#78 – Maureen Gualtieri
Maureen Gualtieri, playwright and general word-wrangler, was born and raised in Toronto. Her newest play, Odd One Out, will be premiering at the 2017 Toronto Fringe. Her work has been seen at previous editions of the Toronto Fringe (BQ, as part of Trip; Monkey Love), Protestival (Whose Body is This; The Franklin Street Elementary School Grades 1, 2, & 3 Present Their Spring Pageant, “Officer Bubbles Goes to Hell, Or, Civil Disobedience is for Everybody!”), and other local festivals. She has directed, assistant directed, stage managed and script coordinated in venues such as Hart House Theatre, the Hamilton Fringe, and Tarragon Theatre. She graduated from the National Theatre School of Canada’s playwriting program in 2012.
Odd One Out:
1950. A love triangle. A secret attraction. A college student disappears in the woods. Ten years later, her rival lovers reunite in an attempt to solve the otherworldly mystery: what really happened to Clementine Yates?
Playwright: Maureen Gualtieri
Director: Elizabeth Traicus
Cast: Krystina Bojanowski, Jesse Byiers, Mattie Driscoll
At the Tarragon Theatre ExtraSpace (30 Bridgman Ave) as part of the Toronto Fringe:
Friday July 7 at 8:30pm
Saturday July 8 at 11:15pm
Monday July 10 at 4:15pm
Tuesday July 11 at 2:45pm<
Thursday July 13 at 7:45pm
Saturday July 15 at 5:15pm
Sunday July 16 at 2:30pm
Stageworthy:
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Twitter: @stageworthyPod
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Transcript
Transcript auto generated.
Phil Rickaby
Welcome to Episode 78 of Stageworthy. I’m your host Phil Rickaby Stageworthy features conversations in Canadian theatre with artists of all stripes from actor to director to play right and more. If you want to drop me a line, I’d love to hear from you. You can find Stageworthy on Facebook and Twitter at stageworthypod and you can find the website Stageworthy podcast.com. My guest this week is playwright Maureen Gualtieri. Maureen’s newest play on one out will premiere at the 2017 Toronto Fringe Festival.
Maureen Gualtieri
The show is called odd one out, and I have been working on it for four years now.
Phil Rickaby
Is that is that the writing? The writing of it writing?
Maureen Gualtieri
Yeah. I sort of exited Theatre School and kind of took some time to be a regular human being again,
Phil Rickaby
it’s just like, How long ago did you I mean, we’re gonna jump right into conversation that are not an interview. Yeah. How long did you leave Theatre School?
Maureen Gualtieri
I graduated in 2012. Okay. And I was there for three years, what school National Theatre School in Montreal. So I had like the usual my understanding the usual thing of theatre school where they like, break you down and make you again, yes, plus being an Anglophone in French Canada, I was kind of bombarded on all sides with ah, this is so new, who am I now? You know, so I had to take some time to be like, I want to go to the grocery store and buy some olives like a normal person,
Phil Rickaby
I kind of wonder about that whole theatre school break you down and build you back up thing. I understand the concept of it, but in some ways, I think it’s, it’s become it’s bullshit. Quite frankly, I think that that there are some things they, they need to break you up your bad habits as an actor, but some of them approach it as I break you down. Right? It’s fine that they build you back up again. But some theatre schools are not so great.
Maureen Gualtieri
Well, in my experience, I went for the playwriting programme. So there was more of what you described, it was like, let’s sort of keep you as you who you are, and have been in the world up until now. And then just like take apart what is not working. But even then, like if you if you have crutches, sort of like they’re there for a reason. And sometimes having them pulled away. Even if you feel prepared for it is like, terrifying. Yeah. Well, crutches
Phil Rickaby
or crutches. I mean, it’s like the thing if you like break your leg, and you’re used to the crutches. And then one day somebody says, Okay, walk up the crutches. Yeah, they’re gone. It’s such a really apt metaphor, because you put your foot down, you’re like, I don’t even know if I remember how to walk with
Maureen Gualtieri
these things. But it’s great. And it’s progress. And you’re like cognitively Yes, this is going to happen, but like your leg muscles have atrophied a little bit or like you’re a little unsure. Yeah. So yeah, that was a little bit of my experience coming out very positive, but just that kind of focus and tunnel vision having to be a regular person who was a bit of a project.
Phil Rickaby
So that take how long did it take for you to feel that person again, after graduating Theatre School?
Maureen Gualtieri
Well, I think there was sort of a trend among the people who I still am sort of friends with in circles with who have graduated at the same it’s it takes about three years, like the amount of time that you’re in, when you come out again, and I found in my experience, as well, like there’s still some vestiges where I’m still trying to reconcile my identity as an artist, which was so supported there. With Hello, I have a regular job now. And
Phil Rickaby
I’m trying to like, that’s something that nobody ever talks about. In theatre school. Yeah. Is the job a job? The balance between the Joe job in the in the artistic life and things like that, totally. It’s hard to learn how to balance those because you can go too far into the work life because there are people who demand things of you, then you have to find a way to have a space of time that you’re nobody nothing else touches. Yeah,
Maureen Gualtieri
we had a class in the business of playwriting, which was like how to apply for grants and how to be like copyright and all that stuff, which was great. But that was sort of predicated on the idea that you would sort of be doing this full time. But yeah, not having the skill to balance these two sorts of states is one that I’m still like learning. I think it’s a constant engagement sort of thing and trying to figure out where that falls.
