Local high school students yesterday learned first-hand what it might be like to have a career as a playwright, actor, director and choreographer, and media consultant.
As part of the York Region District School Board’s Specialist High Skills Major program, students in grades 11 and 12 descended on Newmarket’s Old Town Hall to hear from four individuals who have successfully plied their craft in the arts and culture sector.
The board’s specialist program provides students in their last two years of high school the opportunity to participate in more customized, career-focused learning, while at the same time earning their high school diploma.
The goal is to help students discover the work about which they are passionate so they can channel that into the best post-secondary educational environment, whether it be apprenticeship, college, university or the workplace.
To date, the program covers 10 industries, including arts and culture, information and communications technology, business, construction and more.
Tuesday’s panel of arts and culture experts shared their career journeys with large doses of humour and snippets of their business biographies.
Keynote speaker Drew Hayden Taylor, an award-winning Anishinaabe author, playwright, screenwriter and humourist, kicked off the morning session with an often hilarious account of how he transcended what he calls “all the dark, depressing, glib and angry” Indigenous theatre of the early days.
“When oppressed people get their voice back, they’re going to talk about oppression,” he said. “I wanted to deal with the healing through humour. Humour is the WD40 of healing.”
Taylor has written and produced more than 30 humourous plays and books over a 25-year career.
Panellist Dayna Tekatch, a choreographer and resident director with the massively successful musical Come From Away, drove one message home to the students in the audience: “Don’t let anyone ever tell you what you can and can’t do.”
She said she has been fortunate to find steady employment in the industry and has been supporting her family of four for the past five years, since her husband suffered a work-related back injury.
Actor and The Second City alumni Kevin Vidal, best known for his recurring role as Quennel on the sketch comedy series Sunnyside, recently landed a permanent acting gig with the Canadian production of Come From Away.
Vidal spoke to students from the heart, sharing with them that he hated school and started taking acting classes at The Second City soon after graduation.
“I fell in love with theatre, the rehearsal process and the people,” he said. “That set me on my journey to becoming an actor.”
Media consultant Geetika Bhardwaj, a former journalist, communication specialist and OMNI TV host, said she received on-the-job training while living in India to become a national TV news anchor.
“The first time I watched the Oprah show, I said, ‘That’s it!’, I want to be Oprah,” she said, adding that not long after that, she got on a bus and headed to New Delhi to follow her dream of becoming a reporter.
According to the school board, students who complete the specialist program have a special Red Seal embossed on their high school diploma in recognition of the industry-specific education and training completed. The hands-on approach should also stand students in good stead to get into post-secondary or apprenticeship training programs of their choice, the board states.
