#49 – Victoria Laberge

Victoria Laberge is an arts administrator with her fingers in many pies. Originally from Montreal, she worked with the St-Ambroise Montreal FRINGE Festival and Centaur Theatre for several years in addition to running the arts and culture blog Bloody Underrated. Since moving to Toronto in 2015, she has taken on the roles of Director of Development for Nightwood Theatre, Canada’s flagship feminist theatre; Co-Producer for the monthly storytelling series Confabulation; and Publicist for the award-winning comedy troupe Sex T-Rex.

Twitter: @victorialaberge

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Transcript

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Phil Rickaby
Welcome to Episode 50 am Stageworthy. I’m your host Phil Rickaby. Stageworthy is a podcast about people in Canadian theatre featuring conversations with actors, directors, playwrights, stage managers and more. If you’d like to be a guest on stage with me or you just want to drop me a line, you can find Stageworthy on Facebook and Twitter at stageworthypod. And you can find the website Stageworthy podcast.com. If you liked the podcast, I hope you’ll subscribe on iTunes or Google music or whatever podcast app you use and consider leaving a comment or rating. Victoria Lubbers is an arts administrator with her fingers in many pies. She’s director of development for Nightwood theatre, co producer of the monthly storytelling series confabulation and publicist for sex T Rex.

How did you start working with sex T Rex as a publicist?

Victoria Laberge
Well, I first met them at the fringe, of course at Montreal fringe, and so we were just, we just became pals. Yeah. And I was just a big fan girl. And they approached me originally to produce their run when at the storefront Theatre in March, okay. But I was a little bit too swamped. But I did want to help. And so I came on board and said, How about I just help, at least try and get some media out and try and get you guys some reviews? I have, like a few contacts from here, mostly in Montreal, but from when I was when I ran bloody underrated arts and culture blog in Montreal. So yeah, called in a couple favours and just sent some lots of emails and yeah, you just need like I what I love about working with them is being able to let them make the art and do do that focus on that, and they’re so so good at it. And they’re so funny. So it’s really heartwarming for me to be able to give them some extra time to work on that. If it means that I can just spend a couple hours on Twitter, you know, yeah, yeah.

Phil Rickaby
Well, I mean, publicity is not for everyone. It’s one of those things that when you start making theatre, it’s like, oh, I can do all this stuff. Oh, wait, I have to tell you.

Victoria Laberge
Exactly. Oh, you have to get those buttons in those seats.

Phil Rickaby
That’s the part that people just don’t know. Like, I never I still don’t know how to do. People in the seats. I don’t know how to do Yeah,

Victoria Laberge
well, that’s it’s and I’m, I’m the opposite. I don’t I didn’t I don’t really consider myself an artist. I don’t. It would terrify me to like, have to create a fringe show as you guys do. And then put it up on stage. And, yeah, that’s the part that’s scary to me.

Phil Rickaby
But you I mean, you obviously you have a passion for theatre. Or you’ve been I mean, he worked How long did you work at for Montreal fringe?

Victoria Laberge
Montreal fringe I was on staff for a couple of years and then just kept, kept being around? I’m there every year even if I don’t live there anymore.

Phil Rickaby
Where did you find the passion for theatre?

Victoria Laberge
It was at the Montreal French definitely. Yeah.

Phil Rickaby
Did you get introduced to the Montreal for hinge

Victoria Laberge
I graduated

Phil Rickaby
Mexico announcement about a bicycle.

Victoria Laberge
So when I first graduated, my Bachelor’s of fine arts and art history, Concordia I, the day that I submitted my final essay and was essentially graduated, I like had a panic attack. I have no idea where we’re going from here. You know, everything was just leading to get that degree. And then what you know. And I had had this email sitting in my inbox from the material fridge just calling out looking for interns. And so I had no other prospects on the go. And so I decided to go for it. And I had only heard of the fringe, but I had never been and yeah, they took me on and I just fell in love that that community welcomed me with open arms. They’re like this big family. And anybody’s welcome. And it’s so so lovely and beautiful. And so that’s why I’m still a diehard supporter. I like do everything I can to try and send people to the fringe all the time because, yeah, it’s my favourite

Phil Rickaby
time of year. You’re majoring in when you were University Art History.

Victoria Laberge
Yeah, but like visual arts, so it was a little little bit of a leap. I had never worked in theatre before or I had done a little bit of theatre like as a young kid, but yeah, so I always I always had that passion for it.

Phil Rickaby
Yeah. And then what do they have you doing? When you were an intern for at first I was just

Victoria Laberge
a general intern, but they promoted me to Assistant to the communications manager. Yeah. So actually, I guess that’s where I got like my publicity

Phil Rickaby
started doing as the assistant to the to the communication. I did a lot of photocopying.

Victoria Laberge
Yeah, we were always we were supposed to put together the archives of all the reviews that each trip had gotten. So when they came for their company came for the last payout, we wouldn’t hand them this nice little folder of all the reviews they got. That’s great. Yeah.

Phil Rickaby
Do they still do that?

