joey o’dael
joey o’dael is a Dora award-nominated trans nonbinary artist, performer, director, and comedian. A UWinnipeg/Randolph College alum, joey has cultivated a career focused on social equity, accessibility, and challenging oppressive paradigms. Raised in a remote Northern Manitoban community, they are deeply invested in bringing art and training opportunities to underserved communities across Turtle Island. In 2017, joey served as co-writer, dramaturg, producer, and performer for the award-winning, breakout hit ‘NASTY’ at the Toronto Fringe. They are a co-founder of both Maelstrom Art Collective; a collective dedicated to creating diverse protest pieces, and horror theatre company Aberrant Theatre.
instagram: @ratkingcole.jpg
tiktok: @ratkingcole
twitter: @deathsparkle
Transcript
Welcome to episode 287 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. You know, just like you, I’ve been thinking a lot about the reopening of theatres. With the news that Broadway is planning a grand reopening in September, I’ve been imagining myself back in the audience to watch some amazing theatre.
But I have to admit, I’m also a bit concerned about reopening too quickly. Can we just throw open the doors to full capacity? There’s a lot to consider. We have to think about the effects of avoiding packed rooms for over a year.
Will an audience be comfortable gathering shoulder to shoulder in a theatre? Because as much as I miss the theatre, I don’t really feel ready to do that. And I worry it’s asking too much of our audience to just suddenly ask them to be comfortable with it. Personally, I think we should open our theatres carefully, at a reduced capacity, and ease slowly towards a full reopening, for the sake of our audience’s comfort, and also because it’s just wise to be cautious.
What theatre wants to reopen only to find that someone who attended a show got sick with COVID? But if theatres can’t open to full capacity, how will they be able to afford to reopen at all? Personally, I think that we need to seriously consider the institution of digital tickets. Open the theatre, have a reduced audience in sight, and offer a ticket to watch a live stream of the show to an at-home audience. Of course, this means installing cameras and switchers in the house, but that should be seen as an investment in the future.
There are a lot of great reasons to continue to offer digital tickets, such as being able to share our amazing theatre with the rest of the world and with the rest of the country, as well as reducing the ableism inherent in requiring people to come to the theatre, many of which are not accessible spaces. There are a lot of reasons to consider this, and I wrote about more of them in a blog on my website at philrickaby.com. Give it a read and let me know what you think. You can find Stageworthy on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram at StageworthyPod, and you can find the website with the archive of all 287 episodes at stageworthypodcast.com. And if you want to drop me a line, you can find me at the website and on Twitter and Instagram at philrickaby.
If you want to support Stageworthy, consider dropping some change in the virtual tip chart. You can find a link to that in the show notes. Your support helps me continue to bring you great conversations in Canadian theatre.
On this episode, my conversation with artist, performer, director, and comedian joey o’dael. I mean, you’ve been pretty isolated for a while. I have been extremely isolated.
Yeah, I’ve been living an incredibly isolated life. Yeah. Now, it wasn’t soon after the whole pandemic started that you decided or had to move to Manitoba.
Yeah, yeah. No, it was, so it was, I think I, I first showed up here in Manitoba, like the end of July. And then I came back briefly for two weeks in October to, to gather my things and, and get rid of some furniture and, and the like.
But then I’ve been there, I’ve been here since, but I’ve pretty much been here entirely since, since August, at least of 2020. So the, the, was it a decision or was that choice taken from you to go, to go to Alberta? I’m sorry, Manitoba. Manitoba.
You know, at first it was, it was my decision. I was finding that the stress of just sitting in my sweltering apartment in Toronto all day, every day, as well as like the fact that I am immunocompromised and I am high risk. And it was right when the Ontario government rolled out that sort of weird, where they were opening the patios over the summer, going into stage two or something like that.
And, and at the time, both of my roommates were restaurant workers. Right. And, and so I made the decision that I was just going to go back for the beginning of like the sort of second wave so that I’m not stressed out about, about everything.
And then of course the second wave didn’t end. Yeah. Even though we’re now calling it a third wave currently, it’s still the, it’s still basically the same wave.
Yeah. Yeah. It all just kept on rolling on.
And so there was a part of it where, where it was, it was a choice. There was like, I definitely, I had some different family things crop up for sure. That made it more like I should stay here.
But it also, it felt a bit like, why am I paying exorbitant Toronto rent when I’m not even here to do the thing that I’m supposed to be doing or even the thing that, that, you know, paid me money. Yeah. No, I mean, and that’s, I mean, that, that is, I think a common question that a lot of people were asking and are still asking.
It’s still a matter of like, I think for a lot of people, the question of, of why am I here when the work isn’t here, when the theatres are closed, when I can’t, I can’t do the thing. Is it worth it for me to be here? You know, these are big questions. Yeah.
Well, and especially for a lot of the people I, I know within the Toronto theatre community and even in other industries who aren’t from Toronto or even from, from Ontario, mostly from people that aren’t from Ontario. It’s not necessarily that we feel a huge connection to Toronto, the city, which I know that saying that a lot of Torontonians get really heated. I think very, I think very few of them would actually get very heated.
Everybody, even people who grew up here kind of have a love-hate relationship with the city. Yeah. Yeah.
Well, and I, I find a particular kinship with meeting other people from Manitoba and Saskatchewan or from the Northern provinces or territories or the East, especially like people that are from Quebec and Ontario and Alberta and BC, they don’t get it. They’re just kind of like, what do you mean? It’s all the, it’s all kind of the same. But when you’re from, when you’re from the smaller provinces, the culture is a lot different.
