Daniel Fong

Daniel Fong is an actor, singer and mostly coordinated mover bringing light and laughter from his hometown of Calgary, Alberta in Treaty 7 territory. With his mixed-race background, Daniel’s work centers around the breathing of life into new works, and reimagining treasured stories in contemporary ways. Daniel received his training at Grant MacEwan University (Class of 2012) and was the recipient of the Stephen Hair Emerging Artist Award for 2019. Using his music, heart and energy he hopes to help lead his local theatre community into the next chapter of its journey.

Selected Acting Credits include:
The Paper Bag Princess (StoryBook Theatre); Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead, Twelfth Night, DiVerseCity (The Shakespeare Company); Gutenberg the Musical! (Lunchbox); A Christmas Carol (Theatre Calgary); Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, The Skin of Our Teeth (Rosebud); US (The Globe Theatre);The Lion The Witch And The Wardrobe, Fortune Falls, The Circle (ATP); [Title of Show] (Birnton Theatricals); A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Shakespeare by the Bow); Journey of a Lifetime (Quest Theatre); Spring Awakening (ACT) Film/TV: Fargo, Wynonna Earp, Mutant World, The Dorm, Forsaken, Klondike.

Transcript

Welcome to episode 284. Start again. Welcome to episode 284 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. Thank you for listening.

I just want to take a moment to remind you about my Patreon in support of my work on a new audio drama for the holidays. For those who don’t know, Patreon is a membership platform that helps people like you support creators. For a monthly subscription fee that goes directly to the artist, you can help a creative like me make something new.

For me, I’m taking my subscribers along with me on the entire creation process. Through posts, video, and live stream, my Patreon subscribers will come with me for the entire process, from brainstorming, to writing, to recording, right through to the release of the project. And for some subscription levels, I will even create a special early release version of the project just for them.

You can subscribe and follow along at patreon.com slash philrickaby. If you’ve enjoyed listening to Stageworthy and you listen on Apple Podcasts, please consider rating the podcast with five stars. And if you’re so inclined, you can also leave a review.

Your ratings and reviews do actually help new people find this show. And if you know someone that you think will like Stageworthy, tell them about it. Some of my favourite podcasts became my favourites because someone I knew told me about them.

And remember, you can find and subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, and everywhere you find podcasts. You can find Stageworthy on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram at stageworthypod. And you can find the website with the archive of all 284 episodes at stageworthypodcast.com. And 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 Calgary-based actor and singer Daniel Fong. Just for me, just if you could describe, if somebody came up to you and said, what is it that you do? How would you describe your artistic practice? Uh, I am a silly, ridiculous actor, singer, semi-coordinated mover, who likes to create things with his friends and make people laugh a little bit. So you lean more towards the comedy aspect or? I mean, I love all aspects of it.

I think I just naturally have more of an inclination towards comedy and being silly. I mean, I love dramatic shows. I love that kind of thing.

But if I’m going to spend the rest of my life, I might as well be laughing as opposed to carrying my heart out in front of strangers. And, you know, in a lot of ways, comedy can be, and it’s a lot more fun. You certainly get a more immediate feedback from your audience.

Oh, so much more gratifying. And that’s what I’m in it. Really, that’s what I’m in it for is the instant gratification.

I mean, if any of us say that we’re not in it for some form of gratification from an audience, we’re kind of lying. That’s I think what draws me to theatre a little bit, like in a deep, selfish, deep down way is that you get that kind of instant feedback with an audience. If it was film or something, you know, like eight months later, someone comes up and is like, Hey, you did such a great job.

It’s not the same. No, it’s not. It’s not.

I remember the first time I did a film, it was like, it was a comedy and the feeling of emptiness in like delivering what was should have been like a killer line that would bring the house down in a theatrical situation. You get you say the line and you’re like, this is really a disappointing situation. Yeah, it just leaves you a sad inside, not to not to be mean to anyone who likes film.

I totally love the medium. I think it’s very exciting and everything. But I’m just I need that kind of connection with people.

I think I’ve always felt more drawn to the live theatre than to than to film. There’s just it is that even if it’s not comedy, you can feel the room, like you can feel when the room is like right there with you. You can feel when you lose them.

You can feel so many things that you can’t get out of film. For me, I find the stakes are so high in theatre because it’s like at any moment, anything could go wrong and then everyone has to fix it. Right.

Whereas on film, I just find like the stakes just comes from the sound of money and the background burning as you’re doing take after take, as they’re just as you’re just watching thousands of dollars flow away and you’re like, oh, man, I should really get this line right. Or absolutely everyone is going to lose. There’s something about that moment, like when something does go wrong, even if it’s like somebody drops a pen or something on the floor.

And as an audience member, you sort of like you sort of like lean forward like is somebody I know this isn’t blocked. Is somebody going to actually pick up the pen? Whoever picks up the pen is automatically my hero. Come on, somebody pick up the pen, you know.

And there’s something about like when you’re a performer watching other performers fix things on stage is very exciting. It’s so satisfying to see something go wrong and have somebody just come along and like in character, like pick up the pen or whatever. And you’re just like you are my hero right there.

Yeah, I watched this like hilarious version of was Legally Blonde at Stage West here. And they had they were doing the whip like get whipped into shape number and they had for whatever reason they decided they had these like bead skipping ropes like they were beaded skipping ropes. I don’t know whose call it was.

