Inaugural Improv
Theatre veteran ad libs
When he can’t sleep, local theatre legend Jim DeFelice doesn’t waste his time counting sheep. Rather, he ticks off the plays he has directed, generally dozing off well before his total, which is 62.
At 82, DeFelice has taken on another challenge in his long and varied career, which has spanned academia — he is professor emeritus in drama at the University of Alberta after a 33-year teaching career — plus screenwriting and acting.
Now, DeFelice is appearing as a guest member of the improv group Coyote Comedy, which performs Thursdays at 7 p.m. at The Grindstone, located at 10019 81 Ave. (He will not appear Feb. 14, returning Feb. 21.)
He’s never done improv before. Well, not intentionally.
“I’ve been on stage when something has gone wrong, but that’s a different context,” says DeFelice with a mischievous grin.
There was the time in A Servant of Two Masters, when an actor caught her dress on a nail on stage. It ripped off, leaving DeFelice and the other player on stage to get creative with their cloaks. When his co-star choked on a drink during a scene in 2007’s Closer and Closer Apart, DeFelice, who played an Alzheimer’s sufferer, had to skip ahead through the play in order to keep talking while his co-star caught her breath.
But that’s just regular stuff as a career theatre artist. You do what you have to do to keep the scene going. Which is, when you think of it, the heart and soul of improv.
“It’s a blank slate,” he says of his latest venture. “It’s not about you, it’s about the story. You play off each other, and keep it immediate and active.”
When DeFelice first started working with the group in the summer of 2018, he imagined he would leave the heavy lifting to the regulars in the troupe — Neil Grahn, Peter Brown, Cathleen Rootsaert and Donovan Workun.
But it hasn’t worked out that way. DeFelice regularly finds himself in the middle of uproarious skits based on a word contributed by an audience member.
His lanky limbs, Woody Allen-style dark-rimmed glasses and broad Boston accent (he was born in Massachusetts) make him hard to miss. DeFelice looks a bit like the character Carl Fredericksen, the balloon vendor in the Pixar movie Up, but without the cranky attitude. He’s the very definition of game.
On a recent Thursday the theme of the night — which sees performers riff on a word contributed by the audience — was sunshine. Somehow, DeFelice and Rootsaert turned that into a ridiculous bit on May/December relationships. The audience roared its approval.
In a way, improv is a natural extension for a man who made a career of taking risks. Once a sports writer for the Boston Globe, he found himself drawn to the theatre as a young man, completing his Master’s degree in theatre at Tufts at the age of 23.
Along with his wife, Gail DeFelice, also a journalist turned teacher, he took a job at the University of Alberta in 1969.
He tackled the screenplay for Why Shoot The Teacher?, based on Max Braithwaite’s Depression-era experiences as a Prairie teacher, after the book’s author had abandoned the project.
The movie, the highest grossing Canadian film in 1978, won a Canadian Screen Award for best screenplay.
He appeared in the inaugural production by Shadow Theatre in 1989, Fool for Love, alongside the theatre’s co-founder John Hudson.
“He’s a man of tremendous knowledge of theatre history, and a man of great integrity,” says Hudson, who was a student of DeFelice at the U of A. “From him, I learned how to approach a play thoughtfully, and how to get the best out of your actors.”
DeFelice was on the founding board of Northern Light Theatre and has been involved in 21 productions at the Edmonton International Fringe Festival. He has taught, mentored and performed alongside some of the biggest names in Canadian acting, including Shaun Johnston (Heartland) and Paul Gross (Passchendaele). Brad Pitt delivered a cup of chai to DeFelice during the Edmonton filming of the 2007 Hollywood production, The Assassination of Jesse James, in which DeFelice played a baggage handler on a train.
Though he officially retired from teaching and directing drama at the University of Alberta in 2002, DeFelice has yet to stop working. His first post-retirement gig was in 2003, directing Underneath the Lintel at Shadow Theatre — the Canadian premiere of the acclaimed play and a pretty decent start to the next stage.
He has won Sterling awards, including for lifetime achievement in 1995.
And still, he produces. DeFelice’s latest play, Ladder to the Moon, workshopped at Script Salon in 2015, has been published and is only in need of a stage.
“I’m not doing enough,” he says of his efforts to mount the latter play.
Generally, though, DeFelice doesn’t so much look for work, as warmly shakes its hand when it appears.
It feels almost insulting to ask him how he does it, how he keeps up with such creative and demanding work as an octogenarian.
“I don’t think about age,” he says. “I just do it.”
He stays in shape physically through walking and bird watching with his eldest daughter, Gwen. For mental stimulation, he’s an avid reader who goes to every play in town, often with his youngest daughter, director Amy DeFelice.
DeFelice plans to keep working so long as he can remember his lines, which so far is no problem. He appears to be having an awfully good time at Grindstone. Might be a clue there. He chuckles speaking about a recent happening at Grindstone, when he was planted in the audience, and told to make a fuss whenever it seemed right. He waited until a slightly naughty scene and then stood up and shouted: “Rubbish.”
Demanding his money back, DeFelice stormed the stage as a concerned audience member plucked on his sleeve, begging him to be calm.
“They all believed it,” he says, incredulously. “That was the most fun of all.”