Victoria Urquhart

Victoria Urquhart is a Toronto-based actor and director from Caledon. She is also a graduate from the University of Windsor’s 2010 B.F.A. Acting Program. This training has helped her to develop a focus on marrying Physical Theatre Practices with Classical Text. This fascination, combined with her leadership and organizational skills developed through working six consecutive summers at a residential camp have led her to a passion for directing, and the creation of The Spur-Of-The-Moment Shakespeare Collective in Toronto. Through the SOTMSC, she has directed, produced, and sometimes performed in several community projects, including the Shakespeare-On-The-Subway Project, several sessions of Shakespeare-In-Hospitals, and JULIUS CAESAR PROJECT, garnering 4 N’s from NOW magazine at the 2014 Toronto Fringe Festival. Other theatre credits include: Waiting for Alonzo with Empty Box Theatre (2015), Teach Me with Newborn Theatre, and Macbeth with Hart House Theatre.

Do not miss Spur of the Moment Shakespeare-in-Hospitals La Maschera Gala on December 14, 2017.

Twitter: @gnitenet

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https://shakehospitals2017.brownpapertickets.com/

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Transcript

Welcome to episode 105 of Stageworthy. I’m your host, Phil Rickaby. Stageworthy is a podcast about Canadian theatre makers featuring conversations with actors, directors, playwrights, and more.

Before we dig into today’s episode, I wanted to tell you about a project I’m working on called Phil Rickaby’s Rough Draft. For this new podcast, I take a new piece of writing and I read it for you. Each piece is brand new or something still in progress or something I wrote to put away for a bit.

It’s a chance for me to try some things out and for you to hear something in the early stages of writing, which might end up in a final project. You can find Rough Draft at philrickaby.com. My guest this week is Victoria Urquhart, returning for her second appearance on the podcast. Victoria stopped by to talk about the Shakespeare in Hospitals program at the Spur of the Moment Shakespeare Collective, as well as the Shakespeare in Hospitals gala coming up on December 14th, and you can find a link to buy tickets in the show notes.

If you want to drop me a line, you can find Stageworthy on Facebook and Twitter at StageworthyPod, and you can find the website at StageworthyPodcast.com. have a lot more to come. Just different things happening here and there, but we’ve done one to two a week since then. Where are we? We’re in November.

So we got to be up to 12, 13 now? Do you find that the program is growing as time goes on, like more hospitals? Oh, yeah. We had a big explosion last year of hospitals that we were able to perform for and get to. I believe last year we did 22, and this year we’re doing a few less, but that’s also because our funding came in late, and so being able to balance all of that out has been a bit of a challenge, but the funding came in, so it just shows that when you work through adversity, it pays off.

Do a lot of the hospitals ask you back? Yes. A lot of the time we will go in, do a performance, and then right there they’ll say, when’s the next time you’re coming back? It’s lovely to hear, to see, to feel, because it really shows we’re doing something right here. A lot of the time we can’t book right away, but what we’ll do is we’ll invite them to the gala, and then when they come to the gala we’ll say, have your dates ready.

Our bookings liaison will be there. Sure. So when did the idea of performing Shakespeare in hospitals become your focus? It’s actually, I wouldn’t say that it’s my whole focus.

No, no, no, but for the moment it’s one of the major calendar events, I think. Yeah, yeah. Well, it kind of took over, I would say somewhere around 2014.

There was a lot of good coming out of the program at that time. I mean, there’s always good things coming out of this program, but I think especially then, we had just finished the Julius Caesar project, and that had been a kind of a pilot project where we learned a lot, and we had a lot of great responses from that as well. But a lot of the contacts that we had received from there started from hospitals.

And as wonderful and compelling as Julius Caesar was for us and for women’s shelters, having that sense of variety as well was equally important. And I think creatively as well, being able to bring a story out of an anthology became this new challenge that started to form around there. Sure.