I think maybe it was to get the sound on stage. Like it had a very nice sound when it impacted for anyways. Of course, I was there on the night that one of these just shattered everywhere.

And it was like a thousand little beads all over the stage. And just watching all the actors just like grind to like a sudden stop for like a millisecond. And then everyone’s like, OK, we’re going to fix this.

And like some guy comes out with a broom and starts sweeping in character. And like it was so great to watch them clean it up. And like you’re just dying inside of the audience watching that happen.

Right. So there’s something about like as as if you’re a non theatre person, if something goes wrong on stage, I wonder if if like you’re thinking to yourself, just why? Why doesn’t somebody just pick that up? Like, why is this like, why does somebody just do that? And as an actor, you’re like, you know, that feeling of like, that’s not what I’m blocked to do. I’m not supposed to do that.

But there it is. You know, there’s like this this moment of there’s that fear of like, I’m going to steal focus. But really, every single person is staring at that pen on the ground.

Absolutely. Absolutely. Especially because everybody has been like stepping over it for the past like four minutes, like deliberately just stepping over it.

Yeah. Daniel, as far as your one of the things that I like to talk about on on Stageworthy is everybody’s origin story. I like to we’re all comic book characters.

We’re the heroes of the story of our own life. So as a theatre artist, what’s your origin story? How did you get drawn to theatre? How did you decide that was going to be the thing you do? Yeah, um, I mean, I, I really enjoyed doing theatre growing up. Like it was just it was fun to do.

But it was never a thing that I really considered doing as a career. But I always grew up watching my oldest brother. I’m the youngest of three brothers.

I grew up watching my oldest brother do a lot of theatre. And I really looked up to him. And so I was like front row of all his performances and his biggest fan and everything.

And I would crash all his cast parties and embarrass him and everything. Right. And so I don’t know, I just grew up watching him.

And I that’s kind of what drew me into it just to start because I just I wanted to be just like my brother. And then I kind of as time went by, just developed a really great, just love of the people in theatre. Like it wasn’t like, I don’t know, some people get really drawn to various aspects of the thing.

And for me, it’s always been community and the people that I get to spend time with. And so then like high school was coming to a close. And it was time just to look for universities and everything.

And I hadn’t, I didn’t really know what I wanted to do. And then because theatre had always just kind of been my way to like escape. You know, I always assumed I was going to go into something else.

And yet theatre was just kind of where I went to have fun and breathe. And then it was actually my mother, who was like, I think you should go into theatre for university. And I was like, well, that’s a ridiculous idea.

That doesn’t make any sense. You’re kind of reversed from the more common story that I hear is where somebody is like, I’m going to go into theatre and their mom is like, you should really think about something else. I know what kind of mother knowingly thrust her child into a life in the arts.

But I mean, she was right, I think. And we looked at programs and things and I ended up going to the Grant McEwen University in Edmonton, Alberta. And yeah, I remember looking at the program and I was like, this seems amazing.

And yeah, I went and spent some time there and then came back home to Calgary and I’ve been working as an artist ever since. Now, before you made that decision, before your mom sort of thrust you towards theatre school, were you just sort of going through high school, assuming that at some point it would come to you, that some kind of like the heavens would open and it would be like, you are going to be an accountant or something like that, whatever that would be? Yeah, I’m trying to think back and it’s like, I had so many random, like growing up, like my first job I ever wanted to be was a marine biologist, right? And because I, we would go for vacations out to the coast and I would just basically spend every summer, just like knee deep in tide pools, playing with creatures, disturbing creatures in their natural home. And then I found out that like, a marine biologist really doesn’t do that and spends 90% of their time in a lab.

And so I was crushed. So then I was like, okay, I’m going to be a baker because I love baking. I love cooking things.

I’m like, amazing. And then I found out that bakers have to wake up at like five in the morning and I’m a very naturally nocturnal person. And I was like, dang, I’m gonna need something else.

And yeah, I don’t know. I guess, yeah, I really just kept looking at things and nothing was speaking to me. And I think it was because the answer was right there in my face.

And I just wasn’t considering it. Yeah, I think there’s so many times when something is so obvious to everybody except us, you know, like the idea of, oh, I love doing this thing. It makes me, you know, it’s this thing.

I love it. I love the community. I love all these things.

What am I going to do when I grow up? Like, well, and I think it’s this weird, I remember this weird pressure in high school, it was like, you had to be a doctor, you had to be an engineer, especially like in Alberta, I don’t know about everywhere else. But it was like, there were certain things that’s like, you have to do that to succeed here. And it never occurred to me that my job could be something that I loved.

Really, like it truly seemed like I had to work really hard at something I didn’t like so that I in my spare time, I could maybe do something that I liked. Yeah, I haven’t been I haven’t been in high school in a very, very, very long time. But when I was I know, I know.

But when I was in high school, very similar, it was like all about like, you know, you’re going to go to university and you’re going to get a degree and, and and you’re going to do all of these things. And I’m sure that you could be a doctor, you could be like, this sort of thing. And I remember going to the guidance counselor.

When I was they were like, you know, we’re gonna figure out what you’re gonna where you’re gonna go to school. And I remember saying, like, I’m going to be an actor. And the guidance counselor went, huh? No.

