#12 – Ruth Lawrence

Ruth Lawrence’s work as an artist has taken her to Ireland, France, the US, and across Canada. As Artistic Director of White Rooster Theatre, a company in its 16thyear, she produces the work of women writers, garnering accolades and presentations across Canada.She is co-founder and coordinator of the Women’s Work Festival, now celebrating 10 years of developing new plays by women, the festival has a proven record as a successful springboard to production for women playwrights.As a filmmaker, her short films have screened, won awards and nominations across Canada and the US.Ruth won the Joan Orenstein Best Actress Award for Clipper Gold at the 2011 Atlantic Film Festival and the RBC Michelle Jackson Award for Emerging Filmmaker in 2011 for Two Square Feet starring Jeanne Beker. She was named the Newfoundland and Labrador Arts Council’s Artist of the Year for 2011 and in was honoured with the Queen’s Jubilee Medal in 2013. Since 2014, she has produced three award-winning short films for Blue Pinion Films and co-produced her first feature Hunting Pignut (Pope Productions), all with women as writer/directors. Ruth is the co-creator and director of the 5-episode webseries Buy the Boards.She directed her first music video, Bounce Back, in 2015 with award-winning artists The Once and The Swinging Belles (Nine Island Productions). Visit www.whiteroostertheatre.com, www.bluepinionfilms.com (or our Youtube Channel), and www.womensworkfestival.ca to see some of this work.

Twitter: @IamRuthLawrence
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ruth.lawrence.980

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Transcript

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Phil Rickaby
Welcome to Episode 12 of the Stageworthy podcast I’m your host, Phil Rickaby. On Stageworthy I interview people who make theatre actors, directors, playwrights and more and talk to them about everything from why they chose the theatre to their work process and everything in between. You can find stage really on Facebook and Twitter at stage really pod, and you can find the website at stage for the podcast.com. If you like what you hear, I hope you’ll subscribe on iTunes or whatever podcast app you use and consider leaving a comment or rating. Ruth Lawrence is an actor, director, filmmaker and artistic director of white rooster theatre. She’s co founder and coordinator of the women’s work festival now celebrating 10 years of developing new plays by women. She was named a Newfoundland and Labrador Arts Council’s Artist of the Year for 2011 and was honoured with the Queen’s Jubilee medal in 2013. Rose spoke to me from her home in St. John’s Newfoundland.

Welcome to the show. And I’ll start with with the question that I always start with and that is, why did you choose to pursue theatre?

Ruth Lawrence
Well, I grew up in a really small place in St. St. Jack’s Newfoundland, which is in the middle of the south coast of Newfoundland, little town of 200 people. And I didn’t really have any good examples of theatre to use as my guide when I was growing up. But I, I did. I did learn through CDC that we had a very vibrant culture and there were tonnes of local regional programming happening in Newfoundland at that time. So I was used to seeing our culture kind of reflected back to us in shows like the wonderful Graham band up at our skipper and Company. Some of them were variety shows, some of them were sort of sitcoms, and some were music shows. So I sort of grew up seeing ourselves reflected on TV. And even though I’d never seen a theatre show, I felt that there was a career out there for me. So once I started getting pretty late into high school, I started investigating the possibilities and the first school that I could find that did not require an audition to get into, which really appealed to me because I didn’t know what an audition was, was a technical theatre school in Niagara College down in welland. So I applied, wrote a really great letter, got some references, Guardian, and that was really the start to my theatre career. Cuz from there, I was allowed to audition for all the shows that that this centre did. I had to be on crew sometimes. But I, by and large, I got to perform in those shows. And that was really the beginnings of my theatre career. So really, my first experiences on stage were actually in southern Ontario.

Phil Rickaby
So you had not you didn’t have exposure to theatre itself until you started. Like college. Yeah, that’s

Ruth Lawrence
right. I had a high school teacher who came through at one point who was going to start a drama club. And we did one drama club, sort of meeting. And you know, we did some ragdoll exercises, stuff, I was so jazzed and I thought, Oh, this is gonna be great. But I guess she didn’t really see much potential there in the four or five of us who showed up and we never had another drama club meeting. That was a bit of a disappointment to me. But I did get a taste and it was enough to tell me that yep, this was something I wanted to do. Huh?

Phil Rickaby
Were you surprised when you finally started started doing theatre at what it actually meant? I was

Ruth Lawrence
in a way because you know, you no matter what you grow up watching, you’re never really quite prepared for the amount of work and the amount of thought that goes into a production and no matter how big or small your part is, you know, you’re you’re always on you have to be thinking all the time. And so I I think that was the part that surprised me. You know, when you’re watching TV, you kind of go okay, when the person walks off, they’re sort of out of your experience, but it’s a very different Yeah, as as we all know, we work in theatre, you know, once the show starts, you know, there is that wonderful, beautiful tension, no matter how often you are on or off the stage that you’re suspended in. From the time the the show goes up until the final curtain Oh, yeah. And those are beautiful more moments actually I love those moments.

Phil Rickaby
Yeah, sort of why you doing doing theatre at at Niagara? Did you complete the programme there? Did you leave that to go elsewhere?

Ruth Lawrence
Surprisingly, I did. Because once I got there, I realised I loved the people, the students that were there doing techno theory, I loved their craft so much. And I ended up going it was a two year programme with an optional third, I went back for the second year that I had to choose a specialisation. So I chose a specialisation in costumes, even though I actually loved carpentry, too. And my carpentry teacher was actually quite disappointed that I didn’t become a carpenter, in retrospect so much, because I would have really helped me when I renovated my house. But I did learn a respect for power tools while I was there, and I’ve never been afraid to pick anything up. So I took that with me, but I stayed because the first year I did two shows. And then I saw an opportunity in the next year to just get a bit more of an enriched experience. And I did I did another show at the very final one that year was absurd person singular, which was an Alan Ayckbourn show, but unlike most of the stuff that he’s written, and I, I just had a ball. It was one of the best experiences of my, you know, early college life because I had a lead role. My parents came to see me, as it turned out, it was my, the only time my father ever saw me on stage because he died quite young got sick the next year, and died a year later. So it was the only time my father ever saw me on stage. Was that final production at Niagara? So I did actually really enjoy and never regret any of those any of the time I spent there.

