The Guerilla Q&A by Tony Martins   /   Maquette by Megan Turnbull  /  Photos by Rémi Thériault

When the 2010-11 season of English Theatre at the National Arts Centre kicks off in late October, a reinvigorated Peter Hinton will direct a young cast in perhaps the most famous of plays about youthful love: Romeo and Juliet. Indeed, though he won’t appear on stage, the emphasis on youth threaded through the NAC theatrical season is most noticeably embodied in Hinton himself. At the age of 48, the most commanding figure in Canadian theatre has undergone a physical and lifestyle transformation in keeping with his approach to professional life, where nothing less than total commitment will do.

Guerilla: How did the coming English Theatre season at the NAC become firmly focused on youth and new energy?

Peter Hinton: First of all, we have just come to the end of celebrating our 40th anniversary and with that we spent a considerable amount of time reflecting on our past. We looked a lot at where we have been and what perhaps the legacy of those forty years might be. So, I think it was natural for us in looking ahead to consider who our audiences will be forty years from now and what role the theatre and the performing arts might play in young people’s lives.

The ideas of youth and young people are really important at the NAC both in the programming that we do and in our education and learning activities

Along with the performances we do especially for schools and matinees for families, we also do workshops and programs in the schools where we can enrich the experience with discussion subjects, contextual information and applications to other aspects of young people’s lives. We want to turn on young people to understanding and having a vital culture as part of their daily life.

You have made it a priority to reestablish a resident theatre company at the NAC and to involve members of the company in current productions. Why was this so important to you? What are some of the early results?

Last year we reinstated a resident acting company at the NAC. It was a dream since I arrived to have a group of artists working with us on several projects and truly building national relationships with artists on a variety of plays and projects. The NAC was founded with resident acting ensembles in French and English (and at one time a bilingual company)—and not unlike the orchestra—were the real creative face of the institution.

For many reasons the companies were disbanded in the pessimism and brutality of the 1980s and when I arrived at the NAC our productions were mostly co-produced with other companies in Canada. Now, in principal co-production is a good thing. Co-productions are where two companies from different parts of Canada share the pre-production expenses and present the play in each city and then split the revenue. The downside is that you can get a bit prescriptive in the programming and the ability to pursue work that audiences really want to see and that artists are ready to do has to take a back seat

With a lot of work and tenacity we were able to re-think our budgets and planning and bring back a company for two productions last year in Ottawa and Winnipeg. The response was really positive and it has motivated us to re-think the “centre” aspect of the NAC, not as a defining perspective but rather as a gathering place for artists from across Canada to work on unique projects for contemporary Canadians. This year we have expanded our company with artists from almost every province and territory in Canada. And that’s a goal for the next three years to have our country fully represented. I really embrace the national aspect of the NAC in that I think there is something hugely creative in exchanging traditions and experiences with artists who come from all over our country, not just the big urban centres of central Canada.

Even before your first day on the job in 2005, some 2500 seasonal subscribers disappeared. What were they afraid of? Was this turn of events disheartening?

In 2006, I programmed the first all-Canadian season of English language plays at the National Arts Centre. I thought it was an idea that the country was really ready for. I mean, we have the artists, the playwrights, the actors, the directors ... the theatre. And we were able to put together a season that included a wide variety of stories with companies literally from Nova Scotia to British Colombia. There was a lot of excitement nationally—but yes, there was apprehension from our audiences here in Ottawa.

I think there are a lot of factors that contributed to this. It was my first season as Artistic Director and audiences had grown very loyal to my predecessor, Marti Maraden (who had programmed many Canadian plays during her tenure) but had tended to present a more thematically varied program which included classical plays and contemporary British and American works, too. Audiences were very faithful to Marti and unsure about whether my tastes might perhaps be too avant-garde or distant from what they had come to know and love.

It was a challenging time but I am so glad we did it because we were able to learn a lot about our audience and perhaps more importantly the role we play as a “national” theatre with our primary audience base here in Ottawa. It’s difficult ... on one hand we exist to present the very best theatre happening in Canada today and yet an audience is sometimes not as interested in that and are simply looking for a comedy, a musical, a drama, a little Shakespeare, that sort of thing.

And while that first year was “scary,” slowly and surely we have been rebuilding that audience, getting to know them better and building a dialogue with them. I wonder about how our lives have changed and how making theatre a part of our life is part of that change. Look at the increase in festivals in the past ten years and you see a very different way in which theatre is presented and work finds an audience across the country. Maybe our models for a subscription are out of step with the times. These are questions every theatre in Canada is facing but the challenges are unique in Ottawa, I think, where audiences want to see new plays but also are interested in the classics and would like to get a taste of work that is having an impact in other cities of the world.

Initially you felt that you’d do the job for a maximum of three years but recently you agreed to stay until at least 2013. What has changed?

