Theatre Terrific - Expanding the Horizons for Anyone With the Acting Bug
Description
Laen Herschler knows his live theatre. The UBC PhD student has taken the reins of Vancouver's inclusive Theatre Terrific and encourages anyone of any ability to get involved.
TRANSCRIPT
Theatre Terrific – Expanding the Horizons for Anyone With the Acting Bug
Okay, we are back for another edition of DDA's encouraging abilities podcast. I am your host DDA communications manager, Evan Kelly. Today we are talking theatre. Joining me today is Lon Hershler, the brand new artistic director of Vancouver based Theatre Terrific. Theatre Terrific production and classes are for artists of all abilities to develop performance skills and collaborate in the production of theatrical works. All of Theatre Terrific's classes, workshops, community and professional productions are
are made up of people of all colours, abilities, genders, and backgrounds. It started in 1985. Theatre Terrific is now Western Canada's longest running inclusive theatre program. It has won numerous awards over the years. And now with Lon at the helm, the future is even brighter. So thanks for joining me today, Lon. It's great to be here. Thanks so much. Now that the gear is working, we can do this. So tell me, tell me a little bit about yourself.
So yeah, I'm really happy to be jumping in here with Theatre Terrific. I've been actually involved with Theatre Terrific as an artist for about six or seven years, working with Susanna, the previous director. I'm an artist, I'm a theatre artist of many different areas of theatre. I do direction, I suppose, artistic direction now.
But my background's really all over the board with theatre as an artist in many different directions and ways. And yeah, quite a while with... So you'd say that theatre acting, that's your lifeblood, that's who you are.
So I would say that I began as an actor and that's where I entered in. I entered in through the joy of acting in theatre and I continue to act, but I've been a teacher and a facilitator of theatre, I'd say predominantly for the last 10 years. And so really working with others to create theatre, devise theatre often, helping others to...
create works of theatre, also doing improv theatre. I do a lot of playback theatre, which is improvise, storytelling and community. So yeah, I have a love for the acting, but I would say I've been facilitating and supporting others in their acting for the last 10 years. Now, are you still an instructor at UBC?
Yeah, so I'm in the midst of doing a PhD. So I started off after my master's degree in South Africa. I did a master's degree in theatre making in South Africa and lived there for about four years and then returned and taught at UBC Okanagan in the theatre department, in the creative studies.
and it was a very alternative theatre department, really helping theatre artists create their own work. And I worked in that for on and off for about five or six years. And then I decided to go further in my studies, in my academic studies, when I moved to Vancouver and I'm doing a PhD and also teaching on the side at UBC as well.
Yeah. So what's your PhD gonna be in?
So interestingly, the work I do at UBC is in something called research-based theatre. And so what I've been doing is supporting academics of all disciplines who want to use theatre as a medium to reach perhaps community, to reach larger audiences, to make their work sometimes make the ivory tower, so to speak, more accessible to...
people that wouldn't necessarily open up an academic journal and read an article, but are definitely implicated and interested in the work that's being done, but would never necessarily have access to it for various reasons. And so theatre becomes this medium, this space for people to interact with new ideas, with research that has gone into community. And in fact, overlapping with a theatre terrific's work.
One of the major projects I've worked on for the last three years has been around a project with People in the healthcare professions across the board so social work medicine Really nursing anything that that intersects with healthcare and People who work in those professions, but also live with a disability and their experiences So there was a very large research project
into the experiences of individuals with hidden disabilities or disabilities that were not hidden and their experiences, the stigmas they might have faced in those jobs. And so then we created a piece of theatre that has been since touring online and in person for three years and it's been very, very successful. And that's not part of Theatre Terrific, that's something else? No, that was not part of Theatre Terrific.
Other than, I suppose, because of my involvement, I create a link between those two worlds, but it wasn't under the umbrella of Theatre Terrific, yeah. Now that, what's that piece called? That piece is called Alone in the Ring. Alone in the Ring. Yeah. And that's sort of touring now, can people go see that? No, I mean.
When I say touring, it wouldn't be, it's not touring in the sense of professional theatre touring to theatres. It would be that we would do a lot of conferences. We'll do medical conferences. We will do all sorts of different, we will do, in fact, like this summer, the incoming students for the physiotherapy and occupational therapy departments at UBC.
all of their incoming classes, first and I think second years, will do the performance for. And it'll become a performance that then becomes a talking point and a place of discussion and engagement with these issues with the students. So these will all be students that, you know, hopefully in a couple of years will be coming out and working in the workforce. And now they're going to have this higher degree of interest and familiarity and consciousness and awareness.
around these experiences of people with disability. And for themselves, if they are students, because there are quite a few who live with disability themselves, amongst the students, this becomes a space and hopefully a safe space for them to start talking with others about their own experiences and creating openness and awareness around that, yeah. Yeah, gotcha, gotcha. So it's really just more of a big education piece, educating people on sort of intersections of...
abilities basically and broadening their own horizons as students as they enter the workforce. That sounds like sort of a new way of teaching in a way. I could see that expanding into a whole bunch of other sectors maybe. Yeah, I mean it's definitely something that's growing. The idea of theatre, we're at UBC not maybe the first to do this. It's happening but
there's been a growth in this and people are starting to open to it and see. There was a lot of pushback at first, you know, in universities, they, they, they go, is that, you know, how can you bring the arts into, is that going to, you know, they, they are also ethical concerns. They think, Oh, is this, you know, are you, is it going to really represent the, the stories accurately of these, you know, research participants? Are their stories going to be really well represented?
And so we have to go through a lot of work of thinking through ethically, of discussion, of going back to the research participants and saying, does this represent you? Does this represent your story? And if there are participants who wanna perform or be a part of it, that's always the ideal in this particular show. None of the participants were performing, but they were involved often in giving feedback. And yeah, so it's something that's growing.
and hopefully there'll be more of this that's gonna happen in different sectors for sure. Yeah, that sounds really interesting and a good way to learn. Why did you get involved with Theatre Terrific?
Wow, because first of all, I met Susanna and Susanna who as maybe some of your listeners may know or those who don't know was the founding artistic director of Theatre Terrific for 20 years, more than 20 years. And she is a wonderful human being and brings so much joy and passion to the work she does. And when I first met her, her energy was so warm and inviting.
And when she told me about what she was doing, I said, you know, and I was already very involved in what you would call applied theatre, which is working a lot in community with theatre, seeing, like I said, that one example of the university, but I'd been working in lots of different ways where we see the power of theatre in so many that it doesn't just have to be on Broadway, that theatre, but theatre has this power to...
capture the minds and imaginations and spread joy and ideas in so many different directions and involve people in different things. And so when I met Susanna and I heard about the company, she was just, and I said, how can I be involved? And at first I just came in as an artist and I just volunteered my time and I just participated and I learned from Susanna how the company works. And I just.
became involved as an artist and I learned so much from everybody that was involved. Theatre Terrific is an incredible space. It's, you know, it's a really, as an artist I learned a lot and as a human being I learned a lot. And so I think there's not always, as an artist sometime
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