After studying physical theatre and touring across Oregon and California for two shows, Lisa Anne Ross, who now teaches drama at St. Thomas University, moved to Toronto – not for more touring, but to take a clown course.
This course would be the catalyst for Clown Hall, an organization made up of several artists.
“Theatre company isn’t the right word. It was an underground, guerrilla theatre space slash laboratory for lunacy,” said Ross. “It was like we were living the dream. The dirty warehouse space with the pigeons coming in and pooping on the floor, and just beg borrowing and stealing everything.
To her that experience is where her love for theatre comes from.
“We weren’t going to be winning any Emmys or whatever but we were doing the work, and exploring and exploring.”
Now Ross teaches three drama courses at St. Thomas University and directed the Theatre St. Thomas production of the Greek tragedy The Bacchae. She studied theatre as a tool for social change, and believes a performance must always make a point and say something.
To her the continual challenge in theatre, and what she is teaching her students, is to attempt to tell challenging stories without alienating an audience and doing something boring, or something that has been done before.
She said a play doesn’t have to be radical, but without a message it has no legs.
To her the key to creating a unique and thoughtful work of theatre is being creative, and that’s what she attempt to foster in her students.
“I feel my strengths are to help students to unlock the creator within them… and to offer them a larger palette from which to create, which includes physical theatre.”
Ross is also the creative producer of Solo Chicken Productions, a physical theatre company. She performed a solo show called Engorged in the Black Box Theatre last June. She uses it to illustrate Solo Chicken Productions’ philosophy of creating a performance that is both challenging and delightful.
“I wear a giant vagina costume, and I talk about motherhood.,” she said. “In my way I push boundaries, but it’s fun and you laugh and you can’t help but enjoy it, because it’s funny.”
Ross’s goal in theatre is the same as her goals when teaching her students: to expand horizons.
“I want them to see that there are so many ways to approach something, and to be open to all of those possibilities.”
She says university is the best space for people to gain a more open-minded perspective.
“(At university) you’re being encouraged to think for yourself… and hopefully when you get to university the construction that’s holding your world in can crack open,” she said. “I hope in my small way, with my three little classes, that I’m in some way contributing to expanded horizons.”
