Aleena Needham

Aleena resides in London, ON with her husband William – who Directed “Passing Notes.” Aleena and William are very proud parents to their two sons, Lennon and Fletcher. Aleena is an actor, playwright and the proprietor of My Neighbour’s Attic. She has co-written and appeared in “Two Prozacs Short of a Hap-P Meal” and “Occupy the Man Cave,” both of which were produced by Theatre Provocateur. She is thrilled to be premiering her new solo project, “Passing Notes,” at Fundy Fringe Festival in Saint John New Brunswick, this August 21^st to 25^th.

Details and Tickets: https://www.fundyfringefestival.com/show/passing-notes/

Transcript

Welcome to episode 141 of Stageworthy. I’m your host, Phil Rickaby. Stageworthy is a podcast about people in Canadian theatre featuring conversations with actors, directors, playwrights, and more.

I can hardly believe that in a few days I’m heading out to the east coast to present my play, The Commandment, at the Fundy and Halifax Fringes. I’m incredibly excited and just a little bit freaking out to be performing this play again. But if you’re in Toronto, I will be presenting The Commandment for one night only at the Red Sandcastle Theatre on Thursday, August 16th.

You’ll find details and ticket information at homebodyproductions.ca. Speaking of the east coast, you’re going to be hearing a bit about some of the shows at these fringes over the next few weeks, so watch out for interviews and special Fringe Roundup episodes from both the Fundy and Halifax Fringe Festivals. If you have a comment about the show or just want to drop me a line, you can find Stageworthy on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram at StageworthyPod, and you can find the website at stageworthypodcast.com. If you want to drop me a line, you can find me on Twitter and Instagram at PhilRiccobee, and my website is philriccobee.com. My guest is Aleena Needham, who is presenting her new play, Passing Notes, at the Fundy Fringe Festival starting August 21st. So Aleena, your show that you’re taking to the Fundy Fringe is called Passing Notes.

Yes. Can you tell me about what Passing Notes is about? Well, I guess the place for me to start would maybe be to speak a little bit about someone I was friends with who gave me some of the inspiration to start the script. Okay.

His name was Bob. He was quite well known here in our city here in London. He was a very, very popular spiritualist medium, and I had the opportunity to meet him, and we became friends pretty quickly.

He shared a lot of his experiences and his stories with me, not really about people that he had done readings for per se, but experiences that he had had going on various retreats and places that he’s travelled to, and some of the things that he’s witnessed and things that have happened. And basically, some of his stories is what inspired me to start the script, because some of the things that he told me had a bit of an effect. A couple of things made the hair in my arms stand up, and I thought, wow, that’s got to be written into something, Bob.

So that’s kind of where it started. So Passing Notes is a story about three people. None of them are seemingly known to each other, but through connections that they share on the spiritual plane, that’s where their stories converge and collide.

And this is a solo show that you’re doing. Have you ever done a solo performance before? No, I have not. This is my first solo performance.

How does that feel for you? I mean, you are just a couple of weeks away from performing it. How does that, how do you feel? Well, I feel very excited about it. To be honest, I feel very excited.

Of course, I feel very nervous as well. But writing a solo show was just something that I wanted to take on as a writer and as a performer. I’ve performed in some fringes here in town with groups.

The last fringe that I did was with a group here in London called Theatre Provocateur, and their pieces are often something with a social justice kind of a statement. So I did some things like that. I had a really great experience, but I have always wanted to create something that, for me, kind of reminded me of things that I like, things that I’m entertained by.

I grew up watching black and white Twilight Zones. I’m a fan of horror fiction, things like that. And of course, the experiences from my friend who he shared those with me.

So that was what motivated me to want to put this into a solo show. I’m always curious about what drives people to create a solo show. As somebody who… I’m bringing my solo show to the Fundie Fringe.

And so as somebody who’s performing a solo show, I’m really curious about what makes other people want to do it too. And as a writer, there’s a certain… You might think that, okay, this play could be done with… There’s three actors, whatever. But what is it that made you decide that you needed to tell this story as a solo performer? So again, I’ll just kind of go back to the start of the process.

It didn’t start out that way. It started out as a play with four or five different characters in it. So initially, there were different characters in this show.

And I started writing this script, maybe about a year and a half, close to two years ago was when I sat down and just disciplined myself to just start the thing. And once I got it out and look back on it, it just didn’t carry the effect that I wanted it to. It almost came across as a bit corny.

And I found for some reason, writing it as something for more than one performer to do, I found myself relying on a lot of things like sound effects and different kinds of visual effects and things like that to really convey what I was trying to do. So I just kind of shelved it. And I thought, okay, you know what, maybe now’s just not the time.

