Laura Piccinin

Laura was born to tell stories. Whether as a dancer/aerialist with Tokyo Disney, a playwright and performer for the new Canadian musical, Every Silver Lining, or her solo show, Lesbihonest, premiering at Toronto Fringe 2022, a teacher at the Toronto District School Board, or as a comédienne in Footloose with Just for Laughs, Laura’s unstoppable passion in life lies in telling people all sorts of eccentric stories, whether they want to hear them or not.

Instagram: @lpiccinin

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Transcript

Welcome to Stageworthy. I’m Phil Rickaby, the host of this podcast. This is episode 326.

Remember that Stageworthy is a one-person operation, so not only do I host the podcast, I also arrange the guests. I edit the show, promote it, and I even created the music that you’re hearing right now. I also shoulder all of the financial responsibilities for keeping the show going, so if you enjoy this podcast, please consider supporting it.

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But one of the most important things you can do, even more important than even ratings or reviews or even financial support, is to share it on social media. Even retweeting this episode helps. You can find Stageworthy on Twitter and Instagram at stageworthypod, and you can find the website with the archive of all 326 episodes at stageworthypodcast.com. If you want to find me, you can find me on Twitter and Instagram at philrickaby, and as I mentioned, my website is philrickaby.com. My guest this week is Laura Piccinin.

Laura tells stories, whether as a dancer, an aerialist, a playwright and performer in a musical or play, or as a comedian at Just for Laughs, or even as a teacher. Laura is presenting her show Lesbianist at the Toronto Fringe, as well as other fringes across Canada. Here’s our conversation.

What’s the name of the show that you’re doing that you’re touring for Fringe this year? It’s called Lesbihonest Oh, yes. Well, you did that.

That was a virtual. Last Fringe, was it? Yeah. Last Fringe, it went virtual, but I instead did a written piece, entirely different, called The Suicide Key, because I really didn’t want to perform this virtually.

I need the audience. I need the feedback. I ended up doing for a gig virtually with an excerpt of this show, a 15-minute piece, and it was just torture.

Everybody politely turned off their mics and everything for my performance, but I had no feedback. It’s a comedy. It’s really like stand-up comedy in a storytelling narrative, but it’s like joke, joke, joke.

With no feedback whatsoever, it was honestly painful and a new personal circle of hell for me. Then everybody at the end was like, oh, that’s so funny. Yeah, whatever, but it’s so much better when people are live and engaging with each other, and they hear the person next to them chuckling, and then it gives them permission to laugh a little bit louder and feeding off of the audience, listening to them, what kind of jokes are they into, what part of my voice do they really like, and making those micro-adjustments for each audience so that you’re doing the best show for them.

Anyway, it’s better than no performance at all, and I was grateful for the opportunity, and now I know those people, and I’ll invite them to the next version, the live version, and be like, guess what? This is going to be even better. But that was really hard. This has been the problem with digital stuff is the fact that, first off, there is no perfect performance streaming service, right? There’s nothing that lets us really sort of… There’ve been a couple that I’ve found where the audience can sort of hear them.

When somebody goes up on stage, their volume is automatically lowered, but you can still sort of hear a hum. The problem is that there’s still this lag that you can’t really do anything about, so you’ll hit your punchline, and then it’s dead, and then you go on, and then they hear the laugh. Then the laugh comes in, right? And so it’s just the rhythm is totally thrown off.

There’s no perfect streaming solution for performance. Right, and how do you ever overcome that? Because we’ve spent our entire lives learning how to listen and react so quickly to the audience that to then wait for a laugh track or to talk over it, to ignore it entirely. Yeah, well, then they’re going to miss the next part.

That’s the problem, and it’s always like the lag between punchline and the streamed audience reaction is long enough that you feel like an idiot just sort of sitting there in silence, hoping that laugh is ever going to come. Right, right. I know.

I felt like a total idiot in this, doing this show. Anyway, it ruined my flow because there should be a natural pause in places where people laugh, and then you stop, breathe, regroup, and then kind of change direction, but when there’s nothing there, you really have to force a shift, and it was just really, really hard. Again, everybody was generous, but people will tell you you’ve done a good job even if you didn’t do a good job.

No, I know. It’s hard to say if they really enjoyed it or they were just feeling like you did a thing. I always feel like people aren’t good at lying about this show.

If they didn’t like it, they rarely say, I loved that. No, but they’re like, thank you so much. Great job.

What great energy you had or something like that. Exactly. It’s all typed in Zoom.

They’re not saying it to me. You can lie really well in text. Oh, sure.

And they’re like, got to go. Thanks for the great evening. You were hilarious.

Bye. I hope they were real compliments, but I couldn’t help but think, how did you get that from what I just did? Because it felt so bad. I know when I’m on stage, if I’ve delivered a good performance, I know.

I feel good about it, even if the audience, no matter what the audience thinks. Sometimes I’m like, I did a good, that was good. But more or less, it’s really about how the audience reacts.

And then I just know, I know it was good. I don’t need anyone to tell me afterwards that it was good. I heard it.

I heard them hear me. So never again, but I’m glad I didn’t, quote unquote, waste this show trying to do it virtually. And I’ve now bumped it.

I got into Fringe for 2020. So I’ve now bumped it for two years. I’m glad that it looks like this year, we’re going to be able to Fringe in proper.

And they’re even doing maybe a capacity limit, which is good for me because I’m in the factory studio space. And I think it seats like 90 or something like that, which is a lot to fill the Fringe run for a solo show. And so it’ll be nice to at least in my head be like, well, it’s going to be like 70% capacity.

