Franny McCabe-Bennett

Franny is an actor and playwright based in the GTA. She has performed her award-winning original work in Toronto, Hamilton, Oakville,, Stratford, Winnipeg MB, Saint John NB and New York City. She is returning for a second season at the Port Stanley Festival Theatre this summer.

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Transcript

Welcome to episode 110 of Stageworthy, I’m your host, Phil Rickaby. Stageworthy is a podcast about people in Canadian theatre, featuring conversations with actors, directors, playwrights, and more. If you like the podcast, remember to subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Google Music, or wherever you get your podcasts, and make sure you leave a comment or rating, since those help new people find the show.

If you want to drop me a line, you can find Stageworthy on Facebook and Twitter at stagereallypod, and you can find the website at stagereallypodcast.com. And you can find me on Twitter and Instagram at philrickaby, and my website is philrickaby.com. My guest this week is performer and playwright Franny McCabe-Bennett. You can catch Franny in February as Moon in The Real Inspector Hound at the Oakville Centre for the Performing Arts. So I basically, my family went to the cottage for a week, and so I kidnapped my director and moved him into my house for a few days.

Oh yeah. And we worked for three days, had three days of throwing things together, and I think we ran through it once maybe, and then I drove for two days. Were you basically writing it in that rehearsal time? Sort of.

We had done a workshop version. Okay. We had done two readings the previous year.

So in 2016, we did a reading in June, and we did a reading in September, and just kind of put it away, didn’t poke at it or do anything. Um, I tried to do a week by myself of like, focused writing and like, kind of was like, oh, like just basically decided I think I hate this version. And that was like, all I really got out of that week.

And then had to go to Fort Stanley. And then the last like, two weeks of the show that we’re running in Fort Stanley, I was like, oh my God, like, I have a show really soon that’s not written, that I thought I would be able to write while I was here, which is obviously a terrible plan. Were you doing the focus writing? Were you doing that in your home? Or did you go somewhere? No, I was supposed to go to the Toronto Islands.

I had booked, I had gotten in and booked a residency, writing residency there. And then the islands flooded and closed. So then I ended up just booking an Airbnb in the beaches, because for me, having that nature space is like important.

So I ended up just booking an Airbnb in the beaches, so I could write and then kind of look around whenever. And it ended up being owned by a friend of mine, a colleague I know in the theatre world. It was her parents’ house, which was very weird.

So I did that and that turned into more like, doing sort of more research and rereading and just being like, I don’t know what I’m doing, this is terrible. I kind of feel like when I need to focus, I can’t do it in this city. Like, or going to the island, which I’ve done, like I do for the last three years, I’ve done like a longish weekend playwright’s retreat at Earthscape.

And I feel like that’s enough like away from the city, because there’s a distance. It’s not like you can sort of like run into people. Yeah, people have to try to get to you.

Yeah. But the idea of like, oh, I’m just going to go away in my city. And this thing about the unfamiliar that I find conducive to writing.

Well, for me, I live in Oakville. Oh, shit. Okay.

I’ve got to get out of my house. So for me coming down here, I would be able to go that way. Yeah, shit.

But you got it written and performed. Yeah, yeah, we ended up changing the format and changed the whole structure of the piece so that it was completely meta, a play within a play, like the audience watching a rehearsal so that I had a music stand with the script because I legitimately was not awkward. Sure, yeah.

I need to have a script. So we need to come up with some premise that supports me having a script on stage that gives me permission to make mistakes and be like, oops, that went badly. Or like, oh, I forgot a section.

Yeah. Whatever. And the way that show is structured, it’s half historical documents and then half modern storytelling from my life and my own lived experience.

And so we, but we were finding that the balance, like even when it was 50-50, it still felt too, like the historical language was so detailed that it still felt too dated. So we needed more contemporary stuff. So having it structured that way meant that we could also have me interrupt the show and be like, hey, Chris, I just thought of this idea.

Like, what if we talk about it a little and like kind of sneak stuff in another way? And that show was called? Smashes. Smashes. And what was that? What was the premise of Smashes? So the premise of Smashes is that I have written a play that combines my own lived experiences as a queer woman, coming out as bisexual in my like early-ish, mid-ish 20s.

And then years later, reading the personal correspondence and letters and some of the fiction writing by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, who was a feminist author in the late 1800s. And researching about her, like I read a play, a story of hers that I wanted to adapt to the stage, did some research for her, found out through like very coded academic language that she had like passionate friendships, wink, wink. And I was like, okay, so that’s obviously something.

So then looked that up and started reading about that. And I was like, oh, well, anyone could read this book and adapt the book. I want to do this.

I want to talk about her and her life. And so there’s this one summer, it’s about a year actually of her communications with one of her best friends, who she very clearly wasn’t in love with, may or may not have had a physical relationship with. I think it’s very, I think it indicates that they did.

But there’s like arguments about it. And yeah, so it’s those, so it’s her stories to this woman, her best friend who she was in love with. And that relationship broke up because the girl, her best friend ended up getting married and she was so heartbroken that she had to like take space from it.

So it tracks that particular frame, timeframe with her relationship with Martha, when this author, Charlotte was 21. And then intercut with my own like parallel. So me reading something and being, and then that triggering me coming out to my parents or that breakup and then telling a breakup story.

So it’s those sort of mirror image things. And then also intercut with me directly addressing Christopher who is not actually, he doesn’t ever speak or anything, but is technically, is a phantom version of Christopher that’s sitting in the booth. That’s giving me feedback and that I’m telling ideas to and is triggering other memories that are sort of pretending to not be in the play, but that we wanted to share with the audience.

So then we get into a really weird thing because then we’re like, like physically, where am I looking? And who am I talking to? And what tone do I have? Because if I’m telling these stories to Christopher, is there shorthand that I’m skipping because I don’t need to fill in an audience, but then there’s context that the audience needs because they realize they may not know me as a human person. It’s a little bit complicated. How, I mean, premiering a show in a place where one does not think about it being, one thinks of a place like St. John as more conservative than say, liberal Toronto.

How did that, first off, how did you feel about premiering a show about bisexuality and queerness in St. John? And how did it end up going? I was nervous. I wasn’t sure exactly what was going to happen, but I did have the experience under my belt of doing the Toronto, the Winnipeg and Hamilton fringes with a sketch show that I had done with a friend of mine. And that show was also based on relationships and was also based on true stories, which is a real, I’m mining those experiences.

And that, so that also had some queer content in it. And in that show, I was really nervous about it because it was not explicit that that’s what it would talk about. It was all about dating and relationships.

And so for Megan, who’s a straight woman, her stories were all about dudes. And for me, as a queer person, my stories were about multiple gender people. And we, I made a focused effort that I wanted to, I didn’t want to erase my identity.

Sure. But I also was very aware of like, I was a little nervous about it. So the way- Were there specific places that you were more nervous about? No, because that one we premiered in Stratford at a festival up in Stratford, which is also sort of small town.