So I put it away. And it kind of called back to me a little bit later around around Christmastime 2017. Around that time, it started to call back to me a little bit.

And I thought, I know what I’m trying to do. But what I’ve done is corny. And I just don’t want to do this.

So I just got the idea, what if you approached it as a solo show. So of course, doing that really made me it had, it forced me to kind of shave it down to the bits that needed to be there, versus things that were there just to maybe fill space. And I found that doing it, basically the effect that I wanted to create was that feeling that I felt when I heard these stories for the first time.

And I felt that doing it as a solo show just did a better job of creating that effect. And hopefully, it won’t be corny. I don’t feel that it is.

But you know that that’s up for the audience to decide, right? So yeah, I mean, this is are you do it going to do a like, are you going to try it out in front of some people first? Or are you just going to go go in to Fundie Fringe and throw it on stage and see what happens? Well, I mean, I’m quite fortunate. I’ve got a lot of friends in my circle of friends here who have been very gracious, they’ve come to my home, they’ve watched rehearsals, you know, I’ve gotten feedback from people. So my husband, Bill actually had asked if he could direct it, because that was kind of the first test of what I had created was worth putting out there was when I did a read through of the script for Bill.

And he thought, Wow, I really like that. Can I be part of it somehow? So I said, Well, why don’t you direct it? So. So I mean, I’m not doing a formal performance in a venue.

But certainly it has been seen by people whose opinions I put a great deal of trust in. That’s good. That’s good.

I always found I found the first time that I performed my play The Commandment, actually, when I was going to do it at the at the Hamilton Fringe, I needed just for myself before I did it in front of that audience to at least do it in front of a trusted group of people. Because I needed to, it was such having an audience sort of change things. And in fact, as I sort of revise it as I revisit it, and a lot of the time I’m working on my own right now, the importance of having somebody else in the room is highlighted for me, that it becomes, it’s more difficult to think of it or to perform it with no audience, even if that person is a director.

So it’s, I found it really helpful to have a group of people that did not prevent me from feeling like I was going to vomit the first time I was going to perform. Well, I have to tell you the first time I worked with the group that I worked with the last time that the first time that we did a Fringe show together, it was 2010. And it was something that we had written collectively as a group.

And right up until the second, it was my turn to walk out. Absolutely. It’s like, Oh, walking out the back door is still an option, you know, and then it’s like, No, it’s not.

It’s go do it. You know, every time I’ve presented something new, there’s a moment in every play where there’s an audience reaction that’s expected. And if you don’t get it, you’re like, Okay, this is not going to work.

If they don’t react here, it’s not going to work. And so until I hit that point in any performance, the first time, like if I’m performing something new, I don’t know if it actually works until that point. And so it’s just like a ball of tension until Oh, there it is.

There’s that reaction that I needed. Yeah, no, I can appreciate that. And I have to tell you.

So I mean, when we got the notice, a few weeks ago from the communications team at the Fringe, to put a synopsis together, I really struggled with that exercise to try to condense this into 60 words that were compelling. So I had a group of friends over and performed it in my basement. My partner bills in a band.

So he, you know, I borrowed the band’s lighting rig. And we tried to recreate, you know, a theatre venue as much as we could. So I could get their feedback to help me compose the synopsis.

And it was kind of interesting, because, you know, you had mentioned, well, there’s the reaction that you’re expecting. So certainly, there’s the parts and the pieces that I think are very compelling, and maybe more interesting than other parts. But what was really cool was, you know, having my friends talk about what they found interesting, or the things that stuck with them.

And I was just surprised by some of that, you know, it’s like, Oh, that part, you know, so that that was kind of cool, too. Were the things that the audience took away very different from what you were expecting them to take away? No, no, not not radically different. You know, certainly following what I you know, just following the storyline, and, and keeping up with, you know, the different things that were being presented.

It did translate, for the most part, as I wanted to, you know, and then of course, the things that don’t are the things that you work on, right? Or? Yeah. Were you drawn the lottery? Yes. I was I was on the waiting list.

I was number two on the waiting list. And found out like a week ago. Yes, I noticed.

Yeah, I noticed that you just beat out and so I was like, and you know what, here’s the thing that I said to myself, I said, Okay, so I’m doing the Halifax fringe. So there’s a certain point at which I have to buy my plane tickets to go to Halifax. And somehow I know as soon as I buy those tickets, Yeah, I’m gonna get into the fundie fringe.

So and that is exactly what happened. So great. What is your, your theatre origin story? What is it that drew you to theatre? Ah, well, certainly, childhood, you know, was was where it started.

