The Spindle Collective & Riot King

Natalia Bushnik (she/her) is a multidisciplinary artist and Dora Mavor Moore-nominated playwright. She is fascinated by immersive experiences that examine morally grey territories and unnerve audience members in their complicity. Select theatre: ‘SAMCA’ (Spindle Collective); ‘The Bathtub Girls’ (Kairos Theatre); ‘PING!’ (Workshop-Aaron Jan/Urjo Kareda Residency). Select film: ‘Revenge of the Black Best Friend’, ‘peopleWatching’ (CBC Gem). Her radio play, ‘Just Across the Causeway’, was produced through the National Theatre School’s #ArtApart Program, with support from the Canada Council for the Arts and the Toronto Arts Council, and a live version was performed as a staged reading in the UK through Little Lion Theatre Company this past November. Her favourite pastimes include having no visible eyebrows and watching c-level horror movies.

https://natbushnik0.wixsite.com/spindlecollective
Twitter: @spindletheatre
Instagram: @spindlecollective

Kathleen Welch is a writer, performer, and composer from Toronto. She is passionate about new works and loves creating projects with people she cares about. She previously wrote the music for Just Across the Causeway by Natalia Bushnik with whom she later co-created the play Samca. Some favourite past roles include Catherine in Widow’s Wedding Dress, Mrs. Forthright in False Claims, and Clara in Fermata. Kathleen is currently in an original children’s musical of The Three Little Pigs and is working on her first album, Greasy Girl. When not not performing she can be found drinking wine, eating pasta, and cuddling her cat Athena.

Brendan Kinnon is a Toronto based actor and director who is passionate about contemporary theatre and producing new Canadian plays. They are the Founder and Creative Director of Riot King: Art Market – an artist hub producing experimental theatre and arts-community events. They are also the Communications Manager for Theatre of the Beat – a touring social justice theatre company starting conversation to inspire change.
Brendan has worked internationally and across the country as an actor, but has focused much of their work on building the arts community in southern Ontario. When not on stage or sending emails you can find Brendan working away in their garden or strolling around the many wonderful parks of Toronto!

www.riotking.com
Twitter: @riotkingto
Instagram: @riotkingto

SAMCA
Winner of the 2022 Hamilton Fringe New Play Contest, Spindle Collective and Riot King present ‘SAMCA’, a contemporary, horror folktale by Natalia Bushnik (‘The Bathtub Girls – Critic’s Choice 2017 Hamilton Fringe’) and Kathleen Welch. Combining original music written by Welch, movement theatre, and design, ‘SAMCA’ shares the story of two sisters, Miha and Prava, and the horrors that happen in the woods at night. Tread lightly…for the woods can hear you.

Tickets: https://boxoffice.hftco.ca/event/866:609/

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Transcript

Welcome to Stageworthy. I’m Phil Rickaby, the host of this podcast. This is episode 332.

Stageworthy is a one-person operation, so not only do I arrange the guests and conduct the interviews, I also 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 the podcast, please consider supporting it. There are a few ways that you can do that.

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And you can also leave a tip for the show by dropping some change in the virtual tip jar. I will put a link to that in the show notes, which you can find on the website or in your podcast app. But one of the most important things you can do, even more important than ratings, reviews, or even financial support, is to share on social media.

Even a retweet of this episode helps. You can find Stageworthy on Twitter and Instagram at stageworthypod, and you can find the website with the archive of all 332 episodes at stageworthypodcast.com. If you want to find me online, you can find me on Twitter and Instagram at philrickaby, and as I mentioned, my website is philrickaby.com. My guests this week are Natalia Bushnik, Kathleen Welch, and Brendan Kinnon, the creative team behind the Hamilton Fringe New Play Contest winner, Samca. Samca is a contemporary horror folktale written by Natalia and Kathleen, directed by Brendan.

You can see Samca as part of the 2022 Hamilton Fringe Festival, July 20th to 31st. Here’s our conversation. Just as we get started, I would like each of you will go Natalia, Brendan, Kathleen, if each of you could just say your name so that everybody gets a sense of what your voice sounds like.

Yeah, of course. I am Natalia Bushnik. My pronouns are she, her, and this is my voice.

Hello, everybody. My name is Brendan Kinnan. My pronouns are he, they, and I’m so excited to be here.

It feels really great to get to speak with you, Phil. My name is Kathleen Welch. My pronouns are she, her, and this is me.

Awesome. Thanks so much. Now, I’ve been watching this show on Instagram and things like that develop.

Natalia, how long have you been writing horror for as a genre? Ooh, good question. I guess that’s hard to say because whenever I start a project, I don’t mean for it to be horror. It just ends up, I guess, being that way.

I guess what I write most about is familial relationships. I’d like to preface that I have a very good relationship with my mother, but I guess I’m really fascinated by sisterhood, motherhood. I guess just dramatically, it always ends up going a little crooked because at least with my relationship with my mom, I grew up watching horror movies every week with her.

So I guess that’s just sort of been great. Interesting. Just looking around at the landscape of theatre, we don’t see genre very often.

I think sometimes creators shy away from it in some ways. But Samca, am I saying it right, Samca? It’s horror and it’s about, as you’re saying, familial stuff. But for you, does it just make sense for, I mean, I know you don’t mean for things to go horrifically or to become horror in the play.

