Siobhan Richardson & Jade Elliott McRae of Crux Encounter Productions

Crux Encounter Productions combines performance, research and development, and training to create a company unlike any other. Our mission is to be a home for stage combat. A sandbox for fellow fight directors and performers. A place to tell stories of conflict with honesty, reverence, and a commitment to safety. It is the world’s first multimedia, multiplatform stage combat company.

Founders Siobhan Richardson and Jade Elliott McRae recognized that combattual theatre needs a place to live in its own right through their own work in theatre, film, and a multitude of martial disciplines. They have formed a world-class company of professional stage combat artists dedicated to the world-wide dissemination of exciting and authentic modern and historic techniques.

CEP performances are simulcast so you can watch from anywhere in the world. Our research into historical systems will be available for study. And our training will further the understanding and practice of this artform for everyone from beginners to elite fighters.

www.cruxencounter.com
Instagram: cruxencounterproductions

Upcoming:

Why do we fight? Why do we love to watch others fight?

From slapstick to sport, cartoons to armed combat, violence is an integral part of human interaction and storytelling, and yet we seldom recognize it on its own merits. Why is violence so linked to the human experience? Why do we find it satisfying, terrifying, and even amusing? In a series of scenes and sketches, WHY WE FIGHT takes on the challenge of dissecting, slicing, and pummelling our ideas of conflict into passionate, perplexing, and sometimes hilarious submission.

SHOW TIMES:
November 17, 2:00pm & 8:00pm
November 18, 2:00pm
The Redwood Theatre, 1300 Gerrard St. E, TorontO
Tickets for both Live Theatre and Streaming available at https://www.cruxencounter.com/upcoming

Transcript

Welcome to episode 155 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 want to take a second to talk to you about a show that I saw two years ago, so you can’t see it now, but it was put on by a company called Eldritch Theatre, and my friend Adriana said, Phil, you have got to check out the stuff that Eldritch Theatre is doing because you won’t believe it. And so, recommendations are a big deal, and so when somebody recommends a show to me, I try to see it. And so I went with my friend Haley, and to be honest, our minds were blown.

Eldritch Theatre combines theatre and magic and puppets and horror, and it was like nothing I had ever seen. I left elated. It was the kind of show that left me elated when I left.

I marveled at what was accomplished by one man, magic, and puppets. Eldritch has a new show coming up, and I wanted to take a second to talk to you about that because we partnered with Eldritch on the podcast, so we partnered with them for a contest to give away some tickets to the latest show, Space Opera Zero, which is not one man, puppets, and magic. It’s two women, one man, puppets, magic, and who knows what all else.

And so, what we want you to do is to go on social media, find the post that I made today on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, and so find that post and tell us by replying to the post what kind of space monster you would be in the space opera of your life. And then we’ll choose a winner from those entries to get free tickets to any performance of Space Opera Zero from Eldritch Theatre. And while you’re on social media, if you feel like dropping me a line, remember the Insta and Twitter and Facebook, that’s at stageworthypod, the website stageworthypodcast.com, and if you want to drop me a line directly, you can find me on Twitter and Instagram at philrickaby, and my website is philrickaby.com. If you like the podcast, I would love it if you’d leave a comment or rating on iTunes or wherever you get your podcasts.

But you know what? Even more than that, you know what? Say hi. If you’ve been following for a little while and you like what you’ve heard, say hello. Just give me a wave, whatever it is that you want to do.

Or even better than comments or ratings and all that stuff, if you know somebody that you think would like this show, tell them about it because you know what? Some of my favourite podcasts became my favorites because somebody I knew told me about them. My guests this week are Siobhan Richardson and Jade Elliott McRae of Crux Encounter Productions. Check out Crux Encounters, Why We Fight, November 17th and 18th at the Redwood Theatre in Toronto and online streaming, so make sure you check that out.

And check out their podcast, The Crux of It, which you’ll find on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. Actually, I find it harder, the smaller houses without mics is always the worst, and that’s when your technique comes back. It’s amazing how people rely on it and then it goes away and there’s whole new generations that can’t do it.

I was talking with, when I was in the rehearsal hall at the opera, I was talking with the guy we were talking about. We were talking about opera and when opera tries to do something else, but there are things that are called for it because it’s opera and the vocal production that you have to get. And when musical theatre, like things musical theatre can do because we’re not, in general, it’s being mic’d.

So that it can do different things with the voice because it’s not requiring the same production as an opera voice is. Yeah, I mean, of course, there was a time when nobody was mic’d in the musical theatre. I kind of miss that.

Well, I mean, as soon as you added amplified instruments, you had to mic the… You can’t tell where anything is. Yeah, exactly. So, let’s start talking about stuff.

You’ve got the new company. Yes. So, I don’t, I know nothing about this, so tell me about it.

Yes, well, this is the big thing. This is what we want to talk about all night tonight. So, Jade and I are, I don’t want to play with that because it’s going to make sound.

It’s okay, just don’t get a freeze. Jade and I are starting a theatre company. Well, it’s a performance company because it’s not just about bums and seats.

But let’s start with this. It is a company of resident actor fighters so that all the work that we do is great theatre, of course, but also has very strong elements of stage combat and fighting in performance. And so that might go anywhere from classics to new pieces from serious, deadly, horrible revenge tales to slapstick.

Right, right. Because the amount of skill and timing and interpersonal connection it requires to do that stuff effectively. So, the idea grew out of many things, but one of them being what a joy it is to work with people at a high skill level.

So, we wanted to give ourselves the opportunity to be performers in an environment where we’re working with people of something closer to an equal fight skill. Yeah, it’s interesting that most of the stuff that we’ve worked with, it’s always, as fight directors, we’re always working, and I don’t want to say down, that’s not the right word, but you’re working with beginners a lot of the time. Oh, sure.

So, you end up teaching as much as you’re directing. Yeah, the first thing you do is like, here’s how you hold a sword. This is how you move back and forth with it in a way that makes it look like your character knows what they’re doing.

And so, when Siobhan and I started talking about this, it was about, well, what if we started a company of actors who knew those things, and what could we create then? What would that look like? And that brought us to the thing that audiences more than likely have never seen a professional do this work. They’ve always seen amateurs. No, that’s true.

That’s true, because you’re right. Whenever I’ve done stage combat, there are a few people who’ve done it, unless they’ve been to a theatre school that has it. Even then, chances are they did it many years ago, and they haven’t necessarily maintained it.

And that’s, of course, never to diminish the hard work that people put into preparing their roles, but it’s a very different thing than doing it every day. I mean, I like to look at the parallel of what’s the difference between an actor who can sing in the shower, an actor who sings, and an actor-singer. Our understanding of what that collection of words means is different.

