#71 – Rosamund Small
Rosamund is a playwright best known for her works Vitals (Dora Awards Outstanding New Play/Outstanding Production) and this season’s TomorrowLove™, both produced by Outside the March. She has written traditional fiction, immersive/site-specific, verbatim, and many forms in between. She also collaborates regularly with choreographer Robert Binet on multidisciplinary and dance works (Orpheus Becomes Eurydice with the Banf Centre and The National Ballet, and Terra Incognita with Wild Space Ballet). This January, Rosedale Heights School of the Arts premiered Rosmund’s large-scale, one hundred character immersive experience Maven Academy, a piece created for a cast of 100 teenage performers. Rosamund is a member of the Soulpepper Academy.
@smallrosamund
Vitals on indigo.ca: https://www.chapters.indigo.ca/en-ca/books/vitals/9781927922248-item.htm
Vitals on Amazon.ca: https://www.amazon.ca/Vitals-Rosamund-Small/dp/1927922240/
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Transcript
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Phil Rickaby
Welcome to Episode 71 of Stageworthy. I’m your host PhilRickaby. Stageworthy is a podcast featuring conversations in Canadian theatre with actors, directors, playwrights and more. If you want to drop me a line, you can find Stageworthy on Facebook and Twitter at stageworthypod. And you can find the website at Stageworthy podcast.com. If you’d like the podcast, I hope you’ll consider leaving a comment or rating on iTunes or Google music or whatever podcast app you use. ratings and comments help people find the show. My guest this week is Rosamond small. Rosamond is a Toronto based playwright and a member of the 2016 2018 salt pepper Academy. Rosamond Dora mavor more award winning play vitals has just been released in paperback and you can find it on amazon.ca and chapters.indigo.ca.
I guess start with where I usually start with people and that’s where did you start with theatre? Like what was your what brought you into that? That this world
Rosamund Small
that’s hard for me because it is really a part of my like the love of it, the love of theatre and all sorts of performance is a childhood thing. My parents brought me to musicals, children’s shows, comedy, like I have a couple of really good memories of the shot festival in Stratford. And no coward and Oscar Wilde like really, really, really like that. Like, you know, for kids. I think they they really get comedy, even if it doesn’t, even if it doesn’t, it doesn’t make sense that they would get it you know, comedy that’s from a different time or for something that if it’s something’s truly funny, like kids, I don’t know. I love that stuff.
Phil Rickaby
On on that front, like, I remember watching Bugs Bunny cartoons when I was a kid. Yeah. And growing up realising that all that humour is way over was way over my head. Yeah, I still thought it was funny. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Do you remember what you’re like? Do you have a memory of what your earliest theatre exposure was?
Rosamund Small
Um, I don’t know if I could put them in perfect chronological order. There was one very terrifying memory that I laugh about a lot now, which was my, my elementary school, the parents would put on a show. And my parents weren’t in it. But all these other parents were and it was Dracula, and I was in kindergarten. And it was terrifying. I have a really strong memory of
Phil Rickaby
that ever. Which, which Dracula script they were using?
Rosamund Small
Oh, I don’t know. I think probably the principal of the school wrote his own. Okay. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. But it was really scary. And, yeah, I have a few memories that are not like when you’re really small, you tend to remember the really scary stuff. So I remember that. I remember seeing Beauty and the Beast. When I say can you three or four. And just crying is just too big. But they’re really like powerful memories. Really, really, really powerful memories. Yeah.
Phil Rickaby
So you were exposed to a lot of theatre quite young. When did it become a thing that you because some people just they are exposed really young, and they continue to be spectators. But yeah. Do you remember when it was that you decided that you wanted to make it? Well, I
Rosamund Small
do I think I went through a phase of wanting to direct movies. I think I just really liked movies. I never really wanted to be an actor. I just kind of wanted to be, you know, a bit. I have a bossy streak. So it was really like director like the boss, you know. And then in high school, I went to Rosedale, which is a phenomenal Arts High School in Toronto, that doesn’t. They do this great thing where you don’t have to choose exactly what you’re going to do and what you’re going to study and 14 You can try different things. So I did dance and drama and art and media. And then there was a opportunity to write and direct a play. And so I was like, Okay, I’ll write it and then I’ll get to direct it. And the writing of it was kind of very secondary, but then the next year is like I’ll do it again. And then the the At second time I’d done it, I wrote it and my friend directed it. And that was way better. Like just to focus on that script. And to get that kind of hands off. Sense of it’s a sense of control, but also a really interesting arm’s length experience to write it and not directed and, and I remember that one going up. And, and now one was better, that one was better than the year before, and people liked it. And that felt really good.
Phil Rickaby
Did you? I mean, when you were realising that you were figuring that you were going to let somebody else direct it? Did you have like, any kind of did that bossy streak that you mentioned? Like, resist letting somebody else control your baby? Or were you like, did you find it easier to let it go?
Rosamund Small
Um, I’m sure that it did. Like, I remember having like, very intense conversations with the director about the choices, right? We were in grade 11, and 12. And, like, took ourselves, you know, our work really, really, really seriously, which now seems funny, but then again, I think five years from now, it’ll be funny that I take my own work seriously now, so. So yeah, I’m sure I still had really specific ideas about how things should be done. And really, really, really specific ideas and about casting and stuff. But also, seeing what happens when you go away and come back and a bunch of really creative people have worked is. Yeah, there’s a sense of like gratitude and kind of surprised that can be so fun. Yeah. So you
Phil Rickaby
never you never wanted to perform your stuff. You were fine. You were like, you really want it to be sort of like either in the background, or they’re the boss or the creator. Oh, yeah.
Rosamund Small
Perform stuff. I’d be like, under my, under my seat in the back row.
