Episode Notes

Emily Dix is a Toronto based theatre artist and photographer. She has been directing, producing and designing for theatre for over 10 years, and is the Artistic Executive Director of Bygone Theatre. Recently, she launched a new initiative, the Toronto Independent Theatre Coalition (TITC) which she runs as Founder and Executive Director. She also works as a freelance photographer, specializing in theatre and live events.

www.emilydix.com
Instagram: emilydixphotography

Bygone Theatre
www.bygonetheatre.com
Twitter: @bygonetheatre
Instagram: bygonetheatre
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/bygonetheatre

The Toronto Independent Theatre Coalition
The Toronto Independent Theatre Coalition is a place for small local theatre companies to connect and support each other’s work. By connecting, sharing resources and helping to promote each other’s shows, we can all grow together. The primary objective of the TITC is to assist Toronto’s independent theatres in growing their network and audience bases.

www.thetitc.ca
Twitter: @thetitc
Instagram: the.titc
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pg/TheTITC

Transcript

Welcome to episode 200 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.

As I said, this is episode 200, and like I said last week, instead of doing some kind of retrospective or special event, I thought I would do what I always do and bring you a conversation with a theatre artist. But before I do, I wanted to ask you if you’ve subscribed to Stageworthy. I know that a great number of people are listening by finding the episodes on posts on social media, but that’s not a great way to listen every week.

A better way would be to subscribe. And you can do that by searching for Stageworthy on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts, and clicking the handy subscribe button. And if you subscribe, let me know.

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 philrickaby, and my website is philrickaby.com. My guest this week is Emily Dix. Emily is a director, producer, and designer, and the artistic executive director of Bygone Theatre. She is also the founder and executive director of the Toronto Independent Theatre Coalition.

What initially drew you to theatre? How did you get into theatre? I was very, very small, and was doing theatrical type things. I would play with my friends, and I would write little scripts, and try and get them to do something consistent and rehearse it, that didn’t go over well when I was four years old. We don’t have a lot of theatre people in the family.

I do have a great-uncle who lives in Ottawa, who’s been doing theatre forever, so it wasn’t a totally foreign thing. And my dad, when he was the age I am now, used to do stuff with like Scarborough Music Theatre, and all that. Basically, he did that until I was born.

So, even though I did not have an artsy family, there were at least a couple people who realized, oh, maybe she wants to do theatre. But growing up in Kitchener, and then Waterloo, there’s nothing there. So, I think I was probably 12 the first time I actually got to go into a drama thing, and then in high school was when I started getting to do more of it.

Did you see any plays when you were growing up? Did you get the opportunity to go to see anything? Not really, no. You instinctually were trying to get people to put on plays. I’ve never thought of that before.

That is weird. Any idea where that came from? Well, my parents would say I’m just bossy. Which is maybe part of it.

I saw a lot of my cousins when I was little, and they were just a little bit younger than me, and I was always put in charge. So, I think I was used to being in kind of a leadership role with things, and that happened at school too. I just was like a good little student.

And so, you know, if there were new kids or whatever, I was always like showing people things. So, that maybe mixed with some of it. And I read a lot, I was a major, major bookworm.

Like I was a kid that would literally, like walking from class to gym class, would have my book out in the hallway. Did you buy books or go to the library when you were younger? Mostly library, but I got books for like every occasion. And my uncle, who was the drama guy, he was a teacher, so he always sent me things.

And I got into strange stuff when I was young, because I was quite a bit above my reading level, and the things I was interested in were like dark. I remember arguing with my mom when I was probably eight, because I had read all the Goosebumps books, and I was like, these are boring. And then I heard about Stephen King, and she’s like, you can’t read Stephen King, that’s not appropriate.

So, they got me into reading a lot of classics, which is probably where a lot of my like vintage loves started. I was nine or ten when I read all of the Grimm Brother fairy tales for the first time. I watched old movies with my mom’s mom.

Yeah, and I guess that was probably part of it too. I think because my parents knew I liked horror and stuff, but they didn’t want me watching gory stuff as a kid. I don’t remember the first time I saw Hitchcock, but I would have been seven or eight.

So, I was always interested in old stories. Yeah. Yeah, I don’t know, some kind of weird mix of all those things.

Yeah, but when you went to, you finally were in high school, you started to do some theater? Yeah, I took drama all the way through. My high school did not have a good drama program. They were very sports heavy.

It was a new school, so they didn’t have, like I went to one for grade nine, then they opened one for grade ten, and it was a mess, and they didn’t really have anything set, but that meant that I was kind of given free reign to do things. So, yeah, I was always putting on stuff for different art shows, and I’d direct things for the Sears Festival, and be in the big musicals they do and all of that. I guess it’s not, I mean, a lot of schools have more of a focus on their sports team than their theater programs, and because I guess, I don’t know if the sports gets people scholarships and stuff.

I don’t know if it even does. I think it just depends on what teachers you have there, and we were a brand new school in a pretty new neighborhood with very young teachers. We had, in like our second year we were open, we had like five teachers on mat leave at the same time, because everybody was like, like my one teacher when I was in grade 10 or 11, he was only 25.

So, like we had just really, really young people there. I don’t know. I think arts is always hard to get funding for.

There is an arts high school in Kitchener that I considered going to, but then everyone I talked to who’d gone there was like, no, it’s snobby, it’s more for the dancers, and I did a co-op placement there after I graduated. Like, I went to grade 12, and then I came back for a semester to do a co-op, and I did it there, and yeah, I’m glad I didn’t go to that school. At what point did you realize that theater was something that you wanted to do and to make the focus of your life? I had wanted to be a teacher since before I was in school.