Toronto feels a lot colder socially than certainly I’m used to. So when you, when you are living in a city because of like a specific subculture, like theatre or like music, it becomes a bit like, well, everything I like about here is gone. And the only thing I have is, you know, thousand dollar rent for a really crappy apartment.
Well, that is definitely the thing. Like if you came from somewhere else to pursue theatre and that’s not an option, then definitely you’re in that, that, that very situation. I’m trying to figure out like, what is the point of paying this hugely overpriced rent? You know? I want to ask you a little bit though about, about, you know, how leaving the city behind, leaving all of the, all of the connections, all of that behind, how have you been feeling about your relationship to theatre? It’s, it’s very, it’s very complicated because there, there is an aspect of, of me the entire time that, that is, has been feeling more so lately lost.
I think, I think in the sort of beginning months of the pandemic, there was frustration, sure, but there was also almost this sense of, of urgency and, and hope because there was a lot of sort of other issues within the theatre community. Largely systemic that needed to be addressed. And as the sort of global crisis continued on, it got harder and harder to focus on those things because there was no definable end to, to when the average person would be, would be, the average artist would be creating again.
And it also creates like this weird sort of space because there is a very small select number of people that have, have been able to work a little bit. Which is great, obviously, like I do not, I do not begrudge anybody the opportunity to work or the fact that theatre is still sort of finding a way to manage here and there, but there is a level that it’s extremely difficult to see. Yeah.
Just because the, especially when you, when you primarily work in independent theatre, so much of the struggle is, is coming up with the, the money and the opportunity to do something. And now the only opportunities are the ones that have the money. Yeah.
To do it, which just sort of strengthens the, the, the class divide on, on who is making art. I think very luckily in Toronto, from, from what I’ve, I’ve seen, because so much of the Toronto theatre community is, is working really tirelessly to be more representative of, of the sort of diverse culture of people living there. So I’m happy, I’m happy to see that the, the stuff that’s being produced isn’t just like, you know, all white versions of 12 Angry Men or something.
Yes. Yeah. Like, so that, that is at least heartening to see that even though it’s only a select few things that are still getting put on, that it doesn’t seem to be stuff that we’ve all seen before.
Uh, that being said, it doesn’t, it’s not going to surprise me when the first things that get to open and get to make money will be like Mirvish. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely.
That’s not going to surprise anybody because, you know, Mirvish, Mirvish of any of the companies probably has the most in the bank that they can quickly be like, alright, here’s what we’re going to do. We’re going to do this show. We’re going to, we’re going to, you know, pump it out.
We’re going to get some people in there. We’re going to import something like they could do it really fast. Totally.
Because they have the money. Absolutely. Absolutely.
And, and the, the sort of like slow trickle down is, is, is concerning because for a lot of us, our passions lie in creating our own work and, you know, with everything being spread so thin, but also an extreme loss of, of affordable venue spaces and things being open, it does end up being, looking a little bleak. So sometimes I like kind of fall into that horrible, horrible spiral of, of like, oh dear God, like here I’ve spent 24 years of my life on, on a craft that it’s like, oh, now what kind of thing at the same time, like looking towards history in, in the times that you know, plagues and pandemics have happened before. And this one has been no real different, like the, the, the set and dressing has changed, but basically the things that historians and, and scientists have say, have said is going to happen just has happened.
It does, there is that small glimmer of, of thinking of all of the adaptive things that the cockroaches of us are going to do. I feel horrible calling us cockroaches, but there is a level of there, there’s, there are some people that this all hit and I know plenty of people that are like, okay, well, you know, this hit, I need a plan. And so here’s what I’m doing.
And, and they have gone to do that stuff. And there’s some of us like me being a stubborn little cockroach being like, no, I’ll find a way it’ll happen kind of thing. And, and I think that it, it could ostensibly create opportunity for really unique adaptations of what can be done with, with sort of live performance.
If, if live performance is able to continue, who knows, maybe we’ll all just transition to film. God, I hope not. You know, here’s the thing.
And I’ve, I’ve, I’ve sort of like mulled that fact over, you know, thinking about is because every so often I hear somebody say, well, this is, this is it now, this is the way it is. And I’m like, no, because we have a desire to be in the room. Yes.
You know, we have even going to see movies. There are, there are movies where you’re like, you know what, I can watch that when it comes out on video, but there are movies that you’re like, oh, I want to be in a theatre to see that. Right.
Absolutely. We are drawn to spaces where we can witness things together. And so I think that it’s, it will come back.
We can, we can see in like, you know, I’m going to be talking to somebody who’s in Australia next week and they are in like, they’re pretty much open and the theatres are open and they had their fringe festival season, you know, they hadn’t fringes huge in Australia. And, and so though that fact gives me hope that when we ha when, when we are able to, the theatres will open and we’ll, we will be able to go back will be able to welcome audiences back. Cause I feel like if that wasn’t the case, I think it would fall into too much despair.
Like, oh, absolutely. Especially for the idea that this, this craft, this art form has existed for thousands upon thousands upon thousands of years. And this is the era that killed it.
Absolutely. And I think a lot of that comes up especially because I think in the past sort of 10, 10 years, especially, but even more like 20 years is there, there has been such a big concern about the future of theatre because entertainment is, is becoming so instantaneous with streaming culture or whatever. And so part of me is hoping that this is like the S the strong wake wake up call that people in live performance need.