So even when it looks empty, it’s full. And I can feel better about that. And then if they remove the cap, I’ll just pretend it’s still there.

Yeah, there you go. Or maybe you will sell the hell out. That’s also a possibility.

That would be fantastic. If everybody who hears about my show comes to see it, I would be thrilled. I am calling in all of my favors because I do wake up in the middle of the night going, nobody’s going to be there.

That is the solo performer’s nightmare. And it started two years ago. If it’s the first time you’re performing the show really live.

For me, the first time I performed my solo show was just like, I wanted to vomit the first day of the performance. This is the first time an audience isn’t like close friends has ever seen it. And I spent the whole day on the verge of like, this could be the moment where I throw up like just so, so nerve wracking.

And then I did it. And I was like, huh, that was good. Yeah.

But like, right up until then, you’re just like, I could throw up. This is not going to go well. I did a 15 minute version of this at the Hamilton, Hamilton.

I guess I did a 10 minute version there. And then I did, there was another queer on stage where I did a 15 minute version of this. And when I went to go do the 15 minute version 15, I was like, I have never memorized 15 minutes of a solo show before.

Like, I don’t know if I’m going to remember this. And I really panicked about, and then it’s autobiographical. Like I know what happened in my own life.

I also know the order. So I don’t know what I was so panicked about truly. But then I got on stage, it flew by, it went so well.

And then I immediately got off stage. And I ran to the script. I was like, I missed something that was too easy.

I missed something. And I didn’t. And it was fine.

And it was totally fine. But now this is like, three times longer. So I have this, the fear has not, I didn’t learn anything from that.

And I’m still afraid that I’m not going to remember the order of the show, and what I want to say. And now I’ve done it so that in like, earlier on the show, I set up a joke or something. And then later, I have to rely on myself to have set that up for the punchline or for some sort of resolution.

And that’s what I’m most nervous about is that I could go up on stage and vamp for an hour easily. And but what I want is a structured show that has that, you know, all good stand up comedy pieces, like the Netflix specials, they always the ending joke wrap something up so nicely, it always call is calls upon something earlier in the show. And those are my favorite ones, because a you know, it’s the ending.

So it it sits nicely as an ending. And then people know the show is over, even though they don’t know what time it is they know. And so the worst thing is to that instinct when the show is over to be like, and that’s it.

Like when you’re in a presentation and oh my god, you have to qualify the ending with and we’re done. Yeah. Oh my god.

Oh my god. There’s nothing worse than like when the show ends, the lights go down, the show ends. And there’s that pause for the lights go down.

Right. It’s just kind of like, I don’t know. Is this just a dramatic pause? Or is this the end? And I want to avoid that.

And also, isn’t it cool when you wrap something up really good? It just Oh, it feels good. And I thought I have to justify standing up here and talking about myself for 50 odd minutes. I’m saying the show’s 50 minutes, but I actually haven’t like really run through it at speed.

So I hope it’s 50 minutes because they just asked today for us to tell them. But I have to justify why I’ve been standing up here talking about myself for 50 minutes. There has to be an ending worth walking away going like, that was good.

That was good. You know, it the ending really matters. It Yeah, like it solidifies how people feel about the entire thing.

One of the difficulties that I had in like, like the like learning my show the first time was the fact that, you know, going into it, I was like, it’s gonna be a piece of cake after all, I wrote it. And then as I was like, trying to do it, I was like, Oh, you know, you use a different part of your brain for writing a thing than you do for learning a thing. And it I ended up having to like, it’s so bad.

It’s so bad. I had to record myself. Yes.

And listen to the show, like you would if you were learning like an album on repeat, until I learned that and then I could stop and then I’d be able to like deviate and perform it better. But just for the lines. Yeah, just the lines.

Yeah, I might do that to my strategy for the 15 minute is to memorize the order of the paragraphs because I know the content pretty well. It’s the order. Yes, I would like I would say okay, brother paragraph, okay, tree paragraph, okay, parent paragraph, grandma paragraph.

So and then I would just label the paragraphs and then remember the order of the paragraphs. And then because I like to and like you were saying, like deviate and go with how I feel like I want to tell the joke on that particular day. I am very bad at remembering specifically how I worded something one time, if it really was that good, my brain just remembers it naturally.

And I and then that comes out. So if I have to work at remembering the order, it’s not going to work. But so just memorizing the chunks of ideas in a row and then freestyling it makes me feel better.

Also, I’m very bad at rehearsing. I refuse to rehearse. I that might not be a good thing.

And we’ll see how it goes. But it’s, I’m, it’s a little scary that I’m starting with Toronto fringe, the one that kind of means the most to me. And I know everyone here and I’m inviting important people.

And then I’m going to Saskatoon and Kelowna, which would have been great places to workshop this if fringes were in a different order. No, I have to pause for one second. I have a visitor at the door.

Okay. I think I heard somebody barking. Hi, sorry about that.

That’s okay. I think I heard here. Oh, was it? I thought it was.

I thought that’s why the dog was barking. Yeah. That dog barks every time someone comes into the hallway.

It’s lived here for two years and it hasn’t figured it out yet. Is it going to be too bad on the recording? Not at all. That’s okay.

I like to, I like to say that it’s, it’s okay. Like I acknowledge, we have to acknowledge that, that, that we live in the world and, and people don’t usually have their own studio soundproof and things like that. And normally when I do voiceovers, I’m in the closet.

