On Sunday November 22, I had to opportunity to go see “Legend Has It”, a family holiday show from Alberta Theatre projects. This show incorporates fantasy, adventure, magic, and comedy. Every show, the actors pick one member of the audience to join them on their journey, and be the hero. No two shows are alike! It is an entertaining performance that is great for the whole family; I would really recommend going to see it! I also had the wonderful opportunity to interview Vanessa Porteous, the artistic director of Alberta Theatre projects. Here is the interview:
So what kind of things do you do, as artistic director of Alberta Theatre projects?
My main responsibility is to pick the plays and the seasons. So I pick all of the six contemporary plays that we program at ATP. I’m in charge of making sure that we’ve hired all the actors and directors and designers, all the artists who are going to bring those shows to an audience. And then, I oversee the process of getting those plays to an audience, so making sure that we’re delivering the right quality, and working with those artists. Also, I’m one of the two CEOs of the company, so I report to a board, and I direct the staff, and I set strategies for the company.
How did you / ATP come up with the whole “anyone can be the hero concept?”
So the production of Legend Has It is our family holiday show, and we began working on the show, and first presented it, two seasons ago. It’s actually created by the people who are in it, so, Rebecca Northan. I didn’t come up with the concept of anyone can be a hero, Rebecca did. I’ve known her for a very long time; she’s a really significant improviser in Canada and she had done a show called “Blind Date”, where she invited an audience member to come up on stage and be her date for the night and through the course of the play, they get married, have kids, and sort of have a whole lifetime together. I approached her and said “I think we could do something, you know, you could take that concept and kind of go further with it and put it in a new show.” And she’s the one who said “Oh okay, well, I’m gonna make it into a sorcery tale of adventure.” It was her idea.
How do you account for what the hero says or does, and do you have back up plans if the something doesn’t follow the plot?
Not really, but the plot is designed, so that the actors, who have practiced and rehearsed a lot of different scenarios, can kind of direct the hero to choose you know, magic or swords, etc. Especially in the second production of the show, this year, the options are much more broad, and that’s why the actors in the play are improvisers. You could never have normal, regular actors in the show, because regular actors are used to following a script, but the actors in Legend Has It, their whole job, their whole talent and skill is based around improvisation. So when a hero says something, like for example, last night, “I think we should be disguised as goblins to sneak into the castle”, which had never come up in the run of the play, they immediately said “Well, if you take five steps to your left, and twenty steps to your right, you’ll be at ‘Goblins R Us”, and you can buy your disguises there. So they went and bought the goblin costumes and the goblin masks and created a scene about Goblins R Us. That’s the whole thing, they make it up as they go along. It was a lot of thinking and preparation.
How is the preparation process different? Do you have to have everyone rehearse all the different roles?
I’d say that in this version of the show, they did start with the idea that all the different improvisers could play any of the roles, and they’ve sort of done some editing there, like each improviser has a series of roles they will probably play, and certain roles that are probably never gonna be played by certain improvisers, depending on their strengths. Some people are really good at being the sidekick, some people are really good at being the villain. There’s one goblin who is a particular character, and the guy who can play that part really well is Bruce Horak, and so everyone else has a different goblin character, so if they have to be a goblin, they can play Shelia, or Silverhead, or any of the other goblin characters.
Before the show, the actors were going around talking to different kids; an audition type thing for the hero. How do they choose / what characteristics do they look for?
They are looking for someone over the age of eleven, who seems like a regular kind of person, like not too shy, but not someone who necessarily wants to be on stage. Someone who seems to kind of be a nice person who you might wanna spend more time with. Like, think of the person that if you were at a party, circulating, and you met this person, and thought ‘I wanna stay here with this person for a while’. That’s who they’re looking for. It’s really very open. They take adults and kids, boys and girls, etc. What they don’t want is someone who wants to perform. They want someone who’s comfortable in their own skin and able to be themselves.
What other upcoming projects is ATP working on?
Our next show is a theatre piece called ‘Life, Death and the Blues’, and it starts in January, January 19, and it’s a really neat evening where there’s a band on stage, a couple of people, and it’s sort of a journey into the blues, an exploration of ‘Why the blues?’, from the point of view of a German-Canadian guy who has loved the blues from a very young age, and wants to know why he loves the blues. There are a lot of tunes in the show, a local blues artist, a different one every night, gets to come in at the end of the show and join them in a set, and every night, during intermission, one of the finalists of our youth blues challenge will play a set in our lobby. So if someone’s nineteen or under, they can enter, and if they make it to the finals, they can play in our lobby and be eligible to win a bunch of cool different projects.
Anything else you’d like to say?
If you’re interested, the Youth Blues Challenge is a super cool opportunity for any blues soloists, duos, or groups under the age of nineteen. (You can find more info here) We also have ten dollar ticket nights, every Tuesday for students, so if you’re a student, you can come and see the show for ten dollars and meet the actors afterwards. All that information, you know, when that is, is on our website (ATP website). We also have youth engagement programs that people might be interested in, like student writers group, or you might wanna become an apprentice or an intern, and you can go to the youth engagement page on our website (here), and see what is available, because we’re pretty keen on making sure that young people have the chance to enjoy theatre!
Thanks again for taking the time to talk to me, and best of luck in all your future projects!
If you’d like to see this fantastic show, it is being performed at the Martha Cohen theatre in Art Commons (220 9 Ave SE) , right across from Olympic Plaza. future showtimes are listed here:
Thurs, Dec. 3 – 7:30 PM
Sat. Dec. 5 – 1:00 PM and 6:00 PM
Sun. Dec. 6 – 1:00 PM
Thu. Dec. 10 – 7:30 PM
Fri. Dec. 11 – 7:30 PM
Sat. Dec. 12 – 1:00 PM and 6:00 PM
Sun. Dec. 13 – 1:00 PM
Wed. Dec. 16 – 7:30 PM
Thu. Dec. 17 – 7:30 PM
Fri. Dec. 18 – 7:30 PM
Sat. Dec. 19 – 1:00 PM and 6:00 PM
Sun. Dec. 20 – 1:00 PM
Tue. Dec. 22 – 1:00 PM and 7:30 PM
Wed. Dec. 23 – 1:00 PM and 7:30 PM
Thu. Dec. 24 – 1:00 PM
Sat. Dec. 26 – 1:00 PM and 6:00 PM
Sun. Dec. 27 – 1:00 PM
Tue. Dec. 29 – 1:00 PM and 7:30 PM
Wed. Dec. 30 – 1:00 PM
Thu. Dec. 31 – 1:00 PM and 9:00 PM
You can get tickets here
