Once you take to the stage—the curtains opening, the lights warming you, and the silence of the house as the audience waits, baited breath for the first lines to be uttered—once you take to the stage, you never truly leave it. The lessons you learn stay, the people you meet remain, and the experiences, even when the last curtain falls, none of it departs from though.
When Joshua Pride first took to the stage, it was to perform in the Wiz when he was about 10 as a part of North Bay’s Dreamcoat Fantasy Theatre. But he was still too young at the time to know the lasting effects of joining the stage, something originally done with his parents.
It wasn’t too many years later his mother, Micheline Brunette-Pride, a teacher at St. Joseph - Scollard Hall, made the decision to revive the Summer Challenge theatre program to act as the summer theatre course for the Nipissing-Parry Sound Catholic District School Board—with TOROS (Theatre Out Reach On Stage) existing for the Near North District School Board.
This would be the genesis of Joshua’s future in the local theatre community, a chance for him to express both his creativity and love of teaching. But in the meantime, his summers would be filled with TOROS shows until high school, when he had the opportunity to join the SEARS Ontario Drama Festival, which had local school competing theatrically.
“I did SEARS festival all four years of high school,” Joshua recalled. “In grade nine we did Seven Stories which was an awesome show and I got to know a lot of older drama kids. It was awesome because that first year in SEARS kept my interest in it and it became a part of my life right off the bat. When I was in grade ten I got to direct my own show for the first time and we did the Proposal, a Russian play about class struggle—we went to regionals for that, then in grade 11, my mom directed the show called Deliver Us Not where we all played babies in the womb contemplating life after birth.”
However, it was in his last year of high school Joshua had the opportunity to flex his theatrical muscles, writing, directing, and acting in his very own production for the Provincial competition.
“Grade 12 was really my big year,” he said. “We went all the way to Provincials and played at the Grande Theatre in Kingston. It was a big opportunity for me because not only did I get to write and direct with a text that I wrote, but I was able to make lifelong friends and connections like my best man at my wedding.”
For Joshua, the competitive nature of the SEARS Drama Festival gave a lot of authenticity to the theatre arts, like an OFSSA, or NOSSA for the stage, giving the productions a lot of excitement as the stakes are higher, allowing students to mix and mingle with other theatre students, and maybe even bring back awards for the school.
“It also gives students an area to express themselves where they might not have before,” Joshua said. “A lot of students really come out of their shells during Summer Challenge and gain that sense of self by acting and singing, and interacting with their peers and I think that’s the most important part about youth theatre is finding that sense of self.”
After graduation and attending university in Ottawa, Joshua made the jump to dedicate himself to local theatre, applying for the position of director for Summer Challenge, a program he had grown within when he was younger and he’s been directing ever since.
“We’ve had students at summer challenge who are graduating and won’t be able to do summer challenge next time and it’s sad because I’ve worked with some of them since grade seven and it’s been an excellent opportunity to see that growth the personal growth and them developing their identity through their time with us from year to year,” Joshua said of the bittersweet goodbye’s he’s had over the years in the program.
“I was able to watch my mom direct plays since I was a kid so I kind of grew up with it,” he said. “But when you’re in the driver’s seat it’s a different experience, directing is something that happens more often for me. In that role you’re responsible for taking all the pieces of theatre and putting them all together to create a piece of entertainment and education when I did it for the first time in grade ten I was super nervous and wanted to do a good job.”
For him, his first foray into directing is what lead him to become a teacher, the two roles holding many parallels.
“I was with people older than me and it was intimidating because you’re putting the show together but it’s also where I discovered that I wanted to be a teacher,” he said. “As a director, you guide the production to the final product and I found that kind of role is something I wanted to do for the rest of my life. It’s always in the back of my mind, no matter the projects I’m doing, I’m always thinking of what shows I’m going to do.”
“There are just so many translatable skills in life,” Joshua said. “When I see how the students are proud of their show, that’s probably the best moment, because they’re proud of themselves, each other, and what they’ve done together. I say that makes it all worthwhile.”