So, many people are like actors who have done a fight in a show now and then, as opposed to, on the other end of the scale, which is the actor-fighter who works this stuff all the time, perhaps works daily on these particular skills, which means that they have a different facility with the physicality than someone who’s like, and then I’ll pick it up out of the back closet, brush it off, and time for the show. Sure. The training parts of the part that we’re really interested in.

To get to the stories we wanted, the communication that we wanted, the ability to do the things that we want, was going to take the training and the dedication to it, so that we could then start with a blank slate and then create something not only for us to play in, but the art form to flourish in as a separate and complete performance art, as opposed to just an add-on to a show. And it doesn’t mean the shows we’re going to be working on are specifically only fight. No.

But when it comes to that, it will be done at the highest level possible. And Siobhan loves to say the national ballet of stage combat. Well, it’s funny though, because the stage combat thing is the parallel to dance is so close and parallel, to use a phrase, a semi-difference.

But that’s the thing, I remember one of the first classes I took, someone said, oh, this is just like doing martial arts. And everybody in the room who has trained was like, no, this is not. You’re not able to do real martial arts.

You’re not. You’re doing a facsimile. And once you’ve done both, you realize very quickly that that last three inches where you make contact on purpose is a world of difference.

Well, I mean, I’ve actually seen people who do martial arts have a lot of trouble with stage combat because their body is trained to not stop those three inches, but to make the contact. So they can make it look real, but by being real. And I don’t know about anybody else, but I really don’t like being punched in the face very much, which is why I don’t seek it out very often.

And especially as actors, it has to be sustainable. You have to be able to do it, eight shows a week, plus the fight call. Oh, my head shot.

Right? Eight by 10s are less expensive now than they used to be, but you still want to keep it up. Yeah. Well, I mean, you were saying about, you mentioned slapstick is one of the things that can be done.

And as somebody who has, as you know, a slight obsession with silent era. Yes. We’ve done a little bit of that together.

For reasons. The amount of work that, say, a Buster Keaton or a Charlie Chaplin, they were virtuosos in their physicality. That takes work.

And you can’t just do two weeks of rehearsal and be that good. You know, in a slightly more recent example, Lucille Ball, there’s all those anecdotal stories of spending hours and hours on a single blow up a paper bag and burst it gag to get it hilarious, to get it perfect. And it’s that kind of dedication to single moments and then stringing together those single moments and stringing together those single moments in concert with another person.

And each person is slightly different. Not only is their physical instrument slightly different, the psychology they bring to it is slightly different. And we’re all slightly different on different days.

So part of what we have the joy of doing is diving into how deliciously complex this art form can be when we’re looking at what are the various minutia that we get to work with. When we get past that first layer of, well, I hope this ends at the right point. I hope this sort of stops at the point I want it to.

But now we can go, it does stop at the point I want it to. And I hope it ends. I hope it stops.

I hope nobody dies today. But when we get to it. Not going to lie, I’ve been involved in a show where that was actually a question one night.

I’ve been hit on stage repeatedly by the same person that was unpleasant. So that when we’re working with an ensemble that’s together all the time, now we can really start playing with those, the minutia of that distance. What are the tolerances there? If we use a mechanical term, how close can we get? Can we get within give or take one centimeter? And what does that do for our sight lines? What does that do for our audience? What does that do for the actors moving off of each other? Because the stimulus then becomes very different.

And the trust built between us is very different. Well, if you’re working together all the time, then there is a certain amount of trust and a certain amount of comfort that comes from like, there’s the trust that just naturally is there because you work together so much. I mean, could Jackie Chan have done all of the things that he did if he didn’t have his dedicated team of stuntmen that he worked with every day, all day? Probably, yes, he could.

But it would be a lot more difficult. And the things he did do became more possible because he was with people that would throw themselves onto the line. There’s no way that he could have done all of those set pieces if he didn’t have absolute trust with people who knew him and he knew them.

But also the thing when you do stuff like that, you’re putting your lives in the rigors. And the rigors are usually generally parts of your team. And the team is like, oh, I’m literally suspended over this.

Now, Jackie’s different because he didn’t use rigging. But they were ready there with an ambulance and an ice pack. He’s so insane.

I mean, there’s never going to be another one of him because nobody else is going to do that kind of thing. Dedication and all that he had as, I shouldn’t say had, but he doesn’t do the same stunt anymore. Yeah.

But I mean, we’ve been talking about this too, is that part of what we’re looking to foster with this company is also the evolution of the art form. It’s not that it’s not happening on its own. But if you look out there at programs like So You Think You Can Dance and how dance has evolved over the last decade because of those kind of programs and watching the physicality of people develop and also science is moving ahead.

We have older Olympians than we have ever had before because science can support the body doing that work, which is great for someone who’s like, I have to warm up and I have to cool down. The body is starting to do different things. So one of the excitements for me about this company is we’re giving ourselves the opportunity to see where this art form can evolve, not only with how science can support us and how the research that we’re doing then feeds into like, oh, this is historically accurate.

And look at these martial artists we’re working with. Oh, wow. There’s time in there that I didn’t realize existed before.

We just created time. But also taking a look at what people are just doing, like parkour is a thing now. And how do we put that into our shows, into our theatre shows? And how do we add that to our martial skill and our martial storytelling? And what does that do for storytelling and for the art form? And how does that affect our audiences? How do I bring it to new audiences is the other thing we’re looking at.

New audiences. Pray tell, Jade. Please, Jade.

Siobhan and I were talking about this and I had an idea and we were talking about it and furthering it. And I’m an old theatre hand. I’ve been doing film and theatre my whole life, but I’ve always preferred, since birth, I literally preferred theatre to film.

I love film. I love the perfection of it when it comes out at the end, but I always never really understood as an actor how little my performance mattered until it hit the editing room and the director and what they were telling me. Because when I would think of a bad take, they’d put it and I’m like, wow, that looks pretty great.

And I didn’t see that at all. You see the daily and you’re like, eh. And then you see the film and you’re like, whoa, hey, look at me, I’m all handsome and stuff.

But I mean, film is really a director’s and an editor’s medium. Sure. But unfortunately, the theatre is waning or dying or not being as prevalent in our society.

One of the things that really stuck, the real beginning of this for me was the thought that films used to be made of plays and books and now plays and books are being made of films. And when that started to reverse, really interesting things started to happen to the theatre because it became less relevant about the stories we were telling. In some ways, this is a large broad stroke thing, but I was talking to Siobhan, what if we got new audiences into the theatre by simulcasting everything from the ground up so that people who are now watching the front load, which I call the front load of all the work we do up until the point of the show and then watch what happens.

Sports are still that way. Live theatre, these live TV shows that are going on are becoming a thing. People have a hunger for that.

