#13 – Michael Ripley

Michael is a writer and performer with over 30 years experience. He’s acted on stages and behind the microphone from New Brunswick to Alberta and his writing has been performed around the world. His short play Nine Types of Ice was a gala finalist and audience selection at the Short + Sweet Festival in Sydney Australia (2012) and has been re-mounted in Auckland NZ, Melbourne AU, Dubai UAE and Delhi IN and Vals FR. In 2013 Nine Types was made into a film and subsequently selected by the prestigious Montreal World Film Festival. He is currently developing another short film entitled, Mountains which is set to begin production this May. Fire Proof, a procedural series he’s developed about a fire scene investigator / professional poker player has been picked up by Flout Media Productions and is being pitched to 3 networks in March. Other produced works include the short stage plays Lunch With Cassiopeia (The Storefront Theatre) and The Transformational Potential of Laundry (New Theatre, Sydney) and the full length plays, Letters to St. Rita (Red Sandcastle Theatre, Toronto) and To Distraction (Toronto Fringe). A regular participant at Harold Award Winner Chris Owen’s Monday Nite Group where he routinely workshops new work, he is also a published poet and lyricist.

As an actor on television he’s had roles on Suits, 12 Monkeys, State of Syn and Mayday. Film highlights include parts in Alex Boothby’s Mr. Viraland Jacob Tierney’s Twist.

Twitter: @TalentedMr
Instagram: @GallantRedMrRipley

Stageworthy:
http://www.stageworthypodcast.com
Twitter @stageworthyPod
Facebook: http://facebook.com/stageworthyPod

Transcript

Transcript auto generated. 

Phil Rickaby
Welcome to Lucky episode 13 of the Stageworthy podcast. I’m your host, Phil Rickaby. On Stageworthy I interview people who make theatre; from actors, to directors to playwrights and more and talk to them about everything from why they chose the theatre to their work process and anything in between. I’m really excited to tell you that I’m going to be performing my own play the commandment, my first one person play at the Hamilton Fringe Festival this summer. So we’ll be starting rehearsals for that really soon. And if you happen to be in the Hamilton area, or the Toronto area or anything anyplace near there, I hope you’ll come out and check me out. My guest on this lucky 13th Episode is Michael Ripley, a writer performer from Toronto, he’s been seen and heard on the stage and on the microphone from New Brunswick to Alberta and his writing has been seen around the world. You can find stage where they on Facebook and Twitter at stage where the pod and you can find the website at stage where the podcast.com If you liked what you hear, I hope you’ll subscribe on iTunes or whatever podcast app you use. And consider leaving a comment or rating.

You’ve been well you’ve been busy.

Michael Ripley
Yeah. Kind of ridiculous. ridiculously busy with my with my job and with some preparation for TV series I’m developing. So a lot of late nights but better, the better to be busy than than not busy at all. I guess.

Phil Rickaby
That’s true. You just came back from a writing retreat, didn’t you? Yeah, it

Michael Ripley
was up. I was up at Lake of base. Which is, you know, near Huntsville there. And the we were up there for the weekend where it got, you know, the really cold weekend like, yeah, we can have the winter got down to minus 41. Perfect, perfect for writing.

Phil Rickaby
Well, if you’re considering that, that you’re not you’re gonna going to get away to, to, to concentrate on writing and you won’t be distracted by going outside for a nice long walk.

Michael Ripley
No, no, that’s true. Why? Why worry? You know, like, my, my feeling was that if I if I went outside, I would die. It was better to stay inside and right.

Phil Rickaby
Yeah. Absolutely. Did you get Did you did you find it as successful weekend?

Michael Ripley
It was good. The the the group was

the group was all

part of the Monday night, the collection of Monday nighters that I may have mentioned to you before, Chris Owens is group there. And I have a writing circle that I’ve developed with about 20 other people that are regulars. And yeah, so we had about 10 people up there, and everyone helps pay for gas. And we brought food and wrote each evening we had a community meal. And there was a you know, like a 90 minute share session optional. And yeah, it was it was great. I got to work on a play that I’ve been kind of backburning for about five years. So yeah, it was

Phil Rickaby
nice. When did you start writing? I know you as an actor, and what was it that you started? Or have you always written as well?