But, but it’s super uncomfortable. So your show, your show, Let’s Be Honest, just to use that as a segue. Tell me about, tell me about Let’s Be Honest, as we’re talking about closets.

Right, exactly. So basically it’s just the story of my coming outs, which are ongoing and plentiful. And you know, at first it was, the reactions were much more stressful and varied in a more negative way, which later became very funny.

Especially since they were so different. Everybody had an, everyone who had a negative reaction had a unique and interesting negative reaction that now is very, very funny to me. And then as I moved on and got older, the reactions got a little bit more bizarre and less awful.

And then even though to this day, people react all over the board. It’s mostly because they think I don’t look quote unquote gay. So that, that there’s a dissonance there.

And you and I’ve talked about this before, but my mother is still in that place where she, she just doesn’t quite believe me. She, she, she gets it. She’s met my girlfriend.

She is, as far as I know, accepting, but she just doesn’t quite believe it because she had this idea of what gay people are. And she had an idea of what I am and they just can’t merge. She won’t, she won’t.

And so I don’t know where that’s going to lead us ultimately, but I mean, that’s a fine place to be. I don’t care if that’s where she lives for the rest of her life. That’s good.

So, and then there’s this other thing that you and I have also talked about before is this shift, this paradigm shift in the way society sees gay people and queer people in general and how now it’s almost like, who cares, you know, whatever you want. And it almost feels like we’re being gaslit into thinking it was never a big deal when for a very long time, it was a very, very big deal. And that shift has been emotional to, to experience that from the nineties through to present day, that crazy shift in the way we are perceived and the way we perceived ourselves.

I think it took, I was behind the times in some way of the way I see myself. And that lag had an emotional cost to it. And so now when I come to people and there’s almost no reaction, then I’m like, well, yeah.

And I don’t know how to react when they react. Well, I’m almost expecting a dramatic reaction because that’s what I’ve gotten for so long. And the dramatic reaction almost validates my emotions and experiences that predate that, you know, of, of coming out to myself over and over and over again.

And now when people don’t have a reaction, I’m like, well, you know, it was, it was hard. And yeah. And I feel like I want to explain everything to them and they don’t, they don’t care.

They don’t want to know. They know, they know gay people. They have, they have seven gay friends already and, and it like becoming inconsequential is like, wow, that was a big shift from, from me being 15 years old and absolutely locking down the thought of being gay.

I realized I had an attraction to a teacher of mine and I was so upset with myself that I completely locked down the thought and shoved it away for years. And then I didn’t come out to people until I was 23. There’s this, this, that, you know, you talk about the, the, the, the difference, obviously there is still like, because people don’t think you look gay, then there’s still the need to come out.

Right. It’s like all the time we’re not, we’re not at a, we’re not quote unquote, there until it doesn’t matter that somebody, that somebody doesn’t have to wear the uniform. Yeah.

The straight until proven gay. Right. Right.

Yeah. And that, that is continuing to come out is integral to my sense of identity, which I didn’t realize. Again, this was another shift.

I was single for a long, long, long time. And I, my family and my friends and the people around me knowingly or unknowingly kind of put me back in the closet because they were like, if I wasn’t constantly proving I was gay, then I was straight, you know, because the assumption just kind of like went back to their original feelings of me or ideas of me or strangers, like strangers perceived me as I’m always perceived as straight until, and even when I’m talking about my girlfriend, my girlfriend, my girlfriend, my girlfriend makes me breakfast, my girlfriend, this, my girlfriend, that, and people are like, you have great friends. Is it the way I’m saying girlfriend? Like, I don’t know how to, I don’t know how to continue to move forward in this conversation, but these are not my friends.

And so, yeah, it’s really, I feel the need to continue to come out to people so that I feel good about myself. And I wonder if that will change in time. I hope it does, but it being single and not being gay out loud was very sad.

It was sad. And I, and I, and I didn’t like it and I didn’t feel good. And I don’t know if that’s a society thing, if it’s a me thing, or if that’s something that could possibly change.

Well, I mean, perhaps there’s something about the fact of how hard you lock that down at 15. Yeah. Right.

That now is like. Any kind of, any kind of lock-in is like, no. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

That’s very true. What was, what was, in terms of like coming out of the closet for yourself, what was that process? What, like, was there an instigating moment? Was it like, how did you, what was the determination if you’d locked it down so hard? Yeah, I, there were a couple, and like I said, I keep coming out and I keep reinventing, like, I’ve gone through so many of the letters. It’s, it’s ridiculous at this point.

But the first, the first realization was to myself at 15. And then two years later, I did sort of come out to my, three of my best friends, one girl and two guys. And I, the, my girlfriend was, her reaction was unmemorable in the way that she was accepting, which now thinking about it, I’m like, I don’t know where she got that from, like where she learned to be accepting because she grew up the way I grew up.

And she, she must’ve in the moment overcame it and went, oh, okay, good. But when I came out, then it felt more like a confession of like a weird kink. Like I was, I was saying I was bi, but really what I was saying was, or how it was received and what I felt was that I was saying I was straight, but I have this weird thing where I also think girls are really hot.

It felt like I was disclosing a sexual kink. And my two guy friends reaction was very much in that vein where they were, where their reaction was like, oh yeah. Like, and I thought, oh, well no, this isn’t me.

I’m not going to keep telling people this. Like, and they were fine. I mean, it’s not their fault.

Again, they grew up in the same way that I did and they weren’t trying to be gross, but it did irk me to be seen that way. And then I didn’t tell anybody for another like six years where I just, and I also wasn’t a practicing bisexual. I didn’t do anything.

