Wil Andruschak

So, you’re a climber in this new opera?

Yeah, well... I’ve done sport climbing in the past as well as just trained in the gym periodically, and I’m friends with a lot of prop performers, magic performers, a lot of performers in the city. So when a notice went out that Calgary Opera was looking for climbers, one of my friends sent it to me right away and said ‘you might find this fun.’ And she was right, it’s been a blast.

Are you an actor? Have you done much acting?

Not recently, but I’ve always loved that field of things. Since I was really little, like preschool, I loved being in plays, right up through high school and even now. I never got into any official theatre, this is as close as I’ve gotten to that, but I’ve always been a ham. I love cameras. I’ll stand in front of any camera.

So, this is exciting rather than scary.

Exactly. I find this exhilarating.

What exactly will you be doing in this production?

Essentially, this is one of the more technical operas you’ll see, as far as the — how do I put it? As far as the stage and the set goes. And they’re trying to simulate us being on a whaling ship, so there’s a mast and there’s rigging and there’s tall structures to climb. So, they wanted people that could not only make that look good, but could also help those in the chorus and the actual performers who aren’t experienced in such things. They wanted a couple people around who could make sure that they were going to be safe.

I’m assuming you’re not going to be belting out any tunes?

No. The supers who are enlisted just for climbing, I think only one of us has had any real voice training, but no, none of us are involved in the actual singing.

What do you do when you’re not climbing a set?

Whatever I want.

That’s a pretty good place to be.

Yeah, it’s fantastic. Pretty much my entire life I’ve been playing poker. In my family, a family gathering consists of two tables: one of them for the adults who are playing poker, and one of them for the kids and they’re playing Rummoli and it’s a big right of passage to move from the kid table to the adult table. Several years ago I started playing and training online as well. So I make probably the equivalent of part-time cash by playing online nowadays and the rest of the time I do what I want. Whether that’s hanging out with a friend downtown when he’s busking — like I said, I’ve got a lot of performer friends down there — and I practise juggling. Whatever. Go climbing with my brother in the mountains. Whatever strikes my fancy, I’ll check it out.

I guess that gives you free time to do things like this.

Exactly. A production like this, they only got the supers involved at the beginning of January and we’re only going to the beginning of February for the performances, so it’s only about a month. This week’s been the most intense as far as time, so I’ve still got time to do my work and make the money I need to make to survive for another month.

How has the rehearsal been? Is it pretty intense?

Yeah, that part is definitely new. My past experience has been, I suppose you could say school play type of thing. Everybody gets together, you go through it step-by-step until everybody has it memorized. This is completely different. They’ve got it staged out in parts and so we learned our parts bit by bit. All of the different groups, so the main performers learned their stuff, the chorus learned their stuff, and everybody did it individually. Now we’re trying to mash it all together. Today I’m here doing light walking for the stage, which basically means “we’re going to try to set up the lights for this part of the stage at this scene, so we want you to stand here for half an hour.”

What kind of costume do you get to wear?

It’s Moby Dick, so it’s a whaling ship. We’re all going to look like low-budget sailors basically. We’re not pirates, so we’re not making a ton of money, and we’re not navy, so we don’t have fancy outfits. We’re extremely low-class sailors.

Are you an opera lover? Have you attended often?

I haven’t in the past, but this is definitely selling me on the idea. I’ll probably check out a couple more and see what they’re like.

Is the climbing that you’re doing fairly challenging?

It’s extremely basic. When you’ve been to the top of the Rocky Mountains a couple of times, climbing a ladder onstage is nothing.

Were others nervous?

A couple. It hasn’t taken too much to get them into it. A couple of reassuring words, showing them exactly how easy it is to move certain things. It hasn’t been challenging to get them over that.

How high up are you climbing?

Probably, roughly, 40 feet at its maximum. There’s only a couple of people who go right to the top and we’re all climbers.

Will you try to get involved in more productions?

Actually yeah, I just talked to Donna, the stage manager. I was talking to her about when the next production would be and if I could get involved in that and she seemed happy at that prospect, so.... I’ll probably try to get into the next one. I’ll try almost anything once, and if I like it, I’ll try it a second time just to be sure.

Any voice training in your future, so you can belt out some tunes?

It’s possible. I’ve thought about it in the past. One of the things that my mother raised us with was singing at home, so we’ve always had the ability to harmonize, at least on a basic level. It wouldn’t be a stretch to see me in vocal lessons.

So, poker and singing family?

Poker on my dad’s side and my mom’s side was a bit more artistic and gypsy-like