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It's not easy to be a University-aged girl, tasked with playing a six-year-old boy and a 65-year-old woman, all within the same piece of theatre.
Joanna McNab admits its a challenge going from one character to the other, but it's obstacles like this that keep the fourth-year theatre student on her toes.
“It's tricky going from one character to another,” she said. “Changing gender makes it even harder.”
McNab went as far as calling her role in Thorneloe Theatre's production of Cloud 9 “the hardest” she's ever done, but also the most fun.
She plays the young Edward in the first act of the production, then Betty in the second. She shares the role with fellow theatre student Jake McNeil.
The play revolves around the family of Clive, a colonial administrator. The playwright, Caryl Churchill, uses a difference in time and place in a comic way to highlight the transition that people go through when their way of life is radically altered.
“Life is complicated, life is confusing, but life is also fun,” a media release from Thorneloe stated. “Life is to be lived to the full and never given up on.”
Cloud 9 is put on by seven Thorneloe students, with technical help from Cambrian College's theatre arts students.
Ian Maclennan, a Thorneloe prof, is directing the play.
“It (deals) with issues today's students are dealing with,” he said. “People don't know what to expect, and all the old reliable beliefs and standards no longer work.”
The production runs Nov. 9 to 10 and 15 to 17 at 7:30 p.m., and a matinée is scheduled for Nov. 11 at 2 p.m. at the Ernie Checkeris Theatre at Thorneloe.
Tickets are $15 for adults and $10 for students and seniors. They can be purchased by phoning the school at 705-673-1730 ext. 0 or at the door.