I just, and that’s what made it really feel like this confession that it was very like, I know I shouldn’t, but I’m a little bi. And, uh, and then I watched the Ellen DeGeneres is sitcom from the nineties, not her state, not her talk show, her sitcom, where she, she dated a girl and they were like holding hands and they’re sitting on a couch and they had dinner to get together. And I was like, oh my God, if that’s gay, I am so gay.

And that was the first time I was 23 years old. I was halfway through university when I first saw a lesbian couple doing normal, like heterosexual things in a relationship that was not based entirely on sex. And I was like, oh, I’m so gay.

And that, that realization made me want to tell everybody. I knew I woke up the next day. I’m like, I’m telling everyone.

And then I did. I went in a, on a, like a campaign to tell everybody. Because as soon as I understood myself as not this like sexual deviant, which of course is what we’ve been taught religiously and otherwise for so long, as soon as I figured that out, I needed to tell everybody because then, then all of a sudden I was very proud of myself.

And I was very, I was, I was very enlightened to think that I had love for other women, not just, not just seeing them as sexual beings. It almost felt like I was being like, uh, like gross, you know, sexualizing women like that, you know, you know, kind of playing into that, the patriarchy of like, aren’t these people hot? Don’t you want to do stuff with them? Like it, it felt like I was playing into that at first. And then I realized, no, it’s love.

I love these people. I want to cuddle with these people. Aren’t they so soft? Like those things are so much easier to identify with for me and to be proud of, and then to tell everybody about.

And then I realized as I started telling people is that like, no matter how I felt about it, their feelings about it really were the way that it was reflected back to me. Um, so it didn’t go totally great, but that’s what compelled me to tell everybody is that I felt good about it and it, and it landed in me and being like, oh yeah, it’s about love. You know, the, the, you know, there’s that, that, that attitude you described that came from the church.

Um, I think you mentioned last time we talked about this, that you were raised Catholic. And of course it’s, it’s, it does happen in the Catholic church and it happens in a lot of other churches, that discussion about, about what gay means and it, uh, that’s one thing that I think hasn’t changed much. Yeah.

And I still don’t recall if I was ever taught explicitly that gay was bad only because I would not have called myself gay until I was 15. So I don’t know if up until that point, anyone is actually explicitly saying things, but I internally knew it. So whether or not I heard it or it was just kind of known, that’s how I felt, you know? Yeah.

I think those things, those things are, are, are disseminated, um, not through lessons, but through attitudes and comments until you get to be teenagers. And then they start telling you, you know, they start talking about abstinence and, and all of that other stuff. Uh, but it’s never like when you, when they never tell children that it’s just like sort of just attitude and comments, right? But somehow I knew it was so bad that I couldn’t even discuss it with myself.

You know, like in my journal as a kid, I was addressing it as the problem, you know, I, so somehow even without being explicitly told, or if I was, I don’t remember it, I still had such a disdain for myself, which was unusual because I, I thought I was great. You know, I was a child, you know, I had nothing really to compare myself to. I had, I didn’t think I was immoral.

I didn’t think it was particularly moral either, but you know, like I, there was, it didn’t come from like a life of self-loathing and this was just one more thing. This was the only thing I really detested and was disgusted with. And it’s like, how, how did I know that? How did I feel that? And it has to have been the way I was brought up either through the church or at home or school.

I know I went to Catholic school. I went to Catholic high school, elementary school and university, which was sort of a by accident. But, and, and I was, you know, singing in the choir.

I was, I was very involved with the church mostly because I was so bored in church that there was like, I hear some other activities, but because I was in the choir and what are they called? Like altar girls. I had to then like rehearse those roles. So I was actually in church like more because I was so bored in church.

I had to find an activity which required a rehearsal. So I was there a lot. Now you mentioned, I mean, this is not your first creation of your own work.

Your, your every silver, every silver lining was like a musical that you created for Fringe 20, with 2018? 2019. 2019. What is time? I always forget.

What is time? What is time? So, you know, there was that, there was that, that show. And then what, what sort of inspired you to start working on a solo creation and, and how do you feel about creating, creating solo work right now? Yes. Thank you for asking that.

Okay. So I started with this open, open, open, I think it’s Cass Van Wick and another girl she works with whose name escapes me right now. I don’t even know if they’re still doing this, but it was a juried, come test out your work, you know, show us something you have.

And I can’t remember if I’d already written it down, or if I was just dabbling in standup comedy, where I was writing five minute sets. And then it, it came out this, this stuff about coming out, came out and I started putting it together, but I did a 10 minute version of this. And there, it was juried with Derek Chua was one of the juror members.

And at the end, they give you feedback. And he said, you should make this Fringe show. And I was like, and then, you know, two weeks later, I was like, I’m going to make this a Fringe show.

And then I just started gathering point form thoughts and jokes and it’s big long document. And then I, after Silver Lining reapplied to Fringe and got it. And then that was two years ago.

And this is carried over. And then you would think because I had so much time that I would have finished the script much earlier. No, no.

It was only, I only finished it like last month. I had it in point form for years, just sitting there ready to go. And, but I was worried about the ending.

I was, I had it mostly finished and I was worried about the ending. And then I finally, I figured it out and I’m good. And so I’m very happy to do this.

And now because of this, I’ve had this massive shift in the way I see my career. And I’m noticing that I admire more the people who have taken hold of their careers and figured out their mediums and then leaned into them, create their own work, get it on the stage, get it in the podcast, get it on YouTube. You know, like I’m really starting to think that’s a viable option for me.

