(Photo: Sabrina Reeves)
Joan McBride Sticks to her Turtle
When I told my mother at the end of high school that I wanted to be an actor, she told me to get on a bus and go to New York. In other words, "over my dead body..."
by Barbara Ford
[Ed: read the PS]
At the age of four when Joan McBride launched into the rehearsal process of one of the numerous pageants she organized, this particular ‘spectacle’ based on the well-known script about a reindeer named Rudolf, she realized the leading role was curiously un-cast. Not to worry: her seasoned team of five and six-year-old thespians unanimously voted her to lead Santa’s sleigh and they were off to the races, or rooftops as it were, in true Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland neighbourhood theatre style. It was a circuitous route from there to professional actor, director and John Abbott theatre professor, but an interesting one that most recently landed her and her 2010 graduating class on the roster of performers at the recent 2011 Edinburgh Fringe Festival, a national first for any Canadian college group. Way to celebrate the John Abbott Theatre College’s 40th anniversary!
“When I was twelve years old, I saw a professional production of The Sound of Music at the old Her Majesty’s Theatre” [situated at the corner of Guy and St. Catherine Streets], “that totally captivated me. When I told my mother at the end of high school that I wanted to be an actor, she told me to get on a bus and go to New York. In other words, ‘over my dead body; you’re going to be a teacher and that’s that!’”