I don’t, that’s fully intend to do that even up through university, and as I got older and realized I liked English, drama, and the social sciences, I figured, okay, well, if I teach high school, then I can do all these things, and I’ll run the drama programs, because I was frustrated by how poorly run a lot of the drama programs were, and then I guess sometime in my teens, I started to realize, okay, maybe I could actually have a career doing theater stuff, but I thought, well, I’ll do that for a few years, and then I’ll go and be a teacher, because the teachers I had who had theater careers before they went to teaching were way better than the ones who were, like, literally reading a Stanislavski from a book. So that was sort of the intention, but I’ve always been a really practical person, so I didn’t give too much thought to doing anything like that, and then I got into university, realized there are no teaching jobs, decided, okay, I’m not going to spend another eight grand to do a master’s, especially once they made it so teacher’s college was two years, because then, like, I had always planned I was going to go through and do my undergrad, do the master’s of child development at OISE, and I was like, that’s a lot of money for something that might not put me ahead, and there’s no jobs, and okay, I’ll just see what I can find, and I started working in theater, and have been able to, like, get just enough work to justify sticking with that for the last six, seven, nine years, whatever it’s been. Did you go through university aiming to be a teacher, or did you end up, like, changing tracks, or? No, I planned on being a teacher, because the only two jobs I have consistently wanted my whole life that I thought I could actually do besides theater stuff was teaching, or social work, or some kind of counseling thing, and the thing that made me change my mind on social work, because I had pretty much decided on that when I was in, like, grade 11, I took my sister when she was in grade 7 or 8, had a class trip to Toronto to see Wicked, and I went as one of the chaperones, and Wicked’s not even, I mean, it’s like an impressive musical, but it’s almost embarrassing now to say that that’s the show that made me be like, oh, fuck it, I have to do theater instead, but still, I was like, I just feel so much better.

I feel better in a theater, regardless of where I am, I just, like, relax and feel focused, and I was worried that if I did social work, I would burn out really fast. Which does tend to happen. It does, and I thought, you know, there’s lots of different things I can do that are related to that without making that be my job that, like, kills me every day, so.

Yeah. Yeah. So did you, did, because, you know, looking at your website, you’re more around directing and designing and that sort of thing.

Did you go into acting and then find your way into producing and acting and directing and that sort of thing, or? Yeah, I, so in high school, I always did the directing and things, but it was like, you know, you’re in a class, there’d be two people to direct, there wasn’t a lot of competition. I still like acting, but I hate auditioning. I know no one likes auditioning, but, like, it just makes me, like, physically ill.

Okay. So I stopped, I mean, if I had a friend be like, hey, you want to be in this, I would gladly do it now, but I’m not full of myself enough to just cast myself in things, and I can’t, I can’t, I can’t do it. I got sick of going to auditions and leaving being like, I’m so much better than what I just did, and I don’t, like, I wouldn’t feel anxious.

So all the things people would say, like, oh, do you breathing? And like, no, I go in and I feel totally calm and I just suck at it. So it’s like, like a anxiety in the back of my head that screws me up. It’s just really weird thing, because I’ve encountered people who are really great at auditioning, really terrible in shows.

Yeah, I’ve met those too. Or, or in the rehearsal hall, like, like, somehow they get work because they’re so good in the, in the audition room, but not good in performance. And there are people who are terrible at auditioning.

Yeah. And they’re really good to have in a, in a production. It’s almost like you just need to get that into that production.

And then maybe people will say, like, you know, who you need to hire is so and so. That’s why you have to go and see people in shows and, and actors need to invite people out to see them because, yeah, there have been lots of people I’ve cast as really small parts, because they’ll be like, there’s something I like about them. I don’t know.

And then they turn out to be great. And occasionally I end up wishing I’d given them a bigger part. Right.

Almost always I end up working with them again and doing something bigger with them. So. So how did you start? I mean, aside from you, your parents said that you’re bossy, and you, you, you directed all of your friends and family and shows when you were younger.

Um, you made the transition really from, from, from acting to directing. Um, do you remember what the first thing that you directed that when you weren’t for was? Uh, still really young, but the first thing where someone would have called me a director was in grade four. My, um, my teacher, we found it was retiring at the end of the year.

And so I planned a surprise party for her and we made this stupid little play. Um, it was sort of a Shrek type thing, but this is before Shrek came out, but it was like a weird, it was probably really awful, but I wrote it and, uh, we practiced at lunch recess and good things. Um, and so whenever we had in, in school, any assignments where we had to do those things, I was always the director.

Um, and yeah, high school again, I did a bunch of ones in class. The first thing outside of class was the Sears festival in grade 11, I think. Yeah.

I directed a God awful play called, uh, liars by Lindsay Price, who probably anyone who’s my age, who, who went to school in Ontario has read stuff by her because she’s Canadian and writes stuff is really not very good, but it’s like a good show for high school students. Um, that was just disastrous for so many reasons, but, uh, but not enough to turn me off from it apparently. Um, so then I directed one for the Sears again the next year, then went to university.

I was in a show in my first year. And in second year, I applied to direct, um, arsenic and old lace with Victoria college at U of T. So that was when I was 20. Yeah.

Um, when did you, when did you, uh, uh, start, uh, Vagon theater? Uh, October of 2012. And what was it that made you want to want to start your own theater company? It was spite again. That’s what’s led a lot of this.

