We were lucky to catch up with James Cougar Canfield recently and have shared our conversation below.

James, appreciate you joining us today. Can you talk to us about a project that’s meant a lot to you?

My company, Tier5 Theatre Company, started its journey as a bit of fluke. I was in grad school at East 15 Acting School in London, working towards my MFA in Acting. We had to write these 10 minute monologues for our thesis project. The monologues had to be inspired by a character in a play. I had just seen Wolf Hall on Broadway during my summer holiday, and decided to write my monologue about Henry VIII in the afterlife, reckoning with what he put his six wives through. After months of research, I finished the monologue, but felt like it just didn’t work- I didn’t care what Henry VIII had to say about any of this, I was more interested in what his wives had to say. So the monologue became a show. Henry VIII wakes up in purgatory and one by one each of his six wives confronts him and lets him know how much he sucked. I asked six of my actress friends from my grad school cohort to be a part of the show, I roped in my friend, Hilary Kelman (who went on to play Catherine of Aragon), to co-produce with me, and we decided, “let’s take this show to Edinburgh Festival Fringe!”

The show, Ladies in Waiting: The Judgement of Henry VIII, had legs and ended up selling out its run during the 2016 Edinburgh Festival Fringe. I think people really connected with getting to finally hear the perspective of these six women who had been regulated to a nursery rhyme (“Divorce, beheaded, died… etc”). Plus, it’s just fun to watch a trash monster like Henry get his comeuppance from six powerful, nuanced, and strong female characters. And that notion, that really became what Tier5 was all about- the opportunity to provide a new perspective on something well worn and well known. Allowing folks who had been previously shunned from the narrative to have their moment in the spotlight to tell their story. So, I decided to keep making art and keep Tier5 rolling.

Now in our eighth year of producing theatre, Tier5 has explored queer joy (The Christmas Carol: A Queer Fantasia, based on the Charles Dickens classic), the intersectionality of the race and sexuality (Julius: Harlem’s Caesar, inspired by Shakespeare’s political thriller), and gender identity and discovery (meg jo beth amy & louisa- an adaptation of Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women). Most recently, with the company, I produced and directed a queer version of Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream (I got to play Helenus, a gender bent Helena) . An audience member emailed me afterwards and said, “I never thought I could see myself in a Shakespeare play until this production.”

That’s why the company is so meaningful to me, and why our mission matters. As a queer person myself, I never felt like I could actually see myself in any of the media I consumed. So having a company that provides the opportunity to folks both like me and not like me to see themselves in narratives and stories.

Next year, in 2025, we’re producing a queer remix of Shakespeare’s Macbeth, and doing the world premiere of an adaptation of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz that I wrote- it’s the 125th anniversary of L. Frank Baum publishing the novel, so it felt apt. I was inspired by the fact that Dorothy is living with her Aunt Em and Uncle Henry, which means she must have lost her parents? So maybe the journey through Oz could be her dealing with her grief? Finding the brains, heart, and courage to face her loss. It’s happening in August in New York City and I think it’s going to be something special.

James, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

I have always loved theatre. I’m lucky to have parents who exposed me to so much theatre growing up, I’m very thankful for that and for them. My mom and dad always were taking my sister and I on trips, and seeing different shows. I give them a lot of credit for opening those doors. One of the shows- I remember seeing the national tour of The Wizard of Oz, with Mickey Rooney as The Wizard in the 90s, and have distinct memories of Dorothy’s house flying over the audience during the cyclone, and sort of knowing that I wanted to be a part of creating magic like that from then on. Obviously, the Wizard of Oz has stuck with me in more ways than one, but I really attribute it to kicking off my love for theatrics.

I went to this great elementary school in Michigan: Pine Tree Elementary, where they did this thing called the fourth grade opera. All the fourth graders had to have a part in creating a theatrical show from scratch- like we wrote it, designed it, acted in it: all of that. I was one of the playwrights for the show. But then one of the actors like moved to Idaho or something, and I got to act in the show. It’s giving ten-year-old Lin Manuel Miranda. :-D So here I am, getting to act and write and that was it- I never stopped from there. Also, why don’t all schools do something like that? What an amazing way to get kids excited about the arts??

I wrote my first ‘official’ play during my senior year of high school (sorry fourth grade opera, you just don’t count). I was living in Texas at the time, and they have this Playfest competition. A classmate from a few years before, her name’s Kris Carr, had won it, and I like admired her so much and wanted to follow in her footsteps, so I wrote a play too and entered it- and won! I wrote another play, and it was selected as a winner for this new playwright exchange at the fabulous Alley Theatre in Houston. And suddenly, I realized- oh, this is something I’m actually very good at. I remember my high school teachers not really liking either of the plays I wrote, but audiences ate them up. That kind of became my M.O., I’m going to write, create, produce art that brings my truth to the table. It may not necessarily be everyone’s cup of tea, but it’s my truth, and hopefully if I do it right, someone out there is going to connect with it.

