97/16 - Prince George's Weekly News

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Burlesque

Foxxie Follies comes to the Playhouse

Para Nordic Worlds Prince George’s Otway Nordic Centre is ready to host the championship that sees athletes from 20 countries compete from Feb. 15 to 24.

Thursday, february 14, 2019

Prince George’s weekly news

Transformation of Heather Rose frank peebles 97/16 staff

The Occupation of Heather Rose became the occupation of Jennifier Cundy-Scott. This play, a seminal work by Canadian playwright star Nancy Lill, was the first production ever done by upstart professional drama company Theatre Northwest (TNW) in Prince George. The year was 1994 and Cundy-Scott (she was Cundy-Ma back then) was the first actor ever employed by TNW. She was also as young, naive and ego-informed as the character. Heather Rose was a newly minted nurse set to take on the injustices and maladies of the world and Cundy-Scott was fresh from her graduation at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in Los Angeles. She couldn’t believe that her first professional gig would be back in her hometown. A lot has happened in the 25 years since she stood on stage as the first TNW actor in the first TNW play. When she saw that Theatre Northwest was remounting the show for its silver anniversary season, she was vortexed back to those halcyon years and took a long look at all the flashbacks along the way. The most noticeable image is an irony at which Cundy-Scott herself marvels. She did not pursue acting, after her TNW triumph. Instead, she became – can you believe it? – a nurse. Her performance and her character’s traits played a direct role in this choice. “I’ve done a complete life change,” Cundy-Scott told The Citizen. “At the time my two girls were just babies. Now they are 27 and 25, which is unbelievable to me. I remember with the travelling

that it was quite hard to be apart from them and I remember thinking to myself ‘hmmm, I don’t know if this lifestyle is sustainable.’ I decided I wanted to focus more on my family life, concentrate on the kids.” Life had several stages for Cundy-Scott, with several twists in the plot. Her first marriage ended; another one blossomed. She moved to the States and, as a dual citizen of Canada and the U.S., was able to live 18 years in Washington and Hawaii. It was while living in Las Vegas that she was finally accredited as a nurse. “You’re never too young or too old to start anything,” she said. “I always had a passion for nursing. I had an elementary school teacher tell me once that I should be a nurse, but I had the acting bug. I wanted to do that first. As I was performing the play, I remember thinking that this role, the profession of the character, was somehow a part of me. I believe it’s a calling. You don’t become a nurse, you are a nurse inside of yourself. Definitely the play put it back in my head that I should pursue that as my true profession. And what I loved about the plot of that story is this nurse, Heather Rose, was so excited to get out and make a change in the world, but there was this immaturity at the core of her being. I was about 23 at that time, so I had some of that, too, and I think most young people have that, at least a little bit. She was thinking she could walk into a diverse culture, another world, and tell those people how they could live their lives. Now, as a nurse for real, I am faced with this quite a lot – people who choose to live their life a certain way I don’t understand – and it is not my job to tell them how best to live their life. It’s my job to help them live their lives as they feel is best for them. Heather Rose wasn’t very culturally com-

97/16 file photo

Jennifier Cundy poses for a photograph for The Citizen in 1989 before leaving Prince George to pursue an acting career in Los Angeles. petent, is how I would describe her, and we learn that in our nurses’ training to be respectful of differences in cultures and in belief systems and we have no magic wand, we are there to help people but not change people.”

One can only change one’s self, as Cundy-Scott demonstrated when she shifted gears from the stage to the operating room. Continued on page 2


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