Podcast

Courtney Stoltz

About This Episode:
This week on Stageworthy, host Phil Rickaby is joined by Courtney Stoltz, the production manager for a new community theatre company in Kenora, Ontario, called So I guess we’re doing this. Courtney shares her journey from actor to production manager. She provides a look into the theatre scene in Northwestern Ontario and the experience of taking their original play, Finding Richard Close, to the Winnipeg Fringe Festival. Courtney also discusses the unique balance of working in health promotion in remote Indigenous communities while pursuing her passion for theatre, highlighting the company’s commitment to community wellness and their ambitious plans for the future.

This episode explores:

  • The formation of So I guess we’re doing this, a theatre company founded by two family physicians in Kenora.
  • The themes of community, family, and healing in their original play, Finding Richard Close.
  • The challenges and triumphs of a new company performing at the Winnipeg Fringe Festival.
  • The state of the theatre scene in Northwestern Ontario and the passion of its artists.
  • The company’s future vision, including a potential regional tour and their goal of becoming a professional theatre company.

Guest:
🎭 Courtney Stoltz

Courtney is the production manager for So I Guess We’re Doing This? Theatre Company, based in Kenora, Ontario. She was born and raised in Edmonton, Alberta. Her theatre journey there included performing in Northern Lights Theatre’s productions of Beauty and the Beast and Robin Hood at the Edmonton Fringe Festival in 2009 and 2010, respectively. She has appeared in numerous productions with Missoula Children’s theatre, including King Arthur’s Quest, The Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, and The Princess and the Frog. She attended Foote Theatre School, which culminated in a performance of A Chorus Line and Victoria School of the Arts from grades 10-12. She has recently appeared in TryLight Theatre’s productions of My Fair Lady and Holmes and Watson. This is Courtney’s first time approaching a show from the production side rather than being on stage, and it has been both fun and educational. When not thinking about theatre, Courtney works in Health Promotion in Kenora, Ontario. She is an avid whitewater kayaker and loves spending her weekends in the summer finding new rapids to challenge her. You also might find her mixing cocktails behind the bar where she works part time.

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Transcript

[Phil Rickaby]
Hello, welcome to Stageworthy. I’m Phil Rickaby, the host and producer of this podcast. Stageworthy is Canada’s theatre podcast.

And on this show, I talk to people who make theatre, some of whom are household names, and some I really think you should get to know. This week, I’m talking to Courtney Stolz. I really found this conversation fascinating, because again, I really love when I’m talking to somebody who is working and creating theatre in a place that I’m not familiar with.

And Courtney is the production manager for a theatre company called So I Guess We’re Doing This. And they are based in Kenora, Ontario. And of course, I didn’t know much about the scene in Kenora, Ontario.

And so this is a fascinating conversation that I had with Courtney. Stick around to the end of the program, because at the end of the program, I’m going to tell you who is my guest next week. So just check that out at the end of the episode.

And I hope you enjoy this conversation with Courtney Stolz. Courtney Stolz, thank you so much for joining me. I really appreciate you making some time.

You know, you are in Kenora, Ontario.

[Courtney Stolz]
I am.

[Phil Rickaby]
Kenora is, I mean, it’s closer to Winnipeg than it is Toronto.

[Courtney Stolz]
It sure is. Yeah.

[Phil Rickaby]
Now, and I’m excited about talking about the theatre scene in Kenora, because I think coming from Toronto sees itself as like the centre of the theatre universe. And I don’t think we have much of an experience of theatre outside of Toronto, let alone in a place like Kenora that is much further away. So I definitely want to get to the theatre scene.

But first, I want to talk about So I Guess We’re Doing This theatre. Tell me about So I Guess We’re Doing This.

[Courtney Stolz]
Yes. So I Guess We’re Doing This theatre company is a brand new community theatre based in Kenora. It was started last year by Dr. Lisa Harbormill and Dr. Johnny Gruck, who are both family physicians here in Kenora. The way that it was started was the two of them. So there’s another community theatre here called Trilight Theatre. And Trilight put on a production of Queen Millie of Galt.

And Dr. Harbormill and Dr. Gruck were both cast as the leads in that. And they had been familiar with each other professionally prior to that. But that’s where they really like got to know each other and on a personal level and learned that they were both really invested in the intersection between things like theatre and the arts and overall community wellness.

So that’s really where it started was the two family physicians who were just, you know, taking in this little community theatre, wanted to start their own company so that they could start doing different productions than what Trilight does. And they could have a little bit more control over who was in it, what productions looked like, what we did with the productions. So Lisa wrote a script.

So our first production is Finding Richard Klaus, written by Dr. Lisa Harbormill, starring her. Dr. Johnny Greck also has Dylan Shunko White and Derek Favreau in that cast of four. And that play debuted at the Winnipeg Fringe in July.