I got my BA in Theatre at Saint Louis University in Missouri, and MFA in Acting at East 15 Acting School in London. I had a bit of a hard time with educational theatre. As a gay man, who leans a bit more on the femme side of things, these educational institutions kept trying to put me into roles that just didn’t make sense for me, but were perceived as the ‘right’ roles for me. I never felt like I was given an opportunity to really show what I was good at, because I was a square being put in a circle hole. There was all this disconnect, because I would keep being cast in professional productions outside of school, but in class it would feel like I was failing.

So teachers hated my plays, teachers hated my acting, but I kept being in professional shows and getting paid to do my art? I kept winning awards for my playwriting? My first big play, “Ladies in Waiting: The Judgement of Henry VIII” was a sold out smash at Edinburgh Festival Fringe, Hollywood Fringe (winner of the Best International Show Award at the 2017 festival!), and Capital Fringe in DC. I starred as Henry VIII in it, and got rave professional reviews. It went on to have its regional theatre premiere at Southwest Shakespeare Company (another sold out run, which they revived the following season), and be produced by various theatres throughout the US (and even Brazil!)

I’m not saying all of this to brag, what I’m getting at is: When I stopped listening to those voices that were telling me what they thought of me and what they thought I should do and where I belonged and allowed myself to just be me and do the things I wanted to do and bring my actual truth to the table- that’s how I found success. And that’s been what has spurred me on, I want to inspire people that no matter what anyone has said about them- you have to follow YOUR truth, no one else’s. That’s how you become successful, because your authentic, individual self is special and people want to see something special.

I gravitate towards acting roles, play ideas, and producing opportunities that provide space for artists like me, who have often felt sidelined by the established rules and expectations of how-we’ve-always-done-it, and allow those interesting, nuanced, beautiful, interesting, and unique voices to be heard!

What’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative in your experience?

Every piece of art I create, whether it be a play I wrote, or a show I directed, or a performance I gave: those are all deeply rooted in who I am and a part of my history is embedded into them.

So, when you have created something and an audience gets to connect with something- like truly connect with it- they’re connecting with a part of you. You are two people, ten people, hundred people connecting together over this piece of art- and wow, that’s really frickin’ fantastic. That human connection is what I find the most rewarding.

Earlier this year, I got the opportunity to produce my partner, M Hatten’s new play, Julius: Harlem’s Caesar, with Tier5. It set Shakespeare’s classic political thriller in the Harlem Renaissance, and it explored when it means to be Black and queer in a world that may not accept you for all that you are. The play was a sold out success. Working with him on it, something we both were so passionate about, and connecting in the deeply, human way with someone you are both romantically and artistically intertwined with, bringing that truth to audiences, creating something together- Yeah, that was rewarding.

A new theatre company, All Queer Shakespeare, in Phoenix, AZ, is producing my adaptation of Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol this December for the premiere production. My version, titled The Christmas Carol: A Queer Fantasia, is a celebration of queer joy and the holiday season- two of my favorite things. The play premiered Off-Off Broadway back in 2019, so to see if have a life beyond it’s premiere, to continue connecting with folks, and to continue to spread joy, hope, and inclusivity- Yeah, that’s really rewarding, too.

Can you tell us about a time you’ve had to pivot?

Oh gosh, the pandemic was such a scary time for theatre, wasn’t it? Suddenly, the source of my everything, theatre, was non-existent. And the doomsday-ers kept saying it was never coming back!

Before the pandemic, I had been hired by Flagstaff Shakespeare Festival to direct a production of Shakespeare’s As You Like It. I was so excited to create this beautiful, earthy, forest-y, living, Fleetwood Mac inspired production of the show- and then- boom. Everything stopped. Dawn Tucker, who is in charge of FlagShakes gave me a couple options: we postpone/cancel the show or we could try and do a piece of digital theatre. I asked her to give me a few days to think over the options. I knew immediately that I was not interested in doing a straight forward performance over Zoom. So many people were doing that, and I think it was a great way for people to express themselves during that time, but if I was directing a show, I needed it to have a reason for it to exist, not just to be people talking in boxes- but WHY are these people talking in boxes and not in the same room.

Like millions of others, the video game Animal Crossing became one of my comfort creatures. And as I was playing the game online, visiting my friends’ islands, I thought: What if we made As You Like It a multiplayer online RPG? And that these performers are video game players, playing a video version of As You Like It. We could have the actors in their own rooms, saying the lines, acting out the stories, while we had digital animation on the screen.

Dawn signed on to this crazy idea, I recruited my colleague, Nathan Leigh, to help create 16bit characters for the production, and all-around amazing artist, Sean Golightly, stepped into record and edit together the production. It turned out to be something really fantastic. I even had a scholastic article written about the production.

So, I didn’t get my Stevie Nicks themed production of As You Like it, but we pivoted into something even more exciting, creative, and entertaining.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://tier5theatrecompany.com
• Instagram: @james_cougar, @tier5theatrecompany
• Facebook: https://facebook.com/jamescougarcanfield
• Twitter: @james_cougar
• Other: TikTok: @james_cougar

Image Credits

Corbin Sorenson, Laura Durant, Nathan Leigh