Keshia Palm & Julia Dickson of The Paprika Theatre Festival

Keshia Palm (she/they) is a Toronto-based Filipinx-Canadian settler from Treaty 6 Territory who seeks to expose, challenge and dismantle systems of oppression by creating thoughtful and inclusive art/spaces. Her creative practice includes dramaturgy, direction, performance, writing and producing. Keshia has developed and performed new works with theatre companies across Canada and is the dramaturge for a number of works in development by IBPOC, queer, women and trans artists. Her digital community arts project Make Me An Alleycat (created with wheels from Claren Grosz) invites people to connect over stories and destinations while social distancing by going for a bike ride. Keshia is a playwright in the 20/21 Hot House Lab at Cahoots Theatre, and a former Factory Foreman. She has been the Online Content Producer for ArtistProducerResource.com at Generator since 2018.

Julia Dickson (she/her) is an arts manager, educator, and producer currently based in Toronto. She currently works as the General Manager of the Paprika Festival, with Young People’s Theatre as an Artist Educator, and with Single Thread Theatre Company as their Artistic Producer. Previously, Julia worked with Studio 180 Theatre, Theatre Passe Muraille, and the Festival Players of Prince Edward County. Julia has a post-graduate certificate in Arts Administration and Cultural Management from Humber College, and a Bachelor of Education with a focus on Artist in the Community Education from Queen’s University.

About Paprika
Paprika Festival is a youth-led professional performing arts organization. Paprika runs year round professional training and mentorship programs that culminate in a performing arts festival of new work by young artists. Paprika generates opportunities for young artists to lead their own creative process with the support of their peers and professional mentors.

paprikafestival.com
Instagram: @paprikafestival
Twitter: @paprikafestival

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Transcript

Welcome to Stageworthy, a podcast about Canadian theatre and the people who make it, hosted by me, Phil Rickaby. This is episode 305. In this episode, I will be talking to Keshia Palm and Julia Dickson from the Paprika Theatre Festival.

Are you… are you getting tired? I’m getting tired. So I wouldn’t blame you for being tired. It is tiring trying to make things happen in this pandemic.

For me, part of it is the uncertainty. Things are starting to reopen, theatre companies are announcing seasons, and it seems like we’re starting to get back to a reopening. And yet, I can’t relax, because we’re all waiting to see what happens in the next couple of weeks, wondering if we’re going to have to shut things down again.

And I don’t know about you, but I am finding it harder to make things happen in the digital sphere. It’s hard enough to produce something and think of it as theatre, while also learning new technology, working with new technology, trying to figure out how to promote a digital production, and also trying to combat the digital fatigue that our potential audience could be facing. It’s tiring, and I don’t have any answers yet as to how to really deal with it.

But this has been challenging all around, and that’s one of the things I wanted to talk to Keshia and Julia about. They took over as the artistic producer and general manager of Paprika, just as they had to pivot to a festival that’s virtual instead of in-person. The Paprika Festival is a youth-led professional performing arts organization that runs year-round professional training and mentorship programs that culminate in a performing arts festival of new works by young artists.

Keshia Palm is the artistic producer of the Paprika Festival. Her creative practice includes dramaturgy, direction, performance, and writing. Julia Dickson is the general manager of the Paprika Festival.

She’s an arts manager, educator, and producer. Here’s our conversation. So you guys have been sort of running the Paprika Theatre Festival for how long? Not very long.

This is Keshia speaking. I myself officially stepped into my role as the artistic producer of the Paprika Festival on June 14th, which is also the last day of what was our digital 20th anniversary festival. So it’s just been a couple months.

And Julia started slightly before me. Julia, I’ll let you speak to that. Yeah, absolutely.

I jumped into the fray, honestly, just before Keshia did. So my first foray was on April 14th, which happens to be for anyone who’s keeping track at home, the day after Doug Ford here in Ontario announced that we were going into a complete lockdown with no in-person events or gatherings allowed in any way, shape, or form. So what a welcome to the first day of work it was, but it’s been so much fun working with Keshia and the entire team ever since.

Okay. One of the things that I think would be great for people to know is to describe the Paprika Theatre Festival. Could you, one of you, or tag team it, tell me what is Paprika? Awesome.

Yes, I can. This is Keshia speaking. Paprika is a youth-led professional performing arts organization.

And what that means is that people under 30 are the, what am I trying to say? When we say youth-led, we mean young artists and artists under 30. And they are the staff, they are the facilitators, they are our contracted artists in the festival, and they are our participants. And we run year-round professional training and mentorship programs, workshops, and labs, all which culminate in a performing arts festival of new work by young artists, which is why we’re called the Paprika Theatre Festival.

And we offer seven year-long free training programs. I can list them all for you if you like. Okay, awesome.

