Gay Hauser’s connection to the world of performing arts goes back to her memory of Celia Franca’s performance in Swan Lake in Petawawa Ontario in the mid-fifties. Taking drama lessons in Ottawa where she lived from the age of ten after emigrating with her family from the UK, Hauser was often picked for parts in school plays during her childhood. After achieving a height of five foot seven inches put a damper on her ambition to become a ballerina, Hauser attributes her success in the world of theatre to networking and communication. Following high school, Hauser studied English and Art History at Carleton University, and later worked as a docent at the National Gallery, remaining engaged in theatre activity all the while. For the National Arts Centre she did costume and design work, another love, and, after a call to teach high school English, Drama, and Art History, she enrolled in a degree in Education in Drama and Art Education.

After collaborating in a school programme based on the art of the Group of Seven, Hauser joined Penguin Productions in Ottawa, a semi-professional theatre, where again she did collective creation work based on the Group. Reflecting on work that combined the arts, Hauser explains that the script was most often created through improvisation, which included dance, music, poetry, and drama, offering so much more than what she had previously experienced.

Mulgrave Beginnings in Nova Scotia -- Collective Creation

When her friend Robbie O’Neill received a grant from Canada Council to create a play about Mulgrave, his home town, Hauser, Michael Fahey and Wendell Smith, all of whom were very keen on collective creation, agreed to join the project and to venture forth to Guysborough County, Nova Scotia.

Hauser jokes, laughing frequently, while telling the tale of borrowing a friend’s car, later "the Mulgrave shuttle", after which time the vehicle was returned with a dented roof!! Her memory of their arrival in Guysborough in those days includes people of an overwhelmingly friendly nature who "ran out of their homes to meet us," to greet and welcome the returning O’Neill and his friends to their community, adding that there was something very compelling about that experience. "It was no great feat," she remembers, "to complete and put on The Mulgrave Road Show in a community of great storytellers." As Wendell Smith, O’Neill, and Fahey were keen to have a woman’s perspective, the collective agreed to split the grant money four ways. On $80 a week, the group rented a house in Mulgrave where they lived while working steadily on the play. "It wasn’t an organization then... it was more like, do we have enough money to do the play?" Hauser recounts with glee, explaining how things were before "Mulgrave Road" evolved into a co-operative. Reflecting on the experience, Hauser now sees how organizations are vital for nurturing young artists and as resources for emerging artists.

In 1978 Hauser worked in a collective project to explore the history of the Canso Fish Strike. Through going out into the community to talk to people, the plot for the piece was crafted to reflect a difficult period for the town; out of these series of dark interviews, Let’s Play Fish was created as a work that explored the splitting of family. Collective creation, Hauser explains, is much about knocking on doors and speaking to people, through an effort not to record per se, but by bringing stories to formation through getting into the characters of people interviewed. In A Child Is Crying On the Stairs, a play about child abuse based on the book by Nanette Cormier, Hauser was involved in a creation that found resonance among audience members and demonstrated the incredible power of theatre.

On Setting the Foundation for Eastern Front

Hauser’s experience with the Mulgrave Road Co-operative led to project work with Mary Vingoe, a member of the Let’s Play Fish collective, as well as Niki Lipman and others, and later Wendy Lill, who came to Guysborough to take part in the writer-in-residence program. Vingoe would go from her experiences at Mulgrave to start up Ship’s Company Theatre in Parrsboro and later moved on to Dartmouth, and Hauser left Mulgrave Road for Halifax with partner Stephen Osler in 1988. While it was their desire to continue creating theatre in spite of the tense situation of "waiting around for the phone to ring for the one job a year... a fool’s game, " Hauser explains, the three of them were by that time accomplished and experienced at starting companies. Lill, by then an established playwright, and Hauser and Vingoe, experienced in founding companies in the past, decided to form Eastern Front Theatre in 1993, with Hauser taking on the role of General Manager until handing the reins over to Leah Hamilton eight years later. Hauser feels that the company’s growth is due largely to the support they’ve had from the community and from supporters such as John Savage, premier of Nova Scotia between 1993 and 1997, who helped them to establish an office, and attain CHRC Human Resource grants to hire fabulous people, thus opening the door...

On Acting, Directing and Teaching in Nova Scotia

When asked about her preferences in term of theatrical roles, Hauser immediately responds that she prefers to act, adding that acting is a world into which one may disappear, one that is very much a realm of the imagination. She explains that theatre is a way of understanding the world, through which one can develop a connection to people through camaraderie, for example. Again insisting that the life is much about networking and friendships, she explains that the experience is one where you have to trust others with your emotions. Vulnerability arises through this, she explains, where collective creation demands it. Hauser has graced the Nova Scotian stage many times through her career, notably in plays such as Lill’s Corker and Sisters, and in film as the series lead in Blizzard Island in 1988-89. Through her love of working with youth, Hauser has directed plays for high school students in Cape Breton, and served in adjudication for drama festivals; with Eastern Front, she has worked on high school productions.

As her children have grown up in Nova Scotia, Hauser is eager to express how happy she and her family have been here. Now active with Live Art Productions, returning to her love of dance, Hauser is a vital member of the arts community, and strives for the incorporation of theatre arts into the community as a whole.

From an interview with Gay Hauser - Actor/Manager, February 2004

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