Phil Rickaby
Did you? Were you always a shy person? Or was it just like the idea of like being in front of people that you were shying away from?
Rosamund Small
Um, I don’t know. I never used to think of myself as a shy person. I think it’s just in theatre. I’m shy for a person in theatre. That’s like, you know, crazy clown for, you know, office culture or something. Right. I think it depends, you know, at some dinner parties, I feel like the conservative librarian in the corner, and then I have dinner with my friends from kindergarten, and they’re all teachers and scientists, and my life is like this bohemian fantasy, you know, like, they just, you know, I’m a mile a minute to that.
Phil Rickaby
I mean, the, I mean, it’s funny that you say that, you know, there’s some, you know, all the outgoing people in theatre, most of the people that I’ve spoken to identify themselves as introverts. So it’s like this strange thing, that we imagine that all of the people in theatre are completely outgoing. And really just, you know, would like to be home with a book or something like not in a crowd of people, which like crazy, because I don’t know about you, but like, if I go to an opening, I’m out the shows. Yeah, yeah. I don’t. I’m the whole schmooze thing. Yeah. Not really into.
Rosamund Small
Yeah, yeah, I find that more and more as, as time goes by,
Phil Rickaby
is there a very where you were like, doing the, like, sticking around after the opening? Talking with people and choosing
Rosamund Small
not effective? That was, yeah, that was the goal. I mean, I mean, you have friends and in the world, right. So it’s, there’s loads of people that I’m happy to talk to, but anything? Yeah, I think it’s like anything, it’s selective. I mean, I’m in the salt pepper Academy right now, which is 16. Artists, and we’re all kind of thrown together for you know, six days a week, most weeks. And so when I’m there, you know, people will run up to you, hug you kiss you on the cheek, and then, you know, say something in a goofy voice. And like, that’s just kind of the energy because everyone’s like in theatre school. And there’s a real, right kind of sense of, you know, stir craziness and, and camaraderie and, and boredom that needs to be shown in these big gestures, you know, from from such a long day. And then, and then I go home, and I’m done.
Phil Rickaby
I, you know, we’re talking about how I travel from a day job sometimes, you know, I’m at an event so I’m dealing with people all the time, and then the organiser be like, Let’s go out for a drink after and I’m like, I’m just going back. I’m just going to sleep. Totally done. Yeah. Yeah. I can only take so much of that. Just to you. So after this, this thing that you wrote in high school and let somebody else direct. Was there a point where you realise that this was something you were going to do with your life?
Rosamund Small
Yeah, really soon then. Really? I and I have doubted it and changed my mind and tried, you know, thinking about other lives over and over again and and still do but Absolutely. One it was, it was just an absolutely extraordinary feeling every memory I have of writing something and then having someone read it or perform it is so intense. Like that’s so intimate to me like it’s funny because I’ve never I haven’t had my long term relationship is with someone who’s not in theatre, but I still understand. And I’ve never experienced it. But the idea of falling in love with an actor and your play or something like that, because it’s, it’s so exciting, right? It’s so exciting. And when someone gets it, you’re like, you get it, you get me and it. And then when you can extrapolate that to an audience. Yeah, it’s so cool. I mean, I hope I hope I never you know, I relearn that over and over. So that that feeling. And then that was also that feeling of joy and excitement from writing and writing for theatre. And then, and then that coupled with it was really encouraged. I had drama teachers who really encouraged me, my parents really encouraged me. It’s not something that I think many teenagers, it doesn’t occur to you to do it, right. And I just happen to be in kind of a weird bubble,
Phil Rickaby
which it’s because most people that I know who they’re thinking about, about writing, so they don’t think I’m going to write plays, they’re like, I gotta write my novel, I’m gonna do journalism, I’m going to be the next Neil Gaiman or whatever it is, you’re going to be, and most people don’t think I’m going to write plays to be the next, George Bernard Shaw or something? Yeah, whatever it is. Is it Do you think it’s because of that young theatre background that you had from so young that your brain went towards theatre more than another? Genre?
Rosamund Small
Yeah, there’s definitely that but I mean, you could also say, I have great memories of watching movies, I have great memories of reading books. So I think it’s a lot to do with the camaraderie of doing doing it live and, and theatre. So low tech, at least, at least the stuff that that I would do when I was young and, and the, the kind of fear and nerves of the audience all of that like that, the the magic of it. And I still try to I experiment with other forms. I’ve never really taken anything else to never tried to take it just sort of a outside of an experimental phase. But But yeah, I don’t know if it’s, it’s about what this form is. But just the the the process of it. We all know, I think when you do it is so fun. And the danger of it, I think is it’s so fun to do that you can forget it’s not really supposed to be about you. I find Anyway,
Phil Rickaby
do you? Can you? I mean, there’s so many things about about about writing for theatre that are exciting and dangerous for me, when I’m writing for theatre, it’s the fact that I’m constrained. I can’t write the way that you would for a movie or a novel. There is like a finite space, finite number of actors and a really a finite number of scene changes that I could have. There’s like so many constraints that I actually find that liberating. Are there things about theatre or writing for theatre that really, that really excite you about? About the form? Yeah, I
Rosamund Small
think it’s so dialogue driven. That’s what I love. I’m not a very visual person, really. I mean, I love beautiful things. And I love visual storytelling, but it’s hard for me and my brain never goes to a visual place. So theatre is traditionally not necessarily but traditionally the sort of 20th century western theatre, it’s all about dialogue. It’s about Yeah, not not necessarily, I think not necessarily, quippy things are clever things, but really make things and writing something in a way where you repeat exactly the right words that you can catch the meaning the first time someone says it and, and phrasing it a sentence so that it’s you tried to make it just just flappy enough because the the character is trying to get something across, but they’re not. They’re humans. They can’t quite you know, that kind of thing. That’s, that’s, that’s you can do it in film. But I think film is more visual, and it’s harder to focus on that. Yeah,
Phil Rickaby
I know. When I know people who if they see a movie that obviously came from a play, they’ll complain about it after talking so much dialogue. This thing and yeah, they don’t want somebody to talking which for me is like it’s kind of boring. Yeah. You know, yeah. I love the excitement of dialogue. Yeah. Do you have to have a process for writing or is everything different? Is there like one you’re starting out with a project. Is there a path that that project takes for you? From beginning to end? Are these the writing process?
