#57 – Phil Rickaby

Phil is an actor and playwright, and a founding a member of Keystone Theatre, a Toronto company that creates plays inspired by silent film. You may have seen him as Gormless Joe in Keystone Theatre’s The Belle of Winnipeg, The Last Man on Earth, and Gold Fever, as well as in the films Abolition, The Dragon and the Unicorn and So You’ve Decided to be Attacked by Zombies. Phil is also the host of the Canadian theatre podcast, Stageworthy.

www.philrickaby.com
Twitter: @philrickaby
Instagram: philrickaby
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/PhiRickaby/

Stageworthy:
http://www.stageworthypodcast.com
Twitter @stageworthyPod
Facebook: http://facebook.com/stageworthyPod

Transcript

Transcript auto generated. 

Adrianna Prosser
Welcome to Stageworthy. I’m your host Adriana Prosser. I’ve hijacked Stageworthy this week to talk to Phil Rickaby. In celebration of the one year anniversary of this the stage where the podcast. Phil is a playwright and performer as well as the host of this podcast. You can find stage worthy on Facebook and Twitter at stageworthypod. And you can find the website at stageworthypodcast.com. If you enjoy 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.

Welcome to Stageworthy podcast. This is your guest host Adriana Prosser, because I have flipped the table on Phil Rickaby. We are putting him in the hot seat. So hello, Phil.

Phil Rickaby
Hi.

Adrianna Prosser
How does it feel to be on the other side of this?

Phil Rickaby
It’s a little weird. It’s a little weird. I did. I did one interview previously with the inadequate life. I don’t know if he’s as of today in the end of November. He hasn’t put that one up yet. But, um, and that was really weird. I had to tell, like I sort of sat down and was like, Okay, so remember, Phil, you’re not doing the interviewing. So let him you know, I just was like, Okay, so I’m not the one asking the questions. I’m just answering them. So I’ll try to remember that try to remember that here

Adrianna Prosser
wedding. This is this is also your baby, we’re gonna talk about the fact that this is your baby. So I mean, it can be more conversational, rather than like straight up interview.

Phil Rickaby
I mean, that’s, I mean, that’s always my preference. When I’m when I’m doing these things is to have a conversation the best, the best interviews are the ones where I don’t have to do anything at all. Or I can like start somebody talking and then they’ll just go. Excellent. So hopefully, hopefully I can try for that. Let’s try for that a little easier. Oh, see?

Adrianna Prosser
Well, let’s let’s start with the obvious question then. stage where the podcast where did that bring baby happen?

Phil Rickaby
So I, so I guess I’m gonna I will go back to the recap. When I first discovered podcasts. A few years ago, there were a couple of podcasts that I started listening to one was the Nerdist podcast. And the other one was downstage Centre, which was put out by the American Theatre Wing and was hosted by Howard Sherman at the time. And Howard Sherman would sit down with somebody who worked in, in New York Theatre, and he would talk to people who were actors, directors, producers, designers, stage managers, it didn’t really matter who they were, he would sit down with them, and he’d he’d have a conversation with them. And I found that the conversation is really fascinating. And occasionally, there’d be like, a Canadian voice, I remember. Who was on it was one of the one of the was Steven we met was on Oh, cool. Excuse me, because Steven Steven we met was in New York doing doing a show. And I was like, Canadian boys, you know, because it was like, you know, we’re Canadian. So we’re always like, oh, Canadian on an American thing. But I was so proud, represent. Absolutely represent. And we I, it was like, so refreshing to hear, like a Canadian perspective. And it wasn’t that he was saying anything that was particularly unusual. It was just nice to hear a Canadian voice. And I was thinking about how we don’t hear those so often like, and Canadian theatre, people who get interviewed are pretty rare. So if you’re, if you’re leading in a show, you might have an interview, but it’s probably going to be print. And maybe if you’re on TV, like a TV spot or something, but that’s going to be like two minutes of something. So we never have like, long form conversations. And we never have, and most people never get interviewed at all. And I thought that there were so many stories in Canadian theatre that would be interesting to hear. And so I started a podcast a few years ago, and I called it off stage. And I started into that and then I discovered that there was already another podcast called The off stage. It was an American podcast about comedy and so we were confusing things. So I came up with another name, which was the name is escaping me right now. But eventually I I sort of didn’t do this smart thing which was bank a bunch of episodes that didn’t put like, all the effort into to just like do episode after episode after episode like try for two a week or something. And like got to a point where I was like, every week who we’re going to interview this week. And that God, yeah, you’re making a face. Like it was the most stressful thing was like every week being like who Okay, so who can I interview this week? And eventually it just like I got too tired of that. Yeah, that’s exhausting. And then I decided last year, well, a little overlap a little more than a year ago that I wanted to do another one because again, I like the idea. And I feel like it’s the Canadian theatre world is an underserved demographic in terms of the the voices and the stories and the interviews. And so And there’s certainly enough enough material, there’s enough people who are interested who who are doing stuff. And I love the idea of being a theatre booster, somebody who is pro theatre who like likes to have the stories told and things like that. So I started putting together another podcast and started approaching people that I thought would be interesting. This time, I did it a little, a little smarter. And I I banked a bunch of episodes before I started to learn, I learned and because I had initially done that, I was like, I got four in the bank, I’ll go and then I just sort of said, Go Go for in the bank. And then suddenly, before we’re gone, I was like, Well, fuck, yeah. So now I’ve been a lot more careful about making sure that like scheduling and so I know in advance whose episodes are going up when and when I’m running out of content, and I need to start soliciting people. That’s good. So I mean, that was, that was really the start of it. And I’ve been really thankful for the people who have come on. And it’s, it’s taught me a lot about about theatre, like being able to talk to people who do different things.

Adrianna Prosser
And you’ve had people other than actors,

obviously. Yeah,

Phil Rickaby
yeah, I’ve talked to stage managers, and I’ve talked to, I’ve had a choreographer on and a couple of artistic directors, people who’ve directed shows playwrights. And it’s funny, because, you know, I know a lot of people, and I approach all like, everybody, I’m like, oh, this person is theatre, I should have them on. And so I approach everybody. And then occasionally, it’s like, I should ask somebody that? I don’t know. Yeah. And one of the things that’s challenged for me is the fact that I’m not comfortable asking people like, like, talking to people, is like, we have dog trauma. Talking to people, like walking up to people and like starting a thing is like, that’s like, where my social anxiety kicks in. Right? So like the idea of like, emailing somebody that I don’t know, who might be like, a, like a name, like somebody who’s like, important quote, but whatever. You know, I know

Adrianna Prosser
that they can only say no, just rarely, you

Phil Rickaby
know, of course, we can still freak out. Like, that’s exactly it. Like, the worst that happens is they say no. And almost nobody, nobody has said no, there you go. But there’s still that, Oh, my God, I’m not important enough to talk to. so and so.

