Lauren Allen

Lauren Allen is a theatre and film artist originally from Saskatoon now living in Toronto. She is a lover of puzzles and a foster mother of cats. She is currently working in communications for the Future Prairie Theatre Project.

www.lauren-allen.net
Twitter: @lesmis456
Instagram: @lesmis456

Support Stageworthy
Patreon: patreon.com/stageworthypod
Tip Jar: tips.pinecast.com/jar/stageworthy

Transcript

Hey listeners, just a quick content warning. In this episode, there is a brief discussion about inappropriate and non-consensual touching. This discussion occurs at approximately the 39 minute mark and goes to minute 43, just in case you need to skip it.

Welcome to Stageworthy, I’m your host, Phil Rickaby. Before we get started, I wanted to talk about truth and honesty. We have an honesty problem in theatre, and I’m not talking about on stage.

We talk a lot about truth on the stage. We want what we portray to be as truthful as possible. We pursue on the stage for a scene, a moment, to be as honest and truthful as possible.

Off stage, there may be many times when we feel like we can’t be truthful and honest. Think about a time when you were unhappy with the way that the audiences were reacting to a show, or even you were unhappy with the turnout of audiences to the show. You felt like the show could have been getting more audiences, but wasn’t getting the audiences it deserved.

But could you say that? Could you post on social media about how disappointed you are? It’s pretty much understood that you don’t, at least not in a place where anyone but your closest friends might see it. You have to publicly remain positive. And if you’re frustrated about things happening behind the scenes, or if there’s something toxic happening in the rehearsal hall, whether it’s from the director, a producer, or even another actor, can we call it out? Do we call it out? Do we talk about it? Regardless of whether or not we should, we often don’t.

We don’t talk about these things, and often it was our theatre school experience that laid the groundwork for that silence. When I was in theatre school, I did not have a great experience. I wouldn’t say that my experience was toxic.

I just wasn’t very happy. And part of the problem was that, to be completely honest, I was one of those students that rode the edge of being cut from the program back when that was a regular occurrence. I’m told we don’t cut people from programs anymore, which is good.

But it was something that hung over my head for the entirety of the three years I was at school. And I wasn’t the only one. All of us knew that we could be cut from the program and that they wouldn’t have to give any reason, and the reasoning if they gave one wouldn’t be questioned.

We went through our days in fear. And so, if we saw problematic or toxic behaviour, we didn’t say anything. We learned not to rock the boat.

I’ve been doing this podcast for about six years now, and occasionally I’ll find out that somebody I’m interviewing went to the same theatre school that I did. And I would ask them, as somebody who went to that school, I’m really curious, I’d ask how their experience was. And they would get this frozen smile on their face, and they would say, oh, it was great.

But I could tell there was something not quite right there, and so we’d just gloss over it and move on. And then afterwards, when the recording was over, I’d ask them again about their experience. And I would hear stories about how their experience was toxic, but they didn’t feel like they could say that out loud, that they couldn’t call it out.

And so they just didn’t. And they tried to put their theatre school experiences behind them, all while it taught them that the most important thing for them to do was keep their mouths shut. How are we supposed to change things when we can’t talk about them? It’s hard enough to be an artist without having to bottle up the truth, without having to bottle up what you’re feeling, like things are not going your way, or when you’re being treated unfairly, or where you just want to be able to admit that you’re disappointed in something.

Like the turnout for a show, as I mentioned before, or a bad review. It’s hard enough to get a bad review for a show. And again, we don’t complain about that.

We take our lumps and we try to let it slide. Even though we want to respond, we don’t, because that’s not how it’s done. That’s not professional.

And so we shrug and pretend that it doesn’t bother us. But of course it does. But we can’t say that it does.

We have to remain positive. And I wonder sometimes if the public, the people who aren’t artists, see this and wonder if we’re being disingenuous. Do we seem artificial to them because we put on that brave, positive face all the time? Does it make it difficult for the non-artist to relate to us? Is that why muggles have this idea that’s so often portrayed in the media that we’re really fake people? I believe that people can when we’re not being honest and when there’s something we’re not saying.

And we know it too. It eats at us. I know it eats at me when I do it.

And I wish I could just say what I’m thinking, but I don’t, because that’s just not what we do. And why isn’t it something we do? Why is that kind of honesty frowned on? Why is it that if I get an unfair review, I can’t say anything? Why is it that if I had a bad experience in the rehearsal hall, I can’t say anything? We need to be able to talk about the toxic things that happen behind the scenes instead of putting on that happy face because we’re afraid of the consequences. Because we can’t change the toxic aspects of the industry unless we talk about them.

But that requires that the industry protects the people who are speaking out. If I have a toxic experience in the theatre school, I need to be able to call it out. If I have a toxic experience in the rehearsal hall, I need to be able to call it out.

And I need the industry as a whole not to blacklist me, but to protect me. Instead, we have to worry that if we speak out that we will be cast out, shunned, all because we dared to speak up. And that’s not right.

It is not right. We can’t keep bottling up all that stuff because there’s only so much you can just push down and try to ignore. And when we reach the limit, what happens? We leave the industry because we just don’t have any more space to push things down.

So people leave the industry because they have given everything they can to an industry they love that doesn’t love them back. And in fact, punish them because they just wanted to be honest. I wish I had an answer to the whole thing.

I wish I knew how to fix it. But maybe, if we talk about it, we can take a few steps towards fixing the toxic aspects of the industry and also be a little bit better to ourselves. I’ll talk about that a little more later in the show.

First, a little housekeeping. And in keeping with the theme of honesty, I want to talk a little bit about Stageworthy. Occasionally when I’m talking about Stageworthy, I will say we, as though there’s a team of people who work on this show.

But there aren’t. It’s just me. I arrange the guests, I edit the show, and I promote the show, and I even created the music.

