Every Friday at 5 p.m., music plays and the lights go dim in N112’s mini theatre.
The audience of maybe 30 people are mostly friends and family members. The room is noisy and full of jovial laughter, and there are supportive cheers and whistles as the actors and directors emerge.
Students from the Woodroffe campus’ performing arts program have had only one week to put together this performance, and they are about to test their strengths.
“Being in front of a live audience helps us build confidence in what we are doing,” said Larissa Ackerman, a performing arts student who wrote and directed the third and last of the 15-minute shows performed on Oct. 30.
“It’s a real audience,” she continued. “They react how an audience would react, and we can watch them and say ‘Okay, what can we change about our show next week? What are we doing wrong? What are we doing right?’”
This is the goal of these weekly performances and the reason why Catherine Kenney, coordinator of the program, believes it is such an important part of her students’ education.
“The audience is their teacher,” Kenney said. “I love watching them perform and seeing them grow. It’s powerful.”
The class is divided into teams, and works in an eight-week rotation cycle where they get to experience four key elements of performance: acting, lighting, sound and stage management.
For Ackerman, writing scripts comes naturally and is one of her favourite parts of theatre. Her piece, titled Approaching the Temple, denotes a symbolic journey through mental health.
“It represents a pilgrimage a little bit,” she said.
At the beginning of the semester, each student submits a rough copy of their script, which they then work on until their scheduled week. The scripts are handed out to the designated actors the week before, who then have the weekend to memorize their lines.
Ackerman estimated that it took about seven hours over the course of the week to rehearse acting, lighting and sound cues.
Her piece came off without a visible hitch and drew loud applause from the audience.
“I was super nervous during the whole thing,” Ackerman admitted. “But I was also so proud of all the people in my group.”
For many of the students, seeing something they have written being performed on stage is incredibly satisfying.
“It makes you very proud. You get to see the vision in your head finally come to life,” said Pierre Sirois, another student from the program. His piece, called Back to the Basics, centred on the over sexualisation of women in the media, especially in music.
Sirois said it was surprising to watch his own performance and that he was relieved to have it all over.
“It’s really stressful,” said Ackerman. “But at the same time I think it’s really rewarding at the end to know that we, as a group, have all pulled together and done this thing.”