You did Springworks? Springworks. Yeah, I did Springworks. So we did Springworks in 2014 or 15, I think.

I think 2014. I think that might’ve been the same year I was there, but the years blur together. I know, it’s so, it’s so blurry.

That show was called- It’s called XOXO, The Relationship Show. We ended up winning the People’s Choice Award that year. I feel like maybe I saw it.

No, that’s what did not win the People’s Choice Award that I was there. The show that had like 23 people in it. Okay.

Won the People’s Choice Award that year. So. Okay.

Yeah, so I wasn’t there that year. No, we were there at the same time as Redheaded Coffee Shop Girl. Oh, she was there the year before.

Yeah, so we would’ve been there before. She was my first interview, you know. Oh, really, Rebecca? Yeah, Rebecca was my first interview, yeah.

Rebecca’s great, Rebecca. We were, we partnered on, cause we both were out of town companies. Sure.

I feel like you need, Springworks is kind of a festival that’s like, it’s like kind of an unfringe because it doesn’t really operate in the same way as a fringe festival does. It does not. And I feel like it’s really hard to get an audience out because you don’t know how to promote the show.

Yeah, I think if you’re doing Springworks, you really have to take responsibility for an audience, which is really hard if you’re an out of town. Yeah. It’s really tough.

Yeah. We, both of our shows, our show and Rebecca’s shows had like okay houses. We got lucky in that our show, so XOXO, the relationship show, started as a very small project when Maggie and I were both in Humber College.

We did this 15 minute thing that was like a class exercise, basically. Sure. But it went really well.

People really liked it. So then we were like, let’s try this again. And in 2013, Hamilton was doing, I’m not sure if they’re still doing it, but they were doing, it was the first year they did the miniseries, which was for shows in art galleries.

Frostbites. No, Frostbites is a new thing. Okay.

That came in years later. This was part of the Fringe, so it ran the same time as the Fringe. Oh shit, okay.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, they do still do it. They still do the shorts.

Yeah, the little shorts. So it was the first year they did it. And at that time, the rules were low or no tech.

Right. And 25 minutes. And I think now they’ve made it 20 minutes.

It’s 20 minutes. And the tech is a little bit more flexible now. They do allow you to have some tech.

Yeah. So, and maybe it was, maybe the tech options were more flexible at that point, but we really glommed on to no, we’re like, let’s do a no tech show. Sure.

Let’s just see if we can turn this little project into a thing. It’s only 25 minutes. We’ve already got 15 minutes.

We’re like, it didn’t take us that long to make 15. Pretty sure we can fluff this up to 25. Although technically that was a rewrite.

We kept the same idea, but rewrote the whole thing. And that went really well. But in that version, back to the queerness as well, I wasn’t explicit about queerness.

It was all just like this person I dated or whatever. And it wasn’t a big focus of it. It just sort of, if people caught it great, if they didn’t, whatever.

And then we decided to apply to Springworks and do a 60 minute version. Because a lot of the feedback from the Hamilton little mini show was, this is great. We want more.

Yeah. Okay. So we applied to Springworks and did this 60 minute and that one.

So that was the premiere there. And when we went to add basically double, so in our minds, we’re like, okay, so now we’re writing a second show. And we basically split it down the middle and inserted another half an hour in between.

And that one, I said to Megan, like, I want to, I really need to own, like the fact that I’m dating men and women. I don’t, I want that to be clear to people, but that’s not the point of the show. The point of the show is us dating people and breaking up with people and relationships.

But just so you know, like, I really feel like I need to do that. And Megan was like, yeah, great. Like, of course that’s fine.

Those no problem. And so one of the, the biggest way that we made a point of it was I, we have a section. So that shows it’s, we call it a sketch show.

Cause it’s the quickest way to describe it, but it’s basically a variety show. It’s technically a vocal mask. It has songs and dances and poems and stories and monologues and classical text and poetry.

We wrote poetry, we found, and like, it’s many different things. It’s a mosaic. And one of the elements that we put in was this storytelling.

Cause somebody invited me to do a storytelling gig, like, and I was like, oh, okay, cool. Sure. I’ll try that.

And that story that I told it, the storytelling gig was the first time I ever kissed a woman, kissed a girl. And that storytelling experience was very nerve wracking for me. I was very shy to tell it because I was like, oh my gosh, like none of these people know me.

And like, what if, what if people are me then, but that storytelling event was in Toronto and the people that were programming it knew the content. And I was like, I know I’m going to be safe, but still it was a little nerve wracking, but it went really well. So when Meg and I were adding new bits, I said, you know, I really, I think I want to develop that story a little further, get it more polished and put that as a moment.

So do you, do you have a story that maybe you could tell as a parallel story? And we’re trying to think of things and make things. And then, um, we’re talking about first kisses and then she has a very funny first kiss story from when she was like 16 or 17. And, uh, so then we made that what the connection was.

So we both would tell a first kiss story and hers was about her first boyfriend when she was in high school. And mine was about this woman when I was in university, but oftentimes I assumed, and maybe this is naive too, because I never really asked anyone, but I was assuming people were clocking me as a straight person. I’m very femme, I like makeup and dresses.

And in the world we live in, that means that people think you’re a straight person. And also if you’re a bisexual or pansexual or queer person who dates multiple genders, if you date people who look like they’re men, people assume you’re a straight woman. And so I would always make a point.

So when I would tell that story and the placement of that story was very specific for me because I knew that by that point in the show, people were already going to, if they were going to like us and like the show, they would buy that point. Yes. If they weren’t going to like us and not like the show, they wouldn’t buy that point.

This story wouldn’t be make or break. Yes. Um, but it would probably be a bit of a revelation for people who are laughing at these jokes and songs and whatever.

And feeling connected to us as these storytellers and these women. And then hear this story that was very specifically, this is the first time I kissed a girl. This is the story.

And the story is very fun and accessible and easy and not scary in any way. And then having, and then I, some, sometimes after the story, I would add a little footnote of like, by the way, like now you’ve met a queer person or like, if you hadn’t known a bisexual person before, now you do just kind of throw that into places. So the first time we did that in Stratford, I was a little nervous because Stratford is also a small town, but it has this giant theatre scene and there’s a lot of queer people in the theatre world.

So that felt like it was a bit safer, but I was a little nervous, but it went fine. And then we ended up that same year. So that was in May of 2014.

And then in July of that year, we went to the Hamilton French. We had been short wait-listed and then someone had to cancel or whatever. And we were like, well, great, we’ve got this show that’s ready to go.

We’ll do it. And so when we started performing in Hamilton, it was, it would make me a little nervous, but every, I have to say, I’ve never gotten a bad reaction. I’ve never gotten people be mean or anything, or if they have, it’s never been public.

It’s never been to me. Who knows if somebody’s whispering something, but I’ve always, and I think because it’s comedy and because that kissing story is a comedic story, people feel safer. I think there might also be the idea, because you’re doing it at, like you said, at a specific point where they already like you.

