Centaur stage

>> B.C. native Roy Surette replaces Gordon McCall as artistic and executive director

by AMY BARRATT

Waiting for Surette…That’s what the English theatre community has been doing since the announcement last June that B.C.’s Roy Surette was taking over for Gordon McCall as artistic and executive director of the Centaur. Waiting, and wondering.

Despite the unfamiliarity of the name to most Montrealers, Surette is no mythical beast. In B.C., where he has been artistic director of Touchstone Theatre (Vancouver) and most recently the Belfry Theatre in Victoria, he has distinguished himself with eclectic programming and innovative stagings. Last month, Surette picked up his ninth Jessie Richardson Award for co-directing Skydive, a two-man play using aerial choreography machinery. He has also directed at many regional theatres around the country.

Though he doesn’t officially don the Centaur’s horseshoes till November, Surette was in town last week holding auditions and meeting the press. Settling in for an interview in the Centaur II space, the boyish 50-year-old had a ready smile and a twinkle in his eye, and his answer to my first question (What new directions can we expect to see you take the theatre in?) was a disarmingly honest “I don’t know!” Of course, he is taking over a season already programmed by McCall, so he won’t get to really put his mark on the company until next year.

Having never lived in Montreal, he seems to recognize that, from getting to know the local artistic community to improving his French, he has his work cut out for him in his new job.

Despite the Acadian name, Surette grew up out west speaking English. He says his lack of fluency is a “valid concern” but that he’s working on it.

“I’m finding I’m reading it easier, and I’ve been ordering in restaurants and so far haven’t had any surprises.” Once he’s here full time, he plans to study with a private tutor. “There’s so much vibrancy [on the French side], I’ll feel I’m missing out if I don’t get a grip on the language.”

“I’m a very collaborative theatre artist,” says the Studio 58 graduate who, for some time, has left the acting to others. Surette has made the commitment to getting to know the theatre community and using local talent at the Centaur. He is certainly known as a great supporter of local talent in Victoria, where, by all indications, the community is sad to see him go.

“I’m eclectic in my tastes,” says Surette. And you can see that from the plays programmed at the Belfry over the past decade. In a relatively conservative community like Victoria, Surette could have stuck to very middle-of-the-road fare—Norm Foster, Pulitzer winners, traditional musicals—but he didn’t. He directed acclaimed collective creations like Flying Blind; produced lots of Canadian playwrights, many of them women; did the English-language premiere of Michel Marc Bouchard’s The Coronation Voyage; and when he did decide to do musicals, he chose offbeat fare like When We Were Singing and Urinetown (an experience he describes as “a blast”).

Surette’s first-ever directing project in Quebec, The Mystery of Maddy Heisler by Nova Scotian Daniel Lillford, will go up next spring at the Centaur. If you can’t wait that long to sample his work, The Number 14, a project he was involved with a decade ago, is touring the country. Surette directed this collective creation set on a city bus. The closest it will get to us, though, is Gananoque, Ontario, about three hours down the 401.