You may have seen some familiar faces on the Theatre NorthWest stage in the past few years.
The leadership team at the theatre has made it a concerted part of our process to find ways to get local talent treading our boards. Why? Because we have a lot of amazing gosh darn talent living up here in the North and frankly, building a base of local talent is a gift that keeps on giving back to the theatre in a lot of ways.
Admittedly, it is a challenge to get our talented actor friends and neighbors involved in professional theatre. The primary difference between “professional” and “community” theatre being that one is a full-time job, and one has more flexible hours for rehearsing. So, the obvious challenge is that our amazingly talented community members need to be in rehearsals 8 hours a day, 6 days a week for 3 straight weeks to be part of our shows and that is often an impossible ask.
Luckily for us though, sometimes it works out. This season you are going to see some more of your friends and neighbors on the stage and we could not be more excited to be working with some super talented Prince Georgians this year!
Contracts are being signed as we speak, so make sure you get your tickets (which are on sale now at tickets.theatrenorthwest.com)!
In addition to our four mainstage “professional” shows, we also have seven “community” hosted stage readings throughout the year, which will feature an entirely local cast and production team. This season we are presenting some hilarious comedies and some fantastic classics (A Doll’s House and The Glass Menagerie). Subscriptions to see all seven stage readings are only $50 + GST – that’s less that $8 per ticket to support the arts and artists living right here in Prince George. The Stage Reading series is made possible by the generous sponsorship of Marcotte Law, who have been incredibly supportive of this endeavor over the past three years.
So that brings us to the next part of what we are working towards here at Theatre NorthWest and that is building up the community talent. We want actors everywhere! This August, Artistic Associate Melissa Glover and I will be hosting workshops for local emerging and established performing artists. We want to walk you through the audition process all the way to the first day of rehearsal.
This set of three workshops will focus on the process an actor goes through to get a role, from the audition to the callback to the first day of rehearsal. These workshops will provide a safe environment for participants to learn and grow in a judgement free space. The goal of these workshops is to offer the opportunity to enhance skillset, ask questions, and meet others in a focused environment.
The landscape of auditions and callbacks has changed a lot in the last 5 years, with precautions around travel and simply the advancing of technology, auditioning has become a lot more accessible. In many ways this has been hugely advantageous for performers who live outside of Vancouver, Toronto, and Calgary. But performers need to be familiar and comfortable with the structure of the process to ensure our auditions fall in line with the new and ever-changing industry standards.
Workshops will be held on August 12th, 13th and 19th and run from 1 pm-5 pm each day. Anyone who is interested in appearing on the Theatre NorthWest stage is greatly encouraged to attend. Details of the workshops can be found online at tickets.theatrenorthwest.com.
