Interview

MITCHELL: Do you remember the first time that you were aware of each other?

NATE: Our orientation for UTM Sheridan, theatre drama studies program.

DEVON: I was wearing a jean jacket with a dress. Nate was part of the cool kids; he had dark eyeliner, earrings and long hair.

NATE: Emo hair. And Devon was like definitely, like, class president.

MITCHELL: So it was a real Montagues / Capulets situation.

NATE: It was a bit. We would sit at opposite sides of the classroom, but we had this running bit. We’d always be like: “Hiii, Devon”

DEVON: “Hiii, Nate.”

NATE: That went on for years.

MITCHELL: Nate, what was your first impression of Devon?

NATE: Oh, Devon was very cute. You were. You know, your little… your hair up on top, bobbing away. It was very adorable. And you were so talented. So beyond me. Because I was just like… I grew up in a small town playing sports so it was just a very different world, and Devon very much embodied that in the best way.

MITCHELL: Devon what was your first impression of Nate?

DEVON: He was, like, straight out of a My Chemical Romance music video. Nate was always, like, just, like, a little bit mysterious. He was always jumping and throwing himself into somersaults and really into stage combat. And of course, he had this lore that surrounded him – with his eye.

MITCHELL: Tell me about this lore.

DEVON: Yeah, so Nate has two different coloured eyes. One is this gorgeous deep black. You can kind of see when he turns to the side, there’s just… a little bit of an extra story happening there. And then the other eye is crystal Blue. And together they’re just beautiful. And Nate coming with his emo hair would often part the long part down over his eye. And then, to be dramatic, would flip it up. He’d be like, bahh!

NATE: I mean, when you’re 18, and you got shot in the eye with an arrow, and then walked home. You don’t keep that to yourself.

MITCHELL: The boy who lived.

DEVON: Exactly.

MITCHELL: What happened?

NATE: I was with a bunch of friends, we were out at this campfire fort situation that we had set up. A bunch of them went off to hunt frogs with this bow and arrow, because that’s what you do when you’re in a small town, and you’re 14. And then all of a sudden, next thing I know, there was just this noise, this, like “pffft” thing. And it was like, whoa, what is that? And my vision in my eye went all… black. And I reached up and was like, well, there’s something sticking out of my face. So yeah, I pulled it out, and… I walked home.

DEVON: Five surgeries—

NATE: Five surgeries and many years later, here we are.

MITCHELL: And can you describe what your vision is now?

NATE: So there’s no lens in my eye, nothing to focus light. So it’s just very, very blurry.
And then also very cloudy. I see double of everything. I see, like, a clearer version, and then a blurry version. If I try to, like, pour a bottle of wine into a glass, I basically have to have them touching. If it’s a near-far thing, it’s hard to line up.

MITCHELL: And yet you make such great cocktails.

NATE: Exactly. I just never know how much I’m gonna pour, and then that’s it.

MITCHELL: So, Devon, you meet this guy. Your Chemical Romance. How did you become closer?

DEVON: I just always thought that Nate was very cool. And, in the summer, when we were between our third and fourth years of school, there was suddenly this very profound shift, um, in my life, and I was seated in an ophthalmological chair. And… the frustration of the doctor in front of me. We’re in an office, and on the counter, there are just so many lights and crystals and tools and charts, and… he was really frustrated with me. I think because he wanted to help, but couldn’t figure me out.

And he looked at me and said, “Well this isn’t good. There’s something going on. You’re never going to… to see the way you did before. I think that you’re going to be blind… You are blind.”

And, um, I was just sitting there. And then I thought of Nate. And I looked at the doctor and said, “Well, I have a friend, actually. Who has their own experience with – like, he’s got an eye thing. And now I have an eye thing, and… I think I’m gonna be okay.”

I thought of Nate throughout that whole summer. How beautifully he moved and jumped. And the first thing I had in my mind when we were back in the Fall is that I had to thank him.

MITCHELL: What did you want to thank him for?

DEVON: For helping me know that what the doctor was telling me wasn’t… it wasn’t it. That it wasn’t gonna be my future. And that helping me know that maybe I could do a front dive roll. And Nate… always had a girlfriend.

NATE: We’ve established how cool I was.

DEVON: So, like, even to steal a moment to talk… I said “When you have a second, um, can we get a coffee?” And we sat down, and it just spilled out of me, everything that I had been experiencing, and also how scared I was that the next day we were getting ready to do our season auditions. And I just didn’t know how I was gonna do that.

MITCHELL: So Nate was the only person at the school who you told about what you were navigating.

DEVON: Yeah. And as it turned out, Nate and I were paired up for the auditions, and um… I looked at him and said, “I can’t do this. Like, I can’t… look.” And he said, “don’t worry. We’ll figure it out.” And, he met up and rehearsed. And, then in the audition he mouthed some of my lines to me. And we just, we made it work.

I think, in that moment, it was… well, it was what we could do together. Like I think… I fell in love with you before I even knew it.

NATE: That is now officially on the record.

DEVON: It was the excitement of being with you, like, we can do this.

MITCHELL: And Nate, did you have one of those girlfriends at the time?

NATE: Oh, probably.

MITCHELL: Alright, so a little bit of a barrier. But I guess someone else recognized that you two were a good duo, because you got cast together in the final show of the year.