And I’m caring less and less about the institution of the theatre industry and more about what do I want to do and what showcases me in my best light. You know, because I go for auditions for ensemble roles and don’t get them. But even if I did, it’s like, is this the goal? Is the goal the word on my resume of the theatre that I did or the festival that I worked for? Is that the goal just to get another theatre on the resume? You know what I mean? And it, at first it did seem like a lot of fun and sometimes shows are fun being in the ensemble, like Footloose was great.

That’s very fun to be in the ensemble, just dancing your life away. But I don’t know, being on stage front and center in the way that you want to be seen, you know, you never really have that kind of creative control with another project because what are the odds that you’re going to be cast in the exact role that shows off exactly what you want to show off right now in your life. And I’ve been mentored by this girl, Stephanie Moore and Robert, and she is a solo touring artist who has never auditioned for anything in her life.

She has this brilliant niche because she lost an eye as a two-year-old to cancer. And so she has this great story of her life living with one eye. It’s popping out all the time in gym and, you know, and she does this show where she takes out the eye and she, you know, has this projector that she’s close up to.

She like sings a little song with the eye socket. She glues her old eyes onto her face, making little puppets. It’s hilarious.

People sometimes faint, but they’re warned in advance. But so she has this entire thing. Her whole career has been based off of, first of all, touring the fringe circuit, getting buzz from there, moving on to independent theatres.

She tours the schools. She is all over the world doing this, getting grants, doing over and over and over again for at least 10 years. That’s what she’s done and completely self-sustained.

And I thought I could definitely handle that if people like the show. I mean, the thing is the first off, I can tell you from my own experience that after performing my solo show, that shit’s addictive. Yeah.

Right. Like glad to hear that. Like I remember I finished my first run of the show at the Hamilton fringe and it was over and I was like, when can I do this again? Sign me up again.

Because you know, you, how often do you get the opportunity to have something you created to take people on a journey that you’re taking them on? And it’s all just you and maybe, you know, that’s ego, but that high is high. Oh, it’s a big high. Somebody’s going to love it.

You know, somebody’s going to love your work. Somebody might not, but those people just leave and you never hear from them again. You hear from the people who love your work, you know, and that just really jacks you up.

And did you feel when you finished your first solo show that you wanted to write another solo show or you wanted to do that same one again? Oh, I knew that I was going to write other solo shows. 100%. I knew that, that it was medium that I was attracted to as far as like doing for fringe for show shows and stuff like that.

And, and you know, it’s not the only thing I’m going to write and create, but let’s face it. If you’re doing fringe and you’re doing a fringe tour, there is a reason why people do a lot of solo shows on the fringe. And that is because they’re very easy to tour.

It’s so easy to tour. I’m by myself and, and I have no, I’ve almost no props, no set. And my technical cue, my technical, yeah.

Cues are like lights on. Yeah. That’s it.

That’s it. Two cues. And so it’s so easy.

I’m like a fourth on the wait list for Victoria fringe. And I’m just waiting for like the day before fringe starts for them to be like, we don’t have, we got a spot open. And I’m like, I’m here cause I’m already in, in Kelowna at the time.

So I’ll be, I’ll be right there. I’m, I’m really like at the door of Victoria fringe because I really, I really want to do it. And right now from where I am, I think I want to tour this show maybe for a couple of years before writing a whole new one.

One of the things I am not good at is a writer is creating things from scratch. And it’s something you have to practice of course, but I’m really good at taking stories that have actually happened and then writing them into shows. That’s, that’s kind of my jam.

Even silver lining was very much things that happened in mine and Allie’s life. And we just organized them into characters and then, you know, set it to music. And so that’s my skill.

And I have some other stories to tell, but you know, an hour is a long time. And even putting together an hour of queer stuff is only possible because it’s taken 15 years to live this and then 50 minutes to summarize it for an audience. So as it stands, I don’t have an idea for something that’s like that I would create.

However, I did apply to a residency in Georgia in the States, which I’m a little nervous about being in the States, but that’s another thing. Um, to at the end of the fringe tour, because I think I’m going to be a different person when I finished that tour, even though it’s only three destinations, but I’m still, I’m going to be different. Listen, it’s every fringe tour is its own thing.

And every fringe tour is a rollercoaster. And every time you go to a new place, nothing that happened before matters because you’re in a new place and it’s like, you’re hitting the reset button every time you show up and you have to figure out what is this? Do the people at this fringe line up? Do they, is there, is it a flyer in culture or do they not like flyer? Like you have to figure that stuff out fast and you do. Cause the people, the people will tell you, um, like for example, Montreal, when I was there, they don’t line up.

They just show up in time for the show. So you have to like, if you’re going to fly or a show you go for when the audience is coming out and you’re sort of running back and forth trying to hand out flyers after a show, it’s, you have to figure out what works. And that’s interesting.

Cause this is the first time I’m hearing, Steph told me this like two weeks ago, but this is the first time I’m hearing of this flyering thing. I don’t know what’s wrong with me, but I totally miss, I miss that. I had no idea that people did that.

Apparently it’s a big thing and it’s important. Exactly. But the funny thing about doing silver lining is because the cast was like 13 people, uh, marketing was not top of mind because with 13 people, you’re naturally going to draw a crowd because those people invite everyone they know they come.

We had a pretty solid run both at fringe and next stage without really doing any marketing, some, but very little. Now with the solo show, that is my number one priority. I’m getting buttons.

I’m getting fridge magnets. I’m getting those little postcards with my face on it. Then the imaging is really important.

