Indigenous theatre professional designing costumes and sets across the country
By Rick Garrick
TORONTO—Anishinabek and Ned’u’ten theatre professional Samantha McCue is enjoying her work in theatres across the country since graduating with a BFA in Theatrical Production from York University in 2017.
“My first show I did all by myself was Thanks for Giving — it was [with] Arts Club Theatre Company in Vancouver and it was written and directed by Kevin Loring,” says McCue, who has family from Chippewas of Georgina Island and Lake Babine in B.C. “It was absolutely incredible. Parts of it were in a modern setting so it was like jeans and t-shirts. But there was also this component where we had to represent a bear spirit, and luckily we had the resources where we could get an actual bear pelt.”
McCue says a dancer wore the bear pelt during the performance.
“When everything came together, with the set and the sound and the lighting, you could feel everybody holding their breath,” McCue says. “It was just incredible to see it. It was so inspiring and I was really emotional at that point. I’m wolf clan and bear clan, so that was a really important representation for me to get right.”
McCue says her work on a production begins with looking at the script and talking with the director about their vision.
“The director will say: ‘This is what I want to do and this is the style I’m going for’,” McCue says. “I take that and I do research to make sure I’ve got all the parts of it accurate.”
McCue then creates designs and sketches of the costumes and sends them to the theatre company and the director for approval.
“Once all that gets approved, then we go ahead and I go out with the wardrobe staff and go shopping for fabric,” McCue says. “If it’s a modern show, we’ll go to stores and pick out clothes that might be an option.”
McCue says the costumes are checked over during tech week to make sure they look good under the lighting and work with the sets.
“I’ve worked with pelts on a number of shows now and those are always a little more difficult,” McCue says. “For the bear for example, it was incredibly heavy. So we had to put a hard hat inside where the skull would be so she could have some weight taken off her.”
McCue also worked as the set and costume designer on the Confederation Centre of the Arts’ production of Aqsarniit in Charlottetown, P.E.I., this past summer.
“It was an outdoor venue and [the set] needed to come down every night,” McCue says. “I’m really happy with how it turned out because that particular show came out of the Dream Catchers project. They went around to many different communities across Canada and it was an opportunity to hear the stories of Indigenous youth. I really wanted to pay homage to the work that had been done prior, so I wanted to incorporate ropes and stuff to make it look like a dreamcatcher.”
McCue’s latest show was Kamloopa, where she was the costume designer this past fall for a co-production of three theatres in Vancouver, Saskatoon and Kamloops by Indigenous playwright/director Kim Senklip Harvey.
“That was really cool to be a part of,” McCue says. “She is amazing to work with. She has helped me articulate the whole decolonization process, like what I do and how important it is for Indigenous people to be telling their own stories.”
McCue began her career as an assistant costume designer on a 2017 Canadian Opera Company performance of Louis Riel by Peter Hinton at the Four Seasons Centre for the Performing Arts in Toronto.