Jack David Collard - Humans of NYT REP Interview

Jack David Collard - Humans of NYT REP Interview

I’ve been performing on some type of stage since I was 10. There hasn’t been a year of my life since then that I haven’t been pursuing something creative. I grew up in Bridgwater, Somerset, which has a massive theatre community, specifically musical theatre. I remember my Mum taking me to watch Oliver at the Town Hall, and I think that was the moment I caught the bug. I remember going to my first session at a local youth musical theatre group. I started crying halfway through and went outside. My Mum was there, and she sat me down and encouraged me to stick with it. Going back into that room was probably the best decision I ever made. I remember doing my first show, Bugsy Malone. I remember playing Timon in The Lion King and how exciting it was hearing an audience laugh and respond to what was happening onstage. I feel the most comfortable, confident, and energised on a stage in front of an audience, and that was a huge discovery for me. Being in that kind of space every week enabled me to find my voice and a sense of community.

"Acting enables me to inhabit someone completely different, and at the same time, to tap into parts of myself that I don’t get to explore in my everyday life."

The roles I’ve relished the most have been characters the furthest away from myself. I’ve ended up with a track record of playing antagonists, or weirdos, or people who specifically get blood on their hands. Hopefully this doesn’t reflect on me as a person, but it speaks to how acting enables me to inhabit someone completely different, and at the same time, to tap into parts of myself that I don’t get to explore in my everyday life. I did my first full-on play in 2021 - a production of The Crucible at my local arts centre - where I was cast as ‘Reverend Parris’. You could say it was a challenge to play a middle-aged preacher, but it was the first time I’d encountered writing as layered and charged as Arthur Miller’s, and the first opportunity I’d had to do deep character work. I tried to understand where this pretty awful man was coming from, tracing his fall from grace, thinking about how I could embody his descent into paranoia. I was definitely too young for the role, but I took it very seriously! This first time of really working through someone’s psyche has shaped me and my process.

I studied English Literature at University of Birmingham, which meant moving to a city for the first time. I hadn't even heard of NYT until I got to Birmingham! My friend made me audition, so I balanced my phone on a pile of books, recorded a tape, sent it in, and here I am. I incorporated theatre into my dissertation, which focused on ‘The Crisis in Masculinity and the Absurd in British Theatre’. The process of writing those 10,000 words taught me a lot about investigating and interrogating the world of a play; how every decision, line of dialogue, every image on stage is deliberate. I also got to play a character called ‘Baby’ in a student production of Jez Butterworth’s Mojo. The character was, essentially, a psychopath. I got to be an agent of chaos and speak Jez Butterworth’s amazing dialogue, and I was given the license to really play around. Having the opportunity to play in that absurd sandbox, and to play someone so far from myself - so cruel and broken and funny and unpredictable - solidified the kinds of characters and stories that I’m drawn to.

"Getting into REP has been the most significant moment in my career so far. It’s been the start of my career, really, and me fully committing to myself as an artist."

Getting into REP has been the most significant moment in my career so far. It’s been the start of my career, really, and me fully committing to myself as an artist. Starting REP was the moment I fully gave myself permission to commit to and develop this side of myself. This also meant taking the plunge and moving to London. I’ve discovered a real sense of a creative community here, not just in REP, and I’ve never seen so much theatre in my life. Getting to experience a three week run of Dracula was also a huge learning curve. It was the most technically demanding show I’ve ever done, but having a part in originating Tatty Hennessy’s new adaptation, from a week of devising and R&D all the way up to the final show, was such a rewarding process.

It’s always been theatre; stages, being in front of an audience, telling and watching stories. It’s always been *the* thing. It’s been a constant in my life so far, and it’s underpinned my development as a person. I think back to my youth theatre a lot; how performing and creating encourages you to tune into your younger self, to commit to imagination and playfulness, to remember how FUN it is to play pretend, and how communities can be built. REP offers the time and space to reconnect to all of those feelings, and it is giving me the tools to plant myself more firmly as an artist. Being able to experience this journey alongside everyone else in REP, and to watch and learn from them and their journeys, is something I am very thankful for.