Phil Rickaby
Do you have a full time job outside of writing or do you Yeah,
Maureen Gualtieri
I just transitioned to a full time job after having several years of like working three part time jobs at once. Weird hours.
Phil Rickaby
Is that so hard? Like just to talk about because I know every part time job I’ve ever had, they’re all like I’m just as important as your other job and you’re like, but you all want me to do the same thing. Yeah, my balance this and it’s
Maureen Gualtieri
the new economy or Right, like this is what we have inherited, like everyone has a full time job, but they’re just making it up out of X number of part time gigs. So sort of exiting that world and going into like, steady paycheck and dental
Phil Rickaby
is not like, suddenly like this life changing thing. It’s crazy
Maureen Gualtieri
benefits. Yeah, I can like, right off massages. Because opposite at a desk forever. And it’s like type and mouse. And my right side is like we’re,
Phil Rickaby
I had ages of like, before, I’d learned how to use my mouse responsibly, where I would just like, come when I finish a week and be like, I can’t move my off my wrist. So I learned different way to do it. Yeah. Have you been able to find in terms of the Navigating the full time job and the artistic life, you’re able to carve out time that’s yours? Or is it hard to make to make that balance work?
Maureen Gualtieri
It’s a little bit difficult, because the full time day job that I have is in customer service, which is quite taxing, and the personality style that works for customer service and works for writing. Like, I can toggle between the two, but it takes a lot out of me. Yeah, so it’s a different circumstance than I’m running all over hills halfacre trying to make different part time jobs like I do have the time, but being able to switch into that is has been difficult. And over the past couple of months, especially working on this draft of the fringe show. Hi, I’ve needed to bring a lot more energy to the writing that on some days, I just couldn’t do you.
Phil Rickaby
I mean, in terms of the customer service, as a call centre is it’s something a little better than that.
Maureen Gualtieri
It’s mostly phone based. But it’s I sell tickets at a large arts organisation. That’s cool. So it’s kind of combination of sales and incoming calls. And I’m in a quasi managerial position. So the people who get angry at the people who immediately answer the phones will sometimes get transferred to me. And so I have to put out a little bit of
Phil Rickaby
space to occupy it and leave and I worked in a call centre, where two chapters online when it was just chapters, and then through the Indigo trans transition, right. And that was like to be artistic after a day of people yelling at you was like, that was like so hard.
Maureen Gualtieri
It’s yeah, I mean, not just energy wise, but being okay with, like the human condition wise, like, this is sort of difficult for me to kind of parse in a positive way, but it makes it difficult to like people. And if you don’t like people, how can you understand them? How can you access their stories? How can you have an imagination surrounding people’s lives? Yeah. So that is a harder balance that I’m interested in starting to
Phil Rickaby
I finally my full time job when I’m in the writing thing, if I if I don’t have just like a little over an hour, like if I can’t carve out like an hour or more to write like, I can’t do like a half hour of writing because it takes me like that half hour to shake off. Yeah, everything to be able to just sort of like, oh, this is where I am. So it needs it needs time to be able to get to
Maureen Gualtieri
that point. That’s so true. Like I’m trying to do to write on my lunch. Sometimes I
Phil Rickaby
have my lunch. It’s not enough because you end up with like, Okay, so now I’ve got my eating lunch. And now I have a half hour and that’s just not enough time
Maureen Gualtieri
to hold my laptop all the way here. And now it’s the pressure. Yeah, yeah, no, it’s difficult.
Phil Rickaby
In terms of the note, I mean, we’ve sort of talked around it. You mentioned it a couple of times. So the French show. This sorry, the title again, odd one out one out. Yes. So can you tell me what that’s about?
Maureen Gualtieri
Sure. Well, it comes from sort of two different streams that I kind of mashed up in my brain. It is based plot wise on a book called odd girl out or not based inspired, written by Anne Bannon, and she is known as the Queen of lesbian Pulp Fiction. So she wrote a whole bunch of like super pulpy, like, full of swooning and like really awesome tropes in the 50s. And one of these books, one of the I think it was the earliest one that she actually wrote, when she herself was like 21 years old, and a young mother trying to figure out her own sexuality and give it vocabulary to it about two girls any Women’s College in the eastern sort of seaboard area of United States who fall in love with each other, and have no real context for it. Like it’s like 1951 and there’s no real word for what they’re experiencing. And and then there’s a whole bunch of like, oh, swooning and love and things and a man gets in between them. And I thought this was a really interesting sort of, kind of world to work in. Like I really like this sort of like middle of the 20 Centuries sort of repression thing going on. And out of that as well, like my twin obsession with this, this sort of era is stories of alien abduction, and like UFOs. So I took this book, and a sort of urban legends story about an actual girl, an actual woman at a women’s college in like Vermont, who disappeared in something called the Bennington triangle. And her disappearance was entirely unsolved. So I took the characters from this book and kind of created new ones and sort of follow the follow the story, where there are two women who fall in love with each other at this college, and then one of them completely disappears, possibly under paranormal circumstances. So the questions that are brought up with this art, what does it mean to lose someone in a mysterious way, and to not have answers about it, and to try to create your own answers and your own story to explain it when you don’t have anything in the real world? That that can explain it.
Phil Rickaby
So I’m going to, as a writer, sort of geek out with you for a little bit because I love how when you’re writing things, various things, and various obsessions come together to form a singular thing. So you’re taking like one thing and mashing it into another thing. I think we do that all the time as writers. I’m curious, what was the start? Like what was like what started the play? And how did the alien abduction thing come into it like that? Come later? Did you know that that was going to be part of it when you started writing?