You know, I was always that kid that was in the play and the high school I went to here in London, it’s got quite a reputation for having a strong theatre program. So I was involved with that. And initially, when I left high school, I won’t mention what year that was.

But when I left high school, um, Humber theaters, the theatre program at Humber was where I was, as I thought destined to go. So I went to that program, and not learn pretty quickly that in that particular at that particular time, that particular place, it wasn’t the right fit for me at that time. You know, so I did not finish, I chose to come back to London, and kind of took a different career path, and kind of built a life for myself outside of the theatre world, you know, certainly still went and saw a lot of plays and things like that, but kind of took the attitude, you know, early in my 20s, that, yeah, maybe this really just isn’t for me, you know.

And it was a few years later, I work at a nonprofit agency that serves people that have mental health issues. And that’s when I met some of the theatre provocateur people. And they came to me, nothing to do with theatre, they came to me because my role at the time was someone that you went to if you wanted to book space, or if you needed keys, or, you know, things like that, I had an admin role.

And so it was just, hey, you know what, we’re a theatre group, we want to maybe potentially rehearse here in this space, you’ve got a great boardroom, we kind of want to be here in this energy, who do we talk to, to get a key? So when you talk to me, that’s kind of what my job is, you know, so I had said, I’ll help you with your space, I’m really interested in your project. Could I be involved? And next thing I know, I was part of the group, writing alongside them performing everything. So we did a fringe together that year.

And the show did pretty well, you know, we got invited to a couple of conferences later, we went to a hospital opening up in North Bay the following year. So we did a few things with that. And we had gone on to do other shows together as well.

And that was kind of how I got myself back into it was through the the fringes here in London. How did it? How did it feel to get back into it? Was it? Was it? Was it strange? Was it? Was it unusual? Was it like coming home? It was like coming home, but it was terrifying at the same time. You know, and certainly, you know, when you know, people I work with, you know, other parents of my kids, friends, you know, I mean, when when basically everybody, you know, knows you’re doing this, and people are kind enough to come out.

So certainly, it’s Am I going to be able to face everybody on Monday? You know? Yeah, no, thankfully, everybody was pretty supportive. And it really just kind of and what that process really taught me as well is my my specific outlet, you know, is not necessarily being in somebody’s play. But really, my my outlet is, you know, having having a very strong hand in what’s created.

And, you know, I that that process taught me that I was a lot more of a writer than I had ever realized. Because it was the writing and the creating was just as exciting, if not more so than the actual performing was. I mean, I love the performing as well, but certainly enjoyed the, the composition and the writing every bit as much.

Yeah, I’ve found in recent years that while occasionally it’s I find it nice to to do something that I have not created, but that I’m mostly fulfilled by when I am performing and creating something. So if I have a hand in the creation process, then that’s sort of where I want to be, rather than just sort of a journeyman, I show up or, you know, I show up and we do the job and then we go somewhere else. Right? Yeah.

Had you I mean, you said that, like, you hadn’t known that you were a writer beforehand, like, had was writing something that you had ever really tried before? Or was it when you got involved with with this group in London that that really sort of became a thing for you? Well, that that was my first experience doing something creatively, like certainly I’d never written a script or anything like that before. Yeah, so that that was really the first time that I had the chance to do something like that. And was was quite surprised at I don’t want to use the word easy.

It’s never it’s never easy. But once I disciplined myself to, you know, once I got some ideas and disciplined myself to get them out onto paper, it flows, you know, pretty quickly, you know, I mean, sometimes, you know, you look back at it the next day, and it’s like, Oh, my God, you know, like, maybe it’s not as great as you thought it was after, you know, after a couple of days have passed, but, you know, just kind of tapping into that well, you know, it’s interesting about about writing and that, that, like, I can remember, I spent many years of, you know, writing something, and then sort of looking back, like you said, a couple of days later, and wondering about it. And I spent a lot of time.

Well, if it wasn’t good, when it came out the first time, I was like, well, that’s it, this is not going to be good. And it took me actually years to figure out that, you know, that’s just the first draft. And the first draft, the job of the first draft is not to be good.

It’s just to be Yes, yes. And then you go back and you you make it good. But the first draft is never, it’s it can’t possibly be a finished product.

No, you’re absolutely right. Yeah, no, definitely. No, my my process when when I sit down and get started, a lot tends to come out.

And then it’s about looking at what you did and finding the bits that are worth keeping, you know, and then fine tuning and polishing that and making it more concise and more clear what’s going on. Do you find that the more you write, the more ideas that you have? Yes, sometimes not not not all the time. But it’s like anything.