Like, they didn’t know what to do. Yeah. Well, I mean, it is a it is such a strange career, right? And it’s very hard to explain.

I specifically because it’s tax season right now. It’s very hard to justify and explain what it is you do to people that don’t quite understand sometimes. Well, I mean, that’s certainly that’s certainly the case as far as as far as taxes go.

And it can get like, you know, I’m, I’m relatively lucky. I have a day job. And I do a lot of theatre on the side.

My taxes are super simple, because I have a day job, and it makes things really easy. But then I see people posting like, like their floor covered in receipts. And I at that point, I’m like, I made the right choice.

I, my fiance is an elementary school teacher. And we just finally, like, neatly organized all our taxes in the last little while, but it is it’s so painful to me, because she has like, four little slips of paper, neatly tucked away. And then I have a full on binder, like, yeah, just a giant clip booklet of stuff that is just ridiculous.

Yeah, it’s it’s been like, I’m not the many years when I’ve sat down and do my taxes. It’s like, one form plug in number. Do I owe anything? No.

But, but then, but then, you know, I spend many hours out of the day not doing the thing that I particularly love. So it’s a trade off. Yes.

Yeah. It’s trying to find those trade offs. Right.

And when you when you were at theatre school, was there a particular aspect of it that you were drawn to? A lot of people that I’ve been speaking to lately, they find they were drawn to the creation of theatre and things like that? Or was there something that you particularly felt yourself drawn to? I just I really, I liked all of it. And I think because a lot of it was new, I wasn’t someone who really got into theatre at a young age, and was like, this is my thing and trained for it for forever. So I kind of threw myself in the deep end, because I went to grant McEwen for musical theatre, but I hadn’t really sung too much before that.

And I had done a lot of martial arts, but I hadn’t done much dance or anything. So really, I came into a musical theatre program as just pretty much an actor. And so there was such a wealth of things to practice.

And, and I think that really vibes well with my kind of personality, or I just, you know, I love to learn new things constantly. And be, you know, I have a shorter attention span, but I have a lot of like, enthusiasm in which to throw myself into many things. So it worked out in the long run, because I just got to really just dive headfirst into all of these incredible different mediums and just practice them.

Yeah, super. I remember when I was in theatre school, we had, there was one guy who had really never done any theatre out before he came to the theatre program. And because he’d done so little, the teachers were like, you have no bad habits.

We love you, because we don’t have to break any of your bad acting habits. Everybody else, you have tricks, and you have all these things. And, and so it was like, he had this, like, he was able to be an open book and just be like, to absorb everything.

And we were all like, but that’s not what I normally do. And like, all of these struggles with how we’ve done things when we were in high school, and what we thought was good acting and all of that sort of stuff. Yeah.

So in some ways, I would imagine that, that not having done, like all of the singing, all of the dancing, and for a lot of that, it you may have been in a similar similar situation. Yeah. And one of the things to me that like, it took me many years to kind of come to terms with is that like, theatre school, I got the time because I was such a, I was right out of high school, and I hadn’t done a ton of is that like, for me, theatre school felt like this is the way, right.

And it took me many years to kind of reconcile with the fact that the theatre school is just a resource. And I was allowed to kind of pick and choose what I liked and what worked for me from theatre school and kind of forget about the things that didn’t make sense or weren’t, in my mind, useful to my who I am as a person as a performer, right. And it took me a while to rectify that because for a while you Oh, God, I’m so bad at this class, or whatever, or whatever.

And I will never be any good at that. But it’s just learning to apply the things that work and really what it means to be your own person, your own artists, take those tools that you paid for that you learned and apply them to who you want to be. Yeah, I definitely remember being a little bit fucked up coming out of theatre school trying to be like, everything.

And yeah, not being able to figure out what, what I was as an actor and always having like the voice of the acting teacher in the back of my head scolding me for things. And yeah, it’s such a weird thing when you pay for people’s opinions as an artist. Because especially as a theatre school, because, you know, for me, I didn’t know necessarily who my teachers were.

It was on the, you know, I just went to the thing. So I wasn’t I didn’t even necessarily know who the whose opinions I was paying for. But I think that’s kind of the process that a lot of performers go on is they go into theatre school, they get a ton of opinions, and other voices.

And then that those kind of formative emerging years afterward are kind of finding what their voice is through that or using whatever they can. So I don’t know if that was your experience or not. Or Yeah, I mean, yeah, theatre school, I have some very specific memories of theatre school, most of which were about being afraid, being afraid that I was going to be cut from the program and all this stuff.

And there’s like, just this, this, this terror of that of that happening. And it’s like, I remember having essentially like three months of blissful ignorance until the until the Christmas break. And then people got cut.

And then it was like, what school did you go to? I went to the George Brown College. Do they still do that? Or did they change the program? The last time I heard anything is they hadn’t cut anybody, they would still talk nebulously about the possibility of cuts. But they did, they weren’t actually doing it.

And I really feel like no school should do that. I mean, ultimately, like just as with an agent or whatever, like, you’re paying, like you would pay them or like the agent will work for you. But they’re like, you’re paying the school, right? Yeah.

So it’s not up to them to be the arbiters and gatekeepers of who is worthy of a graduation from there and whatnot. Like, it should be their challenge as teachers to try and impart as much as they can. Yeah.