Michael Ripley
Well, I was actually actually fiddled around with the idea of becoming a poet back after I got out of theatre school. I’ve always I’ve always written poetry and something you generally talk about was true is true. Well, you know, but I’m a published poet, and it’s I’ve always I’ve always loved poetry. I’m a big fan of, well, when I was in grade 10, my math teacher Mr. Watt recognised that a kind of a poet’s sort of inclination. And he introduced me to introduce me to Sylvia Plath and he introduced me to Lawrence from the Getty, and he introduced me to transport Koski and he gave me this amazing education, he would just hand me books, and I’d go away and devour them. So yeah, Ah, and I fancied myself a bit of a poet and tried to make a go of it. But in the end, I needed something longer form. And I wrote, wrote a play called geometric tongue that was workshopped by Linda hill at Theatre direct. And that was in 1994. I think that was my first play. And I’ve been writing ever since it’s the perfect way to keep alive creativity creatively, you know, to empower yourself in that way that most actors you know, actors don’t get that feeling. You know, you’re constantly waiting for the phone to ring. And if you can somehow find a way to gain some control, then, then it’s going to be easier. You know, between gigs.

Phil Rickaby
Yeah. Did you even write in in Calgary as well, there? Was that, like, you’ve always been a poet or you were interested in poetry? Yeah. What age did you turn your attention to writing poetry?

Michael Ripley
when or why?

Phil Rickaby
Well, let’s go with both like,

Michael Ripley
Okay. Well, um, so yeah, like I said, back when I was in high school, I was turned on to poetry by I was in love with a girl named Dana Patrick, who I was crazy in love with. I wrote her a poem a day, about five poems a week for about eight months. Wow, I was obsessed. And she liked me being that way, and would take the poems and read them. And, you know, tell me how much you liked them. Though. You know, nothing motivates. You know, a teenage boy better than praise from a girl that he would love to make out with. So yeah, I don’t have those poems anymore. At the end of that sort of eight month period, I finally got around to writing the sort of Magnum Opus One in which I asked her to go steady with me. And she knew that that was the kind of topic I’d kind of laid, laid the foundation, you know, to let her know that it made me was coming. And she wouldn’t let me read it.

She said, I can’t let you read it. And I was like, why not? She’s because I say yes. What is wrong with that? And she said, Okay, I said,

and I ran away. She chased me down the hallway, and I and I ducked into the boys locker room, so she couldn’t follow me and broke my hand on the on the open door of a locker and went, I went back to my locker, like, you know, at my end at the school near my homeroom or whatever. And waiting. There was Frankie, Dana’s best friend, who I found out at their high school reunion 10 years later, was actually in love with me. And I was completely blown. She was great. If I could go back if I had that time machine and I could go back. Of course, I would. I would absolutely go out with Frankie. But anyway, I was in love. So, yeah, but Mr. White saw me writing and because of because of that, he turned me on to two other poets and that that inspired me.

Phil Rickaby
And theatre, was that always something you were interested in?

