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Posted May 22, 2025

The Interview – Herbie Barnes

Herbie Barnes

An Anishinaabe theatre artist from Aundeck Omni Kaning First Nation on Manitoulin Island, Herbie Barnes is an accomplished playwright, performer, director and arts educator whose 30-year-career spans stages across North America. Herbie was raised in Toronto and was among the generation of young Indigenous artists in the 1990s breaking down barriers to forge professional careers in Canadian theatre. His theatre career began in 1989 with Debajehmujig Theatre Group, touring Ontario with the first run of Drew Hayden Taylor’s Toronto at Dreamer’s Rock. Since then he has collaborated with some of North America’s most prestigious artists–whether appearing in productions such as Dry Lips Oughta Move to Kapuskasing (Mirvish Productions) or collaborating with the Stratford Festival on development workshops. He was nominated for a John Hirsch Director’s Award and his play, Bentboy, was shortlisted for the Sharon Enkin Plays for Young People Award in 2020.

Herbie, the first thing that I want to talk about is your play, Bentboy, which we published last year. How did you come to write the play?

Well, I was doing a production of The Hobbit. I was playing Bilbo Baggins. And while it’s called “The Hobbit” and Bilbo Baggins is the only hobbit in the in the room, every time we did that production, Gollum would steal the show.

Gollum in the book is four pages long. That’s it! It’s a very small moment, but everybody loved Gollum. Great character, wonderful character. And my roommate at the time happened to be Mr. Paul Lee, who was Opa on Kim’s Convenience, and he’s now doing Star Wars; he’s now a hotshot in film and TV. He said, “Somebody should write Gollum’s story. Somebody should write a play about Gollum.” And I said, “Oh, well, there’s a challenge. I’ll take it up.” And I started writing it. Being First Nations, I said, “All right. What if it’s a First Nations character?” And so I wrote Bentboy as a First Nations character, and as it developed, it became about how Bentboy was being ostracized from his community. And I thought, “What if he was positive, and being positive?” You get to see that tumble down. And that’s where that all came from.

There have been a number of workshops and productions that have gone on, including the one at Young People’s Theatre, and the young people really love it because it’s the story of an underdog. I think everybody feels like they’re a little bit “bent” in some way. Everybody feels like there’s something wrong with them, and they all feel like they’re the outsider, you know? I’m a lover of the Beatles. When the Beatles were splitting up, Ringo quit first, and Ringo went around to the houses of the other Beatles; he went to George’s house first and said, “I’m quitting the band because you guys all seem like you’re having fun and I’m the outsider.” And George said, “You’re the outsider? I thought I was the outsider.” Then Ringo went over to John’s house and said, “Just letting you know I’m quitting the band because you guys seem to be having so much fun, and I feel like I’m on the outside,” John went, “You? You’re on the outside? I thought I was on the outside!” So that’s a feeling that we all have sometimes.

I’m going to backtrack a little bit now, Herbie, and ask you about how you came to pursue theatre as a career.

I’ll tell you a little story. I always wanted to be an actor. I played high-level baseball as a kid, and I wanted to make it to the majors. I didn’t, but I wanted to, and I thought that that would be my way to get into movies. I could become a Major League baseball player and then simply start doing movies. That’s how easy it was in those days, or so I thought. But in grade four, the high school drama kids came over to my public school; they were doing a children’s theatre presentation, an anti-smoking thing (or something like that) that they had written. They did the scene, and then they got the kids in the audience up to do it, and I got up to do it. And the teacher came over and she said, “I want to teach you. Come to my school.” That teacher was [arts journalist] Paula Citron, who was teaching at CW Jeffries in North York at that time. And so that was my goal. I thought, “Now I know where I’m supposed to be going.”

And I did go to that high school. Paula had already left, but I had a wonderful teacher there, Priscilla Costello. There was a group of us that were doing the high school improv course, and she said, “You guys are funny. There are free classes on Tuesday nights at Harbourfront for this thing called Theatresports; you should go.” Twelve of us went down the first week. The second week, three of us went down. The third week I went down by myself, and I kept going down. I took the class just to have something on my résumé, but then I thought I’d better go down and see the show—because I hadn’t seen the Theatresports show; I’d just taken the workshops. I went to see the show, and there was a troupe on stage called “Doctor Jekyll and Naugahyde,” and it was Paul de la Rosa, Neil Crone, Maggie Matulic, Paul Anthony, and Moira Dunphy. And they were so good. I thought, “Why aren’t these people famous? And if they’re not famous and they’re that much better than me, I have to work a lot more to get good!” So while I was in high school—I was in grade nine, grade ten—I started focusing on improv. I took Richard Pochinko’s clown classes; I was doing David Smukler’s voice classes. I was studying Michael Connolly’s voice stuff and doing mime classes with Paul Gaulin. I was doing Sears and Switzer classes. I was leaving school at 4:00 and rushing downtown, and I was taking classes from all of these fantastic teachers. I finished four years’ worth of high school theatre credits in two years. The teacher came to me and said, “Look, you know more about this stuff than we do. You teach the course.” So I started teaching in my high school during my last year of high school. Then that same teacher, Paula Citron, came to me one day and said, “Look, there’s a show that I want to take you to. I want you to see it, and I’ll buy the tickets, but you have to see this show.” She took me down to Passe Muraille, and I was sitting up in the balcony. And on that stage, I knew all of the characters. I thought, “Those are all my uncles!” And that play was Tomson Highway’s Dry Lips Oughta Move to Kapuskasing.