If we can make that a thing, that puts audiences anywhere in the world that we need to produce. Less bums in seats, less money for house costs, less runs of shows, but still from a live theatre. The experiment we’re really running, aside from making a home for stage combat, is to create a home where theatre can thrive all over the world with a single show.

Especially with something like what we do, while violence and storytelling is so fascinatingly, so prevalent and everywhere, there’s something about the uber-nerdery of what stage combat and Western martial arts and martial arts and performance is that we would like to reach all of our friends and colleagues around the world who have a particular nerd-like passion for this work. At the same time, reaching people everywhere with a particular kind of work that we’re doing in theatre, but let’s say you live even three hours away, you can’t necessarily come and see it. I’ve always been very excited about the idea of, well, it was a big question for me.

How do we reach that one youth in a town of 300 that doesn’t realize that this is a job you can have? So that when Jade came to me with the idea of like, why don’t we simulcast everything? Why don’t we make sure that our online presence is part of how our company lives and thrives year round? Then I went, well, there you go. That’s how we reach out to those folks who are the one person in town and the one person within 100 kilometers who’s interested in this and wants to do something with it. And the byproduct of that is also that the company doesn’t have to be registered anywhere.

It can go anywhere and work with anybody because I’m really excited about telling stories all over the world and working with different companies all over the world and just picking up and bringing an audience with us without the logistic nightmare of trying to get bums in seats. Now, when you’re talking about simulcasting, are you talking about just performance? Are you talking about like rehearsals? When you say everything, you mean yeah, we’re working on a comprehensive program. Now, Siobhan and I are of the older school, let’s say of development of things.

I’m a believer of not, but this is where I’m getting old in my age. I don’t put things out that aren’t finished. That’s not to say that we don’t want to show how things are made, but there’ll be a tailoring of that content.

So the content will be available through different sorts of things. We’re definitely looking for like a certain level of polish and a certain level of finishedness to what we do because it’s a different thing to put out like, oh, this is the really hard part of rehearsal where we all feel awful and this is where nobody knows what they’re doing yet. That’s not to say that we never will, but certainly when we’re establishing a company, we’re definitely looking at saying this is what we’re looking at going and then we’ll look at opening up further and further parts of the process as we go.

If you want the first look at that, you should join our Patreon page. We’ve got some stuff in the works that there’ll be a combination all the way through with live and canned as it were. So there’ll always be, we think, as we’re developing access to performers and so forth, there’ll be, we’re working on some Twitter stuff and we’re working on some live video vlog-y type things and so there’ll always be an ability to access the company but the performances will be curated and created in such a way it’ll be exciting for everybody.

It’s interesting, I was just talking with Sue Edworthy this past week and one of the things that she mentioned is that we forget, because we do this all the time, that our audience doesn’t know how everything that happens to them is magic. And what do people want to do when they see magic? They want to know the secret, right? And so to be able to give people a glimpse behind the curtain and to see that sort of thing is sort of a, it’s a gift to them but also like they get to feel like they’re in the know. They’re in the know now.

It’s very much about striking that balance, especially so as we’re talking we’re like establishing the company, so that’s why we say that it’s at first it needs to be about like this is what we make, this is our take on it anyway, this is what we make. So there’s a sense of like what are we looking at as far as the end product we’re moving towards and then we can look further and further into the process and a few secrets of like well this, this took 10 hours to make, this moment actually for whatever reason this scene came together in an hour, we have no idea or we have strong suspicions because this is the one, this is the discipline everybody’s super comfortable with, so of course it came together like that. Yes, we’re also teachers at heart as well, so part of the company’s component at some point will be online lessons and teaching and access to us that way as well as saying oh I want to learn how to do that, so we can help you do that if we’re not in the same city.

Not all the time, sometimes you need, I shouldn’t say sometimes, at some point you’ll need to be in a room with somebody, but that doesn’t mean you can’t learn a lot satellite with things and the way technology is going with you know VR and AR. So excited about augmented reality. It’s going to be very interesting and nice and play with some of that.

One of the things, have you ever seen just like thinking about like the behind the curtain stuff, some opera companies literally show behind the curtain stuff with like quick change stuff, like oh I’ve seen some a couple of videos of like the just here’s and they have a timer it’s like and here our chorus comes off stage as one as one character 30 seconds later they have to be on stage as something else yeah here’s what happens and they just sort of like have this video that sort of runs showing all the things that happen behind the scenes yeah and I know I ate that up I know a lot of people

because it was like oh my god is that all that stuff that happened I’m telling you scene changes and the most I ever had I think it was uh I had a costume change that wasn’t 11 seconds oh wow yeah full costume from a full three-piece suit into a jailbird outfit and a new entrance and with professional dressers I ran off the stage and stood with my arms out and ran back on the stage 11 11 seconds later they did everything yeah I was like can I just step into my shoes dip up and up I go you know I’ll leave all the secrets when one does need professional oh my god make that work I’ll tell you a team of people I’ve done a lot of quick changes in my life but that one I was like this is amazing yeah you know yeah shout out to the technicians

so are there are there people who are already part of this company aside from the two of you yeah all right so so are they people that you that you have worked with before are they new to you like what how did you find the people who are going to be part of the company

hmm that’s it’s a complex it’s a bit of a complex question only because we have um oh goodness um we have so many people around the world that we would just desperately love to work with which is part of our reason for wanting to travel the company

the people who are with us right now are some of the most beautiful souls and wonderfully beautiful-hearted people uh that we know yeah um talented yeah so uh how did we find them at this point it was people that we knew we could spend lots of time with and uh when we knew we could work with and luck was part of it there’s a couple people it was like oh how are you here this is fantastic please come and be with us yeah and it and the company will grow and expand and we’re doing sort of a bare bones at the beginning of just the people we wanted to work with

yeah um and not to say who were available because I don’t mean that that’s whether in the company and we should perform but it actually worked out that we were all here at some point the biggest dream is that the company will exist with all the people we can get from all over sure yeah like the cherry pick the people that we want we’re like we have a friend in finland that we want to work with yeah well we conceived the company we’re like wouldn’t it be great to work with him like yeah and he would do it it’s just we’re not there yet yes yeah it’s not like transplant his family in canada kind of a place so when we get there it’s going to be that’ll be closer

and then there’s also concerns not concerns there’s conversations to be had with how we make this art in a professional theatre world and film world because we’ve got to make sure we do all across all our i’s and t’s with unions and all that stuff too so we’ve got to make sure all that’s is that is that something that is a concern at this point like you don’t know exactly how that’s going to work or there are