It has to be my face. What is this? What’s the leg? What’s the visual I’m going for? Again, Steph has the eye. It’s all about the eye.

She has her eye in her hand. She has the eye on her forehead. She’s got, you know, she it’s the eye, all of her buttons.

It’s an eye, you know, it’s that such a, such clear branding. What’s mine? What am I doing? Okay. It can’t be.

I, Steph has eyes. Uh, what is it? You know? Yeah. So coming up with that and then literally standing in line at other shows, Steph was saying, pick, pick a top show at a certain venue and go, you know, here’s the, here’s the problem with that.

I saw this one year, the year I was on tour with, uh, uh, one of the companies that I was involved with Keystone theatre, we were touring across Canada. We were in Winnipeg and we were like, we are going to flyer at the Peter and Chris show. And so we were ready to go.

We had our flyers in hand and we were walking towards the line for Peter and Chris. It’s like opening day. And they have a big line because they’re a big draw.

And we saw as we were approaching every single fringe artists descending on that line. And we thought, we can’t, we don’t want to be just, we can’t do that to these people. And you know, so it’s like, you have to, you want to hit as many lines as possible.

You also need to be good to the people. Yeah. But you know, I would sort of leads into another thing that I wanted to talk to you about because you mentioned to me that you’re what you call an unexpected introvert.

I have to tell you that flyering is the biggest challenge for me when I go when I’m doing stuff because it takes so much for me to go to that line. Like if you were to spot me before I go, I’m probably sitting just away from the group. I have my head between my knees and I’m trying to breathe and calm.

And then I get up and I do it. But like it’s hard for an introvert. That’s why I refuse to get TikTok.

I mean, it’s part of it. Like the other advice I’ve been getting is, you know, TikTok your way through this tour. It finds your audience, you know, and, and go, go for it.

It’ll be interesting. And I just, I can’t, I just can’t, I cannot, I can’t. But even the flyering, like that is a imposing myself on people is really difficult.

And I feel like even extroverts, but you know, some people are really good at that, but it’s so hard for me to assume people want to talk to me or to bother them while they’re already doing something else. You know, I don’t love to be bothered. Although sometimes I do, I don’t mind.

I mean, I like, I, the thing about me being introverted is more about my, I really, uh, what’s that word? Like I, I, I heal and recharge alone. I could, I need 90% alone time. Listen, the, the, my whole plan, like when I’m, when I’m doing this to fly or first off, I know my pitch before, like I’ve rehearsed my pitch.

I know what that is before I go, you can’t make that up on the fly. And then you hit the line, you do it, but you never do the line right before your show. Okay.

Cause you need that energy, especially as an introvert. So you’re, you do, you do the, maybe the one before the one before your show, but don’t go straight from a line to your show. Cause you’re already going to be drained.

Right. And it, I, I want to think of the audience all as people I’ve never met. I don’t know how this fits in, but I would much rather perform for strangers.

I have this thought, like some secrets are better off told to strangers. Sure. It’s there’s something about, this is why my family’s not invited to the show and they’re happy not to come for the exact same reason.

It’s that it’s too, it’s too hard to cater the show for the person, you know, in the audience, you know, and you’re not, you don’t do it consciously, but if I knew my mom was in a performance, I would be doing the show with that in mind and, and changing the show as it’s happening to acquiesce to, to her and her needs. And I know that if I meet the people in line right before the show, that’s enough for me to be like, wonder what that guy’s thinking or like, you know, no, I, I don’t look at the people lining up for my show. Yeah.

I would not, I would be in the back by myself, you know, I just, I just need to, I just need to not like, I want to get into the venue before the line happens, or I want to be in a spot where I don’t have to see them and I can get in. I don’t know necessarily who’s there. Maybe I’ll find out after this show, but it is, there’s so many things that you have to do to shield yourself.

And you know, the fringe can be so social and so importantly social, right? That, that you need to, as an introvert, you need to make sure that you build into every day, the time you need in increments to recharge from each thing you do. Right. And then force yourself as a solo artist to go out and do it because it’s so important that that is, like I said, my number one challenge is this marketing, getting out there, talking to everybody, tell people about the show, get them to the show, get them because the other nightmare is that no one’s going to be there.

And that’s worse, the nightmare of talking to people or the nightmare of no one being at the show. Well, if nobody’s at the show, you don’t make any money. Right.

And I’m putting money into this. And it’s so fun because like I said, there’s no props. I don’t need, I don’t need anything for the show.

And yet I’m spending, I’m doing photo shoot after photo shoot. I’m doing like paying a graphic designer. I’m paying somebody to do the marketing.

I’m paying for paid ads. Like it’s very expensive to do a solo show on the marketing, the marketing aspect. But the marketing aspect is so important regardless.

And a lot of times it’s good that you were thinking about it now because believe me, there are a lot of times, you know, I’m doing this podcast, you know, I, I, I get people approaching me to, to talk about their show and they will approach me like two weeks, a week, three days before the fringe starts. And it is too late. It’s too late.

Yeah. It is too late. I don’t, number one, I don’t have time.

I don’t have time. And then also like, if you’re just thinking about this now, you have not planned your marketing very well. It’s so important to do what you’re doing now and to be thinking about that.

Yes. And I learned that from fringe 2019 with silver lining is especially with fringe, Toronto fringe, they back end everything very nicely, but I think they should warn people earlier. I think at the beginning when you’re accepted, they should say, Hey, we really push you to get things done.