What is your feeling on theatre and genre? Obviously you’re into it. Yeah. I think that horror theatre is something that isn’t explored specifically, at least often what I can see.

I think that this piece went that way just because our goal, mine and Kathleen’s goal, was to create our own sort of dark folktale of its own. And because of the themes it explores like fertility, cyclical trauma, and fear of the feminine body, especially when it’s not being sexualized, that’s really interesting to us. It just sort of automatically went that way because the myth of Samca, which is a Romanian mythological creature, she murders pregnant women and their babies.

And so it was just a myth that really fascinated me when I found it because there’s not really anything that I could find that was on it in terms of media. I couldn’t find any previous theatre writings or film. I’m sure there are some that exist.

I just haven’t discovered them yet. But the horror is already evident within that description of Samca itself, the myth of Samca. And so it kind of, I guess like the genre aspect of it sort of comes later almost.

I think that when Kathleen and I were writing it, we focused on the relationships and how it would be told. But mostly the horror came from, it came from the character’s relationships in the way that it is relatable. I think that we went more for a slow burn, things that were deeply unsettling and uncomfortable.

And then Brendan’s job as the director was coming onto the project being like, okay, the text is all there. How do I vamp this up and make it real spoopy? Just like find its full potential in the horror. Well, I just, I’m going to jump straight into that.

So Brendan, to you, what do you do to make, as Natalia said, vamp it up and make it more spoopy? Yeah. I guess that’s something that we’re still kind of figuring out the physicality of the horror. But I think a lot of it is in the text.

I was going to say when Nat was speaking there, it sort of just made me feel like, or think about tragedy as a genre. And I think tragedy and horror often can go kind of in tandem together. And it’s how it’s staged that really pulls it from just tragedy into sort of more of a horror place.

It’s the things that we see that make us really uncomfortable or are really jarring. And I think there’s a lot of horror there. So it’s sort of about surprising the audience and leaning into sort of fears that a lot of people have, like whether it’s like fear of the dark or like a fear of blood.

And so that’s why I think a lot of those things pop up in horror a lot, just because a lot of people kind of find discomfort in those things. And so, yeah, I feel like when we do get it up on its feet and it’s being presented, you can expect lots of jumpy, like noises are scary, but like lots of blood too. Like we were talking about that.

We want to have lots of blood in the show. I mean, what is a good horror without some blood? Exactly. Exactly.

Now, no, no horror story or horror. I mean, you think one of the things that makes, say a horror film work is the music. So what’s the relationship with music in this show? Yeah, I think the music, it sort of happened accidentally with me and Natalia starting to write this show.

And at the same time, I had been writing music for a previous show of hers, which was a totally different style, not horror based at all. But in this, it’s sort of, again, rather than coming from the horror genre of scary sounds and shocking things, the music sort of came out of more the setting, I would say. So creating the atmosphere of this show is really important to us.

And the idea of even the forest and being outside and that fear of the unknown. So the music came out a little bit of the sounds of being in the woods. And then when we got more people involved in our workshop production, we were able to incorporate instruments that I wouldn’t have even thought about before.

I wrote a lot of my music based in voice and harmonies. And then we were able to explore, like, for instance, one of our performers, Ondra, plays the singing saw, which means she bows a saw, which is crazy to me. But it creates these sounds I wouldn’t have even have expected.

And we’re still in definite exploration. So there are songs in the show, but a lot of it is about creating a sort of soundscape that has elements of horror, but also elements of folk music and the idea of ancient Romanian, very female voice as well, is really strong in the music. I mean, as soon as you say Romania, I immediately go to Dracula and vampire stories.

So what is, I mean, this is like a rhetorical question. You might know, you might not know. What is it with Romania and horror? Maybe it’s a landscape thing.

I’m not sure. Yeah. Maybe it’s just a lot of tassels and mountains.

Definitely give that vampire vibe. I do know that because when I was researching Samca, there were different versions of Samca and different types of lore from different places. Samca is the Romanian version of this creature.

But obviously, you know, there’s characters like Baba Yaga that could be considered quite similar. I was specifically researching Romanian myths because of my background. But yeah, it’s a good point.

The first thing you think of when you’re thinking Romania is like, I don’t know. We’re trying to avoid that, I guess. But yeah, I definitely encourage everyone to read up on this creature because she is freaky as hell.

Yeah. And oh, just like this sort of setting of it. I know we sort of did a little bit of research into the there’s the forest there called the Hoia Baciu that is like supposed to be the most taunted forest in the world.

And it’s so spooky and old looking, like just sort of trees from a different time that seem like they’re kind of gnarled and magical. So that kind of setting is very, it made it easy for us to write when we’re picturing that kind of world. Yeah.

It is not hard to make a forest scary at night. I went to years, years and years ago, I was at a friend’s cottage and went walking with another friend at night and got a little turned around. And there is nothing more terrifying than thinking you’re lost in a forest at night.

That is absolutely true. And I just like recently watched the Blair Witch Project, which really added another level to the whole thing. So was that the first time you watched Blair Witch? Oh, shit.

Yeah. Oh, my God. No way.