Victoria Laberge
I don’t know. Do they not? I don’t know what

Phil Rickaby
actually been like, almost five years since.

Victoria Laberge
Yeah, that’s crazy. Yeah. Well, that’s where you and I met. The next year. They hired me as the artists liaison. Yeah, that’s when we met.

Phil Rickaby
Yeah, it was. I mean, as artists liaison, I don’t know how we, like died without an artist. Oh, yeah.

Victoria Laberge
Oh, God, that is the best job. I

Phil Rickaby
don’t know if if a lot of fringes have an artist liaison. Montreal is kind of unique that way. Yeah.

Victoria Laberge
I wonder about that. So does that mean? Like if, for example, Hamlet’s friend, she just came in. You were very successful. Congratulation. So who do you Who are you in touch with if you need to be just for someone?

Phil Rickaby
General Manager, yeah. District Director or it depends what you need is like, but there was no

Victoria Laberge
yeah, it’s always like, yeah, I guess. Yeah, I guess you’re in touch with

Phil Rickaby
a general manager. Yeah. But you just don’t have you don’t have there isn’t a liaison who you can go to to say, what do we do? Yeah. Like there’s nobody to sort of, like help you, which is, I mean, my trail, I think it is sort of is a sign of how welcoming the Montreal fringe is that they have somebody who’s there to help sort of guide you into the Montreal fringe, which is something that a lot of the fringes don’t? Yeah, and some of the ones that have been there a long, long time. Also don’t have that, you know?

Victoria Laberge
Yeah. Montreal French is so warm. Yeah. Like, that’s the it’s the party frames. Do you think a lot of artists today they don’t make money, but yeah.

Phil Rickaby
Generally, what I hear what people say is, yeah, it won’t make a lot of money. But I’m gonna have a great time. I think that’s that is part of why some people make that their first stop, to, you know, have a party to celebrate starting the big journey. Definitely. So, in addition to so from fringe, and you were the artists liaison, for that, that second year, where did you go from from there?

Victoria Laberge
So from there I was, I had a couple of different contracts. One was that the English Language Arts Network, which is really cool organisation, but it was just a short term contract. I stayed on a little bit as the assistant to the artistic director of mainline at the time Jeremy Heckman, but and then I helped out in the office at mainline a little bit, but I got my first big girl job I’d sent to her Theatre in their fundraising department, so as their development assistant, and that’s where I learned this fundraising skills that I use now at Nightwood Theatre in Toronto.

Phil Rickaby
So fundraising skills, this is one of those things that in addition to publicity, it’s another thing that a lot of people in in indie theatre, don’t have, like, if you start thinking about creating your own show. Two things you probably don’t know anything about is telling people about your show. Getting money for your show. Yeah. How did how did you learn how to separate money from people?

Victoria Laberge
They’re not separate at all,

Phil Rickaby
I would say, getting money from the people. Yeah.

Victoria Laberge
Well, I mean, yeah, so I do. But that’s the thing. That’s what’s cool about about development is that it’s all about your relationship to people. So they’re not going to donate to you if they don’t support your cause for what you do. So yeah, you really it is all very intertwined. And that’s what I’m very interested in the relationship actually, between development and marketing, because you have to be able to sell what you’re trying to trying to get them to buy into either whether it’s tickets or donation or, you know, supporting you with their time if they’re volunteer. Yeah, so, I mean, I learned I learned a lot from Centaur like, it’s a very well oiled machine and they are 40, somewhat year old company, a big, big, huge organisation, so they know what they’re doing. And they like they’ve got their systems in place, and they write letters to kind of the same group of people every year and that gets them the same donations every year, and they don’t really need to switch anything up to make it work. It works, you know, at Nightwood it’s also it’s a three Seven year old company, but it’s much smaller scale. And so it’s more, it’s much more, there’s a lot of more innovation, we’re always coming up with new and exciting things, to roll out new programmes to be able to get people interested in bringing more and more people on board, whether it’s donors or participants to the programmes that we rolled out or Yeah,

Phil Rickaby
is there you find is more of a challenge and Nightwood than it wasn’t Centre, which has like the same thing, and they just have their process and Nightwood

Victoria Laberge
Yeah, I mean, my roles are very different to it. At centre, I was the assistant to the development director, whereas I am the Director of Development here at night when and so and I’m only part time there’s, it’s very small staff and the marketing director is also part time. So you know, trying to it is much more challenging yet to try and get all that work done that we need. unlimited resources. Yeah.

Phil Rickaby
So what did what brought you from Montreal? to Toronto? Sure. Really?