Phil Rickaby
And did you go straight there from a straight from there to George Brown?

Ruth Lawrence
Well, I’d hoped to I auditioned for George Brown, because I went up for a visit to friends of mine, who were at George Brown while I was still at Niagara. And I just fell in love with their programme. I saw the period study, which is just, you know, the pinnacle for me of the study at George Brown. And I saw that and this is the school for me. I auditioned for that programme and didn’t get in. I got in to Humber, and went to Humber for one year. And I the whole time I was at Hummer even though I learned lots and I made incredible friends, some of whom I’m still friends with today, of course, there was just some boy, George Brown, they hooked me. So I went back to audition again. And I remember Peter Wilde saying, didn’t we see you last year? Did but you didn’t let me in the school. So I’m back. And he said, Well, what if we’re just another stepping stone on your way to you know, to find the school of your dreams? And I said, Well, this knit I don’t want to. And I think that actually got me in?

Phil Rickaby
I don’t think probably did I probably did.

Ruth Lawrence
Yeah, there’s no way it was my audition. I didn’t improve that much from one year to the next. I really think it was those words, it kind of took a chance on me.

Phil Rickaby
Yeah. Yeah. And that was, I mean, though, that programme, for so many people who went through it is pretty it’s an intense programme. And is definitely it changes you in some some good. And I guess some people might, some people, everybody’s mileage varies, but it definitely is a challenging course.

Ruth Lawrence
I wouldn’t, I wouldn’t change. Not one month, not one, not one scene study, not one course. Like everything about that. And like you said, there were things I didn’t enjoy. But I they came back to me, you know, at some point in my career for the last 25 years. They those everything I learned there has come back to me in some way.

Phil Rickaby
Well, it’s it’s funny, because it is a course that I remember, when I was in first year, Peter Wilde said something to the effect of you may not understand the things that we’re doing now. But one day in the future, you will understand exactly why we’re doing it. And the time I said you were so full of shit. Myself. And then about 10 years later, I was like, Oh, now I understand. I know

Ruth Lawrence
the penny drops and like that’s the thing like the penny keeps dropping, I feel like you know, like, and, and it’s true a like I remember having that moment to where I was like, you know, we’re young, we’re thinking oh my god, really? Do we need to know this stuff? And yeah, the truth is you do. And it’s funny

Phil Rickaby
because I remember I remember thinking, you know, why are we taking all this? Why are we spending all this time in theatre history class exactly, you know, lectured at for an hour every every week. But now of course, I understand exactly why I know

Ruth Lawrence
and like, like, I’ve gone back and reread so many of those plays. You know, he’d be very proud of us. I think, you know, Phil, he’d be very proud to hear that. But it’s true. And I teach sometimes. Now, I’ve taught a couple of times at the theatre school and hornbrook. I’ve taught as a masterclass teacher, and I’ve also taught here at mn, in their drama specialisation and I, I hear myself saying the same words that those teachers have said over the years to me, and doing remarkably, a lot of the same exercises.

Phil Rickaby
Yeah. Yeah. It’s funny how much you know, those are the those are the exercises that we fall back on so often.

Ruth Lawrence
Oh, absolutely. And I feel like I actually feel a little pang of jealousy when I’m teaching them to my students, because I want to go back and do it all over again.

Phil Rickaby
I actually caught myself saying a little while ago that that I would like to go back and do those things again, knowing what I know now. Yeah. Sort of with the wisdom of age and not the impatience of, of my youth.

Ruth Lawrence
I know the zone of silence like, oh, be so nice to go back there. Yeah, it

Phil Rickaby
totally would. When you finish Theatre School, how long? Did you go straight back to Newfoundland or did you stay in Ontario for a while,

Ruth Lawrence
I didn’t go straight back because I auditioned for a couple of summer seasons, and I got one. So I actually left school and went directly to Port Colborne, and worked at the showboat theatre that I don’t know if that theatre is still there. But they had a little summer season. And I went down and worked there. I did. I performed in two shows. And I was I think I was the costume mistress for one in the middle. Because of course I had, you know, the costume background. They’re like, Oh, we could keep you on the whole summer. And I went, Yeah, of course, I was a new mother because I had a look. And I thought, yeah, I’ll do that. So I stayed that summer. And while I was in Port Coburn performing, a friend of mine came to visit me and told me about an audition for a show back in Newfoundland. And I knew at the time I plan to go back, because me and my partner, Luke’s dad, were getting married. So I thought, oh, I should audition. So I set up an audition. I can’t even remember how I did it. I feel like I had a phone interview. And she said, okay, yeah, you’ll audition when you get back in St. John’s. So I came back, I auditioned for and she said, Well, the show’s cast. I can’t hire you. And I probably did the smartest thing in my career. I said, Well, isn’t your show about rural Newfoundland? And she said, Yeah, and I said, Well, who and your cast is from rural Newfoundland? She said, No one. And I said, I think you need me. And what could she say to that? She said, Well, maybe, okay, I’ll do this. Why don’t you come in and work with us for a couple of days, we’ll try it out. And if it works out, then I’ll figure something out. And so after, after the end of the first day, I thought, Oh, this is, you know, I didn’t know how this is going. And then and then I came back for my second day. And the assistant director said, Don’t worry, don’t worry, your trial is over. We’re hiring you today. And that was it. Like I got that job. And then I went, basically, from job to job I, I don’t even think I’ve ever I don’t think I’ve ever auditioned for anything outside of Newfoundland since that, because one job led to the other led to another. I made a whole community and network here. And the only time I’ve left here to do shows is when I’ve toured things. And one time, I did a CO production between RCA theatre, our local St. John’s Theatre Company, and Terragen. And I went to Paragon to do six weeks in Toronto. So I’ve had a pretty full career. I’ve been really lucky.