And then, you know, the world and the rest of the theatre business is hard enough. And that will make the choice for them kind of thing. Right? So it definitely and in many ways, I think, you know, there are people who will, you know, move themselves out of the program, the program won’t be for them and things like that.

But of course, yeah, who are they to decide who’s going to succeed? There are plenty of people who graduated from my class, who within a year or two years, we’re no longer doing theatre. Yeah. You know, same here.

So what? Yeah. And if I think back to who I was during university days, I was I was a pile of hot garbage. I mean, you know, like, so you do so much growing afterwards that that is just one step, right? And it seems weird to kind of stop people before they can even even get out there.

Yeah. Now, we’re in terms of the school. Were there other Asian students in your class or in your in your school? Or were you? Yeah.

So I’m I’m half Chinese, half kind of Ukrainian, Swedish mix from the thing. I had another friend of mine who was Asian, full Asian in my year. And he’s actually lives in Toronto, Toronto.

His name is Anthony, Anthony Hall. I think he does lots of stuff in Second City. And he had his own CBC Gem show.

He’s fantastic. Great, great guy. There were a few other people of colour in my program, but it was predominantly white.

And I believe the staff was if let me think back because it’s been a few years, it’s been more than just a few years now. The staff at the time was predominantly white. I don’t know what the staff is like now.

Because yeah, it’s they’ve lots of changes. Sure. Well, I find that I found that the especially like when I would look back at George Brown, I tell you right now, all of my teachers were white.

And we I know that that schools tend to be slow to change. Yeah. You know, they, they stick to the curriculum, they know they stick to the teachers they know there and they’re slow to realize that sort of world around them is changing.

Yeah, they, you know, at the time that I was in theatre school, nobody was even talking about collected like creating your own work. In fact, they were actively dissuading us from from thinking about doing anything other than saying that I’m an actor, you know, so that that’s a long time coming to to any kind of change. Yeah, it was an interesting thing.

I mean, I remember in university having so deeply being drawn to the character of Willie Lohman. Just specifically, because I’d only ever seen it played by old white guys. And I so deeply felt that like, the journey that he goes on in the American dream and all of that stuff.

So like, so much better reflected the story of immigrants. And at that time, you know, they were but like, now I just I’ve never I would love to see someone play that character as a POC. Yeah, I just think it’s shifted.

Right. And I just remember, yeah, that was one thing I remember way back. I don’t know why.

But in university, I was always like, one day, I’m gonna grow up and I’m gonna play Willie Lohman. I’m gonna show them I can do it or something. It was Yeah.

Oh, we’re gonna tell you that you couldn’t or was that just something that you had in your head? No, I don’t. It was weird. I wasn’t so much theatre school or thing.

No one ever really directly ever says like, you can’t do this. Right? There’s just like, weird things. All the time.

We’re like, you go in for a casting call. And like, it’s only Asian people for a family, or things like that. And it’s like, I come from a mixed family myself.

And so for me growing up, it’s very clear that families can look like whatever you want them to be. And, and, you know, you feel like this should be weird on stage for some reason until you see it. And it’s completely normal, because people are already come to believe whatever you want, because they paid $30 to be sit there and believe what you tell them.

Well, that’s sort of the amazing thing about theatre is that I always think that, you know, the audience will pretty much accept whatever you give them. They’re, especially in theatre, nobody’s got like people like you can, if you show them a black box and say, this is the forest of Arden, they’re gonna be like, oh, it’s forest of Arden, you know, it doesn’t matter what you say. And I also come from a mixed family.

And so for me, like when people are like, all the people don’t look alike. It’s like, yeah, but families don’t. So it’s like, just this whole, like, I have to make sure that people look good together.

It’s like, you know, like, I’ve never understood that, like, that idea that yeah, and particularly in like familial casting and theatre and stuff. I’ve never understood that. Because, yeah, I remember there was a production of Shakespeare’s Land of the Dead that they did in Calgary here at the Shakespeare Company.

And at one point, they’re all holed up in the theatre and the Queen comes in. And the Queen was played by Lennet Randall, who is an incredible African actress. And she walked in.

And I was like, oh, Lennet’s playing the Queen. I was like, yeah, she is. And then she was just the Queen.

And that was it. Like the whole audience looked at her for one second. I went, yeah, that’s the Queen.

Yeah, because someone said, here’s the Queen, right? So I don’t know, I find that like people’s perception of the barrier of skin colour and things in theatre seems way higher than the actual act of just putting people in roles. Absolutely. People in theatre, the audiences will accept whatever you give them.

And so if you have a family that’s of all different skin tones, and all that stuff, they’ll well accept it. If you have a romantic pairing, that’s like people of colour, people who are Caucasian, doesn’t matter, they’ll believe what you give them. And it’s like one of those magical things about theatre.

And I think that we get for too many years, we’ve been tied too much to like, well, it’s white people. And that’s really boring to me. Yeah.

And I mean, and I find we’re in like an incredibly painful and exciting time right now, I find in theatre and at least in Calgary, where we’re looking towards the future, where everyone has been put on hold because of this pandemic, and everyone is looking so desperately at what it’s going to be like when we get back. And when we can perform again with the people that we love, and what theatre needs to be to support the different people out there. And with the BLM movement, and all the other things, especially recently with all the hate crimes against Asian people and stuff, theatre has always been a guiding light and on a way for people to take those first steps into kind of creating the future that we want.