I really like taking different scenes from the canon and building a new story out of that. And we were kind of doing that already, but it wasn’t until 2014 where I started to build and go, okay, what would happen if we did this specific edit of this scene and pieced it together like that? We went through 2014 without a full story coming out of the anthology, but we had such a wonderful ensemble that year that built their own stories into it, that it really stuck out for me. And it stuck out, I think, for a lot of people as well.

Then 2015, we started to play with that in actuality, but that year, you have a different ensemble every year. And that year, the ensemble was actually more for having those scenes as separate scenes, which for that year fit. But after that, I said, okay, from here on in, we’re going to build a story out of this, because we’re going to be able to give everybody a taste of what Shakespeare is and can be, as well as we’re going to start telling some more progressive stories.

And we’re going to start talking and speaking towards and including identities that Shakespeare didn’t necessarily write for, including some of my own identities. When you’re going into a hospital like that, are you alternating between in somebody’s room? Are you in a common area? Is it all of those things? We tend to work in very different formats. We work in three main formats.

And then from there, we can kind of deviate and play. So we’ve got staged format, which is very straightforward. We’ve got a stage to work off of, or the audience is congregated in one space, they’re not going to move.

We’ve got open space performance. So we’re working with a mobile audience. We’re working in a waiting room or a cafeteria.

And then we’ve got private room format, where the performance is very intimate. It’s literally at people’s bedsides, which everybody goes, oh, that’ll be fine and quick and easy to do. It’s like, well, it’s actually not that quick and easy to adapt to unless you’ve tried it, unless you’ve practiced it.

And once you’ve done three or four pieces like that, then you can start to do that adaptation on your own, and it gets easier. But how do you accommodate for performing a really physical piece just on the spot? How do you accommodate for change in volume? How do you accommodate for having to lean forward and literally whisper this entire monologue in someone’s ear because they’re hard of hearing, but at the same time, you know, someone’s in another bed across the way, trying to sleep. Lots of things like that.

And you need to let the fact that you’re whispering in someone’s ear impact you. You need to let those things come into play and impact the story that you’re telling, because otherwise, you’re not letting the audience in. Which is why I’m a very big advocate for the fact that an audience of one is 10 times more intimidating than an audience of hundreds.

Oh, shit. No, absolutely. I mean, I’m just thinking about, you know, reciting anything for one person.

In a room full of people, you’re not necessarily making eye contact with a single person. No, no. I mean, we experience this all the time with auditions, but even in auditions, they say, don’t use me, please.

I want to be able to watch you. And that’s true in a lot of cases. In hospitals, some people want you to reach out to them.

For some people, this is the first interaction they’ve had in three months. So they’ll want to play with you, which becomes the most amazing thing. I’ve had patients watch various different scenes and then start interrupting and going, no, no, no, you need to go over, go woo her, woo her.

Like, it’s like, oh, okay. So suddenly they become a director or they become the best friend or they become a parent or they come in and they bring their own insights as audience members. And that if we are lucky enough to have, and I won’t say lucky enough, I mean, if these folks are skilled enough and I will say from my own experience watching these people, spoiler, they are, then you will come across, they will come across a situation where the patient starts bringing their life forward.

Like we have no right to know what they’re going through. But if we provide enough of a performance that compels them to start sharing, well, what does that say? No, absolutely. It says something.

Yeah. You’ve performed in waiting rooms? Yep. How does a waiting room audience react to people who just start doing Shakespeare? It really depends.

It depends how many people are there to start, how many people are there to end, um, how many people know what’s going on. A lot of the time, um, we’ll get patients who are going for walks who have decided to take rest and then a nurse or volunteer will come up and ask them if they’ve, if they want to see a show. Um, and then of course it’s, it’s very much like street theatre.

You start in with one person, but you always keep that, uh, you keep that awareness to the rest of the room to see who’s watching because a lot of people are going to give you permission to perform to them, uh, simply through their body language. Now, sometimes you can misread that body language and it’s totally not what they’re looking for. But I think the, the advantage of being able to work in a hospital environment too, is very often, um, we are starting with verbal ask.