We have a director’s lab, the design lab, a productions program, which is where we help someone produce their show for the first time, the indigenous arts program, the festival creative producers and administrators, a playwrights unit, and a creators unit, which is a collective creation devised unit. Yeah, one of the things I think that makes Paprika so incredibly special is the fact that while many arts organizations, theatre training programs exist in the world, one of the wonderful things about Paprika is that we sort of hit a lot of boxes depending on who you are and how you might fit into the theatre world. I know that myself, as the general manager of this organization, you don’t generally see a whole lot of training opportunities for how to become an arts administrator, and Paprika is a place where that exists, specifically through our festival creative producers and administrators program, where you get to actually get hands-on experience figuring out how to do arts administration, how to become a producer, whether your fancy is in the admin world or whether you maybe think a little bit more keenly towards the arts as being a performer yourself or being a designer, being a director, whatever fancy you may take, we’ve got a spot and a place for you.

It’s obviously still, we are 20 years old this past year. We just celebrated our 20th anniversary, but one of the wonderful things about this organization is that it continues to grow and expand and shift depending on who the young people who are working for the organization are, where they see the arts world taking them and taking the work. And so it means that, you know, although we might still not cover all of our bases in terms of our training programs, we’ve got so much future ahead of us and it’s a really exciting place to be.

It sounds like it. Now, you mentioned about the administration and I’ve been thinking a lot lately about leadership in the arts and how I think that that. A way for people to see their way through to to becoming leaders in the arts is not something that is widely available, I think that for a lot of people, that’s a mysterious thing.

How does one become an artistic director or an artistic producer? How does one and what do they do? And I think that, you know, because of that in the Canadian theatre scene, we often end up with what feels like either a lack of of of potential leaders or. The leaders are not visible to the boards that are making the decision, and it’s almost like we need a place like Paprika, where the administrators of the future can learn how to how to do what they need to do and then can move out into the world so that our next generation of artistic leaders are, let’s say, Canadian rather than somebody we imported from the States or from England, like so often happens. That’s such a great point, Phil, and I think like one of the special things about Paprika is it’s the whole structure is built around training and mentorship, which includes my job and Julia’s job and all of our facilitators and our staff.

So we have seven training programs, as I said, and six of those are facilitated by our facilitated and we engage those artists every year, some folks for many years. For example, Kevin Matthew Wong has been the festival creative producers and administrators facilitator for going on three years. And Bilal Baig is returning as our playwrights unit facilitator for their third year as well.

And I think that’s a really great place where folks have the opportunity to learn how to facilitate a room, how to create community and build connections between participants. And similarly with our roles, you know, Julia and I have very different paths into artistic leadership, actually. And I think one of the really appealing things for me as an artist is I really didn’t want to start my own company just for the sake of having arts leadership experience.

I think oftentimes for young emerging artists, that feels like the way to, you know, make your own opportunity essentially in leading an arts organization. So if you’re someone who’s more interested in stewardship of cultural institutions and communities like I am, there’s not as many opportunities that come up to apply to be an artistic leader for an organization that’s been around for some time. And that’s what, you know, made Paprika so appealing to me.

Yeah, and I think that like speaking to what you mentioned, Phil, it’s really interesting when you think about Paprika’s place in this wonderful lens of the artistic ethos in Canada. We like to say here, Paprika, if you’ve seen theatre in Canada, you have seen Paprika at work. And it actually is so genuinely true on so many fronts, because in our 20 years of operation, we’ve supported the careers of over 1,200 different artists.

And there’s been so many amazing humans that you might see gracing the stages of Canadian theatres, maybe whether that’s on stage or as a designer, as a director or off the stage, or even, as you mentioned, running the cultural institutions here in Canada. If you have seen any matter of Canadian institutions, you’ve seen Paprika folks. Some of our amazing alumni, a big old shout out moment for any of them that might be listening to you today.

But it includes wonderful humans like Holly Joy Richardson, Michelle Yagi, Michael Ross, Mitchell Cushman, Wellesley J. Colford, Oase Lightwall, Rob Kempson, all who have gone on to lead such amazing and immaculate careers in the arts industry. And you sort of have to wonder if these sorts of cultural opportunities and places to learn and engage and foster these sorts of like what we like to say is almost like the first yes of their careers, if that hadn’t been at Paprika, would we have lost the opportunity to engage with these amazing artists? It would be an absolute crying shame in our books if the next Holly Joy Richardson didn’t manage to make it onto the artistic Canadian landscape because they hadn’t gotten a chance to have a learning platform where mistakes are not only expected but welcomed. How else are you supposed to learn what you’re doing if you don’t have the opportunity to try your hand at it in a safe place where you have the support and mentorship from your peers and folks who have gone through it maybe just a couple of seconds before and say, ha, yeah, I remember making that exact mistake literally five seconds ago.

