Every Role Tells a Story

One thing you'll hear me talk about a lot is ensemble, not because I think it's a buzzword, not because it sounds good in a rehearsal room. But because I genuinely believe that nobody tells a story alone. Theatre is one of the most collaborative art forms there is. Every performer, every creative, every technician and every member of the company contributes something. And yet one of the biggest mistakes I see people make is viewing a production through the lens of individual roles rather than the story as a whole. People naturally focus on the lead roles. They focus on the big songs, the big scenes, the characters with the most stage time. But audiences don't experience a show that way. Audiences experience a world and that world is built by everyone.

When a cast becomes competitive rather than collaborative, the rehearsal room changes. People stop taking risks. They stop trying things. They stop sharing ideas. They become worried about being judged rather than excited about creating- and when that happens, the production suffers.

The best rehearsal rooms I've worked in are the ones where people support each other. Where performers celebrate each other's successes, where there is no fear of getting something wrong, where people feel safe enough to experiment and discover things together, because that's where the magic happens.

One of my favourite examples of this came during a production of Carrie. We had two characters, Norma and Freddie (played by Emily Hawkes & Ido Steuer). On paper, neither role is particularly large. They have relatively few lines compared the principal characters. In fact, I think some people might have looked at those roles and dismissed them as "small parts." But the performers playing them decided to explore their relationship throughout the rehearsal process. They built a backstory, they created small moments together. Tiny interactions that weren't written into the script. Nothing that pulled focus. Nothing that distracted from the story. Just honest, believable moments that helped create their world. By the time we reached the prom scene towards the end of the show, audiences were noticing them. Laughing with them, rooting for them, investing in their relationship. And what I found fascinating was that people left talking about them. Not because they had stolen focus, not because they'd turned themselves into the lead characters, but, because they had committed fully to telling their story. They had created something truthful & our audiences connected with it, every performance.

That's the power of ensemble storytelling. Every character matters. Every person on stage matters. Not because they all need to be the centre of attention. But because they all contribute to the world the audience is experiencing.

When I'm directing, there is never a point where somebody is standing on stage "just because." Every person is there for a reason. Sometimes they're telling their own story. Sometimes they're helping tell somebody else's. Sometimes they're creating atmosphere. Sometimes they're shaping how the audience feels about a moment. Sometimes they're simply reacting to what's happening around them. But they're always contributing. The audience shouldn't only be watching the lead character. They should be experiencing the entire world around them. Because that world is what makes the story feel real.

This is one of the reasons I struggle with the idea that some roles are more important than others. Of course, some characters have more lines. Of course, some characters carry larger sections of the plot. But no character exists in isolation. The lead role is only able to tell their story because an entire company is helping create the world around them. Nobody tells the story alone. And the strongest productions I've ever worked on have been the ones where everybody understands that.

The ones where performers aren't asking:

"What can I get from this role?"

But instead:

"What can I bring to this story?"

Because when a company starts asking that question, something special happens.

The production stops being about individuals.

And starts becoming something much bigger than the sum of its parts.

That's the kind of theatre I want to make.

And that's the kind of company I want to build.