Um, so I did a lot of, of extracurricular theater stuff at U of T. I wasn’t in the drama program. I was, um, an English major and I have a drama minor, so I studied it. Um, but I did stuff at heart house and with the different colleges.

And I did a production of hairspray at St. Michael’s, which, um, was fun, but really stressful. Cause we had a little bit under two months to put on a musical that had a cast of 56 and I was doing the costumes and there, there’s so many things that went wrong, but ultimately it turned out really well and we sold out. And so it actually like made money.

Um, and then I realized after that, like the producers, uh, had forgotten to invite any of any of the reviewers from the many campus papers that were there. Um, they, I didn’t really get a thank you or anything. There were just like a lot of, I put in so much time and effort and nobody else on the project did to the same extent.

Um, so I was kind of like, well, screw this. If I’m going to put in that much work, then I want full control because there had been issues primarily with the stage manager who I didn’t choose, but a producer did. And she never came to rehearsals and like literally never came to rehearsal, tried to miss the dress rehearsal.

And I was like, no, you have to learn the whole show. You’re supposed to be calling it. The producer had promised me they would fire her if she was a problem.

And I had been complaining the whole time. There were just a bunch of things. And I’d had similar stuff when I did arsenic too, where it was like, I thought maybe the problem was that it was all students.

And so everyone else was putting their school ahead of other things, which I can’t really fault them for. I thought, okay, if it’s an outside thing, then maybe that won’t be a problem. So, um, I was sitting at home with my roommate and then boyfriend and was like, I’m going to make my own company.

And they’re like, sure. And I made a website and I picked a name and I said, okay, this is what we’re going to do. And I had just seen, um, the movie version of Dope and was like, oh, that’d make a great play.

And then I realized, oh, it is a play. Um, so that one is the only one we’ve done that hasn’t really fit the same way with bygone. I mean, it was still a period thing and it is a play that was a movie, but it’s newer.

Um, yes, we, we put that one on in January of, uh, 2013 and it was technically a co-production with a, uh, U of T group. Um, they weren’t involved in it except that they gave us free rehearsal space and then they got half the money, which sucked because that one was profitable. So yeah.

Is, is this by when you’re, when you’re choosing shows for bygone is, is period and having been a movie, uh, uh, something that you look for? Yeah, period definitely is. So we do shows that are written or set in the early to mid 20th century. Um, and they have a cinematic aesthetic is how we phrase it.

So it happens to have been that most of them have either been plays originally, um, that were made into movies and then people kind of forget about them as plays like Rome that’s on this year now at Shaw. Um, but when I did it, it hadn’t been done. I don’t even know when it had been done in Canada.

There was a West end revival, um, in like 2011 or something like that. But then I haven’t done for ages and ages. Uh, same with like dilemma for murder that doesn’t really get put on anymore.

Um, probably with good reason. It’s, it’s cheesy, but it’s also, it’s also, I think it’s old enough that, um, it’s almost cliche now because people have heard of it and seen it. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. A lot of people didn’t know it was a play, but, um, yeah, but people still knew the title and they’re like, Oh yeah, it’s something with a murder.

And I’m like, yeah, that’s so, yeah. So we’ve done either those or we’ll have ones that are films that we’ve made into stage adaptations. So his girl Friday, we did a couple of years ago.

Um, it’s based on the front page, which is a play, but that play didn’t have Hildy Johnson and it was two men. And then it was made into the film. And then the film has been public domain for ages.

So my uncle, um, not the one from before a different uncle who wants to get into writing, uh, did an adaptation of it, which basically just cut down the number of characters, made it basically two locations. Um, but then kept it, kept it as Hildy. So then we had the, cause that’s the best part of the movie is Rosalind Russell.

So, um, so we did that. And then when we did, um, the rear window this past spring, uh, I wrote a adaptation of that because it was based on a short story, um, which is a problematic short story, but it’s like the basic sort of concept to it. It’s like, it was written in the early fifties, but it sounds like it was written in like the thirties.

There’s, um, a character Charlie. And the only thing I took of that is that there was a character named Charlie and the one I did, but he’s, um, he’s a black, like man servant who is that, uh, you know, the character of the like, well, he’s it’s late enough. There’s no way he was ever a slave, but basically he’s just there.

You know, the like, yeah, I’m sure there’s a good archetype name for it, but it was bad. It’s bad. He, the, the main guy like has some line about how, Oh, you know, I’m going to send you over there and you, you might get caught.

You might even get shot, but you know, I wouldn’t ask you to do it if you hadn’t been with me so long. And the guy’s just like, okay, sir. And he goes over there and like making this poor is really bad.

Um, but the basic concept to the story was good. Um, and the film I love, but thought that it was missing things mostly because of when it came out. I think, I mean, Grace Kelly’s character is just beautiful, but pointless.

And, um, and I love Jimmy Stewart, but I was like, there’s no way this guy has been in a wheelchair that long. And he’s not like either drunk out of his mind all the time or in a terrible mood because he’s in pain or addicted to the terrible painkillers they gave them. So that was the focus with, um, this, because my main problem with the film was I always thought, why does she believe him right away? Like this is a ridiculous thing to think.

And, um, I mean, he seems pretty sane. Like he knows what he’s talking about it about in it. But I think she, that just emphasizes that she’s just like a pointless 2d character.

And I thought if this was happening in real life, that girl would be like, Oh my God, my boyfriend’s losing his mind. Um, so that was what we did is it’s a lot more, he’s like drunken on pills and you don’t really know how much time has passed. And it seems like he might be, um, imagining a lot of it.

