Meet Marc Moir

We recently connected with Marc Moir and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Marc, really happy you were able to join us today and we’re looking forward to sharing your story and insights with our readers. Let’s start with the heart of it all – purpose. How did you find your purpose?

Theatre has always been my first love, but my educational background is actually in the field of Biblical Studies. When my wife and I started having children I took a break from touring (more out of familial and financial necessity than choice) and worked at a Church teaching and caring for their teens and young adults. One of the things I used to share with my kids–and carried on sharing when I taught University theatre for a number of years, and share with my own children now–is, where your skills and passions intersect that’s your vocation; what you were created to do. Some people are great at something but don’t love doing it. Other’s desperately want to do a job but they just don’t have the skills or tools to do so successfully or at the level they may want to. It has to be both. Whatever you’re best at whatever you enjoy doing the most that’s what you should be doing with your life. If you can monetize it all the better, but if you can use it to bless and benefit others then you have found purpose. After nearly 20 years of nibbling on the margins of a career in the arts, I decided it was finally time to take my own advice and take the plunge. So far it has been every bit as fulfilling as I had hoped. Getting to do theatre and run a professional company not only allows me to do what I’m best at and enjoy doing the most but we are using it to provide up-and-coming actors with the opportunities that we never got and do, and having so much fun doing it.

Appreciate the insights and wisdom. Before we dig deeper and ask you about the skills that matter and more, maybe you can tell our readers about yourself?

My name is Marc A. Moir. I am an actor, writer, and the Co-Artistic Director Looking Glass Theatre (LGT). LGT is a new professional (non-union) company based in Steinbach, Manitoba Canada. We are currently preparing for our first full season of professional live theatre.

Looking Glass Theatre began as a pipe-dream in the middle of a nation-wide lockdown. Just two Creatives (me and theatre soulmate Laura Kathleen Turner) wondering how and when we’d be able to get back on stage, knowing when we did, we wanted it to count. We wanted to take control of our careers and bring professional, live theatre to our community. But it went deeper than that. We knew if we were going to do this, we wanted to do it right. So, when the day finally came to start booking shows and planning seasons, we made the decision to proceed as a “professional, non-union” company. This gave us the freedom to choose shows based on entertainment value, and to cast actors strictly based on their abilities, rather than union status.

Doing so also gave us the opportunity to shake up the traditional audition and casting processes.

We are a professional theatre company. We have high professional standards in terms of the product we put on our stage. We provide the highest caliber of shows. We hire and contract professional actors, writers etc. The difference is, as a non-union company, we have the freedom to hire who we want.

This approach allows us to give actors who are professionals or striving to become professionals but may not have their EQUITY card the opportunity to get seen in a serious way, hired, and to work at this level in front of audiences.

Most theatres and professional theatre companies are members of PACT (Professional Association of Canadian Theaters) and as such are required to hire actors who are members of EQUITY, the actor’s union. Under union rules, PACT affiliated theatres and companies are required to cast something like 80% EQUITY actors. So, if you don’t have your EQUITY card and it’s a cast of 10, you have 20% chance of being cast. That number drops with every non-union actor who auditions for the same role and, in most cases, theatres just end up hiring all EQUITY actors anyway.

How do you get your EQUITY card so you can work? You need professional credits with an EQUITY/PACT theater to join EQUITY. You can’t work without EQUITY but you can’t get EQUITY if you don’t get work. It’s this vicious circle. So really, it’s unlike any other union, in that it actively hampers new members from joining. So, if you’re up-and-coming, it’s tough to get seen, at least in a serious way.

So being professional non-union allows us to give actors who may not have their EQUITY card the opportunity to get seen in a serious way, hired, and to work at this level in front of audiences.

We have modeled our approach on the Actor-manager or Repertory Model, common until the middle of the last century.

Actor training used to consist of joining, getting hired by, a repertory company, usually run by an actor manager—a veteran actor who had formed the company—often assisted by his leading lady, and cutting your teeth in front of paying audiences doing multiple shows, sometimes multiple shows a week. You’d be performing one show in the evenings while rehearsing another during the day, all the while touring those shows around the various provincial theatres. It was a grueling but wonderful crucible of all things theatre. Unlike a one show engagement, as part of a consistent company, actors would have the opportunity to play many different roles over a season and move up the company. Some would then go to the big city; others would form their own company. That was the model really from the origins of the art form in Ancient Greece, through Shakespeare, right through to the early part of the 20th century. 2,500 years. It lasted so long because it was a great model. It weeded out those who really didn’t have the chops for it and allowed those who did the opportunity to learn and grow and develop—something you can only really do as an actor in front of a paying audience.