so uh equity and actra don’t have um clauses yet for specifically live simulcasting there is um like live capture there is the opera has a clause for live simulcast if it’s for free for an educational purpose to a particular kind of institution so the unions don’t exactly have a clause for this yet so it’s part of the conversation that we’re having right now um is how do we how exactly do we figure that out and what serves the art better what serves the artists better and so that’s that’s part of a conversation that’s happening we’re not the um we’re not actually the only people who are looking at some of this but we are among very few that we are aware of

so it’s part of it is us talking to these other folks who are looking at simulcasting for live theatre because they’re doing quite a bit of it for uh for music for symphonies yeah are uh simulcasting quite a bit um and it’s slightly different than broadway live in quotation marks because they’re maybe capturing it in front of a live audience but they’re often doing pickups right um the live now the live stuff that they’re doing on television the nbc stuff is all live they’re doing the one thing

yeah but the budgetary constraints and the the rather seemingly lack of constraints there’s that well i meant ours but not theirs yeah our budget don’t allow for that same pay of 7 000 people for one show kind of thing no but there’s there there is certainly technology is changing yeah the way that theatre is is created and and and consumed and the people who are making who there are there are gatekeepers who are not capable of moving that fast yeah yeah

and because the gatekeepers are not necessarily one person or one brain but but an entire organization and they have a bureaucracy and a certain understanding of how things work that moves slower than the technology does yes and that’s just inherent in in in in the pace of our digital lives yeah yeah i mean you have a problem and someone creates an app to fix it tomorrow yeah that’s the thing right yeah and we’re we’re in a arguably we’re in a very old business and an old business model yes

so it’s going to be very interesting in the next three to five years of how it changes whether we’re on the forefront of it or not i hope we are i think we are in the sense that as far as the research we’ve been done and this is not a if anybody’s listening to this in the whole world and it goes out and they go we’re doing it well we’d love to hear from you yes please come talk to us we’re the first company of this size that’s starting from this size as a digital and live theatre company from the ground up with the consideration that it will all be accessible it will all be watched and created and curated so that allows us to work in both mediums at the same time we’re also training the actors are and ourselves to work in both means at the same time because there’s an inherent difference how the two digital lens captures in the human eye yeah

and it’s really important to me from the very beginning and siobhan if i may speak for you in this one moment that live theatre is still the major a major but we will still do film we’ll always do short films we will have desires do create films you can only do on film because those stories are exciting but the live theatre component there is something about that that i’m not willing to lose in my life and in the world yeah so if we can somehow help shift to both so we can people can watch on their devices if they wish while still realizing that people are doing this right now right in front of you here we go good luck yeah

and that’s part of the joy of what we do is this idea is as theatre actors we um a colleague of our megan a colleague of ours megan cook who’s in vancouver uh she said it to me best i think when we fight we are often running a sprint at the end of a marathon it’s so often the climax of the story so we’ve already spent two and a half hours on stage or even like in a short play you’ve always you already spent 80 minutes yeah in an emotionally taxing experience and then you’re expected to run america expected to to run these sprints uh incredibly present responsive to the other person and that like

that to me is one of the exciting parts of our live performance the idea that people are doing this yeah right here right now no breaks um if they mess it up they fix it right away but what you’re seeing is something compelling and something true in this instant and we’re not cutting away from it we’re we’re right there and you’re watching someone do these actions

so it’s a grand experiment and it’s going to be very exciting to get it going and that’s part of the reason why we have the people that we have is because we know uh we can trust them we know we can spend time with them not that we if we haven’t talked to you it’s not because we don’t trust you or we don’t think we can spend any time with you but it’s you can’t put everybody in the show right we can’t put everybody not yet but we will

are you uh are are people in the in your your company are they also like do people take up take turns like picking up a camera and stuff like that or they’re everybody we’re startup and we’re everybody’s got a job or multiple jobs we’ve got people doing social media we’ve got people working film and doing editing for us some of the trailers are edited by one of the company members um we have so many people helping and creating in a very very large amount of stuff to do with very very few people which is how that’s how that’s startup culture right there yeah it’s the kind of thing that’s missing from theatre is the is is that sort of like that entrepreneurship entrepreneurship

okay so if if i may i am going to plug um the uh the startup company program that’s the city of toronto is running and with artscape where they have a creative entrepreneurship program um and it’s one of the one of the early things we did as a company actually was sent me to business school for a week and this is specifically uh for entrepreneurship for creatives and i learned so much yeah all actors all creatives look up intellectual property know about it understand how what trademark is and understand your rights are and how to sell your rights and how to make money off of your rights because your art is made to be consumed and people enjoy consuming it and you deserve to be paid for what you do and what you love and what you’re good at

yeah it’s funny when you when she went to the school i mean i was taking it satellite with her because i was working another job at the same time but we were doing the homework together yeah writing google driving everything it was really interesting being an entertainer my whole life how little i’ve thought about the marketing of myself and now we all do it i’m not saying that i don’t have my website my this or that but the actual business speak of what it is to create a business they’re realizing that i am a business and how much i did not know about that and what i am worth through branding and through the stuff made me just go whoa also i’m not great at it that may or may be you you’re certainly not alone i mean i think that very few people who go into the arts are thinking about the business aspect yeah

we have to be we generally we have to be both because there’s very few of us who are the kind of artists that can manage to have a manager sure outside of ourselves especially we should know how to be both but so few yeah so if people know how to how to like think of things in a business way yeah there’s kind of this like little conspiracy theory saying that oh actors don’t know these things yes people convincing themselves that they that they can’t understand it or or that making money off your art somehow cheapens the art

yeah that’s with a big with a big caveat that there are lots and lots and lots of actors who do know a lot about how they’re brilliant at it i think that i do think that they’re a little bit uh in the minority though sure i just from a statement of myself having been in the business and being relatively successful in canada as an artist i was really surprised at how much business speak i did not understand that when it was explained what i should be looking at how much it changed how i focus on things and then to speak to the people who have the money now i had this conversation with an artistic director recently and they were the ones who were like well yeah i was like oh that’s right right boards money yeah funding yeah

i think that’s what’s one of the really interesting things about being an artist and an entrepreneur and being an actor is that there’s this kind of in a way a detachment between each of those mindsets and so when am i doing when do i fully step into my entrepreneur mindset looking at my product yes and then when do i fully step into my artist mindset and the idea of business being like well that’s that’s something else right now my my job is to feel my job is to offend and to be offended

also there’s a certain amount of shame attached to it too there’s a weird like mirror lens of actors conspiracy theory yeah yeah the weird actor oh i don’t think of like getting paid yeah well yeah yeah right like oh your faces these people are making it’s amazing you’re an artist you you do this it’s like um because you love it well it’s like all these those memes that go around like musicians probably one of my favourite but it’s the same thing for film it’s the same thing for any art person who makes starving musicians starving artist