Yeah. It was like the first time I watched a Blair Witch. And then like a couple weeks later, I’m in the forest freaking out.

That is horrible timing. It’s terrible. It’s terrible.

Yeah. Yeah. I am definitely I, I don’t like but with movies and stuff, I don’t I really rarely get scared just because of the level of exposure, I guess.

But like location wise, yeah, being in a dark forest, I the amount of nightmares I’ve had of just like, walking in circles and you’re looping. It’s like that fear of like the unknown, like that’s like the darkness and being lost, like just that not knowing what’s out there or what’s close to you. That’s like where what horror like really is.

I don’t know. Yeah. For me anyway.

It’s like that’s what I’m most scared of, I feel. Absolutely. Brendan, I think like for myself, I’m not as into the genre as Natalia or Brendan are.

I was always very, very scared of all horror movies, and they would affect me for so long after I watched them, that it was just bad for me to do it. But forests and things like, like swimming in a lake and being alone in nature is something that I like adore. And I love doing, but I’m such a scared person.

It’s always been an issue where I want, it’s something you want. It’s a desire, but not one that I can do without being overwhelmed with the fear of it, which I think came into writing this a little bit too, right? It’s the, the things people want to do, despite the fact that they know it’s unsafe or they shouldn’t be doing it or they will become too scared. Yeah.

Kathleen, I’m with you on the horror thing. I was, I was, I was a very framed child. I did not watch horror.

And there was a period of time around the age of five where I was terrified of even skeletons. So like Halloween was torturous for me. So I never got into horror movies.

My girlfriend on the other hand, on the other hand is very much like, like you Nat, where she’s like, show me something. She’s watching them. She’s like, like, show me something.

Can you scare me? Nah, you got nothing. Like she’s like seen so many and, and I just, she’ll be like, I’m watching a horror movie. I’m like, I’m I’ll sit this one out.

I feel like, yeah, it’s definitely that level of like, because my partner is he’s not a fan of horror. And like he lets he’s like, okay, you can watch it. But he’s always like, I don’t know, playing Tetris or something.

So he’s not like fully engaged. But yeah, it’s definitely that case of like, they all kind of bleed together. And then there’s those specific movies that stand out that they just try something different, and it really sticks with you.

And it’s really inspirational. And I know that that like with Samca, an inspiration of that was was Midsommar Ari Aster, because just the physical theatre aspect. I mean, it was like that in Hereditary as well, his other film, of using like very few special effects, at least like CGI wise, and focusing a lot more on like, yeah, physical theatre and how freaky and visceral that is, of when somebody’s body is just doing a repetitive motion or contorting in a way that’s a little uncomfortable, it just immediately makes it jarring.

Especially when paired with like very colloquial text. And that’s something that I think really excites me in making stuff is is extreme contrast that makes things yeah, jarring. There’s something about horror movies, and I found myself in recent years a little bit able to, to take some horror aspects like I can do, like Stranger Things, I can do that I could do a lot of monster movies.

I can’t do slashers. And I can’t do body horror. And I can’t do ghosts.

Ghosts, I’m done. Really? Why ghosts? I have no idea. I think it’s something about there’s something about that the just under the surface level.

It’s like, I know, there’s no such thing as vampires, zombies, creatures of the Black Lagoon, Demi Gorgons, or whatever, whatever is coming at you. Somehow ghosts feel just a little too possible. Yes, yes.

Yeah, it’s that unknown again. It’s like, you don’t know whether they’re real or not. Yeah, the things that go into, yeah, into being closer to reality.

I always think of like the scariest thing that was to me growing up was the Roald Dahl book, The Witches. And I don’t know if anyone read that. But it was horrified me because it was all about the idea that these there was no real way of being able to tell which ones were witches and which were just women walking around.

And it was just done in a really creepy way that how assimilated and possible it all seemed. And it terrified me for years. Same.

Just the witches. Here’s a question, Nat. As an aficionado, somebody who’s been watching horror for years, what was your first horror movie? Ooh, let me think.

Oh, you know what it was? Okay, this is actually, my mom’s gonna be embarrassed for me sharing this because she’s gonna feel like a terrible parent. But she made me watch, there was this John Wayne Gacy movie. No! No! And I must have been like, I was literally eight or nine.

And she had no one to watch it. And to be fair, she does regret it now. But that traumatized me.

It was one of those like, made for TV movie DVD kind of things where it’s like exploring and killing all these children. And yeah, that was that was the first one that I saw. Wow.

Yeah. Wow. Not age appropriate.

That’s not, that’s not good. It’s not. She has, she has regrets, but don’t we all? It’s fine.

It led me to do things that excite me. So there’s that. Yeah, but I couldn’t watch that new Gacy documentary because I just the whole thing is it’s like, I can’t even think about it.

Yeah, kind of a little scar there. Terrified of clowns. Yeah.

I mean, there’s all of these things, right? There’s all of these things that like go into the makeup of what scares us, right? The unknown. Um, for many years, I’ve been fascinated with, with stories of, of elves and fairies. Part of it was a trip to Iceland where, you know, half the population believes in elves.

And I love that, but because these are not like, if you really look at the stories, these are not like happy creatures that are really good to be around and like terrifying things. And so like, I, this fascinating idea of like, what’s, what’s the world under the surface that we’re not seeing. And that’s sort of like, uh, again, that unknown thing that Brendan was mentioning, like, what are these things that we can’t see? Yeah, exactly.