And so I just find it’s a very exciting time right now, where, as an artist, I’m feeling a lot of power in creating the kind of theatre that I want moving forward. Coming forward, like, yeah, it’s just a very interesting way that we can kind of… Yeah, I don’t even know where I’m going with this now. It’s really interesting because it is a shame that the theatres are closed.

We all hate that the theatres are closed. And that people are not able to perform, we’re not able to sit in audiences, we’re not able to do that. But if we were, there would be just another excuse not to have the conversations that we’re having now.

Absolutely. And the facts that we’re having them. And now we have, there’s the ability to decide and to make the choice that the status quo doesn’t work anymore.

And we have to fundamentally change the way that we create theatre, who we put on the stage, who we put behind the scenes, who we put in the office, who we have lead the companies. These are- Absolutely. Some that we couldn’t have done if we were on the treadmill of production.

Mm-hmm. I think it was, I mean, I don’t know about you, but for me, when the pandemic hit, it was at probably the busiest I’d ever been in my career. I had so many, and this is not me bragging, but I had so many things lined up that it was actually like anxiety inducing.

It was nonstop, just keeping your eyes on the next thing ahead, trying to get through it almost. Mm-hmm. And so the gift of being able to stop and just reflect and think and perseverate on moving forward towards that better future was actually kind of a gift to me for a little bit.

I mean, I’m well over it now. Let’s get this out. But it was, I think, necessary and very important to our profession to take a sudden stop and think about, it’s not just enough to create any kind of art, right? Yeah.

We want to make sure that we’re creating the right stuff. And I think it’s just giving that kind of mindfulness to the stories and people and kinds of shows that we are creating and putting in front of an audience. Yeah, absolutely.

But also the fascinating thing for me, or one of the fascinating things, has been watching actors who previously, they would talk about self-care, but they were too busy to do it. They were working three jobs and every moment of every day was either working, like rehearsing or working or this, that, and the other thing, never stopping to take a break, now being forced to do so and to be thinking about what self-care looks like and to be thinking about what it means to sit in silence and stillness and all of those things. Kind of incredible for some people to realize kind of what they were doing to themselves by working nonstop.

Absolutely. Absolutely. I think the way theatre has been structured and the way we’ve done it for so many years lends itself so easily to kind of self-destructive habits that just kind of pile up on each other, right? And yeah, it’s been interesting to kind of just take a step back from that for a little while.

And I’ve just enjoyed so much watching all my artist friends and everyone else developing different skills, creating new things, all the different things that are kind of outside of the profession that now they have time for. So I’m like, I never knew this person loved going for giant hikes or loved, you know, everyone’s baking bread, but you know, everyone’s creating and developing new things and new hobbies and what everyone’s doing to keep themselves sharp and just getting through this thing. It’s been very exciting to me to see just kind of when you take away all the acting and performing and all of that stuff, finding time for yourself as a human being to develop other facets and other interests and things, right? Like it’s great.

Yeah. And so necessary, I think, to be able to make ourselves into more rounded people. Yeah, absolutely.

Because I mean, it ultimately is us as people that we put out on stage, right? And the more that you can develop and grow as a person, the more you have to offer for an audience. And so I mean, yeah, I’m very excited to see kind of where everyone coming out of this lands and all the new kind of stuff that will be in their work moving forward. Yeah, it’s so fascinating because, you know, especially if you’re creating theatre, like being able to open yourself up to new things and to experiment to find new things, those things always find their way into your work.

And if you have a new skill that you didn’t have at the start of the pandemic, then, you know, that sort of like gives you other things that you can like add to the performances that you do. So it’s just a great opportunity. So I have a question for you because you’ve been asking me so many questions.

While we’re on that then, what is something during this pandemic that you have discovered? New hobby, new passion, new anything? Something that’s getting you through the days? A couple of things. For years, I had a ukulele that I never touched. And so in the past little while, I’ve been playing it, actually playing it.

And that’s, I mean, I’m not great at it, but it’s like I get so much enjoyment out of like just picking it up and strumming and trying to learn a new song and things like that. So that’s been really great. The other thing is actually with this podcast.

I’ve been doing it for four years and this time has made, forced me to actually have to seek out people to come on the show and allowed me to make choices and to say, who am I going to reach out to? Who do I want to have on the show? Who do I want to promote on the show? And that sort of allows me to talk to people that are outside of my locale because so often when you’re the media, part of the media in a city, it’s like you get a ton of press releases about shows in that city. And it’s allowed me to contact people outside of Toronto and outside of Ontario, which is great because I really think that we as a country that makes, as theatre artists in the country, it’s fascinating and important for us to know what’s happening in other places in the country. Yeah.

And I mean, we have a huge country, but the theatre community here is fairly small. Yeah. You know, like I was just looking back through your list of people that have been on your show and stuff, just kind of scrolling through because I wanted to see what I was getting myself into.

And there were so many familiar faces, but like people from Saskatchewan and people from all over the place. So it was just fantastic to see their faces, but it really just, I mean, it’s, we’re not that far away from each other in a sense. No, it’s in many ways where we are so close because it is such a small community.