yeah no no but the ones who are like um the club owner exceeds you know here’s 100 bucks for your night sort of thing and then they give you a list of everything it takes to get to that night the rehearsal the this the that and that here’s your 100 bucks but you guys are overpaid yeah kind of going

uh yeah so it was a big thing for me to realize when i like when i thought about from the day of my first dance class to now and that so i’m bringing all of that into my rehearsal space whether i’m there as a performer or whether i’m there as a as a fight director or some kind of collaborator i bring all of that with me and that’s not a small amount of experience you know i don’t have a piece of paper to show you that i’ve done that no but that is a very particular skill set that i have built for that and part of what you’re part of what you’re paying is for that

they say like going to a graphic graphic designer hand them an enormous amount of money and they give you a logo in 10 seconds it’s like i could go to someone else for half of that sure but it’s going to take them 10 times as long to give you what i just gave you in 10 seconds absolutely it’s that understanding of all your history everything you’ve ever seen read felt heard done studied all of that is your history and your background and your schooling and you bring that into the space with you

yeah it’s also interesting you were saying about you know the musician all that sort of stuff so you know we like we follow a musician you know they get 100 bucks from the from the club owner and then they sign a label and what do we say about them yes they sold it sold out so so they’re getting paid and now we respect them less which is a weird conspiracy theory yeah hilariously that’s not gonna be my problem much longer because you know labels and all that now all artists are becoming self-produced with this wave of the future but that’s that’s something that that i think

and that’s why the unions need to change a little bit yeah because they don’t they’re not they’re slow to see how i as a producer am not necessarily exploiting myself the actor yeah you know yeah but they’re they’re sort of like built to to protect the actor from the producer but when the producer is the actor help help me help me exactly exactly it’s it’s there’s a lot of stuff around this topic that’s very interesting

i have heard it said recently that there’s also great fear around it because nobody really knows what’s going to happen it’s moving so fast and so breakneck that some people don’t want to touch it of course what do you do

and also there’s one thing that i’m actually really nervous about is that it is the wild west right now a little bit because it gives every artist the opportunity if they’re allowed if there’s unions are not involved in the moment figure if you’re a represented artist in the moment you can put whatever you want on the internet yeah and watched more than a hollywood film was made last year as possible and that there’s something really brilliant about that and wonderful and i like that it’s sort of unregulated at the moment but that doesn’t i don’t want to take away the safety of the actor being paid fairly for their wages or the do you know i mean the conditions there’s there’s a fine there’s a fine line it’s like at a certain point you have to be paid for the work absolutely

um and if i’m sitting at home and making little thing little videos and whatever whatever that is and i’m i’m getting watched by a whole lot of people and now i can monetize my youtube channel or whatever and that’s me but then as soon as i bring other people in they are now contributing and i have to be able to pay that yeah absolutely and so it can’t that part can’t be wild west we have to acknowledge that everybody who’s participating in that is is part of the process and therefore needs to be compensated yeah

and at the same time just i have no answers for this but you know put it up on youtube well how much of your money then is youtube getting in in that so there’s there’s some questions there as to how are we accessing our audiences and who’s actually making the most money and who deserves to be receiving a little bit more for the product they’re putting out

i am that’s one well it’s really it’s a really interesting thing like the going but the same model of protection like the new way to dissimilate music right now is the streaming services yes and i hate to say as a musician as well that i’m a member of one of them but i love it because i have access yeah to all the music in the world i use it all the time and it’s so wonderful and then you think about was uh one recently i think was bruce springsteen i may be misquoting that um was it bruce springsteen anyway one of the biggest artists in the world had said they released what they made for that song in a month yeah it’s one of the best most popular songs in the world and it was like 127 yeah like like going to run or something and you go who’s who’s getting the money from that exactly artist it is the platform yeah and that’s that’s something we do have to fix while still keeping it affordable because one of the things that’s great about these things is that people can enjoy brand new artists while still being performer

i i’m really interested in how like a band like walk off the earth is doing to me because oh i’m i’m a huge fan i’m a huge fan of these guys i would love to work with them at some point and just walk off the earth when you need uh when you need some fights for your next video hey you did a video called kung fu we could do kung fu too with our company that would be awesome uh yeah just saying yeah shameless plug absolutely yeah joyful plug yes

the how they started on the streets of toronto then through the youtube and then when they put all of their stuff up free from patreon through youtube to whatever and they’re one of the best touring concert bands in the world and they do these covers all the time so they’re making money they’re living and working but most of it comes from tours now but they did it from the very beginning as a free platform thing while still getting paid well that’s i mean that is the thing is is is the they’re not getting a whole lot from the from youtube videos or i don’t know well they went viral with the guitar thing the thing is they did and so maybe there’s there’s money coming i know a couple of people who were making money off their their youtube ads for a little while um and making a pretty decent living at it but um

that’s one thing but you know the the the streaming services do not give what the artist is worth no um no they will however they could be seen as as much like walk off the earth like their money is coming from they’re doing like fucking stadium yeah now they are for sure so like that is what’s is you know that that selling of tickets merch all of that stuff

so things i learned in the creative entrepreneurship program is some of these ideas are like how do you how do you plan for growing your business i think sometimes we go okay i’m going to do this and then and then i’m going to be fine but it’s also i just find this joyful creativity and going oh yeah there’s this thing we might we might engage in oh here’s a way to talk to our audiences and just exciting ways to go this is the thing i want to make yeah and i want to find that 1 000 people who want to see it and would like to give me three dollars a month to do that yeah like and all the exciting ways that you can you can reach those people and you can talk to each other about it and then the next step of then how do i grow that to the next level then how do i grow that to the next level

i’ve heard it said that canadians tend to think small and i’m excited to go okay what don’t how do i know what i don’t know where am i thinking small and where do i go well how could i how could i bring more of this to more people in a bigger more exciting way yeah there’s a creativity to it there’s it’s an interesting thing

i’m more going i’m about to go way off topic here um yeah we don’t do that ever but um i’ve been thinking recently about some of the main differences between the way we make theatre in canada and the way they make theatre in the u.s say for example broadway shows those are for-profit shows oh absolutely right people are making money on those shows oh yeah uh and that’s the goal is to make money and we’re making money we’re doing shows to get grants to break even yep for the most part because we’re not we’re not seeing our theatre creation as a capitalist venture probably because we all think of our we’re like oh business i don’t have business money it’s a thing right

and so we’re not doing it for profit in the same way um so we’re sort of hamstrung by our need to go cap and hand to the government all the time yeah absolutely it we have been