Um, I, it’s also a part of, uh, it’s, it’s also a part of a very, uh, delicate process where you go and you, you gauge your audience very carefully. Uh, this year we have the good fortune of working with Chloe Payne, who she, she works with a lot of physical theatre and clown. And in her clown work, it is so dependent on audience.

So we’ve been able to build off of her training of gauging your audience, um, and looking for that permission, um, giving them permission to watch and then looking for that permission to, to go to the next offer. Um, which is really, it’s, it’s been really lovely to get to work within that specificity, particularly with our, our open space asks. Yeah.

So. Maybe your gala coming up soon. Um, so first off, when is the gala? December 14th and 15th.

Okay. Um, what happened? Like what can, if somebody was to go to the gala, what would they, what would they get to see? Well, they would get to see our full story format. But, uh, before they get to go and see that, they would get to hang out on a red carpet, eat some real fancy hors d’oeuvres from Panago Pizza.

Shout out to Panago. Thank you. Um, they’d get to take advantage of our extra financially accessible cash bar.

Um, they’d get some really sweet photos. Uh, but they’d get to hear some of the stories from hospital work. Like they’d get to hear some of our ensembles experiences, which is really the changing point for a lot of artists that come through this program.

And for me, I, I, at this point have pages and pages of stories from our artists. Um, and I’m still surprised by numerous stories that come in of how these performances have given patients an opportunity to, to do so many things. I don’t want to say that it’s, um, that it’s, that it’s cured anyone because it’s, it’s, it’s never us that cures them.

It’s never us. All we do is offer up a perspective, offer up an opportunity and what they do with it is entirely up to them. Um, having said that we have had just, just this past year, I don’t want to tell this because it’s, it might end up being someone’s story, but, um, we, uh, we did perform for a group and, uh, one, one person was especially vocal.

I won’t get into the fine details about it, but it is really like, I have a feeling that one of our, one of our ensemble members will tell it. Um, and, uh, we found out later that that person hadn’t, hadn’t left his room, hadn’t spoken in months. Um, and like, it’s, it’s that kind of, that kind of stuff that really makes you realize, like, this is doing something.

This is, this is changing. This is, this is changing how we see theatre. This is changing, changing the way that we see the world with theatre.

And that’s, I love that. And that’s, that’s what keeps bringing me back because I feel like it’s become bigger than me at this point. And it’s something that I want to see and need to see in the world.

Um, and I need to know that this is, this is happening somewhere because, um, yeah, there needs to be a little bit of this kind of theatre in the world. What’s the, what’s the importance of the, of the gala to this program? For us, I, in part, it’s purely a celebration for this ensemble. They did it.

They went out and they did theatre for a very different reason than what we’re all used to. And they gave and are continuing to give so much of themselves in, in such different ways. Um, I’m always, I’m always surprised with the ensembles that come out of this project because very often, um, I find out that they, since then have maintained such strong friendships because they’ve shared in this.

And it’s not all like that, but like, I, I know actors from the 2012 session who I still continue to meet up for drinks. And I know actors who from the 2015, well, I just combination, like our ensemble together from the 2015 session, some of them live together now. And I, you know, so many of them come out of this with, with such different experiences.

It’s nothing to do with me. Like, I’m not saying this to toot my own horn here. This is like, what it’s just the, the, the, the reason and the, the act of this particular kind of theatre that does this.

It sounds like the experience of performing in this way. And for this audience, these audiences, uh, has such an impact that, that it sort of changes the actor as well as, as the audience. I would, I would agree with that.

I mean, I went through the, I went through the program in its early stages. And if I, if I didn’t have this, I wouldn’t know what, uh, performing in, this is going to sound so wrong, but performing intimately was like, I would not know what that was. Um, like the first, the first piece that I did that exert, that I felt exerted any of my own power, uh, was a piece that I performed through here.