Here’s how you can avoid it, like learn from me. And I think this whole community around sharing and growth is so wonderful. And one of the things I think that makes Paprika so incredibly special here in the Canadian theatre scene.

Paprika is such a wonderful, special place in which folks are able to learn and grow from one another and build off of each other’s sort of successes and learnings. And it’s really amazing that youth are able to share that process with one another. I find that oftentimes working within various cultural institutions in Canada is so wonderful because you get to grow and learn from so many experienced and wonderful people around you.

But it can also at times potentially feel a little bit isolating if you are one of the only younger people in the room or in the group and you don’t have that sort of network of peers to be able to talk to and talk about your challenges with. And I think that a lot of these cultural institutions do a wonderful job of making a lot of space and room for the next generation of artists. But having those sorts of peers that you’re able to refer to and being able to chat with while you’re working in these various places is such a magical thing that Paprika is able to cultivate and share and means that you have a lot of support as you continue to work through your cultural careers.

And I think that that’s so incredibly special. Absolutely. You mentioned the freedom to fail and that is such an important thing.

Like we learn nothing if we never make a mistake. Sometimes, though, in some situations, it feels like the pressure is on. It has to be polished.

It has to be perfect. And, you know, a long time ago, I thought I felt like like something like Fringe was the place where you could fail. But our audience for Fringe now is really sort of expecting an almost perfect thing, like maybe a nugget.

There would be a few flaws, but it’s not a place to fail. And like I said, you don’t learn anything unless you are able to fail. Even if you don’t fail on stage, that you feel like you can you can make mistakes in the rehearsal hall, in the creation process.

And then nobody holds that against you because it’s part of learning. And that’s a wonderful thing and such an important thing that I think everybody needs. Yeah, I think that, you know, we’re failing all the time.

Over here at Paprika and learning from it. And that’s another reason why these programs that we offer that culminate in the festival are so special, because we basically give our participants and our staff and our facilitators a couple of months to fail and figure it out and workshop and learn and grow and then present their findings, which are oftentimes works in progress or stage readings or workshop presentations. And the whole concept is that this is a chance to explore and try something new and develop and offer something at the end that may lead to something else or maybe what feels like the finished project for the day.

But that opportunity to be building that process with the festival many, many months in advance is unique. And when it comes to festivals, like you described the fringe, the fringe is intense. There’s lots of things going on.

There’s lots of shows going on. And that’s a really vibrant and exciting community to be part of, too. But if it’s your first time working on a show and you’ve maybe not gone to theatre school, and so you don’t have training or experiences on what that environment might be like, fringe may be really overwhelming.

And so having the opportunity to be in a festival environment that offers a lot of supports from the very start all the way to the end, I think can offer a lot of benefits for someone who maybe hasn’t been able to access for many reasons, you know, post-secondary education in theatre live performance. Yeah, I can tell you from from experience that even if you have gone to theatre school, fringe is terrifying. One of the things I wanted to talk about, like, so Paprika, as you said, celebrated its 20th anniversary, but I’m sure this is not the 20th.

This was not the 20th anniversary that you quite imagined it would be. You produced an entirely digital festival. And out of curiosity, at what point did you decide that it was going to be entirely digital? And what was the execution of that like? Yeah, it’s funny you mention that, Phil, because the day that we decided that we were going to a fully digital festival was, in fact, my first day on the job.

No pressure there. Yeah, certainly, certainly not. But I think it’s to a certain degree, obviously, a bit of a disappointment because it’s definitely not the 20th anniversary that I think Paprika of the past would have imagined for us.

I certainly know that Kanika Ambrose and Daniel Carter, who are the predecessors to Keshia and I, so the previous artistic producer and general manager, they certainly, I think, felt very similarly when the pandemic hit back in 2020. That was the first time that Paprika was met with a challenge of, oh, we have to pivot now. I think as many folks in the arts industry and worldwide faced that conundrum of what does this mean for us? And I think that it led to an interesting time of learning and growth for so many humans within Paprika and within the arts industry as a whole of what it means to both pivot, but also what it means to be resilient and what the arts and culture sector sort of needs from us at that time.

And also what society needs from the arts and culture sector at that time. There was this really amazing, amazing piece that came out of the 19th Paprika Festival, which was the first festival that Paprika had to pivot to online, which was obviously a lot less of a lead up to what ended up becoming that digital festival. But one of the things that came out of that festival was actually a bit of a question, a bit of a documentary created by some of the Paprika participants that basically asked folks, Paprika participants, artists, folks who had participated in the festival that year, what this pivot, what this shift in the world had left them feeling like.

And it wasn’t necessarily focused on their art. Sometimes it had an intersection with their art, but it was also just a really big moment to check in about folks and their mental health and capacity, because it’s, you know, easy to get sucked into the beauty of the art and the importance of this amazing sector that we happen to be a part of. But also, this was a really difficult time worldwide for so, so many humans.