Rosamund Small
Despair? And then fear, then, you know, a little pep talk. And then yeah, I think I used to think that I would settle on a process, and then that would be the process. And then, and then I kind of realised that that’s not quite how it, it’s always gonna be different. So generally, I just start wherever I can start and go, I don’t I didn’t use to plan a lot at all. This I’m writing something right now that because it’s an adaptation. That’s almost like a plan because at least you’re planning to stick to the finger adapting. But I don’t I know, some people are so methodical about it, you know, you know, one page outline, 10 Page treatment breakdown, you know, but I’ve never ever stuck to that I don’t think I’ve ever gotten past. The first try it the first outline? I’ve tried it. Yeah.
Phil Rickaby
been wholly unsuccessful with it every time I’ve tried it. Yeah, it’s hard. I know people that that that works so well for them. And as soon as I started to do that, I feel like something tugging. It’s like, I don’t know if it’s like the character or the idea that it’s just like trying to be more than just what’s on the paper. Yeah, I end up just having to let it go and be whatever it’s going to be. Yeah, fix it later. Totally. Yeah. So much fixing. Yeah, well, that was like one of the I spent, like so many years hating everything I wrote because it wasn’t perfect on the first draft. To be like, this is garbage. It took me so long to learn that. That’s the point. Yeah, of the first draft. And you, you make it better subsequently. Yeah. And that was a hard one to learn. Did you have something like did you figure something like that out early on? Or did that take a long time to figure out?
Rosamund Small
I’m so hesitant to ever say like, oh, well, I figured this out. I know that the next time I’m faced with something that’s not what I want it to be, I will spiral into, you know, I find myself sometimes like two o’clock in the morning have tried to write something or I’ve reread something I thought was great from yesterday, and it’s awful. And I’m like, online looking at things like, you know, like, oh, well, I could move to Poland. You know. It looks that’s what a different life that would be like it just like. Yeah, I don’t know, I, I’ve certainly I’ve certainly been defeated and come back enough that I don’t I don’t feel the same level of despair. But I’ve also abandoned projects and not been sure if that was the right decision. But I just did.
Phil Rickaby
I think we’ve all done that. And yeah, he has done that. Yeah. And then you come back to it later. And it’s like, it’s just not there anymore. Yeah. Yeah. Elizabeth Gilbert tells a story about like this novel that she was going to write after Eat, Pray, Love. And she sort of like, started it and then gave it up. And then she went back to write it. And it wasn’t there. But it turns out that she met another writer who was basically writing that novel, it’s like, the idea went from her to somebody else. But it was like, the, like, you have this finite period of time when the idea is, is flowing, and you miss that window by giving up on it. It’s hard to get it back again.
Rosamund Small
Yeah, there’s something in an impulse, right, like something is some things are getting at your, you know, I mean, unless it’s something that you’re trying to crank out, like, okay, it’s a commission, I better get excited about something, you know, which would eventually you want to get to that place where it’s where it’s just as exciting. But yeah, the stuff you come up with on your own there is something in okay, what was the first thing that made me want to write this and that’s helped me a couple times of, you know, they’re really simple things. They’re not deep ideas, but my show vitals, which is about a paramedic, every once in a while just being like, Okay, why did I want to write this show about a paramedic? It’s because that’s a hell of a job, you know, like, like, really, really simple, shallow things. But you know, it when I didn’t know how to end the show, it’d be like, the paramedic doesn’t need to get hit, you know, get pregnant or get cancer or because that’s not what the plate the plays about what a hell of a job you don’t like, that kind of thing
Phil Rickaby
was, I mean, the idea of of like, letting it end in a way that it finally did not like when the pregnancy or cancer or whatever, was that did you feel initially like you had to do something like that to end it and eventually decide that it could just end? Yeah, yeah.
Rosamund Small
I yeah, I’d really it’s hard. I mean, it’s a few years ago now, but I definitely remember what that place specifically because it’s a one woman show, and it’s about all these traumas, kind of these will this desperation to end my first draft? First of all, it was like, oh, like, because it was so amazing that the director and producer of it had said, I want to direct this, I want to produce this before I’d finished my first draft. And that’s like, yes. And then immediately, it’s like, oh, my god, I gotta get an ending, you know, bless him that he didn’t read any of them and change his mind, you know? Because he could have. But yeah, the the need to, I mean, every every writer knows this. But I think especially in a one person show the sort of weird need to top itself. It’s really tempting to go to cliche places. Well, because cliches are appealing for a reason, right? Like a pregnancy is not actually not interesting. It’s just nothing to do with what the play was about. Yeah. And so that’s why it’s a go to, but of course, a pregnancy is incredibly interesting if it’s from a play about that, yes. But yeah, loads of not even not even drafts that I wrote, but just ideas about something painful needs to happen, and therefore it will be fascinating. And that’s a really a really tempting trope. And I say that it’s funny. It’s ironic that I’m saying this, because of course, the ending of the vitals is very painful, it’s full of pain. I found some great light, like, twist and turn, you know,
Phil Rickaby
play about a paramedic, there’s probably going to be some heavy stuff in there. I’m curious about I mean, a lot of people go to the point they go and they write a one person show so that they can perform it as somebody who’s not a performer. What was the draw of the one person show
Rosamund Small
for you? For vitals, which I’d never written one before that. And I haven’t revisited the form. Really, since I just started writing this voice. And I had met this woman who was a medic, and I’d read about medics. No other character presented themselves. And I think in the end that plays about loneliness. And I mean, what, what an automatic, an automatic metaphor for loneliness. Right. Yeah, to be the only character in the play. Yeah. And, you know, pretty quickly into the story, that it’s a one woman show, which is, in a way, static, which can be really dangerous for those shows. But also, you know, that no one else is going to come and help her. Right. There’s nobody else in the show. So there’s a meta theatrical element of, of her being absolutely alone. And, and so that, yeah, that show really needed to be only her. Right? It wouldn’t, it wouldn’t be right to have somebody else in it. Because there’s nobody else in her life. Yeah, and I was given a one person shows an assignment to write for myself, and I wrote something for me to perform at Salt, pepper. And, and that was really hard. Because I was writing for me to be me in the show. And it was much more of a, you know, much more of an exercise in, in solo show. But vitals is more like just a play. That doesn’t happen to have anybody else in it.
