Playhouse North School of Theatre takes a unique approach to train aspiring actors

Two actors stand facing each other, an arm’s length apart.

“You’re crazy,” Tanya says.

“You’re crazy,” Tanya says.

“I’m crazy,” Peter says.

Cindy Vanden Enden joins her student Aaron Balzer on the classroom’s stage.

Photo: Marina Giannitsos/Calgary Journal

The repetition between the two instructors, Tanya Ryga and Peter Aitchison, continues to go back and forth until eventually they are manically yelling at the top of their lungs, and their body language speaks to their emotional high.

This is known as the Meisner technique: a method of acting made up of a series of repetition exercises that are intended to erase an actor’s thoughts and train the actor to use their own emotions in their physical and vocal performance.

“It’s the ability to recreate truthful behaviour within imaginary circumstances,” said Cindy Vanden Enden, the only certified Meisner instructor in Canada, who teaches at Playhouse North School of Theatre in Calgary.

Born in Calgary, Vanden Enden began her pursuit of acting by taking a two-year theatre studies program at Red Deer College.

Later, she moved to New York City and studied at the Neighborhood Playhouse School of Theatre, where Sanford Meisner once taught.

However, a career in theatre didn’t excite her as much as she had hoped. Instead, she found that it was the rehearsal before the show that she enjoyed most.

“The exploration of the work and discovering the story of the character is what I really loved,” Vanden Enden said as she described with great enthusiasm a realization she had while acting in Toronto.

“If I was in the classroom all the time, then I would get to be in rehearsal all the time!”

Soon after, Vanden Enden moved back to Calgary and developed a four-year academic theatre program at Rocky Mountain College, a multi-denominational Christian college.

In 2004 it transformed into the two-year intensive conservatory diploma program that is offered today, which is modeled after the program at The Neighborhood Playhouse.

It still operates out of the college, but under the name of Playhouse North School of Theatre.

Juliann Pelz, 20, one of the seven students currently enrolled in her second year at Playhouse North, said her favourite aspect of the program is that it allows her to explore how she is an artist.

“I never thought of myself like that before coming here, but in every single class you have an opportunity to express yourself in a new way, whether it be an acting class, or in our dance classes, they really encourage us to explore and move in a way we’ve never done before.”

Pelz, originally from Keremeos, B.C., said her main reason for enrolling at Playhouse North was because she wanted to pursue theatre, but also wanted to go to a bible college, which complements one of Vanden Enden’s goals for the program: to foster an environment for students to discover how faith and art intertwine for them.

Juliann Pelz rehearses for a production put on by Playhouse North School of Theatre.

Photo: Marina Giannitsos/ Calgary Journal

“I love the technique; it’s so natural, free and not confined,” she said. “It is a wonderful tool, not only for acting, but just for everyday living. It gives you skills on how to interact and connect with people.”

Unlike the programs at the University of Calgary and Mount Royal University, the program at Playhouse North is unique in that it doesn’t require general education courses to graduate, nor does it define students by grades and instead treats the whole first year as audition into the next.

Playhouse North also offers a career course that is like no other: not only does it teach their students how to develop resumes, take headshots and create audition pieces, but it also teaches them how to live as “starving artists”.

They learn how to write grants and how to create realistic living budgets.

“This program has chosen to make actors, and that’s the focus,” said Tanya Ryga, a voice and speech instructor for the program, as well as Vanden Enden’s mentorship student.

Ryga described it as an “absolute entrenchment” in theatre that is solely dedicated to the development of an actor through the Meisner technique as well as courses that benefit the acting aspect such as ballet, stage combat and voice.

Although the program is very disciplined and rigorous, according to Pelz the instructors “have a heart” for their students and want them to succeed.

Likewise, Vanden Enden’s greatest passion is helping these aspiring actors open up in new ways and go after life in an “authentic, risky, go-get-it, don’t-take-anything-for-granted kind of way.”

“My passion really is helping actors,” she said. “I have never gotten rid of the awe of having that moment between you and another person where you unlock something in them and all of a sudden that character comes to life or that story comes to life.”