And we just wrapped up a local run here in Kenora this weekend, where we put on four productions. And then we are currently planning to take this show on a little regional tour of Western Ontario. So looking at Red Lake, Fort Francis and Winnipeg for the upcoming year.

[Phil Rickaby]
Can you give me a sense of what Finding Richard Klaus is about?

[Courtney Stolz]
Absolutely. So Finding Richard Klaus is, at the very beginning of the play, it’s about two estranged siblings. So Maren and Ethan, played by Dr. Lisa Harbormill and Dr. Johnny Greck, they haven’t each other in 30 years. And their mother has a stroke. So Ethan phones Maren for the first time in years and years saying, you need to come to London because he lives in London and she lives in Calgary. You need to come to London.

Mom’s had a stroke. She’s going to die very soon. So the start of the play is Maren and her husband Teddy arriving at Ethan’s door.

So this show is a dramedy. The original intention for it was to be a straight farcical comedy that Lisa realized fairly early on in the writing process. But it’s difficult to write a just straight comedy when there’s a character offstage dying the entire show.

So it’s more of a tragedy, but it’s also very funny. So it’s a dramedy. And most of what this…

So at the beginning of the play, after Maren has arrived, a lawyer, played by Dylan Shinko-White, comes and he says, here’s a letter from your mom she gave to me years ago. And they open it and it is a sticky note that has three instructions on it. It says, should I die?

One, ashes into birdbath. Two, notices, Boston, London, Calgary. Three, important papers, hand-drawn Richard Close.

And this is the only information they have. They ask the lawyer, who is Richard Close? He’s like, I have no idea.

Your mom has never mentioned that name to me. I got nothing for you. So the play is about them finding Richard Close to find the important documents.

But it’s also about… What it’s really about is about Maren reconnecting with each other and exploring for reasons that they separated in the first place. And dealing with their very traumatic childhood.

And just like the importance of family and healing and coming together in times of tragedy. And that’s really what Finding Richard Close is about.

[Phil Rickaby]
When you said that, when you started to say that it was intended to be initially a farce, the first thing I thought was, how do you think it’s funny when there’s somebody like dying offstage? And then you corrected. So very wisely, that was realized early on.

Yeah. Now, when you’re working, I mean, here you have this theatre company that is formed by two family doctors. And how do their practices fit in with theatre?

Or do they at all?

[Courtney Stolz]
They do. So Dr. Habermill, I’m open to whether to call her Lisa or Dr. Habermill when I’m doing media stuff. Because to me, she’s Lisa.

But I suppose Dr. Habermill when speaking about her. She doesn’t practice anymore. She is on policy side and does stuff with Health Ontario as a whole.

So she doesn’t see patients. So for her, it’s very easy for her to fit her work around a rehearsal schedule and all of the other things that are required when you’re creating a new theatre company and putting on a show. Because all of her stuff is virtual.

She does a lot of and it’s easy. Dr. Grech, which again, to me, he’s Johnny. But Dr. Grech, he is a practicing physician. He sees patients. So he had to adjust his schedule quite a bit. But he’s done quite well in finding the balance, I think, of being able to see his patients generally in the morning.

So we’ll see them until around two o’clock. And then he will do stuff required for the show. Or he’ll and he’s not doing stuff for the show every day.

But it will be a full day. And what this really falls into, especially I’m going to say, especially Dr. Grech, because he actually sees patients is he has been working very hard to promote just overall community wellness and connection within Kenora. So he’ll integrate things like this show is a way of finding community and talking to his patients about things like what do you do for your own wellness?

What sort of arts are you involved in? What sort of community building do you have? Because community is so important for your overall health.

[Phil Rickaby]
And one of the things that is really good about doing theatre is that’s a community. People come into a place together and they have an experience in one space. They laugh together.

They have all of that. So that’s a community as well. And I think in here in a lot of places, there’s a lot of complaint about people aren’t going to the theatre.

How do we get people to the theatre? How do we convince people to turn off the Netflix or whatever they’re watching and come out? And it’s even more important to bring people from their homes when they’re alone into community when they’re in a space.

What are audiences like? Are people going to the theatre? Tell me about that experience in Kenora.

[Courtney Stolz]
So we are very privileged because, like I said, Tri-Lite is an established theatre company here already. And we definitely relied on them a lot for support. They have been so supportive throughout this whole process.

They allowed us to use their space for rehearsals, which was so helpful because we were able to map out our Winnipeg stage and use that. And then they allowed us to use their space when we put on our performances. We rented it from them, but they didn’t have to allow that at all.

And they also have helped promote and provided quite a bit of getting the word out. And our audiences were great. Our first night, we sold out in Kenora.

And then our subsequent free performances didn’t sell out, but they were all more than half full. And to get people to come into the theatre in the summer when there’s not a lot of nice days left, especially the Saturday matinee, which was quite a full audience, the response has been fantastic in Kenora, to be honest. People have been really keen to come and see the show and have let us know that the show really resonated with them.

