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Local director off to Stratford

A local artistic director and theatre instructor will be on her way to the Stratford Festival in Ontario to take her place as assistant director for a classical play at the end of this month.
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Mellisa Glover has been given the opportunity to be assistant director at Stratford Festival for a classical play at the end of September. Citizen photo by Brent Braaten

A local artistic director and theatre instructor will be on her way to the Stratford Festival in Ontario to take her place as assistant director for a classical play at the end of this month.

Melissa Glover didn't hesitate to take the opportunity when it was offered even though she won't know what production she'll be involved with until just a few days before she leaves.

Glover has been working as an assistant director at Theatre Northwest for the last five years and offers theatre classes to youth through Shooting Stars Theatre.

Glover will be under contract in Stratford from Sept. 25 to Oct. 17 and before this opportunity came up she had applied for the Michael Langham workshop that takes place at the Stratford Festival next spring and summer. She won't know if she's accepted into that program until November.

Glover made a connection with Bonnie Green, the playwright of Meet My Sister, whom she met at the Western Canadian Theatre in Kamloops, along with the play's director Sharon Bajer when it was presented at Theatre Northwest this spring. Through those connections Glover said she was able to find her way to Stratford to learn from Canada's best.

"I started to take an interest in directing in 2010 when I directed the Vagina Monologues at UNBC," Glover said. "I've been acting since I was five so I always loved performing and being on the stage and then I went to theatre school for acting and I just realized there's a lot of stress in acting professionally and you're going to hear 'no' a lot of the time and it's very difficult and I really have just always loved directing because then you're part of the whole picture where sometimes as an actor you're not - you're just in certain scenes but a director has to see a vision for the entire play and I've always been fascinated by that."

Glover said she has a lot of creative ideas that she would like to explore and that's what inspired her to start directing.

Right now it's all right that it's a mystery as to what play she will be assistant directing.

"A part of me kind of wants to know but at the same time it's kind of neat to not know yet," Glover said. "As a professional artist the dream when you're in Canada is getting to Stratford or Shaw - they are the two biggest festivals so it's kind of neat to say yeah, I'm actually going."

Local actor Alana Hawley went to Stratford in 2007 and Glover acknowledges it's a rare opportunity for her.

"It's really neat to do it from the directing side versus the acting side," Glover said.