Phil Rickaby
Yeah, I mean, there’s, there’s you sort of mentioned something in passing about. You mentioned your son, Luke. And you had Luke. So you were pregnant with Luke in second year?

Ruth Lawrence
Yeah, I got pregnant in the fall of second year. So by the time I finished my second year, I was quite pregnant. And like, it just was very fortunate that his his birth date was predicted to be July, turned out to be perfect. He came on the seventh and eighth of July, and he was six weeks old when I went back to my third year and I remember when I got pregnant. It was funny because I kept thinking, Oh, they’re all really sceptical. They think I’m not coming back, but at that point, as a pregnant young woman 23 Three years old, I didn’t really know what my options were because I thought, well, now I, I gotta work as soon as I get into school because I got a child to raise. So I didn’t see any other choice than to finish school. So I told them, I was going to come back and they said, Look, come back. And I remember Peter Wilde, actually, in the room, it was him. Hohner. And Peter said, I think you just need to come back and take it one day at a time and see what happens. And I said, yeah, if you’ll let me do that, that’s what I’d like to do. And he said, Yeah, of course we will. And that’s what I did. Like, I never looked beyond the next day, because every day getting to school was hard. There’s, that’s no lie. Because I had, you know, a child, I had my, my child’s babysitter was across town, I lived in Hyde Park, his sitter was in, lived in Girard, and where was she driving Coxwell. And then the school was at King and river. So I basically crossed the city, and then doubled back halfway to get to school every day. And then I’d get so because I was in third year, when I went back. We also had, we had classes all day, and then rehearsals all night. So I would usually get home, like at midnight, because I’d go get after after rehearsal, usually at a student’s house, a first year, second year would have them, or they’d come to the school, take care of them. And I was getting home at midnight, and then getting up again, like five, six o’clock in the morning. So every day, it was hard. And you know, babies come with lots of illnesses and lots of needs. So never Yeah, never quite knew what the next day would bring. I was also really broke. So I was doing my own laundry for cotton diapers. And I was nursing and yeah, it was, it wasn’t an easy year, by the time the year was up, I was physically exhausted. But man, did I ever know myself better?

Phil Rickaby
I’ll bet you did.

Ruth Lawrence
I knew a lot more about myself than I would have in any, you know, otherwise, there’s that that’s for sure. Yeah, and I got better as an actor, there’s no doubt about that. Because suddenly, there was just something. There’s just something that makes you a lot less selfish when you realise that there’s another person that depends on you.

Phil Rickaby
That’s what I was actually going to say. I was gonna suggest that maybe that might have also been because you were so tired. And I was tired. You cannot fake it. When you’re tired.

Ruth Lawrence
That’s so true. And I’ll tell you one thing, I was certainly in touch with my emotions. knew, you know, and there were just things. Yeah, there were there was an appreciation for life somehow that I didn’t, hadn’t had before and how delicate it was. It’s really It sounds a little bit corny to say it, but there was something that changed entirely. I felt like my level of empathy went way up. And yeah, I suddenly could kind of put myself in, in someone else’s shoes. And, you know, before that, you know, I was concerned with all the things that a college student is concerned with. And many of those things really went to the backburner. You know, when you when you got a child that’s dependent on you every day? It’s, yeah, it was it just changed everything. And I’m telling you, for me, I mean, I say this a lot when I talk to theatre students, like I had the best people around me at George Brown, like, I mean, everyone there contributed in some way, whether it was just giving me the support, or a kind word. You know, I never Yeah, I can’t overstate it enough. Everybody there was just instrumental in me finishing that. And in some ways, I always felt like having a baby in the school kind of humanised everyone. A lot of the pettiness that I had sort of seen in years ahead of me. It all fell away. I didn’t I didn’t see that anymore. Once a baby was suddenly around. And that was a really great effect. I saw it and everybody from my third year class to second years, and first years to because a lot of times like you might have even held Luke like there was I felt like everybody in that school had a hand and kind of doing something at some point. Nobody

Phil Rickaby
kind of took a turn looking after him. I remember a i think i think i i or somebody else might have commented that that year, Luke was the baby that was raised by the community.

Ruth Lawrence
Oh my god. Absolutely. There were times when I’d be doing shows that I walk on stage and like basically someone will put it on my arms. I was like, you know, you can’t get more real than this. So yeah, it was pretty it was pretty nice. And I it’s funny because now even through facebook i I see some of the people who you know would babysit or or would do like little things for me and I always go oh, look at that I remember so much you know, that person or that student and yeah, it’s, it’s so he has given me a stronger connection to a lot of people.

Phil Rickaby
Yeah. Yeah. So then when you you returned to to Newfoundland, you’ve been working since going from Toronto in and I think that although George ran tries to prepare people for a career in theatre in Canada, since it is based in Toronto, a lot of the knowledge comes from the, the Toronto theatre community. Did you? What did you find different when you arrived in the theatre community in in Newfoundland?