And we’ve had people from other communities ask when we’re bringing the show out because they weren’t able to come to Kenora, but people from Kenora have told them about it and they want to see it.

[Phil Rickaby]
Nice. Now, you took the show to the Winnipeg Fringe. We did.

Which, you know, going to the second largest fringe in Canada with a relatively new theatre company and a relatively new play, how was the Winnipeg Fringe experience?

[Courtney Stolz]
It was educational. It was a mixed bag of phenomenal and a little bit heart-wrenching because we were at the Asper Center, which is part of the University of Winnipeg. The theatre is beautiful.

It is a stunning, stunning theatre. We had the most amazing lights technician you could have asked for. He really made our stage come alive with the lighting and he’s an established theatre person.

So he offered some guidance, which was very much appreciated. The Asper Center is also about a 10-minute walk from Market Square, which is where most of the fringe occurs. And you have to go through not the nicest part of Winnipeg to walk there.

And Winnipeg has a bit of a reputation anyway. So when you say not the nicest part of Winnipeg, you know, you’re talking about not the nicest part. So our audiences were quite small there.

We have, I mean, it’s a fringe show and I think every fringe show can tell you had at least one where there’s like four people in the audience. And we have that, which was a little bit disheartening, I think, especially for the cast because we’re used to the Kenora audiences being so keen to come and see what we have, at least with Trilight. We haven’t done our show yet, but we’ve all done at least one Trilight show where we can say audiences will come out for it.

But it was super educational. We learned a lot about how to put on a show on a professional theatre, what sort of things we do ahead of time. We learned a lot about marketing that was new for everybody.

And we did have one audience in particular that was more than half full and that was amazing. Like that was such a great show. And all of our shows were great, honestly.

Like I’m going to say full kudos to our cast, despite the fact that we had pretty small numbers for the most part. They went out and they gave a great show every single night. Like even when we had four people in the audience, they gave the same energy that they had when we had an almost full one.

[Phil Rickaby]
You know, I’m thinking about my own fringe experiences, and I think that everybody who does a fringe festival has the highs and lows. Yeah. Years ago, I was doing a fringe tour and in the middle of one of the fringes I was at, I did have the thought, are you on a fringe tour if you don’t hit like the absolute lowest low that you’ve had in quite a while in the middle of it?

Because it is grueling. Like it is a lot of work.

[Courtney Stolz]
Yeah, it was a ton of work to put the show together for the fringe. It was a ton of work to market it, especially being out of town because we couldn’t just like do things in town the way that the local productions do. And I think we as a company have talked about the Red Peg Fringe and we have decided it was an overall positive experience, despite the fact that our audience numbers were low.

We all had a great time. For most of the cast, no, for everybody except me, it was their first fringe ever. So everybody got to experience the fringe for the first time, which was amazing, because again, coming from rural Ontario, you don’t often find yourself in an environment where there’s tons of people who are all about theatre and they’re really excited to see new things and talk about shows.

And so that was amazing for everybody. We saw some really cool stuff. And I think a lot of the lessons we learned from Winnipeg we’re going to be taking forward.

And we’ve already talked about doing it again next year. Nice.

[Phil Rickaby]
I mean, you mentioned not being any stranger to fringe because you have done shows at the Edmonton Fringe, the largest fringe in Canada. Or North America, largest fringe in North America. Yeah.

[Courtney Stolz]
And the only one bigger worldwide is Edinburgh.

[Phil Rickaby]
Actually, Edmonton was replaced by, I think, Adelaide a few years ago. So Australia has surpassed that. But still, Edmonton is the biggest in North America.

And so were you able to give a little bit of guidance of what fringe is?

[Courtney Stolz]
I think so. I mean, to be honest, the last time I performed in the Fringe, I was 14. So I just kind of showed up and did my thing and didn’t care.

I mean, had a great time, but wasn’t paying attention to marketing and audience numbers. And are we getting back a return on investment and all of that stuff that I’m thinking about now. But I was able to tell people, here’s kind of what you can expect from a fringe audience.

Here’s the kind of grace the fringe audience will give you. Because there’s a couple parts of our show that we’re still workshopping that are a little bit… It’s mostly transitions between scenes, not the actual show.

They’re a little bit… They need some work. And one of our actors in particular, I was very worried about them.

And I was like, people will go into it saying it’s a fringe show. And people recognize that fringe shows are often a work in progress. So I think I was able to manage expectations that way.

That people are not expecting a Broadway level performance here. If there’s a little bit of an awkward transition, it’ll be okay. I actually was not prepared for how beautiful our venue was.

I was planning on being like, you know, it’s okay if we’re performing in kind of a greasy, this looks like it was thrown together at the last minute theatre. And then I walked in, I was like, wow, this gorgeous theatre.

