A Massive Journey
When Beulah Koale first hung up his rugby boots and stepped into a Massive Company theatre workshop, for a school holiday boredom buster, he was so shy he couldn’t talk to new people or look them in the eye.
Three years later he’s a workshop tutor, was part of Havoc in the Garden at Auckland Art Festival and had a lead role in the short film Manurewa.
Beulah is also one of the emerging ‘hungry and motivated actors’ sharing their stories as part of Massive South Ensemble showing I AM, at Mangere Arts Centre on Saturday July 30.
In this interview he shares his journey with Massive Company, an ensemble theatre company that works with emerging artists and professional practitioners.
"Massive Company is another home for me, this is where it all started for me and I am always learning."
Massive commissions, creates, devises and develops new work. Using personal stories and experiences as a starting point, they make work over an extended period of time which then premieres in Auckland, and often goes on to tour nationally and internationally.
You’ve gone from attending a workshop at Massive in Otara in 2008 to tutoring this year at Creative Northland. Do you still remember what it was like to start out and does this help you as a tutor?
Yes, I remember the first time I ever stepped into a Massive workshop. It was scary, I was shy and didn’t want to talk to anyone. I remember looking around and seeing how confident everyone was, I just about walked back out the door because I thought I wasn’t good enough to be there. As the days progressed I learnt so much about acting and how fun it was. I wasn’t one of the standout performers in the class but I would always just try to push myself to become one of them. Later on I learnt it’s not about standing out in the class, it's just about giving everything a go, jumping of the cliff and discovering new things.
By the end of the week I had discovered something I was passionate about and that was acting, I was surprised because I just went to the workshops because I had nothing to do in the holidays and I just wanted to muck around. I had no intention of going into the workshop and loving it, but it happened. I still wasn’t the best actor but I had found something that was cooler than playing rugby, I know! Shocking! My experiences have helped me so much, every time I walk into a room of people who haven’t worked with Massive Company before, I always try and pick out the people that are shy and I try to help them as much as I can because I know how they feel.
Starting from the beginning, tell us where you were at, professionally and personally, when you first joined a Massive Company workshop?
I was a shy teen, didn’t like talking to new people because I was so scared, the hardest thing for me was talking to people and looking them in the eye. I just played sport and tried my best academically at school. I was playing rugby the 1st XV at school and I loved it, my parents hated it because they were always scared I would get hurt because I was always the smallest guy on the field. Mum hated me playing because she would always think I’d get injured. When I told them I wanted to pursue acting and I was passionate about it I was surprised at their response, they were so happy and were willing to do anything to support me. I asked myself “ why didn’t they support me like this when I was playing rugby”? I guess mum was just happy that I wasn’t trying to tackle guys that were three times my size. When I joined Massive I didn’t know anything about acting or how to act, we didn’t have drama at school (Tangaroa College) at that time. Massive introduced me to a whole new world and I was loving every moment of it.
What did you take away from the workshops and how did you continue on to Massive South Ensemble?
I feel different every time I attend a workshop. The cool thing about the workshops is that it's always different and we are always making new material and playing new games. I remember the first time Sam Scott (Massive Company’s Artistic Director) tutored a workshop I was in, I was so scared. I didn’t know how to act in front of her because she was the boss of Massive Company. Sam asked all of us in the class that if we wanted to take the next step up it would be best if we joined Massive Ensemble. I didn’t know what to do because I knew if I joined Massive Ensemble I would have to work harder and Sam would be taking the workshops and I was scared of showing her bad work.
I decided to give it a go and I’m glad I made that decision because I loved it. I guess what made me loved my first ensemble workshop is the new ways Sam taught us to share our stories. I also loved working physically because it was like I was at rugby training, working just as physically for good periods of time - running, jumping, rolling, lifting people etc. We were even allowed to jump of the walls, how often do you get permission to jump off walls? Never! I was not going to waste this opportunity.
Tell us more about Massive South Ensemble
Massive South Ensemble is a group of young emerging artist that are hungry and motivated bunch of actors. We are hungry for knowledge and hungry to get out there and be seen, we are motivated to perform amazing pieces from the heart. We are mainly from around South Auckland, some of us have been with the ensemble for 2-3 years, some a couple of months and some only a couple of weeks. We welcome new participants to join after each school holiday introductory workshop.