Victoria Laberge
Yeah. I’m born and raised in Montreal, but so I’d only ever lived there my whole life. And I hadn’t my a good friend that I also met at Montreal, French when I was artists liaison. He was interesting. He lived in Toronto, and he had a room open up that was cheap in his house and texted me about it. And I said, Yes, yeah, I wanted

Phil Rickaby
to find on it. You were just like I had been

Victoria Laberge
thinking about it. Just like my my previous trip to Toronto. They were getting more and more frequent on the Mega just hop on the Mega Bus and like spend the weekend with pals. And there’s always so much going on here. I had come a lot and when I was doing bloody underrated a lot for the Toronto sketch Fest in Toronto fringe just just to hang out. And I was had such a great time here. So I had been thinking about it. The city is so huge for forcibly the art scene is much, much bigger as well, there’s so much going on. Yeah,

Phil Rickaby
there’s a lot. But to my mind, the theatre scenes are very different in each place. Taking away the fact that Fitz present the theatre in in Montreal is in French, or I don’t know if it’s 50%. Yeah, about taking given to him that away. I think I get the feeling like the scenes are very different. Yeah,

Victoria Laberge
what?

Phil Rickaby
See, the thing is that as somebody from Toronto and going to Montreal, I feel like art is just a thing that people have, like, it’s it is every day, it is not like not necessarily an event is important. And it is something that part of why whereas I find the English Canada, and especially the Toronto thing is that for the average person, art is something that they encounter, either accidentally, or because they spent a lot of money on something they see something that’s important. Now, I might be wrong about those perceptions.

Victoria Laberge
Well, yeah, I think that that’s, yeah, I think that’s accurate. And even, even among arts community. I feel like there’s much more business sense in Toronto, you know, I mean, like, I think even the artists here do have a really good sense of like, needing to get bums and seats and needing to get donations to fund their art. Yeah. Yeah. A lot of money talk here in Toronto, for sure. I mean,

Phil Rickaby
it’s, it’s expensive to make. Yeah. And some of the grants don’t come here. Yeah, Ontario Arts Council is like part of their mandate is not Toronto. Like, if you’re an artist trying to get to get money and you live in Toronto, you’re at a disadvantage. So you’re trying to because space is at a premium and renting a theatre space. Yeah. is difficult. We have we end up thinking about money a lot and how to get it and how to make Yeah. Is are there are the spaces just cheaper in Montreal, that people don’t have to worry about that? So?

Victoria Laberge
So yeah, if you think of me, I mean, I always think of mainline and independent theatre company and they charge about $10 An hour and their little mini meatspace. Yeah, but yeah, I guess there’s a big independent theatre scene, too.

Phil Rickaby
Yeah. I was talking with with Amy before Montreal fringe and she was talking about the explosion of spaces along Sandler Rome. With mainline being the first and now there are more spaces that are produced that were were art can happen where theatre can happen along that along that street. It’s amazing to think that, you know, the one space sort of spawned another space, it’s fun, another space and then can work like that.

Victoria Laberge
Yeah, yeah. I mean, it makes sense. They were on the main hub of the city. So yeah, it would make up So sense for them to congregate there.

Phil Rickaby
I think I would love to see that independent scene here.

Victoria Laberge
Well, I mean, we have like, I mean, I’m not always a bad dog all the time. Yeah. Coming back to Seventh Street and then storefront theatre. From there. Yeah, it’s a good little area

Phil Rickaby
to see another, like, I love a love store for and I don’t see enough there. But I would love to see like, one or two others, like theatre spaces, not just comedy spaces, but theatre spaces on that area, just to I would love to see. I think it’d be amazing to see an indie Street. Yeah, in the city.

Victoria Laberge
It wouldn’t be amazing. Yeah. But yeah, as you say, it’s like it’s expensive here. Like, you don’t want to just had to, although that was like that was condos. Yeah. Because? Because they’re gonna build condos there instead,

Phil Rickaby
what I mean that I mean, literally, that is that is the the problem was spaced into, is that you can get more by knocking a building down and putting condos there. I mean, let’s let I mean, for a while that was the plan for the Princess of Wales, really, like there that we’re going to be three condos and to do that we’re going to knock down the Princess of Wales Theatre. Wow, of course, wow. The city was like, enough to we’re like, No, we’re not doing that. And the city was like, No, do two condos. So the Prince of Wales has not been knocked down, but then, like, it becomes more economically viable to put in a condo than to keep going.

Victoria Laberge
But people got to live somewhere.

Phil Rickaby
But I, again, I am not convinced that we are not Satura Yeah, right. Right. Right. Right. Right. You know, I have my doubts that all those condos are necessary that we have that we are not hurting for condo spaces. Definitely. And I mean, I don’t even know what what unit one or two is going to do.

Victoria Laberge
I don’t know, either, actually, because they they said that they would still there’s still mounting that first show that they had planned for that season. I’m so bummed about that, though. Because next year X was going to remount the visor in February 2017. I was really pumped for that. The ticket show.

Phil Rickaby
Is there. Do they do they know? Like obviously, I mean, it’s so hard because Yeah. If you lose a space in this city, you’re struggling to find another space. Yeah.

Victoria Laberge
Yeah, I wouldn’t. I didn’t really have like the producer perspective for that. But that’s exactly what Caitlin was saying. Like now that they lost their space. They pretty much can’t do it this season. They want to do Yeah, but it’ll have to be a much later date and to get them to be able to get a venue. Yeah, it does.

