Amanda Spurlock floated into town just in time for Mary Poppins. She didn't need a magical umbrella, but her availability was practically perfect in every way.
Spurlock is well known to local musical theatre fans, but she was another kind of performer when she built her initial reputation. As a youth, she scored standout roles in productions like HMS Pinafore, Miss Saigon, Hair, The Producers and several others. That latter show was the last local one she'd been in, staged four years ago.
Her body of work and her development as a performer led to post-secondary schooling in the performance field. Her training took her as far as the Circle In The Square Theatre School on Broadway in New York.
"I was there for a year, then I did some film and commercial work in Vancouver just to mix it up," said Spurlock. "Then I came back to Prince George to finish school."
No, there is not a performing arts program in this city. Spurlock is multidimensional. She is training to become a clinical therapist. Classes were finishing at UNBC and that's when she spotted a familiar ad. It made her itch with longing for something familiar but withheld. It was a call for auditions. The play was Mary Poppins, being produced by Judy Russell, the local director/choreographer with whom she'd worked many times before leaving for New York.
"I went to the audition not expecting anything, just knowing I wanted to be in it and somehow with school I would make it work," Spurlock said.
Russell had other things to say. It wasn't just Spurlock showing up to audition, it was a complete reintroduction to someone already considered talented.
"She can sing like an angel, and she's a darn good actor," said Russell. "Having her back is lovely. She is exactly the right age, exactly the right fit, and the audience gets to see someone in a starring role who isn't familiar in that way. A lot of people know Amanda, and remember that Amanda was on stage in local productions, but not like this. She arrived and this role emerged at the perfect time for each other. It will show the audience just what depth of talent we really have in this city."
If Spurlock's training shows most prominently in any way, from her perspective, said Russell, it was in her ability to be a leader during the rehearsal process.
"She is a very calm actor. She takes direction very well," Russell said. "But training in New York, in many ways, is just a place. She is who she is. It doesn't matter where you are, it matters who you are. What you offer is what counts, and I think what she brought from that experience here to Prince George is a sense of craftsmanship, a sense of respect for her fellow performers, and an attitude of doing the work as low-maintenance as possible. I'm just adoring having her back."
Spurlock is relishing the chance to be heavily involved in a Judy Russell production especially since her primary skill is not dancing. She came to musical theatre's spotlight via the singing and acting channels. Dancing is something she enjoys, but she knows Russell has to add some layers of work to keep her in the same fluid motion as those who grew up at the Encha"nement Dance Centre Russell operates.
"I love that I can step into this production and feel that it is a Judy show," Spurlock said. "You can take a few years off, come back to take on another Judy show, and you feel right away what you've been missing. I'm so glad I got to be part of this. It's like therapy, in a way."
Art as therapy, expression as therapy, work as therapy, all of these concepts are thoughts Spurlock now reads about and considers as part of her chosen profession. She isn't sure theatre will ever play a literal role in her field of employment, but the paths to self-actualization are what the arts in general seek to find, and when you are in any healing profession, those concepts are alive and singing.
She always enjoys the music, the dancing and the characterization, she said, but she also gets to enjoy Mary Poppins from a voyeuristic way even though she never gets to sit in the chairs with the audience. She is on stage for the majority of the performance but, she said, "the children are on stage even more than Mary, and I just love seeing the kids we have in the cast do their thing. And I also see a lot of people in the cast who I performed with before, they were just kids then, and now they are adults. There's a whole circle of life thing going on for me."
Mary Poppins runs at the Prince George Playhouse from July 19-31 at 7:30 p.m. The classic story of the fantastical nanny helping the Banks children take the next steps in their gilded lives also stars such local notables as Adam Harasimiuk, Gary Chappel, Amy Blanding, Laura Heagy, Catherine McCarthy, Dwight Wolfe, Katherine Trepanier and many more.
The score features your favourite Poppins tunes including "A Spoonful of Sugar," "Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious," "Jolly Holiday," "Let's Go Fly a Kite," "Step in Time," "Chim Chiminey," and familiar favourites.
Tickets are $35 (+GST) for ages 18 and under, tickets are $40 (+GST) for ages 19 and over. They can be purchased online at centralinteriortickets.com or in person from Central Interior Tickets located within Encha"nement Dance Centre on Opie Crescent.