I also shoulder all of the financial responsibilities of keeping the show going, and I don’t regret that. I love making this show, and I’ve missed creating the show during its hiatus. But in the spirit of honesty, I wanted to be clear that keeping a show like this going isn’t cheap.

And if you enjoy the show, there are a few things that you can do to help me out. First, you can leave a rating, and where it’s possible, you can leave a review. I know I’ve said that hundreds of times, but it’s true.

When you rate a show, it helps new people find it. Second, you can share it on social media. Another option is to join my mailing list.

I send it pretty infrequently, but it is a good way to learn about what’s happening on Stageworthy and in my other projects. You can sign up for it by going to philrickabee.com and filling in the simple form there. Finally, I’m announcing today that I’m launching a Patreon for Stageworthy.

For a subscription of just $5, I will take you behind the scenes on the podcast, do regular Q&A sessions, and even present regular exclusive episodes that you’ll be able to participate in. You can join in at patreon.com slash stageworthypod. Remember, you can find Stageworthy on Twitter and Instagram at stageworthypod, and you can find the website with the archive of all of the episodes at stageworthypodcast.com. If you want to find me, you can find me on Twitter and Instagram at philrickabee, and as I mentioned, my website is philrickabee.com. Now on to my guest.

In this episode, I will be talking to Lauren Allen. Lauren is a theatre and film artist originally from Saskatoon, now living in Toronto. She is a self-described big dork who loves puzzles and Nintendo and is the foster mother of cats.

She’s also a brilliant social media marketer and consultant. She joined me to talk about, among other things, about the future Prairie Theatre project. Here’s our conversation.

How are you feeling? Because I know that you were, you had the Omicron over the holidays. Yeah, I did. I’m feeling fine.

The only thing that I wonder about is if I have fatigue that’s COVID, or if I’m just tired because life is hard. I took this month off to work on my creative projects, so I’m struggling to figure out, is this a side effect, or is this just because my life is structured in such a way now that I sleep whenever I want? I don’t know. It’s funny how quickly you can go from, as soon as you get to that point where you’re like, I no longer have to do anything, and your body goes, thank God.

All of the tension that was keeping you going just sort of washes away, and then suddenly you have to spend a little bit of time napping most of the time. Yeah. I have heard a lot of people talk about how their anxiety used to be the thing that allowed them to function in certain situations.

If you start to treat your anxiety and your depression and those kinds of things, it can become harder to do the things you used to do because you’re no longer motivated by something negative. I’m wondering if that’s happening too. It’s possible.

That reminds me so much of how when I was younger and dumber, I would spend each morning, I would read two newspapers online, or at least skim through, and I would read the Toronto Star followed by the Toronto Sun online. I would say that I read the Toronto Sun to fuel my rage. Then I got old enough to realize that that’s just not doing me any favors.

Get rid of the trash and stop starting every day feeling angry. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely.

That’s like people on Twitter now who are just like, I’m here for anger. It’s like, why? Don’t spend your energy being angry. You only have so much energy in a day.

There’s only so much time in a day. You’re right. I was waxing nostalgic just like yesterday about how I remember when Twitter was a wonderful place.

I remember when Twitter was a friendly place where it was the shared ideas and everybody was friendly and nobody was angry. It was a wonderful, wonderful place. Then everything changed.

I still find, well, I’m also, as you know, I think I’ve worked in social media for a long time. I find that your social media environment is kind of up to you. Yes.

I’ve curated a Twitter space where, yes, sometimes it makes me angry, but it gives me a place to let my anger out as opposed to fueling my anger. It also is full of a lot of ridiculous, foolish things that make me laugh. I mean, that is still one of the great things about it.

You’re right. Especially with Twitter, you can curate your list in a way that, say, on something like a TikTok, you sort of like TikTok will direct where you go. Whereas on Twitter, you’re just going to see what you follow.

And if what you follow makes you angry, that’s kind of on you. Yeah, absolutely. And I mean, lots of people just follow the news and then they’re like, I’m in a rage because the reality of life.

No wonder. Yes. Yeah.

I mean, I remember like, I remember, do you remember the Angelina Jolie’s leg thing from the Oscars years ago? Um, I was not as tuned in at the time. I do know that that happened, but I don’t think I was like on Twitter at the time. I don’t know.

It was like this beautiful moment. And I just remember it that, you know, Angelina Jolie, she came out to present. She had that like that really high cut dress in her leg.

She’s put her leg out like her leg was like right out there. And it was like the thing that was in the forefront, not five minutes after she left the stage. There was a Twitter Twitter account called Angelina Jolie’s leg, and it just said, here I am.

And it was just like, like that’s that’s that was still when Twitter was in its still fun and playful place. And still things like that sometimes happen. So, yeah, I don’t know if you followed the Jean and Jorts saga.

So, so peripherally, but it did make me so happy. The Jean and Jorts thing. Yeah.

So if anyone who’s listening doesn’t know, Jean and Jorts, look up Jorts the cat on Twitter or just Google Jorts the cat, and it’ll probably give you an article summarizing the story. But it’s it’s just a great account about an orange cat who’s maybe not very intelligent, but really, really loves people. My favourite was was like when they were like, oh, yeah, you should get some Jorts merch.

And they were like, you know what Jorts merch is. You go to your local shelter and you adopt an orange cat. And that’s your Jorts merch.

Yeah, absolutely. And now they say like, oh, actually, any cat from a shelter is Jorts merch. There you go.

It doesn’t have to be orange. Just open it wide up. Yeah, that’s great.

That’s great. How long how long have you been doing social media stuff? And what made you start on the social media path? Oh, I started in 2013. So what year is it? Almost 10 years now.