i have heard it said i’ve had this i’ve had this conversation quite a few times and it’s true that even as actors we approach our art differently there’s a there’s an inherent thing in the canadians and broad brush strokes again there’s an apology to our theatre sometimes like if we’re going to approach it a difficult topic there’s always sort of like a not always but there’s a general sense of apology where there’s a lot of times in the states the theatre is in your face and they don’t care they’re making what they’re going to make and that one difference applied to our funding models yes yeah really makes a difference on how we see what our theatre is worth that there’s no apology in the states there’s an expectation i mean one of the problems is i mean we’ve encountered issues where somebody is tackling a difficult a difficult topic yeah and because there’s government funding there’s another voice there’s there’s a certain amount of of you know oh how dare they they they handle this topic you know

there was a thing where the toronto sun went after summer works a couple years ago because there was a talk of a play that had to do with terrorism um and so they were like going to the prime minister and saying how can government funds go to this thing and like because it’s public funded yeah yeah we i think maybe don’t go out for difficult topics in the way that we could yeah well there’s definitely a an inherent carefulness with some of that like you’re not going to get a fully government funded theatre thing attacking the government yeah the same way you would as a player going ah here we go sure but

but you know though you mentioned your patreon um that kind of funding is is like yes people you know you are i mean people give are going to be giving money to you to make the work yep um and if they don’t like it they’ll they can stop right yeah and they can or they can engage us and we can see i i like the idea of how do we how do we keep moving forwards um i am sometimes frustrated by the situations or the cultures that go ah offence i go away now yes and sometimes sometimes you have to sometimes it’s like this is beyond what i have the spoons to deal with so i’m going away from here

but i really strive for how do we as a community move forward how do we as a community talk about a thing how do we heal how do we how do we strive to make better

in fact um some of without going into it um as we all know there’s been a lot going on in the theatre community over the last year yes and um some of the things that we’re doing is we’re taking a look at like well what are best practices taking a look at various models and how people uh talk to each other and how people uh establish relationships

in fact i i read about a theatre company that is not calling it a director they’re calling them a curator because there is a language to that that goes that is in some ways more specific in that the director is or the curator is drawing out bits or in a way they’re selecting and bringing together various parts of what the actors offer um just as an example of there are various ways that people are looking to take a look at the theatre model and we’re not that we’re going to throw out the baby with the bath water we’re definitely looking at keeping the best of previous practices but what are some of the neat things that we can bring to it and what’s some of the science that that we can bring to it some of the research that’s been done

one person we were consulting with um talks about the uh the principles of consultation and how when one is having a discussion the idea then becomes the group’s idea so that we release our ownership over the idea and then we can actually speak of the idea and clarify the idea without assuming we have to take personal offence to it and the idea that it’s also your sacred duty to speak up so that we inherently have a sense of everyone around the table has input on that idea

now that’s not applicable to every situation or every rehearsal every once in a while the director or the choreographer has to say let’s do it this way we need to see the overall picture and it’s the actor’s job to go great how do i justify the choice i need to make right now so that we can all move forward with the actual intent with which is bring a story to the audience so it’s been a fascinating part of the research that we’ve been doing over the last year is taking a look at some of the uh some of the training and some of the ideas out there about uh communication about community support how do we talk to each other how do we disseminate ideas um and that’s been i think like a fascinating and delightful journey of going like diving deeper into it

i’ve been talking a lot about everything we do right now is a bit of like double click and zoom in double click and zoom in because everything is a spectrum so how do we take a look at the ideas and what’s the specificity of of this idea

so i nerd out a little bit on like on words specificity which uh i mean which one could say is part of what makes me good at stage combat is because i am detail oriented i like to take a look at what’s the slight difference between when my hand is turned this way and this way how does my hand placement here in relationship to you change our our emotional relationship and also what does that inspire in your movement because i’ve opened this line and closed another one so how does that subtly affect what you do so how do i be a better partner by in fact um asking you into a different space as opposed to sort of putting something between us and hoping that you remember what we choreographed yeah

so what is your first project our show is called why we fight okay which is a fun way for us to get some of the ideas out of our heads and onto the stage because part of the impetus for this show is to is to get to express that like a part of the reason i do stage combat is because i love the communication of it i love the movement i do love the form as someone who you know spent my childhood doing ballet there’s something to me that is intrinsically fulfilling about taking specific shapes in concert with somebody else so part of the aspect of it is why do we as performers engage in this art form yeah there’s a whole uh

originally came up with the title it was the idea of why we as humans fight but it also disseminates into why we tell the stories why we’re still fighting why we’re interested in it why we like action movies why all those questions are inherent in that idea

because as a society we don’t necessarily like violence but the top grossing films are all action we the our our our our feelings about about violence are complicated yes because we like it in fact in some cases we love it we also don’t like it it depends on what there’s there’s a context to it there’s there’s like how how deeply involved am i personally in in that violence and how deeply involved do i want to be am i someone who enjoys watching mma or am i someone who wants to who is training to be in the octagon am i someone who uh watches only romantic comedies but there’s also that part of me that gets a real thrill when it comes to the dual part of it

yeah it’s it one of those one of the the things that i’m always it sort of fascinates me and i’ve sort of like people like so why theatre why not why not film and i’m like okay so here’s here’s my thing is um we watch volume violence on film and television all the time however a slap on stage almost always gets a verbal reaction from the audience that never happens in a in a movie or television yeah it’s there’s a because it’s right there yeah dissemination of it yeah and that’s part of the thing we’re exploring with our company and with the show itself is what’s the difference between the two mediums and how we’re capturing it but also how to deliver both of those experiences to both audiences at the same time and it’s very different with fight work than it is with straight up scene work because of the movement of it and the magic trick yeah of it is really different yeah

and that’s the thing that’s really technically interesting about what we’re attempting to do is that the magic trick that we’re creating has to be different on two different levels while working at the same time so that’s exciting for us and terrifying all at the same time

but the show is based around the that idea of let’s explore some of this let’s look at why we’re doing these things and creating a number of scenes so it’ll run a bit like the show is a bit in a way like a mixed program of the ballet where fully encapsulated stories will happen throughout an hour the show will be about an hour or like a like an or like a short one-act play short one-act plays but they’ll all be connected through a device that we’re not telling you at this moment because it’s secret um they’ll be connected in that thing that through line of why we’re doing this and why we’ll explore some of that and there’ll be comedy and there’ll be you know violence and there’ll be lightness and hardness yeah

oh yeah we’re not going to just sit there and like do gruesome titus andronicus the whole time there’s a time and a place for that but like an hour and also to be clear that it’s not just you know watching people fight the whole hour there is storytelling involved and there are scenes and acting and and a wonderful dissemination of information and to the audience and remembering that conflict by its very nature is sometimes funny and interesting to watch yeah looney tunes yeah

