School, Queen’s U of T, Brock, other places.
What is it that draws you to teaching?
[Sharry Flett]
Exciting their curiosity, seeing what happens when they bring the words off the page. Again, it’s it’s oftentimes we would work with Shaw, Bernd Shaw, with a student, but we would also work around it. Guy Bannerman and I were team teachers for quite a number of years with Queen’s University coming to Shaw Festival.
They do a two week intensive and they are actually coming this year. We have passed the course on to Graham Somerville and Marla McLean. And there there are in two weeks the Queen’s students can earn a full credit.
So they do half a credit in the practicals in the morning and work with a professor in the afternoon. And they are examining the playwrights and the plays that are on within the season. But oftentimes in our practicals in the morning, we would be working with George Bernd Shaw.
And it would be so exciting to start to see the light bulb drop and the the the passion with which they would start to approach the argument. How do you win? And also Shaw is very sexy.
And the minute you try to help them to understand the sexiness of language and the sexiness of argument. They start to see it as well in the light bulbs drop. And then I experienced I remember experiencing with U of T group who came and they were working on Major Barbara.
And there’s a complex scene between cousins and Major Barbara at the very end of the play. They became so excited about this duet that they completely took it on their own. They they read and read and reread the play until they understood it better.
And then finally, by the time they got to the end of that play and that scene, they were able to completely invest in that final scene. And it was only because they became excited and curious and adventurous and understood. So it’s it it was so rejuvenating to watch these two people take this on.
[Phil Rickaby]
Yeah, absolutely. That is very exciting. Was there something that initially not everybody teaches, not everybody is drawn to it.
What first made you want to start teaching?
[Sharry Flett]
I think curiosity, and I think. I think it’s it’s the deliciousness of being invited into their youthful world. And if they trust you and there’s mutual trust, then it’s a mutual exchange.
So I’m gaining as much from the experience as I’m attempting to exchange with them. So it becomes it becomes a time where you are. You have a period of time, maybe two weeks.
You come together. You meet personalities, different personalities. You understand how people communicate.
It’s both fulfills my curiosity and and their curiosity, and hopefully there’s a mutual exchange that happens and they take away something. And I certainly take away something amazing.
[Phil Rickaby]
Just drawing to a close, I want to return to wind in the willows for my last question, which is, is there something that has most surprised you about about wind in the willows, whether it’s something in rehearsal, something in performance, just some something that you didn’t expect?
[Sharry Flett]
I to me, it’s the the eventual rhythm. It took us a long time as a group of people to pull together. Fiona Sauder’s idea of its intention of it, discipline of it, and as we kept on working with all these multidisciplines and pulling them together into one, it took time to find the rhythm of this piece, which is much faster than one expects.
And as we finally did pull that together, it’s it’s the joy, the absolute spontaneous joy of all of us as an ensemble leaping in and doing it and saying and saying, all right, what’s going to happen today? And we’ll do it. And here we go.
You don’t have time to think. You can’t think. You just do it.
And out of it, you hear the audience. There’s an exchange. The space is small.
So it’s it’s a delight to really be there, run the gamut and see what happens at the end of the two hours. And we wonder, do we have a great grand time?
[Phil Rickaby]
That’s amazing. That’s wonderful. Well, Sherry, thank you so much for joining me.
I really appreciate giving some time today.
[Sharry Flett]
Thank you very much. I enjoyed being here.
[Phil Rickaby]
Thank you for listening to this episode of Stageworthy. I’ll tell you about who my guest is next week in just one second. But first, please let me tell you about my Patreon, because I cannot make this show without the people who have chosen to back me on Patreon.
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Let’s get into next week’s episode. My guest next week is Madeline Rose, and Madeline has a show coming up at the Halifax Fringe Festival, and you’re going to love hearing about that show. So tune in next week for that conversation with Madeline Rose on stageworthy.
