“Pick Back Up and Learn”: Megan McDonell on Queen’s Theatre Troupe
At the beginning of the 2025 Winter Term, I had a new year’s resolution: to break away from my comfort zone of performing on stage and finally explore the production side of theatre at Queen’s.
My path towards achieving this goal led me to Queen’s Theatre Troupe (QTT). Established in 2023 to help revive the campus’ student theatre community, which took a major hit in the aftermath of the pandemic, the troupe is now in its third year of operation, providing students of all experience levels with opportunities to learn about theatre in a hands-on way. After working on my first production with them this past winter, I was voted in to be the Equity & Accessibility Chair on the board this year, leading me to work with the club in a production-driven role, alongside four other members. One of those members is 2025-26 QTT President, Megan McDonell, a fourth year drama student who has been with the troupe all three years it has existed.
I recently had the chance to chat with McDonell about her experience with the club, theatre at Queen’s, and her hopes for the future of the troupe.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
McDonell’s introduction to QTT came in the first year they opened their doors. Her first position was as a stage manager for The Anger in Ernest and Ernestine, which went up in winter 2024. “One of the original members of the board was putting [it on] and knew that I had stage management experience. She was like, ‘Hey, can you stage manage for this?’ And I was like, ‘Oh, cool.’”
She was in second year at the time, having just stage managed the Fall 2023 DAN School Major. Although McDonell was not sure what to expect, she immediately felt a connection to the troupe, particularly because of the learning space it fostered among students. “I got to be a bit of a teacher. QTT was a place where I could teach other people and not feel like I was overstepping… and people were wanting to learn.”
McDonell brings an immense body of experience into the club. Alongside her role as president, she remains a stage manager, and most recently, spent her summer as an apprentice stage manager on Thousand Islands Playhouse’s production of Mary Poppins. She is also a production manager and lighting designer, the latter of which McDonell realized she wanted to pursue because of QTT. “I was on the board last year and had the chance to step in as a technician and realized, ‘Oh, I like lighting design.’ It’s opened my eyes to other things that I’m now interested in.”
Over the course of her time with the troupe, her love for sharing knowledge with others has developed. “Even as president, I’m also learning from the people who have different experiences than I do, especially our directors. I love that I get to bring people together and teach tech stuff, but I also get to learn about acting and set design.”
The application process for roles within QTT continues their commitment to being an educational space; they look for applicants who can apply their past experiences, even those unrelated to theatre, to the positions they are applying to. The club is “looking for people who are eager to learn, rather than people who have exact experience… Getting into our shows is less competitive that way.” Interest in student-run theatre grows year by year on campus, sometimes making it more difficult for students who are new to the art to find a way to pursue that which they admire, letting QTT be a jumping off point for students who want more experience. It’s a way to build credits on their resume while learning about the craft itself.
This commitment to supporting those with all levels of experience isn’t just in the application process either. McDonell notes that once production teams are formed, “the board is there to help support [them]. We’re there more to teach than other boards at Queen’s, who are more focused on the wellness of the club, which we’re doing too, but we are also super willing to step in and help out, guide people as needed, while letting them run.
“You figure that sometimes, it’s going to be great; sometimes, we’re going to make mistakes. But every time that’s happened in the past with [QTT], we always pick back up and learn from it—we’re going to keep making theatre with people who’ve never done it before.”
McDonell’s philosophy for learning extends into her education background outside the club too. As a teaching assistant for DRAM 100, Introduction to Theatre, at Queen’s for the last two years, she leads a section of students through the core course in a more hands-on environment, allowing students to experiment with creating theatre. She gets to see her teachings come to life with the club’s fall production of Ann-Marie MacDonald’s Queen’s-based play, Goodnight Desdemona, (Good Morning Juliet). “The director and producer are both former students of mine, from my DRAM 100 lab, so it’s been really awesome to see them take off and do their own thing.”
The club is picking up steam. Though they experienced some struggles in the past trying to find auditionees and production team members, they had more auditionees than ever this fall, with the dedication of past board members paying off as the club builds a reputation of its own both on campus and in the wider Kingston theatre community.
McDonell and I also chatted about the assistance QTT has had from various Queen’s professors and staff over the last few years, which have been instrumental in its success.
“It’s an uncertain time—we still don’t know what resources we will and won’t have for this show—but I know that with our team, we’re going to push through and put on a good show. It’s a lot of figuring things out, and things are going to probably look a little different this year just because of all the change going around. But we have strong people, so we’ll bounce back.”
Ultimately, McDonell is right: if my last four years at Queen’s have taught me anything, it’s that student-run theatre communities are far more stubborn than one would ever think—and they will always find a way to bounce back.
Megan McDonell is a Queen’s University student interested in pursuing Stage & Production Management and Lighting Design. She has been well-immersed in the DAN School of Drama and Music throughout her four years in the Drama program. She is grateful to now get to share her knowledge and experience as the President of Queen’s Theatre Troupe.
Queen’s Theatre Troupe produces published plays for the Queen’s community, aligning themselves with the drama core curriculum. More information about the Troupe can be found here.
