IN CONVERSATION
Ashley Surowski (nee Bjorndal) is a featured performer in “Broadway Musicals 2”, presented in January by Soundstage Productions. After a few years of working in applied behavioural analysis with autistic children, she went to school and studied musical theatre at Grant McEwan University, which led to a professional career across Western Canada.
She and her husband Ty are proud parents of a baby girl Ada, 2.
She spoke with Herald editor James Miller on Sunday, about her career in theatre.
HERALD: What is your earliest recognition of being on stage?
SUROWSKI: I believe my first stage debut was at the Summerland fall fair singing “The Little Mermaid” when I was 7.
HERALD: If you graduated from Summerland Secondary School, you must have crossed paths with Linda Beaven.
SUROWSKI: Definitely, Linda Beaven was my high school drama teacher. She was and continues to be a very encouraging force in my performance career. She also taught my father. I think it was her second year in teaching.
HERALD: When cuts to school funding come up, music and the arts are often mentioned. Why do you consider the arts to be so important to a school curriculum?
SUROWSKI: Academics help grow the mind and the arts help grow the individual. For me, the arts helped build my confidence, learn critical thinking, question myself and the nature of existence and helped me to discover who I was as a person.
HERALD: Upon high school graduation you worked with autistic children. How did that come about?
SUROWSKI: Along with performing, I have always had a passion for working with children with special needs. In elementary school, I spent most of my lunch hours singing to my special-needs classmates, which led me to high school where I helped facilitate a music therapy class for teenagers with special needs, and it all sort of started from there.
HERALD: What was your most memorable role or production from your years of working professionally?
SUROWSKI: That’s a tough one. I love playing brassy, strong women and I love comedy roles, so I’d have to say that one of my most memorable roles was Jeanette Burneister in The Full Monty. She was the aged, smoking, drinking piano player. Having an opportunity to finesse the comedy in that role was a real highlight for me.
HERALD: Did you ever have any nightmare auditions?
SUROWSKI: Oh yes, I once walked into an audition room and before I even opened my mouth they said “Thank you... next!”
HERALD: What’s your favourite style of music to sing?
SUROWSKI: Besides musical theatre, I love so many styles of music, pop, blues, rock, jazz, R&B. But I really love soulful music. I adore Billie Holiday, Ella Fitzerald, Etta James, Louis Armstrong.
HERALD: Switching to Soundstage, which of the all-star numbers in this year’s production do you enjoy the most?
SUROWSKI: There are so many great musicals featured in this show, Cabaret, Chicago, Billy Elliot to name a few. Hamilton has been a real treat to sing due to its overwhelming popularity in the musical theatre world.
HERALD: Do you like the variety show format as opposed to a stand-alone musical that’s handcuffed to a plot?
SUROWSKI: I like both equally. There are benefits to being in a stand alone show, I really enjoy being able to completely immerse myself in a character and “the world” of the show. However it is pretty wonderful being able to play multiple characters in a variety of circumstances. Both formats are challenging in different ways,
HERALD: Is it more fun to be part of community theatre than it is to work for a living?
SUROWSKI: I can honestly say that I do community theatre for the pure unadulterated joy of performing. When I was performing professionally, I occasionally had to take contracts based on money and for that reason it sometimes felt like work and less enjoyable. HERALD: Do you ever get stage fright? SUROWSKI: Yes! I was told by my voice teacher and mentor Helga Tucker that “if you’re not nervous, it means that you don’t care.” That being said, I think there are good nerves and bad nerves, I have had both.
HERALD: Of all the great musicians who have died over the last year, whose music did you most identify with?
SUROWSKI: So many greats gone too soon. If I could chose one, I’d say Leonard Cohen, he was a brilliant poet. I believe the world needs its word-warriors and poets now more than ever.