They do. And it’s not like you told them that there was going to be gay shit in the play. So people who might have reacted if they knew going in, or they might be blindsided by it, but they already like you.

They can’t come in and hate you all of a sudden. Yeah, it’s true. I think if somebody did have that experience of suddenly having a strong negative reaction, I honestly think that it would make them wonder why.

Yeah. Because if you’re laughing two seconds earlier and laughing to me, like even if you’re complete strangers, if you’re watching a comedian or whatever, you have to be, for you to laugh an audience member. For laughing, there’s a connection.

There is a connection. And you’re so vulnerable. Like as a comedian, you’re vulnerable.

But as an audience member, you’re vulnerable because you’re letting the world know what strikes your fancy. You’re not aware of it. You can’t control it.

It’s yeah. It’s like mentally being tickled. You can’t stop it.

The interesting thing is also when you laugh, you are uncontrolled. And so people learn a little bit about who you are by the way you laugh. Yes.

Even the sound of your laugh. Yeah. Yeah.

And I’ve certainly been in shows where we’ve had someone with a very striking laugh, which will trigger more laughter. Oh, I love that. I love that.

Everyone loves it. When you have somebody in the audience who has a loud laugh, you’re like, I’m going to be okay. Yeah.

Because you’re going to help these people who might be quiet laughers know that it’s okay to laugh. Absolutely. Yeah.

Absolutely. Yeah. It’s really fun and special.

So I think that sort of, I always relied on that as a bit of a safety net of like, I know that they already like me. Like if they’re laughing at the scene two seconds before, they’re going to keep laughing at this. And if they hit, if it goes to crickets, our show also, it completely breaks the fourth wall.

We direct address the audience a lot. And in that moment, we’re very specifically saying, hi, my name is Franny. I’m telling you a story from this time, from this city.

Yeah. These people that if I ever did have a reaction like that, it’s completely built in that. I could talk about it.

Like if I needed to come away from the story and talk about the reactions to the story, I could. Yeah. But I’ve never, I’ve never had to.

So I would say having that experience of doing that in Hamilton and getting a positive response Toronto, I knew I’d be fine. And Winnipeg, I was a little nervous as well. I don’t think you would have to, Winnipeg has been doing fringe a very long time.

And so they’re, you know, it’s not like they haven’t seen some weird shit. No, it’s true. But I will say that the shows that had explicit queer content in Winnipeg did not have as big houses.

People were a little more, a little more hesitant, unless it was something where they knew the performance really well. Like there was a local production of the Birdcage that sold out like a 300 seat theatre every single night. Cause everyone was like, Oh my gosh, John is in a dress and he looks great.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So that was great. But people that, we’d never been to Winnipeg.

We had no history there. And in such a big fringe as a newcomer, as an out of towner, it’s tough. It’s tough to crack in there.

It’s hard if you like, you need to, if you’re doing one of the bigger fringes out West, you really need to make sure that you’ve done. Number one, one of the fringes that their reviewer will go to, cause the reviewer for the Winnipeg Free Press goes to Montreal and Toronto. We did not know that.

And that kind of burned us actually. Well, cause now you’re not going to get it. Cause those out of towners get a review, the week fringe opens.

Yeah. We got a review posted the morning before, like in the morning. We had our tech that afternoon.

We had a review come out in that morning and we had no idea. Nobody warned us. Oh shit.

We had no information about it. And the person who reviewed it basically, I think maybe didn’t understand that it was a comedy or perhaps that comedy wasn’t their taste, which is fine. Comedy is super subjective, but their feedback was like, that they want, and that show is very, there’s a lot of absurd things.

Like there’s a lot of, we have one scene, for example, where Megan is, I’m interviewing Megan and the language and the structure is completely stolen from job interviews. Sure. But I’m interviewing her to, to become my brother’s new girlfriend.

Right. And, uh, and then it gets really weird. And then we go into this giant coughing fit and then we become like flight attendants.

And we’re talking about getting ready for a first date. And like all the steps, like we modeled that after flight attendants. We have like matching hand gestures and whatever, but we’re talking about like shaving your legs and putting on makeup and all this stuff.

And it just, it is a bit trippy and it is a bit wild. And the main feedback from that advanced review was that there wasn’t enough like reality. Like they wanted to hear more sad stories and they’re like, breakups aren’t funny.

And we’re like, okay, but this is a comedy show. What’s interesting for me in a review is when the reviewer sort of goes off on their fantasy world of like, I would have liked to see, you know, tell us more about this. And I’m always like, no, how about we just stick to, but this is the show.

How about stick, like talk about the show that you saw and that we wanted to see. Yeah. That’s kind of a review pet peeve of mine.

Yeah. It was difficult. And we were really surprised when we were in Toronto, we, I mean, we’re both from Oakville and have a lot of connections in Toronto and, and did, uh, we’re really happy with the marketing and feedback that we were able to get.

And we got, I think nine reviews in Toronto, which was great. Yeah. There are a lot of people that got none or much less than whatever.

And the majority of those reviews were very positive, which was lovely. So we were sort of like, great, we’re ready for Winnipeg. And then when we got to Winnipeg and those were back to back, like we finished the next day we flew out.

Yeah. And so we get to Winnipeg and we’re kind of exhausted and kind of fried from already doing a French, but we’re like ready to go. And then that morning we get this review.

That’s like, I would have preferred it to be more. And I can’t remember anymore, but just, we were like, Oh, that’s not the tone we were expecting. And also.

Okay. Like we can’t even, it’s always so hard. And each city is so different.

That’s the thing. That was very frustrating. For a lot of, in a lot of cases, in a lot of cases, like when you go from one fringe to another, you’re starting at zero.

Yes. Unless you have a show that somehow has buzz between fringes. Yes.

Yeah. Which is a great spot to be in, but it’s pretty rare. Cause most times you’ll go from Toronto to Winnipeg.

You’re like, did really well in Toronto. I don’t care. Yeah.

Yeah. And, uh, and for us, particularly with a, with a comedy show, even within like within each, like the run of the Toronto fringe, each show I would say is unique. And we, within the first, maybe five minutes, not even of that show, we can tell, is this an audience that’s into the physical comedy? Are they into the smart wordplay? And do they like the music? Like we can see where they’re kind of falling in love and where they’re not as into it.

And so, and I’d say Megan and I are both very good at reading that and not turning into big hands and milking stuff too much, but we’re like, Oh, like we can, we know what jokes are going to land and which ones are, are going to really work for people. So I’ve been getting a review where the Winnipeg, we’re like, we don’t even know yet what Winnipeg’s like. Like we don’t know what this crowd, each individual crowd is going to be like, but the tone of this city is going to be completely different from Toronto.

The Hamilton crowd to the Toronto crowd were totally different. And we negotiated those as we came across them. So that was really shocking to us.

And then our second review in Winnipeg was from a volunteer reviewer, which great. Thank you, volunteer reviewers. But it was just a synopsis and didn’t, didn’t even have at the end of the synopsis, a like, and I liked it or I hated it.