[Phil Rickaby]
You’re very fortunate though, because some venues are just like, we found a room, we put some chairs in it. Yeah, literally. I did a show a few years ago at the St. John Fringe, the Funday Fringe. And it was an empty… I think it had once been a brewery or something. And it was like a small area.

It wasn’t a theatre. You could sweep that floor for weeks and it would still be dusty. Like it was just like that kind of space.

And I threw some lights and chairs and all that kind of stuff. It ended up being great. But like, you don’t know what you’re going to get.

[Courtney Stolz]
No, you absolutely don’t. So the last Fringe I was in, my venue was like a community center. And it wasn’t even, there wasn’t a stage.

So the audience was like in a circle around them. And the only tech we had was a light switch. We could have light on or off.

And that was fun. Where we have like an actual theatre with like a beautiful stage, a professional technician, all these lights. But we’re like, yes, we can have like colorful lights and blackouts and all these things.

It was amazing.

[Phil Rickaby]
Now, this is your first time from the production side. You were the production manager for this. And how was making that transition from being a performer to the production side?

[Courtney Stolz]
You know what? It was not as hard as I would have thought. Because I am a bit of an attention queen.

I like people giving me a lot of kudos for the things I do, fellow and actor, sometimes. But I actually really enjoyed the production side. I really enjoyed seeing how, I really enjoy, it was a good exercise for my problem-solving brain.

Because my brain loves to like, here’s a thing we need to fix it. Here’s a thing we need to fix it. Here’s another thing we got to do.

Here’s, like my brain loves that sort of thing. So the production side was actually awesome for me. I really love watching all of the pieces come together.

And I really enjoyed looking at things and going, no one knows I did that, but I did that. Like, every time the actor walked on stage, and we have this one actor who plays four different parts, and he comes on, every time he comes on, everybody cheers. And I mean, they’re cheering for him, not his costumes.

But I still, the costumes are like, that was me. I did that.

[Phil Rickaby]
Nice.

[Courtney Stolz]
And it’s been really great for me. It’s been a great way for me to like, channel a lot of like, the energy I have, where I love to plan things. And the type of person who, when I go on a trip, half the fun for me is planning the trip.

So the show has been really awesome for me to take that kind of energy and channel it into, into a play.

[Phil Rickaby]
Yeah. Now, I do want to, I want to talk about your theatre origin story. Okay.

Because I find it fascinating how people find their way to the theatre. So what was your first exposure to the theatre? And what made you want to do it?

[Courtney Stolz]
Oh my god, I don’t know if I could even tell you my theatre origin story. I, the first musical I remember going to is Cats. I’m not entirely sure if that was the first musical I saw, but it’s the first one I remember seeing.

Because I had an aunt growing up who, she was very into theatre, very artsy, for she would take me to shows. And my mum also is really into like, theatre and stuff. Not as much as I am, because I’m a bit of an extreme, but my, my mum also really enjoys theatre.

So she used to take me to theatre as a kid and I grew up in Edmonton. So the Fringe was just a staple of my life. Like the Edmonton Fringe where every year I used to go to shows all the time, performed in it a couple of times as a kid.

So that’s really where my theatre story started, I guess. And then when I was in high school, I attended Victoria School of the Arts, which is in Edmonton. That’s a big deal.

I don’t think anybody outside of Edmonton knows what it is, but in Edmonton, it’s really impressive when you think of it, which is a performing and visual arts school. And they have like a full, like full theatre, professional theatre in the school. And I walked in there, 14, very confident, very, I am the best actor that has ever existed, because in my junior high, I was in everything.

I was in Fringes, I did the summer theatres. And then I never got cast in a single thing in high school, because I was in the place where everybody who had been the best in their junior high showed up to this high school. And it turned out that when I was amongst the best, I would probably be okay.

And that was actually really disheartening for me, because I was a teenager and a lot of my confidence had come from I love the stage, I love the theatre. And I, for a long time, I had always said that I was going to take a degree in theatre, and that’s what I wanted to do. And I ended up not doing that.

I have a Bachelor of Science, and not a fine arts degree. And I kind of, I mean, I still love going to the theatre. When I was a broke university student who had to really prioritize my money, half of it went to a season subscription to every theatre in Edmonton.

I saw every literary portrait. So I took a step back from actually like performing because my confidence would really take a hit from not getting asked in a single thing in high school. And then when I moved out to Kenora a year and a half ago, I found Trilight Theatre very much by accident.

I, because I’d never heard of Kenora, moved out here for work and was just like, googling, I think a movie theatre, but then the movie theatre out here was closed. So what came up with theatre was Trilight. So I auditioned for their fall production last year of My Fair Lady, and I was cast in that.

And it was a great experience. I have a small role, but I loved my small role. I was just like a little maid, which meant that I was on stage all the time, moving things around.

