Meet the lovely Shanti Gonzales, a theatre superstar and the Assistant Director of The Vibrator Play this semester!
Keah Hansen for Her Campus McGill (HC McGill): Hey Shanti, we are super excited to be featuring you as a Campus Celebrity! Can you start by telling us about yourself?
Yes! I’m a Third Year Honours Drama and Theatre Student with a minor in Anthropology. I’m from Boston and have Indian-Mexican heritage. I’m very passionate about directing; it’s what I do. I actually really like the program at McGill, despite it being very academic, because it allows me to study performance theory. My interests are specifically about intersectionality and performance. My whole job is about empathy and I feel things very strongly. What I love about theatre is that I get to experience so many feelings and there are so many hands that go into making that feeling. It’s amazing to be part of a community at McGill that I can hold and that can hold me.
HC McGill: So you’ve been directing a play this semester, The Vibrator Play, what is it about and what is your role in it?
I’m the Assistant Director of the The Vibrator Play, and I’m working with Myrna Selkirk, the professor directing the play.
The Vibrator Play is set in the late 19th century Saratoga Springs and is about the invention of the vibrator. It considers how the non-male body is “othered” by major institutions. This is about a lifestyle where consent does not exist and your body is a mystery to you. The play speaks to taking control of this experience.
I’m passionate about this play because it speaks to different stories. There was supposed to be a character of colour in the play but due to casting outcomes, we decided to use a different point of access and use more of a class/race message. It’s tough not to speak to that, but on the bright side, we have a really diverse cast. Part of my mission is to give opportunities to amazing actors of colour, because stories have always been told from white bodies. That is a joy to me; telling stories from different bodies makes it more about the stories and less about reiterating axis of oppression.
HC McGill: How did you get involved in theatre?
Good question! When I was very young, my music teacher in school thought I was a good singer and told me about this opera theatre company that had an outreach program for low-income students of colour. I begged my parents and I started doing that, which got me started. Really, the people who do theatre are those who have hung on the longest, because everyone has been in a play at some point. It makes sense because I love telling stories, talking and understanding how people work. Theatre is really cool because it is just everyone’s different stories coming into play. I deeply believe in it.
HC McGill: What other productions have you worked on at McGill?
I acted in Cloud Nine and Peter Pan in first year, and I directed at McGill Drama Festival. Second year, I directed Look Back in Anger, which was the first full-length play I ever directed, and I acted in Blue Planet, which was a theatre lab production. Right now, I’m directing The Vibrator Play, and next semester I’m directing How I Learned to Drive by Paula Vogel. I started my own theatre company in Boston, called the Coffee Spoon Theatre Project, and I have directed plays there during the summers. We put plays in cafes to make them accessible, which is really cool and has been really successful. I’m also on the TNC Directors Board.
HC McGill: What is your favourite play that you’ve watched?
I would say The Glace Menagerie, by Tennessee Williams. I saw it at the American Repatory Theatre, in Boston, which is my dream place to work. Diane Paulis is the director there and she is a woman of colour and such a badass. The play made me feel something bigger than the daily concrete, and this was the moment that I knew I needed to do theatre.
HC McGill: What has been your favourite play you’ve directed?
I love them all for different reasons, and they all become inextricably linked to the different periods of my life. The one that has affected me the most, has been Look Back in Anger, last November at TNC. I had a really great cast and I developed a really important relationship with the guy that played Jimmy, Harrison Collett. The play was a really formative experience for me; it consumed my whole life. And I love that; my motto is “Crusade for Passion”. At all costs.
HC McGill: If people are interested in seeing The Vibrator Play, how do they buy tickets?
Email publicity.english@mcgill.ca or call (514)-398-6070. It runs November 19th-21st and 26th-28th at 7:30pm in the Moyse Hall Theatre in the Arts Building. Also check out our Facebook event page!
Interview has been condensed.
Images provided by interviewee.