Like nothing. It was just kind of facts. And we were like, this is kind of a waste of space.

It’s so weird when that happens. There’s a couple of websites in Hamilton that just give a synopsis and it’s like, yeah, you’ve done nothing for me. Yeah.

You know, you’re calling this a review, but it’s not. Yeah. We were very lucky with our Hamilton reviews that they did tend to have an opinion, but I think it’s not uncommon for, for fringe in general to have reviewers because they want, they need such a volume of people that people who like theatre are interested in theatre or want to give reviewing a shot.

Sure. I think they need a little more guidance and coaching. I think they need, I think there needs to be a, you must do these things in your review.

Don’t just give us a synopsis. Yeah, I agree. Cause I mean, even a synopsis with a closing line of, and that worked for me would do more than that would at least tell you something and tell a potential audience something.

Although, you know, it works for me is not a great pull quote, but at least it’s somebody giving an opinion. Yeah. Like I already wrote a synopsis in my marketing material.

You could have just copied and pasted that. Maybe in Hamilton, I was like, you did. Yeah.

You copied and pasted my press release. Right. Thank you.

Yeah. Yeah. So Franny, what, we’ve talked a lot about these two, these two shows and I’m curious about.

Oh, sorry. Just before we, I realized this all started cause you asked what it was like doing the show with queer content in St. John. And it was great.

I was, I was nervous because I didn’t know anyone in St. John. I have zero connections there. Nothing.

But I also thought, well, it is a show that is very explicitly about bisexuality. Yeah. So if you are mad at bisexuality, I doubt you’re going to spend your 10 bucks.

Probably not. Like, I don’t think that I’m going to have to deal with people that are like hate buying shopping. And the people that turned out were all incredibly lovely and supportive.

And the fact that that audience grew and grew that there was a really big support network for the type of work I was doing. And I started, I put out, I would call it, I called it my guest book and I put it out. And at the end of the show, the volunteers would open it up and people, and I’d have a bunch of pens and people could write messages to me about the show, feedback for the show, feedback about their experiences.

And part of that was because my director couldn’t be there. Right. So I wanted him to have some kind of record of like, people liked this part or whatever.

And also after reading it, I’m going to be able to use a lot of it for like grant applications for showing why it’s important to the community. And I got tons of responses from people. Like after the show, I always said like, please, if you want to chat further, I’m here.

This is a topic that does not, I wrote this play because there aren’t plays about this. Yeah. So if there’s something in this that you want to chat about, I’d be happy to.

And I, after every single show people come up and I heard stories of like, you know, people came out to me and they hadn’t come out to anyone else yet, or they had just come out to their partner or their parents were dealing with something, or, you know, their sister had just gotten pregnant with her wife and it had been such a trial. And like, I just was able to hear all these stories, which was like, this is important. When you connect with an audience like that, there’s something really kind of special about it.

The show that I did in Hamilton, my premise is a comedy and I turn it in about the halfway point. So somebody referred to it as the throat punch in the middle of the show. But the number of times that people would like, people I didn’t know, be like, can I hug you? Yes.

Yes. You know, you finish the show and they’re like, can I? Is it okay if we connect in this way? One guy left a note on the stage. And it was just like a heartbreaking note, but it was like that kind of connection when you know you’ve done something right when you connect that.

Yeah. Yeah. And in St. John, because it’s such a small town as well, um, almost after almost every show, people are like, Hey, you’re getting food.

You’re getting your drink. Can we show you somewhere to go? Oh, whatever. Which was like really nice.

That is nice. And then I would end up walking around town and bumping into people that seen the show the night before or seen the show or were coming to see the show. There was like one group of friends that I bumped into like four times and they were constantly telling people that they were going to see the show and couldn’t wait to see the show.

And I was like, I don’t even, I don’t know you guys, but you’re just so excited. And is it, it’ll happen like in the Uptown area? St. John. Yeah.

All uptown. It’s all very walkable. Which is great.

I’ve loved, I fell in love with the city. The organizer. It’s so easy to fall in love with St. John.

And it’s just like, just walking around and looking at the architecture. You’re just like, this place is beautiful. And all these buildings are empty.

Like, yeah, it was, it was wild. And the first day, um, I didn’t really, cause I don’t, I, we’re on a lake. We’re not on an ocean.

I don’t deal with fog very often and hadn’t really thought much about it. And at the time there were a bunch of, um, wildfires that were also going on. So when I drove into St. John, I was like, oh my gosh, there must be terrible fires that are, that are blowing into the city.

And I asked my billets, who I was staying with, who were amazing. Kelsey and Frank. They were so lovely.

Happy birthday, Kelsey. They were so great. I loved them.

And they also had two shows and they were amazing. And, so I was like, are there, and I thought, I know, I know I’m going to be wrong, but like, are there fires? And they’re like, no, no, this is fog. And I was like, and that really, like, I ended up making a bunch of Instagram videos of just me, like walking through the fog, singing spooky songs.

It was like, what is this magical Halloween town? Yeah, I fell in love with it. And the audiences were super supportive. And the Fundie Fringe is like almost the fall.

Is it September? It was August. No, the Halifax one is in September and it was last year, August 20, 20 to 25, 21 to 26, something like that. So a lot of people were doing that and then planning on heading to Halifax.

Nice. Nice. When did theatre become a thing for you? Do you remember what your first? Yeah.

Yeah. Peter and I have had, I was talking as if it’s a person I know. I met.

It is a person that we all know. Yeah. Ever since I was a really little kid, I just always wanted to, I remember doing like a playing grade too.

We did Sleeping Beauty or something like that. I can’t remember the show, but I remember somebody getting to like dress as a princess and put on the crown. And I was like, I need to do, I need to do that.

And for me, it started with musical theatre and singing. I was in choirs and then I did a play when I was in grade seven that was with the high schools and our local high school brought in young people from all the theatre schools to play the like the junior cast. Right.

But I was probably the height I am now, which is I’m a tall lady. And so immediately they were like, Oh, actually you have to be a parent. You’re too tall to be a kid.

And I took that as a huge compliment because I also like conflated that with my acting ability. And I was like, if I can like pass grade 10, like what a genius. I really took it pretty seriously and fell in love with it.

I loved it. I was so sad when it ended in grade seven because I knew I wouldn’t be able to do it again until grade nine. And I was like, grade eight is going to be the worst year of my life.

Just couldn’t imagine having to wait that long to do it again. And then yeah, by high school I was hooked. I was doing theatre, the school play, and then also community theatre.

And I worked with a community theatre group that still to this day are some of the most talented directors and instructors I’ve ever, ever worked with. I couldn’t believe that they were there, but it also set my expectations really high for like future classes and workshop and training. So I was like, I nailed this when I was like 15.

Like, what are you talking about? So that was always kind of a funny experience to me. But realizing in hindsight, like, wow, they were good. They were really good.

