Jennifer Geens
Northern News Services

Yellowknife (May 28/04) - After 20 years on and behind Yellowknife stages, Heather Ross is drawing the curtain on her amateur career. Ross says she's ready to go professional. "If it doesn't work, my life won't end," said Ross.

Heather Ross: intends to pursue a professional career on stage.

"I know I can get a job somewhere, not waiting tables. And if I do make it, when I'm at the Tonys I'll remember to thank all the little people who helped me along the way."

Ross' energy and her sense of humour have made her indispensable to Yellowknife's community theatre scene. She has acted, directed, stage managed or done makeup design on virtually every major production.

In the past few years she has appeared as Aunt Ellen in Oklahoma!, Eulalie McKechnie Shinn in The Music Man, and Mrs. Nerdiger in The Artificial Jungle, a plethora of "funny old lady" roles. But she doesn't mind.

"The funny old ladies have the best parts, the best jokes, and sometimes the best costumes."

She said that's one of the best things about acting, the chance to be somebody else for a while.

Ross has been active in Yellowknife's theatre community since she was a student taking drama classes at Sir John Franklin high school in the 1970s. She performed on the stage in the Sir John Franklin gym, on the site of what became the Northern Arts and Cultural Centre in 1984.

Part of the old gym floor can still be seen in the backstage area.

Ross left Yellowknife in 1980 to study at the University of Lethbridge.

She knew theatre life. Her mother was an actress in Winnipeg. Ross remembers being dragged to rehearsals as a child. She also knew acting wasn't a profitable career.

Initially her major at university was English. Then she switched to history. Finally in her second year she said to hell with it and switched to drama.

"I knew I was going to starve," said Ross.

After graduation she worked for a summer repertory company and made hardly enough money to survive on. That's why she decided to forgo a career in professional theatre for community productions.

"I like to eat," said Ross. "I like to wear nice clothes. I like to have a roof over my head. Now I've got all the clothes I need, and all the shoes. I've got more than enough shoes."

This past year Ross has been busy with Kids n' Sync drama classes and running the Yellowknife Actors' Studio with fellow Sir John Franklin graduate Christopher Foreman.

"We're going to miss her enormously," said Foreman.

"She went out and got her ticket, her degree, then she came back here and shared her skills. She's a classic example of how interest in community theatre should work."

Now, Ross will leave community theatre behind and take a stab at the big leagues.

She applied to University of Calgary and University of Alberta to do her master's degree. She made the shortlist for the Calgary program, but didn't make the final cut. They take only two applicants a year.

But she has had a play she's directing accepted to this summer's Edmonton Fringe Festival. The Night of the Tribades will premiere first at NACC on June 17, 18 and 19 before it goes to the Fringe Festival in August.