Maureen Gualtieri
I think yeah, I think that the mystery of it the the alien abduction, sort of part of it was there very early. Like what? I think if I had to boil it down, my chief inspiration was the story of Paula Jean Weldon Who is this girl is 18 year old girl in 1946, who disappeared while hiking on a path in Vermont. And the Vermont State Police were actually created funded by her father who is a sort of wealthy industrialist to find her. And they never did. And she her disappearance was the first of I think five or 10 years where people in that National Park just spontaneously dropped off the face of the planet. So I went online, and I printed off her the poster that they had created in order for people to like know her handwriting and know her height, and she had a vaccination scar, and this is her hair colour. And I put it into my workspace right up on my like, poster board. And just yeah, the mystery that is centred in that one person who’s no longer there. And the idea of the Bennington triangle is, though, or a Bermuda Triangle instead of ships that disappear. Its people, and where do they go? And it’s a very likely like in factually speaking that she has met a terrible end at the hands of another human being. But there’s always that maybe,
Phil Rickaby
well, you never if you ever find a body. Yeah, there’s no answer to the question.
Maureen Gualtieri
Yeah. And people in that area have reported like strange lights and weird things going on for forever. And just I think it’s very, it’s very theatrical, and it’s very, sort of mythical that the possibility that there is an alternative explanation. Because the theatre is not really a place for the factual, right. It’s a place where like, you have that tiny little, that little nugget of hope, and you’re trying to you’re trying to hold on to it. So maybe she didn’t get abducted by aliens. And would that be fantastic, given the alternatives? Yeah.
Phil Rickaby
Yeah. So it sounds like that’s where it started. And then this other book came into it, or did they like, sort of just stayed together?
Maureen Gualtieri
I think it was sort of at the same time, but I was my interests are kind of scattered all over the place. I never know when they’re going to collide. Yes. Yeah. So I think I had seen like a YouTube interview with an band and I was like, this is an awesome lady. I want to read her stuff. And then I did and then I was like, Whoa, connections. This girl was in college. These girls are in college. space aliens.
Phil Rickaby
Yeah. These things come together. Yeah. And you said
Maureen Gualtieri
you were reading it for like four years. Yeah, on and off. Like this is sort of in my main project, again, as I’m slogging through like three part time jobs etc. And yeah, it’s been a very slow gestation, but I feel like that has given it depth. I think I hope question that
Phil Rickaby
I have. This is purely selfish because I wrote a play for like, eight years that like last last year at the Hamilton fringe, I really only finished it Because I got into the fringe, right? Suddenly I had like this thing. Now I finish it because until then it was like I can continue to write and do this is it actually eight years? Pretty much eight years on and off, like you like eight years on and off. A lot of it was like tied up and different. I feel so much better now. That’s all it was, like, eight years of like, coming back to it and put it away. Yeah, back to it and letting it evolve and change. What was the state of this? The night of the fringe lottery? Was it almost finished? Or did the lottery give you a kick in the ass to finish it?
Maureen Gualtieri
Well, I had entered the lottery. I mean, it kind of in a pact with an actor friend of mine read both enter the lottery. And then whoever got in would work collectively on whoever’s sure project. And then this year, I didn’t check in with her. And I it was like two days beforehand. And I was like I didn’t have I’m just going to enter it because statistically, there’s absolutely no chance. And then going in, which was great, but also terrifying. The kick in the pants thing is a great physical metaphor for that. It’s sort of hilarious because the play at that point had, I think, 10 care, there’s nine characters played by eight people. And then once the reality of it hit, and I started talking with this actor, and we were like, Let’s work on this together, let’s find people, it became clear, increasingly obvious that this wasn’t feasible for a fringe sort of situation. So in a dramaturgical way, they were like, can you cut the characters down to three, right, and just shunt all this other fantastic stuff into one of them, and really boil down what the actual thing is about, because I have done a lot of sort of, like world world building with like, Oh, this is what it’s like, in the 50s. And this woman is married. And she, her husband says these things to her and like misogyny, which is all well and good, but not about the central mystery, which is what this was really about. So, yeah, the kick in the pants happened. And then it was like, I had a couple of months to, even though everything was there, I felt like I was writing a different play, right? Just distilling and peeling away and, and strengthening. Having dark nights of the soul. Why am I doing this to myself. And to some degree, like there’s still, there’s still a small piece that I need to sort of finish like one scene and then a couple tweaks, but it seems to be there. Now,
Phil Rickaby
I find that there’s this, when you get into the fringe, when they call your number, and you’re in there’s this election, and then like a half hour later, or so there’s like, there’s this sinking feeling of like, now I have to
Maureen Gualtieri
do this. I didn’t even go to the draw, I got the email, because I was like, I’m not gonna get in, I’m not going to home on my way downtown and just sit there and be sad. And then I just got an email while at work.
Phil Rickaby
I have gone for so many years, I’ve entered so many years, and I’ve gone I think I’m done. Yeah, because I think I would much rather not be there for that disappointment.
Maureen Gualtieri
I can’t even imagine how stressful
Phil Rickaby
it’s just like, as the numbers come up, we just like grasping onto something and like, Oh, that was close to mind. What does that mean? So many things. And you’re in the room with all these people doing the same thing. And just like, they try to make it fun.
