{"id":4188,"date":"2013-10-09T15:07:04","date_gmt":"2013-10-09T19:07:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=4188"},"modified":"2013-11-06T14:30:04","modified_gmt":"2013-11-06T19:30:04","slug":"missing-is-a-passion-project-for-theatre-aurora-director","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/missing-is-a-passion-project-for-theatre-aurora-director\/","title":{"rendered":"\u201cMissing\u201d is a passion project for Theatre Aurora director"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Brock Weir<\/strong><\/p>\n

Harry Lavigne rarely judges a book \u2013 or a play, for that matter \u2013 by its cover. <\/p>\n

But he usually knows whether he\u2019s going to love a play within the first 10 pages, he says.<\/p>\n

As he puts the finishing touches on \u201cMissing\u201d, a play by Florence Gibson, opening next Friday at Theatre Aurora, these first 10 pages lead to what can only be described as a passion project.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is a play I brought to Theatre Aurora\u2019s play reading committee after I bought it seven years ago at the Theatre Ontario festival,\u201d says Mr. Lavigne. \u201cFrom the moment I read it, I fell in love with it \u2013 the style of writing, the creativity, and the real artsy feeling that it has. It connected with me on my first reading. When I direct a play, I know from the first 10 pages if it is going to be a play I love.\u201d
\nAs the committee chose the play almost right away, evidently it leaves a lasting impression.<\/p>\n

\u201cMissing\u201d follows the story of a rural Ontario town rocked by the disappearance of Evelyn MacMillan, who has simply vanished without a trace. The case is taken on by a city slicker detective who turns the sleepy town upside down looking for the truth. <\/p>\n

\u201cAs Carol grows closer to Evelyn\u2019s husband and withdraws from her own, long-hidden secrets bubble to the surface,\u201d says Lavigne. \u201cWhat you realise when you get to the end of the story is the play itself is about relationships and making choices in your life. I have had to do that with myself in different ways in the past few years, and the play has really connected with me. That brings out my passion for the script and makes me really want to make this play succeed.\u201d<\/p>\n

While \u201cMissing\u201d is all about making choices, stumbling into the theatre world wasn\u2019t necessarily a choice for Mr. Lavigne. A Newmarket native and Aurora employee now living in Georgina with his family, he describes himself as a \u201cdramatic kid\u201d while a high school student. <\/p>\n

His school held auditions for a play when he was in Grade 11 and although interested in the drama, its musical component put him off. Whiling away the time, his younger brother, who played in the school band, asked him to come back and hear a song they were working on and suggested Harry would not get the full effect of the piece without lending his voice to the lyrics. <\/p>\n

\u201cI started carrying the tune and when I came to school the next day, all my friends were congratulating me because I had gotten the lead in the play,\u201d he says. \u201cMy younger brother had tricked me into auditioning. The play was entered into the Sears Drama Festival that year and I ended up winning Best Actor. I caught the bug from that, and I went back the next year and won Best Actor the second time.\u201d<\/p>\n

A love for community theatre was born. It was a career path he said he hoped to follow, attending theatre school for four years, but after getting married young, and having children, his life took him on a different path. The love for theatre, however, was undiminished. <\/p>\n

After experiencing community theatres throughout York Region, he was eventually drawn to Theatre Aurora two years ago with their ambitious production of Moises Kaufman\u2019s \u201cThe Laramie Project\u201d, following the true story of a rural American town upended by the murder of gay teen Mathew Shepard.
\nHe had the sense of a community theatre trying to re-establish their identity and their voice for the year ahead, and now he believes they have \u201ca really solid idea of where they want to go.\u201d<\/p>\n

Much in the vein of \u201cThe Laramie Project\u201d and its sequel mounted earlier this season, \u201cMissing\u201d is something new for community theatre.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt has only been done once, and that was as a professional show downtown,\u201d says Lavigne, noting the ensemble is almost a set piece themselves. \u201cIt is not something that is typically done in community theatre and I was really excited at an opportunity to show not only regular community members of Aurora, but also to show fellow members of community theatre that you can step out of the box and provide a great show for people to see.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy actors have given me nothing but solid commitment. They were off book the first week of rehearsals. They were there and they want that extra energy that comes from an audience. Now it is putting the frame around the picture.\u201d<\/p>\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Harry Lavigne rarely judges a book \u2013 or a play, for that matter \u2013 by its cover. <\/p>\n

But he usually knows whether he\u2019s going to love a play within the first 10 pages.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":4139,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[26],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4188","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-archive"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-15y","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-09-02 10:26:40","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/10\/2013-10-09-05.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4188","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4188"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4188\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4139"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4188"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4188"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4188"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}