Phil Rickaby
Can we talk about wood? Yes, please. I love Yeah. Tell me tell me, for people who don’t know, what is

Victoria Laberge
Nightwood is Canada’s oldest professional women’s theatre company. So we’re the flagship feminist leader of the company. And what we mean by that is just that we try and elevate women’s voices. So all of our administrative staff is all women. Which there are a few, a lot of very few female Indians in the city, which is very impressive. And all the plays that we put on you generally wit written by women, not necessarily certainly all starring women, but mostly directed by women as well. Yeah. And the usually the place that we choose also have a very staunch like feminist issues angle. Yeah. This season is so stellar. It’s going to be amazing. We have we’re starting off with a double bill to pieces called mouthpiece, which was won a couple of dore awards. It was it was on last season. It’s a two hander, and there’s some acapella and there’s a movement and it’s just gorgeous. It’s really stunning. And then the other part of that devil Ville is called quiver. It’s by Anna Chatterton. She’s a playwright in residence last season, and she’s brilliant and hilarious. And she’s kind of armed with a loop pedal and all this technical mumbo jumbo where she just embodies all these characters and has this really rich story that she tells all by herself on this one little stage. It’s yeah, it’s gonna be really spectacular.

Phil Rickaby
Can we talk about the importance of elevating women’s voices? I mean, when you think about most of the theatre companies in especially the established companies in Toronto, which have a performance space or have whatever, they are predominantly run by producing, producing work by men, starring predominantly men. Yeah. And so as much as there is a conversation than a ongoing conversations that I, that I keep hearing going on. in those in those groups outside of Nightwood, there isn’t a whole lot of movement. I don’t see a lot of change for the most part, except with a couple of exceptions, that but that makes Nightwood even more important to the Canadian theatre scene as a place that is specifically concentrating on women’s voices.

Victoria Laberge
Yeah, yeah, I would say that there. It’s very feminism is very prevalent in the zeitgeist right now. I mean, in yours, or my Facebook feed? Right? All our friends are very feminist, and aren’t afraid to speak up when there’s something that’s not. Right. But when you step outside of our community, yeah, I think you’re absolutely right that, like, there’s still, there’s still a lot of work to be done. And so especially like in the indie community, I think that there is a lot of rise. There’s a lot of women who are just killing it, just rocking it. Yeah. But as a professional women’s Theatre Company, you know, we have a chance to make a lot more waves, I think. Yeah.

Phil Rickaby
I just wonder because you talk about stepping outside of, you know, our immediate community. And I mean, any woman on Twitter finds at a certain point, that using the word feminist ends up with a certain amount. And that is disgusting. It is, unfortunately, part of the world that we live in that there are people out there who gravitate towards that word, and are so threatened by the idea of women’s voices, they have to shut it down. Yeah, some way does. Does Nightwood experience that in any way? Because you use use feminism is like very casually, in the way that you’re talking about it. And the fact that you’re a women’s professional theatre group, or company, feminism is just a part of it. Do you do you find that that that that area of the world attempts to influence like what at all?

Victoria Laberge
You know, it’s so interesting, we had, this is a very recent phone call that we’re, we’re using word feminine, okay. Because there were almost very recently, I’ve only been on staff for less than two years. But right before I came on board, there were comments about how even from their or their own board members about how they didn’t want to use the word demand, because that would scare off the corporations or, you know, I don’t I don’t can’t possibly understand why. But yeah, but they were hesitant to use that word. And so they would just use the word women all over. They’re worried because you know, everyone wants to find the minorities. So you’re, it’s safe to use the word woman. But yeah, what is it about the word feminist? That’s so scary. And, you know, I

Phil Rickaby
wish I knew. Yeah, I wish I knew, and I wish I knew what it was about it that threatened Yeah, well, so much. But yeah,

Victoria Laberge
when we when I came on board, and the marketing director as well, tailored Trowbridge and as a saw, he is are an incredible producer, and we’re all kind of younger generation, and we’re using word feminists, I mean, identify as feminists. And so yeah, we’ve made it we’ve implemented that language. Was

Phil Rickaby
there any pushback on implementing that language?

Victoria Laberge
And not pushback? No, I mean, not from our certainly not from our directors. And even the board as well just embraced it and saw that it was important now that now that it is being talked about so much with Justin Trudeau and, you know, saying how important feminism is, now we can start to talk about it, there’s plenty

Phil Rickaby
that that are not funny, that there was ever a period of time where it was a word that somebody had to feel like they could not use. Yeah, I know. It’s crazy. I think about a couple years ago, some people that I knew they were quite young, talking about and women, young women talking about how they don’t need feminism. And I kept I kept wanting to take them and say, Well, the fact that you vote, the fact that you can have a job, the fact that all these things, this is feminism, but I don’t. Somewhere along the line for some people feminism as a word became Oh, when did it become undesirable and became a dirty word? It

Victoria Laberge
became Yeah. I mean, it’s, there’s, there’s extremists and everything, right?

Phil Rickaby
Yeah, of course, sir. Yeah.

Victoria Laberge
But yeah, but extreme feminists. Were doing it for a reason.

