Stephen Spender, ideaXme arts ambassador interviews Tara Travis, actress, comedian, puppeteer and writer.
Stephen Spender: [00:00:00] Hi everyone! This is Stephen Spender, ideaXme arts ambassador and today we are interviewing performing artist Tara Travis.
Tara Travis: [00:00:13] It’s my pleasure.
Stephen Spender: [00:00:15] So, first question – who are you?
Tara Travis: [00:00:20] In short, I am an actor, writer, puppeteer – creative human. That is what it says on my business cards anyway. And I’m sure we’ll get into it. I guess my essence, my personal mandate is to spread joy through comedy and good old fashioned human decency. So, I’m a human being who navigates the world as well as she can, creating interesting work, either through puppetry, physical theater, comedy or drama.
Jump to sections of interview:
- Inspiration: 03:34 minutes
- Playing 56 characters: 08:03 minutes
- Puppeteer wanted: 12:57 minutes
- You caught me at a time when I am coming back to life: 34:29 minutes
- Who Tara would like to meet: 38:17 minutes
- Conquering depression: 41:29 minutes
- Advice to those setting out on a career in entertainment and the arts: 44:53 minutes.
This interview is available on the ideaXme channel on iTunes, SoundCloud and YouTube.
Stephen Spender: [00:01:02] So, let’s just go back to the beginning really quickly. Where were you born?
Tara Travis: [00:01:07] I was born in Maple Ridge, British Columbia.
Stephen Spender: [00:01:11] When did you first start getting interested in artistic endeavours?
Tara Travis: [00:01:16] From a very young age.
[00:01:19] I think before I had even seen a play, I was trying to perform them but I just didn’t understand what it was. I had this idea that I needed to be a performer. I was always kind of putting on shows and making my neighbours come and making my sister act things out in the backyard.Stephen Spender: [00:01:35] So directing and producing?
Tara Travis: [00:01:36] Yes. I was producing and directing the whole thing, like I was running the whole show. My sister is 3 years older than me. I was like “No! This is how you do it.” So, I guess it was kind of an innate quality from an early time. The only thing that I had really seen was ballet for some reason. I guess we’d been taken to the ballet. And I thought, “Ok, well I guess that’s the thing. I’ll be a ballerina”.
I got put in this really serious ballet school. I did not belong there. I was taught by a really uptight Russian instructor who was training athletic ballerinas. I was just this chubby awkward kid that wanted to be seen! Half the time I would show up in my bathing suit.
Bless my mother, she found The Maple Ridge Community Players and got me in there and so I started doing community theater I think by the age of eight.
Stephen Spender: [00:02:45] Did you just continue doing it, or was it kind of like, that happened and then there was a lull?
Tara Travis: [00:02:49] No, I just knew, from an early age that was what I wanted to do. It was very much the driving force in my life. I took classes as soon as we found some. There was an amazing Vancouver based artist called Tania Dixon Warren, who was with, oh no, I can’t remember the name of the theater company right now. It will come to me later. But they are absolutely incredible. Interestingly, her dad was my family doctor. He’s the one who received me from my mother’s womb! But anyway, we found her at The Maple Ridge Drama Circle, where she was teaching classes for kids. And so, I started studying with her and she was really a huge inspiration for me because she treated us like adults who were interested in the art of theater. She wasn’t condescending to us.
Tara Travis: [00:03:45] She taught us the other things that she had learned at a university level. And so, I think that really prepared me for life in the theater. You know, starting at the age of 10 we did a number of different adaptations with her. I got to play Prospero. We did this 4-hand adaptation of Romeo and Juliet where we all got to shape-shift and play multiple characters, which as it turns out was what I was meant to do.
Tara Travis: [00:04:16] Horse Raven Theatre is the name of the company! She also goes by Tania Fera.
Stephen Spender: [00:04:50] Going back through some of your bio. You are Artistic Producer of Monster Theatre. Can you explain what Monster Theatre is?
Tara Travis: [00:04:53] Yes. And there’s also a story there. Monster Theatre was founded in 2000. It is a Canadian theater company and the Artistic Director, Ryan Gladstone is an incredible playwright, director and actor. The mandate is essentially to take inspiration from history and just mess with it.
Tara Travis: It is irreverent comedy. Usually it’s to do with history or storytelling. It’s largely worked for adult audiences that there’s also an arm of the theater company that is for young audiences.
Tara Travis: We create cheeky adaptations of classical literature but very recently I reduced my role within that company and now I am actually an Artistic Associate. Working with them is very amicable. Just, the nature of that company is that they need to be on the road. I’m actually getting a little road weary and now needing some time to rebuild the creative well. So, I thought I would step away and leave room to be called to other things, which I really needed. So, that decision felt so right.
