Interview with Dennis Cahill - Part Two

If you haven't already read part one, it's the very next post down - start there.

K: Those of us in the know have an understanding that the arts don’t make a lot of money – politicians aside. Knowing this, what motivates you to keep Loose Moose going and be so involved with such an institution?

Dennis: There are a number of different reasons. One is that I do think there’s a value to theatre. I wouldn’t argue that it motivates people or that it educates – I wouldn’t argue that because I don’t think we really know the end result. But I do think it’s a good idea for large groups of people to get together in a darkened room and share an experience. There’s something very immediate about theatre. I think the more immediate, the better. The more that is sharing an experience between the performers and the audience – I think there’s something very powerful about that. To some degree it’s a human necessity. The more society gets segmented, the more we cocoon ourselves in our houses and sit in front of glowing screens, we lose a bit of that humanity. I do believe that theatre’s important. The thing about Loose Moose – to me it’s a really unique organization. The remarkable thing for me is the people that have been at Loose Moose over the years, regardless of whether they’ve gone on to have careers in theatre or film or television – there’s lots of those. It’s really a remarkable group of successful people that have come through Loose Moose who will actively tell you that Loose Moose is a big part of why they are where they are today. Even apart from that, I’ve run into people who don’t have anything to do with performing now but spent a portion of their lives at Loose Moose and hold that as a very fond memory and really treat it as a very special part of their lives. I think that’s remarkable. I don’t understand fully why that is, but I think it’s because of the nature of it - anybody can come in, and learn and participate. The expectation is that not everybody is going to turn out to be a full-fledged professional performer – but that’s OK. If you want to come do this as a hobby, that’s great. If you just want to come and run the sound, or work the lights, if you just want to come and take tickets and just enjoy that experience, that’s cool. It’s always been an open door policy. Just the nature of it, we do suggest to people that you’re welcome to try things and we invite you to fail as well. We want you to make mistakes. There is a basic philosophical quality to Loose Moose that’s made it very unique. I would say most of that is due to Keith’s’…

K: Credo?

Dennis: Yes. You know, the way he teaches, and the way he set the company up. The nature of the company is something important. The continuation of Loose Moose is important to me on that basis. It provides the audience with a form of theatre that’s different – that it provides a form of theatre! That it gets an audience that doesn’t normally go to theatre also is important. There’s the other part of it, that there’s generations of people now who’ve been through Loose Moose – who’ve experienced it from the inside. It’s become a part of their lives. I think it’s changed who they are – hopefully made them better, made them open to new ideas. No, it’s not the most lucrative business but it’s….

K: Rewarding.

Dennis: Yeah. If you do things for money… I suppose that’s your own business. But [laughing] there’s got to be more to life than that. It’s worth continuing if at all possible.

K: I don’t know how controversial a topic this is, because I’ve only been in the arts community for a very short period of time. But, I’ve already seen signs of prejudice between the scripted kind of performance – the ‘serious’ performance and improv. I actually remember a mentor expressing disappointment that I was more interested in improvisation than scripted theatre. Have you ever come across that kind of attitude in your experiences?

Dennis: Oh yes, yes. There are lots unfortunately. I think to some degree it’s because people feel it’s a threat. We say we can take anybody off the street and put them on stage. You know if you’ve been to drama school for 6 years or whatever, that probably seems ‘not quite right’. But I don’t understand why some people in traditional theatre feel threatened by it – I really don’t understand that. To me it’s totally bogus. I’ve heard people say “It’s not really theatre” – what we do is not really theatre. I’ve heard that from a number of different people. To me it’s semantics – OK, let’s discuss what theatre really is. It’s a form of performance in front of an audience. Call it theatre or don’t, I don’t really care, personally. I think it’s a legitimate form of performance and I think if you’re smart and an actor, you try to learn as many different skills as possible. One of those skills could be, should be improvisation. I’ve worked with a director who’s worked in West End in London, and he was saying more and more he’s seeing improvisation in the training of professional actors. So to ignore it is silly. There are people who work in professional theatre, at the top of their game, who will now tell you that improvisation is a valuable tool. It’s interesting because you see it in various places – that kind of attitude, but you also see there are people who work in the traditional side of theatre who do see the value and understand that there’s something important. Even in the world of opera, you’ve started to see that there are skills that might be valuable to opera artists - outside of traditional theatre. So I don’t understand why they feel threatened by it. But yeah… it’s out there. The only thing you can do is feel sorry for people like that because they’re limiting themselves. Like any prejudice.

K: Just a couple more questions. Give me one big highlight of your history with this company.

Dennis: Oh geez. Too difficult really. No, there’s not one – there’s so many different….

K: First one that comes to mind? Just a random one.

Dennis: I’ve had such amazing opportunities, that to choose one, even when you mentioned that there was 5 or 6 things that passed through my head. The Olympics were pretty cool. Going to Australia and touring and teaching was really cool. Going to Tokyo, you know? Even just within the company, doing Waiting for Godot the first time in Edmonton at the Citadel Theatre was pretty special. I mean, over 31 years, there’s a lot to pick from.

K: So, someone’s thinking of giving improv a try, and they have no idea where to begin. What advice would you offer?

Dennis: Get out and do it. Get classes, or workshops – I mean Loose Moose offers workshops in exchange for volunteer help, but there’s other places you can learn improvisation. It’s all theory in the class until you put it in front of an audience, so if you find opportunity to perform, that’s really useful. It’s an odd world now, because even within improvisation there are opposing schools of thought. I think it’s worthwhile to explore all of the different philosophies and methodologies and various forms of improvisation. See what makes sense. Don’t believe something just because somebody tells you or because it was in the book. If you’re smart – you keep open, you see what’s valuable and works. You also see what doesn’t work and you discard it. Maybe some things work for you and others don’t. We all learn differently. Keep an open mind and if you really want to do some improvisation – do it. I think you have to understand that you have to allow yourself to screw it up. Lots. It’s the nature of the beast. Any creative endeavour requires risk. If you take risks you’re going to fail. Get over it. Failure’s just a part of the game and the more quickly you learn that the better off you will be and the less bruising your ego will take.

K: OK. Thanks for your time Dennis.

Dennis: Thank you.


So that was my first interview. One of my favourite memories of Dennis is during a presentation of A Chrismoose Carol. There were several places in the show when fake snow was supposed to fall from the ceiling on cue and the first time, the machine barely produced enough flakes to fill the palm of your hand - much less than what was expected. The way Dennis just slowly raised his eyes toward the source of the snow with a look of disdain was priceless. When the next cue came for more snow, you could tell Dennis was anxious to see if the snow would fall in sufficient quantity, but he resisted the temptation to look up at the machine. The snow did come - a few seconds late - and the slow smile that bloomed on his face was perfect.