But I started because I was the production assistant with a theatre company in Saskatoon that had just it was the first year of operation. And they were like, hey, you’re young. Can you make us a Facebook page? So I started working on it and I got really into it.

And I was like, oh, this is cool to actually learn how this is supposed to function and how we are supposed to reach people that we don’t actually have contact with. Because it was my first time not using Facebook for like my friends. So yeah, that’s how I got started.

And then I just kept working with different theatre companies. And then when I moved to France, I did a lot of work with entrepreneurs over there and small businesses with the same kind of thing. Like how do we reach people making social media not a stressful part of somebody’s life? Because it can be like I’ve I met so many entrepreneurs who are like, I know how to run my business and I don’t know how to get clients online because that’s not part of my business.

So it was great to be able to help people feel more relaxed and to give them kind of a structure of like, here’s how you can work social media into your everyday life in a way that isn’t stressful and not overwhelming. And then when I moved back to Canada, I kind of became more of a consultant. And that’s what I’ve been focusing on lately is just doing kind of workshops and consulting jobs.

Do you prefer that over the actual like doing? Yeah, running a social media profile takes a lot of energy. And it’s all about, you know, having the voice and the messaging and you have to kind of keep a lot of things in your head. Whereas when you’re consulting, you can leave that behind at the end of the day.

But if you’re running the page, it’s hard to let go of that stuff. So I’d much prefer consulting. Absolutely.

Absolutely. Because I mean, social media can move fast. And sometimes there can feel like the pressure to like, respond to a thing super fast.

So you never really get to feel like you stopped for the day. Yeah, exactly. And you have to, you know, be connected to it so that if somebody sends you a message, you’re right there to respond.

Or if somebody comments on your posts, you’re right there. So I only run accounts for my oldest clients now. I’m not accepting new clients to run pages, but I do still do consulting work and teach workshops wherever I can.

Great. Now, you are, as you say, as you were talking about, you’re originally from Saskatoon, and you’re now in Toronto. But you did go back to Saskatoon just earlier this year, didn’t you? Yeah, I did.

I was working on the Shortcuts 10 Minute Play Festival in November. And then I went back to visit my family for the holidays because I was in Vancouver in December. So I was like, well, I might as well just stop in Saskatoon on my way back to Toronto.

And that’s where the COVID hit? Yeah, well, I got it in Vancouver. And then my symptoms started showing up in Saskatoon. And it was very surprising because the only thing that I had gone to was I had a gathering to see my Vancouver friends.

That was six fully vaccinated people. And I got sick, and another friend of mine got sick. But three people who were there did not get sick.

And then the one person already had COVID and didn’t know it at the time. So I was surprised that I got sick. And then I took rapid tests as soon as I arrived in Saskatoon.

And the first rapid test was negative. I took another one 30 hours later and was also negative. And then 30 to 40 hours after that, I took another rapid test, and that one was positive.

But I’d been symptomatic for days at that point. So it was very surprising. And then my whole family got sick.

And that was the other thing that surprised me. Right. Yeah.

At this point, I know so many people who are getting sick with it. And these are people who are careful, but it’s just out there. Yeah.

It’s very, very contagious. And I’m really glad that my brother and I both have our two shots. My dad had his booster.

I was really worried about my dad because he’s 70. So I was like, oh God, I really don’t want to get him sick. And then I did.

And my mom got her booster the day before she started showing symptoms for COVID. And we were able to get PCR tests in Saskatchewan at that time. I don’t think we would be able to now.

But that’s how we were able to confirm that it was Omicron. And so we all had to isolate over Christmas. There was a day where I was completely isolated in a bedroom in the house.

But then slowly it was like, oh, actually everyone has it. So I guess it doesn’t matter. Well, once you realize that everybody has it, then you could all isolate together and you didn’t have to stay by yourself playing Nintendo or something.

Yeah, exactly. Yeah. So we did kind of have a normal Christmas because the four of us were all in the house together, but we couldn’t go and see anybody else.

Right. Right. I mentioned Nintendo, and I’m just quickly going to bring it up because I remember I was listening to your wonderful interview on Shane Adamchuk’s Good Morning, Mrs. Strawberry.

And you were talking about how you have a love of the Nintendo game, Pimkin. Pikmin, yeah. Pikmin.

Pikmin. Yes, I actually. So over the holidays, my my mom likes to just ask what if questions to, you know, for fun.

So I think she said, what if you won ten thousand dollars or something? Like not like what if you had unlimited money, but just like what if you had some money that made you feel comfortable? And I was like, oh, I would buy some of those video games that I love that I can’t justify buying again because I technically already own it. So like I have Pikmin three on the Wii U, but Pikmin three deluxe was released on the Switch and I can’t justify buying it, but it does have a bunch of new stuff on it that I would like to have. So then my brother for Christmas bought me Pikmin three for my mom.

That’s amazing. Yeah. So now I’m like, oh, I have Pikmin three deluxe and I get to play the new adventures.

I’m so excited. That’s fun. And I remember I almost referred to your that that that that that interview as as the second best, because he was going on about how the first you for some reason he didn’t get the first one recorded.

But you had a really great interview that nobody will ever hear. But you guys got to have between the two of you. Yeah, it was honestly really special.

And I still think about that. I’m like, God, why? I wish it had recorded. But, you know, we got to have a very special conversation between the two of us.

And then inevitably it feels like we we did it right back to back, like he contacted me being like, hey, the file didn’t record. I don’t know what happened. Do you want to just do it again now? I was like, sure.

So it was literally an hour after we had done the original interview and it was just kind of weird. It felt it was sad. I just felt sad.

And I was now if I if I listened back to that interview, I’d probably be like, oh, I’m sad that it’s not the interview we did initially. I mean, that’s that’s sort of the problem is is like once you once you’ve had that lightning in a bottle, you can’t recreate that at all. Yeah.