Michael Ripley
Yeah, well, you know, before grade six, I wanted to be a baseball player or a cartoonist or an aeroplane aeroplane pilot. But in Alberta, when you hit grade seven, you are allowed to take options. And I took drama. And it was it was a lot of fun. You know, I was this. I was, like, a lot of people in my generation. I was kind of addicted to television. You know, I watched the $6 million man and I pretended to be Robin Williams, Mork and Mindy, to my parents dismay. You know, I said shots but instead of Darn, of course, you know, tried to hang upside down in my closet. To sleep at bedtime, stuff like that. And and I’ve always enjoyed stories. No, I was I was a voracious reader. And I was a liar. I would tell, I would tell lies just to see if I can get away with it. You know, I would, I would, I would, for no reason. Like, I would go, I would, you know, tell my mom, I was going to my one friend’s house, and then I would call my friend and I would say, if my mom calls, tell her that I am in the bathroom, and then call me and, you know, I would, I would create these elaborate scenarios. Because this idea of pretending it really turned me on I really liked it drove my parents crazy, but and I was always pretending, you know, me and my sisters, we would do these choreographed kind of little pantomime plays to the music of my mum’s massive 45 collection. And I’ve read, like you said, I read a lot. Like I remember reading called the wild and great for I read Les Mills when I was in grade six. And I read a lot of comics, my aunt, my aunt Lorraine, every time we visited her, which was often because we had cousins about the same age. She had a comic she had, she had a drawer, wide wide drawer and this old dresser that was full of Tales from the Crypt and Sergeant Rock and and she just sent me into that room. And I would sit there with these stacks of old comics and read them. So So I sort of had the groundwork for for you know, I had there was this kind of potential inside of me. I wanted to tell stories, I didn’t really realise it. Until till grade seven, and then yeah, I took drama. And then we moved. And I went to a new school. And suddenly, I didn’t know anyone. And this speech impediment, which was a non issue for most of my life suddenly became a big issue. And if it wasn’t for the confidence that I found in drama class, because he was something where how I sounded didn’t really mind the matter. And I was I was confident in it. So I had a good time and I I think I found my identity. And yeah, like I won drama award and stuff like that. And I had a grand total of two friends. In grade eight and nine. Daryl Crisco. He was a Ukrainian dancer. And Jason offner, who was a jock who was my friend outside of school, but pretended not to know me when we were in school.

Phil Rickaby
Yes, yes.

Michael Ripley
I yeah, I had the speech impediment. I said everything like this. I sounded like this all the time. I had a horrible lisp. The first day of class in grade eight, David Manning, who was kind of the bully of the school. David Manning will be listening to this but if you are David, haha over you now completely, obviously. Anyway, David, cut in front of me at the water fountain. And he did one of these here you Thanks for saving my spot there guy. And I realised that you know, these are the defining moments, right? i I must say something. So I stood up for myself and I said, What do you think you’re doing? zipper head. And there was a show called square pegs. I don’t know if you know, the show. I know the show. Great show doesn’t really stand up. Now. I’ve seen I’ve seen snippets, but so few of them do. But it was great. Then. And there was this one character named slash who called people zipper heads. So I was you know, always quoting him. And anyway, it didn’t come out as zipper head. It came out as zipper head. And David Mani looked at me and said,

Did you just go Mi A everybody, VIP or Ed just called me superhead.

And that was my nickname for two years. Everyone call me that. So I didn’t talk. Except in drama class. I didn’t talk at all, because I was so ashamed.

Phil Rickaby
Yeah. How long? How long did it take you to? To overcome the lisp?

Michael Ripley
Well between grade nine and 10, so between junior and senior high in that summer, I got rid of it. I practised in front of the mirror for about an hour a day. I got rid of it. The trouble was when I got to high school, I didn’t actually know how to talk to anyone. And again, it was drama that gave me a place where I’ve where I could fit in.

Phil Rickaby
Do you remember what the first the first play you did was?

Michael Ripley
Yeah, the ledge, the ledger and the legend. As a two hander one act about a guy who’s committing suicide and the insurance salesman who tries to get him to sign a contract before he leaps. And I did that with my Ukrainian dancer friend, Darrell Crisco. I’d like a parent teacher, evening Open House sort of thing in grade, grade eight. And, but the first, the and then I did a number of plays in high school, we did the enemy of the people once we did some musicals. I had a great teacher, Mrs. Hashman. She tried to introduce us to different theatre forms. So she introduced us to comedian to latte, and even even Japanese play forms. Like, do you know there’s a there’s a, there’s a haiku. I may be wrong. He may not be a haiku poet, but there’s a famous Japanese poet named Isa. And someone in America wrote a play that had Issa is the central character and she cast me as Isa. That would not happen today. It’d be like, you know, Gods of Egypt. Right? So a bit of whitewashing going on there. Yeah. But anyway, so we learned, we learned some Kabuki theatre forms, we learned gesture and mask work. You know, this was in Grade, Grade 11. It was pretty extraordinary for grade 11. Yeah, yeah. And same with the Commedia dell’Arte. We did a we, we did a play called gap in generations, which had all of these stock comedian characters, there was no improvisation, and none of the typical Commedia tropes. But the characters were all there, you know, the capital I was in, you know, pantalones and battalions and Arlecchino. They were all there. So yeah. And then when I went to when I went to university, my, my goal was to get into fine arts programme.