Adrianna Prosser
No, and this is where that dynamic of like, the Canadian voice, I think comes in, you’re just being too darn polite. And and do you feel like, you know, correct me if I’m way off base, but for my own part, witnessing and being a part of and whatever flux that might be in, there is no celebrity system in place in Canada. And if there is, it’s very faint. I think we recognise people who have been in the business for a while and that we also recognise people who have celebratory credits, like, oh, wow, they did a blockbuster. Yeah. Wow. They’ve been doing Stratford for 10 years. Yeah. But I also feel like we wouldn’t, like those people wouldn’t get mauled on the street. No, no, those people shouldn’t fear to go to their grocery

Phil Rickaby
store. They don’t because we don’t we don’t have like you say, we don’t have celebrities. Yeah, but the thing that also makes that more difficult is a lot of celebrities have like their people. And so you could contact their manager, you know, talk to them or whatever. Now, one thing that’s been fortunate for me is that, you know, I’m on a few media lists. So some of the interviews are coming to me a little more easier now. So that’s that, that makes finding people a little bit more a little bit easier. But I don’t just want to talk to people when they have a project coming up so they’re covered. I don’t want to be like okay, so wait because you have a project. Now we’re going to talk about that project for a little while I would I love sitting down and talking to people more gently Really. And so that’s the kind of thing where you have to sort of just like, ask them, like, find out how to contact them and be like, hey, like, I’m asking you a question now. Like, can you could you do this and then you have to track them down and that sort of thing. And people do are a little bit flaky sometimes.

Adrianna Prosser
Artists,

Phil Rickaby
I know. That’s the thing, right? I mean, you’ve got the whole the whole flake. I mean, I’ve had people who are like, yes, I would love to, and I’m like, Alright, let’s set a date. And they say, and they go, they go radio silent. And I’m like, okay, okay,

Adrianna Prosser
yeah, that might be why you need those people,

Phil Rickaby
well, that those people would be like, Okay, I’m scheduling this, and you’re going to be there on this date. And then they show up, and we get together. And that’s one of the things that like, when I’m dealing with somebody who, where there’s a publicist or something like that, that publicist makes the appointment, these things person is free, then you’re going to be at this place at this time. And that person shows up rather than then having any kind of back and forth. That’s interesting. So

Adrianna Prosser
a lot of the time. Just translating what you’re saying is that we as as Torontonians, Ontarians, Kenny, Ian’s take it as you will, because you’ve you’ve interviewed people elsewhere. Yeah, Toronto is your home base,

Phil Rickaby
that’s my home base. So that’s where I have the most contacts and it becomes a little, like, really easy to talk to people. But I’ve talked to people all over Canada. So that, so that I don’t have to, I don’t want it to just be a thing where it just talks to people from Toronto, I want it to be more.

Adrianna Prosser
And then do you find that people who, who are travelling through Toronto have been giving you the time of day?

Phil Rickaby
Oh, sometimes that’s sometimes like, if I can get a hold of them, like I preferably I love to sit down with somebody and talk to them in person. That’s yeah, that’s far easier than than talking to somebody remotely or something like that. But you know, on the topic of people, like people who, you know, we say, yes, they say, I’d love to be on the show. And then and then we were aren’t able to connect. I think that comes from people not being used to being interviewed. Well, there’s that too, because, you know, I mean, you talk to most people in, in Canadian theatre, and the most they get as an interview is maybe some emailed questions that they then have to answer quickly, and then those get printed in a newspaper. We don’t get. We don’t we don’t that was that was there was audio on that photograph, you

Adrianna Prosser
were saying? That was me trying to be still completely.

Watch for that photo on Twitter.

Phil Rickaby
In terms of so so we’re not used to it like we don’t get interviewed. So I think it’s maybe not so surprising that people just don’t quite know how to how to deal with it. I

Adrianna Prosser
was trying to get to this point earlier. And then I was distracted by the fact that you have been elsewhere in Toronto. So let’s put a pin in that that your travels. But I also feel like our can we make a mass generalisation of Canadian saying that we have a big fault in how we project ourselves? Like we’re very on mass? Are we too humble? Are we too reserved? Are we too polite to be to like shout from the rooftops? How awesome. We are not just

Phil Rickaby
our project? Absolutely. Absolutely. The number of people who who their their initial reaction when I asked them, if they come on the podcast is, oh, there’s no way I could talk about myself for an hour. And I’m always like, Oh, no, you’re not going to have a problem. Yeah, you won’t have it’s easy. First off, I mean, once you get started, I mean, it’s just a conversation. It’s a conversation that’s recorded. But I mean, and that, that, it’s it’s funny, because everybody thinks like, oh, like, I think 70% of the people that I’ve approached are like, No, I there’s no way that I could talk about myself for an hour. And I think that is that Canadian like, oh, I don’t want to rock the boat. I don’t want to draw attention to myself, which is a strange thing, like how do we sell the stuff that we make if we don’t? Yeah, self promotion

Adrianna Prosser
is a thing that I’ve overlooked a lot. Not to talk about myself. But being in social media and marketing, a lot of the time it really is building your network and tooting your own horn. Knowing how to

Phil Rickaby
do that, yeah. And it’s it’s one of those things where, you know, if it, it’s hard enough to get noticed, there’s somebody and there aren’t enough people who actually want to give a voice to just about anybody, like, you know, if you’re talking about news print, like print media and stuff like that, they’re worried about selling newspapers and things like that. So they want their content or their content to be. They need to have somebody who has a name or there’s a project that’s interesting that somebody is talking about, and I’m really just interested in like the people on their stories, which is

Adrianna Prosser
amazing because I feel like giving them another tool to express themselves right beyond project but also giving them a platform where they feel comfortable. I think that yeah, I think that that might be why you don’t have people beaten down in your door yet. Because they think that it has to be like all this scripted PR and buzzwords and whatnot and they get intimidated.

Phil Rickaby
Yeah. I think a lot of people are like, Oh, I’ll come to you when when I have a project. And I’m like, you don’t have to do that. We’ll have plenty to talk about. Yeah. And when you have a project, we can talk about that too. Cuz, like, there’s no rule that says that once you’re on once, like sex T. Rex has been on twice, and I’m sure that soon we’ll have like a three peat, and like, I’ll have people back on all the time. Yeah, no,

Adrianna Prosser
that’s perfect. And the thing is, is that we don’t stop being artists when we don’t have a project. And I think that that

Phil Rickaby
is that is a very big

Adrianna Prosser
issue for actors and artists and performers. And that if they don’t have something that they are not present, that they are not, if they’re not doing then they know then they are not. Yes. Yeah. weird sentence that, like,

Phil Rickaby
it’s like, if I don’t have a project, then I’m not worthy of being spoken to. Which is ridiculous,

Adrianna Prosser
ridiculous. And or like you, the conundrum that most all of us creators come to is that if we are in between projects, then we have this like holding spell over us of like, I don’t know, I don’t know what to do with myself. Yeah, who am I? What am I doing? Yeah. And then the other thing is, is that when people come up to you as a creator, that they’re like, so what are you working on?