Phil Rickaby
Yeah. When you were given the assignment to write for yourself was the assignment to write in your voice, but not as a character just to be very honest about something that happened to you? Was it well, yeah, I suppose be autobiographical. Yeah. Yeah. I’ve written autobiographical stuff, but you would have to, like dig so deep through the layers of it to find the autobiographical stuff, and nobody can find it. Right. But I’ve never, I’ve never really the idea of like, being like, this is what happened to me just sort of like there’s something that just makes me as just sort of hits me in a very uncomfortable spot. Yeah. As a performer.
Rosamund Small
Well, it’s that thing of, it’s talking about yourself. And like, of course, we’d love to talk about ourselves, but not not too much and not right now. And that to you, you know, like, or, like, I love to talk about myself, but only to someone I know will validate me back and an audience maybe yeah, maybe not. Yeah, it’s so terrifying.
Phil Rickaby
Like, so. Who are you performing that for like other members of the academy? Or did you perform it for like a public?
Rosamund Small
No, no, it was closed. So there’s probably maybe 60 people but yeah, sort of invite invite based basically, it’s a very friendly crowd. But, but still just, I I lost my mind like the week before. I was just like, I remember my wonderful mentor there was stopped me in the middle of kind of run through. I can’t remember what he was going to say, but it just threw me so much. And he was really nice. Like he was supposed to use you know, he was helping me as being sort of an outside eye. IT director presents and I was like, I can’t get fucking start again. Like I just like, You know what I didn’t you know, have a tantrum. But I was. You know, I don’t I don’t have tantrums. You know, I don’t I’m not, you know, but that part of you that’s like, can you see that I’m absolutely in crisis trying to read my 20 minute play like it’s ridiculous. Yeah.
Phil Rickaby
How was it performing that?
Rosamund Small
It was actually great. Yeah, I really, I don’t know why, but my nerves really disappeared about the day before
Phil Rickaby
or the day before. Okay. Yeah, that’s good. Yeah, it’s weird. I performed my first solo show this past summer. Yeah, Hamilton, I was fine. Up until the day of Yeah. And that’s the day I was like, this is the day I just, like, vomit everywhere. Before I do this thing did you? Do some of you were dying. I didn’t commit myself. I was dying. But I thought that, well, I just remember crossing the street thinking, if a bus hit me right now, it might be better than doing my show. Yeah, so terrifying. Well,
Rosamund Small
they can’t make me if like, if I’m, yeah, like, if I need to go to the hospital, then you know, to bed great, you know, money back like,
Phil Rickaby
yeah. It just, it’s, it’s so your nerves went away the day before and you were able to perform it? Not being a performer? How did like somebody who, like, purposefully did not want to be an actor? How was it having to perform that?
Rosamund Small
I mean, when I say acting kind of off the cuff, what I generally mean is disappearing into text. Right? What I mean is a kind of, yeah, as I said about dialogue, sort of 20th century Western idea of, you’re going to be on stage and pretend that I’m not here and have this conversation as though it’s really happening. And that wasn’t what I was doing. I was, you know, up there by myself, kind of doing a bit of a clownish kind of, not not clown, but a bit of a, I’m gonna be really, really, really, really serious until you this really, really, really funny story. And, and all the house lights were up, and I just kind of looked and did all this eye contact with the audience. And that is really more it is performance. But it’s, it’s so not disappearing into text. It’s almost like I felt like I was standing up there challenging people to it was almost like challenging people to look away. Like you can’t look away from this situation. Yes, I’m looking right at you. Yeah. Yeah. It’s
Phil Rickaby
always interesting. When you do that to somebody who’s who’s like in theatre. Yeah. They won’t look away. Right? Yeah, they have to give you a look at something. If you do that to somebody who’s not in theatre, they will immediately be like, huh, lighting grid? Yeah. Um, it’s interesting. Because I always, I found through doing my own piece, that the only way to, for me to do that was to treat the audience as my scene partner that I needed. them there. Yeah. Which is a fun thing to explore. Yeah. What is there something that you learned in in through this exercise that you can
Rosamund Small
think of? Um, it’s funny to learn. Yeah, the nerves disappearing was interesting, because I was so nervous. I was truly nervous. And then I think something inside me was like, oh, it’s almost over. Right? You know, and then suddenly, I was like, Oh, I’ll probably still be alive after that. You know? It’s so some animalistic part of you is so afraid. There’s that. And then there was also in rehearsal. I rehearsed it for I didn’t have a director but I had a designer and had a mentor. And, in rehearsal with them, I was doing it sort of laughing at myself while I was doing it. And then, because they’re just funny in it, you know, it’s not a really, it’s not a deeply confessional piece. It’s not, it’s not extremely serious. It’s a lot of silly anecdotes about being a kid and playing dress up and being disappointed, you know, that kind of thing. But then, as soon as I got in front of people, I just was like, Oh, that’s not going to work. And I had to be so and I suddenly took my own stories much more seriously. Like something happened when you showed it to your mentor. And the designer knows that when I was doing it for it. When I was doing it in rehearsal. I was laughing off the things I was saying, I was laughing with them. And as soon as I was in front of 60 people, they were laughing, and I was like, oh, no, I need to really, really take this really seriously. And so it was quite a different performances that I’ve rehearsed, where I didn’t laugh at my own jokes at all. And the audience laughed much more than than my rehearsal audience. So something something about that group of people, it was more. Yeah, it was more akin to stand up. And I know some stand ups laugh at their own jokes, but mostly in stand up. They take the anecdotes they’re telling very, very seriously. And that’s what’s funny. Yeah. And that just kind of happened on stage in that moment. So, you know, it’s just funny to experience that. Yeah, it’s a Buster