And a big question mark of what that means for folks and their families and the world that we get to experiment in. And it was such a wonderfully beautiful piece that they put together, which essentially just allowed them to actually share their genuine, honest feelings about maybe their first big break that they were really looking forward to getting pulled out from right underneath them. And there was just a lot of honesty and raw thoughtfulness that I think is exactly what proves that the arts are so crucial at a time like this.

Right. It’s how we connect to each other. It’s how we have beautiful, honest and raw conversations about the state of the world.

And it’s being and I think that’s how we similarly felt when we had been planning this amazing, wonderful 20th anniversary festival. We had such a big hopes for being able to potentially gather outside, socially distanced, being able to have, you know, these beautiful in-person performances that we’re really actually starting to see come to fruition and come to the light to this past summer. It’s been so incredibly amazing to actually get to see live theatre again.

I feel like so many humans have felt fairly similarly, but we were just a little bit ahead of ourselves when we were hoping for that. We had such high hopes for what June even would look like. And unfortunately, the June that we got was not quite the June that we had hoped for, which meant that when it was painfully obvious in April that we had to pivot to a digital festival, it was definitely, it was a tough moment for our participants.

Yeah, and like something I’ll add to that is Paprika doesn’t operate in isolation, right? So all of the things that the participants and us as the team behind the participants supporting the festival, all of the challenges that we were facing are challenges that theatre companies across the country and particularly in Toronto were facing at the same time. So the skills that we learned and that our participants learned in how to live stream a show, filming content, producing like essentially short films and working without equipment, streaming on multiple platforms all at once. That was a huge learning curve for us and has been a huge learning curve for the entire industry.

So yeah, I think it was also really exciting to be able to offer that learning internally to be like, well, this is what it is for everyone now. So let’s learn alongside Canstage and Terragon and Factory as they produce podcasts and live stream performances like us too. And one of the things that we learned, as I think many people are learning, is digital provided a lot of opportunities as well.

We were able to collaborate with artists across the country and even beyond. We had a partnership this year with Thespo in India and were able to produce Cosmo Cabaret, which happened in both time zones, which was really cool. And having theatre makers and artists and family be able to zoom in from these communities that we have across the country where art is being made and connections are being built to be able to bridge that connection was really awesome.

And I’ve super enjoyed being able to tune into play readings and developments and screenings of projects that I would normally never get to see because I don’t spend much time in Calgary. But getting to watch a performance in Calgary or a play reading from Vancouver is a real delight and makes the country feel a little bit smaller. I think that that’s one of the wonderful things.

If there can be said to be good things that have come from the situation, one good thing is just what you said, the ability to see things that were happening in other parts of the country, things that we’ve not been able to do before because we’re so spread out in this country that we don’t know what’s happening in Calgary or Edmonton or Winnipeg, or we might hear snippets of it, but we don’t get to see it. And having the chance to be able to see the things that are happening there is just such an exciting thing to be introduced to people who maybe Calgary knows this actor or play right, but we don’t in Toronto. And it’s a great opportunity for us to see it.

Yeah. In fact, even we’ve taken that and expanded on it this year because we were like, how incredible is it that we’ve been able to work with artists from across the country? And two of our programs we’ve decided this year to actually keep entirely digital for that exact reason. Both the Playwrights Unit and the Festival of Creative Producers and Administrators are two programs that we think will benefit and continue to, I guess what I’m trying to say is that the facilitators in their feedback sessions were like, I actually really enjoy delivering these digitally.

I think that a playwright circle is something that can definitely happen online. And in fact, playwrights can almost benefit from sharing their work and talking about play development, something that feels really icky and vulnerable sometimes from their own spaces in a safe space where they feel comfortable. They have their favourite mug.

They’re on the couch or on their bed and those conversations can come right to them. Obviously, there are some programs where if you’re learning about sound design, it’s really good to be able to have your hands on the equipment and hear how those sound waves move through space. But these two programs just seem like they have a lot of potential for digital delivery and we’re really excited to invite folks from Manitoba or the Northwest Territories or Vancouver Island to Zoom in and still be part of this festival.

There are these wonderful things that, you know, like these connections that I hope that in our rush to get back into the theatre, once we’re able to get there, that we hold on to these connections, these ways of connecting across Canada and even sharing work outside of our own province or city. I hope that that’s something that we can ultimately hold on to because I think we’re better and stronger for it. Yeah, I think that there’s so many interesting things that we’ve found have actually come to be sort of beneficial and things that we can take out of these times of potentially a little bit more isolation and pull forward with us.

Paprika, our motto is where the future of theatre begins and so we often like to think about what the future of theatre might hold for our next generation of changemakers that are coming through the art sector. And I think that this was an amazing time period to really think about and listen to the voices of artists that believe that there are some bits of the future of theatre that we found during a time when live art maybe wasn’t obviously at the forefront of everybody’s mind. I think that the future is super flexible is a big thing to really take into consideration.