Phil Rickaby
I mean, it’s, yeah, they were, you know, but, and I it’s just one of those things when I when I have my friends who are They are very feminist online and I could still see them get attacked or things like that for using the F word. Yeah. Wow. And, you know, it’s a thing that still happens. Yeah, you just got. And I don’t I don’t even know. I guess I don’t understand the mindset. Yeah. Makes somebody want to

Victoria Laberge
attack that. No, I know. It really is hard to wrap your mind around that. Yeah. But yeah, like I say like, it’s not it’s not our community. No. It’s not certainly not anybody listening to this podcast.

Phil Rickaby
It is Go fuck yourself.

Victoria Laberge
I want to if I can, if I can tell you about this. After the devil bill, we’re opening the new year in 2017. In January, with unholy by Diane flax. Who’s this amazing lesbian writer who explores what explores misogyny in relation in this piece in particular, but yeah, generally, she’s just incredibly talented comedian and writer. So really strong figure for the queer community as well. So we’re trying to reach out to them and it’s up, but He’s in bad times too. So that’ll that’ll be fantastic. So it’s actually CO production with them. And then we’re closing up the season with Sentry song which volcano theatre did last year. That one too is gonna be so stunning and spectacular. It’s the one woman show as well by Nima Baker step. And she it’s completely acapella. There’s no words, no dialogue, and she’s a soprano. And she’s incredibly talented singer. And, yeah, she kind of goes through a century of women’s lives. And black women in particular. Yeah, it’s gonna be just gorgeous.

Phil Rickaby
Do does anyone have a space to perform? You

Victoria Laberge
know, we have we only ever administrative office and we rent out other venues?

Phil Rickaby
Is there a venue that is the most common one for you? Or for Nightwood? Or is it?

Victoria Laberge
Yeah, it’s when it changes varies wildly, but this season particular We’re buddies for three of our shows. And then the sentry song is going to be at the new Crow’s theatre. Oh, nice tent. Yeah. Brand brand new space. Yeah, I think it was stunning. Yeah.

Phil Rickaby
What are you most looking for? Can you pick out one thing?

Victoria Laberge
Oh, I can’t choose are like my children. Oh, they

Phil Rickaby
are. But I’m gonna I’m gonna

Victoria Laberge
I am really, really looking forward to seeing that last piece. It was so highly acclaimed. And I was really bummed not to get the chance to see it last season. So I’m so so excited that it’s coming back. Cool. Yeah. Cool. Can I’ve met those two ladies before? They’re really lovely. Yeah.

Phil Rickaby
Can we talk a little bit about about publicity for? And because you’ve done you’ve been doing publicity for sex T Rex for a while. Yeah. And you know, you had some experience at the, at the Montreal fringe? Is there something that you think that people forget they need to do in terms of publicity?

Victoria Laberge
I think. I think that direct direct communication, direct messaging, or phone calls, or texting or whatever, it has to be a direct ask. I think that when you do like a mass email of your press release, who’s going to like, there’s no nothing to say that they’ve read it or that they’re going to pay attention. But if you really say, hey, Phil, are you coming to the show? Like, you can’t ignore that? I think that’s the most important and this is of course, smaller scale, like trying to feel so bad, bad luck theatre. I haven’t done publicity for anything. Major scale, and I, I can’t even I mean, I know I know that I’m, you know, our marketing director at Nate wood is struggling with that same thing. Like how do you reach everyone in Toronto? Everyone in Toronto should come and see our shows. It appeals to everybody. But how do you reach them? And so yeah, I think, I don’t know. It’s yeah, I think it’s

Phil Rickaby
just when you when you’re thinking about something, because, I mean, there are I think that there are rules like things that you can do on a small scale that that must work on a larger scale as well. But if you’re thinking in terms of like promoting sexy Rex at the storefront Is there a way that you approached promoting sex T Rex?

Victoria Laberge
That one was interesting, because so actually, this is Caitlin who like opened my eyes to this with their their shows swordplay. For example. That’s it’s a kind of a Princess Bride parody set in the 90s video game. So you have so many different demographics you can reach out to you can reach out to the video game nerds, the film buffs, you know, and not just people who just generally enjoy comedy or theatre, let alone you know. Yeah, so when When she was telling me about like, yeah, write to snakes and lattes, see if we can get in their newsletter. Like, that’s such a big leap, but it makes so much sense. People who go and play board games or you know, the nerds who go and play video games or who go and buy comics, they love they love this show. Yeah. And like, how do you? How do you get them to know about it? To find out about that? It’s happening? Yeah. Yeah, just gotta get them in the door. That

Phil Rickaby
is always the question is how do you let people know that it’s happening? Yeah. Outside of fringe, and you know, like, fringe hasn’t has, you know, certain things for First of all, there is a focus on theatre doing frames, it sort of gives you an advantage, sort of, like in the door.

Victoria Laberge
Exactly. But outside of free. Yeah. How do you?

Phil Rickaby
You need to find your audience. Yeah, try to somehow get them into the, into the building and even to have Theatre on the radar.