Phil Rickaby
That is my least favourite question, because I get so super awkward when people do that. Yeah, I’m sure that you do. I’m sure lots of people do is like, if you don’t have a project that you are, like working on right now, or something that’s like concrete, that’s not like, oh, this show opens in a month or whatever. Yeah, that somebody’s like, well, I’ve got a, you know, you just sort of go like,

Adrianna Prosser
really awkward. Yeah, long in the tooth. But what’s worse, too, is the I don’t know what to say I don’t really have anything but then the, the other extreme of like, well, I’ve got like these 10 projects that are up in the air and like, it’s really hard to excuse my phrasing, explain that to a muggle, ya know, where it’s just like irons are in the fire. And that’s okay, too. I can’t give you a solid product. I can’t give you a solid day. But I have so many things that I’m working on. And that’s good, too.

Phil Rickaby
The other thing that I think that people don’t realise is when you know, if you have your day job, and you know, we’re like I work with people who are non theatre people, although, you know, as, as the company grows, I’m finding these more theatre people who are joining joining the company I work for, you know, people will say, so what do you like there? What are you working on? It’s because it genuinely, genuinely interested. It’s not like, there’s that perception, I think that we have as performers, there’s that whole schmooze thing. So what are you working on? Yeah, you know, I will sit for a while and then I’ll ask you to bullshit for a while. And, you know, we’ll talk about how awesome and important we are. And then I think that makes us awkward. But then there’s those people who they’re asking because they’re, they’re actually interested in what we’re working

Adrianna Prosser
and want to show that they’re being supportive. Heard of you doing something in the past? Or that? Yeah, they just want to be supportive. Yeah, it’s not it’s not always a negative for people to be like, so what do you

Phil Rickaby
do? No, no, but I think that after, after a little while, after being in the, you know, in the industry for a little while, that’s our perception of that question. I think so as we hear that question. If we’re at like, some kind of party or schmooze fest, or like, some reception after an opening, or whatever it is, if you happen to be at an opening, or whatever, or like at the fringe tent, which is like I always, you know, the funny thing is the fringe tent when I don’t have a show on the fringe. I always feel awkward being at the fringe tent. Because it’s like, I feel like oh, I don’t have a show to promote. I don’t know what I’m doing here. Oh, it’s like, so the people are like, what are you working on? I’m like, nothing programmes. I don’t know what. Yours. Oh, yeah.

Adrianna Prosser
Yeah, that’s weird. It shouldn’t be because it could just be like, Wow, I have the free time. And I want to be here for you. Yeah, exactly.

What are you like, what do you want me to see? What what what are you seeing? Yeah, what’s good?

Phil Rickaby
Yeah, it’s one of those funny things that I think that we’ve learned that that question is loaded when it doesn’t have to be?

Adrianna Prosser
Absolutely, I think, yeah, I think that there’s definitely some some baggage that is not due. So let’s go back to that whole thing that you you get around, you get around with with the

Phil Rickaby
podcast. Yeah. Yeah. So like, What do you mean, I get around with a podcast?

Adrianna Prosser
Well, I mean, like your not just your home bases, Toronto home. So I would think that there would be like, it would be very difficult for you to interview anybody who’s not a Torontonian.

Phil Rickaby
Um, that’s true. It’s like I can’t if I’m travelling, I will try to find somebody. Like if I’m, if I was to go to Edmonton, I would be like, Okay, so I’m gonna be in Edmonton. Who do I like, Who can I talk to? But there are ways to do it. There’s a like, I use something called Zen caster, which just came out of beta, which basically works like a web based Skype that I can record so it’ll record their part In the conversation, and I’ll record a record my part of the conversation and then it stitches them together. So it forms one audio file. So we don’t have to do a whole lot, a whole lot of stuff that way. That’s cool. So that simplifies that whole process a little bit. Because obviously, I don’t have a budget cuz I this podcast doesn’t make money. Yeah, it’s, you know, I don’t have any illusions. My podcast is a Canadian focus podcast. And it’s hard to make money that way. And I have a very niche market. Like, I don’t have a general interest thing. I’m not talking about pop culture. And I’m not talking about the news or whatever. I’m talking to theatre people. And the people that are most interested in that are other theatre people or people who like theatre. And so that’s a smaller demographic. So I don’t, I’m not in this to get sponsors or to make money. Believe me, I would love to have somebody come along to cover my costs, because there are there are costs to this. There’s like there’s hosting costs, and there’s like, there are other costs, and there’s software that I’ve purchased and things like that to, to do this sort of thing. And, but I don’t I don’t think it’s I don’t think it could possibly be a thing that makes me money. I mean, that’d be nice. But I think that the demographic is small enough that that I, I would be overjoyed if it happened, but I would not be.

Adrianna Prosser
That’s not what’s gonna make you feel like you

Phil Rickaby
know, exactly, exactly. Well, that’s good, because that’s also the theatre world. No, absolutely. You’re

Adrianna Prosser
in this for the money you get out.

Phil Rickaby
That’s right. I mean, the thing is that, like, I’ve approached people, occasionally I will, I will, like, solicit on Twitter to say I want to talk to people who are not from Toronto, not from Ontario. And I’ll try to get the Twitter network and my Facebook network to suggest people to me, who are willing to are interested in talking. So I, I find people that way. And then we’ll use the Zen caster or whatever software to, to record the conversation. Pretty cool. Yeah.

Adrianna Prosser
Well, and then what, like on it? Are there any other networks that you’re exploring as to how to get the word out? Because I feel like the other thing that that is, I don’t know, the barrier, is the fact that your network goes so far, and you have to piggyback on other networks. Yeah. So hopefully, people who are listening to this podcast can suggest some networks that like a Facebook group, or a Twitter hashtag, or like, what where have you been? The

Phil Rickaby
funny thing is, is that when it comes down to that I’m about as bad as the people who only want to talk about like the, like, who don’t like one because I’m very bad at like, tooting my own horn, right. And that’s, that’s something that I need to I definitely need to work on. But the most successful thing is when people are interviewed, and they share the episode now maybe, you know, for the most part, people who are their friends or who know them, or are following them, they listen to that episode. And maybe they don’t subscribe. But there are always people who there are people who will. And that’s one of the main things so I always like look forward to when when people my least favourite thing is when somebody doesn’t tweet that they’re on the show, because I can see the numbers. That’s That’s because nobody, the person didn’t share it with their network,

Adrianna Prosser
but wonder why they wouldn’t though. Wouldn’t that be exactly what they’re doing before?

