Video specialist impressed by troupe’s intellectual rigour and talent
Deron Hamel

A former Simon Fraser University (SFU) student who participated in a Stage Door Theatre Troupe project says his favourite aspect of working with the troupe’s actors was seeing their personal strengths flourish.

Dan, who has since graduated from the university’s film program, says his experience working with the actors for eight weeks in 2010 brought to light amazing talent — especially humour — possessed by the 16 performers.

“(I got) to know each of their personalities and (got) to know them as really amazing human beings with incredible senses of humour,” says Dan.

“That was really what I was most impressed by — the intellectual rigour of their comedy.

“They’re really smart and really funny and they were taking their experience in the world and (turning) it into satire, which I would say the majority of people out there don’t have the ability to do.”

Dan says working with the troupe’s actors also forged meaningful personal and professional bonds

“(The experience) helped me solidify what I know and get back to basics and connect with these guys in a way that’s really personal,” he says, adding that the project was “unique and amazing” because it was his first time teaching others.

The Stage Door Theatre Troupe, a successful posAbilities theatre program for stage actors who have a disability, embarked on an eight-week project in 2010 to expand the program to teach the performers’ about using audio and video technology.

As part of the collaboration Dan and Marly, another SFU student, worked with the actors to share their knowledge of working with film and video equipment.

Marly would focus on story development and how to translate ideas onto paper, and Dan would then go over production techniques and how to use the camera and record sound.

The experience provided the troupe with additional skill sets to build upon their acting talent.

Don, a support worker involved with the Stage Door program, is applauding the collaboration for being successful at building upon people’s strengths.

“To finally see the videos at the end was very cool,” he says.

“We were really proud of (the videos) once we were done, we were really happy . . . to see the whole process from beginning to end.”

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