Victoria Laberge
Yeah. I mean, social media is my greatest tool for sure. Yeah. It’s so so effective. And you can do like, I can spend hours on Twitter just like prospecting if I search a hashtag, and then that brings me to these people who are talking about it. And, you know, and even just like, looking through people’s followers, like that’s a thing, like, you know, their their Twitter accounts for organisations as well, of course, or movements or, yeah, it’s so much fun. It’s really, really, yeah, really exciting.

Phil Rickaby
I have I have this idea. You know, last year, had this company, somebody else I was talking to the head was mentioning this, this this conversation was late last year, two years ago, where, during the during one of the winter festivals, there was conversation about pumpkin and basically, where’s the audience? And how do we get? And it ended up being more of a, you know, everybody in the room sort of talking and like, instead of like having, I think it could have been moderated. But is that conversation about like, Well, how do we as indie theatre artists, and you know, like what I think is at a level where you could still even though it’s a professional, women’s Theatre Company?

Victoria Laberge
Oh, yeah, they’re still grassroots totally graduates.

Phil Rickaby
Part of me feels and it has felt at least since that conversation, that indie theatre could learn could pool our audiences. I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the the idea that there’s audience enough for everyone. And that was something that that Cameron Moore said, when she did her, you know, promoting your fringe show in Montreal fringe talk was that there is audience enough for everyone? And that’s sort of like something that I’ve been thinking about a lot that

Victoria Laberge
that, like, Is there gonna be the same people at our shows?

Phil Rickaby
I know. But I wonder, the idea that I sort of wonder about is, so you have your audience, and I have my audience. And my audience doesn’t know what you’re on. Yeah, my audience, probably Diggler. So if we were if I was to tell my audience but your show enjoyed. It’s like your audience from my show. They are all just as likely to see our show. Yeah, because our shows are not breaking the bank. Our shows are not like going from Mirvish prices. Our shows are affordable. Yeah. And so if if, you know, if I was to tell my people about kept Sandler’s, so when your show, like we were sort of, to share our audience like that, that we could increase our audience.

Victoria Laberge
Yeah. We’re so important. Of course,

Phil Rickaby
that’s one of those because right now, I think that we are very precious about our, our audiences, like holding on to this audience is mine. Really, I don’t,

Victoria Laberge
I’m all about cross promo. I love it. Yeah. And we were talking about the relationship between development and marketing. Like, just trying to reach out to people and thinking of who you can reach out to, and whether it’s like asking them for donation or asking them to even just share your event on their Facebook Timeline. Like that’s so helpful. And it makes such a difference.

Phil Rickaby
Do you do you have the ability to see that that that has made a difference is like somebody sharing the event, to actually increase the ticket sale?

Victoria Laberge
I do think so. And I mean, maybe it’s maybe it’s all optics tonight, but but that’s important, too. If you see lots of different people are talking about this thing. Whether or not we get the same amount of bums and seats, it makes us more successful in that they’ll think about us for next time. You know, they’ll have heard about us at least

Phil Rickaby
the power I think the power of social media is in is in people talking about and that becomes like, the more people will talk about a thing, the better off you’re going to be because people are interested in what their friends are talking

Victoria Laberge
about. So maybe yeah, definitely. Yeah, absolutely. But you’re such a good conversationalist. We’ve gone so far and I haven’t even talked to you about confabulation.

Phil Rickaby
Okay, great. We let’s back up and let’s so what is confabulation

Victoria Laberge
confabulation is a live all true monthly storytelling event. It started off in Montreal and it’s got a really great fan base there and they usually sell out there at mainline once a month. We brought it here to Toronto. In March March was our first episode, when one of the CO producers of confabulation Montreal moved to Toronto as well. Seems Paula follow. And we also have Andrea and Maloof co producing with us. She’s the Associate Director of Communications at Kent State. So it’s a great team. And yeah, we put out a call every month, anybody can apply to tell a story. And we just give them the theme. It’s usually about like 1015 minutes or

Phil Rickaby
so is it kind of like the moth? Is it like yeah, similar?

Victoria Laberge
Yeah. Yeah. All right. Yeah.

Phil Rickaby
Nisha? Yeah. She’s

Victoria Laberge
one of the one of the CO producers in Montreal. She was she was in town. And so she just was on our most recent edition of Production Music call it

Phil Rickaby
she was back in town. Yeah. Talk to me. She’d both before her show in Toronto, and also on the fringe roundups. I did. She was really, really great to me.

Victoria Laberge
Is that where you met her? Yeah, yeah. She’s great. She’s an incredible storyteller. You see her friends,

Phil Rickaby
I did not get one of those. The problem is that at the time that Toronto fringe was going on, I had to work my day job and rehearse my show. Like I almost got to see virtually

Victoria Laberge
and re was so hard to see wasteland. Oh, my God.

Phil Rickaby
You didn’t get to see but there were so many shows on my list that I could not see. Did you see anything? I saw shows. So I saw some hits. I saw some basics, but I didn’t. There were a bunch of shows that I want to say I wanted to see. The show was cat sampler and Peter. Christian. Okay, every year Sarah and I, my girlfriend and Chris. There, we’re gonna see.

