COMING HOME HELPS TO GIVE YOUNG PERFORMERS A VOICE
Diverse cast brings ‘incredibly inspiring’ original production to life
Local theatre professionals and young newbies work together to create and present Home. When a diner is threatened by a developer, a group of young people rally together to save their local hangout.
To create the new, original production, Some Assembly Theatre Company worked with 12 performers from Greater Vancouver, ranging in age from 13 to 20 and of diverse backgrounds, including Ojibwa, Chinese, Greek, French, Kurdish, Serbian and the Kwakwaka’wakw Nation.
We talked to Valerie Methout, artistic director of Some Assembly, about the project: Q According to a description on the Some Assembly website, Home includes “brave disclosures, original music and transformation.” Can you tell us a little about what that means?
A There’s an open mike that happens in the play because everybody who is a regular at the diner is trying really hard to keep it open. With the open mike, we realize that everybody has these talents and people share their music and their poetry.
Within these artistic expressions, they express what’s important to them. Some of them disclose issues that have been going on in their lives. They have a community that listens and is there to support them. This makes the community even stronger. And there’s a lot of hope. This play is incredibly inspiring. The youth are very brave to present these issues to the public. They chose these topics because they felt the need to raise awareness around them. Q How much did the talents of the performers influence the structure?
A Quite a lot. I’ve been doing this for 16 years and it’s the people who make the play. It’s what the youth want to express, and what they come into the project with.
This year, it was quite evident that this play had to have a lot of original live music because of the desire they had to learn to create their own songs. I was quite blown away by the number of youth who wanted to learn to compose their own music. Some of them had never sung before. An important partner we have is the Sarah McLachlan School of Music. We also got to partner with Nimbus School of Recording.
Q How do you find performers?
A I do an open call every fall. It’s on our website, in the Roundhouse program guide. Vancouver school board is a partner. Sometimes the youth get referred to us from Vancouver Coastal Health or various neighbourhood houses.
Also, youth who see our show, we hand out feedback forms, and
there’s a section for any youth who want to participate in the next project.
We take any youth who wants to participate. They don’t need prior theatre experience, they just have to be able to commit to the schedule. Q Is this about inspiring a new generation of theatre artists, or about giving them voice in the here and now?
A It’s both. I tapped into the power of theatre when I was really young. I was about three years old, actually. I remember carrying a suitcase with two masks, a happy mask and one was a scary mask. And I would put on the appropriate mask according to what was happening around me.
I realized at that young age how powerful using these artistic tools to communicate something could be. I want to share that with the performers. Some of the youth get involved because they see how tight-knit the group is.
We’ve had youth in the project talk about how the company is like a family. But in the process of putting together a show, they get inspired and want to continue with theatre. There’s something cathartic about creating one’s own theatre piece and performing it.