I saw that the actors had all worked at De-ba-jeh-mu-jig Theatre on Manitoulin Island, where I’m from. And so I thought, “I’m dropping off my résumé at this De-ba-jeh-mu-jig Theatre to see if I can’t get work.” I dropped off the résumé, and a guy took the résumé and said, “Thank you very much.” About a month and a half later, I got a phone call. My mom came up to the local hangout and said, “There’s this guy who’s offered you a job.” And I went, “Nah, they don’t do that. He wants me to audition.” “No, no, no, it’s an acting job. He’s offering it to you. He said you can have it if you want it.” And I said, “No, no, no, no, Ma, he’s not offering me. I need to audition.” She said, “Whatever. Phone him.” So I went home and I phoned the guy and he said, “Yeah, the role is this, and you’re going to tour; the pay is this. Do you want the gig?” And I said, “Well, I’m just finishing off my last year of high school. I’ve got to think about it.” He said, “Okay, well, get back to me as soon as you can.” And I went, “Okay, I’ll do it.” And that was Toronto at Dreamers Rock by Drew Hayden Taylor.

The guy who had taken my résumé was Larry Lewis, who became my mentor. He had dramaturged and directed Dry Lips Oughta Move to Kapuskasing and The Rez Sisters. He was my and Drew’s mentor for the first few years. I toured Toronto at Dreamer’s Rock for a good chunk of time. Then we moved it to Toronto and Tomson Highway saw the show there. He came over to me and he asked, “Can you cartwheel?” And I went, “Yeah, I can.” He said, “Okay, I’ve got a part for you.” And so he hired me to do another show. I was always planning on going back to high school, but from that show, I got nine offers and an agent!

So that was the start of it. And I’ve just been really lucky and successful ever since.

Herbie, you’re currently the Artistic Director of Toronto’s Young People’s Theatre, one of the best children’s theatres in the world. Can you tell us about a highlight or two from your tenure there?

There have been so many highlights! I’ve been so lucky to have my two partners, [former YPT General Manager] Nancy Webster and Camila Holland [current YPT General Manager]. They’re two amazing people who have allowed me to do what I do and not have to worry about the rest. I never thought I would be an artistic director, and I don’t think I wanted to until this position came up.

The highlights, I think, would include directing Russell’s World, which is another one of my plays. It was during the pandemic and that went out across the world. Another big highlight was having Chris Hadfield in the theatre when we were doing the play based on his children’s book, The Darkest Dark. Chris came in and did some Q&As in the theatre with me and it was real fun. During the first one I could hardly believe it—I’ve got Chris Hadfield, Canada’s one of Canada’s biggest heroes, an astronaut, onstage with me! So I looked at the audience out there and I said, “Okay, if there are any questions, let’s have them.” And a little hand goes up, and a little voice says, “What’s it like in space?” And I said, “Is that question for me or is that for Chris?” And everybody laughed and Chris got on board. We’re having all this fun; we’re answering questions; it’s going back and forth. At one point Chris shows a young girl what it’s like to be in space by lifting her up and floating her around. Later I’m answering a question about developing the show, and Chris is in the back wearing a space helmet! Finally I say, “We’ve got time for one more question,” and somebody puts a hand up and says, “How did you build the set?” And Chris picks up on it and goes, “Is that question for me or is it for Herbie?” And everybody laughed again. And so that’s been a really lovely thing, creating relationships with people that I hadn’t connected with before and getting to work with people who I’ve always wanted to work with.

Before we go, I wanted to ask you about a special event you just performed at, the fundraiser for Gilda’s Club.

As you know, Gilda Radner passed away many years ago from cancer, and Gilda’s Club was founded in her memory. [Gilda’s Club in Toronto provides free support to cancer patients and their families.] I’m a member of the Monkey Toast players, a collective of some of the best improvisers in the country with a long history. We do a type of talk show/improv performance. Colin Mochrie was our first guest. (By the way, if there were a Canadian award for Nicest Guy, Colin Mochrie would get that award pretty easily every year.) Our host, David Shore, talked to Colin about his life and what he is doing, and then the rest of us made scenes based on his stories—not re-enacting the stories, but using them as a jumping-off place. The second guest was Mike Myers (of Austin Powers, Shrek, SNL fame,) and we improvised using his stories, too, with Colin joining us. The show was fantastic and both guests were classy and interesting. I love doing these shows because first, I get to improvise with amazing performers, and second, I learn so much about the guests! We’ve also interviewed people like Jack Layton, John Tory, Elizabeth Manley, Donovan Bailey, and Fred Penner.