Phil Rickaby
I don’t? I don’t know. It’s not a question that I’ve asked. So it’s kind of weird when people don’t. Because, I mean, I think that, you know, it’s all part of self promotion. They’re not, they’re not really doing me a favour by having the conversation they’re really doing themselves. I mean, they’re doing me a favour because I’ve committed to doing this every week. Yeah. And I want any content, but they’re not. Like they’re they’re not promoting themselves. And they don’t do that. I think maybe it might be that inferiority thing where they’re like, I don’t feel like it’s a thing that I you know, I no one else listen to me. It is strange. It is strange.

Adrianna Prosser
What do you ask your guests to like, what? What’s the pitch? What? How do you get people on?

Phil Rickaby
Oh, you know, the thing is that, I don’t, I don’t like usually I just I introduce myself as I’m Phil, I host this podcast called stage really. It’s a podcast where I talk to people in Canadian theatre and I’d love to talk to you. And that’s usually all I say, No, sometimes it’s just because I’m, it’s it has to be short because I’m contacting them via Twitter. So I only have 140 characters but and nobody has ever said oh, well what’s your listenership? You know, nobody’s ever like you know, are you big enough?

Adrianna Prosser
You know, like immediate fan No,

Phil Rickaby
everybody’s like everybody’s like, sure. Usually usually very like their wanting to do it. They don’t need much prompting. I think there’s a bit of a bit of you know, flattery Oh, somebody wants to talk to me, which might might be one of those things as well. Well, that’s really cool. Yeah.

Adrianna Prosser
Oh, Well, I’m on behalf of all creators, thank you for giving us a platform because like, this is this, this is a gift. And it’s true. I feel like as Canadians we import a lot of our culture from around us, which not that it’s not good, but it happened. Yeah. But it’s nice to hear our voice. That’s,

Phil Rickaby
I mean, that’s that’s kind of the my whole, the whole thing is, is I knew that I wasn’t hearing those voices. Like, if you look through, if you were to go on iTunes and search for theatre podcasts, you’re probably going to find a lot. If you can find any, you’re going to find a lot that are from the US. And there’s a few that are popping up in Canada that are there’s a couple that are like we do like they’re doing, like a reading of a play. And so they read the play over the podcast, and

Adrianna Prosser
that’s just like a radio play. Yeah. And podcasts really well, it it.

Phil Rickaby
It’s pod, because you download as a podcast, but that’s, but they’re reading plays, they’re reading like new plays and things like that, which is interesting. But I don’t know that there’s there’s many other things quite like this. Well, that’s cool. Yeah.

Adrianna Prosser
So now let’s, let’s move into talking about you as a creator, okay. And your ties to theatre. So I call myself, I call myself a creator, as well as, as you’ve heard so far, because I just I don’t wear just one hat. So what would be like, What is your little Twitter bio?

Phil Rickaby
Um, my, okay, my Twitter bio is like, actor, writer geek. Because I think that covers most of the things that I’m sort of that that I do, or that I like, if I talk about in a little more depth, I refer to myself as a slash, actor slash slash playwright, performer slash play like that. It always like there’s always like, more than one thing. And I guess, you know, I can add producer to that, which is always one of those things that I, I sort of discount for myself or identifying a friend, you know, it’s like, it’s not a thing, which is, you know, that Canadian thing where I don’t we don’t like talk about our successes, all that we didn’t finish. Yeah. Well, I’m the king of diminishing, as far as that’s concerned. So it becomes like, so I would say that I’m, I’m a performer slash playwright.

Adrianna Prosser
Cool. And so tell us about the things that you’ve been working on as a playwright.

Phil Rickaby
Um, so as playwright, so I worked on a solo play for about eight years, called the commandment, which I performed this summer at the Hamilton fringe, and hopefully, we’ll perform again this summer. And it’s not the first thing I’ve written. But it’s, it’s one of those things that, like, I wrote it for eight years, because I wasn’t ready to perform it. Like I was. There’s a lot of personal stuff that I was like, I don’t know if I’m ready to put this out there. And also, a solo play is really stressful to perform like it is. It’s all on you. Yeah. So it’s like, yeah, it’s entirely you. And it’s like, if they don’t like it, it’s not like, if you’re doing a play by somebody else, then, you know, they don’t like it. Well, it’s not my play. Yeah. Or they don’t like what you know, there’s like so many things that can go into it. But when it’s a solo play that you wrote, it’s just you. And so if they don’t like it, they don’t like your acting, they don’t like your performance. They don’t like your writing. They don’t like you. So it’s very stressful. You know, it’s like, yeah, it’s really easy to take it personally. Oh, absolutely. It’s really easy to take it. Because

Adrianna Prosser
I mean, I don’t think if they didn’t like it, they don’t like Yeah, well, no, but that’s how it feels, how

Phil Rickaby
it feels, right? Because it’s like this thing that you made. Yeah. So there was that. I’ve been working for several years also with with Keystone theatre. And we perform plays in the style of silent film and I were, we usually create collectively for that. So like, we come up with a concept and we might have a, an outline, and we create characters, and then we’ve tried to, like create a story around them. So everybody does a little bit of every everybody’s a little bit of everything. I’m trying to actually just I’m experimenting with like writing in the like a play that will be to be performed as a Simon. I saw and I don’t know how that’s gonna work quite yet. But I’m trying to like write a script that could be a silent play in the style of silent film, which would be a complete departure for the way that we usually work. Wow, very cool. I got a couple of other plays that I’m sort of in process of editing right now.

Adrianna Prosser
You can tell us

Phil Rickaby
what I mean. None of them have any kind of performance. There’s one called the heist. Actually, a bunch of the ones that I’m working on right now are all ones that were initially read. In the red sand castles 1000 Monkeys playwriting Festival, which is what just had its fourth year in August, where we, you know, a bunch of playwrights show up at the red sand castle Theatre in Toronto. And we, Rosemary gives us three words, everybody gets random three words. And so we show up and you start flipping through a dictionary, and you put your finger on the page, and that’s your first word. And you do that again, two more times. And then you sit down, you write a play, and in 24 hours, and then everybody goes home and sleeps, and then the next two days of thought, long weekend, we we read them, wow, it’s a bureau thing, then you got to play you got to play. And you figure out really quickly, if there’s, is there anything there? Because when it’s read, you’d be like, you know, you know that you were kind of exhausted. And sleep Dept, when you wrote it sort of an exercise, it’s really more of an exercise, but you really get a sense of, oh, there’s something here I can build on. And so there are a couple of plays that I’ve written over the last four years that I’m expanding on.