Yeah. Which is such a common feeling in theatre to that one day where you’re like, oh, I really nailed it, really nailed it that time, really got that whatever I was trying to capture. And then you go back and do it the next day and you’re like, oh, that’s not the thing that I did.

Oh, no. And I think we’ve all been there. And I think the thing that trips us up every time is the fact that that we’re thinking about the fact that we got it that last time.

Yes. Yeah. And somehow that interferes with us.

You know, we’re thinking about the last time instead of instead of like being in this moment. So we mess it up. And then the next performance after that, I didn’t get it last time.

And so you have like a couple of different performances where you’re still thinking about that one time that you got it. Yeah, absolutely. Tell me about the Future Prairie Theatre Project.

Oh, yeah. So this is a research project that’s happening for theatre artists who are either deeply connected to or based in Alberta, Saskatchewan or Manitoba. And we are basically doing 10 Zoom interview sessions with a huge cohort of artists discussing different questions about like our previous session was like, what does community mean? And just asking people their thoughts.

And then all of that information is gathered by a team of researchers. And eventually this research on theatre artists perspectives is going to become like a list of actionable things to do to improve the theatre sector as we move into. Reopening or the new forms that theatre has to take in the aftermath of the pandemic.

So I’m really excited about the potential outcomes. Who knows what it will be in the end. But I’m excited that we’re hearing from so many different people and just asking questions.

How did you get involved with that? I was working with the Saskatchewan Association of Theatre Professionals because I was trying to facilitate some kind of community conversation about the struggles we’ve been going through, particularly in Saskatchewan. There’s been a lot of artistic leadership change, challenge about institutions and how they operate and the harmful ways that some institutions can operate because the systems are rooted in things like white supremacy and capitalism. And they don’t value the artist who is working there.

So I was talking to them and through a different community conversation, I met Taiwo Afolabi, who is the lead researcher in this project. And then he and I ended up connecting and working together on this and it kind of formed and then eventually it finally started. And I’ve had to leave the project a couple of times to do contract work.

So I’m working in communications and he’s the head researcher and he’s working with the research team. And there are lots of great people involved in the project. And it’s done through, well, facilitated by the University of Regina.

Hmm. And I mean, how many of those conversations have you had over Zoom so far? We’ve had five out of the ten that we’re planning. So our next session is January 17th, which is Monday.

All of the sessions take place on a Monday because in theory, that’s when all of the theatre artists will be available. Yes, we’ve done five. We have five to go and then there will be a whole other phase of the research part of it that the artists will not have to be involved in.

And then after the research part of it is done, there will be some kind of publication that goes back to the artists and says, this is what we recommend or this is what you have identified as solutions to these problems. And is it a week? Are they weekly conversations or monthly conversations? No, they’re about bi-weekly because of the holiday. The schedule has been a little bit mixed up.

So we’re going to do back to back in January to get two done in January and then it’ll be bi-weekly again starting in February. Nice. Nice.

And have you been sitting out of those conversations? Are you listening in or participating? Yeah, I do participate as an artist. I was only available for the first three sessions because for the last two sessions, I was in Vancouver working on set. So I wasn’t able to join the meetings because the film industry works Monday to Friday.

So I didn’t hear the last two sessions, but I was there for the first three and it’s been really fascinating so far. It’s been great to watch it grow too. I know that this is an ongoing process and there’s a lot of research being done.

Is there something that surprised you so far in the conversations that you’ve been a part of? I’m thinking nothing really sticks out. I find everyone’s perspective interesting and there’s lots of ways of framing a problem that I maybe wouldn’t have phrased it that way or I didn’t think about it from an institutional perspective. There are some people who work with universities, who work in academia, who work with theatre companies and that’s not my experience.

My experience is working with indie groups, my kind of ad hoc things. So it’s been interesting to just hear like, so this is a problem for everybody and yet we still do that. Do you feel like, I mean, I think I find and I know my experience is in the greater Toronto area, but they generally in the arts, we don’t have enough opportunities to come together and actually talk to each other and just sort of shoot the shit about the business.

We sort of get to do it if we’re in a show with people and then we don’t. Is that something that you’ve seen around as well? I think my experience in the Prairie community is not that there’s not opportunity to talk to people because everyone is kind of able to go to every event because the communities are substantially smaller. So usually if you’re at an opening night, you’ll see a ton of industry people there and you’ll be able to talk to them and they’ll, like most organizations, are represented at those events.

There’s not really someone who’s glaringly missing. So we do have opportunities to talk, but I find we never have an opportunity to speak frankly and to speak openly. And there’s a lot of walls put up because in a smaller community, everyone has influence in some area or other.

Lots of people have hiring influence directly or indirectly. So it’s very difficult to be honest with people when you know that they could be the ones giving you your next job. And that’s a struggle on both sides.

Leadership wants to feel like they’re part of the community and to be able to talk to people about their experiences and what they like or don’t like about theatre and all those kinds of things. But people are so nervous to talk to them because if I say something you don’t agree with, are you going to not hire me? And then there’s only one theatre company that pays enough for people to live, really. So it’s very high stakes.

Every conversation involves a lot of risk assessment, I’ll say. I think that’s definitely a problem everywhere, even in a larger pool of theatre people. This honesty problem that we have where we can never be completely honest.

And I think that it’s not just when we get together. It’s also when we’re talking about a show, like if the audience turnout isn’t what we wanted or the reviews are bad. We can never admit it.

We have to put on that that you have to put on a face. You have to put on like the brave face or whatever. And so we’re never completely honest because A, we don’t want to come across as complainers even when there’s something to complain about.

Yeah, you always want to be grateful. You have to be grateful because not everybody gets to do what you do. And if you have a job, you have to be lucky.

