#341 – Matthew Romantini
Matthew Romantini is a multi-disciplinary artist, the artistic director of Omnivore Performance, and works in dance, theatre, and with orchestral ensembles across the continent. He is also teaches and coaches performance, directs and choreographs as part of his performance work. He has been lucky to direct Unity (1918) and Gogol’s The Government Inspector at Randolph College, and is gearing up to direct another production at the college in January. He has been nominated for 5 Dora Mavor Moore Awards, the CTC Award (winning best production for The Boys In The Band), the KM Hunter Award, the Total Theatre Award, and has received two Chalmers Professional Development Grants. Notable credits include Kokoro Dance’s epic Sunyata, Gorey Story (as performer and Artistic Director, nominated for 5 Dora Awards), Theatre Rusticle’s signature April 14, 1912, PNME’s Just Out of Reach (which toured to the Edinburgh Fringe), co-creating Tomoe Arts’ Weaver Woman, and PNME’s “heart-rending” Psappho’s Sparrows/In The Wake concert cycle.
Omnivore Performance and the Deanne Taylor New Works Festival Present
Waiting for the Dawn
By Erika Batdorf
Performed by Matthew Romantini
November 30 – December 4 2022
Tickets: https://matthewromantini.as.me/schedule.php?appointmentType=38114518
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Transcript
Transcript auto generated.
Phil Rickaby
Hi. I’m Phil Rickaby, and I’ve been a writer and performer for almost 30 years. But I’ve realised that I don’t really know as much as I should about the theatre scene outside of my particular Toronto bubble. Now, I’m on a quest to learn as much as I can about the theatre scene across Canada. So join me as I talk with mainstream theatre creators, you may have heard of an indie artist you really should know, as we find out just what it takes to be Stageworthy.
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My guest this week is Matthew Romaninti. Matthew is a multidisciplinary artist who works in Dance Theatre and with orchestral ensembles. He’s a teacher, coach, director and choreographer. He’s performing Erika Batdorf’s, waiting for the dawn at the inaugural Dean Taylor new works festival November 30. To December 4. Here’s our conversation.
Welcome, Matthew, thank you so much for joining me this evening. If you were to give me the elevator pitch for you, for you as an artist, what would that be? Oh.
Matthew Romaninti
I would say first of all, I’m, I’m terrible in elevator pitches. But But I would say I’m a I’m an interdisciplinary artist. So I have, I have a strong background in theatre. And that was my training. I went to York University and train there. And then I did a lot of dance training my life previous to being a theatre maker, I was a competitive athlete, I was competitive figure skater growing up. So there was a lot of physicality to that. And that kept going after I stopped skating. And so even as I was training in theatre, I was I was doing a lot of dance and physical theatre work. So the elevator pitch would be I’m, ultimately I’m a theatre person. But I’m a theatre person with a lot of influences in, in the physical elements of theatre in dance. And I also cross the floor to, to music as well. I do I do work with concert musicians primarily as part of my rather than musical theatre primarily.
Phil Rickaby
The whole being a figure skater there’s something about about that, of course translates into the theatricality. I often think of figure skating being like the musical theatre of sports. I like that. Yeah. Just because of its its flamboyant. Its its its its theatricality.
Matthew Romaninti
We always used to say that it oh, sorry, I just rambled there. But we always used to say that it was it was kind of straddling the worlds between art and, and athletics. You know, art and sport. Live in both?
Phil Rickaby
Yeah, I think it’s one of those interesting things. Because I think a lot of times, especially around the Olympics, when we start, you know, you start seeing it, there’s that whole question of like, is it a sport, if there’s this artistic merit thing, and it does have that blurred? line in this in the sports world? Yeah. Did you so that you were doing that far before before you were doing theatre? How did you get into that? And how did you find your way to theatre from figure skating?
Matthew Romaninti
Well, I was okay, so, in 1988, we had the Olympics in Calgary, and there was something called the Battle of the Bryan’s so those of those of us who are over over 40 might remember the Battle of Brian’s
Phil Rickaby
I’m old enough to remember the battle the Brian’s Yes,
Matthew Romaninti
yes. So Brian or Sergey was Canadian. Brian Boitano, who was American. They were always sort of number one and number two in the world and in competitions throughout the year and then the at the Olympics happened. And Brian boy retana One now I look at I look at his performance and I go, Yeah, spectacular, you know, but at the time I was I was such a rabid Brian Orser fan that I felt that Brian Orser had been sort of robbed of his of his Olympic gold medal. He got silver, but I think if I remember correctly, the points were, you know, it was like point one, a 10th of a point or something between the two of them in terms of getting gold and silver. So it was so close. And I cried myself to sleep that night. How did you ever make it into theatre, Matthew, and then and then, and then when I woke up, I, I came downstairs and I you have to understand I was not an athletic kid, I hated gym. I never wanted to do that. I just I was uncoordinated. I was gay. Like, I just I hated it. And I came downstairs the morning after Brian Orser got his silver medal. And I said, I want to start figure skating. And my mom said, oh, what makes you want to do that? I said, Well, I want to remediate this wrong, I want to go to the Olympics, and I want to win a gold medal for Brian Orser. And that was why I started skating.
Phil Rickaby
Now as a non athletic kid, did your parents just just go okay, let’s let’s start doing it. Or were they were they concerned that maybe this was like a whim that wasn’t going to carry through?
Matthew Romaninti
I think they knew me well enough to know, I always had this thing that adults used to say to me when I was a little kid. It’s like, oh, he’s six going on. 46. I see. You know, I was a very serious kid. And I think they knew that if I wanted to do something, I was going to commit to it. And that’s what I did. I really right from the very beginning, I started and I was like, I don’t know how to do this at all. But I’m going to throw myself into it and focus and work really hard. And that’s what I did. And that’s that’s kind of why I’m also it was also able to be a dancer later in life, because that level of rigorous discipline is it. It’s there in sport, it’s there in dance, especially with the dance company that I worked with, primarily of in Vancouver. So, yeah.