Phil Rickaby
Did you know at that time that you wanted to make a career in theatre?

Michael Ripley
Yeah. Yeah, I really didn’t have a choice in the matter. I didn’t, not all that good at anything else. And I mean, part of that is, you know, I’m adopted. And my entire life, I’ve sort of honed this I’ve kind of honed this ability to listen and understand people and then adjust how I act around them so that so that we can get along. And I became really good at it. We moved a lot. And before, you know, before grade seven, and I completely clammed up, I became quite adept at meeting new people and just learning that thing that all actors need to learn to listen. And I think being adopted and not really feeling like you belong, as you know, is a large part of why I am an actor today. Like, I think I’m always I don’t know, I’m so used to trying on different skins. And for me, writing is the same thing. And once you once you get an idea, and you have a sense of these characters, it’s like an improvisation, they start to talk to each other. And I’m sure as a writer, you know, this feeling. Yeah, there’s that exciting point in your writing, whether it’s a scene or it’s a full length, where the play takes on a life of its own. And I find that incredibly satisfying. And it feeds into that kind of core trait of mine that I’ve, that I’ve carried with me my entire life.

Phil Rickaby
I love that moment when, you know, it doesn’t always happen. But when you find yourself as a writer, that you feel like you’re not actually doing anything. Because the characters are strong enough that they’re talking to each other, and you’re just transcribing.

Michael Ripley
It’s the best. And, and it’s, it’s amazing how you can be surprised. It’s amazing how they can surprise you. Yeah. And this, this is not something new people have obviously been talking about how this occurs. And you know, this is the nature of the beast. And as writers, the characters, they take a life of their own. But that doesn’t take away from the fact that it is just cool is just great. And it’s it’s so exciting to be there like to be inside that and it’s exhilarating

and satisfying.

Phil Rickaby
Where did you go to university?

Michael Ripley
Well, I, I tried to get into the University of Alberta. I made it into like to get into the U of A into the fine arts programme, you have to take one year and then you audition I think you’re what most junior University programmes like this, you take. You take a foundation year and you audition to get into the programme. And I only wanted to go to the U of A I was convinced that that that is I was convinced that I was convinced that that was where I needed to be. And I didn’t get in. I just wasn’t ready. So I continued on doing an honours drama degree focus focusing on dramaturgy and play analysis. And I was quite good at it. Alex Hawkins was the head of the department Alex Hawkins. If you know anything about theatre history is is a pretty big name. He worked under Oscar G brocket, whose text his tome is kind of the cornerstone of most theatre history courses if you if you ever taken one. Anyway, he was this inspiring guy who taught who taught theatre history in a way that really brought it alive for me. For example, in my second in my second year, working with him, we did we explored Brechtian theatre by and it was a large class, there was about 80 people in this class, he had three assistants, we took Brax life of Galileo, split it into parts, and there is groups of six. And we all did a segment of the play. And in the doing it, we explored Brecht approaches, you know, to theatre So, we, you know, we not, we not only learned about the alienation effect, we practised it, we, you know, some people did their scenes with puppets, you know, Brett was very concerned with people not getting too emotionally involved in the moment so that they forgot the message that he was trying to share through his theatre. And this alienation effect this, you know, reminding people of the fact that they were watching a play is a big part of what he was trying to do. Not always very successfully. But yeah, so working with someone like Alex Hawkins really informed me and if I hadn’t, if I hadn’t made it into the, into an acting programme that that following year, I think I would still be exploring that. I think it still be in that field in some capacity. I’ve actually taught I’m a bit of an autodidact. I taught theatre history at Ryerson for for two years and I’m a bit of a student of film history. Peter Wilde, whom you know, at George Brown was always rolling his eyes at me. You know, he’d ask you to ask a question in theatre history, and I put my hand up and you’d say knock you, Michael. Just enough about you. Yeah.