Um, and yeah, like it’s, it’s definitely a program that changes, changes you as an artist. Hmm. Hmm.

Um, uh, something you alluded to early on when I, when I said that, that, uh, the Shakespearean Hospital was a focus because it’s not, that’s not just what you do. Um, so, um, and I think that, that, you know, last time you were on, that was primarily what we talked about and we’ve talked for about half of this, this podcast about it. So let’s, let’s talk about, about some of the other things that you do.

Um, what, what else do you do? Um, I, I’m an actor and a director, um, sometimes grant writer, but, uh, I like to reserve that for special moments in my life. Um, I don’t know if I want to do that as a, as a full-time. Yeah.

That’s why that’s reserved for special moments in my life. Um, grant writing can be great, but, uh, it, it needs to be, you can’t be that all the time. And actually this year I, I felt like I spent a lot of my time grant writing, um, just because every grant program out there went through the change of we’re doing hard copy to digital.

Um, which is like important in improving accessibility. Sure. I appreciate that.

Um, as someone with ADD, uh, that was, that was a struggle and a half. Um, but, uh, I think there were a lot of lessons learned, uh, through that, but anyways, grant writing is grant writing. Um, I, for myself, uh, right now as an actor, uh, I just finished a short film with, uh, Blackout Media.

Uh, it’s a really lovely production company. Uh, we did, it was a short, um, it’s a, I don’t want to talk too much about it, but, um, it was my first principal role in a, in a short film. So that was really nice.

Um, and if anybody gets the opportunity to work with a man named Charlie Hamilton, do it. Um, he’s, he’s a fantastic director and he really, he speaks to actors, uh, very well. Um, I, I just shot a commercial, so I’m pretty excited about going up in the world.

Um, and that one had some dialogue in it, so that’s, that’s fun. I just finished, uh, a show with Theodore R. Toad, uh, Grab Him by the Pussy. Oh, yes, yes, yes.

Um, that, that was a lot of fun. I got to use some of my tap dancing skills. How long has it been since you used the tap dancing skills? Actually, uh, not that long because I was, I, I, I also got to perform in Measure for Measure, uh, and I got to do some tap dance through there.

Um, I, I’m, I’m using a piece right now as when, when I get the request for, when I get the request, when I apply like crazy and then get the one response from like the 50,000 theatres that I’ve applied to being like, yes, you may come and audition for us. Please bring a piece that best represents you. Sure.

I’ve got this piece that, uh, I get to use some of my tap dancing skills with. I got to develop it, um, a little bit through, uh, working on the Five Points with Theodore by the Bay. I got to do that this summer, uh, which was a lot of fun.

And, uh, I, I’m just bringing my tap into so many things because I find for me as a person, um, especially as an ADD person, that’s something that I can pull out that will then focus me. And it’s, it’s one of those things that goes, Hey, look, here I am. Look at all these crazy things I can do.

But here, like, here’s the actual me. Sure. The second that like I step out of that, it always gives me that rush telling all of my actor secrets.

But as an actor who’s, who’s struggled or, or lived with ADD, um, is that something that, that at any point dissuaded you from, from this career? Did you ever feel like it was a thing that you like stood in the way? All the time. Oh my God. Um, and for the longest time I didn’t know I had ADD, so I thought it was just me.

Like I thought, I thought that these were things that built me up to not be fit for acting for the longest time. When did you find out that you had ADD? I was 20, 27, 28. So like, I’m dating myself, but like, this was like last year, maybe the year before.

So I spent all of that time just fighting with myself, just like hating so much of what I was doing, thinking, why can’t I just, why can’t I just do this? Why can’t I just focus on this? Um, and then, because especially with, with women, um, a lot of women go without ADD testing because a lot of people focus in on cases on men because it’s more supposedly more, more prevalent, more visible. Um, but like I went through school and I was at the beginning, I was a straight A student. I was going through an enrichment courses.