And at the end still don’t actually know if the guy he saw did murder his wife or not. Right. Yeah.

So, yeah, I was, I mean, I was following some of the stuff that you were doing, showing on Instagram about the design for, for rear window. And I mean, you were making like TV dinners as props, which is kind of insane, but also awesome because it’s so right for the period. Yeah.

So my thinking was, um, he was, he’s a bachelor living alone who travels a lot. Like he’s not going to be cooking. TV dinners were kind of a new thing.

Um, and I wanted it to be clear and it helped to that our, our actor, um, Tristan who played the lead in it is a really thin guy and like, you need to look kind of sickly, you know, he’s been sitting here. God, if I get a cold, I don’t eat for a week and I lost 10 pounds. You know, like if you had a broken leg and you cannot leave your apartment and you’re on a lot of drugs, like you’re not going to eat well, you don’t ever finish things.

There’s lots of food in that, that got passed around. They didn’t eat. So all you ever really saw him doing was drinking whiskey or coffee, um, and then taking drugs.

And, uh, another weird thing I’ve liked since I was a kid is fake food. I have no idea. It’s another weird one.

Like I remember being really, really small. And, um, I think it was probably a scholar’s choice. There was some kind of store I would go to with my mom sometimes that had like, it was like rubber fake food that looked really real.

And I loved it. And I was in speech therapy as a kid until I was 12. And the speech therapist had fake food.

I think the point of it was that I would have to like stay with the things where we practice pronouncing it, but I just wanted to play with it. And I remember she’d be like, do your exercises and then you can play with it. Um, yeah, so I don’t know.

I, uh, I always liked it a few years ago. I took a course on making prop food at Stratford off the wall, Stratford, which is a great place. And I wish it wasn’t so far away.

It’s like a really cool, um, practical production courses and they’re affordable. Um, so yeah, so I made a TV dinner that you didn’t see. It’s like this last show I just did, I made chicken Marsala, which took a, probably like four hours in total.

And definitely nobody saw it. It could have been an empty dish. Oh no.

But you know, it’s good practice. It’s also great. I mean, the actor knows it’s there.

Yeah. And you can put it on social media and be like, look, here’s a thing, do little tutorials on bygone. And yeah, that’s great.

So let’s talk about the, uh, the, the, the TITC, um, the independent theater coalition. Um, where did that start for you? Oh, probably, I think I probably thought of it around 2014 the first time. Um, because I started realizing how many groups have this weird idea that we’re all in competition with one another.

And maybe like, I didn’t go to drama school. So maybe when you’re being taught how to audition for things and stuff, that’s instilled in you more, but from like a production side of stuff, I’m like, there’s no competition unless there’s two shows opening the same play, the same night, the same run. Like, you know, even if you had two different, well, everyone’s doing dream and summer last dream this year, they’re not in competition with each other.

Um, but a lot of people seem to think they were, I, I did the New York fringe in 2014 and I went with this not very good show. Uh, I was just there as the stage manager and then I was trying to help promote it. And I was making a point of going around and meeting the different people.

I met some really cool people there actually. Um, like Amber Ruffin, who does the late night with Seth Meyers now was there before she got that gig. Um, and she came up from LA and we talked to them and their show was actually really good.

So we were like cross promoting and them doing that for us helped us. I don’t think we helped them in any way, but still. Um, and the producer who was also the writer, director, lead actor in it was really pissed at me for doing that.

And I was like, I don’t know how you think we’re supposed to promote ourselves in a city where we don’t know anybody, but I’m pretty sure getting to know the other people here and getting to know the people who have successful shows is going to help us. Um, so I thought that was weird. And I had that, uh, with a bunch of other shows I’ve, I’ve worked with.

I worked for a theater company for six months that I won’t get into a thing about, but I was there as a producer and we had like our big opening launch party. And so there was all different industry people. And when I would take pictures and put it on our Instagram, I would tag our company along with the companies I knew these people worked with.

And I got reamed out for that. And I was like, cause they say, well, you’re promoting the other companies. And I was like, well, first off, I don’t know what’s wrong with that if that’s what I’m doing, but also like, it’s a community and you’re seeing other, that’s what you do.

That’s the whole point of like a hashtag or something is you tag people. So it gets spread. But yeah, I just, I kept encountering that.

And I thought it was really funny that if you talk to individuals, they’d always be like, Oh yeah, I want to support your show and everything. And then you say, great. Hey, you run this company.

Let’s do something. And it’s just radio silence. Yeah.

I don’t know if it comes from, cause I don’t know if it’s a recent thing, but when I was in theater school, there was no, like nobody instilled in us that we were in competition, but I do see what, what, what I see it at fringe sometimes where people are reluctant to like, yes, they will cross promote, but only if it’s like really good for them. And whereas I come from a theater, from a, from a fringe background of, of like there is audience enough for everybody, especially in independent theater in this city, because the average person thinks about theater as an expensive thing. Like they’re thinking of the Mervis shows and like all that stuff and independent theater is not.

And so here we are with like all these independent theater shows that have like really affordable tickets all hoarding their audiences. Like when, since our shows are affordable, like we could share that and not lose anything. Cause your audience is probably going to be my audience too.

And so we all benefit if we just sort of spread it around, you know, what did, when, when you were, when did that become something that, that, that you finally decided like this has to happen now? I mean, a few years ago, I started trying to put stuff together and quickly realized how big of a project it would be. But I was talking to a friend of mine about it and he was like, think of how much time you put into a single production. And if you dedicate that to this, where do you think it could go? And that sort of stuck with me.