Maureen Gualtieri
It’s not fun, it’s not helpful, stressful, it’s great that they have that transparency, though, it’s very helpful to have that openness. And if you’ve never
Phil Rickaby
been there, the transparency goes like beyond just like having people there. If you go early, they give you a stack of numbers and say please count. O ‘s, and you’re going to sign this to say the you counted to make sure that all the numbers were there in this category. And so various people go in and they they sign for it. And they confirm that the numbers are there. And then where they draw the thing they have put them all in a bin they cover with a blanket the person puts the army in the morning to look because there’s so many people who are like, Ah, it’s fixed. Same people get in every year. Yeah. So they’ve gone to so many lengths to try to make that as transparent as possible. But it’s just so stressful. Yeah, because the odds are just so against you as the artist. Yeah, the people somebody has to get in but it’s so hard to be there and just like watch those numbers go. Yeah. So kick in the payments, or in the friend. Yes. And so you’re talking about the the funnelling a whole lot into into the single character. Is it like aside from that, like can you if you were to compare the first version with This version, or the different animals now?
Maureen Gualtieri
That’s sort of a tough one. Because I feel like a lot of sort of preparatory work went into sort of the first iteration. I feel like on my gut level, Once this is complete as an experience, and I have kind of like process like what is actually important about this story, what is theatrically interesting to other people, I would like to go back to the previous draft and see if I can restore some of what I would in theory in the future. No is story wise is important. And there, I feel like the previous sort of draft had a little bit more breathing room to like the 60 minute slot is one that I feel is not one that I can write to easily, I need a little bit more length just a tiny bit more. Yeah. Yeah, they are quite different. So
Phil Rickaby
this is a really difficult one, because you kind of have to make like, you need to fit everything. It’s kind of like this breakneck, like just racing from start to finish to get within an hour for some show.
Maureen Gualtieri
Yeah. Which can be great. Because it really just like distils everything down. But then also, it’s, I think it’s a format that is very much festival kind of oriented. And having to wedge things in is something I want to avoid.
Phil Rickaby
But then I’ve also seen a lot of shows that fit into the 90 minute slot, they just don’t need to be 90 minutes long. Yeah, that’s true. So it’s like, there’s some in between spot, and 75 minutes, is it okay? Like I see something stretching out that, but I’ve sat through a whole lot of 90 minute shows where I’m just like, needed to.
Maureen Gualtieri
But if you have all that time, you should use X,
Phil Rickaby
Y, usually, like, I’ve done, I’ve been in the 90 minute slot, and we go for like 75 minutes. Just need that extra.
Maureen Gualtieri
Just a little, just a little more, a little more. Yeah, but I do I do think like the previous the previous draft is something that may I would like to return to and see. Now that’s been tested, sort of,
Phil Rickaby
for interested, great way to test stuff like that. Yeah, like, get it see and get like immediate feedback. I kind of wish that the Toronto fringe wasn’t always looking for hints and was a little more forgiving about experimentation. It’s so
Maureen Gualtieri
high stakes, but also so low stakes at the same time. Sort of weirdly,
Phil Rickaby
yeah. It’s supposed to be a like it’s supposed to be pro experimentation. Yeah. And it gives a lot of lip service to that. But I don’t know if it’s the media, the way the media looks at it, because the media and everybody’s always looking for the next Kim’s convenience. chaperone the next. My mother’s Jewish, lesbian Jewish making wedding. We’re looking for the next big thing. So it’s hard to like experiment when there’s all this pressure to be polished. Which is a tough one. Yeah. But it’s always interesting to like, learn so much. I’m curious as as a playwright, and choosing to write for fear. When did you know that theatre was something you wanted to write for to be involved in?
Maureen Gualtieri
Um, well, I think the very, very earliest Inkling was when I think I was like, five or so. My parents took me to see a production of Cats, which I totally loved. And is apparently not, I haven’t revisited because it’s not all that good. And people are kind of like, cats. But I had a blast as a five year old. But the coolest thing about it was that my dad was I think working as a carpenter backstage for this production. So during intermission, we got to go back and visit. And we got to meet like Macavity and we got, we got to like touches a wig. And I remember leaving the theatre that night after we’ve seen the second act and been blown away by it that I remember leaving the theatre and thinking real people do this. It’s not It’s not magic. It’s not something that is achievable by a regular person. I was like, this is really cool. My dad does it. These people do it. I could do it too. So that was like the first real inkling of it. And I’ve always been sort of a story writer, just a story writer, not even a storyteller even since that age. So I think that kind of funnelled in like through the usual channels like falling into the drama nerds in high school, having a great teacher who let us write plays for like any reason whatsoever. Going into university keeping the enthusiasm going with like self producing your own stuff in the university context and then popping into theatre school once I realised this was serious.
Phil Rickaby
Were you writing stuff before the high volume with the the high school drama notes or were you like were you like writing for theatre rewriting stories at that time? Or was it When you fell in with the theatre game that you started writing stuff,
Maureen Gualtieri
it was more once, once I fell in with the theatre, because of this fantastic teacher that we had Mr. Lynch, who was like, This is how we write a play. And having that sort of experience with the training wheels on and doing this year’s Drama Festival, which was amazing, because he let us do everything. Whereas other schools, they would have like, oh, moly, I wrote this, and we’ll do the translations. But from top down, it was our nothing. So having that raw experience and sort of a in a, in an area where in an arena where we had that guidance to, like, I became familiar familiar with the idiom. And I think it was maybe 14 When I wrote my first play on my own, like, I spent my summer vacation writing a play about a family where they’re the grandfather of the patriarch was dying, right, which is kind of like reflective of my life experience up until that point. Yeah.