I mean, the more that you draw yourself to do it, then, then the more that things can come through. Absolutely. This is, I think you said that you’re travelling to St. John with with your husband, or sorry, with your partner? Well, both.

Yeah, with my husband, Bill. Yeah. Okay.

And Bill is. So he’s the director. So you’re, you’re, you’re gonna have like a supportive partner helping out at the fringe.

Yes. Have you, excuse me, have you, you fly it on your own before? Is this is this a new thing for you? Or? Yes, it is. Yeah, well, we’re actually going to drive.

Um, so we are going to be getting in our car and driving down there. So and not well, I mean, that the last time I travelled to St. John, New Brunswick, I think I was five or six years old. Haven’t been back since that.

So yeah. Yeah. Are you Are you ready for I, you know, I’ve never done the fundie fringe before.

So and I know that it’s, you know, it’s, it’s a, it’s a, it’s a shorter fringe. It’s a smaller fringe. But I’m looking forward to getting out and and and talking to people, even though my introverted self feels very self conscious and wants to breathe into a paper bag as a part of it.

But I feel quite comfortable in St. John. Yeah. And I’m looking forward to getting out and seeing how people react to it.

What are you I mean, since this is the first time that this show is really being performed, what are you looking forward to learning to discovering? Like, what are you what are you most looking forward to about about this show? What I’m looking forward to is the opportunity to use this as a medium to engage and and connect with the audience. You know, that that that connection that happens between I mean, there’s the performer, I mean, you can have a great top notch script, you know, really thoughtful cues, you know, all kinds of cool stuff like that. But the audience is every bit as much a part of that show as the person that’s up there.

You know, and I mean, you know, certainly I can relate as well being a bit of an introverted person myself, you know, there’s always that part of you that, as you say, you know, you want to throw up into a paper bag, but, you know, and then the more that you talk about that, and the more that you put that out there, the more you realize just how much everybody else is just like you anyway. Right? So I’m trying to be far less hung up on is it good enough? Is it good enough? And what I’m really going after is, is this something that other people will feel connected to? And what I would love for people to say about this afterwards is, after I left, I was thinking about it, because you know, those, those are the things that always, always really move me. And the things that I appreciate the most are the things if it’s, if I’m still thinking about this a few hours after I saw this, then that’s how I kind of measure what I think was a good show.

So, yeah, absolutely. It’s interesting what you’re saying about, about the audience, because, you know, a solo show, one of the big challenges is that, you know, you, you don’t have a scene partner that makes the audience. Exactly.

Yeah. And I remember when I was talking with my director about performing the commandment the first time, and you know, he was like, he was, he was saying things like, you know what, when you, when you talk to the audience, and you know, when you make eye contact with the audience, and I was like, wait, wait, back up to the point where I have to, like, make eye contact with audience members. And he was like, well, they’re your scene.

Yes. Yeah. You have to make eye contact with your scene.

And I thought there was no way that I was going to be able to do that. But he was so right about that, about how, you know, making contact with the audience and how important that is to a solo show. And you know what, I’ve seen people who, who, who don’t do that quite so much.

And you really lose something. The audience needs you. Yes.

In a way that they don’t if it’s not a solo show. And you know, something else that a very wise friend had said to me once, and that’s, the audience wants you to succeed. You know, no one’s walking into that theatre, hoping that you’re going to trip or, you know, that something bad is going to happen.

The audience is there because they want you to succeed. You know, they want you to as much. Yeah, absolutely.

The audience doesn’t. Yeah, you’re right. They don’t want to see a stinker.

Nobody goes to the theatre to say, Oh, I hope this one is really shitty. You know, and, and, and they’re on your side. And so they’re yours to lose, which is, again, it’s intimidating, but it’s good to know that they’re actually on your side.

Right. Yeah, no, you know what, I’m at a point, you know, it was it was something I’d always wanted to do. I certainly spent enough time telling myself why I couldn’t shouldn’t wouldn’t.

And then when the chance came, it’s like, you know what, I can work this into my life. And I can do this. You know what I mean? Without having to walk away from other things.

I enjoy you as well. So. It’s kind of interesting the way that we the things that we tell ourselves so vehemently that we couldn’t shouldn’t wouldn’t are the things that that that that’s, you know, I’ve heard it referred to as the lizard brain, the thing that you are so afraid of, which is the thing that you need, but the lizard brain only wants it only knows fear, hunger, and sometimes, you know, and sex.

These are the three things that it knows, mostly fear, and mostly hunger. But you know, the fear is like a very real thing. And so if it’s a challenge, if it’s not comfortable, it makes you want to run.

Yes. But often, that’s the thing that you most need to go towards. Yeah.

