Making his Lighthouse Festival stage debut, Gaelan Beatty is very pleased to be in Port Dover for the opening of Where You Are. While it’s his first time acting here, he’s played Bobby in Crazy For You at the Gateway Theatre, Blackstache in Peter and the Starcatcher, Bert in Mary Poppins, and Chad in All Shook Up at the Globe Theatre in Regina, and Warner in Legally Blonde at Stage West Theatre. We chatted with Gaelan about what will surprise people about this show, what they’ll be talking about on the way home, and what he’d do next if he had a magic wand.
Lighthouse Festival (LF): What will people be talking about in the car on the way home after seeing this show?
Gaelan Beatty (GB): People will be talking on the drive home about how you wouldn’t ever think that a show could be that fun, that funny, and also tug at your heartstrings so strongly. Laughing and crying and laughing again.
(LF): What’s going to surprise people about this show?
(GB): Can I re-use my answer from #1? Heheheh. I think the most surprising aspect of the show is how vivid, fleshed out, natural, fully inhabited, and REAL the relationships between the family members are. Anyone with a sister, mother, or daughter is going to hear at least one line on the stage that they’ve said themselves, or have had someone say to them in their own lives.
(LF): How is this character like you? How isn’t it?
(GB): This character is like me in so many ways that my wife predicted me booking the role because I wouldn’t even have to act. He’s not the sharpest tool in the shed, often awkward in social situations, and we both love to be helpful in any way we can. I’ve also redone a couple of roofs for friends in my lifetime.
As for how we’re different; he has a flatter stomach than me for sure, and also I have done a few musicals in my day while he has a notoriously… “difficult” singing voice.
(LF): If you had a magic wand, what show would you do next?
(GB): I would use the magic wand to cast myself in Guys and Dolls one more time! I just sent an audition tape to a theatre doing it in the spring and making the tape rekindled my desire to play Nathan Detroit. .
(LF): Besides this one, what’s your favorite stage show?
(GB): Of course this show is high on my favourites list, I’ve been in love with it since reading it for the audition. It’s rare to have a show that has this much potential for funny and also heartbreak and tears, both sad and happy. As for ANOTHER show that I love, probably Crazy For You. Though that might have something to do with having met my wife while playing opposite her in it.