So you have to be grateful about it. But I find it’s not even so much about what shows did I like or not like, but there’s some really high stakes conversations that aren’t being had that involve people’s safety. There are so many known sexual predators in theatre communities across Canada, and people don’t feel like they can name names.

No, because those people often have power and have connections. Yeah. Or you might not know like, oh, do you like this person? Or if you know, oh, you’ve hired this person before.

And it’s not common practice at this point to not take a job based on who else is in the cast, right? Even if you’re like, oh, I don’t like them, you’re still going to do the job because they’re so difficult to get. But it’s really like, that’s been really weighing on me a lot is not being able to talk about like, this person is dangerous. And not just like a sexual predator, like someone might be extremely racist in their behaviour.

And that might be difficult for someone to work with them. But if you’re getting a job, you don’t feel like you can be like, actually, this person is not safe. And I would rather work on a project where they’re not involved.

We don’t have agency in that, you just have to be grateful for any opportunity. And it can be really difficult to bring up those conversations, especially in a small community where it’s like, if I shoot myself in the foot with this theatre company, then that is it. There’s the one theatre company, maybe two theatre companies that can actually pay me enough to live on.

Yeah. That stuff is really damaging. Like if you can’t talk about, if somebody can’t talk about somebody who is a sexual predator, or who is abusive, or just toxic in the rehearsal hall, then even if you’ve been involved in that, if that was directed at you, and you can’t talk about it, you just push it down until you can’t anymore.

And instead of bringing it up, people just leave the industry. Yeah. Yeah, because that’s easier.

Yeah. That’s not going to, I mean, that you’re giving up your career, then you’re not like shooting yourself in the foot, because we’ve seen that when people speak up, they face consequences. Oh, totally.

I have faced many consequences in my life for saying things. Saying things that are not of consequence like that, but also being honest about the way people are treating me. There’s a ton of consequences.

And even the perception of consequence makes it difficult to speak up. So if someone is not active in saying, I’m receptive to this, and I want to know these things. And if you come forward, this is our policy, and this is how it works.

If that stuff isn’t in place, it’s very difficult to say anything other than thank you for this opportunity. I’m so grateful. Yeah.

Yeah. I think that in a lot of ways, and it goes back to theatre school. I think a lot of times in theatre schools, we are primed for putting up with this kind of stuff, right? Absolutely.

In theatre school, a lot of times, I know I’ve heard that they don’t do this so much anymore, but like when I was in theatre school, they would cut somebody from the program, right? You’re just not fitting in, whatever. We don’t see a future for you. They would just cut you.

They don’t have to justify it. They can just say you’re gone. And so you learn early on to be afraid of rocking the boat.

And that primes you for being in a rehearsal hall and keeping your mouth shut when something happens. I don’t know of any theatre program that is not inherently abusive. And it’s not just like, oh, that was a bad instructor, or that’s a bad program.

It’s like, no, they’re structured to be this way. You can have the greatest people teaching, but if this is the structure, it’s going to harm somebody. I think in a lot of ways, it’s sort of like that attitude of when people teach the way they were taught a lot of times.

And not to excuse it, but you were taught in an abusive fashion, and that is what you bring forward as a teacher, right? So you sort of look at it like, well, I went through this, so you’re going to go through it too. And if I have to hear another program talk about, and this was a big thing when I was in school, and I’ve heard it a bunch of times, the whole idea of we have to tear you down and then build you back up. And tearing you down is painful, and they never bother to build you back up.

It’s like they tear you down until you’re a mess, and then they send you out into the world still a mess, but they’ve taken everything you have. Yeah. And that’s one reason why a lot of people leave or don’t continue trying to work after theatre school.

It’s not because they don’t like theatre anymore. It’s because one, it’s a very difficult lifestyle. But two, it was traumatizing.

I remember one of my classmates being forced to repeat the phrase, I’m ugly, to our class until she cried. And she just had to keep saying it over and over again, because quote unquote, that’s how the character feels. But it was not a useful exercise.

It was totally personal. It was very uncomfortable for the entire class to witness, because you can feel that it’s wrong. You’re sitting there being like, she’s not ugly though.

And you want to reassure her. And then there’s no, after that exercise to the point that that student is breaking down, the teacher doesn’t go, I don’t believe this, and I think you’re a beautiful person, and I think you’re so talented. They’re just like, great, you got it, move on.

Right. And I think that is just a completely damaging thing. If you’re going to put somebody through that, and it doesn’t matter if you’re in theatre school or if you’re in the rehearsal hall, we need to take the toxicity out of both of those things.

And when somebody is having that moment, we have to carry through and take the moment to help them through that, because those things are traumatizing. Yeah. Oh yeah.

When I was in theatre school, one of my instructors got somebody to touch me in a way that I was not comfortable with, and I had my first panic attack. And he apologized because I had a panic attack, but he didn’t understand that it was wrong to give my classmates instructions on how to touch me without talking to me about it. He never learned that lesson.

He just was like, oh, you got upset. And the other thing was, I was having a panic attack, but I still finished the scene, even though I’m sobbing and can barely breathe, because I don’t know what’s happening. And I was 18 at the time, so I’m just freaking out.

And I finished the scene, and then this instructor is like, yes, that’s what I want. That was so good. I just said, I’m uncomfortable, and I left the class.

And I know the people came and talked to me, but I don’t remember what happened. And then he apologized to me later, but I could tell you’re apologizing about me being upset, but you don’t have any concept of how inappropriate it is to give actors secret instructions of things to physically do to their classmates to get a reaction. I think that’s been done in both theatre schools and in rehearsal halls.

And that’s why the whole profession of intimacy directors has become so necessary, because a lot of that bullshit has been going on for so long, creating toxic atmospheres. And we need these people to come in and treat it like in a professional manner, rather than some kind of, oh, wild, anything goes. Oh, isn’t it funny how we tricked her into getting that reaction kind of thing? Yeah.

