Halifax filmmaker’s ‘Stage Mother’ keeps Nova Scotian sensibility

Despite the San Francisco setting, local filmmaker Thom Fitzgerald’s Stage Mother remained a deeply Nova Scotian affair.

Shot in Halifax – with Gottingen St’s famed Bus Stop Theatre serving as the outside façade of the film’s drag bar, Pandora’s Box – and featuring local drag performers, many local cast members and a stellar film crew, the glitz still very much feels like home.

Chief among the reasons is local drag performer Elle Noir – credited as Chris Cochrane – was chief makeup artist for the film, and even snagged an onscreen role herself.

“It all just seems a bit surreal,” she says to HalifaxToday.ca, just 24 hours from the only Canadian theatrical showing within Cineplex Park Lane’s theatre in downtown Halifax.

Friday’s tickets – due to demand and socially distanced seating – sold out within minutes, leaving the theatre chain to add three more 7 p.m. screenings for the upcoming week.

“It was pretty amazing to be in front of and behind the camera. (Producer) Doug Pettigrew and Thom always do this,” jokes Cochrane. “I knew I’d end up doing double duty for this character that hadn’t been cast.”

Something similar happened to Cochrane on the set of Fitzgerald’s series Sex & Violence, but that experience threw her for more of a loop.

“I shared scenes with Olympia Dukakis, and nobody told me. I was like, ‘You’re putting me onscreen with Cher’s mother?’” says Cochrane, referring to Dukakis’ role as the matriarch in Cher’s classic Moonstruck.

“I had to show up and tell this woman off as part of the role. It was one of the scariest things.”

In Stage Mother, she shares the screen with Jacki Weaver, a woman Cochrane has looked up to since Weaver’s role in the stage version of queer phenomenon The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert.

“She’s just incredible, and it was so amazing to work with her,” said Cochrane of the two-time Oscar nominee.

But she found herself hugely starstruck when she met fierce drag performer Jackie Beat.

“She’s just a legend, and it was just so amazing to be around her. I couldn’t even believe it,” she said. “One day we went out, we went to Smitty’s, and then got mani-pedis together, and it was such an amazing experience.”

Finally, Stage Mother was also the setting for a reunion between Cochrane and her own drag daughter, in film co-star Allister MacDonald.

“It was just so amazing to be reconnected,” she said of MacDonald, who was doing Shakespeare for one production while shooting Stage Mother. “I would shove him in drag during the day, and then de-glitter and de-drag him before I sent him off for Shakespeare.”

MacDonald – who plays drag queen Joan of Arkansas in the film – says seeing Cochrane was incredible.

“This was such a labour of love, and seeing her put so much into this was amazing. I love her so much. We lived together, and there was a point in my life where I saw Elle Noir every day,” he said.

“It’s emotional to look back on. It brought back a lot of memories in terms of that time in my life. There’s no better role model.”

He remembers sneaking into gay bar Menz & Mollyz when he was underage, and seeing Elle Noir perform.

“She was the definition of ferocity. It was intimidating, but one day she just came up to me and my best friend. We were 19, and she said ‘I want to put you in face’, and our lives changed,” he said.

“She was a wonderful make-up artist on this set, and she absolutely killed it acting too.”

MacDonald remembers his time at Ryerson Theatre School as a student older than his peers, standing six foot and capable of growing a full beard.

“Much of our training as queer people was learning to play it straight. So coming out of theatre school, meeting (director) Thom Fitzgerald and getting to take queer roles was incredible,” he said.

With Fitzgerald’s projects, the young actor has been able to collaborate four times, including this most recent iteration. He worked on TV shows Forgive Me and Sex & Violence, and also had a minor role in Fitzgerald’s lauded 2018 feature Splinters.

“Doing Stage Mother has just been the cherry on top. I get to show this beautiful, human side to my character Joan, and also let it rip on stage in a way only a drag queen can. It’s so liberating.”

The role came with certain anxieties for MacDonald, who hadn’t done drag in a bar setting for nearly a decade prior.

“It was pretty wild. The first day in drag, Thom just said, ‘Learn it. Come in. Do it.’ And I realized this performance was on me,” he said.

The original performance features a scandalous Joan singing – ironically – Joan Jett’s Do You Wanna Touch Me.

“I was trying to figure out what Joan would be doing, and given the song, I figured it was pretty simple. I unleashed and did this in a way I haven’t done it in a really long time.”

The Toronto resident is originally from Cape Breton. He praised Fitzgerald for his commitment to hiring local talent to work among Hollywood stars Weaver, Lucy Liu and Adrian Grenier.

“He and I had talked about the movie a few months prior to casting, and he sent me the script. I knew I needed to have this role. After he cast me, I got to do my thing,” he said.

“It was so liberating and intimidating, but Thom let me go toe-to-toe with a two-time Oscar nominee in Jacki Weaver, and I’m so blessed for that.”

Director Fitzgerald called Stage Mother a film that benefited so much from the local drag community. Glimpses of Cynthia Stilts, Deva Station, and even musician Kadence Ellis bring a familiarity to this affair.

“This Halifax queer community and drag community is at the heart of this crew. Our key make-up is done by Chris Cochrane, a local legend. Having drag artists from here involved in the aesthetic was so important,” he said.

“I’m so happy with this film, and I loved working with everybody. I hope Jacki Weaver marshalls many a Pride parade, and I hope Allister sings and acts his way through many a movie, because he has a star-making performance here. I really hope people enjoy this sweet trifle of a film in sour times.”

For information about tickets, please visit here.

Author Jordan Parker's review of Stage Mother is available here. Check out his Netflix column at HalifaxToday.ca every Friday.