Ruth Lawrence
Yeah, that was certainly probably, in some ways, my biggest awakening, but also, it wasn’t that far from what my expectation was. Because when I knew when I came back, that I was probably going to be creating a lot of my own work, I didn’t quite realise how much, but I did know that, you know, I was probably going to be doing a lot of things where I had to write my own my own work. And that that was like, the first thing, the first job I got, when I came home. It was a collective. And that was a really big tradition here, it’s actually kind of fallen off a lot in the 25 years since but the first four or five years that I was back here, I was writing collective works all the time. So that was one thing we hadn’t done any work on in Georgia brand, because of course, yeah, they’re, they’re preparing you for life as an actor not to be a writer, actor or writer, director, actor or producer. So I very quickly realised that if there were stories that had to be told here, I might have to be the one telling them. Now we do, of course, also have some incredible playwrights here. But, you know, you might get a job doing one of those productions a year and the rest of the year, I knew I was probably going to have to be creating a lot of my own work. So in the early days, in particular, I did a lot of writing, that probably changed a fair bit, I’d say within seven or eight years, because people started getting more into the Canadian model, you know, where there was a playwright or a, like CO writers. And now it’s almost almost entirely single single writer shows. But in the beginning, yeah, that was that was a, that was a big awakening was realising I’m gonna have right to, but it was also, you know, a beautiful thing because I had such freedom to be able to create my own characters for those shows.

Phil Rickaby
It’s interesting because they, when we were in theatre school, they couldn’t know how integral the self created theatre was going to be, how, how important how big the indie scene was the do it yourself theatre scene was going to be preparing us for what the common experience was at the time.

Ruth Lawrence
Yeah, like you go in and audition for Stratford, and Shaw and all these big companies. And the regional companies to like, that was really what I kind of had the impression, Mike, my career was going to be until Luke was born. And then, and that did change my worldview. And I thought, I am going to need to be working a lot more than I would have had the liberty to. And I thought I can’t do you know, working as a waitress to support myself while I beat the streets and audition because I knew I had a child to support. So that was actually one of the things that led me back home, even though it had always been my intention to come home. After theatre school, like when I when I left to go, and I thought I’d always come back. But you know, as you get into the training, like you said, you know, like you’re being prepared for a different kind of industry. And so I really started going down that road. Having Luke changed all again, and I and I went, Oh, okay, I’m gonna go home. And I don’t regret it for a second because I like I said, I basically arrived here with a job within a couple of days. And I haven’t really, uh, well, I’ve never had to take a job outside the industry.

Phil Rickaby
That’s pretty miraculous. Yeah,

Ruth Lawrence
it is a miraculous. Like, it’s a beautiful thing. I’ve worked in film. I’ve done lots of tonnes of different kinds of jobs within theatre and film, but yeah, I I’m really lucky. I don’t know how

Phil Rickaby
you started your own theatre company there as well.

Ruth Lawrence
I did. Yep. So about 10 years in, I started a company called White rooster theatre. I kind of had a meeting of the minds with a real Someone has become a really good friend, Sherry white. And we started working together on a show and just, you know, fell in love with each other’s way of working. And, and I knew, Okay, I’d found someone that I could, that I could probably forge a career with. So we started writing a show together. And in order, well, at least we thought that in order to produce it, we were going to have to start a company. So we blindly went in, incorporated this company, and we didn’t even have a name for it. So when we were, you know, when we, when we finally had to put the, the application and we were like, what, what we’re going to call this, we came up with all kinds of corny names. And as well, we got a call at something. And she said, Well, what and I said, Well, let’s, let’s just use our names. And so her last name was white. And I was like, no white Lawrence white roof. That doesn’t sound right now. Oh, well, my friend shamer Kassner. used to call me rooster as a nickname. She’s Yeah, perfect. White rooster call it that. And the irony about that company. It’s called White rooster theatre. And it’s it’s a folk, its mandate is to produce the works of women playwrights. You know, the irony of it being a rooster did not hit us for some time after. But then we kind of liked it. We thought, Oh, yeah. Okay, that’s unexpected. So yeah, we have our own theatre company. And now it’s going into its 60th. Year, it’s, we tour across the country, we’ve taken on the development of couple of really great playwrights. And we’ve been really privileged to do the work of other incredible playwrights. Two years ago, we produced Katherine banks is Governor General award winning play, it is solved by walking. And that was our second GED award. And I felt so privileged to have the opportunity to co produce that and to be in it. So, you know, we’ve actually by focusing our mandate on women, we’ve actually, boy, we’ve we’ve had some great opportunities come our way. That’s great. Yeah. And, you know, we we get Ken Council funding on a regular basis now. And yeah, we’re doing okay, we’re still project by project, which is okay. In this climate, I think I prefer it. But yeah, we work a lot. We do at least one production a year and usually some development as well.

Phil Rickaby
And it does, just to just because I’m always fascinated by the way that a small company manages to to fund its work. Do you do all of your work through Canada Council? Do you have sponsors? Do you do crowdfunding?

Ruth Lawrence
We don’t. I have to say the one thing that I really wish we had a better grounding in here is corporate funding. And we we really have so little, it’s actually shocking. So we are pretty much public funded, publicly funded, we get funding from Canada Council from our Newfoundland, Labrador Arts Council, we have city funding, we also have another government programme that sometimes contributes. And then besides that, it’s ticket sales, you know, some advertising. And and we do do some crowd funding, but not often, because everyone seems to be at that these days. And it’s just a little harder to go out and look for, look for the money when when everybody’s kind of asking all the time. Yeah, so we’ve been, you know, so far, so good. We’ve, we’ve always managed to make our budget, we’ve never yet been in a position where we couldn’t pay people what we promised we pay them, we pay national standard. For I think every position that we hire, it just means that sometimes we do smaller projects. So we don’t always, you know, we just did a five person show, that’s our biggest show ever. Usually, it’s a two person show. So it just limits the scope of the project sometimes, but it never limits the creativity.

Phil Rickaby
No, sometimes I find that when you have a limitation, like a limited budget, you have to get more creative and how you’re going to produce and that can that can lead you in places that you never would have been able to go if you had all the money that you might want.