When I first took the job, I had never been an artistic director before. It is a job that demands tremendous sacrifice. The hours are long (really long) and you are trying to co-ordinate so many things. You are constantly looking for ways of satisfying artists, audiences, budgets and creativity in ways that push you in every conceivable way. So I thought I’d give it three years and then return to the freedom of a freelance life. I also write plays, and let me tell you, finding the time necessary to concentrate on writing is perhaps the toughest challenge in the job. But I guess what changed was my interest and love of the challenge that the NAC presents.

Change does not happen overnight. Many of the ideas I had about what the NAC could be have taken many years to come to fruition. And perhaps the greatest surprise has been how much I have enjoyed doing it. All it takes is for one project to really come together, to see a playwright really hit his or her stride, or an actor make a tremendous breakthrough, or see an audience terrifically changed by a night at the theatre and I want to do this forever.

As you say, you’d never been an artistic director. What were the keys adjustments that you had to make?

I am still (five years later) trying to get used to the 75 emails and 20 phone calls a day—plus the inevitable and countless requests and problem-solving demands that come to me every day. You have to learn to think well on your feet. And you really have to learn to take a deep breath and take on one thing at a time. I am not terribly good at dealing with this pressure, but I am very fortunate to have an excellent team of collaborators and colleagues whose expert advice and incredible hard work make it possible.

I have also really taken stock with my health and the fitness of my physical body. This is something that I had previously taken for granted and found myself about 15 months ago just too fat and malnourished to withstand the rigours of the job. So with some expert medical advice and great support from friends and colleagues I have lost 127 pounds and begun a new regimen of eating well, exercise and commitment to a strong and healthy body. I guess like anything a vocation demands that all of you is engaged. The mind, the imagination, the spirit and the body. That’s the demand, but also the reward.

That sounds like a very profound kind of renewal. How did it come about?

It’s easy to get trapped living exclusively in the world of my creative imagination and I found myself getting literally weighed down in the stresses and demands of the job. I was a total coffee, cigarettes, beer and carbs kind of guy. I mean, seriously, these were my major food groups, and by the time I hit the age of 47, my body was rebelling in every way.

I have to say it has also converted me in every possible way. I learned about food and nutrition, learned to embrace and enjoy physical exercise every day, and have become a rather rabid convert to a sugar-, salt-, alcohol-, and gluten-free existence. Losing 127 pounds and being physically strong led me to really ask why I was smoking, drinking and eating myself into morbid obesity—and that’s where I think the success of any body transformation really lies. If you have an idea about why you’re fat or drinking too much or addicted to nicotine, you possess the most effective motivation for living in the body you want to achieve. And guess what, you begin to realize many of your spiritual and emotional and creative goals, much more effectively.

I want to participate in life and not be hindered by old ideas of sabotage and failure. I also want to stay clear of the evil diet industry which our society uses to make people spend a lot of money and keep people dependant of products and trainers and videos and dreadmills and pills—I could go on. Hell, I could do an infomercial.

I work out in the gym in my apartment building and swim at the Chateau Laurier, a real Ottawa treasure. I love it and I am happier and consequently (surprise of all surprises) it was the greatest gift to my creative work because I have a physical engine that can keep up with the demands of my job and the plays I want to do.

Your time at the NAC has been marked by highs and lows. What were some the most difficult moments and the most strident successes?

Truly, there are highs and lows every day. But I think they hit me most strongly in one experience with our production of The Drowsy Chaperone last October. It was the opening show of our 40^th anniversary and we were co-producing a big all-Canadian revival of perhaps one of the greatest Canadian success stories in the musical theatre. The show had been a great success in Edmonton and Vancouver and ticket sales in Ottawa were high and we were all gearing up for a truly celebratory opening to our season.

On the day of the first preview performance our musical director Lloyd Nicholson suddenly and unexpectedly died. We were all devastated and so incredibly shocked and saddened. The company members and cast were all grieving for their friend and colleague and we had to consider how we would proceed with the performance and the run of the show.

It was hard to know how to best honour our friend and to wrestle with clichés like “the show must go on.” Maybe if it was a play that spoke to loss and grief it might have been easier, but Drowsy is a musical comedy that celebrates the joy of the art form that somehow makes our suffering bearable. That day, I saw so many people at their very best. With enormous dignity and honour and human spirit, they reached out to each other and honoured Lloyd by dedicating themselves to what he had dedicated his life to. It was a horrible and sad day, but it was also profound and I feel very privileged to have been a part of that company and with those people.

Because you work on so many projects and you'll never be able to please everyone, I suppose you must have to develop a thick skin and roll with the criticisms that come your way?

Yes, you do have to develop a thick skin. But more importantly you have to remain open and listening to what people are telling you. Defensiveness is an immediate and understandable reaction. We work very hard on the shows we create and put an incredible amount of time, thought and feeling into our productions, so naturally there is a desire to shield or protect oneself from negative comments.

But criticism often has multiple motivations and it’s important to consider where things are coming from. For every show that someone tells me was the worst thing they have ever scene, another person will tell me how much they loved it and how much it contributed to their lives. If there were a play that all people loved and everyone thought was an excellent piece of theatre, I’d do it. But to experience art is a subjective experience. Theatre is trickier because unlike a book that you can put down—or a painting that you can easily pass in the gallery—the theatre asks you to stick with it ... to spend time with its characters and live a bit in its world. Theatre, after all, comes from the Greek theatron—a place for “seeing.” Sometimes we show things that people don’t want to see; sometimes we fail to shed light on what the play demands that we see clearly. So feedback and comments from our public is important information to pay attention to.