Phil Rickaby
Keaton effect, too. Yeah. whenever, whenever he’s did, Beverly calls him stone face he but he would smile. But it was always funnier when he didn’t. Yeah, didn’t have an expression on his face and was very serious. It was always funnier than when he smiled or laughed. Yeah. What is that a? Funny, I don’t even I don’t know what it is. But there’s something I think it might be it might be rooted in shot in Freud. Like, that whole idea that, you know, if it’s happening to you, I feel better. Right Thing and yeah, if they’re not, if they don’t react like it’s funny, then we I think we feel it a little bit more. Yeah, it might be something like that. Yeah, but I don’t know. I want to jump back just for a second about the writing. Did you from high school, did you study some playwriting somewhere? Did you go to theatre school or writing? Course anywhere?
Rosamund Small
Yeah, I did a year at the University of Guelph and took a class with Judith Thompson. And then I transferred to University of Toronto, and I did a couple of years of class with Jed Sears. Both amazing writers and just incredible, smart, interesting women. And Janet particularly stayed and, and, oh, for years, just out of the goodness of her heart, read drafts and helped me with stuff. And she did this incredible thing that I don’t think you’re allowed to do anymore, where she, I think she called it an independent study. And I just kind of show her drafts of a play. And then she gave me like a 98%. And that was one of my fourth year courses. It’s really only recently and with a decent average. But yeah, I did, I took some of those formal classes but but a lot of structural things sort of more those, those classes were very free and very you know, especially when they when the teachers trust you generally, they’re quite free. So a lot about authenticity and honesty and just thinking about what the play is about. And then now I’m in this programme at Salt, pepper, which is sort of a combination of school and, and work. And that has been great because there’s access to a lot of structure, which I do understand why people resist traditional structure, but I think learning it can can help you can help you learning with React to structure learning, you know, we took an adaptation matter masterclass and, and learn just just things that you’re doing without realising it. Anyway, about twists and turns and three acts and that kind of thing.
Phil Rickaby
So it’s the previous stuff has not been focused on structure. And so pepper is giving you sort of the grounding.
Rosamund Small
Yeah, yeah. I mean, it’s not all they do. But it’s just been something that I’ve never had before that is available. There’s gearmotor deck yet, who’s the mentor that I’ve mentioned before, he’s he’s just so so so perceptive about just events, an order and action and that kind of thing. He’s so clued into those things, and also clued into different ways of doing it. So he understands, for example, that a three extraction of screenplay is just one kind of structure. And there’s a different kind of structure from a different culture and a different kind of structure from a different century. And so having access to that perspective, is is awesome and been very new for me.
Phil Rickaby
Do you? How did you find yourself when you were working with the structures are resistant to it? Because it can be difficult, like when you’re forced to do something new, that’s unfamiliar, it can be difficult to like, just sort of go with it. Yeah. Did you find yourself pushing against it against it?
Rosamund Small
Um, I haven’t. I haven’t been given assignments that have to stick exactly to anything. It’s more just the resources. Like, like taking, you know, a couple of classes on adaptation from someone who’s done 10 adaptations. Michael O’Brien was his name right and, and just having access to what he does, so I haven’t haven’t been no one’s forced me to do it to do anything in any particular way. But it actually felt so freeing to have someone say, you know, this is so about a third of the way through, there’s a big twist and turn and then by halfway through, you can’t turn back and you know, That kind of thing. Yeah.
Phil Rickaby
Has that been? Has that been like new for you to have people like suggesting these sorts of things?
Rosamund Small
Yeah, yeah, it’s funny, it’s not been a part of that that formality has not has not been a part of the way I’ve worked before. I’ve had tonnes of notes and tonnes of dramaturgy, but just that particular thing that is so common in film, I don’t think is still enforced in theatre. And I think that’s really great. But it’s been cool to learn it at least Yeah. Yeah.
Phil Rickaby
It’s been it’s interesting to think of I’m, I’ve read it a lot. And like, you know, during every so often, I’ll be like, I must read all the writing books. Which is really my way of not writing. Yeah, I feel like I’m doing something. Yeah. Going on by like all other writing books and writing books. I feel like I’m productive, right. And then, but once I started to try to put like, the three act structure that’s being talked about into practice, I, I always, I’m always like, I can’t I do like his little tantrum. Yeah.
Rosamund Small
It’s, it sounds so easy, but it’s so hard. I feel like reading a screenplay book. People must think they can write a screenplay, and then they don’t. But if you try it, you realise it’s so much harder. Yeah. Sounds.