Phil Rickaby
So how did you get into theatre from like, which came first? The dancer the theatre,
Matthew Romaninti
I wouldn’t say theatre came first. I mean, I was I was always a kind of a theatrical kid, I, you know, my, my, my babysitter, and I would dress me up as Edith Prickly, which was an Andrea Martin character from SCTV when I was a little kid, and you know, my mom would come home. And there I would be as Edith Prickly, doing skits. And so I was always a pretty theatrical kid. And then, and then skating kind of happened. And even even when I was skating, I was in drama classes in high school and that kind of thing. And so, when I stopped skating, I, I had a small stint where I thought, well, it’s not possible to make a living as in theatre, I love it. But that’s not a career. And so I I went toward academics a little bit more for a little while, and then and then it took me not very long, you know, a couple years to realise, oh, yeah, no, this is academics is a little, too. Not not a human enough for me. And I, and so it was, you know, I really had a little a little crisis as a 15 year old. What am I going to do with my life? And then, and then I realised, if I was really honest with myself, the only thing I ever wanted to do was to be in theatre.
Phil Rickaby
So you had you had like your quarterlife crisis at 15. So again, like the Yeah, the six going on? 46 thing was definitely totally in force. And and at that point, did you How’d you figure it out? Because I know for me, it took me a while to figure to make the transition between like, Oh, I really like doing this too. Oh, people do this for a living.
Matthew Romaninti
Yeah, you know, I think it’s, it’s an interesting thing. I think I had that at a certain point. That was that moment after, after I quit squeak skating before I decided to go into theatre. And I went towards archaeology and history and that kind of thing a little bit more. So I think I had that moment. But it was so brief. You know, I stopped skating. Maybe actually, maybe my timelines are are 100% Correct. But I stopped skating when I was 15. And I think by the time the next year had come around, when I I was 16. I was, I was pretty sure I was going to be an actor. And to me that question that you that you said, Once I’d made that decision, it wasn’t a question of like, Can I make a living at this? It was like, Well, this is what I want to do. So I’m gonna make That’s it? That’s there’s no question.
Phil Rickaby
Which I think is one of those one of those important decisions to make i No,
Matthew Romaninti
absolutely. I think that anybody that stays in theatre for any length of time, there’s a level of ferocity of desire for this of need in it a night. It’s a cliche by this point, you know, if you can do anything else, then do it. Yeah, that’s true, though. You know,
Phil Rickaby
it’s, because when I was, I mean, I remember, when I was auditioning for theatre school, and I went to my audition at George Brown, the head of the acting programme, Peter Wilde had this whole thing where he gathered all the people who were auditioning that afternoon, and he had this whole, like, flamboyant speech, where he told us that nobody wants us and that an actor is a dime a dozen. And this whole spiel that he had, and of course, we were all like, 1819. And so we were rolling our eyes, we only Yeah, you tell us sure, old man, whatever. But I know what he was trying to do. He was trying to, to let us know that. Like, it’s not like you don’t get famous, you don’t get rich, this is like you do this, because it’s the only thing that you really can satisfy. Right, can can give you that thing, right? It’s it’s the mode
Matthew Romaninti
to express our purpose on this earth, you know, and so that, to me, is is actually very compelling and exciting, and way more compelling and exciting, then, you know, recess or faith? Yes,
Phil Rickaby
because those are kind of I mean, those are, I think, I mean, success, we all want to be recognised, right? Yes. It’s sort of, like, Oh, what do you how do you measure? How do you measure your success, if success is is is I don’t know, being rich or whatever, then that’s never not likely to happen. But like, if we want to be recognised for the work that we do, but, you know,
Matthew Romaninti
I even have, I remember hanging out with another actor for a little while, in my, I don’t know, maybe my late 20s, early 30s kind of thing. And we were talking and, and it was really interesting to hear him talk about what the metric of metrics of success were for, for him. And I, I remember looking at him, and he wasn’t meeting his own, the metrics that he had set for himself. He wanted, I think, maybe to be in a regional theatre, you know, when be it was he was sort of at that cusp, where he was like, just going from non equity to equity was like, right at that point for him. And it wasn’t happening fast enough for him. And he was just increasingly frustrated. And crestfallen, and maybe even a little bit cynical, about about the industry. And I, I remember thinking, this is causing so much suffering for this pool guy, I feel bad for him. And I could see myself potentially going down that same route, if I have a very, very hard, rigid idea of what success looks like. It it sets me up for so it really risk of risks unnecessarily, I think there’s necessary risks and theatre. But there’s also unnecessary ones, where we put ourselves in the way of suffering perhaps too easily, too readily. And I think in that particular case, it was a real learning moment, for me watching him kind of grind his gears in that way. Because it made me think about, okay, I do want people to recognise me, but I’m more interested in engaging myself in this process and getting the process to be deeper and deeper and deeper, and more and more human. More and more expressive of, of the human condition. And that, to me, will be the thing that will satisfy, do I want money? Do I want income? Of course I do. But process to me, I think is the crux. And that was a catalyst moment for me watching somebody else’s kind of external validation requirements not being met and how hard that was for him.