It’s the same element that Keshia was mentioning about being able to like zoom into a really vulnerable session from the comfort of your own home. There’s so many humans in which, you know, having the capability to be able to like have these sorts of meetings and sessions from their own spaces make it so much more accessible for them to be able to participate in art or be able to like view art in a way that they wouldn’t have been able to. Early mothers or parents, for instance, if they have difficulty accessing child care, art can be kind of inaccessible for them.

But there’s so much flexibility that I think that we can take out and learn from when it comes to the learnings that have come out of this time. Timelines, rehearsal schedules, budgets, performance mediums. There’s so many different ways that we can think about the world of theatre and what it looks like.

I mean, we’ve been very tied to this concept of performance as this wonderful live exhibition, but which I think is something that everyone is very eager to go back to at some point. But it also sort of lends the question of what else are art forms and mediums that are live performance and theatre that also remain accessible to a group of humans that we might have not actually been interacting with as much as we would have liked to in the performing art sector? Absolutely. The being able to share things digitally is really a way, like you said, of opening our theatres to people who maybe haven’t been able to get there, whether they have physical barriers that prevent them from getting to the theatre or they can’t get a babysitter, things like that.

All of these things are barriers and also financial. There is so much opportunity in, say, for example, offering a digital ticket to view. I’ve heard of theatres while I’ve been doing this podcast that have completely wired their theatres with a three-camera setup so that they’ll be able to capture the performance with three different camera angles.

They’ll have somebody who will switch back and forth and they can they can live stream it so that somebody could get a digital ticket, which would obviously cost a little bit less. And they don’t have to face the barriers, the sometimes ableist barriers that keep people from coming into the theatre. And I think that’s a great thing and something to be held on to.

Absolutely. I also think that there’s what a lesson at this time to come into the theatre and realize how resilient you as an artist are, that the closing of the theatre is not the thing that’s going to stop you from creating art. So many artists that I’ve spoken to and that I’ve heard from have learned things that they never thought they could learn.

How to do a digital production, how to use a camera, how to do their own internal setup, and how to share things online. People who, I swear, two years ago would have told me I’m not technically savvy enough to do that. And yet they are.

And I think that’s a great lesson to learn at this time, especially when you’re young, to go into the theatre and realize that no matter what, you can create. Yeah, absolutely. And I think that it also brings up this wonderful question of the limitations that we thought existed on theatre might not be actually as limiting as we thought.

There’s so many different ways to engage and connect and be creative with one another. And I think one of the things that has come out of this time period is just proof of how crucial that connection is. I know that when we were talking to our Paprika participants, one of the things that in general we were so cognizant and trying to keep in mind is the mental burnout and load of creating during a pandemic might be.

I think that it’s a hard conversation for many folks to have, especially so many creative humans where we feel like that’s how we express ourselves is through creation and through art and through conversation. But at the same time, it might not always be an accessible medium to have those conversations through if you’re also bearing the weight of the world on your shoulders during this time, right? But one of the things that we found time and time again through conversations and chats with participants through feedback forms and just like any sort of conversation method that might have come to play was that the art felt so much more crucial right now. It was a way that it’s a language that we understand, and it’s a way that we feel like we can express ourselves.

And we love, obviously, the theatre. Goodness knows I love the theatre, the liveness of it, the ability to connect with humans and be able to see their reactions in real time. There’s something so incredibly special about that.

But there’s so many other incredibly special ways that have, I think, I’ve come to realise of creation during this pandemic. Digital zines, audio, VR, like specific elements of play that could even be utilised to, you know, in the future, be an add-on, maybe be an addition to something that we see live and in the theatre. I think there’s so many exciting things and creation methods that, you know, artists might have not actually gotten the chance to explore or that had the time to explore if we had continued down this sort of path of live person creation, because we love it so much.

I mean, why, of course, we want to continue going down those paths. But I think that it’s also created such a wonderful opportunity to think about other options out there. And I think that’s something that I know that we at Paprika are thinking about really dearly, is creation exists in so many different forms.

There are so many different types of performing artists that exist out there, and being able to have a place for them and a home for them to be able to explore and create is something that means a lot to us. And so we’re continuing to explore that and figure out how we can open our doors to more humans and more creation styles across the board. You know, with our Creators Unit, it’s devised creation.

There’s so many different styles of performers or creators that might find a home or a place within that program. Playwriting, there’s so many different ways that you can write or create a play to make it come together. And it doesn’t necessarily have to be imagined for that exact medium of on stage performed for an audience.

There’s lots of different ways that that can come together. And I think that that’s really exciting to be able to think about. Yeah.

