Michael De Rose and Brandon Antonio Photo by Dahlia Katz
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Changing Stages:
Pivoting from Performer to Educator
Michael De Rose
Change in the theatre is constant. As actors, we move from gig to gig, experiencing enormous success and crushing failure, sometimes within the span of a single day. The ability to adapt to change is essential for the survival and longevity of any theatre professional’s career. Perhaps this is because change is also at the heart of Drama itself— an artform that serves as a powerful tool for both individual and societal transformation. August Wilson (1996) speaks to this idea when he says of the theatre: “I believe in its power to inform about the human condition, I believe in its power to heal, ‘to hold the mirror as 'twere up to nature,’ to the truths we uncover, to the truths we wrestle from uncertain and sometimes unyielding realities.”
For most of my adult life I worked as a professional actor, guided by the same belief as Wilson: that my calling was to contribute to an art form that inspires audiences to imagine and build a brighter future; a future built on a foundation of shared truth and healing. Acting wasn't just something I did, it was a vocation and a practice that was inextricably linked to my identity; it informed my understanding of the world around me. I rehearsed, performed, toured, and developed my craft in the dark corners of rehearsal halls and theatres in the great city of Toronto, and on stages across Canada and the US. I was determined to make acting my life’s work, and for a while, I did.
My understanding of theatre, drama, and of myself at this time was shaped by large scale productions and intimate experimental contemporary and classical work. I perceived the theatre to be a sanctuary, a house built on a foundation of collaboration, storytelling, innovation, and progress; it was at once rigorous, demanding, and deeply personal. And yet, fifteen years into my life in ‘show biz’, I had a nagging feeling that something was deeply amiss. I began to notice it all around me: people being cast due to their Instagram followers, actors being typecast according to their racial profile, an over representation of powerful men making decisions about who had access to the stage, and who didn’t. Everything seemed to operate in opposition to August Wilson's faith in the role of the art form. Had the theatre changed? Or a more terrifying question began to nag at me: despite my success, was I… unhappy in this profession?
The author and cast in Rock of Ages- Stage West Calgary
During the off season when working as an actor (the interminable desert stretch of January to March) I often worked as a guest artist in secondary Arts programs across the Toronto District School Board and York Region. As I rounded the bend of fifteen years working professionally in the entertainment industry, I found myself accepting more offers to work in schools, while turning down roles in ill-fated musicals and shows funded by producers with more money than artistic sensibility. Something had begun to shift.
In the classroom, I worked as a coach supporting students through the creative process. I watched the surge of joy and excitement as students stepped onstage to perform after months of preparation, discovering the rush of performance, some for the first time. I wondered where that joy had gone in my own practice. I co-directed shows like Sartre’s No Exit, Shakespeare’s Macbeth and Sophocles’ Antigone, while marvelling as I watched high school students wrestle with challenging texts that many of my peers in the theatre would run from in terror. I engaged in casting processes that were not about typecasting, but rather, finding a place where the student would thrive and find success. Each day became about the exhilaration of the process, not the endless grind of trying to prove my hireability.
As the dark days of the pandemic loomed, buoyed by my experiences as a guest artist, I switched gears and enrolled in teacher’s college, in an effort to recover that piece that had gone missing. As I worked in the classroom more consistently, I noticed my mindset shifting. The work I was doing became about inspiring others, not naval gazing about my own career. I stopped asking ‘is this good?’ about the quality of my own acting work. Instead, I began to ask myself: ‘who is this for?’ as I searched for new and creative ways to engage students and to centre their authentic identities in the work.
One of my early discoveries as a drama teacher was the realisation that the majority of my experience as an actor was the result of gatekeeping: Auditions. Casting. Reviews. Awards. Scarcity. In my new role as an educator, I began to build a new home for myself, a home built on a new and stronger foundation—- radical inclusion. My job was to fling the gates open, not to close them. In this home, every student is cast. Every voice centered. Success in this place is not measured by polish and perfection, but by risk taking, personal growth, collaboration, reflection, and empathy. I began to understand that the drama classroom is a space where students rehearse to enter the world they are inheriting. Where we rehearse how we take up space, how we hold space for others, how we disagree (with civility), and above all, how we listen to each other- an art that seems to be all but lost in a world of divisive politics, anxiety, instability and siloed online experiences. I began to realize that in the classroom, the process became more valuable than the product and intuition somehow transformed into something more valuable than intellect. Here, humanity was at the centre of our work.
Ross Petty's Lil' Red Robin Hood- Michael De Rose, Robert Markus and AJ Bridel- Winter Garden Theatre-2019
My training in the theatre shaped my understanding of human behavior, and of my own humanity. In the classroom, I began to support students shaping their understanding of themselves, frequently for the first time. This is where my previous work in the theatre becomes most valuable, not in teaching students how to become Broadway performers, but in shaping their understanding of Drama as a tool to reflect the world back on itself—- a means of inspiring social change. In the classroom I can open up a dialogue and ask existential questions about 21st century society and culture: Whose voice is exalted? Who is silenced? What is our collective responsibility in repairing the balance?
