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Belfry’s new filmed production comes with a personnel twist

What: Same Old Same Old Where: belfry.bc.ca When: Sept. 21 through Sept. 26 Tickets: $25 from tickets.belfry.bc.
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Michael Shamata, artistic director of the Belfry Theatre, will make his professional acting debut in Same Old Same Old, whoich has its world premiere next week.

What: Same Old Same Old
Where: belfry.bc.ca
When: Sept. 21 through Sept. 26
Tickets: $25 from tickets.belfry.bc.ca or 250-385-6815

For all that Michael Shamata has accomplished during his four-decade theatre career — from a stint with Ontario’s iconic Stratford Festival to several Dora Mavor Moore Award wins as a director — there’s one question the longtime artistic director of the Belfry Theatre has never been faced with: Would you like to act in a play?

He has not acted in a staged production since the early 1970s, when he was high school, choosing instead to focus on other, behind-the-scenes aspects of the theatre business.

“No one has ever asked me,” Shamata said. “I’m just not an actor. That’s not the world I came from, and I think people know that. I came to directing through stage management. It is foreign to me.”

Shamata was finally given an opportunity to perform on stage for the first time this summer. The pandemic threw a wrench into the original plan, which would have put Shamata on the Belfry stage for a run of in-person performances, but the long-awaited result is coming to screens next week in the form of a filmed production.

He makes an appearance in Same Old Same Old, which has its world premiere Tuesday.

The Belfry staged a reading of Same Old Same Old shortly before the pandemic, during the 2020 edition of its annual SPARK Festival.

The play’s co-creators and stars, Jan Wood and James Fagan Tait, asked Shamata if he would play a role — that of a stage manager character — and he obliged. The response from those who saw it during the festival was overwhelming positive, so a full stage version was greenlit — with one provision.

“Jimmy and Jan said I had to be in it,” Shamata said with a laugh. “I said that was crazy, and that they should hire somebody else [for the role]. I even told director Kaitlin Williams she didn’t have to have me in the project.”

The whole team felt the creative spark during the process, including Shamata. He decided that if Same Old Same Old — a play about a marriage in its latter stages, told through a series of short vignettes — was going to become part of the Belfry’s upcoming season, he should probably jump from the sidelines into the deep end of the pool.

“If was ever going to appear to stage, this seemed like it would be the right time to do it,” he said.

The original plan, Shamata said, was for Same Old Same Old to have its world première during the Belfry’s 2020-21 Spring season. That was scuttled when the number of active COVID-19 cases kept provincial health authorities from fully reopening live events. Shamata’s long-awaited close-up will still occur, albeit in a strictly online capacity, beginning Tuesday.

A version of Same Old Same Old that was filmed on the Belfry stage in June and July will stream on the company’s website for the majority of next week.

”It was great,” Shamata said of the experience. “I have to say, it was a lot of fun to be on the other side of the table.”

The plays was described by Shamata as “deceptively simple,” though the involvement of talents like Tait (who directed and co-wrote 21 Ways to Make the World Last Longer) and Wood (who gave a star turn as Mrs. Fezziwig in the Belfry’s production of A Christmas Carol) hint at deeper layers of import.

“It’s about the language that develops between people who have been together for a long, long time and the love which is never spoken about, but is there all the time,” he said. “There is so much we recognize either in ourselves or our in our parents or people that we know, and a lot of it is very funny and a lot of it is very touching.”

Shamata said he really enjoyed the acting experience, but is not sure it will lead to other opportunities. He’s guessing his role in Same Old Same Old will be a one-and-done scenario. “I wouldn’t say no to trying something else, I just don’t think anyone will ask me,” he said with a laugh. “Anyone who sees this is seeing the beginning and end of my acting career. I don’t think I’m opening any doors here.”

mdevlin@timescolonist.com