Victoria Laberge
Definitely. So it was so much fun in the cats on the show. But but you know, I to be totally honest with you. And I’ll never tell cat this, but it wasn’t my favourite of hers. It was amazing. Because she’s amazing. Of course. So, you know, the bar is very high or sitting. Yeah.

Phil Rickaby
I saw a couple of shows that I did not enjoy. But

Victoria Laberge
I mean, yeah, you always will. It’s

Phil Rickaby
a bunch of shows that I’ve just, you know, you couldn’t get tickets for Yeah, you know, yeah. So and I had immediate pass and I still couldn’t get tickets. Yeah. But yeah, it’s so there’s all those chips I didn’t get to see so confabulation.

Victoria Laberge
Yeah. Next edition is on. It’s the first Wednesday of every month, first Wednesday of every month and we’re at burdock Music Hall, which is a beautiful little venue at different implored.

Phil Rickaby
Is there a website for confabulations really

Victoria Laberge
confabulation dossier? And yeah, you can apply anybody anybody can apply. There’s welcome first time storytellers, the way we set our selves apart from this amazing and dense storytelling community here in Toronto, because there are a lot of storytelling shows. We offer a little one on one workshop of your story with one of our expert teams storytelling. Cool. Yeah. And everybody gets paid to or storytellers get paid for their time. Yeah, we it’s very important for us to pay the artists and the next theme is it’s called dedications, stories of music or songs and their stories or something. It’s dedication. And the idea is that it’s a little bit different from the usual format in that the idea is that this sort of tells we’re off to play a song first and then explain what the song is about or where that came from. So we’ve got some cool musicians lined up got. Charlotte Kornfield is going to be on she’s the booking agent at the burdock but she’s also an incredibly talented artist. Yeah.

Phil Rickaby
Nice. Yeah. So confabulation as sort of an import from from Montreal.

Victoria Laberge
Yeah. We’re gonna be branching out to Victoria, BC to BC, they had their little pre launch event as part of Victoria fringe just a couple of weeks ago. And I think it went really well. And it was really fun. And they’re going to officially launch it very shortly. That’s awesome. Yeah, that’s awesome. So we’re across Canada

Phil Rickaby
to try to, like what because there because there’s so many things that I could talk to you about. And, oh, here’s something in terms of in terms of like, when I was talking with I think the last time I talked with with with sex T Rex, Caitlyn mentioned that somehow, when you tweet something, pay attention and when she tweets something like they lose followers. What is your secret sauce to Twitter? What is

Victoria Laberge
your email she says that and I don’t I can’t figure it out either. I don’t know what it is like I don’t know why I love Twitter so much. And I always feel a little bit like silly talk even talking about it like it’s kind of a vapid, very new very fleeting phenomenon, right? So it’s not, it’s not gonna last but

Phil Rickaby
I don’t know, I gotta I gotta introduce you to my friend Adriana. Because she, Twitter is like, that’s her.

Victoria Laberge
People who make careers out of social media. Yeah. And I am very inspired by that. I think it’s fantastic. Because you’re using such a strong tool that you have so many eyes on it. But I really don’t know what you don’t know what your secret sauce. I mean, I like I know, I don’t know, I don’t know where my

Phil Rickaby
view do you have? Like when you’re going into looking at at promoting a sex direction? Do you have a plan? Do you have like,

Victoria Laberge
No, I usually find out about the shows about a week? And

Phil Rickaby
do you create a strategy for how you want to promote it? Or do you just sort of go by the skin of your teeth

Victoria Laberge
generally, but I do actually sometimes like schedule myself, like if I know I have all these different things I want to plug for the event, like, like actually for. For myself, right now I have kind of a schedule laid out of where I want the 60, Rex social media outlets to go over the next few days, because there’s lots of different things going on. And you can’t write, like, I’m a fan of like, making one long post with like, all the details and kind of pinning it at the top either on Facebook or Twitter, but so that if people go, the details are right there. Maybe that means that’s my special sauce is that like every tweet kind of includes the information. So it’s even if you’re just kind of quickly looking at it, you know, right away, you don’t have to go looking for the link, what are they talking about? You know, it’s right there. You just, you can buy your ticket right away, you know, but if you have to do the research yourself, then you’re not there. You’re not going to get those you don’t want

Phil Rickaby
you don’t want people to put effort into buying your ticket. Possible.

Victoria Laberge
But yeah, so but even even if I have like that big one long post with all the details of like, can we have five shows coming up in the next three weeks? Come see this this business? You still have to like upkeep by blasting it out every single day. Right? So

Phil Rickaby
find a different way.