Phil Rickaby
Makes it sound easy. Why they’re selling the book. Yeah, exactly. Yes. Why people buy it. Yeah, like, saving the cat or whatever, save the cat writes a book that everybody always recommends. And I’ve never purchased because I feel like just another one of those books. It’s going to make it sound like it’s really easy to write.
Rosamund Small
Yeah, yeah, it’s easy. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Well, you’ve gone a step ahead of me, because I don’t think I’ve ever finished one there. They’re on my bookshelf. Oh, I mean,
Phil Rickaby
there’s a bunch. I haven’t finished. Because eventually I said, you know, I’m just, it’s just an excuse not to do this. Totally.
Rosamund Small
Yeah.
Phil Rickaby
In terms of when he joined the salt pepper Academy, was there something that you were hoping to get out of the experience,
Rosamund Small
I feel like I’ve mentioned a lot of it, it was a lot of interest in adaptation, that’s huge, and a lot of what they do, because they do have this mandate to be somewhat grounded in a classical canon. So when they do new work, it’s it’s often I think, Albert Schultz explained it to us once, his way of looking at it is, is you look at what’s come before, and then you look forward with that knowledge, which is such a beautiful way of thinking of it. So they really have this, they’re, they’re interested in being in dialogue with the Western canon, so the Greeks and Shakespeare and all the way through to the 20th century. They’re interested in finding new ways to be connected with those works and connected with other you know, other forms of literature and art and politics. So I just saw their prediction of Of Human Bondage, which I think is so amazing. And that’s a very, very new adaptation, staged in this incredible way with the ensemble making all the sounds and the shapes of the story, but it’s actually a 19th century British novel, right? Yeah, so learning that kind of that kind of work was of interest to me. But also a huge departure from me, because I’ve done and so happy to continue also to do really new work really, really contemporary work, really, out of nothing original stuff, and immersive stuff and site specific stuff. Yeah, it wasn’t a wish to stop doing that, but just kind of to expand the Arsenal as much as possible.
Phil Rickaby
Was was vital vitals was originally a site specific. Yeah, yeah. Was it was that your initial intent to do specific or did that it become that
Rosamund Small
it was always going to be site specific, I think, but I hadn’t thought a lot about what that meant. I had seen a play called Mr. Marmalade, which is an American play, but outside the March, which is a company I’ve worked with a lot did a production of it, that Michel Cushman directed, and it was so awesome. Oh my god. Like, you know, when you think of a show that you just love to like, I just Yeah, I think of it and I just kind of get really excited because it was just so cool. It was set in a kindergarten classroom and the audience was kind of following the character. So this kindergarten classroom and everything sort of weirdly miniature, and it was so eerie and beautiful. And and I think just Dude, you’re seeing that show, I think it was my first set specific show made me want to do something like that. And then because the show was about a paramedic, and it was so contemporary, and so Toronto, it felt really natural that it be out and about kind of Yeah, the very first drafts of the script would say this play can be anywhere but it needs to be in Toronto outside or it needs to be something like that. Or in a big city, you know, somewhere I think my original idea was, it’s going to be so low key, it’s going to be a one person show that you can do anywhere. Like we can do it in a house, we can do it in a bank we can do in a cafe. Which is really ironic because it did become a site specific show, but very non portable, like expensive, difficult, very specific to one location show with like, you know, 12 other people kind of doing silent stuff around an ambulance and a dog and like, I don’t know, it felt like a helicopter and it felt like it to me it felt like being like on Broadway or something.
Phil Rickaby
Yeah. It was read as part of the the playmate podcast. And, you know, speaking earlier, as we were about how, you know, theatre is some dialogue specific to take a play that was so site specific. Yeah. And have it produced with basically just the audio, was that very different? Or was Did it feel like it was sort of the right way to hear it?
Rosamund Small
Well, Michel Cushman, who directed vitals his his is kind of magical brain came up with this whole site specific concept for it. But part of that concept was actually that the audience hear the character the whole time, but not necessarily see her. So in the original production, audience members had earphones and as they walked around, they had live broadcast from the main character. So they saw her speaking, and then she would disappear into the house, and you would explore without her, but you would hear her talking in your ear. So actually, we had almost an element of something similar to a podcast really incorporate into the show. So I think, I mean, he picked up on that auditory nature of it really quickly. And the show has, you know, it has no stage directions. So it’s very, very, very auditory. So I think it makes a lot of sense as a podcast, honestly. Yeah. Yeah.
Phil Rickaby
When did you listen to it? I did. Yeah. Yeah. Like listening to it as the as the author listening to it, that was it.
Rosamund Small
I liked it. I listened to it while I was walking around. Like, why not walking to the grocery store and walking back. And a cool thing happened where you hear ambulances all the time, and you don’t notice. And then, you know, that kind of thing. So I had a couple of things from the outside world interrupted and a really cool, kind of coincidental way. And yeah, and it was a bit of just a blast from the past. Because Katherine, who originated the role of Reddit, and that’s nice. Yeah, it had been a couple of years since I looked at it, really. So it was cool. Are you
Phil Rickaby
once you’re done with a player, you just feel like you’re done. You’re in touch anymore? Or do something? Have you ever gone back and like tinkered with it?
Rosamund Small
Um, I, I mean, I want to tinker with it. But I’m also, you know, vitals I felt done, you know, I mean, it was, it was produced and published, and then it was this podcast, and we’re having a little party for the publication coming up, but it feels. Yeah, I don’t think you’re I mean, you abandon it, right. I mean, it’s not done because it’s perfect, but it’s done, because it’s time to be done. Yeah, yeah.