And a lot of the people I worked with, although it was community theatre, ended up either people my age that now are actors and are wonderful. I’ll say Tim Wellum’s name or people that clearly could have been, but chose to do something else with their life and kept it for fun. So that was realizing like, wow, I really had like talented people around me as a young person.

I’m sure encouraged me, but I was also really anxious. I deal with anxiety in lots of different ways, shapes and forms. And when I was in the end of high school, my drama teacher was like, so like what theatre schools are you applying to? And I was like, none.

What? Because I didn’t think I would make it. I was like, there’s no way I’m going to get in. There’s no way.

The only people that get into those programs are like so talented and I’m not good enough. And her face was like falling and she looked kind of mad also. And she told me like, well, I’m giving you the drama award, like when you graduate, but that’s supposed to go to someone who’s continuing.

And I was like, well, I don’t know what to tell you. And she was like, well, I don’t know what to do. And she still gave me the award, but was kind of like, maybe you’ll think about it.

And I ended up going to Guelph because it was a school that I felt really comfortable at. And for me at that age, feeling comfortable and safe was like my priority. And they had such a wide range of programs that I was like, I’ll find something that I like.

So I took in first year a bunch of different classes, some science things, some art things, all over the place, history things, whatever. And just as I continued in school, kept taking more and more drama stuff. And I was like, oh, well, I guess I’m in theatre.

Like, okay, didn’t mean it, but here I am. Graduated from that and then spent about six months working as a receptionist in hair salon in Oakville, being just so sad. Like so sad.

And I remember I had a job, one of my tasks every day was to take every single product off of these glass shelves, dust them all, put them all back. And I would do that every single day. I was like, they’re not, it’s not that dusty.

It’s not necessary, but I had to do it. And I remember one time I was like dusting the shampoo again and was like, oh my God. And I could overhear the rich Oakville ladies talking about their weekends and whatever, with their stylists and with each other.

And I remember one lady said she had gone with her husband to celebrate their anniversary to see Jersey Boys, which was running at that time in Toronto. And I remember I just silently started crying and thought the sentence in my head, I’m not in Jersey Boys. And I was like, what, what? Okay, that show does not even have, and then I started running through the logistics.

I’m like, that show doesn’t even, it has hardly any parts for women. I’m not focusing on musical theatre anymore. Like what am I, what is going on? And then I realized I was just completely missing it and super sad.

So I auditioned for one of the other community theatre groups in Oakville that year was doing Proof, the play Proof. And I auditioned for that and ended up getting the lead part in that. It was the biggest role I’d had up to that point.

And it was dramatic. And I’d been doing a lot of comedy previously in musicals. And so that was really, I was like, okay, you know, see how this goes.

And I was really excited and it went really well. And there was an adjudicator who came in and gave really great feedback. And I ended up contacting her and saying, hey, I’d like you to be my coach.

Like you gave such great feedback on this play. Like can, do you do coaching? Do you have classes, whatever? She said, yes. And then from that relationship, she suggested I apply to theatre school or maybe I had said I was thinking about it.

And she was like, yep. And she was affiliated with Humber College. So she said, why don’t you think about those guys? And by the time I decided, I’d missed a lot of the deadlines for the schools.

The only schools that were still taking submissions were Humber and Studio 58. I always want to say Studio 54. Studio 58 at Langara College in BC, in Vancouver, where a friend of mine was studying.

And I applied and I got into both. And I decided to stay at home because I’m a bit of a homebody. And I thought all my connections will be out West.

I want them to be here. And I was at Humber College for two years. And my first year, it was a great experience.

And my first semester of second year was pretty good. And then my second semester of second year, I was kind of getting feedback that I didn’t really understand and didn’t really agree with. I started getting a lot of pushback that I’ve always been a strong comedic performer.

And I started getting feedback that that was too prominent. I was making things too funny or something. And I didn’t understand that.

And I also was like, well, but I remember when we did Macbeth, like, no one was laughing. Like I didn’t get. So the feedback was starting to get kind of strange to me.

And I couldn’t figure it out. And there were a few other things that just started to strike me as kind of odd. And I had always taken the idea of going to theatre school.

At that point, I decided I was at theatre school. So my options were either I take a bunch of workshops and classes on my own, which actually one of my profs at Guelph recommended. Or I go to theatre school and you’ve already hired everybody for me.

I just have to show up. They’re the ones traveling back and forth. I don’t have to find a clown class and a puppetry class and a Shakespeare class and a contemporary class and a film class.

Like you’ve already done it. You’ve curated it. I get to go and practice.

At that point, I was 25, 26. And I knew I was like, I’m doing this. I’m doing it.

I’m gonna do it. Anytime I’ve tried not to do it, I get too sad and too bored. So I gotta do it.

And yeah. And then, but by the end, coming towards the end of second year, I was starting to feel like, I don’t know if this is as helpful for me as it could be. It’s a three-year program or two-year? It’s a three-year program.

But I still was getting very good, for the most part, very good feedback. Some things that I felt were kind of putting me in a box more than I agreed with. But always got like good work comments.

Good job stickers type thing. And then at the end of my second year, I just had a weird vibe. I just felt like all of a sudden, not all of the teachers, but some of the teachers started getting kind of a little distant and a little cold, a little more impatient.

And a lot of theatre people are dramatic. It’s called drama school for a reason. But even that seemed kind of more heightened.

And I was confused about that. But I was still very involved in the program and in the school. I actually, the school had hired me to be their box office person.

And asked me to sit on a panel to represent the entire program at this. They would have once a year, at the end of the year, a student representative from all the performing arts, the comedy people, the acting, film, and TV people. I think there were musicians and all the different things that were in the performing arts category.

We’d go and meet with the deans and bring whatever issues we had or concerns or whatever. And we were always at risk of losing money. Every program, think of all the typical program issues an arts program could have.

So they had said, can you please speak on behalf of these things and blah, blah, blah. So I went and did that. And then was offered a summer job position with the school, which you can only get if you’re a returning student.

Because at the end of each semester, they do the interview process where you’re invited back or you’re told you have to repeat. You can either get repeated, you can be asked to repeat, be asked to withdraw, or promoted on. And so everyone’s always a little wary of that.

And I had never been at risk of anything previously. And my work was always one of the sort of standouts in the class, I would say, based on the feedback that I was getting and reactions from the audiences and nothing against anyone else in my class, but that was the experience that I was having. But then by the end of that second term, something started going kind of weird.

And I wasn’t sure if I was gonna come back for third year. I thought, I don’t know if they’re really supporting me in the way, like I’m here to grow as an actor. I already know I’m gonna be an actor.

I’m here to get as good at it as I can. And I’m starting to think that maybe this isn’t the right place for that. But I hadn’t shared that with anyone.

I kept that very private and then went into this meeting and was told that there was no room for me in my third year, even though I had literally, it was a week to the day. I had been the representative of the program. It had been three days after I’d been offered a job and it was very shocking.