now where when is uh when is this being presented november 17th november 17th and and where can we watch it live in person at the redwood theatre where is that which is it’s at girard and coxwell yeah i do that was the the centre of gravity and so it’s been taken over and turned into still a circus school but also it’s a multi-stage and space venue um becoming banksy is playing there at this very moment will be the next show in there um the what’s that i forget the name of that company that does the film and the secret the secret sessions yeah we saw something they did there they’re doing another one coming up

yeah it’s a great space we’re gonna use it to try and do something new so it’s gonna be interesting so uh so that’s where we could see it in person yeah is can we also see it digitally or is that something that’s not going to be possible yet you can it is going to be possible we are still uh refining all of those details okay um very likely though you will absolutely be able to get details through our patreon page through our website and if you follow us on instagram you’ll definitely be able to follow our our story and our journey as we do that

so what is the website the website is crux encounter.com okay and uh the instagram instagram is crux encounter productions and it’s encounter as in to encounter the crux of the situation crux the most important part of the argument

are you guys are you guys doing a podcast as well yeah we are doing a podcast selfishly tell me about that well it’s a it’s a well what’s fun for us is it’s an opportunity for us to nerd out on all the stuff we want to talk about whenever we do all of these like international workshops and we go places we all have these wonderful little conversations and corners

if i may yeah some people may not know that stage combat artists are people who study this or who are interested in this who would continue to pursue it throughout their lives are probably one of the most highly educated groups of actors and people because they spend so much time seeking out other groups and going to workshops and conferences and i mean you pick any one of our colleagues or friends who have done this and they’re just like they go to five or six a year i don’t know any i don’t very i know very few other actors who train as diligently as some of these artists do

so when we get together there are some fascinating conversations that range from oh my gosh if you talk to one of our mentors i think bob cheron he is a master of fury and italian uh you can explain it better than i can so he says it’s the fury treatise fury delivery um the flower of battle um and he’s more of he’s more on the martial arts side but in order to fully understand the treatise in its context he studied uh the history of the time he studied that specific iteration of italian um taking a look at renaissance cosmology so that he could fully understand what are the images within this treatise as well as the reasons for it being organized in the way it is now there’s several people many many many people who study this treatise around the world

and there’s all there’s of course there’s conflict between conversation a difference of opinion but to have a conversation that starts with hey remember that punch that happened this way that disseminates into 17th century italian which then goes to how mma is doing which then goes to how this gun was used in this movie it’s a fascinating conversation

so what we’re trying to do with the podcast is take some of those little conversations we have that are just wild and and weird and and focused and and concentrated about our art and how we make it and wherever they go they go and we’re going to just put it on the thing and it gets a little conversation about what we’re doing why we’re doing it and it’s part of were talking about before some of like the some of the behind the scenes stuff it talks we we’ve been going into some of our thought process when it comes to uh the work itself um some of uh also taking a look at um oh help me out here my brain just or how we how it affects the social fabric of our society and why we’re doing this why it’s still interesting and how we’re developing the art form itself

i mean it’s a very young art form relatively speaking and if you take a look at when fights started being choreographed it was pretty much old hollywood yeah we started choreographing them and fight directors canada didn’t come around until what 93 95 yeah um so it’s a very young profession and it continues to grow especially because around 2006 ish we started having access to more and more treatises to more and more of these old martial arts manuals as it were they’re not exactly manuals in some cases there’s a few instructional pieces some of them are actually more advertisements like come to my school and you’ll learn these amazing things my sensei’s better than your sensei a whole bunch of that and there are like this is this person is teaching this way and it’s teaching our young men to kill each other in peacetime

when you read silver’s treatise oh my goodness i’m gonna have to read that on the podcast so here we go

so for the audience this is exactly what happens in our conversations someone will go off on a top and then we’ll get really excited and that’s the direct we’ll do that directly until we ping off something it’s fascinating so one of the things that’s really we’re speaking about was just speaking specifically in that context of western martial arts but we also discussed eastern martial arts we discussed how it affects us in society we talk about comedy i would love to talk to you about how you see slapstick and what the parallels we do

yeah and what how they did it i mean buster keaton i’m i’m a i’m unbelievable he’s i’m such a fan of his work it’s funny because i when i first started watching silent family like oh chaplain chaplain chaplain and then all of a sudden they started watching buster keaton i was like yes chaplain was good you totally nerded out you made his hat and everything oh yeah oh i did i i did the i did the research was like how do you make the hat yeah yeah like

well just from a stunt and fight perspective i mean especially a stunt perspective some of the things that he was doing to himself to do what he captured on film with the basic technology of light and film is just astounding don’t get me started on the playhouse okay don’t give me no because the first 10 minutes of the playhouse where he’s every character and doing a duet with himself on a broken foot come on i know amazing yeah

anyway so we we nerd out like this and then some of what we’re doing too is interviewing some of our colleagues from around the world we’re working on amazing projects like some of our colleagues from australia um nigel poulton has just done a spartacus with the ballet down yes you can check out the trailers it’s beautiful so it’s like some of our colleagues from from sweden and we hope to connect with some of our friends from south africa and new york absolutely so we’ve got lots of people that we want to bring on but our first season is going to be uh about eight episodes and uh it’s something that we’re going to continue doing year round because we’re looking at not only the shows that we’re producing but also what is our like lasting culture throughout the year and inviting people into like what we talk about doing this year round so inviting people into that so they see that what we do is not just a week year for the show we do a show hey that’s three months of the year but it’s a 12 month a year process you know so the process goes into the creating that

one of the things i love about being a fight director and fighter and all those things that as a director i find it interesting how deeply we delve into the psycho psychological aspects of martial arts and fighting and what it does to the psyche and and we are very focused in in some of that genre but it it really goes to the human nature of why we’re doing this that’s just our first show but every time we come up against it

what just to break it down for a quick second what happens when a fist hits a face okay so that’s the simple thing a fist hits a face well did it come in anger did it come in humour did it come in whatever you answer those questions and then once you’ve answered those questions what did it do to the person that hit yeah and how do they feel about it and then that one simple action is a careening action for the next all preceding actions but how did we get to that and how does the audience feel about it yeah like what’s what is that emotional context as well as what is what is a what are the physical effects of that and therefore how does that bounce off of the emotional context

so to borrow a phrase from a colleague in the south uh rachel flesher who’s in chicago uh traumaturgy what is the traumaturgy of that moment so we can it’s like this it’s just like your text your movement is just like your text you have to look at it with that manner of detail in order to really mine it for all its information and so it doesn’t just become hey look punch punch punch but it becomes oh effect cause and effect cause and effect