Because the thing that’s going to bring people back, it’s not, it’s not as it’s not just good stories told. Well, it’s not as simple as that anymore. You can get good stories told well for, you know, peanuts and not have to leave your couch.
The reason people will be coming back is because we crave that intimacy of experiencing something in the room. Like, like you said, like there’s an, and that there’s a community and an intimacy aspect to it. Yeah.
That is also, I mean, there’s also a word that you use, use the word experience. And I think that, you know, it’s the same reason that, why do we choose to go to see some movies in the theatre or like demand, like be like, this is where I’m going to see this movie. And some movies were like fine to watch on TV.
It’s because we know that, that, that movie or that, that is going to be an experience. Oh yeah. The, the shows, if we are going to bring audiences into theatres, we have to give them an experience.
That’s not just like another kitchen drama or another living room drama. Exactly. We’ve got to give them something they can’t get any other way.
Which is, is, is funny because I feel like not to be a raging asshole, but I feel like this is something that a bunch of people have been screaming for, for years within the theatre community is like, what will save theatre is if we focus on the experience of it as opposed to the drama of it kind of thing. And, and, and it’s, it’s right. You know, like the, the things, the things that have caused a real splash in the, in the, like globally, when it comes to theatre has been the things that have been challenging to, to the forum, to convention.
You look at things like Hamilton, you look at things like sleep no more, things that have really shaken it up and gotten people to be like, Oh, hell yeah. I want to go out to, to see that. Like it’s, it’s not impossible to have something be wildly successful within the live, live performance realm.
It’s just that I find that when the funding is cut, people get anxious and they’re like, Oh, well, we want to produce something that we know will work. And so here we are, we’re going to produce something that we think will work. And, and that’s not really how it, how it works out.
There’s a certain, there’s a certain amount of, of, of, of playing it safe, like you’re describing, because we go with, Oh, Oh, Oh, things have been cut. Let’s do, we’re going to do a Shakespeare, so we don’t have to pay an author or, or let’s, you know, let’s find another living room drama because we all know that, that what we love to see when we walk into a theatre is yet another set. Yeah.
Yeah. Oh, Cause yeah, just, that’s exactly what, cause whenever I see that, I’m like, okay, but like something, I think about the work that, that, that Eldridge theatre does mixing magic and puppetry and genre like science fiction and horror and stuff like that and putting it together and making it an experience that you can really only get when you’re sitting in that, in that, that theatre. And, and that, that’s the kind of work that I think will bring audiences in is stuff that is like, you have, you have to see this and you can only see it here.
If you’re going to experience this, like, this is incredible. That’s, what’s going to bring people back, not the handwriting, but why are, why are audiences coming? Well, maybe the audiences are coming because we’re being boring. Yeah.
Yeah. Or, or at the very least, what we are presenting seems to be boring. Yes.
You know, cause there’s a, like a level of, of accessibility, like, cause I think about this a lot, especially with in Toronto, how, how huge the infinity mirrors exhibit was and how huge there was that thing that was that, I don’t know, it was called like the happiest place on earth or whatever, as well as like the, the Van Gogh exhibit. And like, I don’t want to, I, I went to the Van Gogh exhibit and I, I, I didn’t go to the infinity mirrors because you know, who could, who could get in, you know, I’ve seen, I’ve seen the permanent installation now, but the fact that like the AGO, when it has those things can pull so many people in it shows that people are hungry for experience. They just don’t want to be there.
They they’re afraid that they’re going to be sat in the dark and be lectured to, or that they won’t understand or, or something like that. Sometimes I think that, that, that when we’re talking about our productions or we’re trying to advertise our productions, we really shoot ourselves in the foot. I’ve seen so many trailers for theatre that make me not want to see that show.
Oh, absolutely. It’s like, we’re pitching theatre for theatre people or something. Yes.
In which case the trailer doesn’t really matter. No, no, not at all. If you want to bring in an audience that isn’t a regular theatre goer, you got to take lessons from Hollywood and put together like a really nice, really slick, like exciting trailer.
Otherwise, why would they like, sure your play might be exciting, but they don’t know that from the trailer. Why would they come? Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Absolutely. And I think, and I think about this a lot, because I feel like there has to be some way to communicate to sort of non-theatre people, because you don’t want to like lie, but at the same time, sometimes you say, oh, it’s a play or, oh, it’s a show or like, you know, and people’s their eyes immediately glaze over and they’re like drama. And you’re like, I don’t, you’re like, I don’t know how to tell you that this is not going to be like the touring anti-bullying show you had to watch in grade five.
Like, you know, I don’t. That is the thing. Like theatre seems to be the only, the only audience-based entertainment, whether it’s sports, movies, whatever that, that people seem to respond with.
I saw a play once. I didn’t like it. So I didn’t like theatre.
Yeah. Oh yeah. Yeah.
And I think it also, it doesn’t help that Shakespeare is so ubiquitous and so badly taught in schools. Oh, yes. I, yeah.
Cause Shakespeare is one of those things, like we are poisoning generations of, of, of students against theatre as a whole by teaching Shakespeare the way that we do. Oh, absolutely. Absolutely.