And yet shows that happen in Calgary, I never get to hear about. Shows that happen in Edmonton, I never get to hear about. The only time I’ve ever been able to really experience shows in other cities was when I was on a Fringe tour going from one side of the country to another to see what was happening in each of those cities.

That’s one of the benefits of doing one of those large tours is you just get to see all the amazing art that gets created in all of the different cities in Canada. Yeah. You know, there is such fantastic work going on, on both coasts, but also in the middle.

Like, yeah, that’s one of the reasons why I love Calgary so much is, I mean, it’s a young theatre community where like, in terms of just age of development, you know, we still are creating kind of the foundations of it. And that’s one of the exciting things for me as an artist living here is that I get to kind of feel like I can be more of the winds of change in this city than I would if I lived in a larger place. Sure.

But there’s such great work that goes on everywhere. And it’s just, yeah, it’s fantastic to check it all out. Yeah.

That’s one of the things that I’ve enjoyed about, you know, people doing digital theatre is the ability to see some things that are happening in other theatres and in other cities. And I really hope that when we open our theatres again, that we do consider digital tickets, that we do consider, like, putting some cameras in the spaces and selling a ticket. Not only is requiring people to come to the theatre ableist, it also means that it also opens theatre up both to the rest of the country and the world.

And we need to get out of these silos that we’ve been in. I just finished doing a play reading for Lunchbox Theatre in Calgary. But one of the amazing things was, it was online as everything is right now.

But like, I had relatives who live down in the States who were able to tune in and watch. And people from all over the world that were able to like tune in and check it out. And lowering that kind of barrier to entry into theatre is such an incredible way to reach people that just wouldn’t be able to see it anyways.

And I think they were normally talking, they were saying, like, for these workshop things, like it’s part of a workshop festival that Lunchbox Theatre produces in Calgary here. And they’re saying, you know, like, sometimes you would have like 12, 13 people in the audience for these because it’s like a noon workshop down in the theatre kind of thing. And we had for the reading, we had over 150 people, you know, tuning in and watching or like tickets, it could have been more, right.

And so just the amount of people that you can reach by going online, I think is incredible. Yeah, absolutely. And there’s just so much more.

You know, I think sometimes I think some companies are like, if we let people watch online, they’ll never buy a ticket and they’ll never come to see the show. And in response to that, I’m always like, I used to buy CDs all the time. And now I listen to streaming music, but I would go to see a band live.

Yeah. And I want them to sing the songs I know. So, you know, I watched Hamilton on Disney Plus, I’d seen it live, I would go again.

These things don’t stop me from wanting to see the show. They’re not exclusive. Yeah, that’s right.

And also, like having seen it online or on a screen, it makes me want to be in this space even more. So yeah, I think we need to embrace that. I do too.

It’s really exciting. Like, I actually just finished filming a show that’s going to be going up on April 9th. The Paperbag Princess with Storybook Theatre.

Tickets are on sale now, getting the plug in while I can. But, you know, the people that are going to see these shows when they are open and in person are still going to go see them, right? Yeah. But like my aunt down in Colorado, she’s not going to buy a plane ticket to come see it.

Right. So I don’t know, I don’t think anyone’s fooling themselves and saying that, like, film theatre is a substitution for the real thing, because it’s not. It’s a totally different experience.

And while it can be exciting and enjoyable, it’s not the same thing as real live theatre in person. And so the people that are craving that are still going to go. Like, no, I don’t think anyone’s going to be like, I don’t know if I want to see this show.

So I really want to see this show. So I’m just going to stay at home and watch it on my TV. Like, yeah, no, I don’t think anyone’s going to substitute that.

Right. Like, if you had the opportunity to watch a show, a Broadway show, live from Broadway, you might watch it. But then that might also make you say, well, goddamn, I need to get, you know, I’m going to go to New York and I’m going to see that show because that moment must have been incredible in the theatre.

Yeah. You know, and there’s like, you know, like when we’re talking about barrier to entry into theatre and that kind of thing, it’s like, did I want to see the original cast of Hamilton live on Broadway? Of course. Could I afford a thousand dollar scalp ticket and the plane rides down? No.

So am I excited that it’s out on Disney Plus and I’ve been able to watch it a million times? Yes. Of course. You know, but so there’s just, you know, I think it reaches a lot of people that really would want to support, but just can’t.

Right. Yeah. And theatre is always limited by the number of seats in the house, the location it is, the times that it runs.

So anything that can kind of shave down on how much it taxes people to get involved in it, I think is exciting and worth it. I think it’s also a great way to sort of like be, you know, because theatre is perceived as being super expensive, because when people think of shows, they think of the big shows that cost a lot of money to see. We have this perception.

There are people who will say things like, I saw a play once and I didn’t like it. So I’m not going to go see any theatre. And it’s like, you know, people don’t say that about movies.

Yeah. But that’s because a movie costs like twelve dollars to go and see or whatever the price is now. You know, it’s like not a million dollars.

It’s not going to bankrupt you to go see the show to see a movie. And I think anything that lets us show to those people, hey, this can be interesting. This is absolutely, you know, so and if you can reach out to the people that are on the fence and say, hey, you can watch this from home for like five bucks.

Yeah. Or whatever. And if you don’t like it, you can just turn it off.

Yeah. You’re not held hostage in the theatre for an hour, you know, like I think. And you didn’t pay so much for the ticket that you feel like, like if you walk out of the theatre because it’s a bad show that you wasted your money.

