Student Life: A Direct Approach

by Janis Kirshner

In 2001, two talented and adventurous individuals became the first students of the School’s Directing Program. They are slated to graduate in 2003 after completing a program that is intensive, highly personalized — and still partly in flux. Here, a work-in-progress portrait of the students who are boldly going where no person has gone before.

Though efforts have been made in past years to establish a directing program at the School, the initiatives folded due to lack of funds. Thanks to new commitments from the federal government and private donors, for the first time in the School’s history a Directing Program is a permanent addition to the NTS curriculum. The course lasts two years, with a new two-person “class” starting every other year. Tailored to each student’s needs and interests, the program aims to give talented individuals with previous directing experience the personal attention they need to develop their own artistic path and establish successful careers.

Enter Emma Tibaldo and Anthony Black, the program’s trailblazers. Tibaldo, 38, is a native Montrealer with a host of creative disciplines under her belt. In addition to holding a BA in English literature from Concordia University, she was active in Montreal’s alternative music scene and has worked as a graphic designer, actor, stage manager and publisher. Though there are universities that offer MA programs in directing, for Tibaldo there was never any doubt that the National Theatre School (NTS) was for her. “The program is hands-on right away. Also, we get to work with professional actors for scene studies in addition to the student actors.”

When Anthony Black was thirteen, he acted in a particularly inspiring production at Halifax’s Neptune Theatre School that made him think “I’d like to be a director.” A self-described “serious kid,” Black decided at fifteen to complete his high school education at Trinity College in Port Hope, Ontario. Subsequently he attended York University, where he received a BA in Theatre and took what directing classes were offered, and started his own theatre company, Bunnies in the Headlights. Though directing has always been his focus, Black did other work on the side, including acting. “I’m only 24, so I had very little to speak for me as a director, not having gone to the NTS. It’s easier to get work in acting than directing,” he explains.

For Black, who grew up in Halifax, being in Montreal is as much a part of the experience as the School itself. “For one thing, my French has improved! This is an amazing place. This city loves its culture.” Black’s long-term goal is to make theatre in “collaborative creations” that blur the lines of directing, writing and performing. All his achievements, says Black, didn’t prepare him for the NTS Directing Program. “I’ve never worked harder in my life, even with my own company.”

Being first to break trail, says Tibaldo, is both exhilarating and nerve-wracking. “The pace is tough,” she says. “Sometimes you barely have time to digest all you’re learning.” But it’s all good, says Tibaldo, who feels “privileged” to be attending the NTS.

Anthony Black. Photo: Maxime Côté.

In their first year, Tibaldo and Black have already completed a number of directing projects in addition to taking classes in Acting, Scenography and Technical Production. They prepared scene studies of Morris Panych’s play Lawrence and Holloman, working with professional actors, and directed the second-year Acting students in scenes from Goodnight Desdemona, Good Morning Juliet for the School’s Central Project. “That was the one project that integrated all the programs, except Scenography,” says Black. “It was nice to work with students on all sides, and I learned a lot.”

The pair collaborated with Paula Danckert and Peter Hinton of Playwrights’ Workshop Montreal on another fall project, in which six young playwrights wrote site-specific pieces for a walking tour of Montreal’s Plateau district. The pieces included the tale of a first-world-war recruitment officer, performed in a former armoury, and a vignette set in an alley behind what had been a bathhouse. Tibaldo and Black directed the readings by professional actors. Both agree that feedback from these and other exercises has been an invaluable learning tool. “People have been incredibly supportive,” says Black. “They kind of coax us along and let us know how we’re doing.”

Discussions and classes with professional directors are, not surprisingly, also an important element of the program. In addition to having the personalized attention of mentors Chris Abraham and Eda Holmes, both rising stars and graduates of the NTS pilot Directing Program (1994-1996), the pair worked and learned with artists like Henry Wolfe, a Saskatchewan-based director who has worked with Peter Brook and Laurence Olivier.

Another first-year assignment was Ibsen: a scene from The Master Builder for Tibaldo and from Ghosts for Black, once again, with professional actors. In a year of unique experiences, Ghosts was a high point for Black because he got to direct Nicola Lipman (Acting, 1968), who had been working with him and Tibaldo as a guest teacher. “Nicola is an NTS grad who lives in Halifax and one of my favourite actors,” explains Black. “I’d worked as the assistant director on a production of Wit that she was in at the Neptune Theatre and she wrote me one of my reference letters when I applied to the School.”

Bie approached Lipman and asked her if she would stay on to act in Ghosts with Black directing. “When Sherry told me I had a little freak-out — a good freak-out. It was the first time I directed actors who were way more experienced than me,” Black says of his experience with Lipman and the three other actors, also seasoned professionals. “It was extremely challenging — such a good process,” says Black.

Progress and roadblocks are addressed during weekly meetings with Bie. The sessions are unstructured and informal, with Bie asking a lot of questions: “My goal is to inspire and challenge them,” she explains.

Over the summer, the two interned with directors at Toronto’s Soulpepper Theatre. Tibaldo worked with director Joe Ziegler on A Winter’s Tale. Black was looking forward to working on two Chekhov pieces with director Daniel Brooks, whom he had admired for a long time. “I saw his play Insomnia in Toronto a few years ago and it blew my mind, so I wanted to work with him,” says Black. “All the elements of that production were so integral.”

While he waited for production on the Chekhovs to begin at Soulpepper, Black returned to Nova Scotia, laboring as a landscaper in the day and reading Turgenev at night. Though the pace may have let up for a few weeks, his enthusiasm clearly had not. “Directing has a lot to do with your personality,” Black mused. “I guess my big trip this year was learning that you don’t have to know everything right away. You just need to keep a fresh pair of eyes — and work pretty damn hard.”

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