Stephen Spender: [00:06:20] I want to ask you more about that. About touring and being on the road. So, ‘Til Death: The Six Wives of Henry the VIII’ was Monster Theatre?
Tara Travis: Yes, and that show still tours sometimes.
Stephen Spender: You are also the Director of Sticky Fingers Productions?
Tara Travis: Yes, and I’m writing a new show with that company which I can tell you about later as well.
Stephen Spender: So, you have co-created and performed in over 30 productions. That’s a lot of productions. Playing upwards of 12 vocally and physically different characters.
[00:07:28] I know that I’m skipping right to the end of your bio which says most recently you’ve been touring North America with Best Picture. In which three actors attempt to perform all 87 picture Academy Award winners in an hour.Tara Travis: [00:07:48] It is now 89. We add a new one every time we do it.
Stephen Spender: [00:08:03] And you play 56 characters?
Tara Travis: [00:08:04] Yes.
Stephen Spender: [00:08:06] So what’s that like?
Tara Travis: [00:08:06] It’s super fun. It’s another company outside of my other associations. It’s called RibbetRePublic Theatre. It has largely produced that show with an amazing and bizarre dear friend of mine named Kurt Fitzpatrick. He just has one of those minds, where it just goes to places that you would never conceive of. He’s just one of the most highly creative and inventive and hilarious people I know.
Tara Travis: [00:08:41] Yeah, his solo shows are just some of the weirdest things I’ve ever seen. And I love them! So, when he asked me to do the show along with our friend John Patterson, with whom I have collaborated with many times as well, I just knew it would be the most fun thing ever. And what an insane idea to try to cover all of the Academy Award best picture winners in one hour. It’s just fast and furious and ridiculous.
This comes from the mind of Kurt Fitzpatrick, the genius. He interwove everything. So, it’s kind of sketch like. It’s one of the greatest challenges I’ve ever had as a performer and I love to push the envelope.
Stephen Spender: [00:10:10] So, it was fun?
Tara Travis: [00:10:11] Oh, so much fun.
Stephen Spender: [00:10:21] So where did this ability come from to play all these characters?
Tara Travis: [00:10:27] I don’t really know exactly. I think, it started with imaginative play like it was for a lot of children. I used to do puppet shows with my little sister at the foot of her bed when she couldn’t sleep and make up all the different characters and the voices and stuff. And in the beginning of my career, I think when I was first starting out, I was having some pretty hefty low self-confidence. In my little community of Maple Ridge, it was easy to get to be a star. Then the idea of actually having to get out there and do it was a different thing!
Tara Travis: [00:11:14] I actually got really anxious and depressed for quite a while and kind of shut down. I was overwhelmed by everything that I decided I was going to do. And then all of a sudden, the world was saying show me. I thought I can’t do anything. I don’t know. And then there was a long gap.
[00:11:41] To actually answer your question, I made my way to a puppetry audition and ended up working with this company where I was playing a number of characters through puppets. That brought me back to life as an actor because it didn’t matter what this body could do or looked like or any of the things that were concerning me or shutting me down. I could play an 8-year-old boy. I could play a Scottish goat. I could play a whatever. So, my tools grew from there.
Stephen Spender: [00:12:10] So, that was your first exposure to puppetry?
Tara Travis: [00:12:15] Pretty much. I had been producing little theater shows and just trying to make that happen but I was working as an arts administrator and I almost had a nervous breakdown. I was in the middle of losing it in the office and I’m usually pretty good at containing myself publicly. I remember one day I was just overwhelmed and I was just kind of pacing this office and I was like, “I know I’m funny. I know I can make these voices. Why am I here? Why am I here?” You know, I was just having this insane one person rant.
Tara Travis: [00:12:57] A fax came through and it said, “Puppeteer wanted!”. And it was almost like this ray of light came down from the heavens. I made my way to the audition and I think because I’d been pursuing physical theater and I’d done a lot of mask training, it translated quite quickly, Especially, to hand puppetry.
[00:13:32] You know anything that you learn here, you can just take it here (indicates). It translates to the hand pretty easily once you’ve got a good sense of how a mask works. Then I started to learn the ropes of touring and multiple character work. That’s ultimately how I ended up getting connected with Monster Theatre.Stephen Spender: [00:14:21] Is it freeing doing puppetry? I mean, is there a kind of freedom in that?
Tara Travis: [00:14:31] Absolutely, there is. I can’t really explain the phenomenon. But you can get away with anything. I guess, it’s just the suspension of disbelief where we honor and respect the life in that creature in the moment and we endow it with that. And so, all responsibility goes to this character. It belongs to them and the responsibility is off of the puppeteer.