Phil Rickaby
So did you ever get into?

Michael Ripley
Yeah, I did that so yeah, I didn’t make that first year. I auditioned that you have a I auditioned for you have a for George Brown and for York and was accepted to all. And I was so taken with the George Brown programme. As you know, through my research, and through the conversations that I had with Heiner pillar and Peter Wilde that I decided to go there. I liked the conservatory approach. I wasn’t interested in, you know, dividing my time between geometry labs, and theatre.

Phil Rickaby
That was the thing that attracted me because I was accepted into Ryerson and George Brown. Oh, yeah. And I was looking at the courses I looked at, at what was what my, my, my, the year would be like at Ryerson. And the thought of, like, going from concentrating on theatre to writing an essay on somebody on, you know, a philosophy class just didn’t, didn’t appeal to me. So I wanted to the conservatory appealed to me too.

Michael Ripley
I get it and you know, like, I understand the value of it. But I took two years of university, and I had full court I had I had a full course load, I was I was taking English, I took classics, I took mythology, courses, all of that. I took French, all of it inspired and informed me as a as a theatre artist to go to a university programme, and I have to do that all over again. It just would have been a waste of my time. And yeah, I was. I was excited by the sort of vocational approach that that a college programme offered.

Phil Rickaby
So you you picked up and off, you went? from Alberta to Ontario? That’s right. Yeah. Yeah. Was that was that was getting from Alberta from Calgary, into Toronto. Was that? Was there any kind of culture shock involved there? Or was it well,

Michael Ripley
at the time I was living in Edmonton, because I was going to the U of A there. And my girlfriend at the time, she got accepted into the MFA Acting programme at York. And I made it into the U of A, but I was, there was there were political things happening at that programme, during that period of time. That’s soured me to going there. Anyway, I wanted to be with my girlfriend, so it sort of all at all lined up. And the idea of, of a clean start really appealed. So yeah, I it was a it was a pretty easy decision to come out here. And, you know, we were essentially from small from a small town, you know, when you when you come to Toronto as someone who grew up and in, in, in Edmonton. It’s a shock, like the the experience of driving the 1981 Pontiac Grand Torino with the U haul on the back on the 401. You know, it’s six lanes wide, and everyone’s going 40 Miles 40 kilometres over the speed limit. It was harrowing, it was white knuckle and it was terrifying. I stayed with a family friend for the first few nights at his place up in up in Brampton. And yeah, so we were on the we’re on the on the freeway, and it it it was exciting, but it was yeah, it was it was a shock and then coming to school. It was alright, you know, in the end In the end I adjusted and because I was doing what I loved it, it was all good. It was all good.

Phil Rickaby
Yeah. At the end of the at the end of the three years in Ontario,

Michael Ripley
yeah, well, you know, I got an agent, I had an ad agent before I left theatre school. And I worked pretty steady. For a good four or five years I had the fortune of being in some well received plays, I did a play by Ted Atherton, whom you may know. He’s known primarily as an actor, but he’s also a very fine writer. And he wrote a play called shareware there was a hit at the fringe, I think that was in 94. And we got a best of the best of the fringe right up and. And right after that, I did a show at equity showcase directed by Roger Barton called scenes from the from an execution, which is Howard Barker play. And to this day, that is, that’s probably the greatest role, the greatest experience theatrically that I’ve that I’ve ever had, that I essentially had, I had the best part in the play. I was the bad guy. And the reviews were over the moon, and I’m still stopped by people who saw that show. It was it was great. Yeah, and I, I banged away at at being a working actor for a number of years. And then I got a little bit tired of the, of not making a lot of money, and got a job, got a job that paid really well and kind of dropped out of the business really, voluntarily.