And I don’t understand the mentality of theatre being like a gotcha moment. Like, ho-ho, we tricked you. That’s not what we should be working towards.

We’re working towards building something together. Yeah. All that does is divide people and make people distrustful of each other.

Yeah, it was awful. It was a really horrible experience. I’m sorry I made anybody listening to this podcast go through that experience through my story.

But like, yeah, it was awful. There was, you know, when I was in, you know, starting out and I got into, I was accepted into two theatre schools in Toronto, and I chose one over another. And after I entered the theatre school, there were some people in the year ahead of me who’d gone to the other school that I got into and didn’t accept.

And they told me about an exercise that had been going on for ages at that school. And it was the bathing suit exercise, where the acting teacher and any of his friends or people in other years who he wanted to come would sit in the audience on the stage, and each performer would come in alone on the stage, boys in a Speedo, women in a bikini, and they would be told what was wrong with their body. And that was supposed to be an exercise that you did with the first years for, I guess, to tear you down sort of thing.

But like, that is such horrid behaviour that like, I was horrified that a school, that a professor would do that. But then I hear later on, like, there are private school, private acting classes that still do an exercise like that. Yeah.

When I first heard of that exercise, I was told that people were asked to strip naked, not just to be in a bathing suit, but to be actually naked, to have people evaluate their bodies. And I just, like, who does that serve? Because I, you know, I’ve been having a lot of thoughts about my body lately. Usually the new year is very triggering for that for many of us.

But like, I know my body better than anyone else. And yet people still feel the need to point things out to me about how my body is. And it’s just so unhelpful.

It is so useless because I know what my body is and is not and how I feel about it and how it functions. And if another person, like, I’ve started saying things like, oh, well, I’m, you know, I’m a musical theatre actor, but I wouldn’t be cast in Toronto because I’m too big. I feel comfortable saying that about myself.

Maybe it’s a defence mechanism to be like, that’s why I’m not hired. I’m fat. But if someone else was to be like, well, you’ll never get cast because you’re too big, you know, that would be very upsetting.

Like, I don’t need another person to say that to me. I know. I mean, it’s not like these things are mysteries to us, right? Like, if we have the weight, it’s not like we don’t know it.

Believe me, we know it. You were talking about, like, who does that exercise serve? And you know what? I think we both know who it serves. It serves the teacher.

Yeah. Right? In a really gross way. Mm hmm.

Yeah. Even if it’s even if it’s not sexual and just about power, that’s still disgusting. Absolutely.

I think it can be both. It’s either sexual or it’s about power. Like, I can make you do this.

And then I tear you down by telling you all the things that you already know about your body that you’re self-conscious about. Yeah. Yeah.

What a what a useless way to teach someone about being honest, right? Like, to me, doing theatre is about being truthful and finding the most truthful way to be in a fictional place and time. And it’s so hard to do that if people are like, yeah, but your body is terrible. Or if they’re like, unclear about what world we’re in.

Like, if I don’t know what century the play takes place. Or if that’s not a choice that’s been made, it’s hard for me to be truthful about anything that happens. Right.

Like it’s you have to find the ways to be truthful. And that involves a lot of vulnerability. Yeah.

Which is why it’s so easy for these institutions to be so damaging. Absolutely. And I think the thing that sort of gets me is the fact that, like, when this was said to me, it was said in the safety of, like, nobody else around.

Like, even though these people had left the school, this was not something that was talked about widely, even though it was something that happened every year. And everybody who did it knew it was toxic and nobody said anything. Yeah, I think that still no one says anything.

And like, you know, we haven’t named that institution. I immediately knew which exercise you were talking about. And I’m not saying we should because, you know, this is a recording and people have lawyers.

But, you know, there’s still that fear of just being like this bad thing happened. Yeah. I mean, I don’t I just want to say I don’t I don’t like I was keeping it vague because I’m sure there are other schools that do it.

I’m told they don’t do it anymore. So I’m happy to name the school that was the right. It was Ryerson Theatre School that did that back in the day.

I’m sure there are other schools that have also done it. But like, if it’s a thing that you did, you have to own up to it. And it was toxic and it was shitty.

Yeah. Yeah. And wouldn’t it be nice if people knew how to apologize for those behaviors? Yes.

Yes. But they don’t. So no.

And I mean, it’s sort of like that, you know, I’m sorry, you were uncomfortable. No, that’s wrong. I’m sorry.

We did that exercise. It was wrong. That’s the way you do it.

You have to own up to the fact that it’s wrong. Yeah. And you have to not do it again.

Yes. Yes. If you own up to it and say that it’s wrong and you do it the next year.

Fuck you. I agree. I want to I want to one of the things that that that you are quite open about.

And I just want to jump over to that a little bit. You’ve alluded to panic attacks and things like that. You are very open about about your mental illnesses.

And I think it’s I know you do it because of the stigma and trying to fight against the stigma. And I think we have to talk about those sorts of things, too. Right.

Instead of hiding them, because those stigmas exist because they’ve been hidden. In terms of your mental illnesses, what was the path to for you to being so open about about them or was it a no brainer for you? Part of it was a no brainer in that I am an overshare, which is actually rooted in trauma. So it’s a little bit ironic that, you know, I became an overshare because I felt like I couldn’t have secrets, like like everything that I tried to keep secret was getting revealed.

So I decided to just reveal everything about myself so that I couldn’t risk that hurt. But when I was officially diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder, I did make a conscious decision to be like, I’m going to talk about this because this has been really hard. I have never gone through something as difficult as the there.