Phil Rickaby
It’s so hard to set goals, though. I think I remember when I started, like, you know, everybody, eventually as an actor, you have to make that Okay, so, I got a day job, you know, and but I got to keep doing theatre you get a day job. But that question that they asked, So what do you see yourself in five years and I come from the theatre world and real and had realised so long ago that I’m not in control of this career. My five year plan is not in my hands. So Why bother having one? So they would say, where do you see yourself in five years? And I think the first time I was asked that question, I stammered for a good 30 seconds and said, I don’t know, we’ll figure it out. Which is, of course, not what they want to hear. But I’ve learned to bullshit. But you know, well, and I
Matthew Romaninti
think some people too, and this may be a theatre thing, but I think it’s also, I think it’s just an approach thing. You know, some people need to know the, they need to know the structure before they engage in the activity. Some people dive into the activity, and we’ll figure out the structure as we go. And some people need to feel that which isn’t the same as organising, like goal setting, or that kind of thing for the future. They need to kind of check in with themselves and see what’s important, and what are the priorities and that kind of things was not exactly goals, but maybe priorities are something, you know, depends it depends on the person. Yeah, goal setting. question to me is, in some ways, more revealing of the the, the person who asks it than the person who is being asked about what they think is important.
Phil Rickaby
I always think that it is kind of fascinating, because I think a lot of times when that question is asked the person who is asking it has like they know what they want to hear they want what is it to give a thing? Yeah, what is what is what is the correct answer, they say to themselves for this person who wants this role? Do I want to do that, or they want to make manager X, so this person is going to be with us for a while, like it’s all this little, it’s this, this these these little things that that don’t really amount to well, is this person right for the job? It’s just like, are they saying the things that the robot wants to hear?
Matthew Romaninti
Absolutely. I got at the when would this have been? This would have been April, in sort of March, April 2021. We had the census here. And in July of that year, and I applied to be a census person. And I got a bunch of interviews. I was like, Oh, God, this is such a such a dry interview process, because I was trying to engage them on a human level. And exactly what you said, you know, they really had, they would ask questions that I would say, Hmm, well, that’s a, that’s a really interesting. Are you asking this question? Or is this the nuance that you’re that you’re really asking me? And they would sort of stop? I could see, I could hear the deer in headlights, and they’re, you know, in the silence? And then they would sort of repeat the question exactly. As it had been scripted. And I was like, oh, oh, yeah, right. Yeah, you okay, we’re doing the robot thing. We’re doing that thing.
Phil Rickaby
Do not stand in the way of bureaucracy, my friend do not stand in.
Matthew Romaninti
Yeah, no, absolutely. And I understand it, you know, because there’s a level of equity they’re trying to make in the interview process. But for me, I it made me really clear and I got the job. I actually got the job, funnily enough, I think, because I was trying to engage them on a human level, they were like, you’re really good at facilitating people. So anyway, it was that. But I think I really revealed to me the theatre. Like, the real kernel of theatre that lives in me, which is I, I want to cut through that kind of bureaucratic stuff and I want to get to the human heart upstairs.
Phil Rickaby
I’m gonna make a leap. Because I want to ask ask about that, that that bureaucratic and a lot of their theatre institutions with a theatre schools, be they theatre companies, they have their own level of bureaucracy, and a lot of times, we don’t, as performers don’t realise the level of bureaucracy until we’re like, where we enter the company. And then we realise how many layers of whatever are between us. How do you navigate those levels of bureaucracy and keep them human?
Matthew Romaninti
I don’t know.
Phil Rickaby
That is a perfect answer. Thank you.
Matthew Romaninti
Yeah, I mean, let me let me wrestle with that one for a second, maybe something compelling will come out of it, and you can cut out the rest of the boring stammering. I, to me, it’s a function, I think of all of these people are, in fact, human. So and one of the things that I actually think is, is really endemic in the theatre culture. I don’t think this is just Canada, but it is definitely the case here. And that is a real feeling of overwork, exhaustion, lack mentality is really, really just prevalent. And so whenever I’m working with somebody, and I get the, you know, hey, I have this inquiry for you, Matthew, I can’t answer that question right now. I’ll try to get back to you. Like oh my gosh, okay. This is not about me doing anything wrong, which is very easy for me to I’m I take things personal really, uh, you know, I’m an actor. And so it’s, it’s really easy to take that type of response personally and part of what I’ve tried to do to keep my own sanity in this context. And in the context of film and television work, when I was doing more of that, I went for auditioning for more of that at least back in the day. I find, the more that I can remind myself that that’s about that person’s state and not about anything that I have said or done. And if I have said or done something I might, you know, is this, Have I done something incorrect here? Like, is there something I apologise if I’ve overstepped something, that kind of thing, but to me, it’s more about just remembering people in and they’ve been in theatre. And man, I used to work for a company that I don’t think exists anymore, unfortunately, called a small theatre administrative facility, we still write grants for people and do marketing and do sort of managerial services for small companies. And it was an awesome place. But we were, we were overworked. And so having been on the admin side of theatre, I, it has given me a real good sense of, okay, when you get that type of reaction, it’s reactivity, it has to do with how exhausted overwhelmed how, how can I make this potentially easier for this person, rather than, you know, just being demanding or that kind of thing?
Phil Rickaby
I’m curious about the idea of lack mentality, when When could you describe what you mean by lack mentality in arts workers?
Matthew Romaninti
What I mean is that we have the belief, I think that there’s not enough to go around, there’s not enough audiences to go around, there’s not enough grant money to go around. And that may or may not be actually true, you know, all of these things may be maybe grounded in some sort of fact. But then, what happens is that we become the we then turn isolationist, so they’re good, there’s the every, every artist, every actor for him, her their self, every company, for him, her there for itself kind of thing. That can, that can really happen, especially in the independent theatre side, like I don’t, I’m not necessarily doing a lot of work with, you know, big, I’m not like working at Stratford, or Shaw or anything like that, I tend to stay in the I like independent theatre, I would work for those larger companies. Absolutely. But the but I don’t necessarily have as much experience of what it’s like, working in those cultures, working in independent theatre, there is a kind of, we’ve got to we’re flying by the seat of our pants were scrounging we’re trying to get every last penny that we can saved up. And if you know, if somebody gives $500 to that company, that’s a one less person who can give $500 to my company kind of thing, which isn’t actually necessarily true. So that’s kind of what I mean is that that feeling that we are actually against each other as artists, and that we have to be competing for resources, when in fact, I don’t necessarily think that’s entirely true.