Phil Rickaby
I’ve had this thing where occasionally, I just, I can’t let it go. So I’ll go back and revise. Oh, I can. Yeah, yeah. There’s nothing that has said You’re done now. Yeah. If you have, I mean, if you if it’s getting if someone’s getting produced, you have like, a must be done by this time. But if you don’t have like that date, do you find that you can just like, tinker and tinker and tinker until you’re tired of it? Or
Rosamund Small
oh, like, if it’s not being produced? Yeah. Oh, yeah. I mean, I’m trying to think I’m so not motivated. If there’s no production, honestly, like there’s nothing in a drawer, you know, what I mean? There’s no like, brilliant thing waiting for someone to be interested, so much of it is about well, it’s gotta be it’s gotta get better because people are gonna see it,
Phil Rickaby
you know? Yeah.
Rosamund Small
That and the motivation of the collaborators right I had I had Mitchell next to me, you know, reading drafts and this and that and asking questions and and and then we did that again with our show tomorrow love which was even way more writing like like hours and hours and hours of writing and and both of those I think if we you know, I think if he hadn’t been there, I wouldn’t have not only what his really really really insightful ideas not have another made their way in and his questions that have been answered but also I just don’t know if I would have finished it. I mean, you need someone who’s expecting it.
Phil Rickaby
In those cases, um, you’ve had the idea and ever you presented it to say Michel and he said, Yes, we’re going to do that. Are you like, started Have you written like a draft and shown it to him more like what’s the process of those productions like?
Rosamund Small
Vitals I was well on my way before we started working on it, but he still had so much so much. His kind If dramaturgical II was so all over it tomorrow, love was more collaborative. You know, I wrote, it’s you know, it’s 15 short plays tomorrow love, right? So I’d write, I can’t even remember, I honestly can’t remember, I think I wanted to do short plays about, about sexuality, because I was doing my degree in sexuality studies. And then I did some that were more about, like technology and, and sort of through trial and error, I kept writing short plays, and you’d be like, this one and this one are great. And the ones with only two people seem cool. And then eventually, we ended up with 15, to person plays 15 minutes to 45 minutes, all about, broadly, you know, love sex technology in the future. So they all sort of incorporated those ideas somehow. So that was much more both of us and much more. Because it’s a big project, and it’s really more than one play. It’s 15. So that was much more sort of bouncing back and forth about what it was. Yeah.
Phil Rickaby
Yeah. I mean, the short play is, is one of those, I want to say much maligned, because it’s like, there’s so many 10 minute, I see the calls for like, a 10 minute play festival. I know, it’s like, yeah, and I keep wondering, so I keep writing this 10 minute play. And and then you’re going to do it, and then we’re going to what? Like, right, like you’re gonna do like this stays reading of it, and then we’re going to watch. So it’s so hard to figure out like what you’re going to do with a short play. Yeah. But it’s good that you found this way to, like, combine them into a for a production. Yeah, yeah. Which might be the, I guess, the way to work out that hole. I have these short plays. Problem.
Rosamund Small
Yeah. I’ve never been to one of these 10 minute play festivals, but it’s a real thing, like, never seem to really want. But 10 minutes is, I mean, you know, the toilet plays are short, but they’re not. None of them are nine minutes.
Phil Rickaby
trouble wrapping around how I was supposed to introduce an idea. You know, work on the idea. Yeah. Like, I have some character development resolve it in 10 minutes. Yeah. Which seems like an impossible task.
Rosamund Small
And I love short stories, but not a lot of them are five pages and 10 minutes of dialogue is really five pages. Right? Like, so. Yeah, it’s kind of a it’s a funny thing, ya know,
Phil Rickaby
but there’s so much like, I see so many of those, like, on the playwriting forums or whatever. Yeah, it’s just like, 10 minute plays 10 minute plays, like I have none. I can’t give you a 10 minute play.
Rosamund Small
Right. Yeah.
Phil Rickaby
I don’t quite know where that comes from. Because I don’t know in what situation. Like, when did this whole 10 minute play thing? Start?
Rosamund Small
Yeah, it’s always 10 minutes to 12. Yeah. 15. Yeah, yeah. But there, there must be fun to go to, like, I can imagine really enjoying a 10 minute play festival. You know, like it gets
Phil Rickaby
you the advancement is sort of like like fringe is like that 60 minutes show. If it’s not, if it’s not great. It’s not that long. Yeah. This one’s not great. And like nine more minutes is going to be a better thing. Yeah, another thing. Yeah, but I don’t know. Yeah, I’m not sure. Yeah. Is there? How long? I mean, the the celebrity Academy is two years. Yeah. And how far into it? Are you one year?
Rosamund Small
No. Maybe a third? Almost a third?
Phil Rickaby
Yeah. Yeah. And aside from the things that you’re doing with salt, pepper, are you working on something? Is there something coming up for you? Or?
Rosamund Small
No, I mean, we just we just close tomorrow, love. I mean, it feels like forever ago just because it was such an intense thing. But just it closed December 18. So yeah, and then I’m right into, you know, the Academy’s like 12 hours a day, right? So, it’s, I mean, when I’m doing my job well, when I’m writing properly when I’m writing there. The way it’s the most beneficial to me is if I stay at my desk and stay and work at night, and we’re working in the morning. You know, they’re not slave drivers. But that’s that’s the way to get the most out of it, I think. Yeah. So yeah, so trying to really commit to those, those projects that you get to do they’re trying to eat they’re not just practice, they’re, they’re, they’re practice in the best sense they are the note that seems kind of pretentious, but they’re the practice of it. Right? So So yeah, I’m completely I’m completely in there and and, and really making that the world and yeah, It’s it’s a it’s kind of it’s kind of great like to I, I’m writing a short musical with them James Smith, who’s a composer in the programme. And that’s it. That’s my whole world. That’s my whole day, you know? And it’s great.
