Students in OSSD's new black box studio

Ottawa School of Speech and Drama: A Moving Story

These last few months have been quite stressful at the Ottawa School of Speech & Drama (OSSD), and at times, they were all overwhelmed by the mountains of work. Last December, OSSD was given an official notice to move from their Glebe home of 14 years. The clock was ticking. They had 9 months to find a new home.

The first thing that the board did was to set up a site committee. Chaired by board member Deborah Edwards, the site committee was comprised of Deb, Barry Karp, Amanda Lewis, Holly Solomon, Tim Wynne-Jones and Eric Yendall. This committee met regularly to establish OSSD's needs. They researched, met with realtors, visited sites all over the city, followed leads and never despaired.

In late February, the committee discovered the Picton Avenue site. At the time it was a 3,000 square foot concrete shell. But they could all see immediately that it had terrific potential. OSSD engaged the services of architect Doug Hardy to do some preliminary drawings to get an idea of how the site might work. Barry Karp began the first round of negotiations with the landlord.

After determining that they would move forward with the Picton site, Deborah Edwards brought her considerable expertise as a development consultant to the process, acting as OSSD's project manager. At the time, they had no idea how complex a process this would become.

The landlord put together an amazing team. With architect Len Koffman and general contractor Rory Gardiner at the head, they went through the process of determining how to best create OSSD's new home. One of the things that they realized fairly early on was that they needed to break through from the original building of 3,000 square feet at 294 Picton Avenue into a part of the building at 290 Picton. This gave an amazing 4,300 square feet of space--enough for 3 studios, a sunlit lobby, library, kitchenette and administrative offices. By way of comparison, the studios on Pretoria Avenue were 2,600 square feet in total.

As OSSD began to construct their new performance studios, they realized that they needed some expert advice. They were amazingly fortunate to have been helped by lighting and theatre designer Martin Conboy. Martin and Bruce Meiklejohn, along with Olivier Alarie at Christie Lites, were able to guide OSSD in the creation of their very own black box studio.

OSSD got packed up at their old location. Jahn Fawcett, lighting technician extraordinaire, dismanting their lighting system at Pretoria Avenue, and checking out all of their lights so that they could put them into our new studios. Jahn and Kait St. Jacques put in countless extra hours packing. Volunteers Elaine Wong, Daisy Wong, Catherine Mason, Emilie Razbin, Vicky Bleeks, Camillia Ellis, Stephanie Shea, Steffi Di Domenicantonio, Rachel Besharah, Olivia Besharah, Deborah Vetter and Tim Wynne-Jones all put in time helping OSSD to organize and pack. Sue Yendall did a superhuman job packing, and unpacking the library.

Peter George at AMJ Campbell guided OSSD gently through the move and on August 29, they bid farewell to Pretoria Avenue and hello to 294 Picton.

In September, Hollywood director and Ottawa native Bryan Michael Stoller paid OSSD a visit. Stoller met with students in OSSD's Pre-Professional Acting Program for a workshop on tips for the actor working in film.

Now in its second year, OSSD's Pre-Professional Acting program is thriving. This course is for adult students who are dedicated to advancing their acting skills, with an eye toward advancement in the profession. Students attend 13.5 hours of classes per week, with particular emphasis on Voice, Movement, Acting and Auditioning skills. Thirteen students are in the program this year. Students from last year's program are currently attending post secondary theatre schools (George Brown, Humber), working in independent films and performing at the Museum of Civilization.

Now that OSSD is running classes in their new studios, they are thrilled with the result of all of their efforts. Please feel free to visit Ottawa's newest arts facility, conveniently located in Westboro.

(613) 567-6788
www.ossd.com