In-Clined to be great

>> Théâtre Lac Brome closes a hot season, country-style

by AMY BARRATT

kd lang may be the reincarnation of Patsy Cline, but all summer long at Théâtre Lac Brome (TLB), it is Laura Teasdale who has been bringing the country music diva back to life.

Always--Patsy Cline closed last Saturday, ending a hugely successful repertory season that also included Joe Orton's Loot and Michel Tremblay's The Impromptu of Outremont.

The logistics of putting together this season, in which most of the actors also had to be musicians, is mind-boggling.

Artistic Director Nicholas Pynes explains that he chooses plays with a pretty good idea of "who's available, and what they'd be good in." He approached Teasdale--who had appeared in the musical Fire last year at TLB--to see if she'd be interested in playing Cline, before committing to doing that show. After she jumped at the chance, he chose Impromptu and Loot as interesting contrasts and cast a repertory company with all three plays in mind. When auditioning men for Loot, for instance, Pynes let it be known that he wouldn't seriously consider anyone who didn't also play an instrument; he needed them to double as the "Bodacious Bobcat Band" in the Cline piece.

Teasdale, a Nova Scotia native who graduated from Concordia's Theatre programme, has surely been one of the most employed actors in Montreal this past year. Her credits include How I Learned to Drive, in the Centaur theatre main season, as well as Dunghill, Dunghill, Dunghill, part of Centaur's Walk on the Wild Side festival.

"I always was a singer, but I learned how to act," says Teasdale when asked how she characterizes herself. "I grew up singing bluegrass and country. When I first started studying theatre, I didn't tell anyone I could sing. I wanted to prove myself."

Indeed, to many theatregoers who have only seen Teasdale in straight plays, it comes as a surprise that she also sings--and sings well enough to portray one of the great stylists of the 20th century.

That she has so many strings to her bow is no doubt one of the reasons Teasdale works so much. She is currently working with Clowns Gone Bad on their latest creation, Umlout, a circus Hamlet in which Teasdale plays Ophelia. Dates and venue for that production are TBA. She is also musical director of the Montreal Women's Choir (aka Out of the Mouths of Babes), the company behind 1998 Fringe hit The Full Molly. She hints that the choir is working on another show, but all details remain under wraps for now.

"For years, people have talked about it as a good gig," Teasdale says of Lac Brome. "For the audience, it's such a unique situation. People come back to see all three plays because they want to see each person have their moment."

There's a good chance that Montreal audiences will get a taste of the TLB experience in the coming months. The company has received a small grant from the Quebec government to do Impromptu of Outremont in Montreal. If funding is forthcoming from other sources, Always--Patsy Cline may be remounted, too.

For now, Teasdale plans to take a little time off and to visit her family--six brothers and sisters, 14 nieces and nephews--down East.

Pynes, too, will be putting his feet up for at least a few minutes before thinking about next summer. Will he be sticking with the repertory format? Absolutely.