You know, one of the things that I’ve been thinking about as far as digital creation goes is that how often and some of the people that I was talking that I’ve talked to about their digital productions is in their minds, they were reluctant to do it digitally because they thought I put it out there in a digital video or whatever, and then that’s it. It’s done. I can never touch it again because I did it that way.

And I kind of think that what we can actually do is treat that as a workshop. We can get our feedback from that digital production and we can learn about it. Maybe we learn something in producing it for digital or audio or however we did it.

And then that could carry us and we can reexamine it and reinvent it for a live setting if that’s what we want to do. Some productions, maybe they’re done after their digital thing. But I think it opens up our opportunities for exploration and learning about the project that we’re working on.

I definitely think for young and emerging artists, too, like, I don’t know if Julia, you had this experience, but I remember a couple of my first projects. We were just so focused on getting the thing done and doing it that afterwards we were like, oh, no, we didn’t get any archival. Oh, absolutely.

So I think sometimes you can be really overwhelmed about, you know, the thing as it is in its moment and not be considering future iterations and development and like, what is your pitch package? And do I have a trailer? And a lot of that comes with experience. But I think that what I am seeing is really, really exciting pitch packages that people are putting together at Paprika. Like, everyone has amazing looking support material for their next grant, you know? So from a development perspective, I would definitely agree with you that this time is just generating really awesome content and opportunities for people to workshop and communicate really clearly to funders or to producing companies or to peers and collaborators.

This is what I’m thinking about. This is what I’m trying. This is a digital version of a thing.

Whether or not that thing is ever going to be a live reinterpretation or just a continued digital project, I think is obviously up to the individual artist. But what an exciting opportunity to workshop and play with a new medium. Yeah, I think there’s this wonderful opportunity for things to consider things not necessarily finished just because we performed them.

Definitely. I think that our whole festival is a work in process festival and an opportunity for people to be introduced. I think as young and emerging artists, there’s such a huge amount of pressure in everything that you do to represent exactly who you are as an artist.

When those opportunities are few and far between, if you’re a performer, for example, you get this one chance to do this one role and have this finished version of whatever that project is. That’s your opportunity to make a connection in the industry. I think having more opportunities to do that that are spread out and smaller and have less pressure and identity attached to it really benefits our artists as they figure out like, oh, what is my craft? What do I like? I remember when I came out of theatre school, I realized I didn’t know what kind of theatre I wanted to do because I had been told for four years what kind of theatre I should be doing.

So having the chance to figure that out for myself was really important. I think that’s an important question, though, that one word that we don’t often take the time to ask ourselves is what kind of theatre. Because I think that in, I don’t know about you, but when my time in theatre school was entirely focused on the career is going to be you’re going to audition, get the role, and then audition for the next one and get that role.

And that’s going to be your life is auditioning and get the role. And there was never any talk of self-production or choosing what kind of theatre you wanted to do. And now that landscape has changed.

It’s so important to create your own work now. But that was never something that we discussed in theatre school, that that was something that we would need to do. And so the question of what kind of theatre do I want to make was not something that I considered or I think that a lot of people have considered.

As we sort of move to another phase of our conversation, I’d like to sort of ask you guys, since we’re sort of on the topic of theatre school, I’m always fascinated by people’s theatre origin stories. Like what drew you to the theatre? What was your road to get you to where you are now? So Keshia, why don’t you start? And if you could tell me what drew you to the theatre, what started you on this path and how did you get where you are now? And that’s such a great question. I have, I think, a pretty, what’s the word? I don’t know if anyone really has a traditional, but I have kind of a roundabout way that I arrived at theatre.

I grew up in a small town in Saskatchewan in Treaty 6 territory and my high school didn’t have a drama program. So my art exposure was pretty limited to, I sang in choir and I also did this thing called speech arts at the Kiwana Music Festival, which is basically memorizing and reciting poetry for large groups of people. And I wanted to get out of Saskatchewan, so I applied for university and went to UVic for an organic chemistry degree and took a theatre elective to boost my GPA.

And in that theatre elective, I was like, you know, all of the synapses exploded, all of the connections were made. And I was like, oh, I think this is what I’m supposed to do with my life. I had a conversation with my high school math teacher and with the professor of that theatre elective being, you know, like, do I change my whole life path over this elective? And he was like, if you’re even asking the question, the answer is no.

You gotta know, you know, which enraged me. I was like, I hear you. Tell me that questioning my choices and being thoughtful about this process is irresponsible.

I was like, I’ll show you. So I switched programs and got a BFA, despite all odds. And here I am a decade later or so.

So you were going to do math? Was that your thing? Organic chemistry. Oh, okay. I like patterns.

Okay, that’s a big shift. Yeah, it is a big shift. It was moving from something that is, you know, irrefutable.

