Laura Roald is a part-time faculty member for the Performance Arts & Technology program at VTSU-Johnson.
Where did you grow up?
I grew up in a town about the size of Burlington, comparatively, but for the area, like a midsize redneck town outside of Vancouver. Yeah, not a not a lovely place to grow, not a bad place either. By the mountains, which is kind of why I feel comfortable here.
What led you to teaching at Johnson?
I moved to the United States when my husband, who is a dual citizen, got a job working in his field, and so I started when I got here. I started doing theater in Burlington and working in New Works around there. And around 2017, I got a call from our dear beloved Isaac [Eddy] looking for someone to direct the spring musical. And we met and decided it would be a good fit, and I came in as the guest artist to direct Nine.
What is your favorite show you’ve directed at Johnson?
My favorite musical that I’ve directed here was Nevermore. My favorite contemporary piece that I’ve directed here was Bronte. My favorite exciting, and really exciting to do with seeing people get engaged – other than the devise shows, which I think is a different fish – would have been Macbeth. I enjoyed all those shows tremendously.
Any interactions with the Dibden ghosts?
No, none. I’ve never seen a ghost in this theater. The bats, sure, I’ve had the bats. I’ve had the bats visit me in rehearsals and give me notes. But I don’t think the bats are here anymore. But no, I’ve never seen a ghost here in this theater. There are theaters I’ve worked in that I believe have “extended casts,” but I’ve never seen one in Dibden, and I’ve spent a lot of hours at all times of day in Dibden.
When did you know that you wanted to pursue theater as a career?
For my undergrad … I studied bilingually in English and French. My first year was exclusively in French, and I was very excited that I was going to get to use an English theater in my second year … It was extremely competitive. And it got more competitive the higher you went. And it was when I was studying for my comprehensives to get into second year, like sophomore theater, that I was pretty sure that was it, if I was putting this much energy and effort into it.
Do you have a favorite rehearsal moment?
I always laugh at myself during the rehearsals for Bronte, I came to rehearsal with a migraine, and lied down on the floor of Bentley, and propped myself up wearing sunglasses and a hoodie. But I was still lying on the floor, and like hunched over the row of seats in front of me with the darkest sunglasses I could find on. And I wouldn’t describe myself as always diplomatic, but part of the communications degree is I’m very aware of the power that the director and the teacher has in the room, and what those words can do, and how they can shape both the students’ experience as well as the quality of the performance. And that was a good cast.
I had absolutely no filter between the raw note in my head and the words and the tone that were coming out of my mouth. I mean, I just remember this one poor guy’s face. I was not cruel, but I was really much more blunt than I would have been in my note giving. Fortunately, they were all really, really engaged students who really wanted to be there and understood the energy that I was bringing, and realized that … I was pushing myself more than I ought to, to be there at all. But it was really, really funny. To be that unguarded is not an ordinary thing. And I laugh at myself all the time for that.
What’s your favorite role to be in the theater world?
I’m trained primarily as a jack of all trades. I will do anything for money. My advanced training is primarily as a director. I love directing. I also work frequently as a dramaturg, as a playwright, as an actor, obviously as an acting teacher, and acting coach. And I also work as an intimacy choreographer.
If I ever move back to a place that has a film industry, I would probably work in in intimacy coordination as well. But my all-time dream is to be in a place where I can be Artistic Director of a theater with a reasonable, but not extreme, budget that allows me to put on and support new work and put on some shows a couple of times a year. And gives me the freedom to also be teaching like that. My lifetime dream was to have a theater where I have a strong creative say as artistic director or co-director, or associate with somebody who’s not a dickhead, and also have the freedom to continue to be teaching, because I learn a lot from teaching.
When I’m teaching, I learn, and I have to go back to first principles all the time, and that served me very well, personally. And it feels kind of selfish in a way. But it’s like every time you have a student, you need to figure out how to explain a concept to them in a way that’s going to work for them. You have to reevaluate the concept, and figure out what works. Sometimes, over the years, I found things that really don’t work anymore, or the way that I learned that was actually training me to do some things that are not good for me, or that are not good. So I don’t want my students to take that philosophy into their work. So it helps me find things that I would be better to shed in my own work, as an actor or as a director. And I’m grateful that I have an opportunity to do that. And I found that it’s in teaching that I constantly have the opportunity, but also the pressure to reevaluate everything as I’m passing it on.
What do you think we would think you got arrested for?
Speeding.
Do you have any role models?
One of my directing mentors passed away on October 5. It was was a personal mentor I also had. I learned a lot from him. He was one of the one of the directing professors I had in grad school. I also had a couple of important directing professors when I was an undergrad, influential in terms of role models. I also had an arts administrator that I worked with at Theater Alberta.
And, at arts councils, I’ve worked with women who are very strong leaders that I learned a lot from in terms of how to take charge of a company as as a female voice. I think, in terms of the personal is professional and personal, I think those were where, in terms of role models, I always look at. There are directors that I admire, there are people that I admire, but I am old enough that there weren’t that many when I was younger, and there still aren’t.
There’s still not a lot of women who sit primarily in the director chair. So I’m always grateful when I find them and when I get a chance to work with them.
The needle hasn’t moved in my professional career as much as I honestly thought it would.
Is there a part of theater that always makes you go “ugh, this again”?
More and more lately it’s people not speaking loudly enough. I think it’s one of the most consistent things that I have to do all the time. And it’s not just with students, sometimes it’s with working pros. Sometimes it’s worth it with community theaters that I’m working with, but vocal projection is not something that’s taught, especially if it’s not someone who has significant conventional theater training. They haven’t learned to project and, you know, sometimes, even if they’re great singers, they don’t do it with their speaking voice. And that is frustrating. It’s frustrating because, like, there’s now theaters that have given up.
When you’re not putting on a show, what is your favorite thing to do?
People do other things?
Dreamcast?
Gillian Anderson, I would love to direct Gillian Anderson as Lady Macbeth. That’s one of my favorite plays, and I would love, love, love to see her do it. That would be really exciting. … And it might not even be the actual play … it may be an adaptation that focuses more on that character’s experience. But yeah, that would be exciting.
Favorite Norwegian snack?
So if we’re talking of all time: Brunost, which is Norwegian goat cheese – brown goat cheese. When I share it with people, they either love it or don’t because it has a very strong, sweet taste. That is not what people think of when they think of cheese very often. So if you have a lot of cheese preconceptions, it’s not for you. I also ate lots of fish cakes. My grandma’s fish cakes are the best in the world, and I will spend the rest of my life trying to figure out how to make them. Fiskekaker is one of those, like, fancy, fancy Christmas cookies that you actually have to have the right iron, and I was able to find an iron on eBay a couple years ago. So now I have the ability to make Fiskekaker.
If you could be besties with any famous person alive or dead, who would it be?
Part of me says Dorothy Parker, but I also think we would probably kill each other. I see someone I admire tremendously, and I think it would be great fun to work with and to be catty with them.
The other one that I think it would be most interesting and exciting is someone I think that I would actually really, really get along very well with is probably Ellen Montgomery, the the writer who wrote the Anne of Green Gables books.
What impact do you hope you’ve made?
If I have made a lasting impact on anyone, I hope they remember that I don’t give up, even when I have to, even when I should, even when it’s good for me. And, I hope I’ve made some of them laugh.