And I think that’s sort of something that, uh, I, all three of us as a team, I think it’s something that we were really trying to do of unlocking what this world is and having it be present in different ways, but not overexplaining things. And that’s always tricky when it comes to like horror genre. It’s, uh, like when it explains just a little too much, you lose the fear because you’re being, your hand is being held.

Um, but then you want to be clear enough that the story is coming through. Um, so that’s like a tight rope walk that we’ve been doing and, and trying to yeah. Keep a certain level of subtlety while also having extreme bluntness.

Yeah. There’s a lot of swear words in this. Yeah.

I think the, a big part for us was like, it’s based around and it’s, it’s called Samca, but it’s about sort of the not showing of this monster. Um, and I know we, we talked about earlier the idea of like tragedy in it. And a big thing for me, I know in, in all my writing is sort of, I love like inevitability, things that you know are going to happen and there’s no way of getting out of them.

And in this show, I think we tried to play a lot with talking about Samca and, and bringing her up so that the audience is kept in that sort of tension of knowing that it has to happen, but not knowing when and not knowing how. So without, you know, playing too much of her hand or showing this monster, it’s, it’s in the script throughout. She’s always there, just not necessarily present.

If that makes sense, it makes, it makes total sense. The, you know, there’s something about like, when you think about some of those older horror movies before there was CGI, right. And all of that stuff.

And in fact, CGI kind of ruins horror in some ways, because those movies where you didn’t really see the monster, those are the ones that are really scary. Right. And it, and a lot of the movies where you do see the monster, it’s scary until you see the monster.

Exactly, exactly. So it’s better to, it’s like, it’s better to hide, to like allude to it, shadows, this sort of thing, people reacting, it builds up so much in the audience’s brain. It’s better not to show it, which kind of works for theatre.

Yeah, exactly. It’s like, it’s like, and you still want that, like, you want that satisfaction too. So that’s always a tricky, that’s a tricky, fine line as well.

But something in 2018, I think, Robin and I took, we went, performed Bath of Girls at a horror festival in Minneapolis. The Cold Hearts produced us there. And, and it was so fascinating how people explored the theatre horror genre, because it is so creative and difficult.

And when it was pulled off, it was spectacular. And a lot of that was physical theatre and design. The mix of the two is what really pulled it off.

Obviously you want some good writing in there as well. But yeah, the, the design and, and, and staging was just really, really incredible. And it, it’s, it’s kind of essential, right, to pull it off.

That’s one of the reasons why, like, I’m a fan of Eldritch Theatre and, and the work that, that they do because of the, the, the design, the stylized, like finding interesting ways to tell a scary story. And it’s always, always fascinating to watch. And that must’ve been like, I think we talked to just after you got back from that festival a couple of years ago.

And I think like you, you mentioned how, how affecting it was. Yeah. Yeah.

I, I think we did. Cause yeah, I think we did Bath of Girls maybe the year afterwards. And yeah.

And, and Eldritch, it was so funny cause I was just sort of like scrolling the internet, like horror theatre. Is anyone doing it in Toronto? I don’t know. And somehow I, in my ignorance had not heard of Eldritch Theatre.

I hadn’t met Eric. And I had come across the fact that they had taken over the Red Sandcastle. And I, I said this like really probably obnoxious or maybe just like embarrassing email being like, Hey, like you’re doing really cool stuff.

Like, do you want to hang out? And, and obviously it was like super lovely and, and gave us like a really great discount on rehearsal space and, and being able to see, see their work is just incredible because yeah, just thinking outside the box, just learning to tell stories in different ways and, and be really innovative. And yeah, they’re definitely doing that. So it’s fun.

Like having a fellow spoopy bud. It’s really good to have like the, the, like to be inspired by other people’s work. That’s one of the best things.

Totally. As you’re describing the character of Samca there, like I’m thinking about, you know, you mentioned Baba Yaga, there are, there are similar creatures, stories, witches, whatever you want to call it in, in different mythologies around the world. There’s similar one that I’m thinking of is actually one around the Christmas season of Perchta in some Nordic countries who was well, if you, if you pissed her off, she would come to you at night and she’d cut you open, eat your insides and then fill your stomach with rocks.

And so I’ll back up. So, you know, like all kinds of like fun, like the, the horror of, of this stuff, right. Cause she’s like an allegory for winter, but like all of these, all of these things that are, are, are similar, but different.

And you can sort of like see a progression of how the legends sort of spread and change, which is a fascinating thing to me. Absolutely. I think like, I love mythologies from all different places, but you can find, especially creatures like Samca that have a lot to do with fertility or the lack, lack thereof, in, it’s been going on in cultures forever of that being something that makes women unnatural and therefore monsters.

I can’t remember the name of the one in Greek mythology, but she, again, kills pregnant women or steals their children, things like that. But I think it’s very interesting. It was very interesting to us how that ties in with how people talk about fertility and, and children and how that’s connected to being a woman.

So that was a lot of sort of almost unintentional themes that came out of things in writing the show. It was not super planned. It was just very easy to write once we started.