Why have you stayed involved?
Massive Company is another home for me, this is where it all started for me and I am always learning. I started learning from tutors and now I’m tutoring. I’m always learning from the more experienced people in the company, everyone really looks out for each other and that’s what I love. I haven’t worked with any other theatre company yet but I know that Massive will always have this family vibe that no other company has.
Tell us about I Am
I Am is not really a play where you have a beginning middle and end, its more like a showing. We are showing our families, friends and the public pieces of work that we have been making in the workshops. I love showings because there is no script, it's just young actors out there on the stage showing audiences the work we have made. We also feel a sense of ownership on stage because the work we make comes directly from us, a writer hasn’t written what we have to say and do. It’s our stories. Our voices.
You performed in Havoc in the Garden this year. Tell us a bit about this experience – it seems you worked quite hard to go from the first development workshop in 2009 to being cast in 2010.
The development process for Havoc In The Garden was amazing. We told stories about home, what was home for us? For me it was my grandpa. I was so nervous about telling my story I’m sure everyone that went through the process was. But we trusted each other enough to open up and just tell the stories from the heart. It was an awesome experience especially for the actors that were involved in the ensemble groups, a number of us attended the development process and it was an eye opener for all of us, because here we were sitting in a room full of people that we had seen on tv and movies (Wesley Dowdell, Miriama McDowell, Tammy Davis, Angela Bloomfield)... I don’t know about the others but I felt so out of place, but everyone was so welcoming and treated us like family.
What other experience/work have you picked up along the way – and what role did your time with Massive play in this?
Since I started with Massive Company this whole new world was opened up to me. I didn't understand it at first and didn't know what I needed to do to keep on acting but what I did know is that I was passionate about acting and I wanted to do more and more. Through random auditions I was approached by and agency to join with them and they would help me further my acting career. I didn't have a clue about what the agency was on about because I was new to this.
I got a lead role in a short film called Manurewa which has done really well in festivals winning awards in the Berlin festival. The tools that I’ve learnt from Massive I try to take to every audition I do, things like connection or relationships between actors. Screen acting is cool, it’s smaller than theatre but I love it that I can take the things that I’ve learnt from massive company and use them in other projects I have been involved in. I'm very proud to have been involved in Manurewa it was an amazing experience and the great effort everyone put in has led to the short film winning such an amazing award.
Where are you at now, how have you grown – professionally and personally – since that first workshop?
I would like to consider myself as a professional actor, but I don’t want to. I look at myself as an emerging artist still, I never want to get into the mentality that I am an actor now and that’s it. I want to keep on learning and stay hungry for more. If you come down to a South Ensemble workshop you will get to see passion at its rawest form because all the people involved in MSE (Massive South Ensemble) are all hungry for more knowledge.
Who have been some of your mentors? Who or what has inspired you?
In the Company, the more experienced actors have all been my mentors at different times, not just one or two people. Like I said we are like a family and everyone helps each other out. I hope to be like my mentors and help someone like me in the future. My grandfather and parents inspire me, they have lived tough lives and no matter how hard it gets for me I know it is nothing compared to what they went through.
What’s the most valuable lesson you’ve learnt on your journey as an emerging artist?
Jump of the cliff and take risks, give everything a go and recently I’ve learnt to never limit myself.
Where do you see yourself going in the future?
I want to be the Samoan version of Cliff Curtis
What’s your big idea for 2012?
My big idea is to keep doing what I’m doing and audition for as many things as possible.
Further information:
Founded 20 years ago by Artistic Director Sam Scott, Massive Theatre Company make work by commissioning leading writers to work with the company or by devising and developing new work from the hearts and minds of the company.
Massive Company’s workshop programme comprises of free school holiday workshops for new participants, held in Central and South Auckland, and also the Ensemble workshops, advanced level workshops aimed at participants who have already experienced a Massive Company workshop.
Beulah ran his first workshop for new emerging artists in Whangarei at Creative Northland in July, alongside experienced workshop tutor and more senior company member, Scott Cotter.
