Christy Bruce has to have blind faith in Blind Date

Costars are plucked from the audience, what could possibly go wrong?

Actress Christy Bruce picks up a new guy every night. It’s about finding Mr. Right.

He’ll be her onstage date. Then she ditches him after the show. She admits she’s stayed friends with one or two of the thousands of guys she’s played opposite for one night only. But in the end, this date is all business.

Roaming the lobby of the theatre where she plays Mimi in an interactive play, Bruce looks for the perfect man.

Does he have to be handsome? Not necessarily.

Does he have to be outgoing? Well, maybe.

Does he have to attract her eye in the crowded theatre lobby. Oh yes. Christy, in fact, has help. Her stage manager, as well as a couple of other actors, prowl the lobby, too. They look for the guy who will make onstage chemistry with Mimi; she of the red dress, thigh-high black stockings and clown nose.

That’s the trick with the season opener at Theatre Aquarius. No one knows what’s going to happen, especially Christy Bruce, who trained at The Loose Moose Theatre Company in Calgary.

“It’s really not frightening,” Bruce says in a warm voice. “More like challenging, I’d say. I don’t know what’s going to happen until I’m out there onstage with my fresh-from-the-audience costar. Chances are he’s never been in a show before, so it can be a bit of a wild ride.”

Bruce says she never picks guys who are unwilling to make the leap to the stage.

“I never pick the ones that are too eager either.

“I’ve learned to look for a certain spark, a sense of being playful. I can assure you the men who come on stage with me are never plants. It’s always someone chosen from the audience before the show begins. I’ll have 19 different guys during the run of 19 shows at Aquarius. If you don’t believe me, come back each night and find out for yourself.”

Christy Bruce has always loved improv. She’s played roles by heavyweights such as Chekhov

and Coward. “Now I’m a bit shocked at the notion of someone else writing my lines,” she laughs.

“I’ve always loved improv, especially the way it takes you new and different places,” Bruce says. “Each night is different. I never know exactly what’s going to happen. I can say I always root for the guy who’s onstage with me.

“Do I have a script in my head? Only a loose structure, because I never know where my costar is going to take me. I do have a timeout space onstage, in case things get too troublesome. Mostly though, I just go with the flow. Or at least Mimi, the character I play does. I like to say we have a colouring book, but the guest I choose to play with me colours in the pages.”

In the years Bruce has been associated with the show as understudy and then star, she says she has never encountered anything to worry about.

“When I roam the lobby I look for someone who makes eye contact, someone who is outgoing, someone who is fun, someone you think you might want to get to know.”

Has she ever picked a dud? Been hung out to dry in front of a theatre full of people?

“Well, once in Hudson, Quebec, the audience was made up of senior citizens from Montreal. There were only two men. One was in a wheelchair and the other was unsteady on his feet. At the last minute a 73 year old man came in and I chose him. We had a ball. He was just a natural, so perfect.”

Bruce has played “Blind Date” created by Rebecca Northam in 2010, in London, England, at Charing Cross Theatre, in New York off-Broadway and, “just about all over the place. I never let fear get in my way,” Bruce says. “Acting is all about saying ‘Yes’ to whatever comes along.”

The other two actors in the show wait backstage until they are needed to help provide a location or a piece of furniture or some other thing that becomes essential during the show.

“Acting is all about giving up control. It’s about taking care of your partner. It’s about making the person you’re on stage with look good.” Bruce, who is happily married, admits she falls in love all the time.

“But don’t forget when I do that I’m Mimi not me. I’ve become Facebook friends with some guys who acted with me. And I had one guy from Mississippi who came back to see the show five times. Some of my former stage partners even get together for drinks now and then.”

Bruce says, “My job is to show the audience what an amazing guy is on stage with me. I always say, ‘It’s my job to be funny out there. You just be yourself.’

“Choosing my stage partner for the evening is a matter of instinct.

“Sometimes I don’t make up my mind until a few minutes before the show. We don’t let the audience into the theatre until I do. Sometimes I decide when the house lights go down and the music starts. Every night is different. That’s the thrill of it. It can be a wild ride.”