once we do all the deep dive in each individual moment then we can really start working on the overall encapsulating scene and how that ballet of violence will move through and tell the story that we’re trying to create and tell them make the points that we’re trying to make within the text and the and the the movable text and the movement of the bodies and so it’s just it’s that stuff’s really fascinating um

it’s funny we were talking the other day about all of the podcast we’re talking about how what we do is specialized in such a way that when we’re in a room as a fight director a lot of the time the actors while they do amazing research and they’re i’m do all the work they need to do when we do something we’ll recommend something happened to you recently actually you’re in a room and what i’m saying is yeah and people like oh too much and our job is to walk and work that and yeah but yeah to explain to those people to do this we think about this stuff all the time not in a weird way but like the cause and effect of it yeah and we spend time in those moments and really dissect what would happen and how you feel about it how the character would feel about it like we’re really comfortable with that idea but we can think about it and we can consider it but also at the same time that doesn’t mean that we’re capable of doing it in our real lives yeah

i think that’s like some of the audiences and some some performers discomfort with violence or with violence and storytelling is because i can think of it can i actually do it and i think that’s part of the question that we pose yeah part of the question we pose is under what circumstances could you come to this level of violence what would what has to be taken from you what has to be threatened upon you what has to be provoked in you to reach that level

and i think that’s part of our jobs as storytellers whose stories involve a lot of violence is is asking some of those questions and playing out those scenarios so the audience doesn’t necessarily have to but they get to ask that question within a specialized detached context of a particular story that once they’ve passed that threshold of the theatre then they are they’re no longer in that context the brain does this natural thresholding thing that’s why you’re in one room you’re like oh i forgot that thing you go to another room you’re like what why am i here yeah because your brain is sort of thresholded into a different space

so we can help them have that like that consensual experience of violence that is yet still detached from their real lives and even from their existing experience by going into a space where the agreement is we’re gonna do some awful things but it’s all pretend and wonderful things and joyful things and it’s all pretend and then you’re gonna be able to think about it and then you’re gonna go away knowing that it hasn’t actually happened to you yeah or the actors themselves or the actors themselves

it’s a really important part of what we do that there’s there is enough um there’s enough realism for it to look real and there’s enough separation to realize that actor is fine yeah and that’s well because the one thing that audiences don’t like when they think the actor got hurt no right like you can tell like your lizard brain goes because we’re we we can get really into the end of the sword fight until somebody actually gets like stabbed

although i was having a conversation recently about this about how hollywood has changed our perception of what that actually looks like so sometimes when it happens people don’t know what they’re looking at because it’s such a non-event sometimes yeah like someone gets stabbed and they walk off stage they’re holding their hands you’re thinking that person’s gonna be gushing blood yeah yeah you know what i mean like it’s like did you get stabbed yeah i did oh did anybody notice no because it’s like it’s like you know i think it often happens uh during like the punch oh sure right because the punch yeah you know you react to one way to the punch in in when it’s choreographed and then when you actually get punched in the face that changes things oh absolutely

one of my great experience one of the thing i love so much my personal love of mma is how it’s changed how i choreographed punching because the knockout that i did when i was a kid where you do three spins fall over the couch and roll backwards in a single punch i may or may not have practiced that a few times to what you see a guy get knocked out yeah in the ring is really different the stiffening and just the falling over is not what we teach no because it’s not exciting air quotes no to look at but that’s the reality of it and would an audience anyway that’s a whole different conversation of whether they’d recognize but what they do realize is violence happening a real and violence happening there is that lizard brain thing where it’s like something’s really wrong and i need to run away from this now their instincts take over that well

especially when you’re in a theatre when we’re breathing together like that when we’re in a space sharing energy you can feel that subtle shift of like the people on stage going okay stay in it stay in it yeah you can notice just that that slight change as the actor’s body moves or maybe not slight change like someone does a shove poorly and then goes head over heels over furniture where you’re like i feel like that’s not i feel like somebody just got hurt when they landed yeah or like the thunk is really an uncomfortable thunk like some of that sound design is actually is also part of what we do yeah

and we also we want our audiences to be uncomfortable within the realm of the story yes not uncomfortable as people well that’s the thing it is a subtle difference it’s like we need to make them uncomfortable because of this show but we don’t want them to be personally uncomfortable because something terrible just happened on stage

and the thing is as we delve into different versions of what our shows will become our trigger warnings will get different like if you’re coming to see and the difference between this this is where i get back to the nerding out for us is what happens when someone hits you with a frying pan so that’s a simple question cast iron frying pan if i smack you in the head with it like for realsies oh that’s gonna sound horrible but if i add the bong well then it becomes funny right yeah also how i swing my arm my arm with the frying pan becomes funny or not my intention with what i’m doing that action so all of that deep dive with a single action yeah is one of the things we have to be very interested and careful about is how we’re crafting that for the audience to have that experience

i feel very lucky that i’m choreographing a few shows right now and like i did a streetcar named desire and there was a couple of like hey and then do it this way oh oh and the whole room kind of like sorry folks sorry okay everyone okay good okay continuing on and then i’m uh doing roshdale up at york university and it’s like all right so shimon make sure this is funny i’m like okay make sure make sure that’s exactly what you want to hear make sure this is hilarious i’ll be watching and timing yeah every once in a while i’m choreographing something and i burst into laughter because like i’m sorry my brain just went to the funny version of this yeah or or sometimes when the room is a bit like oh this is hard i’ll go and then we do this version in the comedy version of this show just to help yeah

yeah we want to make sure that’s one of the things we love about stage combat the most is that people sometimes forget that what we’re doing as artists yes is magic tricks yeah and that what we do is a dance with each other and we’re in it and it is not hard on us at all in the sense that yes there’s lungs and there’s physical ability but the violence of which we are performing on each other is not violence to us we are sharing that energy backwards and forwards yeah but you the audience are horrified by what you see because it looks like you’re trying to kill each other

absolutely i think that’s like my favourite part of what we do is that beautiful paradox where we on the inside are having this like joyful communicative experience yeah and the audience is having a completely different experience yeah we love what we do that’s so much fun yeah awesome i mean to be sure there are some times where we look where you look at a thing you go oh yeah as an audience member this is this is difficult so how we craft it has to be considered but when we’re doing it then it’s just i don’t know

we were joking about no it’s not me somebody’s popular hold on somebody got it can’t be me it can’t be me my phone’s not on oh crap it is me i knew it you know what though i just got a new cell phone case and i put it in and i flipped up my he was all so excited about his new it was me oh no the irony of this audience this is this funny because we were talking about it before we got started you know i mean i made the joke you know what isn’t it ironic yeah if your guy’s a weatherman oh yeah

all right you guys thanks thank you so much thank you for having us this has been a homebody productions production