Phil Rickaby – An Announcement

Phil Rickaby, host of Stageworthy, announces that after over 300 episodes, he’s taking a brief break from the podcast, but he’ll be back in a couple of months.

www.philrickaby.com
Twitter: @philrickaby
Instagram: @philrickaby
Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/philrickaby

Transcript: https://stageworthypodcast.com/308-phil-rickaby-an-announcement/

Stageworthy Survey: https://philrickaby.typeform.com/to/gZOjh8lk

Support Stageworthy
Tip Jar: https://tips.pinecast.com/jar/stageworthy
Merch: https://shop.stageworthyproductions.com/

Transcript

Welcome to Stageworthy, a podcast about Canadian theatre and the people who make it, hosted by me, Phil Rickaby. This is episode 308, and it’s just me this week. I’ve been making Stageworthy for over five years now.

I’ve actually lost count, I think it’s five and maybe closer to six. I haven’t been keeping track, I’ve mostly been keeping track of the numbers. I’m in the 300s, that may put me into probably year six.

I’m terrible at keeping track of these sorts of things. But it’s been a long time that I’ve been doing Stageworthy. And, you know, I’ve loved doing Stageworthy, and I still love doing Stageworthy.

But I have to be honest that the last 18 months of the pandemic have taken its toll on me. When this all started in March of 2020, you know, I, like so many other people, thought that we’d ride this out, it’d be a couple of weeks, a month at the most, to be over really quick. But I was committed to bringing you episodes every week.

It’s always been important to me that I set this schedule, a weekly podcast that comes in on Tuesday, every Tuesday, and that I don’t miss a week. This has always been very important to me that I’m consistent, that there’s always an episode, sometimes extras during Fringe, you never know. But it’s always been that important to me that I didn’t just fade away or anything like that, that this podcast would be there every week until I decided to stop doing it.

I have to admit, though, that the thing that’s been the most exhausting in trying to do this during the pandemic has been, it’s actually harder to find guests. People are not really or haven’t been sending out press releases, they haven’t been notifying me of shows that they’re doing. And this is unusual because for the last few years, people have been, especially in the fall, there’s a lot of press releases, it becomes really easy to find guests to come on.

But I’ve had to go and I’ve had to try to find more and more guests. And I don’t mind that. I love discovering new people to introduce you to.

And I love meeting people and getting to have these conversations with them. But it’s still a lot of work to do. And after five, six years, I need to take a little break.

I need to rest and I need to sort of evaluate what stage worthy is and how to keep it vital, how to keep myself, how to keep me interested, how to keep you interested. And that’s an important thing is if you’re not listening, I have no reason to make this podcast. And so it’s been a real challenge both to try to find guests, but also, I have to be really honest with you.

I’ve seen numbers drop as far as listens and subscriptions to the episodes. And that’s a little bit demoralizing too. I don’t just do this for the numbers.

I don’t do this just so that I have huge numbers. But while you’re struggling to try to put something together and working really hard to find guests and bring it to people, it is, I hate to say it, demoralizing to see the numbers drop. And I get it.

I get it. It’s hard because people are tired. It’s been hard to see the theaters closed and people are excited they’re opening.

People are making changes to where their listening habits are. And also, I know that there have been changes to the way that, say, Apple does its analytics and things like that. So the numbers have fluctuated greatly, but it still kind of hurts a little bit.

I have to be really honest with you. Seeing any drop in the numbers and a significant drop kind of hurts. But that’s neither here nor there because I think I would need this break regardless of whether or not I was seeing a drop in the numbers.

Six years of nonstop episodes is a long time. And sometimes if I go on tour, I do a bank of episodes. But even when I’m on tour with my show, doing a show for Fringe or whatever it is, I’m still meeting people and doing episodes.

So it’s pretty much a constant process. And that’s exhausting. And the struggle of finding new people to introduce you to, that’s also been exhausting.

So I’m going to take a break. And I will pop up now and then. I have a couple of things planned.

I’m going to do a couple of live streams in the future. So watch Twitter for that. I’ll be announcing that there, just both on my own platform and on the Stageworthy platform.

And also, I’m not going away. This is not a permanent—this is not the end of Stageworthy. I want to be really clear on that.

It’s not the end of Stageworthy. I just need a rest. And I’m hoping that by resting, I’m going to be taking a look, like I said, at Stageworthy and what it is and what I want it to be.

And, you know, I’ve been thinking about what that is. Also, if I’m rambling, I normally do this sort of thing with a script and I very carefully write down everything that I’m going to say so that it sounds clean and good. I’m not doing that.