Ruth Lawrence
Yeah, that’s right. And actually, it’s meant that, that a lot of times there’s a there’s a certain beauty that comes out of it like we’ve, a few years ago, I was doing a show. And I realised that the only place I could possibly cut my budget was in the materials and I thought, okay, I don’t want to cut the designer, but I I’m very limited in what I can spend on materials. And so I was looking at the show and I thought what, like how are we going to do this? Because I also knew that I wanted to tour it So I had a chat to the designer. And I said, Okay, how about we try this? How about we just agree right now that we’re going to do this whole play? And we’re not going to have any would, anywhere on stage. And the designer, you know, sort of thought that over for a few seconds, because, you know, it was a good designer. And she said, Yeah, okay. I don’t know if I can make that work. But I’m willing to try. And it was actually a big set, because it was, it was a show about Stockholm syndrome. And the main character was a young girl who was captured and not unlike the, the novel room that came up like a year after we did our show. And so she had to create a space where a girl was being held captive, without using any wood. And she did it. It was extraordinary. She used aluminium framing, from a projector, and, and wool. So she, she made the frame of the house. And then she used wool, like a spider’s web, to do the walls. And I thought that was just brilliant. And, you know, she sold me. And so now my motto for the theatre company, my, my, my, I guess you’d call it my kind of go to motto is no wood. And that’s where I start every design conversation from now.

Phil Rickaby
It’s interesting.

Ruth Lawrence
And you know what, Phil, it’s actually meant that we have put us in extraordinary shows. Now we do use wood when we need it, obviously, like, it’s pretty hard to have furniture, like a table and not have wood. But it’s but I always ask that they make it not their first choice. So it’s, yeah, it’s just meant that we’ve had some pretty interesting set designs, and we’ve been able to tour everything. The last show, we did the conversation with the designer, because there was five people in it. I said, Okay, I’m going to pay you this design fee. The more we can take out of this set, the happier I’m going to be with this production. So she started with kind of a set design in mind. And, and we just all work together her, the director and the cast to say, Okay, can we get rid of that? We don’t need it. Okay, let’s get rid of that. Let’s get rid of this. So So by the time we were done, everything fit in the pan of a truck. And it was, you know, again, it was meant to be a kitchen sink drama, really. And we had no walls, we had some curtains, and a couple of pieces of furniture. But it was really just a process of elimination. We went into it taking things away. And every day, we just, we started out with a whole bunch of props. And every day, we took something away, we said can we do without that? Yep. And we just got rid of it. So by the time we actually did the show, on stage, everything that was on that stage was essential. Everything, there was not one decorative piece that that wasn’t used. So it’s been a really good experience. And from that, from that perspective, too.

Phil Rickaby
I can definitely see the how well I mean, I was thinking about, you know, when everything is absolutely necessary. I’ve seen, you know, we’ve all seen so many sets that are comprised of things that, you know, they look good, or they you know, they set the scene, but you could do without them.

Ruth Lawrence
Oh my God, I feel like I watched most shows, I go into a theatre and I look at the set. And I and I sometimes just have a visceral reaction, and I go, ah, you know what it could have done with that money besides this because I feel like I don’t need it most. Most of the time. I just need the actors to be honest. You know, like, maybe it’s the point in life that I’m at, but I just want to really feel what those actors are feeling. And sometimes I can imagine things that I just don’t need to see them you know, I remember Yeah, and the other funny experience that we had, this is one of our first tour experiences. We took a small show, three person show across Canada from from went from Newfoundland to Winnipeg, so not quite all the way across. But we again it was one of those things of like narrowing down narrowing down and Sherry white directed the production was written by a Toronto writer named Shannon Bramer. And we actually played it at the at the fringe in Toronto. And we got, we got sort of noted as Best Ensemble by Glen Sumi. And John Kaplan’s. And we’re pretty chuffed by that. But we so everything travelled in one suitcase, one garbage container, because it was a set piece, and a whole bunch of stuff could fit in it. And, and one cardboard box. And I remember when we arrived in Winnipeg, and the stuff started coming up on the carousel, we were at one end like of the carousel on the airport. And we could see, like, all the people that were gathered on the carousel, over on the far end, where the stuff was starting to come out. But like, it was almost like watching like a domino or something because we could see all the people like looking and they and their heads would turn and they look at each other. And they giggle at chat, like as something was coming along this conveyor belt and we’re like, what’s going on? It was like this little like, wave of giggles that was kind of going in this really odd shape around this airport, I think was like an M shaped conveyor belt. And by the time we could see it, we realised oh my god, it’s our garbage can that had been painted blue. And you know, it was all taped up. And people were like, laughing at the fact that there was a piece of luggage that was that was that were like, oh my god, we’re at the end of the conveyor belt. And we we to of course, we’re starting to giggle by now. And then we realised okay, this is the moment we got to pick it up. So we two of us reached in and grabbed the garbage can and put it on the floor. And the whole airport applauded stood up on the edge of the conveyor belt. And if you liked the performance of our garbage can please come to the can West centre from Thursday to Saturday. And you can see Mona Rita in which this garbage can has a starring role and plotted again and we’re like, oh, that that was like, you know, on the spot fringe marketing right there. Yeah,

Phil Rickaby
you took that show to the Winnipeg fringe as well as the Toronto fringe. It actually

Ruth Lawrence
wasn’t the Winnipeg fringe. It was Fan Fest, we got invited. So we did Toronto fringe Hamilton fringe and the Atlantic fringe. And then we did a date in St. John’s, and we did one in in Winnipeg, and I think that was the five cities on our tour.

Phil Rickaby
Did you grow in that order? Because that’s sort of like a circular it was all over the place.