And you need to have your show written by February because in March, we’re going to need answers, you know? I’m going to give you, I’m going to give you some of the best advice that I got when I was, I was on the tour. I was, I was, when I was out East, I was doing a couple of maritime fringes and, uh, uh, the artist, uh, Gillian English, uh, who doesn’t really do Toronto fringe anymore, but she’s a brilliant performer. And she, she, one of the first things that she said is as soon when I create a show, before I write a word, I think about how my, my market that show, can I invent a strong image? And I don’t necessarily do it right before I write the show, but as soon as I’m done, I’m thinking about the image.

It’s so important to, to have that early so that, you know, the show needs to be finished. Maybe there are a few exceptions, but the show in my, for good, especially not even just marketing, because I guess you could come up with some strong images, but I needed to know how the show ended to know what the show was about. What’s your line? What is the main of this piece? Because I go all over the place because it’s 50 minutes.

I talk about a lot of different aspects of queer culture and shift and all that stuff and myself and dating and blah, blah, blah. What is the thing? And without knowing the thing, how could I come up with the, like the tagline? How could I come up with the pitch? If I didn’t know what I was resolving in the show. And so I, I knew from two years ago from silver lining that I needed to finish the script before any of that was done.

And even though the script is finished, I still don’t know how long it is. They, again, today they asked me it’s April 25th. It’s not until July six, but today they said, how long is the show? And I was like, I don’t know.

And it’s finished. And also I know there are people out there who don’t have their show finished. Well, you know, the funny thing is, is that there, you know, a lot of fringes they’ll do that.

And they need that’s partially to help them with scheduling and also because they got to get their program to the printers earlier than we all think. Right. It’s so insane.

We don’t think about those sorts of things. The image was due today, you know, and I was thrown off, which was irritating to me because I had two years to plan and I knew this was going to be a problem. And when the form came out three weeks ago, I was like, and I panicked.

And anyway, the image turned out fine. But I learned a lot from doing that image. Like that’s not the one I would put on a poster because it’s a square.

The program photo, which is due first is a tiny little square. So you want one big image as the thing, the photo, and then you want it to be square. Then it’s like, if you get an ad, sometimes the ad is like the last third of the page and it’s horizontal.

So now you need a photo that’s horizontal. You also, you know, um, for the digital ads for Instagram, for the poster, that’s a piece of paper, like the portrait, that’s a different photo. Yeah.

And then they also should be like themed in a way that when people see them, they know it’s the same show. Yeah. There’s that.

I don’t know what to call it. Like a strategy of people need to see things like three times before they decide to act on it. Yeah.

And so it’s like, it has to be cohesive enough that people are picking up that it’s the same thing. So the first image you do is important because it’s setting a tone for the others, but it’s, it’s never just one picture. You’re not taking one picture and using it for the whole thing.

And in fact, that’s very boring. We did that for silver lining where we had one good image and it’s like, we could have used five, five different orientations and, and different images following the same theme to use because every time a review came out, we’d use the same picture on Facebook to talk about the review, you know? And it’s like, Oh, well that’s, that’s kind of boring because people are looking at the picture like, Oh, I already saw that picture. They’re not noticing that the, that the content is different.

It also makes, it also makes it difficult, like on Instagram to have, um, to just see this essentially the same picture over and over. Yeah. You need that variation.

Yeah. Otherwise it’s boring. And then if I’m doing a tour and I’m using my personal Instagram, I can’t do that to the people following me generously is give them the same photo over and over and over again.

And so I’ve decided to pack photo shoots as an ongoing thing where I’m constantly doing photo shoots so that I have different images. It’ll be nice when I’m on tour. And then it’ll also be nice when I have some video footage from my first show at fringe to then use as like little clips or stills and things like that.

Like you have to be generating this new and interesting content. Even if all you’re saying in the comments is like, come see my show, you know, it needs to still be ongoing and evolving. People are, they’re checking out.

Well, that’s, that’s the thing is, is, you know, if we’re using, if we’re using something, if we’re using social media to promote our show, we have to present people with something new to look at. Yeah. Yeah.

Which is a whole, you know, I’m just not good at that. I’m not a visual artist. I’m not a graphic designer.

I have no idea how to use Photoshop, Adobe. I don’t know any of it. I don’t even know what programs are what, and it’s a huge hole in my, I guess in my artistic career, but it’s like, you can’t do everything.

I’m already a dancer, singer, actor, area, writer, producer. What more do you want? But they want, if you want to succeed, you have to do all these things or hire somebody else and, and find that person early and vet them for their style. You know, my girlfriend is a graphic designer, but she designs logos.

Like her, her, her style is very clean and crisp and monochromatic even, and very, very clean, but that’s not what I need for my posters. So when I tried to rely on her, it was frustrating. And I was like, no, no.

Can you make it like that? And she’s like, no, I can make it more like the Nike logo, but I cannot, you know, and so you have to find a graphic designer that you trust to build your image if you’re not going to do it. And I don’t like giving other people that kind of power because it means everything. It’s everything that image, the colors you use, the, the, the everything, it tells such a big story all at once to the viewer and that person better nail it.

Yeah. And then it’s your job to find that person and spend the time working with different people, asking them all to do the same task, paying them all to do it, and then choosing which one. It sounds crazy, but the image is so important.

It absolutely is. You know, it’s, it’s funny because, you know, you mentioned, you mentioned the program, you know, getting that program image. Yes.

I think a lot of times people don’t know how important the program image is. Yeah. Because, you know, if when, when an audience, a potential audience member is flipping through the program, what’s the first thing that’s going to draw their attention? It’s the image.