Yeah. You know, and I think, I don’t know, I think it’s a great way to reach out and introduce people into the kind of things that are out there. Right.

And unless uh what’s the word I’m looking for? Less committal way almost. Yeah. Because it’s a big commitment to buy an expensive ticket, get down to the theatre and do another thing.

And for those of us that love theatre, that kind of builds the anticipation, builds suspense. But for someone who’s not in it or who doesn’t know what the show is about, I think it can seem like a lot. Right.

Absolutely. Absolutely. You know, you can tell people, oh, yeah, you know, it just it’s it’s an eight o’clock people like, oh, but, you know, I finished work at five and I have to go home and I have to have dinner.

And by that time, it’s like six, you know, so much trouble to get down to the theatre again. Do I really want to leave after I go home? And you know what? To be able to say, actually, just, you know, you can watch on your on your TV screen is a great is a great opener. Well, and I think I think, too, if we’re genuinely trying to foster more artists of colour and and and that kind of thing, then nothing is more limiting than a massive ticket price.

Yeah. Into stemming like there’s a direct link between money that you have and your access to the arts and training and all of that. Right.

And so anything that allows young people to see themselves on stage, to see representation, to be part of that conversation is worth it, in my mind. And there are so many marginalized communities out there that just it’s way too much money. It’s way too much investment to ask them to take their families to the theatre kind of thing.

And then we get stuck in these things where we’re like, we don’t know where all the people of colour are and we can’t cast them because they’re not knocking down our door. And it’s like, well, it’s because you have a 60 dollar price tag just to enter kind of thing. Right.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

You know, years ago, I remember being at this this sort of panel discussion. It was like sort of like anybody can stand up and talk. And the topic was where’s the audience going? You know, and I think we have to I think there was a lot of like, you know, instead of I think that’s the wrong question to be asking, like, not where is the audience going? But yeah, why aren’t we reaching out to that audience? Why aren’t we bringing that audience? The thing is, it’s not like the audience is in the future.

The audience is here now. Yeah. Why can’t you reach them? That’s the thing.

Yeah. And, you know, there was an initiative started in Calgary here, Calgary, Edmonton area called the 3550 Initiative that I’m sure you’ve heard about in Toronto. It’s been everywhere.

And so that reflected the basis of that was trying to reflect just the raw statistics of our communities on stage. And so when they did they were looking at the census polls and things, they had 50 percent men, 50 percent women, 35 percent people of colour. And so that’s where that kind of title came from.

And and when we’re looking at our audiences pre pandemic, that was not the demographics that were showing up. And so I think, you know, we have to try and find a way to reach out and create these kinds of opportunities and these kinds of initiatives that help foster that moving forward for us. Absolutely.

Absolutely. Just to change gears. Of course.

Yeah. You mentioned that at the time that the pandemic started that you were in, you had like this whole like it was going to be your biggest year ever. What were you working on at the time that everything shut down and what happened in the immediate weeks after that? What was what was happening for you? What was that like? Well, I mean, directly when the pandemic hit and everything was shut down, I was in an audition room being a reader.

So I that was the most awful feeling because I had friends coming in to do auditions and reading, doing their sides. And then after they did their auditions, they were saying how their projects were just cancelled or pulled. And they were all in the process of either they were supposed to open that night.

They were supposed to do different things like that. All of that happened. But I mean, I had I had projects lined up for the whole year, basically, of of acting things.

And and yet the whole thing fell through. And I don’t. It was it was just for many months, it was quite numb feeling of just I mean, because we’ve been drip fed throughout the whole thing, right? Like I’ve been asking a lot of my friends lately.

So I’m always all over the place with my answers, but I’ll try and remember that round my way back. But I always I’ve been asking my friends lately, you know, if you could go back to the start, would you rather know how long the full pandemic is going to be? Or would you rather go along as we have kind of been like, maybe it’s two weeks, maybe it’ll be the next four next month? Would you have it kind of drip fed to you? And I think as it kind of rounded out, and we found where we were like, how long we started to get a clue of how long it was really going on it. It changed from being kind of numb and grieving kind of loss of that into this kind of building towards what it will be like when we get back.

And that’s really what’s been fueling me and keeping me passionate throughout the whole thing is, is the desire to help implement change once, once we can finally create again. Yeah, I remember, you know, when when it all started, I thought that, you know, somehow it felt like, okay, this is temporary, but by the fall, everything’s going to be fine. We’re going to take care of this now.

And by September, we’re going to be theatres going to be open. Yeah. But I don’t think like, looking back, I think that that kind of optimism fueled me in a way that I think if somebody would say it’s going to be like a year and a half and theatres are going to be closed, I would have been like, well, fuck.

Yeah. What’s the point? You know? Yeah. I don’t know.

I still haven’t quite come to an answer for it myself. Because I mean, at this point, I’ve had say, a project that I’ve had book that has been cancelled and repositioned, cancelled, repositioned, cancelled, repositioned probably three or four times now. And kind of it’s almost just like peeling a scab off a wound over and over again, constantly getting a little bit of hope and then having it pulled away.

So on one hand, I think it would be nice, it would have been nice just to be like, you know what I can buckle I can if I can see the end goal, if it’s a year and a half or whatever, sure that that’s where I can aim for as opposed to like constantly having slight hope and always having it snatched away from you. That’s true. That’s very true.