There is a yes and there is a no. There’s a right and a wrong to just gray space, you know? What was that transition like, getting to be comfortable with that gray space? I think as many people, and especially as a person of colour, wanting to be right and wanting to be the best and please and get good grades, that I think was the hardest transition for me, especially into theatre school, where people’s likes and dislikes or the grading particularly is so subjective. So I think just relaxing into trust and intuition was one of the most radical shifts.

And I think, I mean, this seems like so silly to say, but of course, you have to be so creative. And I think one of the things that benefited me from my background in science, or my aptitude for science, whatever, because that background is like high school now, is the problem solving. And seeing a problem and being orientated towards finding a solution and looking at that from multiple angles, I think that was something that actually translated over quite nicely.

Yeah, once you can accept the fact that there is no right or wrong. That makes a lot of sense, though, the problem solving. Because what is a script but a problem to be solved? And if you go through it from a scientific idea, you don’t actually know the answer until you find it.

You’re not starting with a supposition. You’re finding it. So I could see just that mindset really helping.

And in fact, that’s a perfect comparison because a script is finding patterns and recognizing anomalies and understanding how things connect to each other. So I often think of things as puzzles that are just waiting to be solved. Awesome.

Julia, what was your theatre origin story? Oh, what an interesting question. I think that generally speaking, if you had to look at sort of my family background, I am actually sort of the black sheep of the family in that my whole immediate family is very science and mathematics oriented. And then out I came with just like the natural predisposition to want to put on a show.

And so my family was like, great, we don’t know what to do with her. So let’s throw her into the arts. And from there, it just sort of fell into place.

I managed to do just like a whole lot of like, you know, community theatre and various sort of lovely little ways of being able to connect and grow into artistic opportunities. And when it was time for me to really consider what I wanted to do with myself and my life, I actually was really dead set on becoming a teacher, actually, because I really had found that drama had been something I’ve been very passionate about and enjoyed. But something I’m also in general always been fairly passionate about is working with people to help them understand things.

I found that I was always pretty good at translating when somebody had a problem to, oh, I can help you figure out how to actually get from point A to point B pretty easily. And then also not only tell you how to do that, but like teach you so that you can do it by yourself next time. And you don’t even need me around anymore.

It was something I was always super passionate about. And so I decided, you know what, I’m going to go off to school and become a teacher. And so I went and I studied at Queen’s University in a concurrent education program, which means that I’m getting like my Bachelor of Education at the same time as just sort of a regular undergraduate degree.

And one of the things that was required of me was to obviously pick a major. And I was like, well, you know, it doesn’t particularly matter since I’m just going to go off and become, you know, some sort of primary junior-esque teacher anyway. So I’m going to pick the one I enjoyed the most.

And that was drama. And one of the really interesting things about Queen’s University’s program is that it doesn’t require you to go in and say, hey, I’m going to like audition to become an actor or I’m going to apply with my design platform and become a designer. Or here’s like some excerpts from a script.

I’m going to become like a playwright and only be in that stream. In fact, it generally it requires you to like do a bunch of things across the board and get like a really well-rounded theatre education. And so I was thinking, wow, this is like a great little side project to me becoming a primary school teacher.

And through that process, one of the things that I was required to do as part of my drama degree was work on productions and actually have sort of like hands-on experience doing like a variety of different roles, including, you know, designing, directing, acting. But then also what ended up falling into place was I ended up doing one stint as a producer. And it was kind of funny because it was the sort of role within the university that generally speaking, like, oh, who really wants to play with the numbers of a theatre organization? You signed up for this drama degree and now you want to do accounting? Like, no, not quite.

And so but somebody had said to me, hey, like, we think you would actually be maybe pretty good at this. What do you think? And I generally speaking, I’m always the sort of person that says, let’s do everything at least once, you know, you never know until you give it a try. And I just immediately was so enamored with, I think, the same sorts of things that Kesho was actually really enamored by, this whole problem solving, finding patterns and figuring out solutions for it.

I think it also really fell into that same pattern of, wow, this is another place in which somebody is feeling pretty confused and overwhelmed. And I get it. I can translate this for you.

I actually understand what we need to take numbers and put them into a budget and make that actually translate into how much money we have to spend on the set or on the paint or on the props and make the whole thing happen. And I realized just how much having humans like that. I think very much because my family is also very like mathematics, science oriented.

They realized, yeah, we had been apparently doing that for almost all of my community theatre productions growing up. They’d helped with budgets and helping with administrative work in order to allow for the community theatre to thrive. And I just remember thinking if it hadn’t been for them, I probably wouldn’t have had the opportunity to fall in love with theatre if they hadn’t donated their time and energy to making those sorts of things happen.

But not asking for any of the credit for it realistically. And it made me realize that’s sort of the thing I would love to do as well is help humans by taking a little bit of that load off and doing something I really do understand. And holy smokes, it might not sound the most fascinating to anybody else, but I love writing a grant, making a budget happen, writing a policy doc.

