Charlottetown – Every major Canadian theatre legend has worked at the Charlottetown Festival at some point in their careers, asserts Robin Calvert. Now in her fifth year with the Festival, Calvert is proof of the caliber of performer the Festival attracts; she herself auditioned for five years before finally landing a role at the Confederation Centre of the Arts.

“They foster that talent here. It has made such a name for itself. People are clamoring to get in here,” she emphasizes. “It’s amazing to be part of something like this.”

Five years ago she won the role of Ruby Gillis in Anne of Green Gables – The Musical™. This year she is dance captain, female swing, assistant choreographer and assistant director for both Anne™ and British Invasion II: America Strikes Back! Swing means she understudies multiple roles; for Anne™ she had to learn five roles, any one of which she might have to play on a given night. For one performance this summer she had five minutes notice before the curtain rose that she would have to fill in suddenly.

“I like swinging because I love that excitement. There is pressure but I do like it,” she says. Calvert even filled in for two of the boy roles when the male swing had his arm in a cast and one of the male cast members was injured halfway through the performance. “No one would have noticed the difference,” she contends.

As dance captain, Calvert works with the stage managers and the director to keep the show clean and consistent. She describes the balance they are seeking where they and the actors want to keep things fresh but at the same time consistent. She credits cast member Zak Kearns, her assistant dance captain, as a great help.

When not on stage in Anne™, Calvert was one of the teachers for this year’s Young Company and the Young@Arts theatre camps. She also worked extensively with the Maud Whitmore Benefit Concert that played last month on the Mainstage, and is very involved in the Late Night at The Mack series on Saturday nights.

But she gets her main time on the Mainstage in British Invasion II: America Strikes Back! In fact, the stage crew calculated that Calvert has the most stage time of anyone in the show. She is a dancer, a narrator and performs a pas de deux with Gabriel Antonacci. She has 13 costume changes in the two hour show.

“Act 1 is the craziest,” she says. “It’s almost a mathematical thing with me. I need to know where I go and what side I exit. I know the steps, the rest is mathematical.”

Calvert grew up in Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan, and moved to Toronto when she was 19 to attend the Ryerson Theatre Dance program. While she admits to having fallen in love with PEI, Toronto is still home when she is not at the Festival. Last year she performed the role of The Mayor’s Wife in Seussical and danced in the opera Onegin with the Canadian Opera Company in Toronto and taught at Sheridan College.

“I also had the amazing opportunity to teach at Ryerson which was an honour to go back as the teacher,” she says. Robin Calvert is also creating a new dance theatre production that is based on her grandfather’s life. “It is about fate and love and what home means to you,” she adds, proving that she is certainly one of the busiest people involved in the Charlottetown Festival this year.

-30-

Media contact: Dan Wall, publicist, Confederation Centre of the Arts, phone (902) 628-6135
Email: confederationcentre.com, web www.confederationcentre.com