You probably can tell that by now that I haven’t written down what I’m going to say here. Because I feel like this is something that—I feel like I couldn’t plan this and make it sound like really honest. And I want to be really honest and open.

So let’s let this be raw and messy the way it is. So I’ve been thinking about what Stageworthy is. And I think what I’m going to do during this little break, however long it ends up being, is I’m going to be looking at, you know, what interests me? What kind of structure can I introduce? Does it need a structure? Is there more of a focus? I’ve kind of been playing around in my mind with it.

Maybe the idea is that it’s a podcast about creativity and the performing arts, and maybe that’s a way of focusing it instead of like a rambling conversation. Believe me, I love a rambling conversation, as you can tell right now. I love—I never know where a conversation is going, and I love discovering where the conversation is going with someone.

But maybe having a focus like creativity and the performing arts might help. But I’m generally going to be looking at how I present Stageworthy, what it looks like, and things like that, so that it’s—when I come back, I have a renewed passion for it and that it’s something that I continue to be excited by and continue to be proud to present to you. I have—like, I want to know what you guys think about Stageworthy, what you like about it.

I want to know even what you don’t like. I’m curious, because I want to make this—I’ve always seen Stageworthy as I am in service to the community, and that’s always—it’s always been important to me that I am in service to the community. If it’s just a podcast where it serves me, then it’s of no use to anyone.

I’m not interested in doing a podcast that’s all about me. So this is an opportunity for me to make sure that what I’m presenting is still of service to the community. So if you have thoughts about Stageworthy and what you like about it, what you think could be improved, I have a survey.

I’ll post that when this goes up as well. But also, like, feel free to reach out if you want to reach out and tell me what you think, because it is important to me what you, the listener, think about Stageworthy, what you want to hear on Stageworthy, that it’s of service to you. And so that’s really what I have to say, is that I’m taking a break.

It’s not the end of Stageworthy, but it is time for a reevaluation and maybe some changes, just to, like I said, just to keep it interesting both to me and to you. I will miss you while I’m taking a break. Trust me.

It’ll be weird not to have this every week, but I need a break. I need a little rest. And when I come back, I’ll be excited and I’ll be happy to be back.

And I will love to see you here. And you know what? I’ve loved having you here as a listener. Every person who listens to this show, I have loved seeing you listen.

Like, I don’t know who you are, but, you know, I could see the listens in the analytics. And I love knowing that people are listening to this. I love it when people do mention this show.

It means a lot that you listen. So I just want you to know that you’re one of the reasons why I keep coming back and keep doing this show because of you, the listener. And so it’s important to me that I’m doing something that you enjoy as much as it is important that I’m doing something that I enjoy.

So it might be a month, it might be a couple of months, but I will be back. And you will, like I said, you’ll see me. I have a live stream planned with Eliza Martin late in October.

So we can talk about her book that’s coming out in November. So watch for that. I’ll announce that officially.

I’ll send out links and things like that. So you’ll be able to listen in on that. That’ll be a live stream conversation via YouTube.

So you’ll be able to watch us chat and talk like that. So keep your eye out because I will be popping up now. And then even when I’m on a break, I can’t, I guess, completely walk away.

But I need a little bit of a break from the weekly production. So like I said, I’ll see you in a couple of months. And the back catalogue will continue to be there.

If you want to have a listen to an episode that you might have missed. And I’ll see you in a couple of months. Thanks for listening to this episode of Stage Relief.

If you’ve enjoyed this episode, please consider supporting the podcast. You can do that by making a donation to the virtual tip jar. You’ll find a link to that in the show notes, which you can find on the website or on your podcast app.

Or you can buy some merch such as t-shirts, mugs, stickers, and more at the online store. shop.stageworthyproductions.com All your purchases and tip jar donations go towards Stageworthy and help me continue to bring you great conversations in Canadian theatre. And if you can’t donate or buy from the store, please consider rating and reviewing the show.

If you listen on Apple Podcasts, you can leave a review right in the podcast app. And if you don’t listen on Apple Podcasts, you can still review the show by going to podchaser.com, searching for Stageworthy and rating the podcast there. Thanks for listening and thank you for your support.

You can find Stageworthy on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram at stageworthypod. And you can find the website with the archive of all past episodes at stageworthypodcast.com. And if you want to drop me a line, you can find me on Twitter and Instagram at philrickaby. And my website is philrickaby.com. See you next week for another episode of Stageworthy.