The Graduate
Where: Langham Court Theatre
When: Opens tonight, runs to March 22
TIckets: $21, $19 (250-384-2142)
Just one look, that’s all it took. For a new stage production of The Graduate (you remember the famous film with Dustin Hoffman), director Judy Treloar decided to audition someone she’d spotted wandering around Langham Court Theatre.
It was Montgomery Bjornson, a former Toronto Bay Street manager who’d moved back to his hometown.
“It was because he looked like Hugh Grant,” Treloar said. “[But] as soon as he spoke the first line at the auditions, I knew I would call him back.”
Bjornson, 29, is a native Victorian who worked in Toronto for nine years as a project manager, foreign-exchange executive and entrepreneur. The Oak Bay High graduate returned to Victoria last August after taking a 21Ú2-month camping trip though the U.S. and Canada with his dog, Bjorn.
Bjornson, who is also an actor and a musician, visited Langham Court after answering a call for board directors (he’s now sitting on the board).
He was surprised to be waylaid with a possible acting role.
“As I walked in, Judy stopped me. She basically handed me a script and said, ‘I want you to come next week to the auditions,’ ” he said.
The stage version of The Graduate was created by British dramatist Terry Johnson from the 1963 novel by Charles Webb and the 1967 film by Calder Willingham and Buck Henry. Johnson’s play has had popular productions on London’s West End and on Broadway.
Hoffman’s performance as Benjamin Braddock, a disaffected and rebellious young man, made him an instant movie star. His often deadpan performance, which was widely acclaimed, casts a long shadow on anyone who dares reprise the role.
Bjornson said he had tried to make the character his own.
“I don’t want to lose those great aspects of the character [Hoffman] found, but you want to find something new,” he said.
Although much of his career was in the business world, Bjornson has done his share of performing.
In high school, he was in such musicals as Oklahoma!, West Side Story and Biloxi Blues. He has sung in Pacific Opera Victoria’s chorus for Carmen and La Boheme.
Other credits include Chicago (Courtney Youth Musical Theatre Society), Kiss Me Kate (Cowichan Musical Society) and a Toronto production of Into the Woods, which in 2005 was his last stage appearance.
He also worked as a touring jazz saxophonist.
In Toronto, Bjornson founded Poetic Licence Productions, a company that produces music videos, documentaries and TV series (he estimates it employed more than 100 filmmakers and actors in total).
“From there, I went into Bay Street work, which was more on the financial end of things,” he said.
His last job before coming to Victoria was co-founding Toronto’s Urban Produce, a company that built and operated greenhouses on rooftops.
Bjornson is now working for his family’s real estate investment company and studying project management at Royal Roads University. Depending on how The Graduate goes, he’d like to keep a hand in theatre as well.
“I’ve missed acting a lot. It’s such a rush,” Bjornson said.