And also during Dance All Night, which you know, is the song from My Fair Lady, that was actually when I got to have my moment. And I had one line that I sang by myself, and it was amazing. And then the next show with Trilight after My Fair Lady was Holmes and Watson, which I’m a huge Sherlock fan.

I love Sherlock Holmes. So I, this is so funny. I wasn’t, I was going to audition for it.

And the audition notice came out, and it said that they were looking for a few men and one woman aged 35 to 60. And I’m like, well, I am under 30. And I’m date and face like I look younger than I am.

So that’s probably going to be a no for me. So I wasn’t going to audition. And then I think no, I don’t know this for sure.

I think nobody auditioned for the female role because the night before the, because they had three audition nights. And the night before the last one, the director from My Fair Lady got in touch with me. He’s like, hey, were you still thinking of auditioning for, I remember you saying you were going to audition for Holmes, but then you weren’t because of the age thing.

And I’m like, I really think you should. And I was like, oh, yeah. And then the stage manager, who I did know for Holmes and Watson also got in touch with me.

She’s like, geez, someone give me the numbers, but not like you were thinking of auditioning for Holmes. Like, I really think you should. So I kind of think nobody showed up for the first two auditions for the female part, but I don’t know that for sure.

And audition for that, and I got in and that role was so much fun. And in that role, but and in that show was Dr. Lisa Habermehl, Dr. Johnny Gregg, Derek Favreau, and the director was Dylan Shumkar-White. So that is the cast of Finding Richard Close.

[Phil Rickaby]
Right.

[Courtney Stolz]
So I connected with them.

[Phil Rickaby]
Now, you mentioned that you had gone to Fringe in Edmonton for quite a while. And then you did a couple of shows later on. What was it like moving from, was it a big deal for you going from being an audience member to being in the Fringe?

[Courtney Stolz]
Oh, totally. I was so excited when I first, so the first show I did was a children’s production of Beauty and the Beast. And I was so, so excited to perform for the Fringe.

And because it was a children’s show, we only had like a couple of shows. We didn’t do the full 10-day extravaganza. We only did a couple, but it was amazing.

It was, it was so cool. I was like, how old was I for that one? 12, I think.

It was so cool to walk into a theatre that I had sat in before and seeing shows, but then to be standing on that stage with my friends doing Beauty and the Beast.

[Phil Rickaby]
Yeah. That’s, that’s pretty huge. That’s pretty huge.

[Courtney Stolz]
Yeah.

[Phil Rickaby]
I did want to talk a bit because, you know, we sort of alluded to the scene in Kenora and in Northwestern Ontario for theatre. And of course, being somebody from Toronto who doesn’t drive, I’ve not spent a lot of time in that area, that part of Ontario, that part of Canada.

[Courtney Stolz]
Yeah.

[Phil Rickaby]
So tell me about the theatre scene in Northwestern Ontario.

[Courtney Stolz]
It, it’s very small, but the people involved in it are so passionate. So Tri-Lite was established in the 90s, I think. And Tri-Lite’s been going strong since the 90s.

Like I think Tri-Lite’s older than I am. And it puts on two productions a year and they have been, and, you know, it’s mostly the same people with, you know, people coming in and out throughout the years, but they are, they work tirelessly to make sure that there is some theatre in Kenora twice a year. Fort Francis, I know, has at least one theatre company.

I don’t know anybody in it personally, but I have like mutual acquaintances with some of the people there. And from what I’ve heard, they’re doing some amazing things there. They’re selling out like 400 seat venues in Fort Francis.

So that’s amazing. And yeah, I think one thing that Northwestern Ontario benefits from, because the theatre scene is so small, when something is happening, people are very curious because we don’t, it’s not like Toronto where if you’re in Toronto and you want to see a play, you can probably find one. Here you get Tri-Lite twice a year, or you have to go to Winnipeg.

Winnipeg is your only other option if you want to do something like that. So I think we benefit from the fact of people who aren’t necessarily like theatre people will see something is happening in Kenora in January, where there’s not a lot happening in Kenora in January, and they’re like, well, we’ll go check it out. We’ll see what it is.

[Phil Rickaby]
I mean, you also mentioned that the movie theatre was closed.

[Courtney Stolz]
Yeah. When I moved, it’s open now.

[Phil Rickaby]
Okay. Okay. Good, good, good.

[Courtney Stolz]
They were renovating, I think.

[Phil Rickaby]
Okay. Okay. That’s good.

Because people have to go and do things, right? And it’s important. It’s important to be able to get out and leave your house and see things and do things.

[Courtney Stolz]
It is. And there’s not a lot. So Kenora in the summer, it’s so beautiful.

Like the lakes are stunning. There’s so many like hiking trails. And it’s a really, really beautiful place.