Phil Rickaby
I ran into somebody about a month ago, who was it was a good business, and got a job in government. And their whole thing was more about how they felt like they weren’t actually living their life. Because they were spending all of their time researching, who’s the artistic director of this? Who’s directing that? Who can I contact about this and the hustling people, and they realised that that all of the enjoyment of the business had had been sucked out of their life by all of that work. Yeah, there’s

Michael Ripley
no denying it like it is. It is hard work. When you’re warned about it in theatre school, if you’re lucky enough to have, you know, business of acting, or, or working actors who are your instructors, but until you live it, you really don’t realise how much work it does take and how thick your skin has to be. You know, I don’t think there’s another profession where you’re where you’re so consistently forced to look yourself in the mirror, and don’t convince, convince yourself that it’s all right. Yeah, you’re constantly having to tell yourself, well, just just realign and maintain confidence. I never really lost confidence in myself as a performer. But I definitely, I definitely was tired of living hand to mouth. And when I got this, when I got the job, it was working for this event. logistics company, I’m a graphic designer, and I was basically their head of creative. I felt like I was doing something that had that, that had an element that fed my artistic card. And I gave myself a little bit of time to kind of pay off my student loan and and Yeah, after a while, I realised that that wasn’t the answer that I was that I was that I needed more. And I got back into the business but yeah. Well, you know what, I never left my agent, but my agent didn’t give me auditions. I just wasn’t available. Right. So I don’t know. It was about six years, a good six years where I was kind of on hold. But no, I did. I did. I did a few things here and there. Aaron and I wrote, so my writing, my writing was one way for me to keep my foot in the door, even when I wasn’t acting. And since then, now that I’m, I’m acting again, and things are sort of on the upswing for me that way, once more, I’m, I’ve, I’ve got these two, I’ve got something nee chan that which I really didn’t have in my life. Before I took that hiatus was was really only about acting I didn’t, I didn’t take my writing all that seriously.

Phil Rickaby
It’s sometimes interesting to look at how getting doing things outside of that business, and actually feed the, the career expanding beyond the, the concentrating on auditioning and and that being your focus to you know, working a job paying the bills and and that can actually when you come back to it, you’re sort of a bit a bit more grounded maybe then if you hadn’t.

Michael Ripley
Yeah, I think it’s, it’s like anything, you really don’t get an appreciation for something you’ve lost until you lose it. And of course, I’m matured as well. And I think I’m a far more nuanced performer than than I ever was. And the Yeah, the experience of being outside the business for all intents and purposes. Absolutely has made me a better actor. I lived even though it was workday and it was nine to five and it was full of stress. I I lived I worked I you know, I you know, I was in a there was a lot of drama in my life, even if it wasn’t theatrical drama, and it informs my writing.

Phil Rickaby
Did the Can we talk about about the series that you’re working on it? Can you tell us anything about that? Oh, sure.

Michael Ripley
Right, well, it’s as you know, I’ve done a number of theatre projects and I’m fairly busy writer for the stage. But I challenged myself to write something that that I would love to see on television, you know, there’s so much happening the really is I know, it’s cliche to say it now but it’s kind of a golden age for television. The best stories are there i I’d argue that what’s happening on on Netflix and HBO and AMC is a they’re telling far more mature interesting stories than then Hollywood is. Anyway, I’ve I wanted to I wanted to challenge myself and and write something for the for the small screen and I came up with this. This, this character named Tyler Laidley who is a fire scene investigator slash underground gambler who is closet Firebug. And this show is called fireproof and it’s a procedural drama with kind of a long form narrative led narrative under underpinning it. It’s a it’s great. We have three meetings coming up with networks, actually, two meetings in early March and then one mid March. There’s a company in town called flood media, and Shasta. Justin is my producer. She’s a huge fan of my writing and she loves the pilot and what I’ve been doing for what I’ve created as a treatment. So we’re very confident that it’s gonna get to, it’s gonna get we’re gonna get some traction it really is a nice piece. So that has that has me really really stressed but very excited right now.