And then somewhere along the line, I got so much social anxiety because I just couldn’t focus on, on what was being said that eventually between that and, and a few other things that were going on socially, like I, I, my grades started dropping. I started quote unquote normalizing. Um, but it wasn’t until I got out of school and, and really got my grounding that I, that I realized things were not the same.

Things were not, uh, like there might be something to investigate here. Um, and then as I went through that, um, I, I went through some testing. Um, I knew I had like anxiety.

Um, I didn’t know that I had depression. Um, but I also didn’t know that depression could be in remission. So I learned through a lot of that struggle that was going on for me, um, sharing so much of my life right now, uh, especially with, with my, uh, mood disorders.

A lot of that came from the fact that I had ADD and the second that, that I started treating that and, you know, I tried medication, medication didn’t work, but when I found my own regimen for it, um, I, things started working, things started clicking. And over this past year, especially like, I’m starting to get calls and it feels so good. It’s like this big relief of all of this stuff that I have, I’ve known, like I’ve worked so hard for, and I’ve cared about so much to the point of like, and, and so many people have told me like, Oh, you know, it’s not that you, it’s not that you don’t care.

And it’s not that you’re not putting in the time, but you’re just, you’re just focusing on the wrong things. And it’s like, well, what, what are the right things that I’m supposed to be focusing on? Well, when you go through and you take care of yourself and you do all those things, then it becomes easier to see what that is. And it becomes easier to read and it becomes easier to just, to, to bring those intimate parts of yourself.

Look at that. I did a full circle, totally planned it. Um, I was able to bring those intimate parts of myself out and yeah.

When, when you, and you’ve obviously, you sought out the diagnosis, you said something wasn’t right. And so you went to try to figure out what it was. And once you had that, did you look back on your life and say, now all of this shit makes sense? A lot of it.

Yes. Um, I think a lot of people get intimidated to say, well, that was a waste of time. And why didn’t my parents do this or that for me? And I don’t look at it like that.

I mean, it’s very easy to, but you look at what was available to you at the time and you look at the way that you coped in that time. And if someone had just given me that and said, Oh, this is what it is. And here’s how we’re going to treat you.

How would I have learned any of the coping mechanisms that I did? How would I have survived? You know, I would much rather have lived the life that I have gone unmedicated up into, well, I’m still not medicated in the sense of like getting any prescriptions with this, because that’s not how I roll. But you were undiagnosed. I was undiagnosed.

Um, but like, if I hadn’t done that, um, I probably wouldn’t have been a dancer at all. And I started from dance. I probably never would have picked up tap.

Yeah. Um, I probably never would have picked up karate. I probably never would have learned to draw like all of these creative outlets that I had.

Um, and especially when big emotional things hit, like, I probably wouldn’t have had spur. Hmm. Yeah.

And oh, I’m going to start crying. Like I just, yeah. If, if I, if I didn’t go this amount of time without it, yeah.

I wouldn’t have started a company and I wouldn’t have looked at the way that theatre is happening around me and said, I want to change what’s going on in my community. And I want to change the way we see theatre. Cause also like being an actor can be a pretty selfish endeavor.

Um, a wonderfully selfish endeavor. Yeah. But it can also be a little, a little insular.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

And it’s hard, like, it’s hard to look at the world around you, not in a way that is, how does this feed my work? Yeah. But, and like, I, I also come from the opposite end of the scale where I’m sure a lot of my mentors and people would sell, would tell me, no, you need to keep looking at that more so because you’re looking at this as how this feeds other people. And you need to look at feeding you.

I don’t know. There’s something to me. There’s something a little, there’s something admirable about looking at theatre, um, more about like, how can I change the world instead of just like, how can I, you know, how can I get more people to come to my thing? You know, how can I get more, uh, feathers in my hat? I think there’s something really admirable about like looking outward and saying, you know, how can we change people’s lives? I, I would agree.