And it’s vibrant in the summer. In the winter, it’s a little bit of a dead zone. There’s not a lot going on.

There’s usually a couple of like, there’ll be the winter or usually actually spring tri-lake production. And then, you know, local businesses will put on an occasional event, but there’s not tons that happens here in the winter. So I think people get excited when something’s happening.

[Phil Rickaby]
You’re kind of like the way that in Winnipeg, the festivals in the summer become really important because it’s so cold in the winter.

[Courtney Stolz]
Yeah. And people from here who are passionate about theatre, we drive to Winnipeg to see shows. Like I’ve done day trips to Winnipeg.

Like I saw Waitress last year, which I’ve actually seen before, but it came to Winnipeg. So I saw it again. Drove to Winnipeg to see Clay That Goes Raw, which was phenomenal.

My friend and I went there a few months ago to go see Elevate, which was written by a local playwright in Winnipeg, and it was phenomenal. So people from here will drive to Winnipeg for stuff like that.

[Phil Rickaby]
How long is the, just out of curiosity, how long is the drive from Kenora to Winnipeg?

[Courtney Stolz]
It’s about three hours.

[Phil Rickaby]
Okay. Not too bad.

[Courtney Stolz]
Not too bad. It’s close enough that you can day trip it, but it is a full day.

[Phil Rickaby]
Yeah, yeah, yeah. That’s not, it’s not like you’re just like popping over to Winnipeg.

[Courtney Stolz]
No. And in the winter, especially, the roads can be pretty, they can be a lot.

[Phil Rickaby]
I can only imagine.

[Courtney Stolz]
Yeah.

[Phil Rickaby]
Now, when you are not being a production manager or an actor, you are, you work in health promotion at Kenora. And tell me a little bit about that. And how did you get into that?

[Courtney Stolz]
So, I work for Washakizhi Mananda Wagnate, which is an Indigenous healthcare organization. I got through the Ojibwe just fine, and then the English word tripped me up. It’s an Indigenous healthcare organization out here in Kenora.

So, my job is to bring health resources, education, seminars, workshops, et cetera, et cetera, to Indigenous communities surrounding Kenora. So, my home base, I have my desk in my office building, but most of my work is out on reserve. I don’t do a lot.

Most of the time my day will consist of, I show up at the office, gather my materials for the day, hop in a company vehicle, and drive to whatever reserve I’m working on. Every Thursday, I go to two reserves that are out in the middle of Lake Woods, and they’re boat-accessible only. So, every Thursday, I’m out on the boat for an hour and 20 to the reserve and an hour 20 back.

And I do all sorts of stuff. I bring stuff, education about diabetes, education about smoking cessation. I also seek clients every third week for smoking cessation counseling.

I do stuff on health, eating, active living. I work with age groups ranging from toddlers to the elders. I will go to elder centers on reserve and do like gentle exercise classes with them.

I will go to the daycares and just do stuff like checking kids’ teeth and doing varnishes to make sure that they’re getting that fluoride on their teeth. I’m at the schools out on reserve all the time. I go to the clinic and do info sessions and resource fairs.

Like, my day-to-day is very different every day, but most of the main reason that the health promotion job exists is to get those resources out there, because those communities are remote and really cut off from almost everything. And the way that I got into that, I was going to be a doctor. That was my plan.

Got my Bachelor of Science and applied to med school and realized how expensive med school is, so pivoted. And I got a Master of Public Health instead. So, after I graduated from my Master’s, I was looking countrywide to try and find something that was like applicable.

But I knew I wanted to do something that was like actually helping people in a practical way, because it’s really easy for in public health to get into the like really so far separated from the people that you’re trying to help that you kind of forget like what their life is like. And you see this a lot in Kenora, where there’s these resources that are available in Kenora, and they’re available to people out on reserve if they come into Kenora. But somebody who lives on a boat-accessible island only, if they don’t have a boat, they already can’t get them.

If they live on a boat-accessible island only, and it’s mid-November where there’s ice, and so they can’t put their boat in the water, they can’t get them. So, a lot of what I wanted to do was working with people and bringing resources out to areas where they actually can’t, where the access just isn’t there. That was kind of what my goal was.

So, I found this job literally just googling in Kenora for a health promotion job. So, I applied for it. That’s kind of how I ended up here.

[Phil Rickaby]
Were you looking for this kind of outreach that was like you were like looking for to serve the Indigenous community? Is that something that appealed to you?

[Courtney Stolz]
Yeah, I wasn’t looking specifically for the Indigenous community. Although, to be fair, my master’s thesis was on the lack of resources in remote areas. So, it very much fell in line with what I wrote my thesis on.

And yeah, I wasn’t looking specifically for that, but it really did line up with a lot of my interests during my master’s.

[Phil Rickaby]
Now, just coming back to theatre, I’m curious about the name of the theatre company. So, I guess where did doing this come from as a name for the theatre company?

