Faculty Spotlight: Cole Lewis
“I empower my acting students to reach their full capacity as artists. Artists who are keen and empathetic observers of the world. Artists who are deeply curious about all aspects of human nature. Artists who can unleash objectives with a visceral need. Artists who can take on the physical life, rhythms, styles of language, and points of view that be quite unlike their contemporary selves. Artists who make and perform work that is necessary”
Performance at The Creative School is lucky to have so many industry professionals in our midsts and among our faculty. This summer, we're taking the time to focus on what creative projects and research our faculty work on throughout the summer months (and beyond!).
This week our spotlight shines on director and creator Cole Lewis. Cole is an Acting faculty member who teaches classes on text analysis and creative performance technique, as well as being the Program Director for Acting. 
This summer Cole Lewis is the lead artist mentor for Suitcase in Point’s Electric Innovations program. This year’s batch of eight incredibly talented young artists have been working for 12 weeks with Cole and amazing guest artists like Yolanda Bonnell, Marcel Stewart, James McCoy, and Michelle Mohammed to learn about the ecology of theatre and create an original performance.
The Path, created by Electric Innovators, is a twist on Little Red Riding Hood that asks is a wolf always a wolf when we walk quietly alone on a path late at night? And what happens if we stray off the path? Why is there even a path we must follow? The Path premiered to resounding applause on June 10 th 2023 at In the Soil Festival.
Cole shares photos from behind the scenes with Electric Innovators at In the Soil Festival, including shots from both rehearsal and tech where they began to add lights and sound to fully realize the production.
Aside from work with the Electric Innovators, Cole continues to write her seed commission, “Untitled Nurse Project” for Stratford Festival. Aghhhhh, it’s so hard to carve out writing time.
And in July, Cole will become a student again! She will travel to Umbria in Italy to study with international directors: Dmitry Krymov, Thomas Ostermeier, Iman Aoun, and Ong Keng Sen. She has a long reading list and loads of homework that she’s already not staying on top of…EEK!
Cole can’t wait to take what she learns back to the classroom in September.
Saw the opening of ‘Rent’ at Stratford Festival with the amazing Lisa Karen Cox where we ran into the lovely Andrew Kushnir who wrote for and directed our 4 th years in the 2022 Tarragon Project.
Gotta remember to stop and the smell the flowers. Enjoying Lilacs with my daughter.
I stole artist and director, Arthi Chandra, from Shaw Festival so she could hang with me at Suitcase in Point and In the Soil Festival.
In the Soil Program for Electric Innovations.
Looking at the script for The Path alongside blocking notes.
My daughter graduated from elementary school. High School, here she comes!
The view from my home studio.
I forgot to take a photo of my breakfast (frozen blueberries and yogurt) so I took a photo of my mid-morning snack (hot chocolate, more chocolate, and almonds)!
Electric Innovators: (Top Row from left to right) Evan Lewis Dolinski, Alastar Nikolic, Kendra Humphries, Jamie Lynn Eden, Briar Wood, Maggie Wilson, Stewart our Lighting Designer, Cameron Hawke, and (front centre) Charlotte Clark.
“As a teacher, I strive to create an atmosphere of courage in the studio classroom. Fear is the enemy of creativity. It stifles originality, tenses the body and voice, dulls the imagination, and leads to safe, clichéd choices in the work. Courage, however, is creativity’s ally. An atmosphere of courage allows students to reach beyond expectations, to make bold choices, and to take on the big tasks that performance always requires of actors.”
Spacing at our technical rehearsal for The Path. Spacing is when we adjust blocking to fit the actual stage we’ll be performing on.
Adding lights in tech.
A hint of “The Untitled Nurse Project” on my computer.
Just a wee bit of my summer homework!
“It is a big responsibility to set the aesthetic standard for the life of a young artist and provide the profession with dynamic and original leaders in the field. It is a responsibility I don’t take lightly. In my term as Director of the Acting Program, I expanded the focus on classical theatre to include new contemporary work and emphasize global majority voices. Lisa and I developed community partnerships with Tarragon Theatre and with Why Not Theatre to introduce students to the industry and help bridge them to the profession. A four-year curriculum of intimacy training was developed with Siobhan Richardson and incorporated into the Acting Program—the first of its kind in Canada! I also helped deepen our acting for media offers by creating a series of on-camera classes for film and television, two voice-over classes, and even a course in motion capture acting. And to bring acting students across all years together, I created a conversation class where students can engage in dialogue on challenging but vital topics. My goal as Director of the Acting Program and as an educator is to train actors who are artists first. To encourage students to expand their awareness of the world, tackle new challenges with rigorous enthusiasm, and develop critical tools and techniques that need to confidently succeed as actors, all while encouraging the kind of innovation, focus, and industry connections that only a conservatory program like Toronto Metropolitan University’s School of Performance can provide.”