You look at a great painting, see what it’s saying, and wonder about the artist who created it.
Similarly, watching a bunch of kids put on a musical play, with sets that have a professional attention to detail, fantastic costumes, and children who dance without missing a step and deliver their lines without stopping to remember them, and think, ‘Who was the director who pulled that off?’
Carole Dagenais fell in love with theatre when she was a young girl, and as she enters retirement from her career as a teacher with School District No. 42, she can look back at thousands of kids who she inspired on the stage.
Dagenais’ last play was the Lion King Junior, put on at Eric Langton elementary, but with a polish that one doesn’t generally see on a school stage.
The sets were ambitious, with a big mockup of Pride Rock for the young thespians to walk up and give a soliloquy, painted African designs on the walls, and jungle scenes and other settings projected onto the back wall.
The kids were talented and clearly had a great time, as they hit the right notes of Elton John songs that have become classics. Watching the little girls dressed in their hyena costumes, dancing like nobody was watching, it’s easy to see how theatre gets in your blood.
She starts auditions about five months out, and stays late after school – sometimes five hours after closing. It’s so much work that Dagenais only puts on a play every two school years.
“I like to put on Broadway quality shows, and it’s a huge commitment for everyone,” she said.
“You get out of it what you put into it. All great things take time.”
On the off years, when there is no play, she dedicates about six weeks to auditioning and presenting a school talent show, which is also a big hit with students and parents, and often the singers and standup comics identify themselves as her future actors.
Life on the stage started for Dagenais when she was young, growing up in Ottawa. She had been a dancer, and a director approached her group, needed dancers for a theatre show. Her first plays were The Boyfriend and Bye Bye Birdie.
She fell in love not only with the stage, but also an actor – her husband, Jeffrey.
“We met backstage when we were very young,” and she was smitten with the “triple threat” who could sing, dance and act.
She was raised by a father who is Quebecois, and spent a year attending university in Paris, France.
When Carole came to UBC in 1984, Jeffrey followed her to B.C. They married in 1987.
Locally, they have been involved with Emerald Pig and Specc-tacular Productions theatre groups, both on stage or as stage managers. And they have also put on productions with other theatre groups in the Lower Mainland.
But the school plays bring a particular sense of pride.
“The most joy I’ve gotten from theatre is working with the kids,” she said.
At the start, some kids are literally petrified: “hiding in the wings.”
But by show day “they are owning the stage.
“Some kids are just total naturals, and they love the stage,” she said. “And they discover lots of things about themselves.”
Over the years, many of her students have gone on to the local theatre groups.
It’s no exaggeration to say she has worked with thousands of kids. Dagenais has been a teacher for 33 years, starting in Vancouver and spending the last 23 in Maple Ridge. She works in French Immersion and is a support teacher who oversees special education staff working with special needs children.
Over those 33 years, she puts on plays that involve numerous kids.
Some are backstage, some are dancing, cackling hyenas, some are stampeding buffalo, and some are in the spotlight. All told, there were about 80 kids in the cast of the Lion King.
“Every child who auditioned was given a part in the show.”
Including pre-show singing and entertainment, there were more than 200 kids involved.
Jeffrey hasn’t been on the stage in about five years, but remains Carole’s “partner in crime,”
He designed the set of the Lion King, and they worked on it over weekends for about two months, building and painting the African scenes.
The Lion King Junior wowed a lot of parents.
“It’s such powerful music, and it drew so many people in,” said Dagenais. “It was a very moving play for everybody.”
She has strong support of the parents and the school Parent Advisory Council, who really appreciate her work. She may come back to Eric Langton to put on more productions even in retirement.
“It’s an amazing school to be at,” she said.
The school community sees the value in theatre.
“It’s drawing everyone’s talents together, building community in the school, and watching them flourish,” said Dagenais.
“It’s a seed that when it’s planted will grow.”