Phil Rickaby
I have to agree with you. I remember a few number of years ago, when I was doing a show, we were on tour to to Fringe Festivals we’re doing went to the Montreal fringe, it was our first stop, and there was an artist there named Cameron Moore. And Cameron gave this this this this this, she had this Montreal friend one on one, like, like fringing in general, like bloating and stuff, because she was a nonstop machine as far as like promoting goes. And the first thing that she said, was there is audience enough for everyone. We are not in competition. Yeah. And I firmly believe that I’ve gotten into arguments with people since then, claiming that there is audience enough for everyone because I do believe that we don’t need to compete with each other. And if we go into it with like, if they go to that show, then I’m losing an audience member. I don’t think that’s the case. I don’t think that’s the case. It’s the work that brings people in not the fact that they’ve already gone to see something.
Matthew Romaninti
So speaking about day jobs, you talked about day jobs a couple a couple moments ago. I can think of two day job examples of this. Number one, I used to work at a kitchen store when I lived in Ottawa and I love that place. We I remember, there was another kitchen store literally down the street like the next block over. And I remember somebody asked for something I knew the other kitchen store carried that brand. And I didn’t say anything. And my manager who’s who then became a very close friend of mine over the years. She said, tell them about my cuisine, like tell them to go there. because people come into this area for kitchen, that’s what they come here for. So if we tell them, Yes, keep coming into this area, if you’re looking for something for your kitchen, you can give you can get it at my cuisine, you can get it here at Domus you can, you know, you can do it. It was it was a real I was in my early 20s at the time and you know, working under some lack mentality and competition, you know, figure skater competition was just embedded in how I thought and saw the world. And that was a real eye opening moment for me was simple. It was retail, but it was like, oh, yeah, there’s people are in a culture. And then the other one was when you know, speaking about, about, you know, picking up a day job, I started working in the wellness industry, I started teaching yoga, and then I kind of started a private practice as a yoga therapist. And when I set up my private practice, there were two other yoga teachers at the studio where I was setting up that were just finishing their training. And they were really angry that I was first to market. Because their training was, they weren’t allowed to start seeing practice members of clients, until they were finished their training, and they had gone through two years, and I understand their frustration. And for me, I the training that I did, the person who who ran that training said, you have to be seeing clients right away, because in order to even get into the next year of the training, you need to have a certain number of case studies with paying clients that was so she was trying to teach us to open a business as well as you know, learn the thing. So anyway, she, we I set up they were really angry, they they you know demanded a meeting with a studio owner and everything like that. And when we got into the meeting, first of all, I was a little I was I felt pretty, you know, attacked and antagonised. I feel very attacked. And, but I also knew to go in with real clarity around getting this, this gets back to the audience point now is, well, who is your audience? Or who are your clients or your practice member? Who do you want to work with? And the more specific you can be about that, the more specific, you know, who you’re talking to, and what you’re trying to say to them. That to me is like, there’s your audience, you don’t have to worry about, okay, well, I’m, I’m competing with this other person who’s doing this and that other person has a total other point of view. And yes, people might come and see both your shows. But if you are trying to build audience, I think there’s something to be said, for real clarity of vision, in order to build of loyal I don’t even like that word, but like a compelled audience that wants to come back and see more of your work.
Phil Rickaby
That that summer when I was on tour that that speech, and you could see this and all the people who had taken that little course with Cameron. And that sort of like was something that spread throughout the entire tour and that we were all talking up other people’s shows like people were like, I loved your show. Great. I’m so glad you liked me. So have you seen so and so’s show like this sort of stuff, like sharing and that I remember hearing stories where somebody you know, they were they were flyering. And they were like, well, it here’s I have two shows left? The person was like, I can’t, I’m looking at the schedule, I can’t make your show. And this person was like, Alright, let’s take a look who’s so can you make and they were like, I know, this guy shows really good. And I know this show is really good. These are shows that you can like, like taking the time through that person went to see a bunch of shows and had such a warm feeling about about the fringe, which is so you know, we sometimes forget that I know, in Toronto, I think sometimes people think they feel like they are in competition with other shows. And it is it could be further from the truth.
Matthew Romaninti
I think we are in an interesting moment right now because we’re you know, we’re, I’m of the mind, this pandemic is still happening, you know, I’m not one of the like, well, we’re post pandemic like, no, no. So you could take that or leave it. But ultimately what’s happening is we’re coming out of lockdown time. And I have been really lucky to I work at Randolph college for the performing arts as well. And the acting area head there has secured a bunch of group tickets to show so every week, we’ve been going and seeing shows we you know, we we went and saw Queen Goneril we saw King Lear we saw Uncle Vanya we saw a Bengal tiger we saw it we’re going to see the wall slide where we’re seeing, we’re seeing shows every week. First of all the students need that, but the my actual point has to do with what I’m what I’m seeing in the audience’s which is their full. First of all, they’re quite full. And it seems to me that people are really, really relieved to be having a collective experience of some kind. So as much as this has been a gong show of epic proportions, these last two years for theatre and, and terrible for theatre artists, especially the aftermath, in some ways, we forget, culturally, I think in Toronto, and maybe in Canada in general, and I’ve worked in different different environments in Canada, I’ve worked in Vancouver, a bunch and a little bit out east. And I think that we sometimes forget that we have culture and the culture requires our participation and post lockdown where now we are allowed to have collective experiences. Again, I think people are seem to be really hunting for collective experiences of which you know, theatre, sports, concerts, clubs, all of that kind of stuff. It’s, it’s in some ways, you know, I think, an important thing that’s happening right now and and an exciting thing.
