Hello! My name is Meghan (but everyone calls me Meg), and I am so excited to be Very Rascal’s first Associate Artist. It’s not often that I meet people who are equally friends and colleagues, so to be working with Steph and Charlotte is a joy.
I am a Canadian-British artist and educator born and raised just west of Toronto in Canada. I come from an academically driven family, but I was so lucky to also be raised in a family that appreciated and valued the arts. I distinctly remember going to see a production of Oliver! at the Stratford Festival when I was eleven, which I thought was incredible. I walked out of the theatre and announced to my parents that I wanted an agent, had decided to be an actor and was going to play the Artful Dodger. My parents did not get me an agent (which I now understand was a good thing), but six months later, I walked onstage as the Dodger in a production of Oliver! in my hometown. Determined or stubborn: take your pick.
I studied in a conservatory program for my first degree before working mainly in new Canadian and classical plays. I think it was the lack of traditional theatre during Covid though that made me crave new ways to diversify my artistic practice. I had travelled to Scotland in 2019 when I worked at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival and was struck by the Scots’ commitment to magic. For me, the most magical place is the stage. I see theatre as a puzzle; it is our job as creators to solve the problem of “how to tell a story”: we imagine the story’s “picture”, cut, assemble and reassemble its “pieces” to build its “final” image, recognizing – as with Lego (yes, I have nerd tendencies) – that these same "pieces" may create something new tomorrow. In my opinion, this infinite sense of possibility is the very definition of magic.
In search of new ways to create that magic onstage, I have been completing my MFA in Directing Classical and Contemporary Text at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland in Glasgow for just over a year now (which is where I met Steph). It has been such a challenging, rich experience, and I am so excited for our final project, which will premiere in January 2023. We are a month into the creation process, so stay tuned for more details. I am confident that the final piece will be nuanced, funny and, most importantly, magical.
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