Why I am a Theatre Person
After selling cars for while and developing all the bad habits that go along with that in late nineteen eighties Montreal (I’ll let you use your imagination here) I found myself back on Vancouver Island just in time to say goodbye to my father who I loved ferociously even though I never could find a way to make him proud (my fault not his)…At least while he was alive… After that I wandered into Malaspina College to take some classes with the vague notion of getting an education and maybe being a teacher…Very vague notion:) I was working at the Keg Steakhouse in Nanaimo at the time and a new employee Cam Watson informed me he was part of the theatre program at Malaspina so a short while later, curious I sauntered in there to say hello…
I never left the place again except to eat and sleep and I sometimes did all of that there too…After three amazing life changing years I went on to UVic, then The University of Maine and walked away with a Masters Degree and for the most part I have made my living doing theatre and live performance related stuff ever since then. Formative is the word that comes to mind when I think of those three years at Malaspina University College (now Vancouver Island University) When I walked into that building that day I met Cam who’d invited me and pretty much at the same time I met Tom Deasey (hes the one with his finger up his nose in the picture) and the three of us became fast friends spending most of our time together, studying, rehearsing, singing, drinking and popping Chocolate covered Coffee beans like they were popcorn. Tom was the star of the school, the lead in every play and musical and the one all the ladies at school wanted to be with and act opposite. He could sing like angels, dance like Fred Astaire and act with presence and intention right away. Tom set the bar we all tried to rise to. Several of our classmates at this time have gone on to Shaw, Stratford and other excellent professional theatre related, careers and lives. Tom too was well on his way, getting paid work before school was even over at several theatres near and farther, it all seemed so easy for him…Then a few years later Tom had what most would now call an Anxiety attack while performing at Chemainus Theatre Festival…the kind of attack that requires an ambulance, and Tom never set foot on stage again…He continued to work at The Keg and when it closed several years ago he stayed in the same building working at the newly named Medium Rare…
Tom took his own life a few days ago.
We were never really close again after I left to continue my education at UVic and that was mostly my fault not Tom’s…I don’t know what made Tom reach this terrible conclusion I only know that there was everything good in him always and that we should all aspire to be as human and sensitive as he was…He was a truly good guy and I always loved seeing him when we did run into each other the few times I was in Nanaimo. There was always something missing though so that most who knew him well likely weren’t completely surprised when he chose his own exit.
I struggle as we speak with a big decision that will almost certainly take me away from my daughter and Tiffany for at least a year but its work. It’s work I love. It’s work that mostly defines me as a human being. It’s work I learned how to do alongside Tom and my other Malaspina Alumni. And…mostly it’s work that humanizes me and keeps my Lions at Bay. I’m reminded in times times like these that I really wasn’t very good at acting or singing or dancing but I loved the experience of doing these things and being close to people like Tom who really really could, this humanized me, it made me way more interesting then I was and it changed my life because I changed my mental state of mind from being a failure at everything to succeeding by just simply BEING THERE and the being there in and of itself was success that perhaps cant be measured the way our achievement based world measures it but it has saved my life and allowed me the joy of leadership, fatherhood, love, friendship that I never would have found had I not stepped into that college theatre many moons ago…Tom was a big part of that…
I hope he’s is singing again now and finding his way, I will always remember how he saved my life one day and most of my daily work in one way or another is about paying that forward to the next lost soul or uncertain child/person who walks into my theatre.