I mean, so what I have is actually called complex post-traumatic stress disorder, which basically just means I have multiple traumatic events in my past that caused me to have a stress disorder. And stress disorders are very difficult to live with because things that seem not stressful become very stressful. And things that seem stressful can be like the easiest thing in the world.

Like I’m a person who will run towards a burning building because I’m like, I can handle this. You know, my levels of adrenaline feel good. And I feel like myself when I’m completely stressed out and that’s when I’m most calm.

So it’s a very kind of I’m making a gesture, but you can’t see it. It’s like a very divided way of being. But I just wanted to talk about it because it’s incredibly common for people to have post-traumatic stress or to just have a traumatic event in their lives.

And especially with artists, I find we are over-represented in anxiety and depression disorders. Possibly because we all went to traumatic theatre institutions. And we also don’t talk about it.

It’s another one of those things that we don’t talk about. Yeah. And I’ve found, you know, I’ve had to go through, I’ve been in therapy for many years and I know I have many more years of therapy to come.

Like on average, someone who’s diagnosed with PTSD will be in therapy for 10 years and they’re setbacks to that, that makes it longer. So I was thinking yesterday or two days ago, I was like, oh, the last traumatic event that kind of tipped my illness over the edge happened to me in 2019. So in theory, I’m going to be actively working on recovering until 2029.

And I just can’t fathom that amount of time and having to accept that I will have struggles and setbacks for such a long portion of my life is like really, really hard to come to terms with. And it’s also just like time doesn’t exist right now in the pandemic. So I’m like, I can’t imagine life in three months.

How am I supposed to think about eight years from now or 10 years from now? As far as being open about your mental illnesses go, is there, when you go into a rehearsal hall, is there something in particular that you ask for or want in the rehearsal hall? Because I’m always, I have, I’m sort of formulating this theory that I’ve been thinking about for a while about how to make the rehearsal hall less toxic and how to make it a safe place. And one of the things is to ask people what they need or what they want from the rehearsal process and to make that integral to the rehearsal process. If you were to be in a rehearsal hall and to answer that question, what kind of things would you say? I find check-ins and checkouts really, really useful.

I really struggle with knowing when to disclose about my diagnoses because if I disclose before I get a job offer, there’s a risk that it will cost me the job. And there’s a risk that the theatre company will be perceived to have not hired me based on my disability because it is classified as a disability. I don’t really identify with the word disabled at this moment, but I do know that post-traumatic stress disorder is a disability.

So if they are perceived to not hire me because of my disability, then there’s a whole other list of contentions and issues that can come up and that can be very damaging to a relationship between an artist and a company. So I don’t like to disclose it before I get the gig unless it’s specifically asked. Like if they’re saying we’re looking for people with mental illness, I’ll say I have mental illness.

Or if they’re saying we’re looking for artists who identify as mad, I’ll say I identify as a mad artist. Those kinds of things. But if I can have a check-in and a check-out, I can say things without having to say like because of my PTSD, this is blah blah blah.

I can just say like I had a nightmare last night that has really knocked me out. And then people know that’s the context for my days, that I had a nightmare last night that has really knocked me out. That’s kind of all you need to know about my illness is how it’s affecting me that day, in that moment.

So I appreciate that. So like a check-in at the start of the day and then sort of like an end of day sort of check-out to see how everybody’s doing at the end of the day. Yeah, because sometimes at the end of the day, you can identify like, oh, I feel so good about the way we worked together.

Or you can say like, I’m feeling a bit confused. I have these questions. Or when we did this exercise, I actually felt really unsafe because blah blah blah.

And it’s hard to create that space where people feel brave enough to come forward. I’m actually reading a book called Dare to Lead by Brene Brown. Love Brene.

But it talks about how it’s so important for leaders to understand vulnerability and to be ready to dive into it and to be able to say like, hmm, this was really hard today. And I know that this is stressful. And I’m here for you and I support you.

If you are stressed or if this was a struggle for you today, I understand that and I want to hear about it. Please, let’s talk about how difficult this was. Because the leadership has to be the first to come forward with that before the other people will feel comfortable sharing their vulnerability.

I think people forget how important the behaviour that’s modeled by the leaders affects everything else. How the way that the leader presents themselves to the group and the way that they react to things sets a tone that either encourages people to share or shuts it down. And the leader, and you know what, sometimes like if somebody is like very clearly the lead in the play, they can also do that.

So you can have like a situation where the lead in the show plus the director can both facilitate that sort of thing, right? Can both like set that tone and they both have to do it because if one doesn’t, you’re kind of in a strange messed up situation. Yeah, or any kind of authority, right? Like I, the show that I was rehearsing just before the pandemic, so we never actually opened. We were a week from opening when everything shut down.

I was the most experienced actor in the group, aside from the director, I suppose, but he was a very abusive man and it was awful. It was an awful work experience, but I really took on a leadership role because I was like, I know that this is inappropriate behaviour and I’m the only person in the room who can kind of speak to that and say like, no, in a professional environment, you do not behave this way. Right.

And you know, he had us doing fight choreography with no fight choreographer and with people who had only acted once or twice before in their lives. And I just was like, this is unsafe. This is how a fight choreography should go.

You should run it at 25% and then at 50 and then at 75 and it doesn’t need to get faster than that. Yeah. But he would just, he would just be like, drill the fight, drill the fight.

He would give no instruction other than drill the fight. So I took on that role because I had the authority in the room to be like, no, I’m the person with the experience and I can tell you that this is how we do it and this is not okay. And I would affirm to lots of people in the cast, it’s not okay for him to talk to you like that, just so you know.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I think that’s one of those things that, again, like somebody has the whole like toxic situations, like somebody needs to be able to like say something, right? That’s what we were saying earlier is like the, the, there is the need to be able to call that out. And in a situation where you have that kind of position, you feel free to do that.