But then I kept working on shows that took up a lot of time. And then I finally had a bit of a gap and was like, okay, maybe I should do this. And I’d mentioned the idea to some people and got some positive response.

And I thought, okay, well at least there’s like a handful of people who might be interested. And so let’s see what will happen. So I guess it was, I think it was back in October was when I started actually sharing things around and then had to pause again.

Cause I did rear window and that took up a lot of time and then got going on again. And then I did false claims and that took up a lot of time. Um, but yeah, I’ve it’s, I need to get a little core group of people to help with it because there’s no money.

Um, I’m used to doing things for no money, but it needs, I need like three months of like full-time work to actually get it up and running so that it can go. And I can’t do that by myself. Um, but I did get some things started that got people noticing it.

So I’m hoping with more of a push, maybe something will happen. What do, what, what, so what are the, what are the responsibilities of a company that joins the independent theater coalition? Cause they don’t, they don’t pay anything to be part of it. So what do they get out of it and what do they have to do to be part of it? So some of this is still a little up in the air because there’s the ideas I had for it initially.

Um, but I don’t want to be like Emily Dix runs Toronto theater. I want to be a coalition. So there’s the stuff I sort of started with it.

And then, um, I’ve had a few people make some suggestions. So we really need to have another, um, like meeting and member meeting and vote on it. But at the moment, um, yeah, there’s no membership fees.

Uh, so the hope is that you join and everyone has to put in sort of an even amount of work for it to work. Um, which is always a risky thing to try. Um, but in theory, when you join, um, you have this group of, uh, different companies and when you’re doing something like auditions or show and you share a thing, all of these other people are supposed to share that for you too.

So that they’re all of their networks are seeing your stuff and there’ll be some overlap, but, um, hopefully that means that everybody’s, uh, reach will grow and their followers will grow. So we do track every month. Um, actually I have to do that for the beginning of August.

Um, how many followers the different groups have, and they have been going up. I mean, it doesn’t mean I can say that it’s because of this. I hope it has something to do with that, but I’m definitely going to put it in a grant application one day and say, well, look, this happened.

Let’s hope it’s, um, yeah. So, so there’s that, there’s just the sharing of things like that. And then the hope is that, um, because we’re all groups that have a similar sort of mindset as to how things should work, we’ll also help support each other’s shows when we’re not working on one.

Most companies are only doing a lot are only doing one show a year. Most aren’t doing more than three. There’s certainly no, no companies like a Tarragon level thing where they’ve got constant production.

So when you’re not doing something, I’m sure I’m not the only person who want to show raps is suddenly like, Oh my God, what do I do with all my time? That’s a great time to reach out and be like, Oh, Hey, what do you need a hand with? Oh, flyering. Or you need someone for front of house or, uh, you’re trying to do a budget. Do you want to look at what I just did? And, you know, um, so it’s supposed to be that sort of stuff.

Um, yeah, we’ve, we’ve played with a few different ways. We can kind of track that because, um, at the moment I feel a little bit like a mom being like, you know, Oh, you have to share this thing and stuff. Uh, hopefully eventually everybody will just sort of do it naturally.

Um, I made it like a chart. That was the way I thought we could track it. But then I’ve been told by a few people, I think you’re making it too complicated, which is probably true.

Like it would be really useful for us. It would be really useful data, but, uh, people are accustomed to just everything being quick and easy. And so at least to start when they don’t see what they’re getting out of it, like it’s gotta be really easy to do.

Yeah. Um, which means it’s a lot harder for us on the production side of it. Um, yeah, we also started up a, um, uh, like online newspaper blog, whatever you want to call it thing.

Um, which is specifically for Toronto, Toronto indie theater, because there are things like, um, intermission, they’re a little bit broader. And I found that any group that starts off promoting indie theater, as soon as they get anything bigger, that’s paying attention to them, they kind of forget about the indie shows. I’ve seen that with a lot of, um, like publicity groups and stuff where, you know, I had been going to hire a publicist and it was going to be like 3000 bucks, but I was like, you know, we need some of the connections.

And I started talking to more people from the smaller companies and they were like, no, because, you know, we had this person and then they got factory as a client. And then suddenly they didn’t do any of our stuff. And I think the same happens with, um, with like the newspapers and things, you know, we keep losing more and more reviewers.

There’s more reviewers popping up who aren’t real reviewers and, uh, it’s really hard to get a story. And I know with some of them, you cannot get a story unless you were already paying for ads. Um, which is just like only borderline legal because you’re supposed to say like, then it’s technically sponsored content.

Um, yeah, I didn’t want any of that. So the hope was that this would be something where like right now we don’t have huge viewership, but if I could get some more people to write it with me, because I can’t write enough stuff, um, then we would have anything from, you know, interviews with people, um, to we do top 10 lists. Um, just supposed to just be anything that is relevant to specifically Toronto indie artists.

And I would like it to be at a point where anybody who’s like, Hey, I have a show coming up. Can we do an interview? If they can make time for it, we can make time for them. We’ll have those sorts of things.

Um, yeah, I, I got to interview the, uh, the woman who wrote the French show that won the best new play this year. And I was glad after that I did, I mean, she was interesting anyway. I went into it pretty psyched for it because she, she gave a good interview.

I was looking through now’s list. They, they reviewed almost all the shows, but they didn’t do that one. It’s so amazing how many shows they missed because they, as the media sponsor, they, I would have thought they would review all the shows.