It was very, very shocking. And it was, all of a sudden I got feedback I’d never heard before, never heard before. And referencing projects that we had done six months ago of like in this project, you actually were more like this.

And you were more like that. And like other negative feedback. I was like, well, why didn’t anyone tell me six months ago? Like if you’re telling me that I have an issue connecting with a scene partner, why are you telling me now and telling me that I have no chance to resolve it? And also I’m not being put on probation.

I’m not being told I have to repeat. I’m not being told like, look, we’re seeing an issue here. You need to work on it.

But all of a sudden went from having like some of the highest marks in the class to, sorry, you gotta go. Like no chance, it’s done. There’s no hope.

It’s like, what? This is wild to me. It was so shocking and went against any experience I’d ever had in an academic setting. And a lot of the personal relationships that I had with the teachers, I was very surprised at.

And then went through an appeal process, actually on the advice of a teacher that disagreed with the decision. And then I wrote many letters and emails to other teachers who had taught me and had been sessional teachers and people who are very well-respected in the community and who are now doing, I remember Ravi Jain with Peter Why Not. He’d been a sessional teacher and I messaged him and was like, hey, so I’m getting kicked out of school.

I don’t agree with the reasonings that they’re giving. I think the reasons are kind of fake. I think it’s a personal conflict.

I think somebody doesn’t want to work with me for some reason. But they’re saying that it’s my quality of work. Would you be willing to say that the quality of work in my class did not reflect, like was good enough to continue? And he was like, this is crazy.

It was like, really? Like, I do not understand at all what they’re talking about. That is not the experience I had with you as a student of mine. I’d be happy to write about what my experience of you as a teacher was like.

And I got that response from, I think almost everyone I asked. A few people said they would rather abstain because they’re like, well, I don’t know what they dealt with you. So I don’t want to talk about my experience.

They weren’t sure how it was relevant, which I was like, okay, well, fine. That’s totally fine. But there were enough people that wanted to support me immediately that I contacted the dean and literally was like, remember me? I was in your office a week ago representing this program.

I’m being kicked out. And they were shocked and they had never had that experience before. And so I appealed, formally wrote up a big letter and referenced all the grades and all the feedback and had all my little report cards and all my comments on all my projects and letters from teachers.

And the administration overruled the teachers and said, we don’t see any evidence of why this person should leave. And they had also, the technical thing that they had set up was that every student needed to get a minimum of 70% in their core thing of acting, voice and movement. And I had passed everything fine, except in my acting section, I finished with 68.

And my argument was also, I personally couldn’t tell you the difference between a 68% student and a 70% student. And I would argue that nobody can. I’m not coming, I’m not missing class.

I’m not doing anything that would be a standard. I’m not disruptive. I’m not handing stuff in.

Even if this is a genuine concern of the quality of my work, they didn’t give me a 30. They gave me a 68. What’s that about? It’s one of those things that- Yeah, I don’t know.

It’s one of those weird things in theatre schools where they want to whittle it down and they don’t. How do you do that without… At George Brown, when I was there, and this is like 20 years ago, they would just, after a similar situation where somebody sued the school, they just gave everybody really low marks. Right.

Because what’s a B actor or what’s a C actor? So it was always like, C’s and D’s, whatever, is basically what everybody got. And that was their, marks are low enough, we can do what we want. We can do whatever we want, yeah.

But it’s like one of those, how do you do it? And it sounds like they’ve made some pretty poor decisions there. Yeah. Did you go back even after being asked to leave? So I won that appeal.

Yeah. And I did return for two days. Yeah.

And then said, this is ridiculous. This is my time and my money. And I’ve always maintained that I’m here to become the best actor that I can be.

And I feel completely unsafe in this space. I had one instructor who actually had been very supportive and said, okay, just so you know, if you come back, they’re going to be giving you feedback that it’s probably going to be hard to follow because they’re going to be saying, you have to ignore every instinct you have. And I thought, that seems wrong for an actor.

Like, how am I supposed to do that? Like, then I’m just going to, I have to become a void of all my own natural thoughts and feelings. And then what will happen if I do that for a year? I’m going to graduate being a robot of what somebody thinks is the correct way to do things. And like, acting is so subjective.

And like, I couldn’t, I thought I’m one of all the people who have, like, what about these letters from teachers that thought that my instincts were correct or made sense or were at least something they could work with, even if they didn’t love it right away. And that was very concerning to me. And so I contacted the Dean and the heads of the department and said, yeah, this place is too toxic and not worth my time and energy as an artist.

I’m continuing to be an artist and I’m going to put my time and money into places that will help me grow. This school is not that place at all. And then dropped out.

And my class, the average graduating class from Humber at that time, and I will say there’s been a change in people who are the heads now, so I don’t know what the current status is like. Although I will say that one of the teachers who was very supportive to me is the new head of that program. So I have, I believe that that’s great.

That’s really good news. But for a few years after that, every single semester, students would message me. And at first it was people I knew because it was people either in my class or in the class below, or were in first year and I had kind of a vague recollection of them.

And then it was strangers. It was just people from classes that had heard about me through other students of people who got kicked out for very strange reasons. And I coached a number of people through the appeals process.

And up to that point, I was the only student who had appealed. There’d been one other appeal within the last like 10 or 15 years of the program outside of me. And they were kicking people out, left, right and center for all sorts of quote unquote reasons.

And I remember the dean said to me, the associate dean said to me, why don’t more people from your program appeal? Like this is an academic institution. These are grades. You can fight anything.

You can fight a grade on an essay. You can fight a grade on a final class. You can fight whatever.

Because technically the school can’t disenroll you. They can say you don’t have marks high enough to continue. That’s right.

And you then make a choice. You can either make a stink to raise your marks or you trust that or whatever. And so this associate dean said, why aren’t more people doing this? And I said, honestly, people are terrified and shattered and believe them.

Like I’m 26 years old. I’ve been acting for at that point, probably 15 years. I’ve been getting enough success that I know that I am actually good enough to continue.

But if you’re 17, 18, 19, and this is your dream, and maybe you don’t have the credits or you don’t have the reviews or you don’t have other people that are telling you, it’s just in your own heart. How could you? Like literally, how could you? How could you turn around? And there’s also the pride and the ego. It’s like, well, if you don’t want me, I don’t want you.

So I think there’s also the fear that if you fight, if you decide to continue on, that it’s going to reflect badly on you, that somehow you’re fighting these people is going to mean that you won’t get work later on. Yeah. Oh yeah.

There’s a lot of fear at theatre school. I remember being very concerned that getting kicked out was somehow significant. It was an indicator because I fully believe that good actors get to move on and people are getting out because they’re bad actors.

Yeah. Even though I was seeing friends and colleagues getting kicked out and being confused. I was like, well, that must be the exception to the rule, I guess.

But part of me had this deep-rooted belief in shame that getting kicked out of theatre school was this terrible shame, shame. And I remember talking to the now deceased, and I miss her very much, Iris Turcotte at Factory Theatre. Because at the same time, which I think actually hindsight was part of what the issue may have been because I was working at Factory and had a lot of connections there.

