With a career spanning more than 35 years, including touring theatre productions and voice acting work, working at home in Victoria is an exciting opportunity for actress Tracey Moore.
This is the first time in more than 10 years that Moore has worked in the city she calls home.
“I get up in the morning and walk to work,” she said with a smile. “There are no ferries, planes, long car rides. I couldn’t be more thrilled.”
Moore is part of the upcoming production at the Belfry Theatre, Helen’s Necklace, but she is no stranger to the Belfry stage.
Last year, Moore took the stage as part of Home is a Beautiful Word, and she is happy to be back on stage in Fernwood.
“There is so much to like about it,” she said. “It’s easy to be creative because when there is stress, you have to work around the stress to be able to pull things to use for your work. So when everyone gets along – like they do at the Belfry – you can really just get down to work.”
Helen’s Necklace takes place in a Middle Eastern city where, Helen, a Canadian, tries to retrace her steps in the hopes of finding a lost necklace. Throughout the story, Helen is brought face to face with the realities of a war-torn city and the many impacts of loss.
With characters like Sailor Moon, Share Bear from the Care Bears and Anne from Anne of Green Gables as part of her past works, Moore has found more to connect with in Helen.
“Helen, I would say, would not be foreign to a lot of women in Victoria,” she said. “She’s an interesting character in literature that we now see emerging.”
Moore said in the past female characters have typically been “maidens, mothers or crones,” but now roles like Helen portray a woman who stands on her own and experiences the world on her own terms.
Moore shares the stage with Lee Majdoub who plays Nabil.
While Moore hadn’t worked with the production’s director James Fagan Tait, she knew both Tait and the Belfry’s artistic director Michael Shamata from the early years of her career.
“(Shamata) is a long term friend and so is Tait,” she said. “We knew each other when we were all starting out in the east. We’d all crossed paths many times but we’ve never worked together. … Then Helen’s Necklace came up and Tait was going to direct it. I love (Tait), he’s brilliant and fun, so I jumped at the chance to come in and audition. It all worked out and I couldn’t be more thrilled.”
Helen’s Necklace runs until March 3 at the Belfry’s Studio A.
For tickets call the box office at 250-385-6815, visit 1291 Gladstone Ave., or buy online at belfry.bc.ca