Yeah. Just a couple of things that I want to, I want to talk about before I get into one of the topics that I love talking about is people’s theatre origin stories. I want to talk about creating your own work.

Now, for me, I, a few years ago, once I started to really delve into creating my own work, I found it like so fulfilling. It was like, this is the thing I want to do, right? What was your path? All three of you, let’s start, whoever wants to raise their hand first, they can go first. What is your path, your path to creating your own work? And what, do you have a philosophy about it or, or anything else? Brendan? I guess, yeah, I guess I can hop in first.

The path to creating new work, I think first starts with just wanting to work in the city. A lot of times, like, it’s hard to get on sort of productions and things like that. And so an easy way to consistently be working is just to sort of make it yourself, tell your own stories.

I think for myself, there’s just, I am really passionate about new play development and working on sort of new stories. It’s fun to sort of be the first person to sort of come to a character and getting to work with writers. And that sort of leads to sort of the multidisciplinary aspect of theatre, of just like, I love working with different artists to kind of create work.

And so working on new plays, you get to work with the writer and with the producers and things like that. So I guess it sort of started there, just like wanting to work, and then wanting to work with artists working in different mediums. And so to do that, we just started like, yeah, producing our own, our own shows and stuff, telling our own stories.

Kathleen? Yeah. I know for myself, like, yeah, coming and being an actor in the city after school, like finishing university, it was just, I would end up in a lot of different productions, which sometimes it would be amazing, and I’d meet all these amazing creators. But it was a lot of, you know, things where you don’t make any money, but you’re doing someone else’s passion project, and you can have some bad experiences too.

And so sort of after a while, where I’m putting so much effort into other people’s stories, it was, it sort of made me realize how much I wanted to work with with things I really cared about, and with people who I definitely trusted on things. Obviously, with the pandemic and everything, it was kind of a interesting time where theatre was both closed down, but also because for a while, you know, I, we had CERB, and I didn’t have any other jobs to do. It gave me and Natalia a chance to talk through things and write and send stuff back and forth, that really opened up sort of how I wanted to be doing things, when I would actually have the time and money to do it.

So I think, yeah, for me, it’s sort of changed. I still wanted, I want to work with other, on other people’s projects as well. But it made me really want to focus on telling the stories that I care about, I think.

Yeah. Yeah. And I think, like, that’s so huge.

I really relate to that as well. Telling the stories that you’re excited about, because inevitably, you will tell them better. And I think, for me, it was sort of like a whirlwind thing.

I know, you know, Robyn and I were talking about this, like a little while back, that Bathtub Girls, because it started in university, and then we went right to Hamilton Fringe, and then people liked it. And so it kind of just kept going. And it was sort of this like whirlwind thing.

And like many, many hours of work. But it’s sort of that just sort of was my, like, work then was making my own stuff. And I really enjoyed it.

And I enjoy the grind. And I like love exploring with other people and creating new little worlds and realms. And so I think that that’s just sort of where I sit.

It just makes sense to me. Because when I’m performing things that I’ve created with other people that we all are passionate about the same story, it’s like a pretty good time. So yeah, so I guess, I guess it just happened right off the bat, I didn’t really have any break time between graduating school in 2016.

And then hopping into making my own stuff. But that’s what was so great about the pandemic too, is because I finally like financially, like time wise had the resources to really sit down and be like, okay, let’s make this thing. Let’s make this thing.

Let’s get some ideas generated. And yeah, so in a weird silver lining way, it was it was fun. Because I, you know, we, yeah, had the time.

Did you did you find that during the early days of the pandemic, when you know, CERB was in effect, and you were you were able to work? Did you find that the creative energies were flowing? Or was that difficult? I found at that point that I had nothing for about six months. What did you guys find at that, that that early those early days of the of the pandemic for that? Yeah, um, I can go I, I got, okay, it was it was funny timing, because I had a project in the works that was supposed to be in the Terragon workspace, like just for doing like a little, little workshop week developing it, and then the pandemic hit, and it didn’t happen. But because I already had that kind of on the go, there were a lot of digital programs that popped up pretty early on in the pandemic.

And so I got lucky in that, because I am someone that absolutely needs a deadline. And because I had that, I was like, okay, like, you know, maybe I should take this playwriting class, because it’ll help me with these prompts. And it kind of got me into the zone.

And when I wasn’t doing that kind of thing, I, you know, felt severely depressed. And so it was like, okay, like, I need to have these, these things to generate ideas. And I’m also very fortunate that my partner is a very talented sound designer.

So it was a possibility for me to create like radio plays and things like that, because I had this, this resource next to me that we were sharing the pandemic together. So we could spend hours just experimenting with like different designs and weird stuff. So not to say that I definitely, like I definitely had my huge slump moments.

But I will say that because of certain circumstances, I was probably luckier than some with, yeah, just having a couple things on the go to sort of keep me moving. Kathleen, yeah. Yeah, I think I would, I would say I went back and forth definitely had like highs and lows creatively during the pandemic.

But dominantly, at least at first, especially I think I, I experienced more that I was feeling like creatively, like I finally had the time, I think right before the pandemic, I had a few things on the go, but I was feeling so overwhelmed, like I couldn’t do any of them really well. And they were all just things with deadlines. So I guess I’ll have to do them, where once the pandemic hit, and I had sort of time to breathe.