Adrianna Prosser
I’m going to try and ask was the parliamentarians. What are those?

Phil Rickaby
Yes, yes. The the parliamentarians was actually the first time that I’ve written in Oh, my God that like, oh, like a long time, like I. So I used to be, I used to write quite a bit. I was in a relationship for a while where I would write and she fancied herself a writer, but she was like one of those writers that never actually wrote. And so because self esteem stuff, and then, so I would like show her something that I wrote, and she’d be like, Oh, I hate you. But more like, just be like, she’d be like, I hate you. Because I can’t write like that. So I stopped showing her stuff. And then I stopped writing.

Adrianna Prosser
Yeah, that sounds like how it would go. Yeah. And

Phil Rickaby
so, four years ago, I heard about the first 1000 monkeys, and I was like, I’m going to do that, because I really want to write. And I wrote this thing called the parliamentarians, which was about a Conservative Prime Minister in a minority government celebrating being elected at the shot the Chateau Laurier, with his favourite call girl. And her mother, the leader of the opposition.

Adrianna Prosser
Do you recall your three words? Oh, you know, I.

Phil Rickaby
So the three words, there was a popular mole as in against his girlfriend, and I don’t remember the third one. I don’t remember the third one. And but it was popular. That was the sticking point. For me. I think I sat for like an hour and a half, mulling over the word popular because I was like, Oh, I don’t want to write a high school story. And suddenly, as I was looking, I like I always bring like, I load up my phone with like dictionary apps for 4000 monkeys, so that when I get those three words, I can look up different interpretations of different different things. I stumbled across popular opinion. The third word was hoard, hoard, hoard, as in a hoard of something, and I took it as once I got popular opinion that became political. And then I knew that a horde what could be a hoarder horde of reporters, which was what that was. So during the action, there is a horde of reporters outside the hotel when the Prime Minister is inside meet. And so you I mean, you were you played the Prime Minister’s wife, Vera. And I Vera was was. I wrote Vera, to once I introduced the character of Vera, because I knew that he had a wife and we talked about her. And she was like, I think I named her Vera because when I first started writing, she was like, in tears normes wife, Vera, who you never saw. But she was like, call and stuff like that callback. That’s fun. And so she wasn’t on stage. And then I was like, You know what, I think she’s got to come in. And so I was like, okay, so who’s Vera? Well, he’s afraid of her. So she’s a terror. And so I wrote somebody who terrified everybody.

Adrianna Prosser
And she was a joy to play.

Phil Rickaby
Well, you’re, you’re welcome. You’re welcome. I mean, I’m actually in the process of rewriting the second half of the parliamentarians

Adrianna Prosser
that blows my mind. I have never rewritten something. I have, I have worked it I have massaged it but I have not what you have done where you’ve, you’ve done a playwriting workshop for lack of a better term of that awesome incubator. You’ve gone through the rehearsal process, taking notes from actors taking notes from a director and, and, and put it up in front of an audience that enjoyed it. Yeah. And now you’re ready.

Right. Yeah, why and how?

Phil Rickaby
So here’s, here’s why. So the first half of the play took place, you know, on this this night, I guess it was a Friday night or whatever. And then, at the end of the first half, when there was, you know, we we learned at the end of the second half that the call girl is the leader of the opposition daughter, blockout. And then I would I fast forwarded six months. And I, in retrospect, after seeing it, I felt like what the audience really wanted to see. And I think that I robbed them of was the opportunity to see the fallout of that reveal. Because I think that that play that first ad ends and the audience is like, all what’s going to happen next I went, you’re not going to know. Yeah, yeah, you took away that took away the juice. And I, I think that a lot of that had to do with. I’m not a I’m not a person who like enjoys conflict. And so the idea of writing all of these people like the conflict, that was there wasn’t something that made me uncomfortable. So I took the easy route. And went down a road where the conflict had basically been resolved. Interesting. And so I’ve been trying to rework that. With that the, the minute, 60 seconds after that reveal,

Adrianna Prosser
Wow, amazing. Yeah. That is kind of amazing. And other than the fact that you’re like, okay, yeah, that happened, but I think he can be better. Yeah. Which also blows my mind. But also the fact that you’re putting yourself in a situation that you know, is gonna make you feel uncomfortable.

Phil Rickaby
Yep. To better your work. Yeah, absolutely.

Adrianna Prosser
Standing ovation, my friend, thank

Phil Rickaby
you like that. That’s hard. That’s very hard. It is hard. And it’s hard. I know, it’s hard, because I’ve been working on that on and off for about six months. And when I say on and off, I mean, I wrote for a weekend in May. And then I, you know, wrote a little bit in September, and then like, I haven’t really,

Adrianna Prosser
it’s hard to really go at it full steam because it is a place that makes you uncomfortable. It is

Phil Rickaby
definitely that. And you know what, when there’s also I’ve realised something about myself as a writer is that I don’t, I don’t want to finish things interesting. And I’m catching myself on that where I will find. So you know, I’ll get it to a certain point and be like, Okay, that’s fine. But it can I can do more, it’s not finished yet. Oh, but there should be here’s a new idea. And so work on that, so that I don’t have to finish this thing. And I think I don’t have to finish this thing. Because if it’s finished, and I have to decide what to do with it, then you know, if I don’t finish it, I never have to I never have to face that. But I know that about myself. So I’m I’m as I catch myself being like, Oh, I’m gonna work on this thing. I’m pulling myself back to No. I haven’t gone back to parliamentarians yet. But that’s, that is one of the things that I know I have to do. It’s gotta be it’s gotta be within the next month or so something that I have to I have to do.

Adrianna Prosser
So do you not ever have one project on the go? Are you one of those people that needs to have like five tabs open on their on their browser,

Phil Rickaby
I usually have, oh, these five tabs on my browser. And you know, I have my idea file that I have on my phone. So whenever I get an idea, I write stuff down. Whether regardless of what is like sometimes it’s a snippet of a conversation, and I’m trying to I look back and I’m like, so what did this mean? Like this, this phrase here, which I’ve not find it found a use for yet. But I don’t remember how it came across how I came up with this, but it was like I was thinking about thinking about it. And then I thought, yeah, I’m thinking about it. And I don’t know what to do with it. But I’m so I love begging to be a character begging to be sent by somebody and I don’t know who but when Yeah, well, one day one day. That’s really amazing. So I’ve got like, I’m not at the I think my problem is that I’m not at a loss for ideas. And every idea. The downside to it is that every idea is begging to be written. And the new is always more attractive than revisions. Which are hard. Because revisions are difficult. You have to like it’s work. It is creating the first time writing that first draft. That’s fun. You’re learning what the story. You’re getting it out. Exactly. And you’re learning what the cool are these characters What’s this story? But then revision is to make it good? Yeah, yeah, that’s not Sexy and that’s not that.

