Active in Toronto’s vibrant arts scene since the 1980’s, early projects included assisting in producing/coordinating major commercial musical theatre works for Warrack Productions, Bradley/Francis Productions, Brian MacDonald Productions and Ron Francis Theatrical Management. She also coordinated 2 tours in North American for Mirvish Productions (including the Tony nominatedMikado) and the joint 1988 Olympic Arts Festival Tour for Esprit and SMCQ Orchestras.
Since founding Sky Arts Management in 2004 she has undertaken general management, strategic and logistical planning, marketing and publicity for Continuum Contemporary Music (including their first European tour), multidisciplinary physical theatre company Theatre Gargantua, South Asian theatre company Rasik Arts, the extreme outdoor operas of R Murray Shafer for Patria Music Theatre Projects as well as 3 one-woman cross Canada tours for comedienne Christel Bartelse. In addition to her work as the Executive Director of Associated Designers of Canada, projects of note include management of the multi-award winning company Puppetmongers and the development of a new multidisciplinary adaptation of the fable Aska & the Wolf for April productions with collaborating artists in director Dragana Varagic, composer Ana Sokolovic and visual artist Vessna Perunovich.
Twitter: @skyartsmgmt
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Transcript
Transcript auto generated.
Phil Rickaby
Welcome to Episode Nine of the Stageworthy Podcast. I’m your host, Phil Rickaby. Today I’m talking to Sheila Sky. Sheila is a freelance manager and producer of arts of all kinds. In addition to being the executive director of associated designers of Canada, Sheila has been involved with theatre projects both large and small. On Stageworthy, I interview people who make theatre actors, directors, playwrights, and more and talk to them about everything from why they chose theatre to the work in progress and everything in between. You can find the stage really on Facebook and Twitter at stage where the pod and you can find the website stage where the podcast.com if you’d like what you hear, I hope you’ll subscribe on iTunes or whatever podcast app to use, and consider leaving a comment or rating.
Where you are an arts administrator and you’ve done or in arts management? For both? Both?
Sheila Sky
Yes, I, you know, I think arts management means a lot of different things. Some people think being an arts manager means you function like an agent, which I’ve done in the past. Some people think arts management means general management, which they might see is different from administration, I don’t think anybody in this business actually gets out of administration, period. So whether it’s by default, they can’t pay for it. Or even, even if they have it, they still need those kinds of skills to create a trajectory for the career, right. So. I think I don’t really draw a distinction,
Phil Rickaby
because you’ve done just looking at your LinkedIn profile, I haven’t checked. You have done a lot of things and worked with a lot of different companies and,
Sheila Sky
and different kinds of artists. So dance music, theatre, which gets you involved with everybody, opera. And I would, up until a year ago, I would have said, I have no experience in visual arts. But ADC just recently took Canadian exhibit of cinematography to Prague. So I always tend to jump in at the big end of things. So that was gathering in Prague every four years, a worldwide gathering of cinematographers. And each country submits an exhibition. And it’s, it’s a big deal. 70 countries participate, each bringing two exhibits, typically one for professionals and one for students. And this year, used to be in a convention centre, but it burned down. So this year, it was in many, many venues in the old city of Prague, so it was more like fringe style of art exhibit. And 180,000 people came to visit it. Wow. It was huge. And there are workshops and demonstrations and talks, we held a series of five talks, right within our exhibit. There’s a tonne of programming. It’s also a competition. And then there’s a whole student component where each country student body also creates an exhibit. So we coordinated with, I think it was 1010 separate schools across Canada, and we coordinated their ability to exhibit at the quadrennial
Phil Rickaby
then were you in Prague,
Sheila Sky
I was in Prague, I travelled to Prague. It was very exciting. It was very exciting. And it was absolutely fascinating. There was some controversy. It was felt that the performative aspects of theatre, or performing arts were promoted more than cinematography or overly emphasised and created Some, some controversy as well. But it was certainly an incredibly stimulating event. And it was a very, you know, there were also like costume parades in the city itself and stenographic sculptures erupting in unusual places, and it was some, I would recommend it for everybody.