Ruth Lawrence
Yeah, we did. We started That’s exactly it. We went St. John’s, Toronto, Hamilton, Winnipeg, Halifax, back to St. John’s again. It was it was a very strange. It was a very strange tour.

Phil Rickaby
Well, you do you do them in the order that they come in?

Ruth Lawrence
Yeah, exactly. Yeah. But we had a ball. It was, again, it was one of those things where we met so many people. And you know, the funny thing that came out of that was that after we had done that tour, a couple of years later I did I just just to try it out, I did a Groupon sale thing on one of our shows, like I think we had four shows and I said, Okay, this one night, like the Preview Night or something I’m just going to do a Groupon for. So you know, we sold all the tickets for 10 bucks, we got $5. And I did it because I thought okay, I want to get a good crowd out for the show. But then I also was really keen to get my hands on some audience demographics just to kind of see, like, who’s coming to the show. And, and, you know, you know, obviously, they’re not willing to spend that much money, but I thought okay, these are the people who are, are curious about our company. And when I got the demographics back, I was shocked because this was like about two and a half years, maybe three years after we’d done that tour. And I have no idea how and why. But when the tickets were bought, we noticed that there were tickets sold out of Winnipeg, they were bought in Winnipeg, and Toronto, Hamilton, Vancouver for some reason, and two or three places in Nova Scotia, and we went, oh my god, like, those are all the places we’ve been with shows in the past. So somehow or another I don’t know if people who had seen us up there, we’re now living in St. John’s, or we’re going to be vacationing here. They saw the group on and they bought tickets to come see the show. So it really proved to me the power of touring, and kind of building that national audience because, you know, the person who sees you in Winnipeg this year might be in St. John’s next year and are going to come check out so it was enlightening.

Phil Rickaby
Yeah, I remember doing fringe when I was on the fringe tour. There were people We’ll who had in a couple of the cities that we were in, they’d been there before. And they were they were commenting on how valuable it was to do that first year maybe struggled through that first year. And you know, maybe the first half of their Fringe Festival and say Calgary didn’t go very well. But then the second half went better as word got out. And then when they came back, the next year, how many people sought them out and came right from the start? Yeah, exactly.

Ruth Lawrence
I know. And you can never predict like, we had such great audiences in Toronto. We were like, you know, we got word word got out early about us because we had a good review. And people were coming. We were in the bathroom street theatres, we had great green space, and, you know, nice and Central. And, you know, we were so spoiled. It was our first range. And we’re like, wow, this is so great. Lots of people are coming out. Then we went to Hamilton. We were dead. And Hamilton, like, no one was coming out. And it was a heatwave. Like, outdoors in Hamilton. It was like being in a firebox at a stove. Like, oh, it was unbelievable. The Salvation Army was actually going around handing out water to people on the street, because the heat was so high. And no one was coming out at night. What was that? That was 2012. Was it 2011? I think it would have been 2011. I feel like it was a Yeah, I feel like that’s about five years ago. Yeah. Oh, boy, it was just Well, I’ll tell you at Kim’s convenience was playing in the same theatre that we were in. at Bathurst, we saw everything that played alongside of us. And I think we also benefited a bit from that too, because they were getting amazing crowds, and when we’d go on after them. And so people were you know, coming

Phil Rickaby
into the people who couldn’t get tickets to Kim’s convenience, which is, you know, it’s a good spot to be in that show.

Ruth Lawrence
Absolutely. Like, we went to see it, we’re like, Oh, my God, like they had sold out for very good reason. It was a great show. And we’re like, wow, like these guys are packing them in. But we were also kind of benefiting from that. So we didn’t do badly by being, you know, by being there close at hand to them. Proximity really helped us. And then and then we went to Hamilton, you know, we were in a non air conditioned theatre, or actually, I think the air conditioning broke in the theatre that we’re in was kind of a makeshift theatre. And we went out one night to do it. And they said, the aircon should grow. And we said, Okay, well, we’re not performing. Well, there’s eight people here who really want to see it. very telling, I loved each other. She was my co performer and I was like, Oh, my God, eight people. Were going to die in this heat. Yeah. And we said, okay, look, tell them, we’ll give them free tickets to come tomorrow. Like we just can’t perform in this. And the stage man came out and she said, Well, six of them can’t come back. And they’ve heard great things. They really want to see it. So we did the show and honestly feel the only thing I can remember from that whole experience that night, was watching the sweat drop off of Sara’s face and feeling it going down my back in a river. I was like, I don’t even remember anything about the show except how hot it was. So that was that was that was that experience. But you know, having said that, it was really nice to know that there was at least six people who wanted to see the show so badly that they weren’t going home until

Phil Rickaby
well, that’s good. Yeah. So that was I remember doing I think it was in Edmonton doing the play that we were touring, which was is playing this style of silent films were all in Whiteface. Oh yeah. And they would turn the AC off when the show would start. Just so that because of the noise, which makes sense, but that the theatre that we were in was like this, this serious furnace. We would have these lights and we would were already caked on with with a white makeup and and we’d finished just sort of see how much of how much did my makeup stay on? When it looks good to the white spot is on the stage from where the makeup came off. Oh

Ruth Lawrence
my god. Yeah. Oh, wow. Yeah. Yeah, I don’t envy that at all. And I mean, you know, we’re spoiled here. Because, you know, apart from the occasional warm day, we just don’t have that experience really, even in the middle of summer. So, so I don’t have to, I don’t have to face the, the heat and humidity of a theatre very often, but I do remember that. And boy, that was that was a tough one.

