“Rooted” is all about the people and places that make us proud to call our community home.
One of the hidden gems of North Bay might be its options for entertainment for a city of its size. Before the pandemic, on any given night you could have your choice of going to a hockey game, spending an evening on the ski slopes, seeing a live band at the Capitol Centre or taking in some local theatre at Odyssée, Widdifield or the Nipissing University Theatre.
While the COVID-19 protocols have brought all of that to a near standstill, it's worth noting one of the people who truly made the latter option, a choice worth paying for.
Joshua Bainbridge is a local writer, director, actor, and Professor at Canadore College who has produced or has been a part of over a dozen local live stage productions. He says the love for the theatre arts started at a young age.
“Growing up I was always encouraged to play with an active imagination,” says Bainbridge. “There was a lot of storytelling going on in my house, I was always the kid that was writing out stories that I would act out with my brothers and sisters.”
He says his love for the theatre and film industry just continued to grow as he got older and when his family moved from southern Ontario to North Bay, Bainbridge attended Widdifield Secondary School which had a big theatre program, and the bug just stuck with him.
“I made a promise at that point that I was going to go to theatre school and that I would never take a job that wasn’t in that field,” he says. “So, after I graduated theatre school I worked in that industry and didn’t allow myself to do other things to supplement my income. I had to make it work, and I had to figure it out and I think that lit a fire under me. If I had something else, I think everything else would have slipped.”
Bainbridge says it is a hard process to commit yourself to that industry and he had to create work for himself when there wasn’t any readily available.
“It takes a lot of hard work and dedication to make that happen,” he says. “Everybody has that fantasy where they grab something in their bedroom and pretend it’s a microphone and they are a Rock star or an Actor. And for almost everyone in the world, it is a fantasy; if it was easy, everyone would be doing it. But if you’re dedicated and you drive yourself, you will create a body of work and prove you have a voice that people are interested in hearing.”
Bainbridge has certainly found that niche within the Gateway City has his shows are well attended and he has also put together award-winning plays at the On the Edge Fringe Festival and in 2014 he was given the Best Director award at the QUONTA Festival (northern Ontario theatre festival) for his production of David Mamet’s Glengarry Glen Ross, a show that also won Best Production.
Bainbridge says it’s a thrill to put on shows for a community that has been so supportive towards him.
“North Bay has a tremendous arts community and I think that maybe most people don’t realize how important the arts are here and how much natural talent we have here,” says Bainbridge. “North Bay is not like a lot of other places where people are very protective of their work and guard their sources where North Bay is a really giving and caring place. I know that I have always gone out of my way to try and support everyone else who works in the field because I feel like all the other artists in town support me and my own company.”
That company is the Proscenium Club, which is a collective of artists who want to showcase live theatre to other areas.
Bainbridge says, “I felt that outside of our region there is a shortage of work. So, I started working with a bunch of people who wanted to kind of bring what we had been doing over here elsewhere. I got a really great group of talented people who all felt that way and who were willing to put in the hard work. So, we bring our work to a bunch of different towns all over Ontario. But we try to bring high quality professional live theatre to towns where people would otherwise have to travel to Toronto or Ottawa to see that.”
“For years we’ve had great quality work done here,” Bainbridge continues. “We’ve been fortunate to have people like Rod Carly producing shows for the last decade or more. Other small towns don’t have that kind of professional development and growth in those areas. It was a grind to get going as far as funding goes, training and turning over shows and scheduling. However, we can report that every town that we’ve gone to so far has immediately booked us to come back 12 months later with a brand-new show. They have been happy enough with the work that we’ve done and with the numbers that they’ve had come out to the show. And they are booking us not even knowing what that next play is going to be because it's being developed at that time, but they are constantly seeing something new. It's exciting, it’s a lot of pressure but it also is a testament to how positive people are in those towns toward the work that we are creating.”
Bainbridge reflected on some of the shows that he felt really enabled his company to make a name for themselves. He says, “I think the show that I’ve loved the most and has been probably the most celebrated is The Life and Death of John the Milkman. That’s the show that I think that really launched our profile outside of North Bay and it’s received a lot of praise in North Bay. That’s a show that is a bright spot to look back on. It’s a fond memory.”
Bainbridge takes pride in the fact that he’s been able to create an avenue of entertainment in North Bay, but he says he couldn’t have done it alone. “I get to share that passion and my feelings and my thoughts for a living. It’s one thing for people to come and hear them, but it's another to talk about them afterward. That’s a pretty wonderful feeling and I’ve been very fortunate to find the people that I have had to work with and to have these talented individuals bring these works to life.”
And he’s always encouraging others to follow that voice and find a way to make their passion work for themselves.
“The reality is that we should be our own worst critic. Because I don’t ever want to put out something that is sub-par quality, however, we can’t let that criticism get in the way and sometimes we have to cultivate the adult critic and put them aside and let the child play. We all have that balance inside of us and sometimes we just have to let the child run. When we do that and make that magic happen and find that balance of self-editing, that’s where the real quality stuff happens. In any medium in the arts. Honestly, just do it, make it happen, we all have that inside, trust yourself and make it happen.”
If you have a story suggestion for the “Rooted” series, send Matt an email at [email protected]