Yeah. Well, or if they’re going to miss some, how do you miss what one best play when past years, the ones that won best play were like Kim’s convenience and bang, bang. And like, it’s so interesting because the, I’ve noticed that the decline of that award over a few years, cause it used to be pretty massive.

Like not only did you get a slot in, in, in the fringe, there was also like a financial thing, which I think there still is. But there was also a, at one point there was like a media company that was also going to like a promo company that was going to work with you in terms of, of helping you promote the show and things like that. That’s fallen off.

And since that’s fallen off, I think the important as, I mean, it’s a great that, that, that, that you had the opportunity to do a show and all that stuff, but also it’s gotten less attention over the last few years. Yeah. Which is a little silly for a fringe, which I always thought the point was like, half the people there want to put on a show they know couldn’t really be sustained elsewhere.

And the other half want to sort of workshop a thing and see if it could become something. Yes. Yeah.

I don’t know if that’s always the attitude of it, but I think that’s like the basic spirit of the fringe, but it’s supposed to be like the opportunity to try things out. Yeah, exactly. There were a number of, of, of TITC people who had chosen in the fringe this past year.

So did you find, cause I also, you had buttons, you were, you were handing, did you find that when you were giving people buttons, did they, were they interested in, in like what they were for? Yes. Yeah. I’ve found, and I think this is probably just a thing with anything new.

Everyone I’ve talked to when I first told them about it sounds really interesting. Then maybe 30% of the people I talked to who say, Oh, I’ll totally get in touch, do get in touch. And then maybe 2% of those people, after I respond to them, respond back.

Yes. Yeah. So yeah, I know there is interest.

I’ve gotten interest from people from different levels of things. I did the, the fringe tent producing intensive thing this year and met a bunch of other emerging producers. Most of whom were a lot younger than me, but I talked to them about it and a lot of them were interested and had some, some different ideas and they’ve helped share some of the stuff.

There’s some people in that, that I definitely want to talk to about doing more with it. I mentioned it to some of the very established people who came in to do like the workshops and things. And there’s, I have a big long list of all these people I have to try and have like coffee meetings with for stuff.

Yeah. So it has, it has promise. It’s just like, it’s a lot of work.

Sure. It just takes a, it’s, it takes a lot of time because I have ideas, but not like specific things. Well, you’re one person who’s trying to get us going.

And I mean, I think that it’s a, it is a great idea and very much needed in, in, in the city, especially a city where there is, there are so many independent companies. Yeah. And again, we’re not in competition, so we should be like working together.

Yeah. Well, and doing more co-pros too. That was a thing that I forget who brought it up.

I think it was somebody who has worked with Fujin. Um, but someone, when people were asking like, how do you put on a show because it costs so much money? Something that came up a couple of times was reach out to much bigger companies. If you’re doing something that they could be remotely interested in, because most of them, the charities do have some sort of fund for like community development.

And they said that they’re, they’d done lots of shows where they would, you know, get like two to 500 bucks, but from a much bigger company whose name you can also put on this. Yeah. Right.

And so I got thinking about that more. And as I’ve been meeting people through TITC and just other theater stuff, realizing how many little companies have really similar mandates, but never do anything together. And so this year bygone is doing, um, a new musical and we’re doing it as a co-production with sapling, which is a brand new company.

They’ve done like a concert before, but this will be their first full production. Um, and those guys, what they, um, Brian Kling and Rob Sapienza, what they want to do for sapling is basically what we want to do for, um, the TITC. They wanted like kind of a community thing.

So I think they’ll be really helpful with that. Um, yeah. And I’ve, I’ve met some other groups and it’s like, we need to start trying to work with the different companies more in whatever capacity.

Um, because I don’t know, I guess everybody who has their own creative idea wants to go make their own company. Not every idea deserves a company. No.

And, um, it’s just not sustainable because there is only so much money in like the funding sphere to go around. So let’s get together. Also, I do know that like from what I hear, like there’s a lot of like funding tends to leave Toronto because Toronto is such a big place like the center thing.

So a lot of the funding bodies are like, well, let’s, we’re looking to give money to companies that are not in Toronto, which I understand there’s a lot of us here and there’s a lot of places that aren’t seeing money. So I get that. But that sort of means that we have to work towards other things.

Yeah. Well, the shadow path, that’s the whole reason they exist. They, they’re up in, um, is it Vaughn technically or something like they’re not far away, but they’ve gotten great funding because they are not based in Toronto.

They don’t do their shows in Toronto. So yeah. Are there, I mean, here I’m thinking like, like, uh, opportunities to get people together because one of the reasons why I think people don’t think about working together is because they don’t meet face to face.

Right. And so we’re all off in our own internet lands and things like that. And like, even if it’s just like, you know, coffee night at the TNTC or something like that, which is, that’s the thing we want to start to do.

Yeah. We wanted to have probably monthly is realistic. Yeah.

I think that’s any more than that is, is not. Yeah. Um, we wanted to have things that were, uh, really casual ones where everybody’s working together.

So like the fellows, um, is great. And they have ones that are more like come and learn about a thing. And there’s different ones like that, you know, workshops that come up, uh, they usually have to pay for, but I wanted to have things where it would be at like a coffee shop or something where you just follow or working on similar things and come and worked like a study group.

Basically. Um, we did some of that during the 10th thing, um, like during lunches and stuff, we would be talking about budgets. Um, I talked to people who had never made a budget before and they were like, but where do you get these numbers? And like, well, you’ve, you’ve researched it.