[Courtney Stolz]
We’re playing from Lisa and Johnny. When they first put together for a theatre company, it was just the two of them. And they didn’t know is anybody going to do this with us?

Is anybody going to be? And their original goal was Winnipeg Fringe. Like that from the very beginning was what they wanted to do with it.

So, they were like it really came from them being like we’re applying to the Winnipeg Fringe. We don’t know if we’re going to have any support. We don’t know if we’re going to be able to get other actors or if it’s going to be a two-man show.

We don’t know if we’re going to have a production manager. We don’t know if we’re going to have a stage manager. We don’t know where this thing is going.

And it really was just, so we’re doing this. And that’s kind of where it came from was just then going, so I guess we’re doing.

[Phil Rickaby]
Sometimes the names of theatre companies are always fascinating to learn about. Can you tell me about what so we’re doing this means to you as a company?

[Courtney Stolz]
I think it just really shows how so much passion everybody in our theatre company has for theatre. Because there’s been a lot of times where, I mean you would know, you said you’ve done fringes. It is a lot of work putting on a fringe show.

It’s an insane amount of work, especially when you have to travel. And our set, we have these two massive doors and they’re stunning. The people who put them together did an amazing job.

One of them had like a stained glass window. It’s gorgeous. Taking these two doors from Kenora to Winnipeg was a nightmare.

And we’ve talked about how when we want to go on the tour, we’re going to have to move these doors around and it’s going to be a nightmare. And a lot of things that weren’t necessarily thought about going into a fringe, how hard marketing is going to be and even just managing all being together all the time. We all love each other.

We’re a very close-knit group. But also when you’re with the same people all the time, there’s the inevitable butting of heads every once in a while. And I think just a lot of what so I guess we’re doing this has come down to is we’ll all…

There have been a few times when we’re like, this is really hard. And do we want to keep doing this? And we’ll look at each other and go, yeah.

Everybody cares. Everybody wants to be here. There have been times where somebody will say, hey, I feel like I’m pulling more weight than I can do.

And I don’t feel like other people are helping. And people have stepped up every time that’s happened. And it’s become very much a link.

So we’re doing this. We as a group feel so passionate that when we run into these obstacles or feeling completely overwhelmed or that we’ve bitten off more than we can chew or that what we’re doing is just ridiculous. Why did we even sign up for this?

It’s always come back to, no, we want to be here. So I guess we’re doing. Yeah.

[Phil Rickaby]
It’s always interesting. The process of figuring out, it’s all well and good. You think about your set and things like that.

And then realizing that you have to move it. You have to take it with you is always like it’s kind of a big step. And you’re not the first company to have realized in the process of moving a set how much trouble it is to move this set.

You mentioned wanting to do Winnipeg Fringe next year. Do you think that you will take those lessons and adjust for that kind of thing in the future?

[Courtney Stolz]
It’s hard to say. So we did figure out a way. We have talked about doing other fringes next year too.

We have nothing set in stone. We still have to debrief because our Panora show is literally just wrapped up. We haven’t even sat down together to debrief about it and what directions does everybody feel that they can commit to.

But assuming things go according to how everybody was talking two weeks ago, we are wanting to do a few fringes next year and do a little bit of a tour. So Winnipeg specifically, I think for the doors, we can still get the doors there because we have a trailer that we can take the doors on. It’s three hours away.

We’ve done it before. We know how to do it. Things like Edmonton, we may have to reconsider our set a little bit, which is really sad because these doors are so beautiful.

But also logistically, it might not make sense. That’s something you have to talk about as a cast. What works when we’re going to different cities, especially cities that are far away.

[Phil Rickaby]
What fringes are on your fringe wish list, do you think?

[Courtney Stolz]
Next year, we’re looking at Montreal, Winnipeg, Edmonton, Vancouver. That’s the goal for the four fringes.

[Phil Rickaby]
Nice. And each of them, very different fringes. Each of them, very different fringes.

Which is just in terms of their feel, their mood. It’s a really awesome experience. I kind of am jealous from the people who will be experiencing them for the first time.

[Courtney Stolz]
Yeah. The only fringes I’ve ever been to are Edmonton, Winnipeg, and Edinburgh. So I am very excited to go specifically to Montreal and Vancouver and see a fringe I haven’t seen before.

[Phil Rickaby]
Yeah. It’s pretty cool. It’s really something.

Just as we’re starting to draw to a close, with this company, it’s not like you’re the production manager. I don’t know if you’ve mentioned that if there is an artistic director, it’s between two doctors, the founders of it. Is there a vision for the future of the company that you’re all dreaming towards?

[Courtney Stolz]
There is. Right now, we want to be an independent company, which I mean, we are, but we’re not. Like I said, we relied on Trilight a lot.

