Sunday Feature: Director Sarah Garton Stanley on Beatrice & Virgil

Rascal the Cat, Identity and the Booker Winner: A Love Story
by Sarah Garton Stanley

Biography: 
For Factory: Down Dangerous Passes Road, Beaver, Slipknot, Restitution, and Associate Director 2000-04. Other Recent Credits: Helen Lawrence (ArtsClub/CanStage/Banff Centre/) mothermothermother (PushOFF) Upcoming: The Summit (IPAA/NAC/Banff/Luminato) mothermothermother (AGO) The Book of Judith (Whitby Abilities Centre) We Keep Coming Back (SelfConscious Theatre/Theatre Kana) Other: Associate Artistic Director for English Theatre at Canada’s National Arts Centre, The Collaborations (Several amazing companies and creations across Canada) Co-creator and Artistic Director of  SpiderWebShow.ca (Praxis/Neworld/NAC) Sarah and Michael Rubenfeld make work together with SelfConscious Theatre. Sarah Garton Stanley lives in Kingston, Ontario.

I have been thinking a lot about love. And how important it is as an ingredient for making work. It brings to mind my first cat, Rascal. My mother finally caved after a disastrous adventure with two pet mice went awry… when my next-door neighbour’s boa constrictor made short work of them. My mum had tried to curb my enthusiasm for a cat and, as a result, animals had died. Next stop the SPCA! As a 10 year-old kid this was the most exciting place in the whole wild world. A series of rooms, filled with a series of cages, filled with a series of barking and purring fluff-balls all waiting to be loved.  As we walked the endless aisles (or so it felt to me) of possibility, my eyes came to rest on the cutest cat I - or anyone else in the world - had ever, or would ever, see. She would become Rascal. But before that, as I turned to my mother in the SPCA with absolute love in my heart for this white spotted creature, I saw, my mum’s concern that I had chosen a misshapen creature; that my choice to place love at the feet of this slightly limping animal would cause all of us real harm. And you know what? My mother was right.

The Question... Sarah Garton Stanley, Associate AD, NAC English Theatre

by Estelle Rosen

Montreal born and raised, Sarah Garton Stanley now lives between Ottawa and Kingston. She founded The Baby Grand, in Kingston, in 1985, then co-created Women Making Scenes in Montreal, and Die in Debt Theatre in Toronto, (a ground-breaking company dedicated large canvas site-specific work.) Sarah Garton Stanley is a former Artistic Director of Buddies in Bad Times Theatre, she co-helmed the Directing Program at the National Theatre School and is adjunct at Concordia University. Sarah creates work with Michael Rubenfeld including The Failure Show, Mothermothermother, and upcoming Oopsala and The Book of Judith. She is currently directing Beatrice and Virgil, (Lindsay Cochrane’s adaptation of Yann Martel’s novel) at the Factory. Her latest adventure is launching The Collaborations in her role as Associate Artistic Director of English Theatre at Canada's National Arts Centre.

CHARPO: You've been involved in various aspects of theatre for many years. Would you say previous theatre involvement was the precursor to your current position as Associate Artistic Director of English Theatre at National Arts Centre? 

STANLEY: There is a strong line that runs through all of my work: I am in love with theatre. (I am 50 now, and to declare such love seems unseemly at best, and positively Harlequinesque at worst.) Replete with this ardour are all the various attributes that present in a more conventional, person-to-person kind of love.