Grace Thompson: Devising Life

Grace Thompson hasn't yet graduated from Humber's Theatre Performance program, but that hasn't stopped her from creating and performing her own work outside of school. We asked her a bit about her show and how Humber helped her get there.

NOW:
My Nightmares Wear White is a play I had been writing for a year and a half about youth and trauma, inspired by my own experience. The play had three workshop performances this past October at the Wychwood Arts Barns and I was recently asked to be the keynote speaker at the CAPHC Annual Conference, the largest annual meeting of child and youth healthcare provider communities in Canada, which will be happening in Halifax this upcoming October. I hope to soon tour this show at hospitals and theatres around Canada.

THEN:
I write and perform poetry and have written several plays, I have also written and performed for the Fringe, Paprika, and the Luminato Festival. I am currently in the developing stages of creating a podcast featuring Toronto stories. I identify as a disabled artist and I am an advocate for physical diversity and the disabled arts community and am continuing to fight to change the misrepresentation and mistreatment of disabled artists.

HUMBER:
At Humber the most valuable training I got was in devising and creating our own work. Devising lets you look at theatre from every lens - as a writer, director, and actor - and pushes your creativity and thinking. In first year with Tatiana Jennings we created and presented scenes and the rest of the class would critique them. These conversations helped each of us get better and learn from each other. We used this tool throughout the three years. This is how I learned about my own artistry and way of creating, collaborating, and what I can bring to the table. This knowledge has been vital to me as an artist.

Photo credit: Lacey Creighton