Cause people are like, yes. Yeah. And, and it’s like, you know, so you’re trying to, it’s like this huge house of cards that is really unstable because you’ve got, you know, money people being like, oh, how are we going to keep our subscriber base? Which I don’t want to sound like I’m being ageist and awful, but there is a large proportion of people who are subscribers that it’s because, you know, they go to the theatre because that’s what they always do and they are not going to live forever.
And we don’t necessarily have a generation to replace them. Well, I mean, just as somebody who worked as an usher in some, in a very large theatre, they would have, you know, the periods of time when there were subscriber tickets, like the subscribers go at a particular time. Yeah.
And I can tell you that that’s the period of time when we are moving the most walkers into the space and moving them around. That says a lot. It’s when the subscribers are coming that we’re like, we’ve run out of space for walkers over here.
We’re going to have to put them over there, make sure they’re tagged with a seat number, all of this stuff. Like if, if, if, if theatres that offer subscriberships are not already looking to why the younger people are not coming to their theatres, they’re going to run out of subscribers. Oh, absolutely.
I think about it a lot in terms of the, like different, different shows that I’ve, I’ve seen or, or, or, or taken in. I went and saw there’s a production that Mirvish did of Gaslight a few years back. And like one of the, one of the, the dudes from Game of Thrones was in it or something.
And it was this very, very traditional way of doing it. You know, they had the sumptuous set they had, you know and everybody did their job the way that they, the job would have been done 50 years ago. And there they are doing it again.
And it was some of the worst theatre I have ever seen in my life. And not because any one part wasn’t good. It’s just like, I would have rather gone, gone to see like a terribly rehearsed show because at least the train wreck was going to be something different or something new.
But instead I’m watching this ancient, ancient play that is so ubiquitous that we now have a psychological term right from it and expected to be like, Oh, he was changing the gas lights the whole time. It was the point. Like it was just, it was vanity.
It was absolutely vanity. And I, I find that that, that is also what kills theatre, especially because so many of us have to create our own work. A lot of people create and produce out of vanity, the idea that, you know, I must keep working or something and this is what I like.
So I shall do it. There’s a lot of, you know, I think, you know, I’ve, I’ve been helped many times by people who, and I, when I’m there’s, I have trusted people that I show new things to and they ask the question, like, so why this, why now? Like, what’s important about this? Not that the play necessarily has to be like important, you know, there’s room for entertainment for entertainment sake, but why, why would we do this now? What is, what is this giving us? And these are important questions to ask. And if it’s just because like, I want to play that, that’s, that’s vanity.
Yeah. No. Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
And I think about that too, with, with a lot of the, the oversaturation of, of Shakespeare and a lot of theatre spaces, which is like, again, not to, not to, to shit on Shakespeare. And, and like to wit, I, I was originally slated to be the person to take over for Dauntless. Yes.
And it was announced and I, I stepped down and it, it is now going to be run by Chanukah and, and Kate Warneberg, which is like absolutely perfect and was the absolute right move to do because I, I looked at it and I realized, wow, I, I, I can’t with everything that’s gone on, I cannot bring myself to have enough passion about Shakespeare to make it relevant. And if, if, if I can’t do that, then I need to hand it to somebody who, who will have that passion. And a hundred percent Chanukah and Kate are the people that have that passion and can do it where it’s like, I, I had to sort of wrestle for my, with myself and being like, am I being like a pretentious, ungrateful artist or, or something? And it was like, no, you know, at the end of the day, this, this gig is hard enough as it is without putting yourself to doing stuff that, that you, you don’t have the fire for.
Well, that’s absolutely you as trying to put together direct, like put together a show or something that you are not like, you’re not passionate about, drag you down and wear you down faster than anything else. And ultimately the work won’t get done. Yeah, absolutely.
Absolutely. Which is it. It’s, it’s strange because I, I love Shakespeare.
I do actually, like, I love going to see Shakespeare. I love reading Shakespeare. I love speaking the text.
My, my issue is, is that I find that that’s where the, that’s where the, the love stops. It’s like, I like it because, because it feels like it’s mine to a degree. And, and for that it is, you know, like I’m, I’m a native English speaker.
I’m half white. I was educated in Britain. Like it, it, to me, it a hundred percent is bread and butter.
And I, I, I like it for the reasons that I like it, but I, I understand why a lot of people don’t seem, don’t feel represented. And I just, I don’t feel strong enough to be like, oh, well, here’s why you should feel represented, or here’s how I could help to make you feel represented. You know, and, and some of that has to do with, you know, culture and some of that has to do with being, being queer and, and being something that is, that is not represented in these sort of works of antiquity.
Yeah, I don’t know. Yeah, I think, I think, I mean, this is, this is the thing is that, is that part of theatre’s problem in general is that, is that people look at it and think that it is entirely just old white men. Yeah.
How is this relevant to me when theatre is just a bunch of plays written by old white men or ancient white men? Like all of that stuff, like why, how is that relevant to now? So, and it also, and, and the thing about it is, is, is where we, we also tend to be the, the worst for it, to, to a degree. I can’t, I can’t count how many times that I have gone to a show with, with, with people, with other theatre people, and there was something about the show that was maybe in a different language or in a very, in wildly challenging and form. And I watched these, these theatre people get really sort of like, well, that’s not the way you do it kind of thing.
And it’s just kind of like, okay, but can you see how that is feeding into the problem? Like, you sound like, you sound like everybody’s ancient theatre professor. That’s like, never turn your back on the audience. So you must be standing at a slant all the time.