So we just started, you know, like going through things and being like, one person would say, Oh, I spent this for that. And someone else would say, Oh no, I got my printing here and you can get for as little as that. And like just these things that are, um, really helpful, but people seem to be hesitant to just put out into the world.

Um, but it’s like, it’s just so much faster. You know, I have countless lists of, of like things that are related to bygone. I can reach out to for sponsorship things and all these people I meet in the, like it, but it’s so, there’s so much information.

It’s sort of tricky to sort through and to keep updated. And I feel like if we got, there must be other people who have the same insane, weird lists that I do. And if we all got together and we’re like, Hey, everyone’s making a budget now.

Okay. Let’s all look up printing things and go over what we’ve spent on this. And, um, you know, or even to talk about venues, um, because especially with the, with any of the negative stuff that happens in theater, there’s always whispers of it going around.

Um, but there’s never like a lot of problems get repeated and a lot of problem people keep getting work because if you don’t meet the right people, you never hear about it. Um, I don’t want to start with like open a can of worms by like, you know, making a thing where like, let’s make a list of all the terrible people in terrible places. But I do think there’s a benefit to like us all working together and, and being able to say, you know, Oh, I’m thinking of hiring this person.

Well, maybe not. Or this person is great. Like you should definitely hire them for something.

Um, yeah. So having just really general themes, like now we’re going to work on producing or today it’s, you know, the TAC grant or whatever. Um, and also I think we take some of the stress off.

Like that’s half of the point of study group is so that you actually get it done. Whenever grant season comes up, my Facebook is flooded with people writing stuff. Like I’m losing my mind.

Come distract me. Or if you see me on here, tell me to get off. I’m supposed to be writing.

And like, so, you know, if we just got together and did it and complained together and edited each other’s things, you know? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Also it’d be great to do like monthly is really great for that sort of thing, but maybe like even a, um, a quarterly, like, just like, why don’t we just hang out? Yes. Yeah. You know, we’ll go, we’ll, we’ll be at this place and we’ll have some coffee and we’ll, we’ll just like talk about stuff and not work or just like, you know, here we are, what comes up, you know, and, and give people the opportunity to like meet, you know? Yeah.

People, when you’re not trying to impress them because you’re, you’re working with them and hopefully make lasting connections. Yes. Yeah.

When you do a show, you spend so much time with these people. And I know most shows I’ve done, it’s like every night you go out for drinks with them and you learn all these really intimate things. And then everyone goes and does different shows and you don’t see them.

I know it’s that weird thing that happens in theater where you form these really intimate families for a period of however long the show is on. And then when it’s over, the family breaks up. It’s like, it’s like literally like your family breaks up.

And so no wonder we get depressed after a show and then we don’t talk to those people anymore. Yep. Yep.

Except at Fringe, which I think is why. Except at Fringe, when you run into people and you’re like, Oh my God, you, I remember you, you know? Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. We need more of those. If you were to imagine what the TITC could become, what do you imagine it being for the ecosystem of indie theater in Toronto? In a magical world, we would have basically every indie company there is.

And we’ve defined those as they have to have produced at least one show before and have plans to produce another thing within a year. So not collectives that have just done a single thing. They are indie if they are making some attempt to pay people, even if they’re not succeeding.

So not community theater. I like community theater, but they, we just don’t have the same needs. Right.

But also not something like Factory or Terragon where they have regular operating budgets, significant ones. So you could be doing a collective agreement. You could be doing a profit share.

You could have managed to raise the money to pay everybody a full equity wage, but you’re doing one show that year, that sort of stuff. So all the groups that are doing those things would all be a part of it. We would see more cross advertising for people and more actual social things, not just like, let’s get an ad in somebody’s program, but saying, hey, this little group is doing a thing and this is their second ever show and have the bigger groups acknowledge that on social media.

Things that seem really obvious. And at times I’ve had big companies do that with us, but it really depends on who you are and who you know. And trying to get out of some of the cliquiness of that and maybe just be like, well, we’re all in the same sort of thing.

It’s not going to hurt you to be like, happy opening to people because that just helps build the community. Then you don’t feel as anxious about reaching out to people who are more successful than you because they’ve already said something nice. Exactly.

Yes. There would be a ticketing platform that everybody would use, which is the thing I’m really trying to get now, but it requires a significant amount to get started. But something where it’s a central hub and you can go and buy tickets to any Toronto indie thing.

And one of the big things I want to set up is a subscription deal. Because if you look at established companies where they make a lot of their money is in subscriptions and it just allows you to actually plan things. If you know 20% of your ticket sales every year come from your subscribers and you know your subscriber base.

So basically trying to find ways to look at what the larger companies have that make them successful. Things that aren’t really plausible with one small company, but when we all come together could be a thing. So having something where we encourage people to buy a subscription to support Toronto Indie Theatre as a whole.

Hopefully that would get people going out to see shows they wouldn’t see. If we got as many groups as I would like to have one day, you would be able to do something like say, you know, I want to see a show the first Friday of every month and I would pick for you. Or I want to see only new Canadian work.

Or I want to see, you know, female driven, whatever, have all the different things. When we start, it will probably just be these are your shows. But there is a lot of variety and it’s really hard to reach out to the different communities that are interested in that.

And it’s also hard to convince people if you’re doing a show and you’re like, okay, I’m going to do an Indian version of Midsummer Night’s Dream. It’s easy for people to be like, okay, let’s reach out to the different Indian communities. Let’s reach out to belly dancing groups or something.