DEVON: We did. The Taming of the Tamer.

NATE: A sequel to The Taming of the Shrew.

DEVON: Yeah, it’s kind of like, um, Lysistrata. In a way that, like, there’s a…

MITCHELL: A sex strike?

DEVON: Yeah.

MITCHELL: What was it like to rehearse and perform the show,with this secret, Devon?

DEVON: It was massive. From September to February when we started rehearsing – so much had changed. I couldn’t read regular-sized font really. I was really having a difficult time, “passing” as sighted on stairs. I was waving at people that I didn’t know. I have hugged so many strangers, thinking that I knew them. So I was really nervous for how we were gonna do this.

But together, we… made it all okay. When we were on stage, Nate would put his hand and kind trace where I was, and when there were blackouts, he would guide me. And we were doing a lot of this kind of beautiful choreography. That now has become so much a part of our life.

MITCHELL: Wow. And how did it feel being on stage together?

DEVON: It was wonderful. It’s funny… if it weren’t for blindness, and I never would have had that coffee with Nate. I don’t think that that audition would have been what it was. And, we wouldn’t be sitting here talking to you today.

MITCHELL: Sure. So you guys do that show… and now you have a child together.

DEVON: We do.

MITCHELL: Something must have happened in between. So, like when…

DEVON: When was the “Strike” over?

MITCHELL: Yeah, when did this turn into more than a friendship?

NATE: Towards the end of the show we started dating. At which point we were basically done school. Devon, stayed on and did another year. I left for the summer to go home. We kind of were like, “oh, you know, we’ll see what happens over the summer”.

DEVON: We were not going to… “We’re not talking to each other every day!”

NATE: We’ve got our own lives to live, you know?

DEVON: And then we ended up talking to each other every night. For, like, 4 hours. And Nate didn’t realize that when he was talking on his parents’ phone, it was long distance. And his dad was like, “$500!”

NATE: But it paid off, here we are. Now he has an adorable granddaughter.

MITCHELL: That’s really beautiful. Devon, could you talk about how, after school, your relationship with performance changed?

DEVON: I used to… get really, really sad talking about theatre. There was a time where I couldn’t go. Nate would go on his own, I found I could get a little…

MITCHELL: Why did you get that?

DEVON: I went on a few auditions. And when the lines changed, and I was handed the sides, and instead of saying, “oh, I can’t read”, I used to say, “I don’t have my glasses.” And then one time a casting director was like “well, here, take mine. They’re magnifiers.” And there was just this moment of… I’m done. Of course there are so many blind performers that have come before me, but… I didn’t fit what was expected of blindness. I don’t move with a white cane. I don’t have a guide dog. And so I think it was really hard for people to understand that I was who I said I was.

I remember my agent told me one time. “Well, don’t tell people you’re blind. Just tell them you’re dyslexic. Really great, creative people are dyslexic, everyone gets that.

So, it was over. And it was really tough, because theatre was kind of really the only thing that ever, um… lit me.

MITCHELL: And so you moved away from performing.

DEVON: I kind of felt like theater broke up with me.

MITCHELL: And so what’s it like coming back to rehearsal? Reawakening those, like muscles and mental pathways.

DEVON: It’s wonderful. This is really the only place that I feel like I have something to offer. The only place where I can go in and be like, “I can do this, I can figure this out”.

MITCHELL: I’ve had a couple experiences before working with folks who haven’t acted in a long time. I’m used to cobwebs having to be shaken off. And as much as I had every faith in what you would bring to this process Devon, I think I was expecting there’d be a period of that. And it’s been so magical to watch you just… fit this like the glove. Like, if you told me you’d closed another show two weeks ago, I would believe it.

DEVON: Are you trying to make me cry?

MITCHELL: It’s absolutely true. You fit the container of the medium so well. Nate, What’s it like being back on stage playing scenes with Devon, after all these years.

NATE: I didn’t really give it all that much thought until just now, that it’s been since… 2009 that we did that show. Like it’s been so… easy.

DEVON: Nate’s the best scene partner.

MITCHELL: Okay, Devon, last question for you. Based on what you’ve shared, your relationship with blindness was a big part of what made you move away from performing.

DEVON: Yeah.

MITCHELL: So what’s it been like – having blindness be the thing that’s brought you back to theatre?

DEVON: It’s so surprising. In the best way. Blindness is allowing me to be someone that I never imagined I could be. Reminding me to be a little playful, and also to enjoy the story that I’m in right now. Before, blindness was terrifying to me because I only saw it as the end of the story. I always saw it as “I’m no longer that person anymore”. But, of course, none of us are who we were years ago.

MITCHELL: Like Nate’s hair…

DEVON: Nate’s hair is different, but we still put on My Chemical Romance.

MITCHELL: When you guys were last on stage together your goal was to hide what was going on for you Devon… to conceal your blindness from everyone. And in Rainbow on Mars, it’s quite the opposite. Your blindness is on full, beautiful display. And I’m very excited for people to experience that in a couple weeks.

Nate: I truly can’t wait for everyone to enter into this beautiful world Devon has imagined.

Devon: Aww thanks Nate and Mitchell. This world is all of ours. I can’t wait for everyone to feel it.