The problem exists in, in, in situations where people don’t feel that. Yeah. And I, with this particular example, you know, I tried to talk to other people at the company and say like, Hey, this guy’s behaviour is really inappropriate.

How, how can we have some kind of recourse or consequence about this? How do we protect these people? And there was no, there was nothing in place to do that. The person that I reached out to was like, oh, well, he’s technically my boss. So I wouldn’t feel comfortable hearing any complaints about him.

And I just was like, okay, well, who else do I talk to? And they were like, I don’t know, talk to the board. So I tried to talk to the board and you know, nobody responded to me, but it was just like, you know, this guy is horrible. It’s a horrible experience.

The way he talks to us is horrible. Who do I tell? And there was just no support for that. And I, and I, I even tried to go to CAEA, even though it wasn’t a CAEA house, because he was a member.

And I was like, I know this isn’t a union show, but like who, how, how am I supposed to protect people from this behaviour? If there’s just no reporting system, if it’s just going to be me raging against this person for the rest of my life, like how, how can we use the structures that we’ve confined ourselves to, to actually serve people instead of just being like, oh, well, he’s technically my boss. So I guess, no, you can’t complain about him to me. Too few theatre companies have anything that’s even close to a human resources department where somebody can go with those kinds of problems.

I think too often it ends up being the stage manager or something like that, which who doesn’t really have anything they can do. Yeah, they can, they can listen with empathy, but really what else is there to do? And also it’s, it’s hard in a, in a theatre environment because some people just don’t work well together. I understand as an institution, it can be hard to be like, oh, is this just an interpersonal conflict that nobody’s able to mediate? But like I know of an artist who has around eight complaints against him at the equity offices, but nothing will be done with those complaints because they’re just filed.

And what if, wouldn’t it be great if someone could just see not necessarily the content of those complaints, but if they were hiring that person to just know, oh, this person has eight complaints against them. Right. Yeah.

I mean, the, I think there’s the, again, it comes down to like information shared, right? There’s nobody, there’s nowhere to go with that information. And so we don’t, I mean, this is, this is why, I mean, this is why the shit at Soulpepper happened the way it did. There was no way to go.

So we, again, the industry often sets people up for these kinds of things that we don’t have a reasonable, a recourse because we’re too busy being nice and not wanting to rock the boat. Yes. The institutions serve the institutions.

Yeah. And so we need, we need to rebuild them. We need to rebuild our whole way of thinking about theatre.

And the pandemic has provided some opportunity to do that. Especially when, when people were able to access support from the government. Yes.

In Saskatchewan currently, there are no restrictions, so no one is able to get the government support that is maybe accessible here in Toronto to people who have lost 50% of their wages. That’s not available to people in Saskatchewan at this moment, which is so frustrating. So, and that makes it harder for us to be involved in activism for ourselves and for our industry.

As long as we are forced to struggle to keep our head above water, we can’t do anything else. And that is exactly the point. Yes, it is exactly the point.

I think that part of the, you know, the industry needs to change. And it’s sort of a little bit dismaying to see how there was a brief period of time, summer of 2020, when we talked about some changes. But then we go back to essentially business as usual for a lot of companies.

There have been no structural changes and no examinations really about the issues that they may have. And so the toxic and abusive structures still remain in place. Yeah, I mean, I was a part of one of those conversations about change in Saskatchewan, when the Artistic Director of Persephone Theatre left.

It was a very difficult time for the community, because we had to struggle with, you know, we have a personal relationship to this person, but also knowing that as an institutional leader, the behaviour was unacceptable. And now, the theatre company has new leadership, new things are happening. It’s exciting, but there’s also like a, well, there’s a 13-year legacy from the last guy.

You’re gonna have to fight that for a while. Like the change cannot happen overnight. And we need to see demonstrations of your commitment to the new and to moving forward.

And we can’t see that because theatres still aren’t really open. No, no. Yeah, absolutely.

So I feel like it’s hard to evaluate where we are in this moment, because not that nothing is happening, but because the pandemic is overshadowing everything. And it’s giving people other excuses or framings or whatever. And we don’t have experience with that.

So we don’t know how to analyse it yet. I’m sure in five years, we’ll be like, oh, the pandemic was this time in theatre. But right now, we’re just kind of like, what? It’s because you can’t really examine the thing while you’re in the middle of it, especially when you’re just trying to keep your head above water.

Yeah, exactly. Just in closing, I wanted to ask you about being a foster mother of cats. Oh, my gosh.

The greatest joy. The greatest joy. I actually got two new cats today.

Their names are Polly and Herbie. My favourite part of fostering is learning about that particular cat’s personality. And already, in the first few hours, you can learn some things like these two cats are incredibly curious.

Lots of other cats that I fostered have been feral cats that are being adapted to home life. So they’re not as curious, they’re much more cautious. But these guys are like, what’s going on? What’s over here? What does that smell? Can I touch this? And they also both immediately discovered the mirrors in the hallway, which I fostered 13 cats last year and none of them noticed the mirrors ever.

But these cats are both like, hey, I can see you, but you’re behind me. That’s confusing. So I’m excited.

After this interview, I’m going to let them explore the main room for the first time. And it’s going to be fun to watch them be like, hey, what’s this? Or some cats are like, I don’t care about my environment at all. And I just would like for you to pet me until the end of time.

And some cats are like, I will be under the bed. Will you have a sense what you think these guys are going to be? Oh, yeah. I think they’re going to want cuddles.

I think they’re going to want cuddles and proximity, but not necessarily. I’ve had some cats who were like, I will lay on your chest and rub my head against your face for half an hour. I don’t think they will be quite that affectionate, but they will be like, let’s hang out together.

You’re my friend. That’s nice. That’s great.

Lauren Allen, thank you so much. This has been wonderful. Thanks as always, Phil.