Sault native living dream of being an actor, producing own show

When she was a child, the Sault’s Alexandria McCauley appeared onstage in a local production of Oliver! 

“Even though I was six years old I absolutely loved being on stage and acting,” she recalled fondly, speaking to SooToday.

Now, the 20-year-old McCauley has already studied drama at two prestigious international schools and has written, directed and acted in her own audio podcast, entitled The Wanderer's Guide to Narrow Pines, to be featured in Fringe North 2021.

All performances in Fringe North 2021, which runs from August 19 to 22, will be livestreamed on YouTube and Zoom as a COVID-19 safety precaution.  

The Wanderer's Guide to Narrow Pines, which features McCauley’s voice along with those of nine other actors and the music of two composers, is what she describes as a fictional, supernatural mystery story.

“Basically it is three college students, Catherine, Russell and Crosby, who decide to go and spend their summer in this small town of Narrow Pines, Ontario, a fictional place. They start to find all these strange occurrences and mysterious things that happen in the town, and by the discovery of this strange, mystical book they start to unravel what Narrow Pines is, and what lies beneath the surface.”

Fringe North 2021 will feature what McCauley says will be the pilot episode in a series of The Wanderer's Guide to Narrow Pines podcasts.

“I’ve just started creating it, forming the basis for it and now with some supporters behind it, this is to kind of test the waters of what the show may be and what audience’s reactions to the show may be. It’s still in development.”

“I’ve had some experience with podcasting,” McCauley said, having already made a podcast with friends entitled Dorks In Distress.

“That's been running for an entire season now, rated number four in Canadian comedy podcasts.”

Whereas Dorks is an improvisational podcast, she also participated in The Drowning Girls, a scripted staged play which tells the story of three women who have some grisly things in common.

The Drowning Girls was performed at the 2017 Fringe North Festival.

Gaining that confidence with audio, McCauley said “I fell in love with the format, so I started listening to a lot of podcasts and old radio dramas. One of my courses is ‘radio dramas,’ so we learned how to do audiobooks as actors and how to perform in a radio show. I really love that format.”

“When it came to COVID and trying to find different ways for myself to produce art, not only for others but also for myself, I thought that audio dramas would be a great way of connecting with and using so many artists from around the world.”

And so The Wanderer's Guide to Narrow Pines came into being.

“All they (McCauley’s fellow actors) had to do was sit in their home studio, record from their microphone and send me the audio.”

From there, McCauley used her skills and edited the podcast together.

In earlier years, McCauley appeared in Sault community theatre productions as well as attending acting camps in Toronto and Interlochen, Michigan.

At 14 she began to combine her high school and acting experiences at the prestigious Interlochen Arts Academy near Traverse City, Michigan.

“It’s a boarding high school. So basically at the age of 14, I was living on my own in the woods, acting,” she chuckled.

After graduating from Interlochen, McCauley began studying at The Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama in Cardiff, Wales.

She’s currently visiting friends and family in the Sault for the summer, ready to return to Wales for her third (and final) year of study in the fall.

“I got into musical theatre first, then through Joe Lauzon in the Sault I got into what you deem as straight, regular acting,” McCauley said.

From there she met actor/Sault native Jack Wetherall, known for his success on the stage in Stratford in many Shakespearean plays, as well as playing the title role in The Elephant Man on Broadway.

“He’s my mentor. He got me into Shakespeare, and my last show here in the Sault was Hello, Dolly! directed by Timothy Murphy. He was also a big inspiration to me, to go off and pursue a career and take my dreams further with acting,” McAuley said.

“It was very overwhelming (at Interlochen). At 14 years of age you have a certain level of thinking ‘I’m going to be independent’ and you have that kind of rebellious nature, but I think I learned very quickly ‘I need to really learn what true independence is.’ I think it was a great lesson to learn at such a young age.”

“It was overwhelming being the only Canadian in a company of 80 actors, mostly American but also from all over the world. I have friends from Russia, Thailand, China, Japan, just from Interlochen. It was amazing. I think through Interlochen I appreciated culture a lot more and different types of theatre different cultures offer.”

After the multicultural experience at Interlochen, McCauley followed through on a desire to study in the United Kingdom, successfully applying to The Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama.

“Even from a young age, I really wanted to live in London and experience the U.K. I got into quite a few U.K. schools but Royal Welsh really spoke to me because of their ideology of ‘we don’t create actors, we create artists.’”

“To me, acting is storytelling. Stories are what drive us as humans. History is stories, family memories are stories, and I think as an actor, I should be able to make a connection and deliver stories that are meaningful, truthful, honest or create a feeling, whether that’s sadness, humour, happiness, anger, frustration, and make you want to go out into the world and make a change and do something different.”

“I think that’s what acting is,” said McAuley, who runs her own production company known as Alazz Entertainment.

After graduation from Royal Welsh, what are McAuley’s plans?

“I’ll take whatever project is offered to me. I’m definitely an artist who will take anything that is given to me and run with it wholeheartedly. Whether it’s audio dramas, stage, television, film, I’ll run with it and make it my passion project.”

Meanwhile, McCauley will watch her podcast and the work of her fellow artists during Fringe North, the actor grateful to be in her hometown with family until she heads back to Wales.

“I’m very lucky to be home for the summer. I haven’t been home in over a year because of COVID (travel restrictions) and I was able to make it here for three weeks. I’m very fortunate,” she said.

Apart from being held virtually, there will be some chances for Fringe North 2021 fans to get together and view the festival at ‘Watch Party Hubs’ at various locations around town, including the Sault Ste. Marie Museum.

For information on those locations and Fringe North in general, visit the festival’s website.