Theatre Gargantua, founded by Jacquie Thomas back in 1992, has grown into one of Canada’s leading multi-disciplinary theatre companies. Thomas is still on board as the artistic director, and her husband Michael Gordon Spence is the associate artistic director. The pair are gearing up for their first show of the season, The Wager, which opens on Nov. 15. We caught up with Jacquie and Michael to get the details on how the theatre brought them together.
How they met
Jacquie: Michael auditioned for me at my new theatre company (Theatre Gargantua) in 1994. Fortunately he was cast in the premiere of Theatre Gargantua’s first work called The Trials – Fortune’s Desire. We fell in love over the course of that project but we kept it professional until after the show closed.
The first date
Jacquie: Our first date was an elaborate home cooked meal prepared by Michael. It was like watching a cooking show as everything was prepped including spices, which were pre-measured and laid out in tiny dipping sauce dishes, and two sugar-rimmed, kerchief prepped snifters for a fancy/boozy blueberry tea (Earl Grey tea, Grand Marnier and amaretto) to end the meal. It was impressive!
Michael: Jacquie was expecting pasta. Apparently this is a first-meal trope (read – inside joke) that women always get a spaghetti dinner when the man cooks for the first time. Didn’t realize I was bucking a trend when I prepared chicken parmesan. I honestly didn’t know what I was doing and followed cookbook instructions (pre-Internet) to a T to make it happen. She liked it.
Memorable moments
Michael: Our first vacation together was to Costa Rica where we slept in a treehouse in the mountains, in a tent on the Pacific coast in Corcovado National Park, and made up an elaborate opera while avoiding potholes in our rented Suzuki jeep. Making up funny characters on a canoe trip on the Musquash River where Jacquie demonstrated just how much the mosquitoes preferred her Mediterranean blood. And of course, the shows we made together were incredibly memorable. The intense experience of creating together inevitably brought us closer to each other.
The proposal
Jacquie: On the closing night of a show called Love Not Love, written by Michael, backstage in the final moments before the curtain call, Michael leaned over, kissed me and said, “You wanna marry me?” To which I replied, “You’re a dummy,” then kissed him back. Curtain call came and we bowed and then had to rush to get out of our costumes and strike the set. Halfway through the strike Michael asked, “Was that a yes?” It was a yes.
The wedding and honeymoon
Michael: We were married in Toronto in July 2000. A little bit like the movie My Big Fat Greek Wedding (Jacquie is Greek) there were 300 Greek guests, and about 30 Irish. Jacquie wore a beautiful medieval-style dress and I wore an Irish kilt. It was a terrific party. Our honeymoon was in Bali, which was magical. We loved the traditions and the food and the people. We took surfing lessons and brought home some art and instruments that still decorate our house.
The kids
Jacquie: We have two beautiful, creative and intelligent daughters named Zoe and Meghan aged 15 and 17. Growing up as the kids of working artists has been a bit of a trip for them; one that they claim gives them an interesting perspective on the world. Neither of them wants to be artists, by the way. They’ve been fairly independent from young ages because, working together in the theatre, we both get extremely busy at exactly the same time. When production time comes, the kids are taking care of everything while we take care of the show.
Balancing careers and marriage
Michael: We have been working together since we first met. Our shared passion for the work we do has been a defining part of our relationship. Being partners in everything, supporting and respecting each other’s choices and journeys, these are part of that balance. We are just incredibly fortunate that we found each other in the way we did.
Shared hobbies
Michael: Many. We like to travel and sail, and we sing and make music. A lot of our shared interests are industry related; we see a lot of theatre together, though a lot less than we did before we had kids. Of course, once you have kids, a lot of your interests are centred around the family. We decided to learn to sail together, and 10 years ago bought a sailboat. Now the whole family is a bunch of sailors, with the girls attending sailing camp for the past eight years.
The home
Jacquie: We lived for years in the Dufferin Grove area. Dufferin Grove Park is where the girls grew up. We loved it there and were very sad to leave it when we did, but for the past five years we’ve lived in Roncesvalles/High Park and we love it. We promised the girls that when we moved we would get a dog, and Pippin has become a huge part of our lives. She’s a Wheaten/Aussie Shepherd mix, with an irrepressible enthusiasm for all things. She’s become known among theatre people, who we sometimes call on for dog-sitting.
Life after retirement
Michael: There are boats involved.
Theatre Gargantua’s The Wager is on from Nov. 15 to 30 at Theatre Passe Muraille Mainspace.