Especially if you’re spending if you’re if you’re, your brain is is is so telling you absolutely. Yeah. Did I mean, after we did, had you? Had you been telling before you got involved with this, this, the theatre group in London, where had you been? Had you often thought maybe I should and you’re you were telling yourself the story of No, I couldn’t.

I shouldn’t. Oh, sure. Absolutely.

Yeah, you know, my eyes would drift to audition notices and things like that. But, you know, again, it’s like, you don’t know those people. It’s all a click.

You know, you know that that voice, right? So, you know, learning to give it far less power, right? So yeah, yeah. Was there any kind of struggle when you first joined the group? Were you? Were you were you scared to do it? Or like, what was that like? Because it’s changed to go back? Yeah. What was that like? It was a wonderful experience.

I mean, of course, you know, getting ready for our first meeting that was intimidating. I was nervous. But yeah, I mean, honestly, about 10 minutes after I walked in the room and met everybody.

And we just kind of got down to business with what we wanted to create. And I was one of the group, you know, there was no distinction, who’s got the most experience, who’s done this, you know, it was no, we all have. And with that particular project, it was more about the commonality of our ideas.

And the message, the play that we wrote was about mental health. So we had some very definite things that we wanted the show to convey. And it was really more about creating what we wanted to be on the stage.

And then let’s worry about who’s got the longest theatre resume. You know, we can figure that out when we’re writing our bios in the program. You know, like, that’s really all that’s about, like, really the sitting down and the mashing of the ideas.

Theatre background really had less to do with it and had more to do with what’s our common messaging and theme with what we want to say here in this piece. And I was and that that tone was just something that I took with me, you know, again, with writing something like passing notes, it’s a very, very different kind of a thing. But staying true to what is the point of this? You know, what is the point? Like, what is the point of what we’re saying here? Are there any solo performers or solo shows that you were thinking of when you were working on this? Were there specific things that you’d seen that you wanted to emulate? Certainly here in London, a performance from an actress, Raven Duda.

She did a solo piece here at the McManus, it was called Addictant. And I was kind of about maybe 80% of the way done with my script for passing notes. And then when I heard of this performance coming, I thought, oh, you know, I got to see that, you know, make sure that I’m kind of on the right wavelength here with what I’m, you know, at least doing something that, you know, to see how it would hold up.

And that particular performance, again, I mean, a very different piece than what my piece was. But that certainly encouraged me to finish it and to keep going with that. I mean, it was a fabulous show.

And Raven did a wonderful job. And yeah. But you know, I was gonna say, it’s very physically demanding, though, isn’t it? You know, like, it’s, yeah, you really have to be in good shape.

Or try to be anyway. Well, with a solo show, you can’t, you know, if they’re in a show with other people, you will have moments where you’re not carrying the load. And so there’s a moment where you can, where you can sort of disengage for a second, even though, you know, we’re not supposed to, but you know, we do, we have all have moments of like, my grocery list after the show, and then you go back to it.

You can’t do that for a second. You have to be mentally and physically there for the whole thing. And so yeah, you’re right.

It is exhausting. So I found after, I think, after my one of my first performances, I finished the show, and it was great. But I went backstage, and I wept because it was just like, the whole thing had been cathartic and this great release, but it was, and that actually took me by surprise that after the show, I would react to so much, the audience’s reaction, the show, the performance, like everything.

But yeah, you have to be prepared for, for all of the things that come up during and after and, and, and be on in a way that, yeah, you don’t have to be in a, in a regular performance with other people. Yeah. When are you, when are you, are you, are you, is your drive out going to be a direct drive? Or are you going to take some time, stop here and there, maybe stop and smell the flowers and see the sights, or are you just driving straight out to St. John’s? You know, the ride home might be a little more acienc that way.

Certainly getting there, you know, I mean, we’ve never driven on a road trip of this magnitude either. So I’ve got my trip tacker book that the CAA membership put together for me and all those kinds of things. So I mean, yeah, we’ll probably maybe have to stop.

We’re going to be leaving on the Saturday. So we’ll probably spend the night somewhere between there and St. John. But yeah, I mean, I hope we have some time to look out the window and enjoy what’s going on and not just be freaking out on the 401 the whole time.

You know? No, no. I mean, it’s, it’s, it’s, the, the difference will be when you’re coming home is you don’t have a deadline of a tech rehearsal. That’s the time after.

Yeah. Well, I want to thank you so much for, for talking with me today about, about passing notes. And I’m actually, I’m looking forward to meeting you in St. John and we’ll go flyering and we’ll hang out.

Thank you so much for the opportunity to do this interview. I appreciate it. This has been a homebody productions production.