Victoria Laberge
And that’s hard to because I don’t I don’t like they’re the funny ones, you know, but it’s like, how do you have to like, come up with like, funny ways. Yeah, I’m the voice of a comedy troupe. But I don’t remember very funny. So like, all their tweets and stuff are just like, buy tickets now. You know, rather than, like, I want them to be

Phil Rickaby
but then maybe maybe that’s all they like. Yes. Or is there that’s not good. Maybe that’s just what they need. And don’t carry the funny. Exactly on stage. Yeah. And also sometimes by just making crazy bets with each other. They’ll be noticing that there. It almost seems like the Atlantic Fringe Festival has just been them making each other stupid dates and then having to dress in a strange way after

Victoria Laberge
this day scheme invented by Shane Adams, Zach. Zach Adams RAM. He’s actually going to be moving here to Toronto. Very shortly as soon as he’s done the Vancouver fringe because his partner is dF It’s James who just naked ladies

Phil Rickaby
have been I have been I’ve been watching his his his

Victoria Laberge
exploits. Yeah. Oh, yeah, definitely. I like to follow along and live vicariously through him. But yeah, he unity invented the dice game, which is just a very stupid bet. If you buy rule of four, you have to do this kind of thing. That’s, that’s where a lot I would

Phil Rickaby
never I don’t think I would ever bet on anything. He’s been pretty like he’s, he’s doing pretty well.

Victoria Laberge
Yeah, his new show is called The Ballad of Frank Allen. It’s based on a little mini series he wrote for bloody underrated, which in turn was based on our friends. Yeah, of course, the founder of bloody underrated, also currently in Halifax,

Phil Rickaby
but I saw that too. What I think is hilarious to me, is I think I saw a screenshot of like a review. There was like Alva, France. Is this like, Wait, it was like a review of this show. Yeah, he’s doing Yeah. Which is based on a real guy but not a real guy. Yeah,

Victoria Laberge
it’s so it’s so like, it’s about Shane wrote a play about a man who lives in another man’s beard. Yes. Like she wrote like to write it as a story. I’m really underrated. You know, it was funny in itself. Yeah. But then he turned it into a stage play. That’s unbelievable. And I can’t even fathom how he staged that. Yeah, I hope I hope I get to see it someday.

Phil Rickaby
but they were doing they haven’t come this way with

Victoria Laberge
Noah and his co star is Australian. He’s going back home. So we’re not gonna get to see it here in Toronto. Well, yeah. Unless you take his place, I guess

Phil Rickaby
I would have to just get out of France to come into it. Then

Victoria Laberge
it’s like Shane, please. Frank Allen. So I’ll have friends, Frank L. Okay. Yeah. So Frank Allen is based on Oh,

Phil Rickaby
is that right? No, no, you’re right. In Alba French is great.

Victoria Laberge
Yes. Yeah. Great.

Phil Rickaby
Oh, so confusing. Did you ever so you’ve got a whole lot of things that you’re working on? Yeah, right now.

Victoria Laberge
I have notes for myself to be able to talk about them. So

Phil Rickaby
can you pick one of those things? That’s like the thing that you’re looking forward to most?

Victoria Laberge
I can’t,

Phil Rickaby
I can’t. That’s fair.

Victoria Laberge
I mean, I’m actually really bummed to be missing the next edition of confabulation. It’s gonna be fantastic. But we actually have a fundraising event at night with that same night. So you know, sometimes these things can float. And it’s funny, like, it’s funny how my, my heart changes, like, almost day to day, like, one day I’ll be, I’ll be thinking about confabulation. And I can’t think about anything else. And you know, but then something else will pop into my mind where, oh, I should write this down about it. Even though there’s another thing when I’m on Twitter. Like I’ll be, I’ll be like, meeting notes like on from one account, say, oh, I need to follow this person from that account. That’s useful for them. You know, I also actually another thing I do is, I’m helping my pal Steve Miller, who’s an incredibly, incredibly talented visual artist, and he is the partner of Ingrid Henson music, so he was actually in an incarnation of snack music, the original one. And he’s got a show coming up on October 20. That’s a series of his illustrations that he does have fake ads. Really funny. Like, he’s super, super brilliant and very clever. And so he’ll he’ll do a lot of funny like wordplay or just or just nonsense, where he’ll have like a six inch ad for like, horse shadows or jer bears. Like, I want to keep your chair you just put a chair because they’re so lovely. So yeah, so I help him out with his social media as well to try and get eyes on him as well. Yeah, that’s, yeah, and that’s another thing. It’s like the day before mouthpiece and quiver opening is his opening exhibit. Definitely, yeah. Well, I love it. I love it, though, of what

Phil Rickaby
you must, you must be good at it. Because you keep the people keep asking you to help them with stuff.

Victoria Laberge
Yeah. So but you know, you always get you get to a point. I don’t know about you. But I get to a point where like, sometimes I’m like, Why did they say yes to this together?

Phil Rickaby
Tell you that one of the most difficult lessons I ever learned was saying no. Because I spent a lot of time saying like I would say yes to every year. And that would be in the middle of like all of these things that I was doing thinking I’m kind of miserable, right? I’m worried that I had to start saying no to things. When I don’t like saying no to things.

Victoria Laberge
No, nobody does. Nobody does. And that’s a lesson too when you’re on the other side when you’re trying to ask people for donations or ask for to come to your show. Like nobody likes to say no, no, you just have to ask. Yeah.

Phil Rickaby
Well, it’s been great. We’re almost at Yeah. So so much. Appreciate it.