Adrianna Prosser
I’ve never done it. I mean, I’ve taken notes and I’ve like, again, like massage and you know, Oh, it sounds better if you say they instead of them are like, very superficial kinds of things. Yeah. I also believe that once the script hits rehearsal, as long as the team is comfortable, and as long as like the playwright is in the room, sure, let’s, let’s bring in improv moments. Now you’re gonna start to live and breathe these characters, you might, you know, find that the way that I phrased it as the playwright doesn’t necessarily come out of your mouth. The same way. Yeah, I’m cool with that. But what you’re saying is like, you’ve taken the sword into battle. And now you’re like, you know what, the sword should be two axes. Yeah.

Like, that’s crazy. Like,

I mean, yeah, in a good way. But like, also, I can’t, I can’t even what I’m trying to say is I’m fangirling. The fact that you, you have the energy and you have the focus to be like, no, no, this could be forged better.

Phil Rickaby
Yeah. Well, I mean, this is the thing is that is that, you know, we don’t workshop very much in Canada.

Adrianna Prosser
Maybe that’s why it’s also very foreign. Yeah.

Phil Rickaby
I mean, there are workshops, and they do happen. But if you look at a show that goes on Broadway, it’s been workshopped, like over the years, right. So like, you look at Hamilton, you look at the Book of Mormon and those plays were workshopped over a period of years. Yeah. Which means that these actors came in and they worked on it, they gave their feedback, they performed it. And then then the writer went back and did a revision on it. And, like, wrote something new. And so it was was made better. I I sometimes feel like because we don’t really do that so much. In Canada, we go. Alright, so I’m the playwright and I write I’ve got so first draft, second draft, third draft. Good enough, we’re done. Yeah. And I, I think, in a way, we’re sort of like, we’re not taking anything away from the work. But sometimes I think it could be better, like I love when I write something I want to have people come in and read it, like almost right away, I want to get a group of actors together, read it, and then have them talk about as they’ve inherited, inhabited that character, like, talk about what worked, what didn’t work, and I can disagree with them. But I can also like, take what they said and pull it apart. Also an amazing statement. I think, like, one of the things that I like about writing for theatre is the collaborative nature. Like, I’ve often thought, oh, I would love to have a novel punk published. And then when I sit down to read a novel, I’m like, there’s so much

Unknown Speaker
we’re leading to describe everything. And

Phil Rickaby
I like concentrating on the dialogue and the story and let somebody else worry about how the character is going to look and how they’re going to say it. How are they going to move like, let somebody else take that and so I like to leave holes that an actor and a director can fill. Yeah.

Adrianna Prosser
Which is also a great gift. Because, I mean, let’s love Epson, let’s love them. But there’s like three pages of states directions,

Phil Rickaby
Tennessee Williams, right. Like, like, like, I don’t I don’t need those directions. I don’t need all that. Because

Adrianna Prosser
I he needed it to write it for us. Yeah, but as an actor, I was told right away.

Phil Rickaby
When I read stage directions, I just want to give you a suggestion. No, that’s just what you need. Yeah, like if you need to know something to make this work, then that’s what I’m going to tell you. I’m not going to like describe everything because I feel like then I’m taking away your like our journey. Your journey. Yeah, I’m taking away your job. You like this? You need to come up with this stuff. It’d be more fun for you. Better for you in a better performance. If you come up with this stuff.

Adrianna Prosser
I agree. I’m definitely of the ilk that. I would rather like. I’m not as bad as Christopher Walken. I’ve been told that he takes all punctuation out that he doesn’t want to see the script with any punctuation and, and that he will form the thought as he sees fit. I don’t know if I’m not hardcore. I definitely appreciate not being told she laughs Yeah, she cries or you know, she hugs them or whatever it is, like, I understand that. You might need that again, Tennessee Williams, you might need to write that down to get your position across and like make context. But yeah, at the end of the day, give the gift over and let it blossom with the actor.

Phil Rickaby
I mean, I’ll say things like she laughs But I mean, if the i If the actor decided that they didn’t like that they didn’t need to laugh. I would not be offended by that interesting. Okay, you know, it’s a suggestion of how I see it. But then the whole performance is still something for the actor to come up with.

Adrianna Prosser
Good. I like that. That’s, that’s very good. That’s very good. I agree. I agree. I agree. Okay, and then just let’s, let’s also just touch on some of the stuff that that you’ve been excited to work on as an actor.

Phil Rickaby
Well, I mean, the thing is that like, as an actor, I, I’ve mostly been a self self creator for a while, like through Keystone theatre and stuff like that. And, you know, I love the work that Keystone does. And I have believed in it from the beginning, as a as a, as an as a as an art form and an interesting theatrical exercise to create a story that has no spoken word. And to like to tell that story and to invent to sort of like, play with that whole Chaplin and Buster Keaton esque thing. And that’s been a lot of the work that I’ve done in recent years. I don’t really audition for stuff much anymore. Occasionally, something might come up and I think like, maybe I want to do that, like some Shakespeare or whatever, because I can always bust out a couple of Shakespeare monologues for an audition. Amazing. And I’m probably getting too old for some of the monologues I’ve held dear. Like I think I think I think I might be getting too old for wild abandoned for Daniel. Okay, was wild abandoned.

Adrianna Prosser
I think Daniel macabre will hear this and he will say no, I

Phil Rickaby
don’t think that Daniel, I mean that the character in wild abandon is is definitely a younger person. The things that he goes through are a younger person’s traumas, or insecurities. So I probably have to have to find something new. But it’s such a good. It’s such a good like, there’s so much good material there. And it’s one of those ones because most people who are not like most people who find their monologues by picking up a monologue book. Well, people do.

Adrianna Prosser
You’re not no, that’s not allowed. That’s not allowed. Oh,

Phil Rickaby
like I see. I see that all the time. Oh, no, no. And, and so they don’t come up with Canadian monologues very often. And so you could be like the guy who walks into the room with a monologue that they haven’t heard yet, which is always which is always good. But again, that bit from wild abandon. It’s such a great bit

Adrianna Prosser
I’ll have to reread that then.