Phil Rickaby
One of the things that we in the Toronto NDC and people talk about a lot is where’s the audience going? People are, you know, they see the audience going, you know, the Mirvish theatres you have to go to the big shows and and you’ve got factory terragon Pasmore is still struggling for their audience, but scraping by, and everybody’s sort of wondering what is happening? Like how for indie theatre? Where’s our audience? And do you find that I picture and maybe I’m wrong, but I picture the Newfoundland culture as being more friendly to the arts and the arts being more integral than they are here. Is that a false? Is that my seeing? Newfoundland? Is the promised land for the arts or is that? You know, it’s

Ruth Lawrence
an interesting dilemma. Because if you talk to people here, a lot of them will say the same thing. Like, we’re what we’re seeing right now is definitely it’s a proliferation of musicals, the big shows, those are the ones, you know, the it’s the amateur, and the semi pro shows that are in the biggest theatres here. And the professionals are in the smallest theatres, because we’re having the hardest time getting people come out to see drama, comedy, doesn’t matter what it is, like, if it’s, if it’s not a musical, it’s harder to get an audience. And for a while there, I actually thought, Oh, its cost its cost. And then I realised No, like they’re paying. Even here, like now I know, this is probably a cheap ticket in Toronto, but like, here, they’re paying like anywhere from 60 to 100 bucks to go see a big musical. And yet, the theatre companies were charging between 20 and $35 for a ticket, which is like, that’s cheap theatre, by most accounts. But here we were like, no, no, it’s the cost, like people aren’t coming to see it, because the costs, and so I thought, no, that’s gotta go out the window. We can’t be thinking it’s the cost. Because, you know, the public funding is subsidising these tickets. So yes, you know, if you want to see good theatre, you’re gonna have to come and pay for it. But yeah, I’d say that we’re having similar dilemmas here. And part of what’s happening too, is that we’re losing a lot of performers that used to just make their home here, and work here only. Now they’re starting to move out more often. So like, when I was casting the show that I did in November, we started casting and out of five performers, we had to bring in now they were Newfoundland performers. But they were living away, we had to bring three out of five in from way, which, you know, made a significant cut into my budget, because I had to travel them, put them up, and do the best I could to provide like proteins and stuff for them. So that really has changed. A lot of the way we’re doing things here. There’s definitely less professionals who were starting companies were still around, but not many others have like kind of followed in our path, there’s only a few artistic fraud is one of the big companies a little bit older than us. They’re I think they’re 20 years old now. And, you know, they’re still based out of here. But they, from the beginning, they’ve always taken their work on the road, they kind of develop it, you know, get it ready here, and then they take it on the road. And that’s really the model that I’ve followed for the last five or six years is I said, Okay, well, like we got to do what they’re doing. We have to develop the work here, and then go find our audience, because we do have some audience here. But it’s not big enough to sustain the company. In fact, I am doing a show right now that is going to open on Thursday night. And at the moment, like we don’t really have that many tickets sold. Now we’ve got a guaranteed fee, because it’s a show where we’ve done before, and it’s being presented. But, you know, we still want people to come out and see that show we want either that were performing for to have a good audience, you know, to do a box office that’s worthy of having presented us but yeah, it’s it’s like we’re struggling to figure out okay, where is that audience? Where are they going? What are they going to see? And how do we get them in our seats? So

Phil Rickaby
it used to count and then they have stopped coming up?

Ruth Lawrence
I would say more so yeah. Like, now, not when I first came home 25 years ago, you know, it was still you know, you had to work hard to get people in. It got better. When the economy here got better. People went out more, that’s for sure. But in the last three, four years, it’s definitely it’s harder to get audiences. We like white rooster. I feel like it’s in a good position because we do have a good strong, loyal audience. They know that when they come see one of our shows. It’s going to be good quality. They’re going to see good performers. What what they’re getting for their money they feel confident in. So I feel a little bit like that makes it a bit easier. But you know, even if, like, I want people go see the emerging artists too. Because if if you’re not going out and taking your chance and seeing that emerging artist, well, that emerging artists is not gonna stick around to become the established artist in 510 years. So there’s sort of a bit of a vacuum being created, because right now a lot of the younger performers just aren’t, they aren’t sticking around. They’re, they’re taking other jobs, or they’re leaving the province altogether. So it’s, yeah, I really see. See that I know, I’m not exactly sure where it’s going. So So it’s interesting when I heard talk with I thought I would not have thought that in Toronto, but it’s obviously yeah, similar situation everywhere, maybe?

Phil Rickaby
I think so. Yeah. So well, also, I mean, those big shows they, number one, they have an advertising budget. So people get to learn about those. Yeah, that’s right. And I use your way. Yeah.

Ruth Lawrence
And like a big blockbuster been bought blockbuster gets millions of people out on a weekend because they’ve got the money to put into the advertising and the small independent film doesn’t have that money. So you know, it’s a similar similar dilemma, that’s for sure.

Phil Rickaby
And what is the show that you’re working on right now?

