By Sheona Burns
Robin Westmacott is a small-time actress with “big funkin’ ” dreams, now she’s taking those dreams on the road.
The 19-year-old Centretown resident is set to take off on a two-week Canadian tour performing in The Third Wall Theatre company’s production of The Big Funk: A Casual Play, written by John Patrick Shanley.
“I keep waiting for someone to pinch me. This has always been a dream of mine so I can’t believe it’s actually going to happen,” she says. “This is an excellent show that has an important message so it’s wonderful that we have the opportunity to show it to a broader audience.”
The aspiring actress initially appeared in The Big Funk last February when it premiered at the Alumni Theatre at Carleton University. She says she’s ecstatic about the tour, which will hit Newfoundland, Nova Scotia and New Brunswick this May.
The Big Funk, directed by Dave Dawson and James Richardson, is a “casual” play that examines relationships, societal ills and postmodern desire.
The plot revolves around four characters who struggle to find the true meaning of life.
“It’s about the ‘big funk’ that society has become stuck in,” says co-director Richardson. “It preaches a philosophy that stresses an importance on living as opposed to just existing,” he said. “It shocks people in a nice, casual way.”
Richardson was motivated to take the show on tour after receiving positive audience feedback following the show’s first run at the Alumni Theatre.
“The responses we got were so overwhelming that I realized that more people have to see this,” he said. “Besides, when you stay in one place, the show can get stale. But when you’re taking the sow to different towns, there’s always something new happening. It keeps it fresh.”
Richardson, who also performs in The Big Funk, thinks the show will be successful because it has universal appeal.
Richardson wants to take the show to Fredericton, Halifax, Yarmouth and St. John’s.
“I studied theatre in Newfoundland so I’d rather take the show somewhere were I have some connections,” he says. “Plus, none of the other cast members have been out east so I think this will be an exciting adventure for them.”
Richardson says it wasn’t hard to convince the other four cast members to join the spring tour.
“This really struck home with some of the actors,” he says. “The tour is really taking a bit out of their summer plans, but they’re willing to change those plans in order to do the show. There’s a real desire to do this.”
Westmacott, who was born and raised in Winnipeg, says she’s passing up a summer job to go on tour.
Cast member Kimara Brilling says she doesn’t mind postponing her trip to Vancouver Island to perform in the play.
“We all had this feeling at the end of the production that we had so much more we wanted to give and we were having so much fun doing it that we wanted to keep it going,” she says.
The Big Funk will kick off its Canadian tour after performing at Arts Court May 10-12.
Westmacott hopes to learn from the tour.
“This is going to be incredible,” she says. “If this is a dream, I don’t want to wake up.”