GCTC’s first production of the season takes flight

As much as theatre creates fictional human beings, basing the fiction of a play in the life of a real historical figure lends that story a lot of weight. It can never escape the gravity of that person’s heritage, the mystery of piecing together the emotions behind the actual events of a life.

GCTC’s first play of 2011-12 is Amelia: The Girl Who Wants to Fly, a musical based on the life of Amelia Earhart, the famed American aviatrix. The fierce independence of her life and the shroud of mystery wrapping her death make it a natural subject for the curiosity of theatre. A production of the Festival Players of Prince Edward County, the play’s linchpin is actress Eliza Jane Scott, a new resident of Ottawa. She is a tall, striking actress with a great store of internal energy and the ability to project it out towards an audience. She seems perfect for this role, and I’m not the only one who thinks so.

“Three years ago I was approached by the artistic director of Festival Players and asked to perform the part,” she reminisces over the phone. “A couple of different things drew me to this: My passion and forte is musical theatre and symbolically I love the image of flying.”

Originally this play was produced at the NAC, but it was shelved after the original run. Since then, according to Scott there have been “massive changes to it. The play was meant to be intimate. The previous incarnation was very big, done in a very big space and it didn’t quite fit.” The Festival Players company pared it down, creating an intimate staging and populating it with a pianist and three actors. Scott seems particularly proud of a mysterious piece of stagecraft that will “let the audience feel like they are flying along with me.”

The piano serves as the sole accompaniment to the actors’ voices, with the songs themselves seeming to provide musical variety. According to Scott, the author’s “way of writing is to pull from all his influences, so some songs will have a private flavour, while others are more moving and act-ending.”

The play revolves around Earhart’s conflict between herself, her husband and sister, but more importantly to Scott is “how Earhart dealt with fame, how she wanted to avoid the public eye, how she felt isolated from society.”

“I’ve played iconic women before, so I’m used to that sort of pressure. The point of view as an actor is that you go in as yourself, you bring what you can to the part and then try to find their struggles.”

Amelia: The Girl Who Wants to Fly
September 13 to October 2
Written and composed by John Gray
Directed by Sarah Phillips
A production from the Festival Players of Prince Edward County

As seen in the Ottawa XPress, September 8, 2011: http://ottawaxpress.ca/2011/09/08/amelia-the-girl-who-wants-to-fly-flying-high/