Phil Rickaby
Oh, well, it’s, I mean, there’s, there’s some speeches in it that are just amazing. But there’s a bit about the diner, there’s a scene in a diner. That’s the whole speech, which is just a great, a great audition piece. You know, it was it was Daniel McIver that made me want to do a solo play in the first place. Me, right.

Adrianna Prosser
I mean, Sandra, Seamus, oh, my god, let’s bow down to our Canadian people. Yeah. So

Phil Rickaby
like I had, I don’t think I had really seen the idea of of a solo show until I read wild abandoned. Wow. And I read it and I was like, This is amazing. And then I read house and I went, that’s amazing. Right? Right. Like you can like fill like this time with just like a single person.

Adrianna Prosser
The things that he does with very simple lighting, like a very tight red box. And I was completely enthralled with the fact that all I could see with it was his head. And it’s it’s just a light effect. Yeah, I like what what makes this so I mean, other than Daniel frickin McIver? I

Phil Rickaby
mean, he’s such a, I’m gonna fanboy over this already there. Right? Because, I mean, he’s like, he’s an engaging performer, that as soon as he walks on stage, he’s magnetic. His words are just incredible to speak. And when he shifts in characters, when he shifts from character to character, he does it so it’s seemingly so effortlessly. And you know, I’ve seen people do solo shows where they’re playing multiple characters, and it takes them so long to switch characters that I’m like, Just do it. Do it, just do it. And he just does it.

Adrianna Prosser
Yeah. I mean, it also it also begs that you like us going back to that idea of of workshopping and really getting like taking the notes criticising your own work working with people that you respect their opinion going back to the drawing board and like this these years yeah, that we don’t talk about like we don’t talk about how that that new thing that salt pepper took years. You know, the thing that just got the touring grid took years and the fact that Daniel McIver is that good yeah, because he knows Yeah, he knows now knows who to work with. Yeah, who to bounce ideas

off of he, you know, he knows his reflection in the mirror and to be like, Yeah, let’s

do this. Yeah, all I need right now is a close up on my face. Yeah. Like it’s just it’s crap. but also putting in the time.

Phil Rickaby
Yeah, absolutely. Talk about, um, have you haven’t read the Jordan Tana hills? Theatre? Or the unimpressed? Yeah. Thank you for it. It’s I don’t know if I did I don’t know if I did. It’s a whole book. So I mean, it’s one of those things where it talks about, you know, I mean, basically, the crux of his of that book is why don’t people go to theatre? Yeah, it’s a great question. It is, like a good question. But, I mean, a lot of the stuff that he’s talking about, like, one of the things that he’s sort of derives in that book is what he calls the well made play, the well made play where there is like, a, you know, a city room piece, or like a kitchen piece, or whatever it is, and everybody comes in, and they set up their particular problem. And by that, we know that by the end of the play, that problem is gonna be resolved. And in fact, sometimes when you’re watching the play, you can see, oh, that’s how it’s going to be resolved the bow and sometimes if, if that has become the norm, I don’t know about anywhere else, but but here, because we don’t workshop, or we’re not. I mean, there’s certainly a desire to like, tie a bow on everything. But that sort of, I think, in a way, a bit of a disservice to the audience to, to, to, to coddle them, instead of like, making them do some brain work. But, you know, I have so many issues, like, I’m on my third reading of theatre with Anna breast, and I still don’t know what to think about it. Interesting, okay. And it’s one of those. Like, I think he’s got a lot of great ideas. And I, like I’m so interested in all the things that he’s saying, I just don’t know if I agree with all of it. Right. But I definitely think that he’s got a point on turning on the well made play. Because I think that after a while of seeing, like everything with a bow on it know that we’re kind of like, I think our audiences are a little bit bored by that.

Adrianna Prosser
I understand that there. There was a time not not just in theatre, but also in TV and movies that we needed to escapism, and we needed things to end up with a bow because there’s a lot of anxiety happening in the world. That’s not to say that we don’t need that now, because there’s other things that are happening.

But I feel like I have it on my bookshelf, and I’m because we’re here.

It’s here. But there’s been some fantastic works, that have made it a point not to put the boat and that it’s social commentary. Like we’re going back to theatre as an incubator of like a think tank. Yeah, for you walk out with that experience.

Phil Rickaby
It’s like that thing where you know, you’re you’re making instead of like, telling the audience that everybody’s going to be okay, make them do the work a little bit so that they so that they’re able to come up with their own conclusion. But one of the things that has always been fascinating to me about performing with Keystone theatre, is because we don’t have words, we can’t tell people, all the things that are happening in the story. So the audience draws their own, they fill in the blanks of what they understand they enjoy the story, but they sort of just fill in any of the blanks that they find. And I am always fascinated with, with what they’ve come up with the we know what we think the story is, but I’m always fascinated with what they do. And they’re not wrong. No, because that’s what they took away from it. But it’s always fascinating to see, you saw the same show that we put on. And you saw the same show, and you guys think, completely a little bit different thing about these different moments. Yeah. And that’s fascinating to me. And I think that people enjoy having to like coming up with their own their own answer, like they have their understanding. Yeah. You know, and that’s fascinating.

Adrianna Prosser
Well, I mean, and that’s also, I think, a big reason why people will still go to the theatre, is that movies and television show you where to look and when to look. And you like the lens has been curious. Yeah. And in theatre, you have this whole expanse of space on stage. And in the audience, like it depends, right? Like what show you’re you’re watching that it can happen at any time all around you. And where are you looking? What story are you following? What did you miss

Phil Rickaby
was interesting, because I think in a lot of cases, you know, we’re putting stuff on stage, we worry a lot about where the audience is looking with how to draw their eye for sure. And that’s fine. But, you know, sometimes what I see in some in some Productions is we draw the eye everybody look over here and don’t do anything. Everybody stand very still, so you’re not drawing attention. But you know what’s fascinating, I saw a show. My friend, Haley did a show in Hamilton zero called the teeny tiny music show, which was like This it was almost like a happening, it was like thing, musicians would just appear out of nowhere. And like, if you were looking over here, you might see something different than was over there. It didn’t draw your eyes so much is like give you candy. Wherever you were looking so like, occasionally they would like draw your eye, but you could look over there and then do something fast. And you can look over there. There’s something fascinating. And as you go more than once you’re going to see different things. And that was so exhilarating. To be able to be in a space and like, know that there’s some candy for me wherever I look.

Adrianna Prosser
Yeah, there’s always a reward. Yeah, yeah. And not to get out of the the Canadian inspiration, but things like immersive and experience experience. Yeah, experience.

Phil Rickaby
What is the word? Rachel?