That’s how I ended up sort of writing the music for Natalia’s play that we made into a radio play, which got me very excited about creating music for shows. I had, I had written music all the time for myself, but I had never until the pandemic, written music for a group written harmonies and things that I just it was, it was totally new for me and a big, positive change. So I think it kind of it sparked that sparked me wanting to do that in general.

And then after we finished recording that radio play was pretty much that weekend when we started talking about the ideas for Samca and started just sending scenes back and forth to each other. So I mostly I feel like I definitely went back and forth in terms of slumps. But creatively, when things were fully shut down, I feel like sometimes I was at my most creative amazingly.

Wow, that’s great. That’s great. Brendan, how about you? Yeah, I would really agree with Kathleen.

I think like, there was definitely a slump at the beginning of just like, what is going on? But yeah, having the space to really think about things over an extended period of time was really impactful for me. Like, I’m a type of person that like, I need to mull over an idea for like, hours and hours and hours. And without having any interruptions, like, you can’t go anywhere, you can’t go to work.

It really afforded that time to really think about things. And so I agree, I had a lot of impulses to write things and be creative and be connected with people, because there was the space and time to do so. And yeah, it just feels like that’s why it’s important for things like UBI to happen, hopefully, eventually, sometime in our life, that we don’t have to constantly be dividing up our attention between all of these different types of gig works that a bunch of artists and stuff do.

So we can actually like afford the time to really dive deep into creative ideas. Yeah. Yeah, not just not just artists, like I, you know, I think that something like UBI would be life changing for the vast majority of people.

Oh, absolutely agreed. Absolutely agreed. And, you know, it would it would change capitalism in the country, essentially, like, like, if you didn’t have to work that shitty job, then that shitty job would either go away or not be a shitty job anymore, right? Yeah.

And I think, too, like, if I was making money that didn’t need to come from my art, like, I want my art to be for free, I want to be able to just give it away to people. But we have to charge for it. And we have to charge a certain price, which means some people aren’t gonna be able to come to it.

And so like, accessibility wise, like, it’s just sort of like a cycle of like, you have to charge so much, but then you don’t want to. And so if like, but I need to live as an artist. And so, yeah, it would just really, really change things up, I think, in a positive, super positive way.

There’s also a funny thing. I mean, talking about charging, charging people for the art. There’s a funny thing about about charging people, like if you don’t charge enough, people will think it’s got to be shit.

So like, you can price yourself out of having an audience come because you didn’t charge enough for people to come and see a show. Yeah, which is so weird. I don’t get that.

But I mean, it’s, it’s the same thing as like, if you try to give try to do something for free, right? You try to do like a free conference or whatever, nobody’s going to come because they didn’t put anything on the line. Yeah. It’s a fair point.

Yeah. Like, that’s why I like I like this new model. Well, it’s not it’s not new, but like, I just see it more often now of the pay what you can afford of, okay, like $5 $25 $50 75.

I think that’s great, because then, like, you are able to, like, regulate yourself of like, okay, I can barely afford rent, but I really want to support these artists and see the show and like $5 matters. Everything makes a difference. So I like that.

That’s, that’s more of a thing now. All right. Now the part of it, one of the things that I, you know, I wanted to I want to get to I love this, this part of the show is talking to people about their their theatre origin stories.

What is it that drew you to this, that brought you to where you are now? And, and I would love to hear about for each of you. Why theatre and what what what brought you to it? I have probably answered this question of yours before. So I wonder if it’s going to be the same answer.

I don’t know. We’ll have to go back and check. But let’s hear it.

Let’s see, let’s see, like, is my memory correct? I will say that I, yeah, I started as a dancer. I was very, very incredibly shy. So dance was something that when I was on stage, it, it was, I was just excited.

I felt like I could be myself. It was really important to me. But I, in high school, I started having a lot of pain in my hip.

And things like that happen. You know, as a dancer, you really push your joints. And I also think, you know, hopefully things are changing.

I think it was a little bit more brutal, even when I was, you know, growing up in dance. But yeah, and then I had a drama teacher who was very, very passionate. And he really encouraged me to, like, get involved in starting with musical theatre of even just, you know, singing a little bit and dancing.

And then I like really quickly realized of like, oh, well, that’s why I liked dance in the first place is because I was on stage and like performing. So, so yeah, I guess that’s when I started connecting to theatre, but I, um, I wasn’t really in that many plays. Like I, as in, I was in a number of plays, but I, I very rarely had like a significant part.

Um, I had sort of one leading part, uh, in the final Sears festival. Uh, and we went to provincials and, you know, the whole Sears trophy thing and everything. But I did feel, uh, I felt behind, you know, I went to school with Brendan and Kathleen university of Windsor.

And in that first year, there were certain things that I felt like I really connected to, but just the basic acting aspect, I felt like I was one of the worst. Cause I was like, I literally have no idea what I’m doing. Um, so it was kind of like figuring it out as I go along.

Um, and thankfully, you know, movement and voice, that is obviously, um, you know, what leads you to like those two things combined. It’s like, Oh, you’re an actor. So even though it was like thriving in those aspects from dance training and stuff, um, it like eventually made me realize that like, Oh, this is like a little superpower.

