Director Kimberley Rampersad finds her 'place' behind the stage

Brought up on a nourishment of Lawrence Welk and Harry Belafonte, dance and theatre, director Kimberley Rampersad was seeking a place where she could find her two passions, art and activism, make “a little more sense.” She found it at the Shaw Festival.

Directing, she said, allows her to create that space. Also, she admitted, “I’m bossy. I have opinions, and I love to encourage.”

At a recently rescheduled Learn and Live session, Rampersad explained the craft of directing a play to an audience assembled at the Niagara-on-the-Lake Public Library.

Born and raised in Winnipeg, Manitoba, a place Rampersad described as “cosmopolitan and art forward” and “a place where hockey and art go hand-in-hand,” said she is a descendant of immigrants from Trinidad and Tobago who introduced art to her and her sister as a way to become engaged in their community.

Rampersad has been recognized for her work as a choreographer with two Dora nominations and an Evie Award. She has been directing professionally for 12 years: including Routes at the Manitoba Theatre for Young People, hang with co-director and mentor Philip Akin at the Obsidian Theatre Company, and The Color Purple for the Regent Theatre Company in Halifax, a production which received awards for outstanding directing and production.

In 2019 Rampersad directed the six-hour long Man and Superman at The Shaw Festival. This season she is directing Cotton Club and is choreographer and co-director of My Fair Lady, alongside artistic director Tim Carroll, who has never really directed a musical, she said.

Rampersad’s first task is to find a connection with the play. She was attracted to the classic My Fair Lady “because I love classics, that is my bread and butter.” She recalled dancing as a child to My Fair Lady show tunes from her parents’ Sears console. She also connected with Shaw’s “New Woman,” she said, a woman the audience sees as navigating the male gaze while coming to terms with her own power.

After a connection is made, a script analysis determines the theatre company’s capacity to mount the play: their philosophy, personnel, budget, and resources. For example, can Shaw Festival pull off a two-storey set, as in Amen Corner, (yes) and provide enough Black actors to cast the show (again, yes).

Designers, dialect coach, cultural consultant, fight director, commedia dell’arte teacher (focusing on ensemble acting and improvisation) are just a few people outside of cast and crew involved in getting a play from page to stage. But “casting is 90 per cent of the job,” said Rampersad, who prefers to hold one-hour group auditions to see how actors move and interact with others.

The role of stage manager is of vital importance to directors. “Directing is so lonely,” said Rampersad, “you are your own island and the stage director is there to tend the garden you have planted.”

Stage managers work with “creatives, crew, theatre administration and artists” and keep the show rolling after the director’s contract ends on (or near) opening night, she explained.

Pre-production is a period of more script analysis and research where directors often hire a dramaturg, or consultant, to give advice. At this point Rampersad also asks friends over to read the play for her while she tapes it so that she can listen to the play during her “creative thinking” time such as gardening, biking the Niagara River Parkway recreational trail, walking, or going to the gym.

Collaboration is important in a festival the size of Shaw, she said. Coordinating rehearsal schedules, for example, is a challenge as often actors appear in other shows at the same time. Rampersad sees this as a time for marination, a “time for us to come up with better ideas. The cross-pollination of whatever we are doing in other rooms” is going to benefit her piece of art.

Paraphrasing her mentor, Philip Akin, Rampersad said “it’s like pulling threads of brilliance from another room into my room and just watching it disseminate between everyone.”

A play should be “80 per cent there as it moves to tech,” said Rampersad. And once there, stage actors should have a sense of the last 20 per cent as they collaborate with crew, lighting, and costume. It is at this point that the stage manager is in charge.

Previews introduce “the most important element, the silent scene partner.” What worked in the rehearsal hall might flop in front of an audience. For Rampersad, “it’s hearing the music of your play against the rhythm of the audience,” after which adjustments can be made before the director lets go of the play.

“Letting go is the hardest thing,” said Rampersad, who gets the post-show blues. She receives a report on each show which includes the weather, house counts, technical issues and comments about the show. Sometimes she sees something in the report that she wants to address, however, her contract has concluded and she is often deep into something else, whether flying home to spend time with family or looking ahead to cast the next show. Rampersad has not seen My Fair Lady since handing it over to the stage manager, she said.

Her current project involves making her UK debut as director and choreographer of The Red Shoes at The Royal Shakespeare Company, based on a Hans Christian Anderson fairy tale. “I am still casting The Red Shoes and I start rehearsals in two weeks. We just need to be calm right now,” she laughed.