Phil Rickaby
If you compare the process of writing for television over writing, what age did you? What do you fought, what did you find was the main difference between the two aside from being able to change scenes and disorder scenes and things like that?

Michael Ripley
Well, when I made when I made the short film adaptation of my, my, my piece nine types of ice I learned very quickly that what you can say visually is far more effective on film. And then then when you can convey through through words, it’s just more, you know, the medium demands it and that isn’t to say that, that you can’t create a piece for television or film that doesn’t have characters who are talkative, you know, there’s always going to be people who want to see didn’t My Dinner With Andre, and if anyone is a fan of Mad Men, you know that that is a slow piece, you know, that is molasses, glacial molasses slow, in a lot of ways. But even even with something like, like Mad Men, there is, it’s so visually driven, that as a as a, as a theatre writer, you need to, you need to find ways to, you know, you need to constantly remind yourself that if there is a way to do it, visually, then do it. And if you have something to say, that can’t be captured visually fine. But if it can, don’t even think twice, just just just do it, you know, film that sucker and throw the dialogue in the bin. And, you know, that moves your action forward. And it it’s actually a wonderful sort of freeing experience as a writer to, to kind of let that be, you know, you’re still conceiving of the moments. And if you if you’re directing it yourself, or if you’re consulting with the director, you know, you you have a say in how those moments will manifest. Right. But, yeah, it’s very, yeah, it’s very different. It’s very different process.

Phil Rickaby
You mentioned nine types of ice. And that was, that’s a short play. And it’s been seen all over before was even a film, isn’t that right? Yeah. Australia and Dubai. And yeah. Did did you send, like, Did you submit it to those those places? Or did it like how did you?

Michael Ripley
Well, my process for the, for the, for the past three years, I’ve been writing a lot of short material, a lot of it coming out of writing challenges and sort of writing exercises and, and, you know, just sometimes random ideas, but I’ve been trying a lot of them out at this, this workshop that I go to on Mondays. Anyway, out of that, out of this workshop came the kernel of what is nine types of ice. And I hammered away at it after it did really well in that kind of workshop environment. And I submitted it to a play festival series in Australia called short and sweet. They get about 2000 plays from all over the world. They hammer down that list by half, and then they hammer it down again. So they create a long list of about 1000 and they create a shortlist of about 500 And then from that 500 The directors and the artistic directors of the various incarnations of the short and sweet Festival, which is all across the South Pacific up into Asia and now into the UK in the United States. The directors choose from a micro list of the shortlist of about I think there’s about 200 200 plays that ended up being part of the pool that they can draw from And nine types made that made that micro shortlist and was mounted first in Auckland, and then in Melbourne and then in Sydney, then in Dubai then in Chennai, India and Delhi, India and in Dubai, if I didn’t say that, yes, Dubai and then and then very recently in involves France in a short play festival that has nothing to do with short and sweet. But someone saw a production of it. In Dubai, and this short play festival in vos, which is just outside of Toulouse, they they asked for permission to do it there. So the success of it as a as a as a short play. And you know, it was an audience so it was an Audience Choice winner it It made it made a few gala finals. It our producer approached me with with some money and said, Why don’t we make a short plate short film this? So I said CCCS okay. And it did great. It made it. It made it it was a visual selection of the material world Film Fest, and it’s something that I that keeps cropping up. It’s it’s a it’s a pace that? I don’t know, I feel like it. I feel like it’s going to have more iterations before I before I put it in the drawer,

Phil Rickaby
do you still revise it?