Phil Rickaby
And when did you decide that like, you were, you mentioned that you weren’t in university, and then you went to theatre school when we when you figured out that it was like, serious, which you’re saying, like, it was some kind of like disease? Yeah, I’ve heard that playwriting was serious. And so I had to go and do something. Yeah. How did you figure out that it was that it was serious.
Maureen Gualtieri
I think it happened in university because I saw other people that I had worked with kind of going off into other streams, like this is a point where you become an adult, and you choose to stop fooling around with whatever you have been fooling around with. And like, become an accountant or take a trade. And I realised that I had not had enough, like the little tastes that I had had up until that point where I had increased the the itch, rather than calming it. So I wanted to find someplace where also the I had enough academic background, I wanted to go someplace where I could be taught to the same degree, the practical aspect of it, and what was your major
Phil Rickaby
when you were in University English? It was like, doing the bachelor bachelor’s degree or
Maureen Gualtieri
Yeah, I didn’t major in English and a minor in history in women’s studies, so very employable. After that point. Why not go into theatre? And of course,
Phil Rickaby
yeah. I mean, what else you gonna do with the, what is it? The Avenue Q? What can you do with a BA Yeah,
Maureen Gualtieri
exactly. Yeah, yeah, really spoke to me that musical? A lot of people
Phil Rickaby
I know. So, I mean, the National Theatre School doesn’t take that many people. So that’s like, pretty cool that you that you got there. Like it in terms of playwriting programme, how many playwrights does the theatre school take?
Maureen Gualtieri
They are taking, they took two people per year. And sometimes during the course of the year schooling there, one would potentially leave, and they would not replace that person. So our class like we would do multi year classes was never more than six. And I’m not too sure what the application rate was, but it was very much a tight knit kind of group, which is really awesome. Because you got to know everyone and you got to know their work. And yeah, that was, that was a very intense experience.
Phil Rickaby
Because the NTS entered the theatre. The acting programme is a sort of a conservatory they have more of a contract what that is, having gone to George Brown as a college, which has more of a conservatory but I have no idea what a playwright programme would look like, for three years. Were you in doing stuff with the actors? We didn’t move in classes and things like that? Or was it? Right, right, right all
Maureen Gualtieri
the time. There were there were definitely movement classes like we were, we sort of created a kind of a hive mind, I think with our, our acting year. Especially in first year when it was like, we’re going to turn you into something. Yeah, be together on this. So we would do movement classes and Jaya and mask and other things that the programme director I think had determined would be great for us as writers, other things, like voice and stuff were not super important. But anything that would sort of inform what we were going to be doing, which was great, because up until that point, I had been just like typey typey typey, thinking about 18th century English comedy, and now it was like, Oh, I can put on a mask and see what character comes out of this and then write a monologue. That’s really cool. Yeah. Which is so foreign to me.
Phil Rickaby
What did you find it like being like a playwright Amana? actors for such a length of time. A lot of times playwrights, in fact, a lot of times with in a lot of theatre situations a playwright is over here. They show up at the beginning of the rehearsal process, they go away and they show up again in an opening night. They don’t have a lot of interaction with with the actors. Did you find? Was it what you expected? Did it? Did you find it difficult to What do you mean? No, you had your time with the theatre nerds in high school. So you had Yeah, kind of theatre experience there. So I’m not sure what I’m asking.
Maureen Gualtieri
Okay. Well, I did, I did sort of have I did come coming into sort of a bit of a basis in performance, because I think I had not to generalise but I think a lot of people see actors, and they’re like, Oh, this is the way that you This is how you get in this is the this is the easiest way. So like, I took a tonne of improv at the second city and I could hold my own sort of with them and sort of understood where they were coming from with their like, emotions. Which made it easier to work with them once it became actors over here, play right over here, understanding sort of what they needed from me and being able to mediate that through the director or whatever mentor we happen to be with. So yeah, kind of knew their vocabulary in a way and understood where they were coming from.
Phil Rickaby
That’s good. That’s good. And so you finished in 2012? Yes. And did your cycle have three or more part time jobs for a while, all while working on this play? And now that it’s now that that play is happening this summer? How’s the process been like making it real? Like? Are you directing? It is your friends are acting it? Like what’s the what? How is that process working? To take it from the page onto the stage? Right?
Maureen Gualtieri
Well, at the moment, I’m still very much I am a playwright, I’m in this deep dark hole typing things I will throw pages out and hopefully they will flutter to the appropriate people at the moment. But no, the we haven’t producer which is fantastic. Because the last time I did the fringe, I just stayed up until two in the morning putting together press kits and God helped me if I never have to do that again in my life, I will be so happy. Absolutely. And he is amazing. And the director is amazing. My name is Krista Colosimo. She is transitioning, I believe from a sort of an acting background into directing. And she read one of the parts that a private reading that we sort of arranged last year and then was like, I would like to try to direct this just a matter of finding a venue. And then the fringe gods were like, so really jazzed about that. And the friend that I had that pact with the friend Laurie pact has been helping me dramaturgical II, which is, she’s been super, super helpful about that. Because she has, she’s got a great seeing, seeing the forest. She can see the forest. Well, I can just see the trees. Yeah, and how that statement that thing goes is that
Phil Rickaby
can be that can be so hard. Because sometimes I mean, that’s why a good dramaturg is so important. Yeah. Because as the playwright, you see certain things from a certain point of view. And you need that outside eye to sometimes say, actually, this is what’s happened. Yeah, it looks like this is what’s happened.