Like, it’s just like, yeah. I have, I have years ago, I, you know, I was in a, involved in a production of, of, of, of A Midsummer Night’s Dream. And you know, when the, when everybody comes out of their spell, they’re like, I was not, was not the Duke here.
The, the line is yay and my father. And since we were set in a modern time, we decided that, that yay and my father was not the way we would do it. And it was spelled Y-E-A.
So we just said, yeah, and my father. And it was like, just, it seemed natural. And somebody, I remember somebody after it, walking up to the actress who said that and saying, did you say, yeah? As though it was like the worst thing she could possibly have said.
And I was like, well, there’s a difference between like, you know, using language that’s like, we’re, we’re speaking, we’re trying to say it as though we’re modern. So why would we say, yay? The established, like, this is how it’s done is part, is another one of our problems. Mm-hmm.
Absolutely. I remember we did Julius, I did Julius Caesar with Spur of the Moment Shakespeare many years back. And it was set in a woman’s prison.
And one of the things that, that came out that felt real, we felt really strongly about was instead of saying A2 Brute, Emma Burns, who was playing Caesar, just said, you too, Brutus? Yeah. Because it’s like, why would, why would this person in a, in prison just be like, oh, here’s the part where I say Latin? Yes, yes. And it was just, it was so much more grounded in, in what was being done.
Yeah. And there’s some people who lost their minds about it. They were just like, why would you, it’s the most iconic line.
Why would you do that? And it’s like, because if you want to go see the iconic line, like go watch Florence Olivier. Yes. If you want to see it, if you want to see it that way, see it that way, you know, like.
Also, if you, if you came to our production to see the production that you know, you came to the wrong production, like. If you want to see it the way it’s always been done, go watch one of your favourites. But, you know, if we don’t breathe life into shit, it’s just going to like continue to fizzle.
Absolutely. Absolutely. I think there’s a lot of people, it comes, it comes from sort of all, all levels because there’s, there’s the creation part of it.
There’s the audience part of it. And there’s also the way that we, we talk about it. And I think that this was part of the conversation before the pandemic hit and then the pandemic hit and everything just came.
How do we survive? But there does need to be a big conversation about how we review theatre and, and who and why and what we’re doing that for. Because so many times you see somebody, they will review, review Shakespeare, for example. And it’s never about the quality of the work because it’s like, oh, well, Shakespeare is Shakespeare.
So, you know, it’s, it’s all about what’s being done there at this moment. There is like, there is zero charity for, for new work. It all becomes about, oh, well, it was written like this or, or this, that and the other failing to take in, to take in everything.
And it becomes like this game of, of the reviewer attacking why, why that piece was being made. But like no reviewer ever, I shouldn’t say no reviewer. Cause there, there’s definitely some, but you don’t have to worry about that.
If, if you’re going to go see Cabaret, you don’t have to worry about that. If you’re going to go see, you know, Hamlet, nobody’s going to be like, well, why are you doing Cabaret though? Like, why would you do that show? Whereas you write a show, everybody’s like, well, why would you write that show? Explain it to me kind of thing. Yeah.
I like to, to change gears a little bit slightly. And I want to, I want to ask you about the decision to, to be coming back to Toronto. And what is it that’s, that’s, that’s driving that for you? And also how we, let’s get to the second part, but let’s start with like, what’s, what is the, what’s driving you to come back right now? Well, there, obviously there, there are a lot of personal reasons that, that have to do with this sort of like bureaucracy of, of how the country is dealing with the crisis.
Like, and it turns out I am more likely to get vaccinated in Toronto sooner than out here in the boonies. Who would have, who would have thought, but there is that, especially since in order to get the vaccination here, I would have to transfer over everything to Manitoba health. And once you’re transferred over, you’re locked in for six months.
You can’t, you can’t switch it back kind of thing. And so for me, six months is a little bit too of, of a commitment to Manitoba. Not because I don’t, not because I don’t like love the land out here, but I think I have to make it clear that like, I’m not living in Winnipeg.
I live an eight hour drive North of Winnipeg. The closest big city is five hours away and it’s in another province. It’s Saskatoon.
And so as somebody that has lupus, I have a rheumatologist and there are times I need to go to different, different kind of things. And it’s like, okay, well you have to wait six months for an appointment to see that specialist. And then you have to drive eight hours and find a place to stay and, and do that.
So sort of six months being without access to healthcare as somebody who is chronically ill is, is, is frightening to me. And it also goes into that a large portion of that is, is mental health. Because of course, everybody’s been having mental health sort of issues during this time.
And so when things got pretty bad for me, like a little while ago, I, I litreally, I went to the Manitoba health website and there’s like this link and it’s like, oh, you know, for, for places that are Northern and remote kind of thing. And I’m like, oh, absolutely. I go, I click on that.
And so I kid you not, I click the link and it takes me to a Viagra ad. Like it’s a broken link that just links to a Viagra ad for some reason. That, that, that’s the resource.
That’s the resource for Northern remote communities for mental health. And so it’s just a bit like, huh, well, that’s, that’s not going to do me at all. And then, and then, and then you combine that with the fact that like, being, not only being an artist, but being a queer artist in, in rural Canada, it’s, it’s, it’s not the greatest.