Like I can tell a story through my body and that can make me comfortable and perform better. Um, you know, starting a character in the body is okay. Um, and then kind of go from there.

So, uh, yeah, I think that was like a fun discovery and I feel like I’m still discovering it. Um, but yeah, I, that’s me. Well, the bathtub girls make so much sense with that story.

Like how that physical show came out of movement and the combination. Absolutely. It like, I always, I think, I think maybe less so as I, as I, you know, got older or whatever.

Um, but for the most part, I always start in my body and it’s just the way of exploring that makes the most sense to me. Um, and I think that, uh, in creating that show, Robin was similar. And so it was like really fun because the way we wrote it, it was very on our feet and, uh, improvising, uh, physically, and then the text would kind of come later.

Um, so yeah. Nice. Kathleen, why don’t you go next? Yeah.

Um, for, for me, I definitely started doing a lot of theatre at a very young age. My family is very large and creative, uh, very musical as well. So I, I probably started doing music first, but then theatre was what I was most into.

Like as a kid, when you do different programs or take lessons and things like I, I took piano lessons and I went to soccer practice, but I wasn’t wanting to do those all the time. I wasn’t wanting to practice where as soon as I was sort of getting into anything theatre based, um, I wanted to be there so much. So I feel like I have a lot of different, you know, passions and, and things that I love to do, but theatre was one of those things that I just craved doing so much so that it seemed kind of like it, it made the most sense.

I couldn’t imagine myself not, not doing it when I like went to university because I spent, by the time I got to high school, I, every night was doing different theatre things with various companies. Like I was so over tired and missing a bunch of schools so I could be in more community and youth theatre. Um, and yeah, that was something I always loved.

I, I always loved musicals. Um, and then later I got really into Shakespeare. I think I just love the sound of things.

I like, I like, I like voice stuff probably the most, more than anything. Um, and yeah, then I went to university with Brennan and Natalia. Well, I met Brennan actually briefly before university, so we’ve known each other for many years now, I think 10 or so.

Uh, but yeah, coming, coming out of school sort of led me then more to creating my own work. We did a lot of that in university. So before, beforehand I always felt I needed to rely on other people’s creations.

So it was really nice and yeah, developing into my own where I can do the things that I would want to do because I, I wrote before, but never in regards to theatre, I think, when I was younger. Um, so yeah, yeah, that’s about it. Nice.

And Brendan. Yeah, me, me and Kathleen, we go way back. We were in Roman and Juliet together.

It was amazing. Um, way back when, um, I think for me it started with music. I was like, uh, playing piano and, um, in school bands and things like that.

Um, and then it sort of moved into theatre. And I think what, what the transition was was sort of just like the people that were doing theatre, like all my friends were in improv and in school plays. And like, looking back, it’s easy to be like, oh yeah, we were all, we were all, we were all gay.

Um, but it’s true. We, without even knowing at the time, like you find your community without knowing. And, um, as a queer kid in high school, it was a safe place to, for self-expression and, um, for just being goofy and, and, and hanging out with my friends.

Like, I think that’s really where it started was all my, like, that’s just where we hung out was an improv club and they were all signing up for drama class. So I signed up for drama class and then it all sort of just built from there of like the more shows I did, the more people I met and the more friends I made. Um, yeah.

And then went to the University of Windsor, um, and met more creative people. Um, yeah, I, I would say it really, really was based in sort of the people, the people that like were doing theatre were the people that I wanted to be around. Hmm.

Nice. Now Samca is going to be presented at the, the Hamilton fringe, correct? Yes, that is right. And Natalia, you took, you and Robin took the bathtub girls to, to Hamilton.

You had great success there with that. Um, was, was Hamilton the first performance location of, of the full length, uh, bathtub girls? Yeah. Um, so before Hamilton fringe, we had just done this like 15 minute, maybe even 10 minute version, um, because I was like a TA, uh, for contact movement.

And, uh, my professor asked me to make a piece for my credit, basically just like encouraging me to make more stuff. And I had never worked with Robin before. Um, and I, I wanted to, so it was kind of like, Hey, do you want to make this thing with me? Um, and yeah, and Hamilton fringe, uh, it was a very different version at that point.

I think it was like a 30 minute version, maybe a little bit longer. Um, it went on to be about, I think 50, 50 to 60 minutes. Um, but yeah, Hamilton fringe was the, the first thing right out of school.

It was only like a month after we graduated maybe even less. Um, and it was just so exciting because yeah, we had never been in that kind of environment before and everyone was like crazy supportive and we didn’t expect anyone to like our show. And we were like, Oh my God, we’re making friends.

People are coming. So it’s like really fun to, to now be coming back after a number of years and, and like bringing something else that’s kind of spooky and seeing if, if people enjoy it and in a very different venue, we’re at the zoetic, so it’s, it’s quite large. Um, but, uh, but yeah, we, I had honestly, I had completely forgotten that I had applied for the Hamilton fringe new play contest.

Cause I’m, I’m insane. And I tend to be like, Oh, I need to apply to everything. And so I completely forgot.

And then our friend gave MacArthur, like sent Kathleen a message on Instagram being like, is this you? And we like won the contest. Honestly, like, thank God. And that is that way, because that is why we have the opportunities that we have.