Phil Rickaby
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, when you have two years of, of not doing things, of not being able to do things and sort of being like, stuck at home with Netflix, the idea of, of going out and sitting in a room, I remember when I first when the the live recorded version of Hamilton was on Disney plus when the first one the first landed there. Yeah, I remember watching it and, you know, great, I could see the actress faces close up and all that stuff, which I couldn’t do when I saw it live. But what it really made me feel like was I miss this audience, I miss, that that collective experience because theatre, as they didn’t understand it, when they said it in first years, theatre is not a building. It’s not, it’s not the play. It’s when the audience and the performer breathe as one. And I was like, I didn’t understand it until I was in it until I experienced it. And then it was like, oh, that’s what that is.
Matthew Romaninti
I went and saw in one of those moments where we were out of a lockdown. And then, you know, one of those interstitial moments. And there was a production, I think, I think it was at the Princess of Wales, maybe called blindness. And it was based on the book by Jose Saramago, which he was one of my favourite authors and, and I went with a with somebody. And the way that it was set up was that the audience was actually on the stage in these pods, so you went with somebody, or you went on your own, and you got a little couple of chairs. And then they were six feet or eight feet away from another couple of chairs. And then we put on headphones like this. And it was it was a recording of Juliet Stevenson, who she is as Mary and Joseph, she’s such a brilliant actor, reading and doing all the characters basically, like an almost like an audio book. But, and I was kind of like, it’s Juliet. Stevenson, it’s blindness. But it’s not theatre, you know, and then I went there, and I was I was weeping with gratitude for the fact of having a collective experience with somebody who wasn’t the dude that I went with, or, you know, my, my dad, or my, you know, my boyfriend at the time or more my roommate, I was so glad and I love all those people. But I was so glad to be having a collective experience with strangers. It was so important. Yeah, it was really effective.
Phil Rickaby
Absolutely. Um, what is it that you teach it at Randolph?
Matthew Romaninti
I teach in the acting area. So Randolph is for those of you don’t know it’s a it’s a musical theatre, college, private college. So we have a music section, an acting section and a dance section. So I teach in the in the theatre in the acting section. And I teach movement for actors. I teach a first term course called Acting foundations, I co teach that I do a little bit of scene study. I’m primarily getting at I would say I’m getting at the physical, physical connection to whatever they’re working on. That seems to be my main, my main thrust, my main bias that I’m trying to kind of help then explore more.
Phil Rickaby
And do you direct as well? Yeah, I
Matthew Romaninti
do. I do. Actually, I, I was really, really lucky to Well, yeah, to direct there, I, I’ve been working there for just a little over a year now. So it’s new, it’s since the pandemic. And in January to March of of 2022, I was able to direct a show called Unity 1918, which is a Canadian show by Kevin Kerr. And if that shows about the 1918 flu pandemic, sweeping through this small Saskatchewan town, and it’s so when, when that was the play that was chosen, they chose it before they asked me to direct excuse me, I realised, oh, this is an opportunity for us to for anybody who comes to see the show, to have their experience, reflected, and chip for us to tell them everything’s going to be okay. Through the show. And then that went really, really well. And, and they asked me to direct again. And so I chose the government inspector, the Google Play, which is a beast of a play,
Phil Rickaby
it is a beast of a play, but it is a win. It is, it is it is it is so much fun, that an audience I think, can often be very forgiving.
Matthew Romaninti
Yeah. And we, you know, was it was really about style, giving the the students who are really, really getting a very good grounding in musical theatre training, to go totally outside of that box and get something that was way more physically stylized. And I really, I really had them look at a lot of sort of slapstick vaudeville, you know, Looney Tunes, that kind of that kind of stuff, things where the timing is really, really essential. And they just, they, they really, really hit it out of the park. And I’m going to be directing. I think, by the time that you well. I’m going to be directing another show. I can’t say what it is yet. But it looks like I’m going to be directing another show in January. So I’m really excited about that.
Phil Rickaby
Nice. Now, I really want to talk about waiting for the dawn. Yeah. Which is at the Dan Taylor new works festival from November 30 to December 4, so and you’re acting in that so what is waiting for the dawn
Matthew Romaninti
so waiting for the dawn is up play, it’s an early work by my dear dear friend, almost family at this point. And, and I consider her my artistic mentor, this is Erika Batdorf. And she wrote this for herself in 1991. And she performed it as a solo work then. Then in 2008, I got a Chalmers professional development branch to study in more depth with Erika some of the some of the corporeal mime elements of her of her training, something called or rotational movement, which if you think of like oratory, but movement. And so I did we use this play as a kind of a case study for that. And then once the grant was, you know, done, we thought, well, now I’ve learned all this material. Maybe I should perform the thing. So I performed it first in in 2009, at the summerworks Festival here in Toronto, and they went pretty well. And Aaron Rodman, too is the artistic producer at the at the DM Taylor theatre, and the general manager at video cabaret, which is this the in house that’s that’s their, at their space. reached out to me and said, we’re starting up this festival, do you have anything that might be right for it? And I, I have a number of solo works that are just kind of sitting there in the repertoire, you know? And but this was the one for me, you know, I looked at a few different pieces and I thought yeah, this one’s This one’s the one it’s a show about should I tell you what it’s about?
Phil Rickaby
Yes, please, please.