Ruth Lawrence
Funny, you should ask. We started talking about Luke. Okay, so the show that I’m doing right now, it’s called stable home life, the two horses, and it’s a show that Luke and I developed, created, and we perform together and we perform as ourselves. So we got the idea a couple years ago, we were both born in the year the horse and in 2014 was the year the horse, I turned 48, Luke turned 24, I was exactly double his age. And I remember saying to him, hey, from now on, like I get, I actually get younger in relation to you, this is really good, the ratio starts changing. So much older than you, and that we sort of joked about it a bit. And I said, Yeah, I said, like, I feel like we’ve got a lot of stories from you know, the way he was raised kind of unconventionally, and he was a bit of a while. He’s a very individualistic person. Luke is a stand up comedian now and has been for about four years. So you know, he’s, he’s developed his own career. But along the way, you know, he had lots of challenges. He has the learning disability. So all through school, that was a challenge. And it just made for a lot of kind of interesting experiences. So we started talking one day, and we were kind of trading some stories. And I said, you know, I said, I know about this show, which I didn’t get to see, as I know, but the show in Toronto, created by Ravi Jain, it called a brimful of Asha. And I said, he did a show where he wanted to do the solo show about his arranged marriage. And he told his mom, he was going to he was going to do this show. And she’s already can’t do that show cut, because you won’t be telling the whole truth. And he said, That doesn’t matter. You know, you probably know the show. Do you know the show? I’m talking about I know of the show. Yeah. And so his mom said, You’re not going to do that show on your own? If you do, I’m going to come and I’m going to tell people the truth. And I thought, wow, that’s really brave, and really scary. So Luke, and I started talking about it. And I said, Yeah, you know, if we did that, that feels like, like kind of an interesting experience. And I wonder what would happen. So we enlisted. Lois Brown, who’s a very great friend of mine and a colleague since I came home. She’s a dramaturg and a director. I work with her all the time. And I said, Lois, we’re thinking about the show. Well, she’d seen brimful of Asha, loved the show, she said, Oh my god, okay, it’ll be nothing like that. But it’ll be exactly like that we’re going to, that’s what we’re gonna do. We’re going to tell the truth. That’s going to be my challenge to you. So we started writing the show. And as we told Lois some stories, because that’s kind of how we did it. We did it more in Luke stand up tradition. So we started telling stories. And then there were times I tell story, Luke, we got that that’s not actually what happened. This is actually what happened. And I could not believe some of the truth behind some of the stuff that I thought I’d known for 20 years and I was like, Oh my God, and he you know, instead of, I guess we both kind of started doing this confessional type thing of like, okay, this was really what was happening, or this is what I was trying to protect you from. So we ended up coming up with oh my god, I think in the end, we decided on about 24 to 28 stories, and then when we ran them all the show was too long. So lo said okay, well, we can’t have this many stories. You guys had to pick, you know, pick some and our favourites were different. We couldn’t just died. So it was like How about we let the audience choose what stories they want to hear. And so now we basically we have two would horses on stage that we use just as our like kind of seats that we sit on when one or the other is telling the story. And, and we have a bucket, nice little horse feed bucket. And inside that are a whole bunch of cards with titles of stories that sometimes tell you nothing about what the actual story is going to be. But there are a queue. And so we let the audience pick. Are you do you want to hear about cats? Or do you want to hear about the pope Turkey? And so we get let the audience choose. And then we sort of trade off the stories as the night goes on. We have a couple of stories we tell together. But mostly, Luke has a story. I have a story or we have one that we go, wait, wait, that’s not what happened. So it’s a pretty, pretty neat format for the show. We almost think of it like a game show. Because sometimes, sometimes we also ask the audience some questions like oh, yeah, from what we’ve told you so far, like, what would you think is the best parenting tip you could give us? Or what do you think was the worst moment of what you’ve seen so far? And people? The thing is, sometimes because of the way the audience chooses the stories, some nights the show feels really like, raunchy and edgy. And other times it feels kind of sweet. And nice. I liked the sweet, nice ones. And the raunchy and edgy ones always made me really nervous because I was like, Oh, I seem like such a horrible person and a really bad mom. But that was that was kind of part of the challenge. We just took it on and said, Okay, well, you know, if we’re gonna do this, then we just had to face being honest with each other and, and kind of exposing some of our faults. Both of us get really nervous before the show because of that.

Phil Rickaby
Yeah. You said it opens this week.

Ruth Lawrence
Yeah, it opens on Thursday night at the LSP U haul. So we’re going to run it for for for shows. We have one matinee and three night Joe’s. Okay, wow.

Phil Rickaby
Great. Yeah. What do you have? What do you have after that?

Ruth Lawrence
Well, actually, so right after that. There’s a women’s work Festival, which is a festival that I co founded, and I coordinate. And that’s a festival of plays in progress. That happens in St. John’s, it’s in its 10th year now. And it’s all new works by women. Usually, from across the country. This year, we have one coming up Nova Scotia and two local ones. But it’s also a 10th anniversary celebration. So we’ve commissioned 10 writers that with Newfoundland roots, but who live across Canada to write 10 short pieces for us. And yeah, it’s it’s a full week of development workshops and readings of new plays. And then the week after that, I’m doing another show. This is all in the LSBU Hall. It’s a crazy month there for me. I’m doing another show called Bonnie and Clyde, which was written by Adrian Yearwood of Toronto. And it’s directed by Victoria fuller from St. John’s, and they’re being presented down here. So rather than bring their whole huge cast down, they’ve cast for people locally. And I get to play Kumi Barrow, who is Clyde barrels mother, and Bonnie and Clyde? Nice. I’m really looking forward to that. It’s a it’s a big month for theatre. I work a lot, but I don’t always work this much on stage. It’s great. Yeah, it’s a great month.

Phil Rickaby
Well, we’re about at the end of our at the end of our time here. Thank you so much for coming on. And I really appreciate it.

Ruth Lawrence
It was a real pleasure and actually feel it’s actually really good. Like I you know, I find when I’m out here working in Newfoundland, it’s only when I tour things, or when I visit toronto, when I talk to, you know, my theatre compatriots that I really kind of get a temperature of what’s happening in the rest of Canada. And, and we often do feel like we’re kind of working, you know, by ourselves, but it sounds like we actually have a lot more, you know, similar challenges. And maybe, hopefully, the rewards are similar to because I know that, you know, I do have my days when I go, Oh, boy, Where’s all this going? And where’s this leading, but the truth of it is, you know, I’ve actually had a pretty, you know, pretty solid career and, and I’ve gotten to work with some amazing people in the last 25 years. So who knows what the next, you know, 15 or 20 is going to bring if I hang in there. Yeah, that’s great. Yeah, thank you. Yeah. Great to hear from you. Really great to keep keep up with you on social media. And thanks so much for having me. This has been a it’s been a pleasure to talk to you for an hour