Come at me. Anything that can help make the arts a thing that more people can love and experience is such a joy for me. So I went off.

I got a degree in arts administration and cultural management from Humber College. And I worked in a bunch of different arts organizations doing lots of different things from the fundraising perspective and development work to a little bit more of the producing background and all of that sort of stuff. And from lots of different arts organizations around as well as just doing my own projects here and there.

I had a lot of arts friends who at that point were like, wow, you’re really good at this. Can you produce my show for me? Can you help me figure out how to get money? And I was like, yeah, let’s make it happen. Your show is so cool and more people need to see it.

And that’s sort of ended me up here where I’m like, great. This is such an amazing organization where I’m able to sort of combine my passion for doing a little bit more of that administrative behind the scenes work with also that like way back when passion for education. I never really lost it.

I still really love helping people figure out what they want to do and how to get there. And this is a place where I can facilitate that through a little bit of number crunching and just like a whole lot of love. That’s awesome.

That’s awesome. Just as we’re starting to draw to a close, since the pandemic started, I’ve been asking everybody who comes on about joy because we’ve all had our moments of of of of of depression, of of doom scrolling, of feeling overwhelmed. And I think it’s important that we just take a moment and acknowledge that there’s joy in the world regardless of where we are.

So the question that I have for each of you is, what’s one thing that’s been giving you joy lately? I’ll go first. This is Keshia speaking. This is going to be so nerdy, but.

Do it. I love the nerdy. I love the nerdy.

Like working at Paprika has been giving me a lot of joy. Genuinely, I, you know, it’s been a short amount of time that I’ve been in this role and the board, we had a little check in to see like how things are going. And I said to them, I’m genuinely having a lot of fun.

Like, it’s fun. And I feel very lucky to be the co-conspirator of Julia’s. We were match made.

So because Julia was hired first and I was hired second, the board coordinates the hiring. Julia didn’t have any say in whether or not I would be her partner or not. And I think they did a really great job.

We work really well together. And it’s fun to spend many hours on Zoom together, looking at the budget and figuring out what next year is going to look like. And I think something I’m looking forward to is getting to have those conversations in person and really share space and start to like expand on this feeling of community that’s been building.

Yeah. Oh, absolutely. Oh, what a little warm, lovely answer.

My heart’s just happy. I love working with you too, Keshia. And I think that like, honestly, jumping right off of that, something that’s really been giving me a lot of joy, hope and happiness lately is actually getting to meet some of these amazing, lovely humans that we’ve been starting these roles with and actually getting to see people a little bit in person.

I remember the first time that I actually got to interact with Keshia for the first time and the very first reaction was, you’re tall. Absolutely. You have no idea how tall I am.

For reference, I am a tall 5’10 woman. And generally speaking, if I’m sitting on a Zoom call all day, you would have no idea about these facts. But getting to know those sorts of things about humans, getting to meet Keshia in person, getting to meet some of our amazing staff who we made an entire digital festival happen with without once actually interacting with in person and actually getting to like, maybe sit in a park with them and have a talk and have a chat about theatre.

I think actually getting to share those moments with humans again and see the potential of live theatre coming back and live connection coming back again when it’s safe to do so, I think is such an incredibly joyful thing that is giving me a lot of hope. That’s wonderful. Thank you both.

Thank you both. Just for the end here, I want to ask about the future of the Paprika Festival. The 21st anniversary, what’s to come as we’re looking forward to the year ahead? What are your plans, both evil and wonderful, for the year to come? Well, as this episode is airing, our call for participants will be open for all seven of our programs.

As I said, two of those are going to be offered fully digitally so folks from across the country can apply. Tell all the young people you know, anyone under 30, to check out paprikafestival.com. Because we’re going to be offering a combination of in-person, fingers crossed, and digital programs this year, we’re also going to be doing a digital hybrid festival, which means that folks, again, from across the country will be able to tune in to take part in part of the Paprika Festival, and we’ll be inviting folks to join us at Native Earth’s Aki Studio, fingers crossed, May 2022. We also offer year-round free and public Hot Topics.

These are free talkbacks, workshops, and conversations for young and emerging artists, which is presented with support from Why Not Theatre. Our first one is on October 22nd, so mark it in your calendars and check out our social media to find out more. We’re still crunching those numbers, Phil, so when it comes to actually knowing what the festival is going to look like, we’re dreaming and scheming.

But I think we can confidently say there’s going to be some outdoor components and auxiliary programming that are going to take place alongside that digital hybrid festival in May in Toronto. And for folks who are over 30, we are looking for board members, so you could be part of that dreaming and scheming with us. If you are interested, there’s information on our website.

Perfect. Julia, Keshia, thank you so much for this conversation. I had a great time.

Thank you so much. It was great to meet you. Thanks for listening to this episode of Stageworthy.

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