Lara Lucia is used to big musical theatre roles, smaller comedic parts, and ensembles full of “big energy and big smiles”. They’ve been her professional bread and butter since she graduated from the Canadian College of Performing Arts in 2019. So it came as a surprise when she won a role in a wrenching drama about the Brontë sisters. “Considering my past, I didn’t expect that that kind of contract would be my first professional one,” she admits. “So I did feel self-doubt—like ‘Oh my God, can I do this?’ ‘Am I a dramatic actor’?”
Yes, she can, and yes, she is. The contract in question is for Brontë: The World Without, Jordi Mand’s play now onstage at Guild Festival Theatre, directed by Helen Juvonen. Lucia plays Anne Brontë, alongside Laura Del Papa and Hilary Scott as sisters Charlotte and Emily Brontë. Told over five days spanning three years, the play unfolds entirely within the Brontë family home, and offers an intimate and unflinching account of the sisters’ artistic ambitions, their pseudonymous path to publication, and the sisterhood that carried them through both. The play illuminates how their experiences echo those of the heroines who live on in their beloved and much interpreted literary classics, including Jane Eyre, Villette, The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, and Wuthering Heights, not to mention the mythology surrounding the sisters themselves.
Lucia came to the material with little prior knowledge of the Brontës. “I did all of that research over my audition” — but was quickly won over. What drew her in was not the sisters’ literary genius, so much as Mand’s insistence on their humanity. “They are geniuses. Of course they are. But they’re also real human people, with real human thoughts and struggles and doubts,” she says. That balance is especially pointed for Anne, who is usually overlooked because she lacks a towering masterwork like Jane Eyre or Wuthering Heights to her credit. Lucia found in the role of Anne a portrait richer than the historical record allows: “Jordi does such a beautiful job at bringing her dimension,” she says. “Even though she is the forgotten Brontë sister, she is anything but forgotten in this play.”
The parallels between Anne’s story and her own helped Lucia find her way into the part. She recalls one line in particular — Anne wondering aloud whether she’s truly a writer — as a moment of direct recognition. “I have felt that many times before. What if I’m not a performer? What if I’m not an actor? What if I’m not good enough to do this?” Comparison also felt familiar: “She compares herself to her sisters obsessively, and I think it’s really hard in this industry to not do that — to not compare your journey to other people’s.”
Lucia is similarly thoughtful about the question of the sisters taking on male pseudonyms: this was a practical necessity of the Victorian literary marketplace that the play treats with real weight. “I can’t imagine what that would be like — to feel that you couldn’t be taken seriously in your own body as your own self,” she asserts, then notes the “self doubt and self criticism that must have been brewing” beneath the surface of their published work.
Performing outdoors at the Greek Theatre in Guild Park and Gardens has added another new and welcome dimension to the experience. Working in nature “adds such a beautiful element”, compared to rehearsing under fluorescent lights. And Lucia calls it a privilege to rehearse daily in the same space where the production will run: “Just to do such a classic play in such a classic venue with so much history, it feels good in the heart!” she enthuses,
That Lucia is making her GFT debut in a leading role on this stage speaks to the company’s stated mandate. Artistic Director Emeritus Helen Juvonen and Artistic Director Tyler J. Seguin affirm proudly that “Guild Festival Theatre has always been a place where emerging artists can get their start…. Especially in a community like Scarborough, GFT has a responsibility to create professional opportunities that support our next generation of artists.” For Lucia, that opportunity has arrived at a pivotal moment. “Landing the first professional contract is difficult,” she notes. “So when someone takes a chance on you, it’s going to change the trajectory of my career for sure.”
For the queer, Indian-Colombian-Canadian actor, the path to this stage wound through years of independent Toronto theatre, following a move from BC to Toronto in March 2020 — especially inauspicious timing for launching a career in live performance. She points to some standout credits, including Shifting Ground Collective’s The Drowsy Chaperone (which earned a Dora nomination and the Jon Kaplan Audience Award), I Was Unbecoming Then at the Next Stage Festival, and Killy Willy, which transferred from the Toronto Fringe to the Second City. Those projects, Lucia says, built the connections that eventually led her to Guild Festival Theatre. And she’s laser-focused: “Brontë is the only thing that is next up for me,” she says. “This is a huge step for me in my professional career.”
Like Anne, Lucia is only beginning to discover what she’s capable of, and GFT, true to its mandate, is giving her the space and the direction to do it. An unfamiliar stretch into drama has quickly become a genuine, confident expansion of artistic range. “I’ve already just grown so much in this rehearsal process, in knowing ‘No, I can do it all. I’m not just a comedic musical theatre actor!”
Brontë: The World Without runs July 16 to August 2, 2026, at the Greek Theatre in Guild Park & Gardens. Tickets are available at guildfestivaltheatre.thundertix.com.
© Arpita Ghosal, Sesaya Arts Magazine 2026
