Winnipeg: The Anthropology of Performance: An Interview with Richard Fowler

After high school I went to the University of Alberta in order to prepare for a degree in medicine. I decided that since I was going to spend most of my life in the sciences I would do my pre-med as a BA, taking a lot of language courses and classics in order to broaden my base. So I did an honours BA in romance languages at the same time as I was doing my pre-med. During my last year I took a drama course. I had a wonderful time and as a consequence I changed my mind. I dropped the idea of going into medicine altogether and decided to become an actor instead. I did a BFA in acting and went out to work. At that time it never entered my consciousness that being an actor could imply that you could do it yourself, that you yourself could be the creator. The only thing I knew how to do at that time was to audition for the various theatres. You sent in your picture and your bio, you visited all the artistic directors and you tried to sell yourself. At that time I also thought that working on a play was all the theatre could be. As an actor, what you did was to be in a play at a theatre. I ended up basing myself in Vancouver where I worked for many years, working for whoever would hire me.