Tara Travis: [00:15:22] I have tried stand-up comedy and I have tried a bunch of different things because I have a lot of wacky potentially controversial ideas but I’m very reluctant to share them through my own face. But put “fluffy” on my hand, my misunderstood performance artist character, and she’ll say it all for me and it’s not me. It is not me, it is her. And I get a clean rap sheet.
Stephen Spender: [00:16:01] When’s the next puppet show, or performance?
Tara Travis: [00:16:07] I am working on a remount of a Monster Theatre show called Who Killed Gertrude Krug? It’s first incarnation was an absolute nightmare, to be honest. A little murder mystery in which I play Agatha Christie, who has come back from the dead to tell the story that she never published. And she’s in the afterlife. So why not use puppetry?
[00:16:32] And so we have this dodgy ghost of Agatha Christie with these tabletop puppets that are kind of like bubblehead puppets in a way. They’ve got little thumb holes. So, I manipulate upward of 12 characters at once. It’s insane. [00:16:56] We have got a grant to rebuild it, so it is going to be much better, kind of magical. First performances were on February 12th and the 18th at Performance Works on Granville Island, Vancouver and in association with the Vancouver International Puppet Festival, which I recently co-founded.Stephen Spender: [00:17:19] Can you see a direct link between the puppetry and all of this character work that you’re doing?
Tara Travis: [00:17:35] Well, I think it definitely taught me that I can physically shape-shift as well. I don’t know if I am answering your question properly. But I think that for me it is the connection that I felt empowered to explore more. That is, what I am physically capable of because I knew I had this incredible array of voices and the ability to create new ones.
Tara Travis: [00:18:12] I am 6ft 1, I’m kind of weird looking. I thought, “Oh, the only roles for me are wacky sister”. And it taught me that theater is about imagination. “I can be anything!”
Stephen Spender: [00:18:35] What are your favorite characters?
Tara Travis: [00:18:39] Oh golly, that’s tough!
[00:18:45] Well I have definitely fallen in love with all of the wives in ‘The 6 wives of Henry VIII’, as I’ve been touring that show for 5 years now. I just have a deep love of all of them. They’re all facets of myself I think. And I think when you’re creating a character you start with what you have here (indicates).Stephen Spender: [00:23:40] So, let’s talk a little bit about your creative process. You say that you’ve written, co-written and acted in 30 plus plays.
[00:23:54] Do you like writing? Do you like the creative process, the creation of the pieces?Tara Travis: [00:23:59] Yeah, I love writing. I’m not a traditional playwright, in that I don’t sit down at my computer and go here’s Act 1 and list of characters. I am more of a creation based playwright. So, I usually start from the character and build them and find the mask in their voice and then improvise with myself and often record. The characters will tell me what they want to say. I just document it and go from there. That’s how I tend to work.
Tara Travis: [00:24:34] And then, I will glue and stitch things together from there. But, yeah, I do love it.
Stephen Spender: [00:30:30] And what’s driving you these days and what’s keeping you going?
Tara Travis: [00:34:29] You caught me at an interesting time because I am sort of at the end of this period where I really kind of retreated from my active pursuit of the art. Not that I was retiring or giving up, quite the contrary! I guess, I knew I was burnt out.
Tara Travis: [00:34:50] I knew that there was something else that I was called to do but I was just stuck in this pattern. So, you caught me at a point where I’m just coming back to life. I’m just sort of applying for festivals and I have got this new show that’s gushing out of me. I can’t stop writing things on napkins and I’m kind of riding that high right now. It’s called ‘The Barrenness’. And it is a solo musical, a thing of challenges. I don’t know, I just have to do it.
Stephen Spender: [00:35:32] So, you’ve just started writing it?
Tara Travis: [00:35:38] Yeah.
Stephen Spender: [00:35:39] Where are you at with the writing? Are you close to the finish?
Tara Travis: [00:35:45] It’s still little bits and pieces and the flesh is just slapping on, like I haven’t written any of the songs completely. I’ve got all these bits and pieces of lyrics and bits and pieces of melody and themes and I’m seeing it visually. I can see myself on stage doing it. I see the aesthetic of it. But right now, I’m not putting any pressure on myself to hammer it down. I’m just collecting all the parts and then I’m going to stitch it together.
Tara Travis: [00:36:31] But right now a lot of really exciting parts are appearing. I’m really excited and equally terrified, which is why I know what I need to do. I have a musical director set up. I don’t know anything about music. I plug away at my little ukulele and then ask “Can you turn that into a song please?”
Tara Travis: [00:36:55] My lovely wonderful husband is going to try to dramaturge it with me, which is only fair because it is partly about our lives.