I’m so glad that my instability is helpful. It’s good. Cause if you forget that you applied to it, you don’t have to stress about it.

I’m just insane. I do think that like coming back to a fringe that you had a great experience at, especially a fringe that is as warm as the Hamilton fringe is there. There are warm fringes.

There are cold fringes. There are, there are, they don’t give a shit fringes and Hamilton is not one of those. So bringing a new show to Hamilton, especially with like winning the contest like that as a, as sort of like a, like go for this is a really great way to, to, to, to bring in a show and it’s a supportive audience.

So that’s really great. What are you looking forward to about presenting this show at the Hamilton fringe? I think for me, uh, it’s sort of similar of what we just touched on. I think I’m just excited to come back.

Um, because yeah, it’s been a little while and I’m like really pumped to jump into the live fringe scene cause it’s been so freaking long and, uh, and I love Hamilton as a city. So I’m just like excited to do something weird and like party in the, the tent later. Yeah.

I’m, I’m excited. I’ve, I’ve actually, I’ve never been in a fringe festival. My friends all have, and I always end up being, I’m doing other things during the summer.

And so it’s exciting to me to be a part of this and experience it from the inside versus just, you know, going to see friends in it. Um, that I’m excited for. I, I think I’m just also this, this show has been in development and so cerebral for us for so long where of us reading through the script that I’m just like really excited to work with Brendan in a, in a different way where we get to be on our feet and, and having not just the sort of text and music of it, but, but the physical aspects of this show, which have, I feel like there’s been so much buildup because we’ve been working on it for so long without getting to like fully rehearse it.

So that, that I’m, I’m really excited for. Brandon? Yeah, I, I feel like sort of like a broken record, but it’s again, the people like, Fringe is so exciting to meet artists from like across the country and even from around the world. Like every Fringe I’ve done, um, I’ve always really connected with, with people like at the tent.

I’m very excited for the tent as well. Um, but yeah, like meeting with the people also connecting with patrons, it’s such a like audience and artist connection to like through, um, promoting your show and chatting with people about what they’re seeing and what they’ve liked so far. And it just really is like the biggest type of community event for theatre that there is.

And so I’ve never done Hamilton Fringe, but I’m excited to meet everyone there. Um, yeah. That’s great.

That’s great. I, I mean, I have, I have such a warm spot in my heart for the Hamilton Fringe as well, just as a, as a place where I pre, I premiered one of my shows and it was a warm, wonderful experience. So just to just like, I’m envious of you guys going to the Hamilton Fringe this summer.

Um, but just to, in, in close. I don’t mean to agree. You should be so lovely and warm.

So, um, um, in, in, uh, in just in closing, um, I just want to ask you each, um, about, um, what do you, if you could imagine an outcome for this show, if you could imagine the, you know, this show premieres at, at the Hamilton Fringe, um, what happens next with this show? I can say, and I, I, I know that we’re all kind of like all three of us are sort of on the same page for this, but, um, we really want to do this show site specifically. Uh, our dream for it is to set it on a forest trail. Um, and that was how it was always written.

It was always written with that in mind that it would be performed as a roaming piece, um, with a smaller audience group with, um, the Zine, um, the forest spirits guiding the audience, uh, through this story. So sort of transporting them to Hoi Ba Chu. Um, so yeah, you two can pipe in, but I think that’s, that’s sort of what we want to do next with it for sure.

Yeah, totally. I think like out of that for me, like the passion to produce stories in sort of natural spaces, like there’s so much beauty around us that is free. Um, and we can really lean into how that can be presented as character in the story as well.

I’m really interested in that. Um, and connecting people back to sort of the natural, natural spaces, um, versus needing to add a bunch of design. There’s so much around us that we can utilize.

And so bringing, yeah, bringing kind of the story into, into the woods and bringing the people in, into that space, um, to connect to the story in sort of a really visceral way, like a we’re right here right now sort of way. Yeah. Yeah.

I think, uh, on top of that, the only other thing that I can think of also is just, so being able to work more fully with, uh, the other artists in the show who are playing the zine, the, the forest spirits, because I, I know we’ve talked about it where we’ve applied to different grants and the idea of getting, you know, uh, a chunk of money where we can pay these artists to spend time with us, exploring the possibilities of what we could do outdoors and in the woods, have a sort of, you know, lengthy workshop kind of period where we, we don’t feel really rushed and are able to fully experiment with music and, and sound and bodies in a forest culminating in performance. I think that’s, that would be really nice for the show. This show has a lot of, it’s heavy.

And I think I’d love to get the chance to really dive in, in a rehearsal and not necessarily feel like the pressures of, okay, we have our one week and let’s make this work kind of thing. That’s what I would love. The idea of, from what you’ve described of, of this show and, and, and, and being part of a, of an audience moving through a forest as this unfolds around me is it, it might be too much for me, but I would give it a shot just to see if I, if I, if I ended up crying and weeping from it.

Don’t worry, we have, we’ll take care of you. Oh, thank you. Thank you so much.

I, I, I, I have every confidence that you’ll take care of your audience. Natalia, Brendan, Kathleen, thank you so much for joining me this evening. Thanks for having us.

Yeah, thank you so much. It’s been so awesome.