But then I think they’re thinking so much on how we can get those people in that then they end up alienating any other groups. They’re like, oh, that’s not for me then because they’re doing something specific. So if we had something that just encourages people to go just see any indie stuff, then hopefully we would be getting all the different people who would be willing to go see theater.

And then hopefully too, if they see something from a group they’ve never heard of, they’d be like, oh, okay, I want to see their other things and that will help them grow all of that. And then I also want to have an award system because I have some strong feelings about the Doras as a lot of people I’ve talked to do. We don’t live in a country that really celebrates the arts and the few things that do get celebrated are so specific.

And in Toronto, I know there are my entertainment awards and Broadway World. Those are nice, but I know at least in the community, while people get really excited, if they get one, they don’t have the same sort of stock. But the Doras, even though it’s supposed to be since it’s through Tapa, a thing that could be for anybody, they’re not.

It’s for a different level. At not a different level in skill or talent or anything, but a different level in terms of the funding behind it, for sure. I went to when they announced the nominations this year and seeing that and seeing some of the groups that got nominated in the indie category before, and they were doing co-pros with Soul Pepper.

That’s great. And I’m glad that a group smaller has been able to do that, but we’re trying to judge people who are working with a company like Soul Pepper alongside something that is maybe run by two people and the entire show is done for $2,000. But this is where people get started.

You talk to anyone who’s any of the successful people running these big companies, they started in indie stuff, but there’s not anything currently to help that. We had a big push in the 70s, and that’s why all our theaters are from the 70s and why all the people running them were young in the 70s. We don’t have that.

I don’t think we can count on getting that from our government anytime soon. I don’t think that’s ever going to happen again. I think it was a one-time thing that built the foundation for a theater in Toronto and probably in Canada, but I don’t think we’re ever going to see it again.

Yeah. So we have to do something ourselves. And the only way to do that and to not all go broke is to be like, well, let’s put all of our resources together and try and do something.

So I’d like to see an award system that acknowledges more people behind the scenes as well. I know that’s a thing I’ve seen some people get really angry about with the doors is some of the tech stuff that gets overlooked. Things also like marketing, because I’ve seen some shows where I look at their social media and their marketing and think, this is fucking brilliant, especially knowing that that’s something that kind of gets left out in a lot of things, I think, because people, they run out of money.

And I don’t know, I think a lot of people have this idea that people will just come see your show because you’re doing it. Well, that’s the thing. It’s like, that’s a very early mistake, but I’m doing a show.

Of course, people are going to come and see it. And then you realize that, no, that’s not how it works. Or you realize too late that you have to get media and you have to promote the show.

Those are two things that I’ve seen happen. Yeah. And that’s stuff that takes a lot of work and a lot of skill.

And it’s not until you see something that’s done really well and realize, oh yeah, okay, these people know what they’re doing. You realize how many aren’t very good. So I think there’s something for that.

And then also for community-based stuff, we want to have something that’s like commitment to community, commitment to outreach, accessibility, because these are things that we talk a lot about in Toronto Theatre, but we seem to only really talk about through the scope of what grants we can get. And there’s a lot of stuff where it’s like, I think a lot of things fall into tokenism and, okay, we want to do a show and we have to not have it be all white people. So we’re going to make sure we have a black actor and a Chinese actor and whatever.

And they make a point of trying to do that for that show. And then they push and promote that that’s what they’re doing. And then they just sort of abandon it again after, because they just need it for that, which doesn’t help anything.

And you also end up with the same handful of people who get into a lot of productions then. And that doesn’t help anything either. If we want to actually encourage multiculturalism in theatre, then we have to start a little younger than waiting till we’re at the professional level and taking anyone who’s there.

You have to be like, okay, well, why don’t we have as many Indian actors or whatever it is? So groups that actually make a point of trying to do educational things or finding plays that are written by people in that community or that resonate with them or whatever it is, so that they’re getting some encouragement and actually keep doing it. Because it can be really tricky. There’s reasons why there’s less people in certain things.

It’s not as simple as they’re just being pushed out. It’s so much more complicated than that. So if we want to encourage people who are either not making money or making very little money to take the risks and put the time into that, there has to be something.

So when there’s no money, I feel like an award, a good job, we notice you’re doing this is something. The same with stuff for like accessibility. Yeah, that’s what I talk to people a lot about is it’s that’s such a complicated, it’s a thing I’ve wanted to do a lot with bygone and haven’t really known how to do.

We have basic things like we only do our shows in wheelchair accessible spaces, which is sort of a bare minimum, but it’s still actually quite difficult to do in the city, especially if you want something cheap. Yeah, but how do you actually extend it and make it accessible, especially for people with invisible disabilities, which is what I’ve always been passionate about? And how do you do that when you don’t have money? I have a big list of things I would do if I could employ people like, you know, I have an anxiety disorder. So like, I know all the things that would help me and things I’d like to do, but it all comes back to money.

Of course. So what do we do when you can’t actually pay anybody? And yeah, so yeah, trying to encourage people to look for ways to be accessible. All that stuff.

So yeah, so having awards that recognizes all of the stuff on stage, like we do with everything, but also all the things behind the scenes and all the stuff that goes into actually growing and helping our community. Yeah, that’s that was a really long one. No, but it’s good.

It’s good. No. And I think I think that all of that stuff would be would be great to see happen.

And that’s one of the reasons why I wanted to talk to you about the whole thing is so that we could get people hearing about it more and raise awareness of the coalition. So I really appreciate you coming on. Thank you so much for coming.

Thank you for listening to me ramble on. This has been a Homebody Productions production.