Stephen Spender: [00:37:11] So, it is autobiographical?
Tara Travis: [00:37:18] A little bit, but I’m also going to channel the characters of other women who have different relationships to motherhood and/or infertility and /or the choice to not have children. Just kind of covering the whole gamut of that and just different relationships to motherhood or not motherhood.
Tara Travis: [00:37:49] But in a hilarious and accessible way. It will be highly comedic but I am going to drop the bottom out a couple of times, I am sure.
Stephen Spender: [00:38:01] If you could meet anyone from history, alive or dead who would that be?
Tara Travis: [00:38:17] Well, until very recently, I probably would have said Carol Burnett or Kristin Wiig or Janet Wright or some of the incredible women in comedy that I’ve admired so deeply my entire life. And of course, I would like to meet them and talk to them.
Tara Travis: [00:38:42] But I feel like I wouldn’t necessarily be able to ask them anything new or anything I don’t already know. I’d just say, “Keep getting up there” and just give them all a high five and a hug and say, “Thank you!”
Tara Travis: [00:38:57] But truly, as far as quality conversation is concerned, it would be with my paternal grandparents, my dad’s parents because I didn’t know them and they passed away when I was in my early 20s. I was always really scared of them and I didn’t really engage with them. They were very traditional Mennonite folk.
Tara Travis: My dad is a bit of the black sheep in the family. My parents divorced when I was young. My grandparents were very loving people but they were always just praying over us and reading us sort of hellfire and brimstone kids’ books to just give us fear of God and because they thought that was what we needed.
Tara Travis: I was so afraid of them. My grandfather was a bit of a rebel in his community. He was ingenious. He built crystal radios in the shed that were totally forbidden and was almost thrown from his community. He had an incredible love of classical music. He was always reading and he was just this encyclopedia of a human being. And yeah, I was just scared.
Tara Travis: So now, I just want to hang out with them and get to know them. And especially after they have been in the afterlife! They were just, especially my grandmother, driven by serving god. You know, she did beautiful things. She sewed quilts and clothing and sent them to Africa. She was always in service. She was always in service to her community but I think largely she was driven by fear.
Stephen Spender: [00:41:14] Is there something you would ask them specifically?
Tara Travis: [00:41:23] I would like to ask them what their creative dreams were. What would they do if they weren’t living the life that they had lived? “What is your fantasy life?” Yeah. “If god wasn’t listening. What would you want to do?”
Tara Travis: [00:41:39] And just thinking about all those other folks in this world who have lived lives of sacrifice, you know for their children, or for whatever reasons. It’s like I can’t ever take what I do take for granted. I can’t ever take the gifts that I have for granted.
Tara Travis: I deal with depression and anxiety and I sit around and have a pity party sometimes and I’m like, “Why? You have everything. Live it. Be it. Enjoy it!” But sometimes the chemicals just say no!
Stephen Spender: [00:42:32] Do you have any artists in your family?
Tara Travis: [00:42:35] They all have artists’ hearts for sure. My Dad was a highly creative genius human being. He did oil paintings and all kinds of stuff. He was a child prodigy taxidermist, kind of creepy! He won of a number of awards for his unique designs and such. And he just does things like he builds his own lathe, or he’ll invent a drill box. Which I think is an art form.
Tara Travis: [00:44:04] My Mom is just full of energy. She recently founded a ukulele club in April Ridge and she always wanted to pursue music but I think that’s one of her dreams that she’s finally fulfilling as she approaches 70, which is really cool to see. And she’s just always learning something new. She’s always got this new thing which she’s super into.
Stephen Spender: [00:44:53] What advice would you give young artists, young performers? Are there any gems of wisdom that you can think of?
Tara Travis: [00:45:04] I would say, diversify your skill set. It wasn’t until I really had honed puppetry as a craft, that I started getting offered things more often. People said, “Oh great, you can also do that!” If you can also sing or play an instrument then great, really work on those things. Develop your skill set and your range.
Tara Travis: [00:45:35] But also mostly make your own. Don’t wait around for the phone to ring. I think more and more that’s what’s happening now. People are creating their own web series, or shows. You know, even if you are not a playwright, find a group of people that you get along with well and collaborate. Create your own is definitely the way to do it. Making and producing my own theater and inviting artistic directors over and over again is how I started being invited into shows and that kind of thing is the best audition.
[00:46:17] That’s the best audition, to have someone see you do your best work and something that is built for what you are capable of as a performer. There’s only so much you can accomplish in a two-minute general audition.Stephen Spender: [00:46:30] Alright.
[00:46:33] Thank you so much for your time.Tara Travis: [00:46:36] Thank you. Well, that was a pleasure!
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