Maureen Gualtieri
And that’s a hard thing for me to have gotten used to. And it has taken a really long time because I came from I have done an English degree, or I would do that to whatever novel or whatever thing we were reading, so it’s super hard for me to turn off that kind of editorial, like, just has to happen here. And like themes. I hate themes so much, because they’re like always there in my mind. And I just need to get rid of them and be like, what are the characters wanting to do? I always have
Phil Rickaby
this strange relationship with the idea of themes, because every writing book says Know your theme. And I’m like, How do I know the theme? I
Maureen Gualtieri
know, like, it’s there.
Phil Rickaby
But yeah, but I don’t think, I don’t know. I think no, like, I have to know it. I always think that’s something for the director to figure out.
Maureen Gualtieri
Really, okay, if
Phil Rickaby
somebody wants to know what they’d like, I know what I think it’s about, but the director is going to make up their mind anyway. I don’t want to seem is okay with that. Yeah, I’m okay with that. I just want to reach it.
Maureen Gualtieri
And that is a great thing, though, that and I think that is why I’ve stuck with theatre as opposed to like, writing poetry or like fiction or whatever. Because those are very, those are places where you need to know everything. And I’m very happy being like, this is my contribution. And now we will create something that will only be complete when other people get involved to make it and we put in front of other people to watch.
Phil Rickaby
I love that aspect of theatre and writing for fear. Like, I don’t even have to write stage directions if I don’t want to like because somebody’s going to ignore them or do what they want anyway,
Maureen Gualtieri
you don’t care what this person is wearing, what their mood is. That’s an ad After thing, give them the words away like
Phil Rickaby
it’s not Tennessee Williams, there’s a chair, and somebody else will decide with a chair. Go nuts. Yeah, I love that. And then it’s like this complete collaboration can only exist once all of the pieces are in
Maureen Gualtieri
place. The flip side is it’s kind of terrifying. But yeah, that state of good terror is one I aspire to. Yeah.
Phil Rickaby
That’s the best case scenario, good terror. Yeah, everything is going to fall into place. And it’s and it’s gonna, like, it’s gonna be terrifying because this has never happened before. Yeah. And it’s, you know, there it is. And then everything works out. The bad terror is when they’re like things that don’t quite work, or whatever. But as a playwright, you kind of have to just learn to let go, which is the hardest thing. So
Maureen Gualtieri
yeah. So difficult. Working on that every day? Well, I
Phil Rickaby
think I think anybody who writes for theatre is working on that every day, because I don’t think it ever gets easy to write a thing and then see something not quite something go bad with it. When you don’t have like, Your part is done. Once it’s written most times. Yeah. Yeah. Because have you do you when you see something that’s being performed, something of yours is performed for the first time? Like, once you move going into that, like, fear excitement combination, I want you want to throw up?
Maureen Gualtieri
Well, I actually, I have not had a production that has really been putting me in a negative emotional space. I don’t know if that’s because I’ve been lucky. More if that’s just I have no idea. But I think excitement is probably a good word for it. And good terror. Yeah. In in, in a perfect world. There will always be I think things that are like, it’s not quite what I saw in my head. But that is part of that is part of it. Like I think I think I might have to hide under something sometimes. Like, I refer
Phil Rickaby
to that, that feeling. You’re just sceptical, that scared sighted. When you’re afraid, but also excited. Yeah. And I have that almost every time something I’ve written or created is performed the first time now, a bunch of times, like just being like, like, I remember a few times with a company I worked with, we create a show and then we perform it for the first time. And I would just be like, before, I would go on just like terrified waiting for like that first laugh like something that’s going to show me that, that it works because we don’t we think it works in the room or whatever. And like that feeling of like, I’ve done all this stuff now. Only I and people in the room have experienced these things so far, and what’s going to happen?
Maureen Gualtieri
Yeah, I think I’ve only really had one experience where my emotions have kind of gotten away from me, or I feel like I had the emotions of an audience member watching for the first time of watching something that I had created. And that was that was an amazing experience. So yeah, the emotional engagement if I can get it as close as possible to what an audience member is, is feeling like that uniting Yeah, is is extraordinary. And something that I kind of aim for.
Phil Rickaby
Yeah. Yeah. It’s really exciting when that when that happens, like when everything is firing all cylinders. Audience when the audience right there, yeah, there’s nothing like
Maureen Gualtieri
like, I knew this character was going to die because I’ve written it. But in the scene where she was going to die. Like I felt my heart going. And I was like, this is theatre man.
Phil Rickaby
Yeah. Yeah. Is. So have they given you a venue yet?
Maureen Gualtieri
Yes. I don’t think it’s confidential or anything.
Phil Rickaby
We’ll be going up until we read for free. Okay,
Maureen Gualtieri
so we’re going to be on the Terragen extra space. Great
Phil Rickaby
space.
Maureen Gualtieri
I am so excited. I used to work there as a co op student when I was like 16. And so I have like this long term, like, precious place in my heart. And the extra space is great. It’s flexible. It’s small enough that you can it feels full if like, Mm hmm, yeah. But it’s close enough that you can get into you can really get into people’s space.
Phil Rickaby
I love it close. Yeah,
Maureen Gualtieri
close space like that. Plus, they have a patio. Which yeah, that’s that they I think they should they haven’t had patio for the past couple of years.