But then in the 20th century, the influence of Konstantin Stanislavski and his pupils, particularly the Group Theatre in New York, actor training and development shifted to a more internalized or cerebral approach. The setting of “actor training” shifted from the stage to studios and eventually drama schools. This approach has grown into every school having a drama department and flooding the market every spring with new “actors” who really don’t have any useful professional experience. Most of whom will never make it in the businesses because the business will never give them the opportunity to see if they can play at the professional level.

So, we’ve opted to be a non-union company. To use the model that has existed and been successful for the majority of the theatre’s existence. The rep-model, or at least a modified version of it. The actor-manager company model.

We want to give actors, particularly young up-and-coming actors but actors of any age who want to do this professionally and have what it takes to do so, the opportunity to do so. To provide an opportunity I/we never really got. To work at a higher level, to develop, and, we hope, ultimately to move up and succeed.

So, when we are on the lookout for new talent, we go to them. We attend their shows and do everything we can to see them at their best, rather than inviting them into a room full of strangers and asking them to perform a monologue out of context. And, when we cast an actor, we cast them for a full season and intentionally give them diverse parts to play. This gives them the opportunity to shine in multiple roles, and the entire company has the opportunity to build the friendships and trust that are needed both on and off stage, in order to produce seamless, captivating, extraordinary work. (Which they do!)

Another aspect of LGT that is really cool is we do almost exclusively new work. We will produce some classics but we have numerous writers in the company and the majority of our plays are new original works. It’s so exciting to get to premiere these plays. Our criteria is simple; is it a good play (is it compelling, well written, actable) and is it the kind of show we think audiences would like to see.

And with that, the foundation of our company was set: To produce shows audiences want to see, and actors want to play in. In other words, to entertain! And, to be able to create our own work, which is the ultimate goal of any aspiring Creative Professional.

Looking back, what do you think were the three qualities, skills, or areas of knowledge that were most impactful in your journey? What advice do you have for folks who are early in their journey in terms of how they can best develop or improve on these?

Great question.

1) I’d say, number one, if you’re going to work in the arts, you need to have some practical marketable skills beyond your artistic abilities. For example, I learned pretty early on how to produce (scheduling, budgets, tour logistics etc.). It’s not very sexy but it’s probably the most important skill I bring to my art. I also learned as a writer how to do all different kinds of writing (copywriting, academic, journalistic, ads, political speechwriting etc.). That’s how I subsidize my theatre work. Likewise, Laura, my partner learned how to really do marketing, particularly online marketing. That was really the catalyst that enabled us to do Looking Glass. You can have the best product in the world but if you can’t find a market/audience for it, you’re not going to be successful. These marketable skills are also helpful as they give you something to fall back on for the lean times to supplement your artistic career–which 99.9999% of artists will have to do.

2) You need to be a well rounded person. There is nothing more boring than a person who can only talk about one thing. Read lots and read widely. Know about art, history, politics, religion, sports, science, geography and culture. Know about the world. Strive to be a renaissance man/woman. Think critically, seek truth, ask questions, never stop learning or being curious about the world. These days we are so vapid and so tribalized as a culture. We have our little, often artificial and superficial world and worldview that we create around ourselves online. We never look up from our phones to see the world. We need to experience life in all it’s wonder and fullness in the moment, not through a screen. I have always been a voracious reader and had a curious mind. This has served me well in the arts and in life. This will serve you well in the arts and in life.

3). One quality I’ve been told I possess is the ability to encourage and make people feel special and loved. Not in a superficial theatrical blowing sunshine way but a genuine encouragement that comes from love. I love the people I work with and strive to care for them accordingly. Our world is so negative. So critical. People are understandably often afraid to be vulnerable and show who they are. To be truly honest. But you need to have real relationships (deep, vulnerable, honest) and care for the people around you. To really love (i.e. be willing to sacrificially serve others) people–especially if you are the leader.

I’m often asked by people whose kids want to be an actor what advice I’d give. My answer is “become a lawyer.” Lol. If you can be happy and fulfilled doing anything else, do that. If you can’t, if the theatre in in your guts, go for it.

For advice, I’d also echo what I said earlier; where your skills and passions intersect (what am I best at, what do I enjoy doing the most?) that’s your vocation. If you can use it to bless and benefit others you’ve found purpose.

To close, maybe we can chat about your parents and what they did that was particularly impactful for you?

They taught me how to tell stories and seek truth.

My folks were both journalists. The skill of storytelling, whether doing so in the required radio clip format 45 seconds at the supper table, or the long serialized bedtime stories they told me each night instilled in me a love of storytelling.

The wisdom to “take everything your hear with a grain of salt”, to think critically and test things, has also served me well in life.

I should add it was also my parents who first took me to the theatre.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.lookingglasstheatre.ca
• Instagram: looking_glass_theatre
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/lookingglasstheatre.ca/?_rdr