Adrianna Prosser
Thank you. Yeah, theatre like Sleep No More. Yeah. And like site specific and becoming more and more popular to get note of the blackball Hogtown

Phil Rickaby
in Toronto, for example, and I would almost call it like we saw that production of Measure for Measure just this past week. I would almost there was almost it diverged on the on the experiential because of how intimate the actual theatre was, because of how intimate the theatre was, and how close the actors were. And they didn’t shy away from that, like at one point, there were like actors practically sitting in our lab. Well, there definitely will. And, you know, that was there was something exhilarating about that about that lack of a fourth wall. Yeah, the space forced you into,

Adrianna Prosser
yeah, I because I’m biassed I’ll bring up eldritch theatre as well. Yeah, the fact that they specifically make their shows to be in a very small, intimate venue, because they want that intimacy, they want that to be a part of the story. Absolutely. Absolutely. And that we are no longer because everything, everything has its time in place, we you know, like big grand show show lines and whatnot and Mirvish shows and whatnot are fantastic. And but I also like that there’s enough room and space to have also these very intimate very like to to have an experiment that everything again, the well may play doesn’t necessarily need to be every single experience. Exactly.

Phil Rickaby
I really love the I mean, in Toronto, and I can only really speak about the theatre scene in Toronto, and the storefront theatres, light, storefront theatre, and the red sand castle. Like these, these theatres, in spaces that are not really traditional spaces. And you can configure them to be pretty much any space, like anything you need them to be, yeah, and that, and also, they’re more affordable, and the spaces that we like you who can afford to rent a Mirvish space, as well. And, you know, I’ve done shows where we’ve rented like, a can stage space, or a passerby space or a terragon space, and who can afford those, but to be able to do indie Theatre in an indie space and to be able to do something really, really like interesting with it.

Adrianna Prosser
Do you think that that’s our equivalent of Off Broadway,

like, what do we have that

Phil Rickaby
we don’t have that because you know, the thing about about Broadway is that there’s a bunch of theatres run by different different people. And there might be a couple of houses that are run by the same company. But there’s also there’s so many of them. And Broadway is not like I always thought that Broadway was like an area. And it is, but there isn’t like, while Broadway is a street, the theatres are not even on that street. And Broadway is a house size. And off Broadway is a smaller house size and off off Broadway is like but we in Toronto have, we have Mirvish and then everything and then everything, we have Mirvish and then we have factory pass MRI and Taragarh which are like while we’re there Well, I would call them mid contracts and we that we have indie Yeah, and indie theatre happens like unit 102 which just was closed and the storefront and red sand castle Yeah. So we don’t really have a Broadway No, so we can’t have an Off Broadway.

Adrianna Prosser
Do you think like the Fringe Festivals take that off Broadway

feel?

Phil Rickaby
I think that the Fringe Festivals take that the indie feel, because you know one thing about about fringe and and anybody who’s listened to the podcast knows that I love fringe.

And I love even the fact that I didn’t get into fringe this year. I love the lottery system. Because I find I think that that makes things so fucking interesting. Like it’s not curated. So anybody who wants to go creative thing. Ken has the same chance as anybody else to get their thing done. And so it’s like complete. It’s the complete anarchy of the indie spirit is fringe Cool. Well, the level above that is, I guess, I mean, you would hope that everybody wants to be the next Kim’s convenience, to have a show that sole pepper or Mirvish says, Come do your show on our stage and can go on to do something else.

And it means even more now that they got picked up for TV. Yeah, but I

mean, I mean, everybody wants that. I mean, you could, you could always hope to be The Drowsy Chaperone and Broadway. But I often wished that there were more. I mean, you’ve got you’ve got fringe and you’ve got summer works. And I always like some works is that thing that as an idea I like but when for a curated festival, I often I’m like there’s a part of me that that sort of rebels against the idea of somebody saying, This is what I think is the inner that’s good enough to be in this indie festival. Because I feel like when that it I feel like you know, I’m thinking about applying to summer works. And this may shoot me in the fucking foot, but I don’t care. I feel sometimes, like the choices that are made are because the proposal says this is important theatre, and I’m bored by important theatre. Like, if the theatre has to tell me how important it is. I’m bored. Like, be important. Don’t curate my don’t curate my thoughts. I always feel like like that is I? I often feel like I don’t want to say always I often feel like that is what summerworks is, is this is important theatre. And so I guess the place I’m going with that is that in terms of festivals for theatre, like what are your options? If not fringe? And if not? Summer works? Yeah, those are those are your options are there other than that are you have to like, either get a storefront interested to copro or to rent the space or read sandcastle, which is fine. Yeah, some people do. Some people do. And I mean, that’s and you know, read sandcastle I fucking love that space. But I often I think that the barrier is this idea that we are like, how do I get people to see my show? Is that audience question, right? And how do I afford the thing? Yeah. And I always, I’ve been feeling for a while, like, the thing that’s, that’s kind of missing for indie theatre is the idea that, that it’s like, we have our audiences. And we sit down and we say, we sort of coddle it. Like, we hold on to it, like I’m holding this dog right now. That is, oh, this is my audience. And you this is I am keeping my audience and I keep them close. And I don’t want to share that. Yeah. And the idea that if if my audience, if you get a hold of my audience, and my audience goes away, it doesn’t work that way, I think and I firmly believe and this is something that when I was in Montreal with with Keystone theatre, Cameron on a horrible person for not remembering cameras last name, Cameron Moore, she does this talk on you know, promoting a theatre and the thing promoting fringe. And she always says that there’s audience enough for everyone. And I believe that absolutely, I really, I kind of wish that there was like this umbrella promotion thing so that like, I can get my lead man and most of my followers to you, and you get your followers to me and like, we pool our audience. And so we reach a larger audience. By doing that, instead of like, holding on to our tiny little audience afraid that they’re gonna abandon

Adrianna Prosser
us saying it’s, and it’s proven that it especially in a festival situation, people do not go to see one

Phil Rickaby
show. But even outside of a festival situation, like if I’m producing a show, my audience, the people that come to my show, are just as likely to go and see your show. Absolutely. Because people who go to see theatre are just looking to see good theatre. Amen. Not necessarily just looking to see they don’t like the idea that they will only come to my show, and if I give them if you take them, they’re not going to come back to my show is ridiculous. Absolutely ridiculous. I think. I don’t know. I don’t know what the solution is. Because I really I really think there needs to be some kind of audience share. Like I don’t know the the car share of audiences, the Zipcar of audiences where whatever it is where somehow we there’s like a promotional pool and everybody shares everybody’s information with everybody. You And if your pitch is good, my audience will go but they like my work so they still going to come and see my work.

Adrianna Prosser
Yeah, yeah. Amen. On that note

I think we should wrap this baby up. All right,

Phil Rickaby
well, thank you. Thank you for for interest interviewing me today. Thank you for coming on stage where they podcast