Phil Rickaby
They have the patio in front. I thought you meant like some kind of backstage pass. Oh, oh, no, no, I’m talking about like,
Maureen Gualtieri
people were like, Let’s have a beer what we think about and seeing this show, Oh, how about this one that is mine.
Phil Rickaby
And we find that one is so like there’s the there’s the factory patio, which is like so spacious and like there’s all this space and it’s like an enclosed area and then I always feel like the Taragarh patio is like just like on the street. Yeah, which it is. But it’s a great spot to like Find people. Yeah, grab something before the
Maureen Gualtieri
end. It’s not a place to settle too much like whatever the factory patio. It’s like, let’s spend a couple hours here talking about what we just saw. Yeah. And then the the teardown one is just like, hop. Yeah. And then off again. Yeah, so high turnover anything.
Phil Rickaby
It’s gonna be interesting because Terracon was a great location to easily walk to the Mirvish space, right? Which is going to be interesting this year now that everything is changing what with the new the new fridge tent space? Yeah, they’re
Maureen Gualtieri
going more like downtown centralised, it’s enriched. And now right. Oh, scouting
Phil Rickaby
quarter think which is? Oh, think it’s Bathurst. And yes, yeah. Yeah. I think that’s it. Okay. Yeah. Which is central to a bunch of other theatres. But it’s, it’s different. You know, we’ve we fear change. So if you haven’t cast the show yet?
Maureen Gualtieri
Yes, I think so. I got an email saying we mostly have a cast. So yes. And yeah, I’m pretty excited about it. I’m really, I’m really, the thing that I’m most excited about this is that the important relationship in this play is between the two women. It’s very complicated. It is emotionally up and down. And I feel like there’s not an awful lot of visibility for relationships like that. Especially like women driven ones. Yeah. Like this is a very female energy kind of production that I’m putting together that I’m really excited about, because I’m kind of tired of a certain amount of brokenness. Yeah, absolutely. And that’s the case then, like the society in general, but in a lot of art forms to where I feel like the little bit of marginalisation is going on. So I’m excited to see what the two, the two women involved are really bringing to this. And also, the third character is a male character. And the actor that we have for that I know, acquaintance wise right now, and that kind of triangle is going to be so interesting. I think
Phil Rickaby
it’s funny, you’re the whole, like, we don’t see these kinds of relationships. We don’t see enough women. For one thing on our stages, we don’t see enough plays written by women on our stages. So it’s important that those do happen. It’s great that it’s happening in French, we see it in other places, too. Yeah. Just is this, the kind of thing that like when you’re having discussions with NTS, and you’re talking about playwriting, so they talk about diversity? And they do they talk about the voices that we’re seeing on stage and how to make change? Or is that even something that comes up at all?
Maureen Gualtieri
Um, I don’t think it came up in sort of like a, we’re gonna sit down and talk about this, but the guest artists that they always brought in, and the, the, the work that we were doing was very conducive to diverse voices, I think. So I feel like after the stripping down, and the building back out again, happened, there was sort of a creation of an ideal world, within the school. So you could leave and be like, this is something I want to recreate. Yeah. But yeah, we didn’t have any sort of direct like, this is the issue and stuff. So after theatre school, I joined the playwrights Guild and kind of got involved in their whole equity in theatre kind of thing going on and learning actually learning hard stats about how few women are produced and what positions they are hired for in professional productions. Just staggered me.
Phil Rickaby
Yeah, it should. And it’s not, like not not acceptable. No,
Maureen Gualtieri
no, it’s something like less than 25%. I can’t remember where it was couple of years ago, this stat was less than 25% of professionally produced plays in Canada were by women. And the only the only the only positions that they have any parity or surpass men is in like the mom positions. And in my mind, like the stage managers and wardrobe, which are kind of like cleaning up after other people and doing sewing. Yes, yeah. And that is, while it’s great that those wonderful, wonderful people are employed. It’s just like, who are the artistic directors or the directors? Why we you know,
Phil Rickaby
I mean, just to just, I mean, we can call out I mean, you look at some of the factory factory right now is led by women, women are led by a woman of colour. Yes, that is such a rarity in Canada. And I often think like, how do we make other theatres do that? How do we make the other theatres in Canada, like, present Canada on their stages in a way that’s not just like, a bunch of white dudes? With the occasional homerun? Yeah, you know, and I don’t know I don’t know how we do it, or how, as a theatre community we do that.
Maureen Gualtieri
I think I think the factories got it. Right. And that sort of like a trickle down thing. Like if you can, if you can get, if you can get yourself in a position of, I am making decisions about things, because the way it was sort of very evocatively broken down at this equity theatre conference I went to was like, the people making decisions at the moment are 60 ish, white men, like artistic directors and things. And so, this kind of amorphous, I’m going to programme my season with something that resonates with me, right, like emotionally, like, you can’t really define what that is. So you can’t put like, you can’t put sort of equal opportunity on it. And what is going to resonate with them are stories that they recognise that are in them, which is a completely different
Phil Rickaby
it is least it just like, the onus is on the boards who do the appointments to make changes. Otherwise, I think, you know, I mean, there’s a backlash against Kent Kent State for its lack of lack of diversity. And I think that that’s the kind of thing that, you know, all of our theatres need to be held accountable for, but the board’s ultimately make the decision about who’s selling that position. And if the boards are made up with old white men, they’re going to appoint old white men. Yes. They want to actually see something that represents Canada.
Maureen Gualtieri
Yeah, the hierarchy just keeps going up and up and up. And I’m just like, I’m just a playwright. I’m just can you just read my play? It’s really good.
