Child wrangler comes first on Aviva Levin’s resume. Her start in the working world came at Gateway Theatre, where her job was to keep the orphans of Oliver in check.
As good as she was supervising small stage stars, child wrangling wasn’t her calling. It was teaching. Her parents, so they say, knew all along.
“They have stories of me lining up my stuffed animals and teaching them,” said Levin, a teacher at Steveston-London Secondary, during a break after school. “I don’t have any recollection of this, but apparently it was in my blood.”
Evidence emerged after university, when she moved the rest of her belongings to her Richmond condo. She unearthed a small grade book in which she recorded the attendance and performance of stuffed animals like Teddy and Lamb.
Levin, a 29-year-old lifelong Richmond resident, teaches high school French and social studies from her Williams Road classroom, at a desk decorated by a globe, a dictionary-turned-laptop-stand and a mug that cries “COFFEE.” She said her own teachers, at Diefenbaker elementary and R.A. McMath secondary, had a positive impact on her life.
“I had some very, very inspiring teachers growing up in Richmond,” she said. “I’m passionate about the things that I teach. I love French, I love history. I’m happy to talk about either for as much as the kids will let me.”
Outside the classroom Levin is co-director of the school play. Outside the school she’s co-captain of Tickle Me Pickle, a long-running improvisation group that each year produces a handful of improv shows at Richmond Cultural Centre. Levin joined in 2002 as a 15-year-old.
What began as a youth group is now a collection of polished performers who deliver hilarious improv shows in the spirit of the TV series Who’s Line is it Anyway? Picklers work with audience suggestions to produce improv games and long-form stories, in which a single suggestion might keep the actors busy for an hour.
Such was the case in a recent show where performers mounted an hour-long murder-mystery based on a single idea. Levin called it one of the most incredible improv moments: characters were developed, plot holes resolved and amazingly, the actors somehow decided who the murderer was by only trading hints throughout the show.
“At the end of it we were stunned, the audience was stunned. There was this moment of: Oh my god, we just did this. And the audience went wild,” smiled Levin. “This isn’t something I could have written if I had sat down at a computer for three months. But all of us worked together to make this happen.”
In real life, Levin recently got engaged. She met her fiancé in high school and reconnected with him five years ago at a friend’s wedding. The proposal came in Avignon, France—without certain traditions.
“No knee and no asking my dad, who insisted he didn’t want any goats in exchange for me. I appreciated that,” she laughed.
Her parents might have something to do with Levin’s sense of humour, but she also pointed to something else.
“I was terribly shy as a kid. I realized I had maybe a more quirky way of looking at the world, and if I voiced that, then I had a connection with other people. It was a way of almost bringing me out of my shell.”
Before completing her degree in education, Levin finished one in history and religious studies. All those textbooks didn’t turn her off of reading. On a day off she’s likely curled up with a cup of tea reading a book — highbrow literature, a trashy sci-fi paperback — anything with a compelling story.
Non-fiction too. A friend still teases her about reading a book about salt and a subsequent urge to share sodium trivia. (“Did you know salary comes from salt, which is salt, because Roman soldiers were paid in salt? That’s how we get salary. It used to be a currency.”)
Tickle Me Pickle’s Christmas show is Dec. 10 from 7 to 9 p.m. at Richmond Cultural Centre and suitable for all ages. Tickets, $2 to $5, available at the door.
Guests who bring a food or cash donation will receive a free ticket to the group’s Feb. 4, 2016 show.