Now, you mentioned doing some online things. Did you invest in a new camera? Did you invest in a microphone? Did you like did you make any changes to your setup? Once you realize that you’re going to be doing some digital stuff for a while? I mean, I was thankful I had a great laptop here. And for me, the great thing about online is because we’ve been doing tons of workshops, play readings, anything to kind of keep ourselves busy and stuff is that they’re pretty relaxed.

So I didn’t feel the need to be like, I need to get a professional set what I well, I did because of being stuck inside. I’ve had a lot more time to be doing self tapes for film and stuff because my theatre hasn’t been consuming my life. And I was painfully aware of how how busted my film self tape setup was, and is still like I still have not fixed it.

It is it’s hot. It’s just boxes, and then random things to hold a phone and like different lamps that I’ve stolen from the house. So I’m still painfully aware of how bad that is.

So I’ve had a year and a bit to get that fixed. And I have not yet. Um, should I have? Probably yes.

You know, on the other hand, I kind of feel like there is an unfair expectation to say to actors, make your home setup look professional, because otherwise, we’re not going to take you seriously. Whereas if I went into a casting director’s office, there’s like me on a chair in a room with shitty acoustics, and a shitty camera at the back of the room and somebody reading monotone at me. That’s not exactly a great setup either.

Well, and like, I mean, it’s a big ask, like, for me, like, I’m a municipally known theatre actor. But like stage is like my mom likes my stuff, right? For film, like my mom likes my stuff, right? So it’s a big ask to ask people that like don’t have a ton of film experience to invest in a setup that’s sure, you know, because I’m like, that’s just sunk cost until I make it back. Yeah.

And also is, like, are we going to be doing these zoom self tapes forever or casting directors going to be like, you know, we have this office space that we’re paying for me, we should get people in for in person auditions, like, who knows? Yeah, what that’s gonna look like? Exactly. It’s like, no one’s gonna cast me I face act too much, my eyebrows move too much. Now, one of the things that I’ve been asking everyone since the pandemic started is about joy, because as as we go through this time, we’ve all had our ups and downs of, you know, feeling like, like, this will never end and some depression and things like that.

But we all have those things that get us through each day. So for you, what’s been giving you joy during this pandemic? Oh, well, I mean, like the straight honest answer is my fiance, we got engaged during the pandemic. It’s been so hard, but she’s been kind of my rock through it all.

So I really, I, every day, I actually think I’m like, where would I have been without her? Because I would have gone nuts. Yeah, surely. So she’s really been my rock through it.

But I have an older brother who has a young nephew for me. And she, her sister just had our our niece, I don’t know how to say these words in the right way. But so watching them grow up through zoom is equal amounts kind of like painful, because you wish could be there, but also such a joy to see that, you know, life is still going on.

These kids are still cute and growing up. And, and then just trying a million different hobbies and things, you know, every day, I think, we look at each other, and we’re like, what are we going to do today? And we’re like, I think it was just a few days ago, she was like, I think baking is going to be my hobby. And so she just started making stuff, right.

And so every, every time we’re just trying find whatever stops us going loopy in our house. Has there been a hobby that you’ve tried to has been like, this is something I need to keep doing? Let’s see. Well, pre pre pandemic, my hobby was board games, I have a very massive board game collection, and nothing lends itself worse to social distancing than having 1000s of dollars of cardboard sitting in boxes that you need eight people to hang out.

Yes. But this is so nerdy. I do it, do it, do it.

Oh, well, I got into like miniature painting. Okay, Warhammer. And so it’s, it’s been very Zen to just kind of sit there and put paint on things and and play around with that.

So that’s been my new hobby. I don’t know if it’s gonna stick or not. It’s very fun at the moment.

I go through a love hate relationship with it. But that’s what I’m doing right now. I think everybody who paints miniatures goes through a love hate relationship with with the painting of minutes.

Yes, yes. Just like everybody who’s like, playing role playing games or playing like D&D is like, No, I only want to pay play fifth edition. How many editions is it now? Ah, you know, all of the all of the changes, I hate the changes or whatever.

There’s everybody has these love this love hate relationship, and you stick with it because of how it comes out in the end or the people that you’re playing with. So yeah, I was one of the many people who also then had a pandemic D&D group that they joined in with and we’ve been horribly unproductive. I mean, it’s it’s shocking how little we get done in our sessions.

That’s standard standard Dungeons and Dragons role playing game stuff. Like, yeah, if you were not bantering with your with your group more than you’re actually going out and doing stuff. I think there’s the game is dysfunctional.

Yeah. Like, that kind of non productive banter is like what makes the whole point of it. Exactly.

What’s the point? Who needs to go do the actual story when there’s, you know, stuff to get done people to mess with? Absolutely. Absolutely. That’s absolutely the right thing.

It may be frustrating for the DM, but it’s fun for the fun for the players. Yeah, we usually just end up playing until our dungeon or like talking until a dungeon master like so there’s a dragon is still there. And we’re like, Oh, yeah, let’s go deal with that real fast.

And then get back to the main topic. Yes. I’m glad to see that you’re you found the true meaning of nerding out.

I found it. Mom. Yeah.

Well, Daniel, thank you so much for this conversation. It’s been a lot of fun. This is a blast.