Michael Ripley
Actually, I did. Actually, I revised it. About a month ago. There is a short play festival here in town, it’s never actually been mounted in Toronto. So there was a Short plate festival that’s connected to the social capital theatre. I know, you know, those people, Melissa. Melissa de aid loss of aid. So if if it gets selected for that, it’ll, it’ll premiere in Toronto. So for that iteration, you know, for that, for that festival, I created a new iteration.

Phil Rickaby
Was that the first time that you’d revised it or had you revise it before

Michael Ripley
there was some revisions for you know, there was some revisions of the scripts to make it work in, in different cultures, just but nothing major, there were different cultures for different countries really. So I gave permission to the people in Chennai, India, to, to set it in, in Chennai. And we, we did research together the director and I, based on you know, there was one of the characters is from Newfoundland, and I wanted it, I wanted the that sort of us in them. I wanted the subtext that Canadians understand inherently that comes with a person being from Newfoundland, I wanted to find a parallel within, within Indian society. So that was a really interesting conversation, the same thing happened with another play of mine. transformative potential laundry that was done at last year’s Sydney search short and sweet festival. They, there was a number of place names and, and associations within the script that they wanted to find local versions. And I’m not precious about it, I want it to be relatable. And I sort of, I enjoyed, I enjoyed that process with nine types. So I said, Yeah, sure. Go ahead and make it make it local.

Phil Rickaby
Do you work with them on that? Or do you just let them change the place names to whatever work?

Michael Ripley
I worked with them? You know, I made sure that they understand why I chose that, you know, that particular place, you know, that if, you know if you’re, if you’re choosing Hamilton as the place where a character comes from, and that’s part of who that character is. There are, you know, we have associations with them. With Hamilton, that are immediately going to spring to mind when When, when, when you introduce yourself as someone from Hamilton. So I wanted there to be, and I’m just pulling that out of the air, the character was Yeah. But just as an example, and they, I made sure that together, the director and I, we found, we found parallels and then mirrored what it is I was trying to go through what it is, I was trying to say about that character’s origins.

Phil Rickaby
How long you been working with them, I did a group.

Michael Ripley
I’ve been there almost 10 years. And it’s, it’s great. It’s a unique, it’s an unique programme and that I, it’s by invite only, there’s a lot of working pros there and no one’s there to, you know, to spruce up the reel. Yeah, no one gets up to talk about the scenes afterward. There’s no, there’s no teacher who kind of lords over the proceedings and passes judgement. The only the only sort of sense of how the play or the scene it is that you’re doing is going is the audience’s reaction. So, really, it’s like a gym, and you go in there and like you were doing, as if you were doing a workout, if you can lift. You know, if you’re having a day where you can, where you can free lift 200 pounds, then you do it. If you can’t do it that day, you know, and it’s, it’s, it’s the same thing for Monday night, if you’re if you’re on the audience reacts. And if you’re if you’re at all introspective and have any self knowledge, you know, when it’s working, it’s also a very open place, and that people are given permission to work outside of their comfort zone, and there’s no judgement. So people come in there and they try new stuff. And there’s a lot of writers that are associated with it. As I as I mentioned before, there’s the writing circle that has grown out of it. So it’s a it’s one of these places where if you’re an actor, if you’re a writer, if you’re a producer, if you’re a director, there’s there’s always something for you to do. There’s always a project going someone is always creating.

Phil Rickaby
I always find it. I think it’s important to surround yourself with creative people. And creativity feeds creativity. And so it’s important to make sure that you have those people around you.

Michael Ripley
Yeah, you you need to you need to find a tribe you need to find, find and build community. If you don’t have it. I think that’s why I’ll never just be a writer because it can be kind of a lonely pursuit. Yeah. Especially Well, if you’re writing for theatre, maybe it’s not as lonely, but it’s definitely a far lonelier pursuit than then being an actor. And I crave that that connection and the collaboration, you know.

Phil Rickaby
We are basically at almost an hour here. Okay. And I want to thank you for for talking with me today. It’s been great.

Michael Ripley
Well, my pleasure, Phil. It’s, it’s been a long time. Hopefully we can meet face to face next time.Transcript auto generated.