You may know him from our ‘In A Nutshell’ Village talks, or from the various Shakespearean characters he’s played, or as the one of the main voices in Barbie and Madeleine (yes that’s right!) but what does Artistic Director Christopher Gaze do in the day to day world of Bard? We decided to follow Christopher around with a camera from Monday April 21 – Friday April 25, a particularly busy week for Bard on the Beach, to give you a glimpse into the work life of one very busy man!
The week started with Christopher giving a warm welcome to Dean Paul Gibson and the Mainstage Company down at SFU School for the Contemporary Arts and staff were treated to the very first read-through of A Midsummer Night’s Dream.
Tuesday was filled up with staff meetings, followed by a weekly roundtable lunch at the Vancouver Club and in the evening, Christopher attended Vancouver Tourism’s farewell to Rick Antonsen.
Wednesday – the marathon! Shakespeare’s 450th Birthday saw Christopher running all over town for various interviews and events.
Christopher dropped in to the CBC Radio’s The Early Edition with Rick Cluff for some readings from A Midsummer Night’s Dream and Cymbeline and to share a cupcake or two! If you missed it you can listen here.
After the Early Edition it was straight over to Global BC TV’s Morning News to say hello to Sophie Lui & Steve Darling for more birthday celebrations and to offer a few tips on how to speak Shakespearean!
Back to the office briefly then…
…Christopher headed to the Go Studio, Blake Snyder Theatre to play ‘Bottom’ in A Midsummer Night’s Dream for the 24 Hour Shakespeare Project with some of Vancouver’s finest acting talent including Raugi Yu, Brendan Meyer (below) as well as international stars who popped over to support the cause!
Christopher hamming it up for a great cause!
After the improvised Dream performance, it was back down to SFU for Bill’s Birthday Bash – a celebration for Shakespeare’s 450th and Bard’s 25th all in one! Some of Bard’s creative team including Cymbeline Director Anita Rochon (pictured below) gave the audience a sneak peek into our 25th season!
Thursday it was back down to SFU School for the Contemporary Arts (what can we say, we love it there!) for the first read-through of The Tempest! The entire Company and staff had the pleasure of singing Happy Birthday to Christopher’s mother Joy who turned 88 that day!
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With no time to waste, Christopher jumped on the Helijet to Victoria to attend the opening of Equivocation at The Belfry that same night! While he was there he made a bit of money providing bellhop services for some of the Company.
Friday saw Christopher back in the office in one piece for a number of different meetings regarding mentoring, sponsorship and media.
What a trooper! Christopher has a number of events coming up which he is speaking at including Sam Sullivan’s Public Salon on May 14th.
This season, to celebrate our 25th year, Christopher will be taking audience members behind the scenes with his retrospective Gazing Back: Reflecting on 25 Years at Bard. We’ve heard some of Christopher’s stories including the night a storm came in and blew one of the tents down as well as the night the lighting operator missed his shift and Christopher had to jump in and run the lighting cues!
Join us over the summer to hear stories like these and find out what it’s really like behind the scenes at Bard on the Beach!