Taking the stage by storm

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Every week, I will be profiling an extraordinary human being who lives in our community. If you know someone who is doing something interesting with their life, I want to hear about it. Send me an email at [email protected].

Jeanine Spring has always danced liked no one was watching. She’s a free spirit. She’s quirky and charismatic. And she’s never really been afraid to try something new.

She is also big on community and people coming together. And that would explain a number of things: why she decided to have a big family, her love and appreciation for theatre and music and her long-time involvement in the Stisted Fall Fair.

At first she tells me I should write a story on her husband Bill, who, trust me, is just as cool as she is. She has a lot to do with the local community. I’m inspired to tell her story.

Spring comes from a musical background. Her father “had a big Irish tenor voice” and loved to sing. Her mother played the piano. As a family, they shared a love for musical theatre, too.

While everyone was playing the piano or singing, I wasn’t really into that as much. I loved to dance. My family was involved with musical theatre, and my part was dance. That got me so I wasn’t nervous being on stage and was really the start of my theatrical interest.

In high school, she played volleyball and was a cheerleader and “a normal kind of kid.” She went on to study English literature, drama and fine arts at Brock University. She spent six months in Mexico and even lived in a teepee on Vancouver Island.

It was when she was working at Sam the Record Man in the early 70s that she met Bill. They got married in 1975 and have been together ever since. They were living in Acton, ON when they had their first daughter. Three years later they moved to Huntsville and opened Cavalcade Colour Lab. A desire for country living made 200 acres on Etwell Road the perfect spot to settle down.

“We lived for five years with just a woodstove, a generator for our hydro and kerosene lanterns while we built our home,” says Spring. “It was hard but it was fun. It sounds crazy. I mean, it was really hard. I was phoning hydro every week so I was on a first name basis with the hydro lady. But eventually we got it.”

Spring had three more kids while they built their home. For the next 15 years she devoted her time to staying at home with them. Just as she and her husband had been brought up, they enriched their children’s lives with music. To this day, it is a regular occurrence for the family to jam together. Music runs deep and rich in the household. There’s a grand piano in their living room. There are a few guitars too, and an assortment of percussion instruments. Hundreds of old records are lined up in a shelf on the wall.

When she was 38, Spring’s life changed when she was diagnosed with cancer. She did rounds of chemotherapy and radiation. And it worked. Spring has been cancer-free for over 20 years.

It was a time of personal reflection for her

“I did a lot of work on myself. When you have an eruption like that in your life, everything stops. You dig deep into yourself. You go through some changes and start to examine where you are in your life. You start looking at mortality and what’s important. With any kind of interruption, I think people go through a huge shift. I started to realize I needed to look after myself.”

For her 50^th birthday, Bill bought her a flute. She had been wanting to learn how to play an instrument. She is a member of Utterson’s King Fisher Cottage Band and says she keeps going back to orchestra because it feeds her soul.

“And then I was approached about doing Jesus Christ Superstar and that was the start of me in theatre. It was the first play at the Algonquin Theatre. This got me back into what I really loved to do. I’ve always used theatre as a form of processing.”

Spring has done a lot more since being Mary the Mother in Jesus Christ Superstar. Four years ago, she and two other local ladies founded Tangerine Productions and directed proceeds from four shows to the mammography department at Huntsville District Memorial Hospital. She co-produced and had roles in in Nunsense 1 and 2, Steel Magnolias and Calendar Girls. She’s also played in the Seussical, Fiddler on the Roof, Music Man and One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. She was the lion in the Wizard of Oz and portrayed Miss Hannigan in the hit production of Annie. Her most recent theatre performance was this past April in Eve Ensler’s play The Good Body, directed by Huntsville’s own Catherine Cole.

“I’d like to think a good actor can capture the character and emit the emotion behind that character’s role to the audience so you’ve got them on their knees laughing or on their knees crying,” she says. “I always hope the emotion I portray on stage will be felt by the audience, whether it’s a comedy or drama. I want to be able to make the audience forget where they are and forget it’s a story, so it almost becomes a reality for them.”

Theatre is also good for the soul, says Spring. It’s important for people to experience emotion and release it ­-whether it’s laughter or tears.

“That button that theatre pushes to trigger emotion is what I love to do. I think it’s really healthy. I’m big on community and people coming together. If I was religious I would thrive at church. That’s probably why I love the concerts so much because it’s like having a community.”

The concerts Spring is referring to are held at her Etwell Road home. For the last three years, she and Bill have held the Etwell Concert Series, recruiting some of Canada’s finest musicians and bringing them to their property for a one-of-a-kind outdoor concert venue. The concerts run every Sunday throughout the summer months and, as the colder weather has set in, they have been taking place at the Huntsville Legion.

Spring is also president of the Stisted Fall Fair, something, she says, also pertains to her love for community.

“It’s everything I believe in: art, growing gardens, friendly competition, races for the little kids. It’s healthy, good fun. Theatre is kind of the same. It’s a community. You can forget your troubles. It gives people the opportunity to relate.”

She is currently enjoying her retirement as a family home visitor for the Simcoe-Muskoka District Health Unit, a job she had for over 13 years. She just went to Ireland in June with her sister to learn more about her family roots. She’s keen to see more of the world and travelling is definitely in her plans. She would also like to do one play a year to keep her happy.

“Right now, I’m content,” she says. “I have two grandkids. I love spending time with them. I’m looking forward to whatever adventures come my way. I’m enjoying what I have. I may jump back into the workforce but I have no big plans at this moment. I’m just happy spending time with my family.”