Brad Fraser

KELLY HANDEREK PROFILE
BY BRAD FRASER
FOR THE NATIONAL POST

It's quite a distance from the dusty charm of small town southern Alberta to the role of creative head and hoped for savior of the venerable old Grand Theatre in London, Ontario. New Artistic Director Kelly Handerik has a great deal of experience, both as a director and as an academic. He hopes to use this experience to restore the Grand to its former glory.

The Grand theatre, turning one hundred next year, has a couple of problems; an accumulated deficit that, although unconfirmed, appears to now stand at around one million dollars as well as a subscription audience that has grown progressively smaller. This is the same problem that every major regional theatre in Canada has faced over the last ten years. Kelly must find the best way to bring new blood into an established institution without alienating the existing audience. Not an easy task but one Mr. Handerik, aged forty-one, appears ready to embrace.

An adopted only child, Kelly grew up in Medicine Hat, Alberta. Kelly was a drama kid who, like many young people, found acceptance and a sense of extended family in community theatre. He made his theatrical debut in Cinderella playing the handsome prince opposite world-renowned puppeteer/writer, Ronnie Burkett. Mr. Burkett, in what was no doubt an early example of his brilliant versatility as a performer, played one of the ugly stepsisters. Mr. Handerek studied speech arts in high school, attended various provincial drama events and eventually auditioned for the highly respected University of Alberta BFA acting program. Kelly finished his acting degree and worked freelance around the province before deciding he wasn't that crazy about being an actor. He returned to the U of A for his masters in directing.

In the early eighties, after various directing, acting and teaching stints, Kelly had his first fateful meeting with actor/director Bernard Hopkins. Mr. Handerik had been invited to assistant direct for Hopkins at the Banff Centre for the Arts. Bernard Hopkins, a Stratford regular and former Artistic Director of the Grand, is very highly regarded by audiences, critics and peers alike. He had a powerful effect on Mr. Handerek. Hopkins would also lead Kelly to one of the greatest opportunities of his career- but not until Handerik had relocated to Halifax to teach at Dalhousie University.

Kelly speaks fondly of his years teaching and acting in Halifax despite the fact his only long-term relationship- ten years with a fellow theatre student/actor- dissolved during his time in the city. While he was in Halifax Kelly also got a call from the Stratford Festival. They wanted him to be assistant director to Bernard Hopkins for a production of Twelfth Night. A few months later Kelly realized a life long dream. He was working at the Stratford Festival.

The dream became even more real when Kelly was asked to direct a show for the festival's young company the following season. He was barely in his thirties when he made his Stratford directorial debut. But all dreams have a dark side. Mr. Handerek describes that difficult season at Stratford when he directed The Changeling by saying, "Some people are really great as individuals but terrible as a group. I think this was one of those cases. It all started very positively but it turned somewhere. I learned a lot. I suspect those actors did too." The following season Handerik was invited back to the festival as an actor but not as a director. He opted to continue working as a director. Elsewhere.

Kelly returned to the prairies, taking a job as Associate Professor of Theatre at the University of Regina. He returned to his scholastic roots in order to process his artistic journey and share it with others. He also wanted to be closer to his ailing mother. Kelly's father had died during the directors last year of drama school and Kelly had promised to care for his mother when the time came. He made the five-hour drive between Regina and Medicine Hat every weekend. His mother died in 1996. One week after her death Kelly went into rehearsal to direct Hamlet. A year's sabbatical spent studying acting with Uta Hagen in NYC, lecturing and teaching at the Royal Scottish Academy in Edinburgh and working with the Saskatchewan Playwrights Centre on new work got Kelly hungry for the professional theatre again. He applied for the job of Artistic Director at the Grand Theatre and, after a series of rigorous interviews, was surprised to discover he had been awarded the post.

Despite the fact the Grand has had some very high profile people at its helm, including Robin Phillips and Martha Henry, it has always been regarded as something of a suburb to Toronto- a middle-class white theatre in a middle-class white city. Kelly is excited by the many challenges posed in revitalizing the Grand. The erosion of both grant money and a paying audience is a problem he feels needs to be addressed immediately. Kelly concedes this will not be an easy task.

"The Grand is a beautiful old theatre but, really, at eight hundred seats it's about three hundred seats larger than the city needs." When asked how he plans to fill those seats again Kelly is brimming with ideas. "I'm hoping to find a way to bring in an alternative audience, a middle income audience, a female audience. We already have great success with our High School Project. The outlying rural areas are very important too. New programming will include as many theatre artists from the London community as possible- playwrights who have an association or history with London, as well as young emerging artists. In the past the grand has focused on the excellent senior talent that exists in Canada, I'd like to mix that experience with young emerging talents."

"It seems to me that over the last fifteen or twenty years the Grand has become a kind of extension or reflection of Stratford and Shaw. In fact before that time the Grand did things like debut the North American tour of The Importance of Being Earnest with John Geilguid, put Ben Hur onstage, did new Canadian work- such as Allan Stratton's Nurse Jane Goes To Hawaii. A number of very important artists have started out at the Grand. Bill Hutt. Kate Nelligan. Victor Garber. There's a real history to the place. People from London are very proud of the Grand but I think a large portion of them have come to feel alienated from the theatre. I want to bring those people back too. We have to get the community into the theatre. And the theater into the community." Mr. Handerik reels off a list of recent and upcoming events that are designed to make the Grand an integral part of the London scene again. His commitment and excitement are tangible as he speaks. But he's all too aware of the pitfalls as well.

"I'm afraid there's a bit of complacency about the Grand. A sense that it's always been there and always will be. But the truth is we can't let the audience take us for granted. I have to find programming that shakes them up without driving the supporters away. We need a great deal of support right now. People think the Grand will never fail. Someone will always bail it out. It'll be there forever. But they thought that about Eatons too."