Which is, it’s, I don’t want to, I really think that a lot of people, especially that, that grow up in the cities, they create this sort of like us versus them with like rural communities and urban communities. And I, I don’t want to, to say that because I don’t think that people live in, in rural communities are, are inherently, you know, homophobic or, or inherently transphobic or anything like that. It’s just, there is such, it takes so much longer for them to be exposed to those kinds of things.
They don’t there, and there’s not enough population-wise to really fight for it kind of thing. And so a lot of, a lot of thought patterns go unchallenged and have gone unchallenged for, for years, which is not to say that it hasn’t gotten way better. Like for the past three years in Flin Flon there, there’s been a Pride Week and, which is like unthinkable for me when I think about being like a queer teen in Flin Flon.
I’m like, are you kidding? There’s a, there’s a Pride Week? You do a drag show? There’s only two drag queens, but they do a drag show. You know, it, it, it is a thing. There is, there’s Flin Flon Pride merch, which to me makes me so, so proud and, and, and, and overcome.
And, and that the problem isn’t necessarily that, because I know that there are people that, that are here and are, are fighting for, for that. It’s just, I, I, I don’t have the mental and emotional fortitude to fight that fight here. It’s too, I’m, I, I am made to fight that fight somewhere else where I don’t feel like I have to apologize for who I am or, or, or, or educate all the time.
And so I, I would be lying if a huge, a huge part of the reason why, you know, I’m coming back as well, as well as like being mental health and physical health is, is that I crave community that I find difficult to, to find here. Sure, sure. Now, in a time that you’ve, you’ve, you’ve, you’ve been in Manitoba and, you know, being an artist away from the art, how has that affected the way that you see yourself or you define yourself? So a lot of us are, are very much like, I am, I’m a performer, I’m an actor.
This is how we, when people ask us, if we like describe yourself, this is one of the first things that we say. How, what’s your relationship been to that while you’ve been away? Well, it’s been, it’s been interesting because I think for myself, even before COVID, I was slightly making the transition away from saying that I was an actor and, and more saying that, you know, like I’m a performance artist because, because, you know, I, I found that I was writing and directing and producing and designing as much as I was performing. And so it was like, kind of like, I wanted to like shift away from the idea that, you know, there was a primary one that I, that I do, but also since performance has not been happening, there’s, I’ve found that I have naturally gravitated to creating in, in so many different ways.
Like I’ve, I’ve been doing a lot of visual art. I’ve been doing a lot of writing. I’ve been doing a lot of comedy stuff that doesn’t necessarily rely on, on being in, in a room with somebody, which, which has been, which has been fascinating to sort of like learn that about myself that, you know, put into, put into a box, I would, you know, still find a way to paint myself a door or something, which is, which is lovely.
It makes me think of, it makes me think of, you know, Picasso famously said something about how he would, he would paint on the dusty floor of a jail cell with his tongue, if he had to do it. And, and there is an element of, of that for sure. But there also, the, the relationship is weird because there’s a part of it that feels like it’s like, well, is this just a hobby? Is this just my, is this just my COVID hobby? Like what is, and, and, and I think, I think if you’re, if you’re an artist in any form, you, you spend your whole life like fighting against people that, that say what you do is a, is a hobby, not a craft or a calling.
And so there does become that sort of aspect of, of that, of being like, you know, Jesus, like I really did define myself by my job and, and that job right now doesn’t exist. So, you know, where do we, where do we go from here? Yeah. I think that’s a, that’s a problem that, that a lot of people in the theatre world have been having is putting so much over the years into their identity as, as a director, as an actor, whatever, however many hyphens they have in terms of their, what they do artistically.
Mm-hmm. With theatres closed, those are not things that a lot of people are. Some people have been able to, like, to, to embrace streaming technology and, and stuff like that, but other people have just not.
Both are okay, but like. Yeah. There’s an identity crisis when the thing that you have said, this is who I am, is gone.
And it’s a year or more before it’s coming back. Absolutely. Absolutely.
Which I think, I think kind of, for me, kind of gives me this like revelation of, of the idea that a large portion of, of my displeasure in my life or my, or my dissatisfaction is these unrealistic expectations that I’ve set upon myself by saying, oh, well, I am this, I am an artist, so I must be doing that. And it’s a bit like, well, where is, where is that written? You know, like if, if, if, you know, you’re blind, do you still have a face, even though you can’t see it? Like that’s a huge, a huge reduction, but it’s like, you don’t stop being something just because it’s, you can’t, it’s far away. Yeah.
And it also, it doesn’t have to be so interwoven with your identity like that. I think we’re all constantly craving for that validation of knowing who we are and, and to validate that, but it can’t be summed up in, in that one thing. Yeah.
You know, you’re not your mind. You’re not your body. You’re not your career.
There’s something to me about, about, um, the forced slowing down. Cause a lot of people were like practicing the hustle, like always hustling, always doing this, never stop, never stop always going. And then all of a sudden it’s like, wait, let’s explore this thing called self-care.
Let’s explore stillness for a while. Not because you want to, but because you have to, but, you know, like at a certain point when theatres open up, will we be more likely as creators and as people who previously just hustled and hustled and hustled, will we be more likely to, to, to say no to things because we’ve learned that we need some time? Yeah. I, I honestly, I genuinely, I wish that for us because I know just sort of from like osmosis in this sort of time where we’ve had to be in, in quarantine or, or whatever more people I know have come out as trans or non-binary or gender fluid or queer than I could ever expect.
