U of C’s Wagonstage brings theatre to the community and offers professional opportunities to student actors
By Kimberly Taylor, August 3 2024—
Wagonstage is U of C’s student-led touring theatre delivering live performances by students to Calgary’s children and their families in parks across the city over the summer until Aug. 20. Anyone can attend this year’s play – The Underlings – for free, weather permitting. Performances rotate through various parks in Calgary and last about thirty minutes.
The Gauntlet spoke with Steven Conde – current artistic producer and director of Wagonstage – about the touring company. Conde highlighted that one of the goals of Wagonstage is to provide student actors their first paid, professional experience.
“The goal of Wagonstage is, first and foremost, to provide an initial professional experience for the drama students because this is a paid opportunity for them. It’s the first time that they get to be paid for their work as actors. And at the same time, this is a really long run. The show runs for about three months all across the city so it’s as close to professional experience as they can get within the confines of the university,” Conde said. “Many of our professional actors in the community trace their first professional performances to Wagonstage.”
Additionally, Conde explained that another major goal of Wagonstage is to provide an educational theatre experience to children all over Calgary and some of the neighbouring communities and their families.
“It’s not just little kids but also their families because usually in the parks whenever we perform we get a lot of children with their families watching the show. What usually happens is it becomes a topic of conversation for parents and their kids, especially if they’re really little kids who still have a hard time grasping some ideas that are presented.”
For the last three years Wagonstage has focused on educating children about the environment with this year’s play — The Underlings — focusing on soil. The 2023 season featured The Little Forest about the importance of the forest ecosystem and the 2022 season focused on pollinators with Bee-Trayal. All three plays were written by award-winning playwright Clem Martini — a Calgary local and professor of drama at the U of C.
Conde spoke about the creative challenge of bringing educational theatre to children.
“We don’t want to spoon feed kids. We want to also challenge the kids and enhance their imagination. So as a director, this opportunity, the process of mounting the play has stretched my creative juices a lot. To think about how to create worlds for the kids that they will understand but at the same time would not have to be too literal.”
Conde also described how Wagonstage brings theatre to the people and the importance of live performance, especially with so much entertainment competition from the ubiquity of cellphones and other screens.
“[With] the rise of streaming [and] social media kids nowadays have so much more stimulation and I hope families will give theatre a chance. That they will consider theatre as a really important and effective means to not only entertain, but dialogue with their children. We hope that through Wagonstage, we can still reiterate how live performance makes a difference and how live performance is a very special art form.”
Conde highlighted that Wagonstage has been touring Calgary parks for 53 years and that the current season will run until Aug. 20.
“[Wagonstage] has reached out to thousands upon thousands of families and children over the years. It’s been in existence almost 54 years now so it’s definitely made an impact in our community,” Conde said. “Wagonstage is alive and kicking and it’s a very important part of the children’s theatre ecology of Calgary.”
To catch a free performance of The Underlings check the Wagonstage Facebook page, Instagram and website for location and times.