Matthew Romaninti
Do you have more questions about it? I’m just gassing on now. Want to hear about it? Okay, so it’s a show I play three different characters. I play a man who’s trying therapy for the first time because he thinks he might be losing his mind. And a woman In who’s a Southern Belle, who has been doing meditation for a little while, and it’s kind of working, but she’s gotten a little bit frustrated. And so she’s giving God a deadline to give her a vision. And she gave God that deadline, in that first thing, just after dawn this morning. And so now we’re waiting in the theatre for Dawn, because that’s the deadline. So if if she gets a vision, then we’re all gonna see this amazing thing. And if she doesn’t get a vision, then we can all move on to something else, like astrology or something else, you know, it’s kind of is kind of what she says. And then I play the this sort of divine being maybe an angel, who is kind of like the guardian angel of both of them. And we start to understand that maybe these two people are connected, and maybe they’re connected. But we don’t quite know how and that reveals itself throughout the show. Nice. Yeah.
Phil Rickaby
Now is this is this show the I mean, you performed it summer works, but is it your first this show the your first solo performance? Have you done solo in the past?
Matthew Romaninti
I have done solo work in the past. Yeah, I’ve done it in different mediums. So I also, I worked with a company in Vancouver called Kokoro dance. And they do a Japanese contemporary dance for him, just sort of dance theatre film called Bhutto. And so I studied there for a few years and worked, worked with Kokoro on a number of projects. And then I commissioned Barbara bourgeois, who’s one of the artistic directors of the company. I commissioned her to choreograph a full length solo for me. So that piece crumbling was one of the other options that I might do that I thought I might do for this festival. And then I’ve had I’ve had other works solo works that I’ve done that I’ve created myself and others that I’ve set the head, you know, other choreographers set on me that kind of thing. So yeah, I’m used to doing solo work. I like it. It’s, it makes it easy. sort of easy. It’s harder and others.
Phil Rickaby
Yes, I was about to say, because it makes touring a lot easier. It makes touring the travelling with the show. So easy. But in other ways, it makes travelling with the show. So hard.
Matthew Romaninti
Yeah, a little bit lonely. Um, there’s, there’s a little bit of that stuff that goes on. And, you know, especially if I’m taking on any producing role, which I often you know, to wear multiple hats. That can, can sometimes challenge the art, you know, the artistic expression element, because a little part of my brain is going to always delight what’s going on with the sound what’s happening are antedated we get no, you know, there’s a little little dialogue that’s going on about production elements sometimes. So I have learned how to compartmentalise those are to try to like, calm that voice a little bit. It’s usually not trying to force it away, like shut up, it’s usually more. Thanks, producer, Matthew, I’m really glad that you brought that up. Let’s talk about that after the rehearsal is done, okay, you know, sort of talking with myself with as much compassion as I can muster.
Phil Rickaby
It’s so hard, though. I mean, as when you’re travelling with the show, usually you’re the own like you’ve got you’ve got you have to do it all, especially if you’re like, just a solo performer Santa for in circuit. So what I learned to do was to front load all of the production work beforehand, so that when I didn’t have time, it was really easy. Like, if I need a pull, quote, If I need an image to share with a pull, quote, I have those in a folder. And I can quickly pull those slap some texts on and get it out there. I don’t have to be like, Oh, I should I need to create an image like I’ve done all of the hard work. Yeah. And now I’ve got it. I’ve got it all set up. Yeah, exactly. Now, as from one solo performer to another, I know why I am drawn to it. And for me, it’s there’s something about that. You know, when an audience goes on a journey with you, you feel that in a way that is so visceral, like you feel them coming with you and when they are with you. It’s it’s like a drug, right? It’s so good. And then I remember the first time we performed a solo so I after I finished that run, I was like I want more of this. So for you, what is it that draws you to the solo performance?
Matthew Romaninti
Well, there’s a couple things. I would say that performance in general, one of the things especially if it’s if it’s a piece like this where I know who made it, and I know I know her background And I know her motivations from just making work in general. And this is sometimes where the mentorship really, really comes in, because I’m aligned with that. And one of the things that Erica often says for people when she because she also teaches people how to make solo works. And one of the things she says is, find a compelling reason within yourself to write the bloody title, you know, or to perform sort of perform the thing? And let it be a question to which you do not actually have an answer. So that the creation process becomes and the performing process, even more importantly, becomes a way of attempting to answer this unanswered question for yourself, this keeps it compelling, then link that to something that you see that is like, your personal search, to something that is going on in the world that you identify as, like, Oh, this is? This is the culture, trying to answer a question that’s not unlike this personal question that I’m trying to answer in my own life. So that there’s a, there’s a personal and, and, and a universal, if you will, kind of a kind of idea. So for me, overall, in performing, even if it’s not a piece like this, that has, I know come from a place like that. I tried to do that, what is this piece talking about? And what what is that like in my own world, that I can that I can bring to that. So I think that that’s possible, especially if I’m creating something that I know that that’s something that I want to just sort of the thing about that in a solo context, is I have nobody else’s concerns that I also am trying to manage and include and whatever. It’s just okay, this is the thing that I’m working with. And this is the thing that I’m seeing in the work that I am seeing in the world. So there’s a chance for point of view, it’s one of the reasons why I like directing as well is because it I get to be the one that drives the point of view, and to have that change. And, you know, be transformed, of course, by the people that I’m working with. But I think that’s one of the reasons why I’m interested in solo work as well as that there’s, there’s no once I’m in flow, once I’m in a creative process, and I get into flow state, I get really, really pissy, if that gets interrupted. And as much as I love other humans, which I really do, otherwise, I would have gotten into academics. As much as I love other humans, sometimes I’m just on a roll and I need so I need to just keep going rather than have somebody be like, Well, what about this, or I also want to talk about this thing. It’s like No, shut up. I just I’m gonna roll by please let me keep going.
Phil Rickaby
Do you find when you’re performing and you hit that flow state of the performance, it’s just you that the because that is your there’s a relationship that the solo performer has with the audience?
Matthew Romaninti
Yeah, it’s not it’s not. It’s not just internal. When it’s not an internal flow state. It’s a flow state of of given take communication with the audience, silence silence, sometimes not silent communication with the audience. Yeah.
