Bronwyn Caudle
(Sept. 2011)
Bronwyn CaudleAfter a busy first year out of the BFA Acting program, Bronwyn Caudle (BFA 2010) has some simple advice for current students: “Breathe. LOL.”
What are you up to now?
It's been a learning curve that's for sure. Currently I am auditioning, I am with Characters agency, and I am in a short film that is being filmed in July that is going to be entered in next years TIFF festival. I just finished a show, The Long Red Road, at Theatre Passe Muraille with the theatre company Column 13 which had an amazing review in Eye Weekly and NOW magazine. Last Summerworks I was an actor/singer in Alan Dilworth's show Iphegenia working with Nicolas Billion and Stratford's Roger Beck, and Actor David Fox who are all theatre treasures in Canada. I also did a show and adaption of The Trial of Jeremy Hinzman (Foundry Theatre) with Jack Grinhaus right when I left York.
I also have a couple of other projects in the works for late next year, but that ink is not dry yet…
I also nanny for Dana Osbourne (Stratford's head designer) and Morwyn Brebner (playwright and creator/writer of Global's Rookie Blue) and actor/playwright Michael Healey's twin girls. So when I am not in the business, or auditioning, I thought working for people in the business taking care of their children would be more better use of my skills than serving.
Why did you come to study theatre at York in the first place?
What brought me to work in the first place was that I knew I wanted to leave Nova Scotia for school, so I literally Googled schools in Ontario and liked the sound of York. Completely on a whim. But once I started doing my research I found that it had one of the best acting programs and an immense music program. So that's why I chose it: it seemed like a good adventure.
What was the most valuable thing you learned at York?
Besides technique, the most valuable thing I learned while studying at York is how to start the development of your own aesthetic as a theatre practitioner/creator/actor. You need to be free to explore but be true to what makes your work yours especially in a city where everyone is trying to get their work out there. And … I learned not to be precious. In order to take risks as an artist we must not fear failure. We don't want failure either, but for a risk to truly be worth anything there has to be a chance that you just might fail. But the only road worth traveling is the hardest one.
Do you have any advice for students new to the Theatre Dept.?
If you are entering the program remember the school doesn't define you, YOU define YOU. The school makes you a better version of that, they are a necessity to becoming what you want to become. But these years will change you for the rest of your life; I know they changed me.
…and any advice for students about to enter the business?
If you are graduating, don't freak out. Breathe. lol. Just remember to have confidence in the fact that these teachers prepared you for the next step. They did their job, and so did you. Auditioning can be nerve racking, rejection can be devastating, being poor is a struggle. But just know that that is not forever, and have faith that what you do means something. And be prepared to make your own work. Toronto is not the city for actors and designers to wait around by the phone for their agent to tell them to get up and work. You should be working all the time. On your down time work on a project that you want to put up in the near future, go do yoga, take a film class, anything that fuels your work. But DO NOT just sit around after a year.
