ACTING OUT

The Little Theatre gets professional help

Theatre B.C.
freelance theatre
consultant Elaine
Avila spent two days
in Terrace last week
with members of the
Terrace Little Theatre.

It was an opportunity
for actors and non-
actors, directors and
non-directors to attend
workshops on acting
and directing skills in
a relaxed environment
— without an
audience. Elaine’s
philosophy is, "It’s
good to get excited by
an experience and then
later look for the knowledge."

On the first evening of the work-
shops about 20 Little Theatre
members were divided into groups
of three — two "actors" and one
"director" in each group. They
were given excerpts from a num-
ber of different plays — three
Canadian, one American and one
British — and asked to prepare
them for presentation to the rest
of the group. Elaine says she tries
to bring in Canadian scenes to
make the experience more per-
sonal. She briefly critiqued the
presentations, noting that this
process was one way to take them
to the next level of acting and
directing. "'m always trying to
think of ways to empower people
to direct," she explained.

For part of the second evening,
different groups of three were

given comic strips to act out
silently under direction of "the
director". The inherent humour of
the exercise loosened up even the
most reluctant of actors.

Elaine comes to Theatre BC
with vast experience. She began
acting at age eight and became
interested in every aspect of the-
atre from lighting to acting. She
explains, "Theatre gives me the
widest possible choice of careers.
I can pretend to be any number of
people." Someone suggested she
try directing and "it exploded
from there", she says. She went
on to directing at the University
of Santa Clara, California and
later did grad work in directing in
San Francisco.

Elaine Avila spent one year in
social work in upstate New York,
another opportunity to reach out

38 Terrace Review — March 6, 1992

and to augment her
life experiences. Dur-
ing that time, she also
studied and practised
dance and_ theatre
therapy. Elaine feels
that theatre often
plays to a particular
class and she’d like to
expand its scope.

She came to B.C. to
marry. She and her
husband Bill Clark
met on an Alaskan
cruise and chased each
other around the globe
until they finally
settled in Vancouver,
Bills home. Elaine

-gays living in B.C. has broadened

her perspective. When she’s not
directing or doing freelance in-
structing, Elaine works for a
Canadian film distributor, is
artistic director of a teen theatre
group and Theatre At Large, and
directs Theatre Terrific, a theatre
group of mentally challenged
adults. They learn social and
communications skills and move-
ment through interactive plays
and activities. One of the two
groups even creates scenes and
puts on performances.

Watch for some of the new skills
gained at Elaine’s Terrace work-
shops in the Terrace Little Thea-
tre’s one-act plays coming to Ter-
race in May.

— Betty Barton