And, uh, most of them that I, that I’ve spoken to it’s because, oh yeah, because when I wasn’t constantly hustling, I had time to sit with myself and be like, Oh, wait a second. Where, where is that? Because the, when you are doing that, when you are doing, you know, your two shows and your Joe job and you’re going, going, going, you don’t sit with, with yourself. You don’t meet yourself.
And so you don’t necessarily know like what all those, what all those things are. It’s like when you’re carrying a heavy bag and your arm gets numb and you put it down and you’re like, Oh my God, that was heavy. And so I know for, for myself, like the amount of healing and an emotional growing I have done in the past year, unprecedented.
And I know it’s because I’m not, you know, waking up at four in the morning so I can go to an eight hour Starbucks shift. So I can go to a six hour rehearsal so I can go home and prep for a self tape or, or all of these kinds of things. Um, I like, I’m able to be like, Oh wow, wait a second.
Like here’s some things that I, when I have to sit with myself, I realized like, Oh, I really struggle with this. Or I really struggle with, with that. Um, and, and being able to like hone in on that and have the time and space to, to breathe into it and be like, well, I can’t, I can’t run away from it now.
And I can’t bury it under menial tasks. I think in some ways it’s, it’s been something of a, of a revelation for a lot of people about how unhealthy their lives were as far as like, just, you know, going, going, going, going, going, and all of a sudden like, Oh wait, if I take some time for myself, I can feel good. Yep.
Yep. Yeah. Yep.
As well as like, this is something, and it’s so small, but I haven’t had a stuffy nose for over a year. I’ve not had, I’ve not had a cold for over a year. I’ve not been, I haven’t had like a viral illness at all, which to me is an absolute revelation because I was, I was used to, I was used to like getting sick, like at least four times a year of having like a sniffles, having my throat be kind of like mucked up, you know, whatever it was.
And so the fact that it’s been like over a year, I’m like, wow, you know, I, I really hate that. I don’t know my personal purpose right now with my career, but God damn, does it feel good to breathe through both my nostrils all the time. Yeah.
This is probably my healthiest year. I haven’t had a cold or, or anything of the flu or, you know, it’s been like a year and a few months and yeah. And it kind of makes me, it makes me a bit paranoid.
It makes me like, who wasn’t washing their hands before? Like who was it? You know, I think the sad thing is, is, is that it’s probably more than just that. It’s also like all the times that we’re jammed onto the subway or jammed into an elevator or like just the general way that we’ve, you know, just gone out. And also the fact that people are like, oh, I’m sick and I can’t afford to take time off.
So I guess we’ll just take this pill that will suppress the, the, the, the symptoms I go out during as though I’m fine. And I’m just like giving this to everyone. Yep.
And it’s, it’s, it’s been so interesting to watch how corporate culture and work culture has changed with, with the sort of like pandemic, because everybody, everybody who’s worked in any kind of service or retail knows that there have been times where you’ve been on death’s door and you’ve been like, Hey, I’m on death’s door. And you know, you’ve gotten a text back from Steve saying, well, we don’t have anybody to cover your shift. And so you’re like, uh, uh, okay, then I guess.
Fuck me. Right. I’ll just go in and do it.
And so like to see that shift from, from, from that to, you cannot come in to work if you are sick is like, Whoa, now all we, all we really need is for everybody to put their money where their mouth is and have actual paid sick leave or UBI so that it doesn’t become a situation of, of it being like, Hey, um, I need to be able to be alive. Um, and not get everybody sick. Can we please, and it’s especially frustrating because it, you know, if you think about it, if, if you don’t have a sick employee getting, you know, your entire staff sick, you’re, you’re gonna, you’re gonna do better.
Like this is going to do better. Yeah. Also, I mean, a lot of people that, that I know they work in food services, whether they work in a cafe or they work, whatever, when the manager says we’re short staffed, I know you’re sick.
You’re going to have to come in anyway. And you take a pill or something, or you just struggle through the day. Well, you’re doesn’t matter that you’re like wearing gloves.
You’re just sharing that with everybody. Yep. And I can’t believe that that’s something that we’ve considered to be a normal thing.
Yeah. And that’s the thing is that it’s like, so it’s like, so normalized. Yeah.
Um, and, and, and so I, like, I hope it is kind of like a lasting change to, to have it not, not be because when it comes like as somebody with, with compromised immunity, if somebody came into work and they were sick or a customer came in very clearly with like a cold or whatever, I was like, okay, here we go. Like, yeah, great. I guess I’m going to have a cold.
Like, I guess that’s going to be a thing. It definitely extends to theatre because I don’t know. I don’t know like what your experience in, in, uh, like, I don’t know what other people’s experiences in, in school were, but for my theatre training, it, you know, if you, if you were sick for, for longer than a day, who boy, you were in trouble.
Like you were going to get put on, you know, academic probation or kicked out of the program. Like it was 100%. I can remember being sick for one day and getting a call from the school saying, if you’re not here tomorrow, you’re out of the program.
Yeah. Oh, meanwhile, I am litreally like, like hunched over a toilet when I’m getting that message. Like I am vomiting so hard, but they’re like, no, you have to come in.
That’s ridiculous. It is absolutely ridiculous. And, and I think a lot of that, I mean, I, something we’re all discovering now collectively as a, as a community is, is that, um, theatre programs for the large part have been, um, institutionalized abuse kind of thing, because, because it’s like, oh, well, the, the, uh, industry is demanding.