Phil Rickaby
You got it. That is that is the trick when you’re a playwright is the how do you get people to read your play? You know, I want to change the world. But that’s, I mean, if you end up self producing, that’s another way to change the world. Yes. To be like, if you look at somebody who’s like, change sort of the face of the way that indie theatre works, Kat Sandler from theatre brouhaha, she and her team have like really made some serious change to the way that you know that theatre can be successful without necessarily grants or without, you have a woman a strong woman writing great plays. Yeah. Directing sometimes, and, you know, writing some great stuff. And that’s, you know, with nd we can do that, it seems in a better way than some of the established theatres can.
Maureen Gualtieri
But you didn’t know like your example of cat sign or like she has a machine? Yes. I don’t know. How do you how do you do that? She has a machine. She’s insanely prolific and like,
Phil Rickaby
she’s talked about it. And like, I think that she when she latches on something. Now she’d latches on something, and it sort of like, has more of a nightmare. She talks things out with her team with like Tom McGee and Danny Padgett. And then they mentioned has a better idea. And like, she breaks pretty quickly. She is a machine. Yeah, like,
Maureen Gualtieri
but that’s like a personality thing. Like I like I like, where is the room for someone who has spent eight years or four years on a single thing and is like, Here you go.
Phil Rickaby
I think I actually think that one gets to the point where you’re writing as a machine, you start with the one. And then as you write, you write more you finish this thing you write the next thing. You say it’s like a practice thing to practice and practice. It’s not just, I mean, you can be brilliant, like she is and write, play after play after play. But I think there’s also practice like just you write this thing, right? And the next thing becomes easier than that. So on and so on. I think deadlines help hugely Right. Like if you just sit down want to write a thing, you can meander around that for a while, but I think that they theatre brouhaha makes choices. We’re producing this, then, and then you got to write it right. It can happen.
Maureen Gualtieri
I totally see where you’re coming from. But my my, my soul is like, Oh, she doesn’t know the more space just like, just a little more time. Oh, a little. Just let it resonate. Yeah.
Phil Rickaby
I mean, you can make them and you can put yourself you can save yourself a real terrifying deadline I did this year, but what did you do? I decided I was gonna get a different and so I was gonna do the show that I did a Hamilton but since it didn’t infringe, then I’m just gonna do something on my own. I booked her at Sand Castle in November and I haven’t written anything yet. I’m in the process.
Maureen Gualtieri
Wow. Why did you do this to yourself? Just because you were like deadline deadline. Absolutely. A horrifying, horrifying deadline of
Phil Rickaby
hopefully awesomeness but we will see what because it’s still like in the I have given myself till the end of the summer to write the thing. That’s plenty of time. Oh, sure. Sure. And then I look at the calendar and want to die.
Maureen Gualtieri
But like that’s going to be interesting.
Phil Rickaby
Yeah, it’s like gonna be like a
Maureen Gualtieri
A sprint. Yeah. And some value can definitely come out of that.
Phil Rickaby
I’m really glad I didn’t do my first idea, which is to do one played in the spring and then one in the fall, which would have been just stupid. Wow. Yeah, no, I’m glad I talked myself on that one.
Maureen Gualtieri
Too much there no need to like sleep and
Phil Rickaby
Yeah, exactly. Mostly sleeping. Well, crying is probably gonna have an alien. But you know, that’s just the writing process. Sometimes
Maureen Gualtieri
you just gotta build in some time there. Again, error. So
Phil Rickaby
are you interested? For this show? How do you know how involved you’re going to be in the rehearsal or anything, are you just gonna like write your thing and stand back?
Maureen Gualtieri
What I would love to do, like, I feel like this, this past that I’m coming up to where I just have to fill in that one scene and then do a couple tweaks will be great to like present to the guys. But I would love to be in the rehearsal hall as much as possible, because I feel like, again, with the whole, like, collaborative thing. And coming from sort of a quasi performance background, I feel like something will come out of that, that will strengthen what I can write. And if we can make that like officially part of the script, that would be super cool. I’m really stoked to have these characters out of my head, and have them embodied in real people, and then see what they see in them. And the characters through them will talk back to me.
Phil Rickaby
So it’s really there’s a really interesting way to look at it. Like you’ve written like a skeleton of the character, and these actors kind of put flesh on it.
Maureen Gualtieri
Yeah, or like, the characters or is fully formed as I think I can. Yeah. But like, they may see something, they may latch on to a personality trait, and one of them that is completely buried there, I thought was, and then find something awesome in that.
Phil Rickaby
We’ll always do that. Yeah, the amazing things, like writing a thing and then giving it to somebody to make their own.
Maureen Gualtieri
Though, I’d love to, I would love to observe that. And see if I can take some of that and then re incorporate it in the actual tax. Would you
Phil Rickaby
do that with this iteration? Or would you like to take a note and then like, do that for later?
Maureen Gualtieri
Probably a little calm a little call me, like, whatever will improve the thing that we’re working on right now for the fringe. I am 100% behind, but then also if something crops up, and it’s like, oh, this character that used to be another character, maybe I can take what happened here and put that back into him. That would be pretty cool. That’s awesome. I just want to absorb as much as possible from this experience. Cool. It’s been a while since I’ve had a production so I’m quite, quite thrilled.
Phil Rickaby
Well, that is exciting. It is really exciting to go. And the Toronto fringe is a great way a great place to do it. Great place to work out there. Thank you so much for talking with me today. Great. Great