Critics are a different matter. They can be cruel—sometimes dismissive—and I am always frustrated that they can sometimes speak to more people in the paper than we can reach in our entire run—but what can I say? That’s show business. And more often than not, people have constructive and useful things to say about the work we do—and it is a dialogue that we want after all.

Before as many shows as I can, I go out into the audience and talk with our subscribers and patrons. Through that I have learned so much about who our audience is and what their day might look like before they come to us. I have learned a little bit of why theatre is meaningful to them. I love this part of the job. In a world where I barely know my neighbors in the downtown apartment building where I live, I enjoy thinking about familiar faces and individual people when planning our shows.

What excites you the most about upcoming youth-centric season of NAC English Theatre?

I am genuinely excited about every show in the upcoming season. That’s not an exaggeration—it is a reality. Vimy because Remembrance Day is a such a mixture of emotions and beliefs for me, so I look forward to what discussion it is sure to provoke. Romeo and Juliet because I do love the play—and love the danger of its words. nativity because Christmas remains one of the biggest traditions and observed holidays in Canada today and this play looks at its source and meaning outside of the clichés and excuses to shop. The Year of Magical Thinking because of Joan Didion and her brave book, because I think its healthy to look at death and question why we are so absent in discussing the realities of it in our lives, and because of Seanna McKenna—a great Canadian actress who hasn’t played in Ottawa in 20 years. Agwoke because of Wawate Fobister and the play’s director Ed Roy—great artists young and experienced working together to tell a gay love story on “the rez.” St Carmen of the Main because of Tremblay and his powerful way of blending classical forms and modern people and because it is such a showcase for our company—a classic “Greek” chorus of fifteen plus Diane D’Aquila, Jean Le Clerc, Laara Sadiq, Joey Tremblay, and Jackie Richardson—yes! Lauchie, Liza and Rory because of Sheldon Currie and the stories of Cape Breton on our national stage. Tales of the Moon because this play alone can change your mind about what young people’s theatre is capable of addressing. And finally, i think i can because of tap dancing and hip hop and a show that really testifies to the powers of the human spirit to overcome.

How have your ideas evolved on what "Canadian theatre" is and can be?

I always say to my casts (just before we open a show and nerves are high) try to be in the show you are in—not the show you wish you were in or the show you fear you are in. And I believe this, too, about Canadian Theatre at large. We must look at and remain curious in the theatre we are doing—not the theatre we wish we were doing or the theatre we fear that we are doing.

And what does that look like? I want to tell Canadian stories. I think we as Canadians have a unique perspective on the world and enjoy a great quality of life. I think there is a range to what stories can be told and how they are told. I want to live in a world that includes musicals and dangerous abstraction. I want to see plays that reaffirm my way of seeing the world and I want to be challenged, too. I want to see more plays that I don’t immediately understand—plays that live with me long after the show is over. I want to see beauty and ugliness, rich language and startling images. I want theatre that is awake and fresh. I want to work in a theatre that is a meaningful part of people’s lives. In Mexico, doctors are prescribing art to combat depression. I always feel better when I am exposed to good art.

You don't have as much opportunity to write as you'd like, but how do you feel your experience as Artistic Director has or will influence you as a dramatist?

I can only meaningfully write about what I think needs to be examined, what captures my curiosity and imagination. I think playwrights don’t really write about what they know—they write about what they don’t know—that’s why they write, period: to discover something more. I have some ideas about future plays. I want to write about the Sitwells, a family of British poets in the early 20th Century who are both legend and forgotten ... I want to write about the puritans in the early 17th Century, not as the rigid anti-pleasure villains enjoyed in most depictions of them today but rather as radical reformers who helped define a new way of understanding humanism and society. I want to write about Canada in the 18th Century—this century is my surrogate home; the whole period embodies something very rich for me.

I want to direct plays by some of Shakespeare’s contemporaries that offer another view of theatre—some radical dames like Christopher Marlowe’s Dido, Queen of Carthage and Thomas Dekker’s Shoemaker’s Holiday and The Fair Maid of the West by Thomas Heywood. I want to direct Ibsen and have a crack at Lorca.

I also want to travel to Africa and get a husband. I have lived so much of my life in the theatre—I would like to be equally stimulated by a domestic life that could include a family. This is a dilemma: l try to hold onto what I am doing now for its riches that will lead me to the next thing, but I know there is a secret part of me on hold during this time at the NAC that I look forward to exploring in the next phase of my life.

After your renewed commitment to a more healthy lifestyle, do you have fun going out and shopping for a whole new wardrobe?

Do I ever. Wait ‘til you see the jacket I have for the opening of Romeo and Juliet October 22nd. Ben vestito [well dressed], the Romans said, was necessary in order to be a gentleman in the world. I am going with it.