So we have to, um, separate the weak from the strong kind of thing. But at the end of the day, it just makes, makes the community inherently inaccessible and inherently ableist. Well, absolutely.
It’s also like the idea that, oh, the, uh, the, the industry is hard. So we have to treat you like garbage to get you ready for it. Maybe what we have to do is like be teaching students that, um, no, it is okay to stand up for yourself.
And sometimes you have to advocate for yourself instead of, instead of, you know, emotionally hobbling them so that they are in like predisposed to abuse in a rehearsal hall or, or in other situations until finally after 10, 20 years, now they’re ready to stand up and stand and advocate for themselves after so many years of being treated horribly when we should be, we should be teaching them that right out of the gate, you can advocate for yourself. And in some cases you have to exactly, exactly. Cause you know, when it comes, when it comes down to it, um, there’s, there’s so many times, there’s so many times where somebody will look back on, on something that made them intensely uncomfortable or intensely unsafe, or maybe even physically hurt them.
And it’s because we’ve been so beat down with this culture that if you do not say yes, if you do not obey, you will be considered difficult to work with and you won’t work anymore. Yeah. That’s a hugely problematic thing.
Cause I know people who I can remember talking to people and they would be like talking, ready to talk about the fringe festival. Right. And then I could see them stop because they’re not going to like glow about the, the, the fringe festival and the way that it’s organized or whatever.
And, and so they don’t say it because they’re afraid that somehow the fringe, which is undured, you know, we’ll blackball them somehow. Um, and in the end, what that ends up doing is just like reinforcing the fact in their mind that some things are unassailable. Yeah.
Say anything bad about this institution because, you know, so we need to, like, honestly, the only reason why, and I fully believe this, that if I want to say, if I want to complain about something, let’s say let’s continue on like the fringe festival for some, you know, just to keep things consistent. If I want to complain, it’s not because I hate the fringe festival. It’s because I love the fringe festival and I want it to be better.
Absolutely. Absolutely. If we didn’t love these institutions, we’d just go fuck it and walk away.
We absolutely would. And it’s, you know, it all feeds into the same sort of, same sort of culture where, you know, we’re having to contend with the fact that there have been, um, open abusers in our community, um, going unchecked for years and years and years, because, because there is such a culture of it’s like, well, you know, if you, if you assert your boundaries, if you stand up, if you say the wrong thing, well, then nobody’s going to hire you. Yeah.
Don’t rock the boat. Don’t rock the boat. That’s, that’s such a, it’s an early lesson that a lot of us are taught in theatre school.
And so you end up, and especially, especially with what we do is so emotional. You know, it’s just like, you’re just asking for, for trouble because it’s like, you have all of these, you know, pretty like traumatized people being like, please pick me, please pick me, please pick me. And then they get picked and they have no agency and they have, uh, no ability to, um, encounter, uh, accountability or, or, or have that kind of, um, structure imposed upon it.
Um, until they reach a certain level of a career. And then for a lot of people, they get to that certain level in their career where they’ve, you know, they’ve taken their lumps and they’ve, they’ve quote unquote paid their dues kind of thing. And there’s no impetus to change the system because it’s like, well, you know, I dealt with it and I’m fine.
Like I got through it. That’s, that’s the, the, the, the, such a, one of the most damaging things. Well, I, you know, what I got through, that’s how I was trained.
So this is how I’m going to train. Like they abused me through theatre school and I’m fine. So this is how we’re going to, this is how I’m going to teach people rather than like, maybe the fact that I went through theatre school, miserable and afraid all the time that maybe that’s not conducive to, um, uh, creativity.
Yeah. Yeah. And it’s also like, I, I understand to a small degree, the need for, um, discipline, especially when you get these like bouncing little, you know, 18 year olds, theatre majors have a, have a vibe and a reputation for a reason in large, the reason is that, uh, theatre people, we are obnoxious, uh, and we get paid to be obnoxious and that’s great.
That’s fine. Um, so there is an element of like, I get why you have to be like, okay, no, calm down, bouncing baby. We don’t need to hear your Randy rendition of every song of Les Mis.
We need you to buckle down, but there’s a way to do that. That isn’t emotionally traumatizing. Yes.
Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. Um, just as we sort of like, uh, start to like draw to a close here.
Um, one of the questions that I have been asking, uh, throughout the pandemic is a question about joy. Um, we all need our moments of joy. And I think that, that we’ve all had our ups and downs and I like to, to, to have all of my guests, like, just tell me like, what’s been giving you joy so we can share that with everyone else.
So Joey, what’s been giving you joy lately? Oh, geez. Uh, you know, I’ve, I’ve had a lot of people, um, sort of reach out and, and, uh, uh, my very good friend Holly actually made a go fund me, which again, thank you, Phil. Um, so like to get me back to Toronto, which is like overwhelming realizing how, how many people I have in my, in my corner.
Um, but beyond that, it’s just been kind of like realizing how much we all love each other and how instantaneous and evident that became when we couldn’t, you know, immediately hold each other and, and, and tell each other that everything was going to be okay. Um, the fact that we still all love each other so much and miss each other just brings me so much joy because there’s like a lot of bad shit has happened in a very short amount of time and our instinct is still to, to hold each other and be with each other. And, and, and that I think brings me a lot of joy and love.
Thank you so much. And then thank you for this conversation. This has been as always wonderful.
Yeah. Thank you for having me. Absolutely.
I love it.