Phil Rickaby
Yeah, I was I was actually shocked with, with how much the audience became my scene partner. Yeah, in the show, like, I don’t think I was my, my director told me that that would happen. You said, You gotta make eye contact with the audience, which I was like, I gotta make eye contact with the audience when you talk about Yeah. But I did. Although I cheated. The first the first performance because I was too freaked out. Like I sort of like did that thing where you look between people. But after that, I actually made eye contact, but then they become they do become your scene partner. And you start like, seeing how people react to things that you’re saying. And you. You’re like, this is my guy for this part of the show. And this is my guy for this part of the show. And it becomes this fascinating thing that changes.
Matthew Romaninti
Erykah talked about this particular show, showing her that she just wrote the thing, you know, and she was performing the thing. And there’s a moment in the play where there’s a real sense of engagement with the audience. real sense of engagement with them and, and she wasn’t expecting the audience to be as moved as they were by that moment. And she had people come after her afterward and be like, it broke my heart when you didn’t follow through with that thing, or whatever. I’m trying to like, make it so that anybody who comes who’s listening to this and who comes and sees it doesn’t get anything ruined for them, but there’s some moments of really beautiful connection where it’s not it’s not exact The audience participation are anything but where there’s, it’s just this sort of invitational quality that that the performer is meant to have of like, I see you and I care about you. And, and then to have that get taken away, she said it was people were like, oh, no, please, please don’t take that away. It feels so good to be cared for in that moment. And and then she said that, that that kind of was mind blowing for her. And it affected how she made work going forward, how she wrote, thinking about how can I compose for conduct perhaps the, the ebbs and flows of the of the audience response, not just for her own, you know, not just because it’s like a drug, as you said, because it is kind of like a drug, but also for them to have a transformative experience, how can I make it so that people who don’t usually breathe, are breathing? How can we make it so that people who have a fairly sort of repressed or shut down emotional life start to crack that open a little bit in the context of theatre where they’re in the dark? And maybe it’s safe to cry? Or it’s safe to lapse? Or it’s safe to? To have a sharp to be shocked? Or, you know, whatever?
Phil Rickaby
Yeah, for sure. Um, just as we sort of draw to a close here. Oh, Mike, I wanted to ask you about, you mentioned your wellness practice, when you mentioned that, and I’m curious about how, first off how you found your way to the wellness practice, but also, how does does the wellness work that you do relate to theatre,
Matthew Romaninti
they have the same goal. So to me, theatre is for really any kind of live performance medium is, is for the viewer, to become engaged with the material, but also with their own state, in a brand new way, and to come away transformed. And perhaps become a fuller, more self aware version of themselves. That’s my goal with every single show that I do. So I, I feel, perhaps very privileged. But also, this is this is me, prioritising like, I, I don’t want to audition for shows that I don’t believe in. I don’t, I don’t want to audition for shows that I don’t believe I don’t want to, or that are like, Oh, this is kind of cool. To me, it’s i It has to be like a fillet mignon, like I have to, I have to really be able to really bite into it. And I have to feel like it has meaning to me, that I can then move outwards to the audience. And that’s not to say that things that I don’t want to do are not are meaningless. It’s just, it has to have some sort of personal resonance. Otherwise, I shouldn’t be the actor, there should be an actor in that role. Who’s who does have the personal resonance, you know. It’s about building self awareness. It’s about transformation for me. And I, I, the wellness practices exactly the same. So I started, I started teaching yoga. Basically, I hit a point. And I hit a point, maybe 12 years ago, which is very much what you said, Phil, about, you know, okay, well, the day job moment, it was that, but I knew that I couldn’t do a day job. That was I had done a lot of theatre admin. And I, I knew that it wasn’t, I could do it. I was good at it. And I, I wasn’t, it wasn’t for me. And I knew that I couldn’t be a server, I would die as a server. I, and I admire anybody who can do it. It’s, it’s a trial by fire. And I thought, well, what are the things that I love? I know that that theatre and performing and directing and creating this is, this is always number one. But what do I love at such a degree that it that it at least approaches that amount of love. And at that point, I had been practising yoga a lot, and I loved it. And I knew that I wanted to teach artists as well, that that was something that I was also passionate about. And I saw I signed myself up for a teacher training in a yoga style that I was doing at that time, which was called Moksha at the time now Modo. And then and then Just you know, one of those universe things. The person who gave the flamboyant speech at York when I went for my audition was Peter McKinnon and Peter, as an awesome human. And he, he called me out of the blue one day and said, Hey, I need a TA for my theatre management course that I’m that I teach in the school do you want to come and TA for me. And so I went and did that for, you know, five years or something like that with him. And then the wellness practice kind of grew. And I, I started to do more and more, I did more trainings that had to do with the therapeutic side of yoga, and working with people and building really deep, subtle physiological self awareness in order to help address things like pain, strain and stress and injury. And then what I thought was really cool that started to happen in that practice was a, you know, we’d be doing something, somebody would have a shoulder injury. And we’d be doing sort of these little micro movements to try to help them clean up their movement patterns. And whenever, and at a certain point, they turn and they turned to me there on the floor, and they’d look at me, and they’d be like, this isn’t just about my shoulder, is it? My I would say, I don’t think so. No. But I My training is just the movement. You know, and then, as I studied with Erica, to teach her movements, Dr. She has a technique that she that she does called the Batdorf technique. And that is about deep physiological awareness and connecting that so that you can create repeatable, believable emotional states as an actor. So I trained in that. And then I knew that I wanted to take that and use it in a therapeutic context as well. And so once I had that, under my belt, I started to it really started to open up for the people coming to me for their, you know, chronic pain and injuries, when they would hit that point where they were like, this isn’t just about my shoulder, I think there’s something mental