Phil Rickaby
Musical. Haven’t you ever thought about thought about writing? Yes.
Rosamund Small
Love them. And people always look at me like they’re surprised because they think playwrights should be above them or something. No, my Well, my best friend in the whole in the whole world is Britta Johnson, who’s, I think about to become quite quite ridiculously famous. And she wrote a musical called lifeafter. That’s, that’s coming up next year at Canadian stage. And, and I don’t know if it’s, if it’s, I mean, I always did love musicals. And I see the silliness of them. Like I see what people make fun of them. But it depends on the musical and it depends. How open you’re willing to be with them. I think. But that’s a good one.
Phil Rickaby
I definitely see what you’re saying. And I know, I think when people are thinking about the silliness of the musical, I think they’re thinking of like, the no coward era when it was just like, this scene exists to get to this song. Sure. Yeah. Yeah. It’s like, so like, the it’s so contrived, and the songs are so empty and silly. Yeah. Then it just seems ridiculous. Yeah. And, you know, they’re not seeing like a Sweeney Todd, or Hamilton or something like that. Yeah. Where it can be this like,
Rosamund Small
Oh, that’s right, Hamilton, we’ve been wrong and thinking people think they’re silly, because it’s clearly back.
Phil Rickaby
The funny thing is, is that Hamilton was like last year, and this year, the show that the Broadway people are talking about is dear Evan Hanson, which is a more traditional show, write more dialogue and some songs and that sort of thing. Yeah. And it’s, you know, but I mean, Hamilton is still Hamilton, but it’s like, last year, you know, but I think outside of Hamilton, because people I know people who are like, I don’t do musicals, but Hamilton. Yeah, like, other stuff, trying to convince people the value and the entertainment value of musicals that are not that like can be a challenge. Sometimes.
Rosamund Small
I know they’re either so I mean, what, what could be more phenomenal than people using music to express a story? I mean, it seems so natural to me, it seems as natural as design, it seems. I mean, I love I love dialogue driven plays, but you know, when they go wrong? I don’t know. They’re not. Music is beautiful. Right there. It’s so beautiful. And why shouldn’t it be beautiful? And
Phil Rickaby
yeah, there’s a certain I think, in some ways, musicals allow us to be like Shakespearean, in like the breadth of emotion and things like that in a way that sometimes straight up dialogue doesn’t, quote, unquote, allow us anymore. And the music can underscore things that that a dialogue, just straight up dialogue playing can’t Oh, yeah, absolutely. Are you writing lyrics or just the book?
Rosamund Small
No, it doesn’t. It’s not. I don’t think we have a lot of real songs. in it. It’s more. It’s more like I’m writing a weird play a very weird play. And then James is, we’re still just working on it. So we’re figuring out what kind of musical it is as we go, which is cool. But he’s done things like take a line of dialogue and find the rhythm of the line of dialogue. So I can’t remember the example he gave, but if the line is, you know, he wondered if he was a good man. It’s like the rhythm is doo doo doo doo doo doo doo doo, doo, doo doo doo doo doo doo doo. And he’s writing music like that, with that rhythm, which is inspired a bit by London Road, which is this this amazing, verbatim musical?
Phil Rickaby
Kind of stage a couple of years ago. Yeah,
Rosamund Small
yeah. So I don’t know, I think we’re still figuring out if there’s going to be a lot of lyrics. There might be some, but it’s more about. It’s more integrated than that. Like we’re working more together than that. Nice. Yeah, it’s cool. It’s really cool.
Phil Rickaby
And, I mean, the sounds like you’ve got this really close working relationship with with the composer in a way that I think it must be kind of ideal for, like working on this sort of thing.
Rosamund Small
I think a close working relationship is is always the ideal. I mean, my collaborative work with Michel Cushman on our immersive shows, where he’s the director, but it’s, it’s really our show, you know, it’s, it’s, it’s, you know, Mitchell and Ross presents, you know, like, until we’re in rehearsal, and then there’s the actors, the stage manager, I mean, everyone, everyone’s on the team, but in terms of the planning It’s not my script that I hand over. And then it’s his turn. It’s our show. And then, and I do feel that a mirroring of that, of that excitement in that partnership with James. And that’s it. Yeah, I think more and more, what I look for I find that Well, I know some people love a big ensemble, and they want to devise stuff with 12 people. I really find like one person’s good.
Phil Rickaby
I think. I mean, one of the reasons I mean, and you one of the things you mentioned earlier was like with theatre, there’s all the people like the Yeah, like, more collaborative than some other forms of writing. So, like, having somebody to work with is like one of the joys of the of creating theatre. It’s not like a screenwriter alone writing it, who then gives it to the Studio gives it to a director who makes all their changes that they want. And then it’s done. And that writer is gone. Yeah, it’s the writer, the playwright is a little more integrated, which is, which is great.
Rosamund Small
Yeah, I mean, it’s all I know, really, it’s my only experience, but I I think that’s what keeps at least I think it keeps me sane. You know that there’s another there’s, there’s two of us on this boat, you know, it can
Phil Rickaby
be a little, you know, one person can fish the other one out of the waters. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Are you on social media?
Rosamund Small
A little bit? Yeah, I’m not I’m not super active, but a little bit. Yeah.
Phil Rickaby
Can I ask you Twitter handle?
Rosamund Small
Sure. It’s at small rosmond. And our Do you have a website or anything? I don’t have a website. I have Facebook, and people can message me. They want say hi. Okay. Yeah, yeah, um,
Phil Rickaby
this has been a lot of fun. Thank you so much for talking about Thank you. It’s been delightful.