And I think that people felt kind of weirdly threatened by that or something. I don’t know. Maybe I shouldn’t make that presumption, but I do remember sometimes… You have to connect the dots somehow.

Yeah. I do remember there would be a few conversations where I’d kind of offhandedly mention like, oh yeah, I was talking to this artist at the theatre and some of the instructors, half the instructors were like, cool, cool. And half of them were kind of like, oh, you were speaking to them and just seemed to have a weird vibe about it.

I don’t know. Maybe that’s hindsight weirdness. But anyway, I remember talking to Iris and I was so upset and I said, Iris, this has happened.

Is this bad? Like, what do you think? Like, is this person going to have power over me? Because at that point I had known who was sort of spearheading it. I said, is this person going to be able to blacklist me or get me out of the community? And Iris cackled. If you know Iris, she was a cackler.

First she stared at me. She was holding a cigarette. First she stared at me and she blew out her smoke.

She said, who? And then I gave her the name of the person and she cackled and she said, no, I don’t even know who that is. And I was like, what? And it blew my mind. Like, I was like, oh my gosh, this person that I had like decided was in control of my life.

According to this person that I know actually is an influential decision maker, they’re not even on their radar. So that was a huge like relief to me. So yeah, so in the end, I did go, but I won that appeal very quick.

I won the appeal immediately. They had to send an email within days being like, oh, nevermind, you can come back or we’ll see how it goes. And I was like, all right.

And then did two days felt like this is a waste of time and money. And gee, this is stupid and dropped out. And then every semester for years since got messages on Facebook from people that needed support and help.

And I know that I made a change there. I know that I was the first one to fight this thing. And then a bunch of other people fought it.

My proudest moment was a gentleman who I had never met before, but he was student class shared in the program, shared his experiences and why he felt that the things didn’t really line up and didn’t really make sense. And some of the comments that were made to him by the instructors that were very odd. And I helped him write his letter and helped him put stuff together.

And he ended up getting his full semester reimbursed. He ended up getting his money back, which I was, that was my shining moment in the battle. When did you start creating your own work? I started creating my own work.

When I was teaching in, um, in Oakville. So that theatre company is called West End studio theatre. They’re still around.

They’re still teaching kids. They’re great. Um, I was studying with them and then became a teacher there.

When I was too old to take classes, I taught the drama camps in the summer and they were doing collective creation, writing shows from day one. So I had a sense of, um, creating work from very early on, from grade nine or 10. In Guelph, it was also a big thing that was pushed there was creating your own work.

And because that was a half practical, half theoretical program, because it was a BA, it wasn’t a BFA. And that program, there’s a lot of history. So there’s a lot of information about like the farm show, factory theatre, Canadian theatre in the seventies is such a big shift.

And the big change there was people writing their own stories and collecting their own stories and just grabbing a gang of people together and saying, Hey, let’s try a thing. And, um, so that was very fresh in my mind. There was a project there where you had to, um, they ended up putting it into the curriculum where you built, like there was a class that was the ensemble class and that was putting a show on, create a piece and present it and produce it and do everything.

And prior to that, there was always student run, one act festivals, at least once a semester, there’d be student run productions. And so I just, I don’t know. It just didn’t seem that it was very familiar to me.

I didn’t start doing my own writing until Megan and I did that first sketch show. So Megan and I met at Humber and, um, during her third year, when I did, I called it my DIY third year because I use my tuition money to pay for other classes with other instructors and get a gym membership and do all these things. And then got hired as the full-time, or not full-time, but there wasn’t a full-time position for it, but got hired as the education coordinator at Factory Theatre.

So then Humber had to call me and book all their tickets. And I was like, oh, hi, how are you doing? It’s just me, that person who can’t succeed in theatre, booking your tickets. Like it was very strange to me.

But, um, anyway, so I remember in third year, Megan and I had a coffee over Christmas holidays and I said, why do you think about turning that thing we did in second year into an actual thing? Like, let’s actually write a thing. And Megan’s like, yep, sounds good. So we decided, then we saw the, I saw the short form thingy come up for Hamilton and messaged Meg and said, okay, you’re done school in April.

You want to think you could, you know, we could write a show in June and put it up in July. She was like, great. So she was actually the first graduate to have a show.

Nice. Yeah. She was like, yeah, I’m like looking forward to my next project.

It’s actually a show that I’m writing with someone who has left the school. So yeah, it’s from 2013 we started. Interesting.

What has always fascinated me in recent years is talking to people who out of the gate were creating their own work. And the reason why that sort of fascinates me is when I was in theatre school, lo those many years ago, the idea of creating your work was not something that, that was even on the radar. Interesting.

It was the idea of like, what they were training you for was to get an agent and go to the audition and get the job and go to the audition and get the job and just do that for the rest of your life. And it was the idea of doing, and occasionally somebody would say, well, if you can’t do that, well, I guess you could do fringe. Like as though the fringe festival was like this thing that only failed people could do.

And if you can’t do, do fringe. At one point when I was on the edge of being asked to leave, the idea was that maybe you could do, I don’t know, you could go out and you could do solo performance or something like that. Again, at fringe festivals.

And it was like the idea of somebody out of the gate, creating their own work as part of their career was completely foreign. And yet now it’s completely essential. I agree completely.

And something I will say to the credit of Humber, although I can probably say Guelph was doing it first, at least because I did it first there. But Humber did add a thing that in third year, there was a self-produced show. So the class would do everything.

So people were actors, directors, writers, either taking source material or coming up with their own things. And which is part of why when I didn’t do third year, it was not that heartbroken. I was like, I don’t need to, I know how to do this already.

But for a lot of people, it was their first experience. And I will say that Humber, some of the feedback that we had as students at Humber were like, we could use a little more like looking at a script and rehearsing because so much of it was creating your own work. So I do think that if you are inclined, I would say you don’t need to go through your school, number one.

Because also since I started talking, this is the most kind of public that I’ve talked about this experience, but all of my art circle knows it in some form, either the long version or the short version. But immediately I started hearing stories from people that just had terrible theatre school experiences or surprising or negative or whatever. And I know there’s an article that was put out in intermission.

I know the article. Yeah. They didn’t name the school, but I know the school.

Yeah. I think everyone assumed that it was George Brown. It was.

I was not that writer. So I can’t say that it was my experience, but I think it became confirmed that that’s where it was. It was.

Because I think a lot of people who like everybody knew what school she went to. Yeah. She didn’t make it anonymous.

Yeah. None of the things that she said in there were a surprise to anybody who’s talked to George Brown graduates in the last 10 years or so. It was a little different.

It was a different experience when I was in theatre school and there at that school. Like I remember when I was talking to a number of people who had graduated relatively recently, how shocked I was that their experience, I would be so excited to encounter somebody who went to George Brown. And then we would sort of talk about, how was it? And they’d sort of glaze over.