It’s the image. And they’re making their entire decision based off that image because no, no log lines or taglines are really that good. The more interesting the show, the more wishy-washy the log line is, you know, a very boring, but plot heavy show can have a really interesting log line.

And so people, when they read those, they’re like, ah, okay. It’s the picture. They’re falling in love with the picture.

Does that look interesting to them? Yeah. I mean, part of the issue is that a lot of times, you know, you can sort of see people and they, you can tell that the day that the deadline fell, they found some clip art or it’s like for silver lining. We, the photo is of our graphic designer.

It’s an old photo she had. And we were like, okay, yeah, slap it on. It has nothing to do with the show, nothing whatsoever.

And again, it ended up being fine, but it was not fine. Stress wise to have that photo. That photo is still out there.

And every time I look at him, like, I don’t even remember that girl’s name. And she’s the first face of silver, every silver line. Right.

That’s the other thing is people, you have to keep in mind that the images you put out there are the first experience that anybody has of that show. Yeah. And then we asked the audience, oh, forget about that girl.

It’s actually us, you know, and I’m sure it caused like this on like on note, we didn’t notice what kind of a negative effect that have, because we can’t know who would have been attracted to the more if we had consistent marketing, we’d never know. We won’t know who we lost in that transition. Very true.

Yeah. Not to scare anybody, but no, but I mean, this is the thing is that is, is, you know, as, as a French artist and you’re on tour and when you’re on tour on your own, it is, you’re flying by the seat of your pants, right? You are, and you really rely on those connections that you make from city to city. So you’ll, you know, you, you do, let’s say, for example, you’re doing you’ve got say Saskatoon after Toronto.

Yeah. And so the people that you see in Saskatoon, when you get to Kelowna, you are hopeful. You’re like, suddenly going to be like, oh, there’s a familiar face.

Like those are the connections that you’re be leaning on. Exactly. And I’m hoping this year was almost a surprise.

I, and there’s no calf lottery this year. So I’ve gotten into these fringes individually, which has been amazing. But I would like to fill in this schedule even more heavily, you know, fill in every stop along the way from the East coast to the West coast with fringes and then see who else is doing it.

That’s the thing I’m looking most forward to meeting people in Saskatoon and Kelowna, who else is touring and how long have you been doing it? How many stops are you making? How do you, you know, what mistakes are common and just, you know, getting into that community. I, from what I hear from Steph is there’s a large touring fringe community that that’s what they do. Yeah.

You will, you know, the thing is that once you’re in, once you, once you’re there, there’s, there are a lot of fringe artists who don’t do Toronto. And so they, their fringe starts in Winnipeg and they go. Right.

Because they’re at the same time, Winnipeg and Toronto. Winnipeg follows Toronto. This year I think they’re at the exact same time with, or with an overlap that if you do both, you could like back end one and front end the other.

Right. A lot of, in past years, they’ve, they’ve followed each other, but a lot of people don’t do Toronto. They’ve, they’ve found for a lot of fringe, for a lot of touring artists, they find it hostile for people who’s not, who are not from here.

Yeah. Other fringes, other fringes are more friendly. So they start there, but you will see things that you’ve never seen.

Yes. And it’s fascinating. I can’t wait.

I can’t wait. I think Saskatoon especially is a very community oriented festival and the way that they structure it, you know, in a certain part of town and with a lot of buzz, like I’m very excited to see what that is like. Kelowna, I think is very new, their fringe, and that offers an opportunity as well to be one of the first years of people and start to kind of, what could this look like? And, you know, be a part of something like that.

And it would be, it’s, it’s really interesting to me to see what the difference between Saskatoon and Toronto is going to be. I know, I’m glad that I live in this city and that all of my connections are here. This is more of a industry show.

And then when I get to Saskatoon, it’s like, Oh, you know, it’s, I really feel like I’m just going to let it all go. And, and that’s where I’m going to become this new person I’m hoping to be. What are you, what are your plans? Are you between Saskatoon and Kelowna? Are you coming back to Toronto and then going on to Kelowna or are you? No, I’m using this as an opportunity to car camp across the country.

So yeah, it’s going to be perfect. I have 10 days to get to Saskatoon from Toronto fringe. So I’ll just hang out in Manitoba a little bit and so on and do a little bit of Saskatoon.

And then I’m going to slowly meander. I’m going to go to Vancouver Island. There’s Nanaimo fringe and Victoria fringe with, which I both have applied for.

I am 13th on the Nanaimo, the Nanaimo fringe. So I’m not getting in. It’s the last place possible, but I will be there and then heading back towards Kelowna.

And then I’m going down the, the coast, the West coast, and then maybe across America. Again, I’m still quite nervous about going across the state right now. But I also don’t think I can mentally handle driving the exact same route all the way back home.

So we’ll see. No, but I mean, there, you can always take slightly different routes, but one thing I’d love, I’d love to do, Laura, is since you are getting ready for a tour and you’re going to be traveling, I’d love to do either some minutes, mini sows, or maybe some Instagram live streams or something where we can, we can talk about how the fringe is. I’d love to, to, to revisit this as a, as, as you, as a touring artist, sort of finding fringe as you go.

Yes, I would love that. I think it’s going to be just a completely new experience. And I’m hoping also to get into Vancouver fringe, which is after Kelowna.

That lottery is like May 6th. So that would be cool too, just to really wrap it all up. Yeah, absolutely.

Absolutely. Well, thank you so much for talking with me today. This has been great.

And I look forward to seeing how the fringe goes. Yes. Thank you so much.