Distinguished Alumni Award recipient turns bane into blessing

Michael Williams-Stark (pictured with his dog, Stanley) says the first time he taught kids with facial differences was “like a kiss from heaven.” Photo: Steve Dagg

Michael Williams-Stark has enjoyed successful careers as a musician, an award-winning improv comedian and voice-over professional. But things weren’t always great for the former Douglas College Theatre student.

Michael was born, in 1955, with a cleft lip and palate – the worst case doctors had ever seen in BC. As a young child, Michael remembers thinking he was popular, as people would often stare and yell at him from their cars. "I thought I should run for mayor or something. But as I got a bit older I realized they weren’t saying nice things about me. I even had an art teacher who made fun of my voice.”

When asked how he handled being “different” from other kids, his reply is blunt. “It sucked. The only thing that saved me was living in New Westminster. I was a film fanatic and there were three theatres in town. That and Beatlemania saved my bacon.”

Michael underwent years of surgery, which extended into adulthood, to help correct the defects. Meanwhile, he took his love of the arts to Douglas, where he studied Theatre from 1978-1981. The program gave him courage and was a boon to his self-esteem. "Gwyneth Harvey, my speech and theatre history teacher, was a godsend. She said I had the best voice to do Shakespeare."

He took off for Toronto in 1984 and spent years doing improv, music and voice-over work. In 1993 he was touched by a TV program he saw on kids with facial disfigurements. A friend encouraged him to do something to help kids who were going through the same things as he had. Still stung by a past he preferred to keep buried, Michael was resistant at first. But then he began playing with improv – which requires the actors to make eye contact with each other and use their voices – as a way to give kids with facial differences confidence and a means to express themselves.

“Making eye contact, using your voice – without these things you can’t do improv. And they’re important life skills.”

After running successful improv workshops at different organizations in Toronto, including the Hospital for Sick Children, in 2002 Michael created Making Faces, a children’s charity that teaches acting skills and improvisational games to kids with facial differences that help build confidence and let them practise life skills in a fun, creative and safe environment.

He’s never looked back.

“I never got a buzz like the first time I taught a class with facial differences,” he says. “It was like a kiss from heaven.

“My dream is to raise enough funds so I can do this for the rest of my life.”

Michael Williams-Stark is the 2011 recipient of the Douglas College Distinguished Alumni Award.

Published May 19, 2011

Links:

Theatre Program
Making Faces
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