A story of two Richards: Actors incorporate disabilities into trendy and conventional takes on Shakespeare's king

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Bruce Horak has been legally blind since he was an toddler and Dylan Thomas-Bouchier has lived his life with cerebral palsy, however neither man has allowed his incapacity to maintain him from pursuing a life within the theatre.

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In a casting coup not only for the actors themselves however for Calgary audiences, each Horak and Thomas-Bouchier can be enjoying Shakespeare’s notorious villain Richard III, utilizing their disabilities to additional flesh out the character of this ruthless British monarch who himself suffered from scoliosis.

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Horak will play Richard in a manufacturing of Richard III for The Shakespeare Firm and Hit & Delusion Productions within the Vertigo Studio Theatre from April 14-29. Thomas-Bouchier will play a up to date model of the person set in an American highschool in Mike Lew’s much-praised 2018 comedy Teenage Dick, a co-production of Alberta Theatre Tasks, The Shakespeare Firm and Hit & Delusion Productions. It runs within the Martha Cohen Theatre from April 18-30. The scheduling permits audiences the possibility to see each variations of this story of a person who would cease at nothing to succeed in every new purpose he set for himself.

Horak performed a extra conventional model of Richard for Shakespeare within the Park in 1999, however when he met his new director, Vanessa Porteous, she advised him she wished him to lean into his lived experiences.

“My Richard is now visually impaired. He has just one eye, a patch on the opposite eye and makes use of a cane. It’s being virtually blind that has made Richard really feel like an outsider all his life. There have been instances I’ve felt like an outsider so I’ve taken experiences like that and dialled them up and right down to play Richard this time,” says Horak, who solely started utilizing a white cane 15 years in the past.

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“I received an audition for a film referred to as Blindness and the character wanted to make use of a cane so I went to the CNIB to get a cane and discover ways to use it. I didn’t get the half. It went to (Toronto actor) Maury Chaykin however at the least I realized tips on how to use a cane and it has come in useful many instances since. I now use one to get round, particularly in new cities.”

Horak says it’s solely in rehearsals that he “feels extremely weak. By the point we attain performances I’ve realized the choreography so I do know the place all the things and everyone seems to be so I really feel safer. I used to be a pupil of (the late) Keith Johnstone and he stated being on stage was all about taking dangers and feeling weak, so these emotions are nothing new to me.”

Porteous additionally advised Horak she “wished to see extra of my pure playfulness in Richard, which gave me the chance to discover all of the masks and personas he makes use of, all the things from the intense to the melodramatic.”

Whereas there was no onus on Alberta Theatre Tasks and companions to include a incapacity into their Richard play, that wasn’t the case when it got here to Teenage Dick.

One of many situations for any firm producing the play is that they make use of disabled actors, each King Richard and his finest pal Buck, who’s wheelchair-bound. (This function is performed by Riki Entz.)

“My CP (cerebral palsy) is my CP so it’s what Richard’s situation goes to be. Every actor who performs Richard in Teenage Dick brings his distinctive lived expertise to the character,” says Thomas-Bouchier, who recollects, as a teen, he skilled most of the emotions that Richard does as a highschool pupil.

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“I used to be a younger, Indigenous, disabled boy. I assumed everybody was making enjoyable of me and even simply gazing me behind my again. I wasn’t an outgoing particular person so I didn’t have many pals. I used to be unhappy and even suicidal at instances. That is how Richard thinks and feels and, sadly for him, he doesn’t obtain the nurturing I did.”

Each actors credit score their fathers for encouraging them within the arts which gave them a way of goal.

“My father had the identical most cancers I did. He misplaced one in all his eyes. Sharing this incapacity drew us very shut,” says Horak. “The humanities had been very prevalent in our home. There was music, portray, performing and sketching. There was no query I used to be going to have an inventive life. The humanities saved my life by giving me a life. It’s why I didn’t flip right into a bitter, vengeful particular person like Richard.”

Thomas-Bouchier says his father, Alberta artist Russell Thomas, was as soon as a neighborhood theatre actor in Fort McMurray. “After I was 14, my father satisfied me to play one of many revolutionaries in a manufacturing of Les Miserables the place he was enjoying the innkeeper Thenardier.

“By theatre, I received a correct sense of neighborhood and I discovered so many good function fashions within the adults I used to be working with. Theatre was what I wanted at that time in my life. It saved my life by giving me a goal and one thing to try for.”

When he was 19, Thomas-Bouchier auditioned and was one in all solely 14 college students accepted into the Nationwide Theatre of Canada’s prestigious performing program. He was in his second yr on the Nationwide Theatre Faculty when he obtained a name from ATP’s then-artistic director, the late Darcy Evans, who had scheduled Teenage Dick for the corporate’s 2020 season.

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“Darcy requested if I might drop out of lessons to do the play for him however I stated, as a lot as I wished that function, I needed to end my coaching. Then the pandemic cancelled theatre seasons all over the place and by the point ATP rescheduled the play, I used to be out there. Fortuitously, Jenna Rodgers, who’s now directing it, requested me to audition.

“I really feel this is usually a very particular expertise for Calgary audiences, particularly the highschool college students who can be attending the matinees. It will likely be a uncommon alternative to see two Indigenous actors in myself and Todd Houseman, and (two actors with disabilities) and we’re all from Calgary. That is one thing we are able to all brag about.”

Tickets for each Richard III and Teenage Dick can be found at shakespearecompany.com/performance-calendar or albertatheatreprojects.com/whats-on/teenage-dick.