The work, though intuitive, is not easy. The most demanding challenge I still face is reckoning with the fact that I don’t have all the answers. As an actor, I prided myself in my ability to readily provide an answer or a solution, a skill that made me infinitely hireable, desired and likeable. This was an ability that led to more jobs and opportunities being offered than I knew what to do with. When students began to ask questions, I had to fight the surge of panic rising in my throat when I didn't have an answer, a panic rooted in habits that I developed as a response to the scarcity mindset of an actor.
Just this past year, on the 25th anniversary of the murder of Matthew Shepard, in collaboration with the students, we decided to stage Moises Kaufman’s The Laramie Project, a play that delves into the fallout within the community of Laramie, Wyoming, as community members seek to assign blame, or uncover the truth following a hate crime. I felt a unique pang of stress in wondering how I was going to navigate some of the conversations about the perspectives shared in the show. I work in a fairly conservative community and I knew that in staging this work, I could not vilify any of the characters, as doing so might make a student in the classroom feel as if the principles they had been raised on are inherently bad or wrong. My own judgement could not be centered in this project. Early in the process when a student asked, “Ok, but Mr. De Rose, who is actually evil in this show?” I had to resist the temptation to share my knee jerk response. Instead, I turned it around and countered: “I don’t know… what do you think?”
I sat in the uncomfortable silence for a moment. Then, just as the silence grew deafening and I wondered if the ground was going to open up beneath me, a student in the circle spoke: “it seems like each character is reacting to the crime in the way they think is right. They all think they're doing their best for their community. Even the people filled with hatred in this play think what they are doing is right.” I realized at that moment that the kids were beginning to investigate the humanity of the characters they were playing, they weren't prematurely judging them. Suddenly, August Wilson’s belief in the theatre and its power to heal while ‘holding the mirror up to nature' was being explored in real time in my classroom. I felt a surge of excitement and relief as I metabolized the idea that I don't need to have all of the answers, my job is to design an environment where students can discover their own.
This is one of the first moments in the classroom where I understood how drama education could meet the social-emotional and intellectual needs of students in a way that screens could never replace. The kids were asking questions and seeking answers about an unjust world that could never be answered in a Google search. The answers to their questions lay in their personal reflection, their ability to connect to each other, and ultimately, it evolved from a foundation of empathy; something an AI Bot could never reproduce.
Admittedly, as I started out on this journey I was not prepared for how deeply students would trust me with their questions. I also continue to marvel at how frequently I hear from students that the drama classroom is the most cherished part of their school day, the classroom where they feel safest. Students that are struggling academically, or whose attendance is spotty, consistently show up to the drama classroom, and more often than not, excel. Just last week on an intermittent weather day, while the rest of the student body stayed home cozy and safe in bed, all twenty-six period one students inexplicably showed up, wanting nothing more than to circle up, connect, and play.
There is a clichéd idea that drama educators are actors who couldn’t hack it, or who didn’t have the talent to establish a sustainable career. I stand in opposition of this idea. My transition from actor to educator has taught me that the Arts do not lose power when practiced in schools; rather, they gain urgency and become a powerful antidote to the pressures on young people to define themselves in digital contexts-pressure that seeks to isolate rather than connect.
My work as a drama teacher helped to clarify the cause of my dissatisfaction as a performer. I had fallen out of love with the art form because my initial pursuit of connection and process had been replaced by a preoccupation with competition, perfection, and the final product. Somehow in my search for meaning, I stepped into the most important role I’ve ever played. In a world that increasingly asks students to perform versions of themselves online, I see that the drama classroom offers something truly radical— a space to rehearse being human. In this space I have the immense privilege of guiding, pushing and nurturing students as they navigate this rehearsal. An eternal loop of process, exploration and self-actualization. And there it is — I have found that missing piece.
References
Wilson, A. (1996, June 26. The Ground on Which I Stand. [Speech]. 11th biennial Theatre Communications Group,
National conference. New Jersey’s Princeton University.
Photo Credit: Pierre Gautreau
Michael De Rose is an acclaimed actor, educator, and leader on the Canadian performing arts landscape. A multi-award-nominated performer, Michael’s career is distinguished by a Dora Mavor Moore Award nomination for REPRINT (The Musical Stage Company), a Betty Mitchell Award nomination for Rock of Ages (Stage West Calgary), and multiple BroadwayWorld and critics nominations for his versatile work on stage.
Michael’s performance history includes work with some of the nation’s most dynamic companies, most notably Mirvish Productions, as well as Canadian Stage, The Musical Stage Company, Drayton Entertainment, The Globe Theatre, Stage West Calgary, and Theatre Passe Muraille. Michael has played major venues in his home of Toronto including the Elgin and Winter Garden Theatre in Grease, Ross Petty’s Lil’ Red Riding Hood and The Wizard of Oz. Michael also toured extensively on the US/Canadian National circuits of Godspell, Jukebox Hero, and Saturday Night Fever. His International credits include Blood Ties at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival.
Recognized as one of NOW Magazine’s Top 10 Breakthrough Toronto Stage Artists, Michael integrates his professional pedigree into the world of pedagogy. He currently serves as the Department Head of Drama and Dance for the York Region District School Board’s specialized Arts West program, where he leads the next generation of artists with a practice rooted in industry excellence and creative provocation.
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