I think that there’s, I, I think that I’ve, I’ve definitely looking at this now modeled a lot of my, of the, the type of actor that I want to be over actors who are more like that. And they have their selfless acts. They have their, but not just, not just in, in causes outside of theatre, but like looking at the actors who, who go in with the, not with the tactic, but they, they go in making other people look good.

Like actors, actors who go into productions and, and do that just like, they make, they make my heart sing. And those are, those are the actors that I think I’ve also a lot of, I’ve modeled a lot of my, my craft after. And I think I, when I hint people who want to work with me, um, I say that now no one’s going to audition.

Um, but like, I think that’s a lot of the cast, the casting decisions that I make too is, um, is, is looking for those actors that will help another actor by endowing them with whatever tactic, doing whatever to, to get more of that response out of them or what have you. Um, I saw you in Measure for Measure at the Red Sandcastle. Um, so I’ve seen, I’ve seen your tap dancing.

Um, and that was a really interesting production. Um, just in terms of taking that particular play, number one, a play that we don’t see performed very often. Um, and also, uh, uh, performing it entirely with, with women.

And that’s a show that really sort of plays with a lot of themes that are pretty relevant in terms of the male female dynamic and the me too, and the, the Weinstein and all, a lot of the things that we’re talking about just in, in the world right now. But to take that and like, uh, uh, cast it entirely with women, um, and tell the same story, but differently, um, how, like how involved with you were you with that? Or did you just come in as, as just an actor? Uh, I, I, uh, I was just involved as an actor in that. And that was, uh, one of my, one of, one of my favorite, uh, favorite parts, because very often when I am coming into a project, um, and this is what I’m trying to cut down on is I’m, I’m also producing or I’m also marketing or, um, and that, that has helped me a lot in, uh, in, in various different respects, but now I get to, I, I I’m, I’m getting some of the roles and I’m, I’m getting things just off of walking in the room and it feels, it feels so good.

Oh man. I mean, it is, it is really good to produce your own stuff, but there’s a certain responsibility that goes along with that, which prevents you from focusing 100% as an actor sometimes. Yes, very much.

When I’m, uh, when I’m producing and acting at the same time, I’ve, I’ve had so many people tell me, uh, don’t produce an act at the same time. You won’t be able to focus. And, um, when I did JCP, uh, that was very much it for me.

That was my first fringe show. Well, not my first fringe show I ever produced, but I don’t know if the shed show really fully counts. Um, and the shed show was fun, but, uh, when you’re producing a full show in the fringe, so many things you got to take care of.

Um, it’s very hard to focus on a role while you’re doing that. Um, I highly commend anybody who produces their own work. I, I know, uh, Grace Gorton just came in.

Um, so she’s, she’s doing that right now and good for her. Um, I know that, uh, I know that, I mean, any, almost anything that James and Julia do. Yeah.

Yeah. Shakespeare bashed. Um, let me, I’m just giving out all of the, all of the, sure.

But I mean, it’s, it’s, it is difficult to do too. Even if you’re just doing like the promotional stuff. Oh God.

Cause you’re supposed to have a marketing head and a publicist. I just learned this. Um, I’ve just been doing all of this myself.

Um, the great thing about getting funding is you can start to spread out some of that load. Um, and thank, thank God for some of these people who come in. Cause, uh, if I, if I didn’t have these people, I would be lost.

Like I, I would not be able to take on half as much of what we’re, what we’re doing. Um, I’m not going to say who’s on my team because I want to keep them. Um, but if anybody ever wants to grab coffee with me and ask me who I highly recommend for work, I’ll without a, without doubt, tell everyone I’m already like nominating a bunch of people.

Um, I know that we’re almost out of time cause I know that you have to, you have to go. Um, so I want to thank you so much for making the time, uh, to do this. Thank you.

And, uh, uh, I look forward to, to both your gala and, and what you guys do next time. Hey, thanks.