The support they gave us was phenomenal and so appreciated. I don’t know if we could have done it without them. But we do want to eventually be an independent company where we’re not relying on Trilight for all of the things, because as amazing as they are, we want to be our own thing.

Dr. Habermill, in particular, she’s really passionate about wanting us to potentially become a professional company down the road. That doesn’t necessarily mean the same actors, because we are all community theatre actors. Although, if anybody’s super keen to drop their day job and become a professional actor, I don’t think she’d say no.

But her long-term goal for it to actually become a standalone professional theatre company that puts on its original works. Rather than us going to theatres and being like, hey, can we please rent your space and put on our play? She really would love for us to get the invite where we would love for you to come and perform, finding Richard Close at the Citadel Theatre, at the MTC, somewhere in Toronto, that sort of thing.

That’s probably the long-term goal for her.

[Phil Rickaby]
It’s interesting, because outside of the major theatre centres in Canada, being a professional actor looks very different. In a lot of places, being a professional actor means you work once a year, and then the rest of the time you’re still doing your day job. I mean, heck, sometimes being a professional actor in the big cities is that too.

But as a professional company, it doesn’t mean you’re always doing that. It’s cool to have that as a goal, to be a professional company within Northwestern Ontario, which doesn’t really have that.

[Courtney Stolz]
No, there are no professional theatre companies in Northwestern Ontario. There are in Winnipeg, and I think there’s one in Thunder Bay. But Thunder Bay is six hours from us.

We are not close to Thunder Bay. So there really is this massive geological gap where it would be nice if we could fill that.

[Phil Rickaby]
Again, a lot of times people forget, I know I do sometimes, just how big Canada is. I have to think back to when I was going to the Winnipeg Fringe and driving with a bunch of people and how long it took to get from Toronto to Winnipeg. It feels like it’s never going to end.

People say that about Saskatchewan, but I maintain that the worst drive in Canada is between North Bay and Thunder Bay, 100%.

[Courtney Stolz]
I don’t know. I’ve done both of those, and I think the drive from Winnipeg to Edmonton is worse.

[Phil Rickaby]
Maybe everybody has their own worst drive in Canada.

[Courtney Stolz]
You just don’t do anything. You just sit there with your cruise control on, and every four hours you turn the wheel this much, and that is the most excitement you have for four hours.

[Phil Rickaby]
I guess it’s easier being a passenger going through the prairies and not having to be that person just for the first time looking out on the flatness.

[Courtney Stolz]
I think driving, like the North Bay to Thunder Bay is also not a fun drive, I completely agree with you. But that one, as a driver, it’s easier to stay engaged.

[Phil Rickaby]
There’s more twists and turns in the drive. Yeah, I know.

[Courtney Stolz]
It’s really easy to keep your brain focused on the fact I am driving right now. We’re going to the prairies. You have to feel like, no, I’m driving.

I am operating machinery.

[Phil Rickaby]
Yeah, for sure. Well, Courtney, thank you so much for joining me. I really appreciate it, and I look forward to hearing more from Psych-S for doing this.

[Courtney Stolz]
Yeah, thank you so much for having me.

[Phil Rickaby]
Thank you for listening to that conversation with Courtney Stolz. I really appreciate it, especially if you’ve stuck with the episode this long. If you are watching this on YouTube, make sure that you hit the subscribe button, like this episode, and comment so that I know you were watching.

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And if you feel like it, and you enjoy the show, just leave a rating and review, because that helps me boost this show. Speaking of boosting this show, I’ll get to the guest next week in a second. But first, I need to talk about Patreon, because I can’t make this show without my patrons.

They are the ones who are making sure that I can do this. It is expensive to put out a podcast, and especially one that you are giving away for free. There are costs that come along with it.

I have to pay for hosting. I have to pay for the website. I have to pay for editing software.

There’s a whole lot of things that go into creating a podcast, especially when you give it away for free. And I’m not running ads. So that’s another thing.

If you want to be a part of the Patreon, if you want to help me make this show, go to patreon.com/stageworthy. There are varying levels of support you can give, and your support would mean everything. As a patron, you’ll get early access to episodes, as well as participation in discussions about the show, and what might be coming up, and what might be happening in the future.

So again, if you want to support me and Stageworthy, go to patreon.com/stageworthy. Next week, my guest is Chloë Whitehorn. And Chloë Whitehorn is a playwright currently based in Kingston, Ontario.

Chloë is, I would say a prolific playwright, but also has written some plays with moments that have stuck with me in ways that, yeah, just images that have stuck with me or moments that have stuck with me. Specifically, the end of her play Pigeon, which features a chocolate orange box, one of those ones you get at Christmas. And now, because of this play, I cannot look at the chocolate orange box in the same way.

Anyway, that’s coming up next week. Next week, my guest will be playwright Chloë Whitehorn. I’ll see you then.