Vacant Lot duo Hiromoto Ida and Lindsay Clague. All photos: Jani Lakatos
A moving contemplation of life
by Elizabeth Oldham
It’s not often that a rural B.C. theatre company takes its production on a travelling tour, performing on stages throughout the province and the city of Vancouver itself. But Nelson actor/producer Hiromoto Ida’s production of Vacant Lot, described by Ida as “Romeo and Juliet for seniors,” did just that. It hit the road for a provincial tour in October 2025.
Vacant Lot features a long-married couple, with Ida as the husband and fellow Nelson actor Lindsay Clague the wife, who revisit the vacant lot where their house once stood. Though this author hasn’t seen the play, it is by all accounts quiet, contemplative and funny, with universal themes that speak to a variety of audiences. Based on Sarachi, by Japanese theatre artist Shogo Ota, Ida’s iteration combines theatre and contemporary dance into a powerful story of loneliness, connection and the brevity and fragility of life.
“There’s a maturity to it,” Clague says of Vacant Lot. “The introspection of looking back in life and considering choices. But the themes are universal, not just for an older audience.”
Ida agrees. “It’s a really nice story, and though the original play was
a Japanese man and a Japanese woman, it’s not just for Japanese culture…. I am a Japanese man married to a Canadian woman. I changed that aspect because it’s an important play. I want to share it with everyone.”
The power of the play is why Ida, who in 2024 played the Christian Lord Kiyama in the TV miniseries Shōgun and won a Screen Actor’s Guild Award for ensemble cast performance, persisted through arduous months of grant writing, contacting theatres, coordinating schedules and assembling a tour of select communities across B.C. “For the last five or ten years, I’ve wanted to make something in our small town and take it to the big town. Usually tours come to Nelson from Vancouver and other big cities, but I wanted to take this to other communities, to Vancouver and the Firehall Theatre.”
Contemporary dance backgrounds
Ida and Clague agree on much more than the power of Vacant Lot. The duo has worked together on five pieces since 2006, three of which have been productions from Ida’s own theatre company, Ichigo-Ichieh. “We both have backgrounds in contemporary dance and theatre, and we bring those sensibilities and common language to our work,” Clague says. She recognizes that contemporary dance can be challenging to understand, and she says they both try to make it accessible. “It can be exclusive, this thing that only highbrow people understand. Hiro does such a great job of bringing humour into the work. It might be deep, it might be sad, and it’s often funny. It’s never precious. Hopefully, someone who doesn’t understand contemporary dance could come and think, ‘Wow, I’ve never seen anything like that. That was really cool, and I got it.'”
While Ida typically prefers natural movements onstage, Vacant Lot required precise movements and poses—precision down to the hands, the toes, the turn of a head—all intended to convey meaning to the audience and present the story as cleanly as possible. Due to their dance backgrounds, he knows that Clague both understands and adapts quickly.
“For this piece, everything is choreographed,” Hiro says. “Clean as possible. Lindsay understands what I’m getting at. If I work with someone who doesn’t know, they might wonder, ‘Why are you so picky about how they walk, how you use your hands?’ I know Lindsay can do it.” Lindsay understands Ida’s vision and doesn’t question it. “Well, when Hiro says jump, I’ll jump.”
Settling into a small town
Neither actor envisioned a performing career in a small town, and they admit to similar challenges pursuing theatre in Nelson. Both took on the role of primary caregiver for their children as their spouses worked, and this support has allowed them to keep their theatrical passions alive.
Clague certainly didn’t anticipate living in a rural community. She studied theatre and dance in New York and performed across Canada. “When I moved back from New York, Vancouver felt small.” Then she fell in love with her future husband. “He would talk about Nelson, how great it was, and I said, ‘you’re barking up the wrong tree, buddy.'”
However, after a visit to Nelson with her now-husband and two young daughters and a reflection on the type of community in which she wanted to raise them, she reconsidered. Nelson offered a great place for kids, though she feared it might prove to be the death knell of her performing career. Within a year of their move, however, she’d connected with the theatre community and performed in her first show.
Ida had a similar experience, though it took him longer to find a way forward. “I felt like a fisherman moving away from the ocean and into the mountains. My wife was supporting us, and I was raising the kids. It was really hard. No one called me. I thought, ‘Wow, my career is done here.'” Eventually he realized he’d have to make his own opportunities. In 2006, Ida founded Ichigo-Ichieh New Theatre to create and produce his own piesces, something he might never have done if he’d stayed in Vancouver. Bringing his own productions to life meant becoming very clear on what he really wanted to say. “Living without the hustle allowed me to clear my mind. You just have to face yourself, always, and go deeper.”
The process of collaboration
As an actor and producer, Ida sees collaboration through both lenses. When he’s initially producing a piece, he doesn’t work with other people during the process. “It’s visual for me. Is the story a one-person journey? Or a relationship?” Then, when looking for actors, he keeps the visual images front and centre and likens it to a writer creating a new world, except through movement. “When real people come in, it may be different than my imagination. I watch how they move, how they react, how they talk.”
Theatrical collaborations in small towns can be challenging, particularly with limited rehearsal time and space and barebones budgets. But for Vacant Lot, with Ida as director and Clague as assistant director, the actors didn’t have to balance their schedules with anyone else. This allowed them to move slowly and go deeper, particularly for the second production. They filmed their rehearsals and watched them together, making subtle changes that tightened it up.
Clague appreciated the time they had to work on precision. “This work sits between dance and theatre. Having the opportunity to figure out how to be free as the character and live in that moment while respecting the specificity of the movement isn’t common in theatre.” She notes that it was easier the second time because they knew they had a good show. “It’s that much deeper now, because we trust that all those things are there and can just be in the moment.”
It’s one reason Ida wanted to take Vacant Lot on the road. “It’s a good piece. And if we don’t do a tour with this, we probably won’t produce it again.” Indeed, he is trying to line up a 2027 tour in Japan, possibly even Europe.
Small town opportunities
Despite living in a small town, both Clague and Ida have been able to create and take advantage of opportunities that might not have been available to them in urban centres. A collaboration like Vacant Lot might never have happened. “In a bigger centre, you tend to sort of stay in your lane. So as a dancer, you’re in the dance community, and as an actor, you’re in the acting community, and so on. If Hiro and I had met in Vancouver, I probably would have been very intimidated,” she laughs, “Even though Hiro’s not at all intimidating.” Hiro agrees that he’s probably done more in Nelson than he might have attempted in Vancouver. “I’d have never met [Clague] in Vancouver. And I probably wouldn’t create my own pieces because I wouldn’t have to.”
Both have advice for young performers with dreams of a career in theatre or dance. For Clague, it’s basic advice no matter where located. Find a good training program and “learn to tap dance,” she says with a laugh. “And I’m only half-joking. I can sing, I can dance, I can act. But adding a few extra skills, like playing guitar, to set yourself apart is a critical thing.” And, she warns, “Once the theatre gets its hooks in you, it’s hard to shake.”
Ida has practical advice. “If your motivation is to make money, don’t go into acting. If you want to be famous, don’t go into acting. It’s like anything you do for long years of your life. You have to really be in love with it, like a relationship. It’s something you do because you love it.”