And it was fine. And then after we would stop recording, they would tell me these terrible things that happened to them. And I’d be like, how do we stop this? Yeah.

It’s a really hard question. Yeah. And I also, my experience, I speak only of my own experience and the couple of people that I’ve mentioned that I had direct connection with.

But there are a lot of people who went to Humber it was very positive and they had a great time and they did not encounter the things that I encountered. And that’s also tricky to balance too, because everyone’s experience is their own. And so if this place was a happy place for you, it really stinks.

Like I remember a friend of mine when I was getting kicked out and it was funny because we’d also gone to Guelph together. And then by chance, we were like both in the same auditions for theatre schools and we’re like, what’s going on? And I remember that she, at the time that I was getting kicked out, was getting an award from Humber and was like, I don’t know how to feel. Well, I shouldn’t speak for her, but I remember the reaction she was sharing with me was like, this is very complicated.

And I wanted her to feel safe to celebrate like, yes, except like great, except that like you have to, and not that she wasn’t going to, but I wanted to make it really clear, like you should be, you deserve being celebrated. Just because I’m having this literal opposite experience doesn’t mean that yours is somehow not important or not trustworthy or not believable or not something you should be really proud of and not something that you can talk to me about. It’s a very complicated thing.

And our class in particular, I’ve only been to theatre school once, so I don’t know what other people’s experiences are like, but our class in particular was extremely close. It was a very close knit class. And we started with 36.

And by the time people got cut and a few people left, a few people kind of, I don’t want to say left in protest, but were, but made it clear when they left that they were like, there’s a lot of decisions here that they did not understand. Did not agree with and then couldn’t understand the rationale of a lot of things that were happening. But that class ended up graduating a class of 12.

And at Humber College, the average graduating class was in the 20s. So there was a very, that was the smallest class maybe they’ve ever had. And it was a really, it was a really complicated thing.

And there are a lot of people that when I, and I was part of, there were a group of six of us that all got the chop at the same semester that weren’t allowed to continue. And everyone was in chock at everyone, like everyone. We couldn’t understand why anyone was leaving.

Like it didn’t make any sense to any of us. And it was really hurtful and horrible. And also terrible icing on a garbage cake was that that day.

And then they swore we will never do this again, which thank goodness. But they had the interviews on the same day that they had their big end of year gala party. Oh no, no, no.

So we all showed up in our gala outfits with tear stained faces to celebrate the third years that we’re leaving and to have almost like a final goodbye with our class. It was. Oh, that’s excruciating.

One of the worst things I’ve ever experienced. But it was also reassuring because at that thing, there were people who hadn’t heard yet. My class, I texted everyone in my class, but there were people who hadn’t heard and assumed that I was coming back.

And we’re like, yay, third year. And then when I had to say not for me, the number of shock from people was like very gratifying. Yeah, of course.

Especially from teachers. There were so many teachers that hadn’t heard yet. I hadn’t started my, you know, appeal process yet.

I was still totally in shock. And teachers came up and said, you know, just I just heard I was not consulted in that decision. I do not agree with it.

I really feel terrible. This is awful. And hearing that from people that I had worked with and respected was really helpful.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Coming out of that interview, you know, at 10 a.m. earlier that day, it really felt like the whole world had turned against me. All those teachers.

Yeah, absolutely. Me as a person, I’m a very open hearted person. I’m quick to share things.

I’m a very open person. And in my work, it’s even more so. And I really took it seriously that those were pretty, you know, sacred spaces.

You know, those are spaces where we could be our true selves and anything you were dealing with, you could bring it up in that space and people would help you through it. And celebrations, like exciting good things, that was a space for those as well. And in the moment, it really started to, I remember getting feedback of like, well, you struggled with this.

And then that became part of our thing against you. And I heard from a few other students that had difficult interview processes of the same thing. People would, you know, write things in a journal saying, I’m really struggling with this aspect or this piece of work or this whatever.

And would end up months later in their interview process being told like, yeah, your struggle with that actually is being used as a reason that you shouldn’t continue, as opposed to you were being honest about that and let’s work through it and figure it out. Which is what I always assume. Of course, it’s what it should be.

Yeah. And I doubt that, I don’t think any of those teachers were monsters. I think they were kind of caught in a bubble.

Yeah. I think the power structures there were very strange and they were very isolated from the rest of the college. And I think there were a lot of things that just, it was so insular that I can logically see how some of those things happened.

But it was really hurtful. It was really awful. And it’s not another thing that I wish on anybody.

As somebody who like, scraped through all of my interviews, I’ve heard one twice a year. That whole process was just miserable. And also the fun thing now is that I encountered the head of acting at the time that I was in school.

And now he’s a fan. But to be like, to have spent so much time struggling with him, and then to have him come up and compliment work that I’ve done and basically tell me that he’s a fan of mine, just be like, why couldn’t you have told me that when I really needed to hear it when I was like 20? I can say I’ve had similar experiences. And also, I put in my bio Humber, I put in my bio, University of Guelph graduate, Humber College dropout.

And I think I will probably forever. At first I did it kind of as a like, coming from a very emotional place. But now I’m just like, yeah, that’s a fact.

And I don’t want that school to ever take credit for anything that I’ve done. Yeah, and it’s funny how they might. You went here, you find success, and they are very happy to sing your praises.

Yeah, there was a time where there were a lot of tweets happening supporting the sketch show with Megan. And Megan was an alumni, was a graduate. And so I understand that.

But I was also like, guy, you know that. Me too, right? Megan and I are 100% every project we’ve ever done, fully 50-50, like fully 50-50. So for you to be like, this show is great.

Like, is it 50% great? Yeah. Or is it great? Yeah, you gotta think about it. And yeah, I remember getting like, things like that that were odd.

And I will say that, you know, they haven’t, they’ve never done the thing where they’ve like reached out and wanted to write anything or whatever. So it’s not like they’re trying to do that. And I’m like, no, I don’t want to misrepresent that either.

But if they were thinking about it, I would certainly say no, because it was wild. I mean, I’m happy to give credit to the people who were really good teachers there. But those things are, you know, I do that individually.

But as a school, as a unit, as a chunk, as an institution. Well, they sort of ruined it. They sort of like spoiled it.

Well, they burned that bridge. They burned the bridge, right? You burned a bridge, man. Like you don’t get to tell me that I shouldn’t pursue theatre as an actor.

And then when I book acting gigs, Take credit. Yeah. Way to go.

She was here. Yeah. Okay.

Franny, are you, are you on social media? You mentioned Twitter. What’s your Twitter handle? Everything is at Franny, spelled F-R-A-N-N-Y, underscore M, like Mary, C like cat, B like boy, MCB for my initials. So at Franny underscore MCB.

I’m on Twitter and Instagram. I have a Facebook page. I have a website.

The website’s Frannymcb.com. Yeah, all that stuff. That’s great. Thank you so much.

This is great. Yeah. Thank you.