emotional going on, that we could hold space for that exploration as well. And then the next step that started to happen, and this is a little bit Missy tinkle woowoo. But it was happening really consistently, which was, people would start to, they would start to like, I was seeing one person at a time. And one person would come in, and they’d be like, you know, we’d be working. And they’d say, like, you know what, I think? I think there’s something that has to do with releasing my solar plexus to help free up my breathing into my emotional states. And I’d be like, okay, cool, awesome. Let’s take note of that. And then the next person would cut they did, they’d go off, and then the next person would come in, and they’d be like, my solar plexus is really locked up. And I think it has something to do with my emotions. You’re like, Oh, my God, these people are like communicating with each other without even knowing it. It sounds really new agey, but it was one of those things that I kept happening. And I was like, I can’t explain this. It seems to new agey to be real, but it seems to be happening. And then so then there was this again, this. This is where it gets back to theatre. Is that it? That to me is people doing what’s called in training to one another. So when you have a collective experience, everybody’s kind of heart rate starts to sync up. It’s the same sort of thing that happens in pods of dolphins where like, how are they not crashing into each other. They’re doing what’s called entrainment, they’re so connected with each other, that they can move fast and in a tight clump, and not hit each other. And same thing with birds flocking, so humans have this capability as well. Again, it sounds a little out there. But there’s all sorts of interesting studies about it, that show that, you know, human thinking of breath than heart rate, heart rate and endocrine response. This happens in audiences. And in fact, in fact, Erika has been hooking up with some researchers that are really, really interested in the endocrine responses and the heart rate responses and the breath responses of audience members. And so we’re doing things with like, you know, attaching sensors to audience members while they’re doing while they’re watching the sort of physically compelling work that Erica makes. And so it’s that to me was such an interesting crossover, because I knew about the scientific research that was happening with Erica’s work. And then I was seeing something kind of like that happening with my therapeutic clients as well. And I thought these two things are about transformation and self awareness and really deep physiologic, like the body as the locus of our transformation and So, to me if that was the thing, I spent a lot of time over the years as a wellness worker and an artist going, I know these two things are parallel. And I can tell that they’re sort of supporting each other, but it was more theoretical, more kind of idea based. And then when I hit that point, I realised, oh, this is the same thing, just in a different media.
Phil Rickaby
That is fascinating stuff. Because I know, from my own experience, and seeing in other people, the fact that I know that we store emotion. Oh, in deep tissue, right? Do you know about? Do you know about the Body Keeps the Score? Do you know about that book? I don’t know, the book. I just know, from my own experience, like suddenly, and this happened way, as far back as theatre school where somebody will be like, they have a knot. And then suddenly, it’s, like, do a little a little pressure on that all of a sudden, they’re like, why am I angry, or like, it’s just because there was a motion that you didn’t want to deal with it. So you pushed it into this into your like, shoulder muscle for some reason. And it stayed there until it just gets too tight. And then we have to, we have to work it out. It’s fascinating that we do that.
Matthew Romaninti
It’s so it’s an amazing, it’s, it’s amazing. It is such an adaptive behaviour, human beings are so awesome. The fact that we can have a traumatic or upsetting experience and be like, You know what, I can actually deal with this right now. I’m going to deal with it later. People who avoid it, they think they’re pushing the emotion away, or they’re pushing the experience away, what they’re actually doing is pushing it in, they’re pushing it into a tissue of their body, where it is waiting to come back out and get processed. So it’s just it’s in a queue. It’s in a it’s in a line, basically, like a lineup waiting to get processed in your body. And then when you unpack it, like, you know, work on the knot or something, suddenly, it’s like, Oh, it’s my turn to get processed. Great. Yeah, fantastic. So the same thing happens for audience members through the collective experience, especially when the actors are well embodied. Then we have the audience now having a mirror response from their own mirror neurons, I yawn, you yawn, you know, that kind of stuff starts to happen with the audience. And this is what you called a moment ago, when the audience goes with you as a solo performer when they’re with you. That’s what’s happening. That’s the physiology. There’s physiology to that, you know, and so then it in the same way that doing a pressure point on a knot, and suddenly, why am I angry, the collective experience, and now you’re breathing in a new way that other people are helping to helping you to breathe in a way that is different for you, all of a sudden, you’re going to be contacting new tissues in your body and unlocking stuff. That’s the transformation. So when I talk about transformation, it can be it can sound very, like I’m a, you know, sort of hippie, and yeah, I mean, maybe, but also I’m interested in the science of and the physiology of how do we make change in our own state? And then how does theatre help us? Help others transform and make change in their own state and heal their wounds? You know?
Phil Rickaby
It’s fascinating stuff.
Matthew Romaninti
I love it. As you can tell from the increase in volume and speed of my voice. I’m really nerdy about this stuff. I love it so much.
Phil Rickaby
Well, Matthew, thank you so much for taking the time to talk with me tonight. It was great to chat with you and get to know you. Oh my gosh, this was so great.
Matthew Romaninti
I loved it. Thank you.
Phil Rickaby
This has been an episode of Stageworthy Stageworthy is produced, hosted and edited by Phil Rickaby. That’s me. If you enjoyed this podcast and you listen on Apple podcasts or Spotify, you can leave a five star rating. And if you listen on Apple podcast, you can also leave a review those reviews and ratings help new people find the show. If you want to keep up with what’s going on with Stageworthy and my other projects, you can subscribe to my newsletter by going to Phil rickaby.com/subscribe. And remember, if you want to leave a tip, you’ll find a link to the virtual tip jar in the show notes or on the website. You can find Stageworthy on Twitter and Instagram at Stageworthy pod and you can find the website with the complete archive of all episodes@stageworthy.ca If you want to find me, you can find me on Twitter and Instagram at Phil Rickaby and as I mentioned, my website is Phil rickaby.com. See you next week for another episode of Stageworthy