Phil Rickaby
It’s kind of like a fringe arts thing.
Sheila Sky
Yeah, it used to be more like more like a trade show, right when everyone was everybody would have their designated area. But I think also was a tourist event. It was it was more fun being in the old city of Prague, which, if you haven’t been is sort of akin to Old Montreal or Old Quebec, only older, you know, even older, but you know, narrow streets and completely Higgledy Piggledy layout. And so you had all these serendipitous conversations that would erupt while you waited in line to get in to see things
Phil Rickaby
and have them in the streets when if it was in a convention centre, then only the people attending would get to see it and having it out in the open, puts it in front of more of an audience.
Sheila Sky
It does, but we also saw classes of children coming because it was in June. So I don’t know if they were school or culture groups or camps or who they were. But kids as young as eight 910. Were also brought to see this. Yeah.
Phil Rickaby
And this was your first foray into that, but not your first experience in in facilitating a tour?
Sheila Sky
No, I did. Touring almost from the very beginning of my career. So when I first started working, I worked for a kind of umbrella organisation. And like a lot of people in this business, I was very fortunate and having a truly fabulous mentor. So after not very many small local productions, Dinner Theatre, which was big back in the 80s, I worked for a man called Ron Francis. So he had a small office. When I joined, there were just three of us. And we had the administration contracts for associated designers of Canada. So this is my second tenure at the organisation, the guild of Canadian musical theatre writers. We also were babysitting cats, which had just opened the first time at the Elgin winter garden. So I ordered toilet paper, cats. There, we also did nonsense, which was a musical that did really well in Toronto, and it just kept moving from venue to venue to venue. So when buddies was Toronto workshop productions, it played there, that was the first transfer, and then it ended up as Dinner Theatre, and then it ended up somewhere else. So and then we also represented play rights. And in the course of gaining all that experience, I also got to do a tour with two orchestras simultaneously to the Calgary Olympics. That was my first tour. 80 people I went out as management with 80 people on my first tour. And we did six cities in nine days. And it was busy. It was busy. And then I ended up doing theatre. When the Stratford Mikado with Brian McDonald directed, it toured under the wing of Stratford. And then Brian McDonald took on the rights, as Brian had gone on productions collaborated with the Mirvish is, and we mounted a tour that just kept growing. It lasted eight months, and ended up on Broadway. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. So that was a pretty extraordinary experience for a young person to be in that office and to see all these aspects of theatre all at the same time. And, you know, even by the time we were doing that large production, and doing all these other things, we were still only about six people in the office. And it was in the days before internet, of course, yes. Right. So So internet is damn handy when you’re touring.
Phil Rickaby
Well, now of course now I have all kinds of questions but how much of fast a lot of stuff or was that
Sheila Sky
fax was fax new technology fax was new technology. I once used to fax that was just like a needle and it sort of drew it like an
Phil Rickaby
EKG. Yeah,
Sheila Sky
yeah, here it goes. My mistake, right? Definitely dating myself.
Phil Rickaby
You can see your name and all of these shows that I remember from when I was in theatre school, like, you mentioned nonsense. And I can remember that appearing in different spots and all these things. Yes,
Sheila Sky
yes. We got a letter from the back. And did you? Yes.
Phil Rickaby
Yes, did a friendly letter
Sheila Sky
from the well, it was huge, and it was gold, and it was very expensively produced and it arrived on the desk. And I thought, Well, that’s it, we’ve all been excommunicated. But it was a Cardinal who had been in town and had seen it, and had just loved it. So much so that he talked a bunch of nuns out of their tickets, so that he could go see it again, while he was still in town. And he sent us He sent us a very nice letter to say that he had really enjoyed the show. So
Phil Rickaby
how did you find yourself in arts man?
Sheila Sky
Well, it’s not what I intended. So as a young, like high schooler, I was pretty strong in English. I really enjoyed visual arts, I played music quite seriously. And I didn’t really want to give any of them up. So I decided in theatre, I would be able to mix all those things. And then I, I went to Mount Allison University, which didn’t really have much of a theatre programme, which actually turned into quite a plus because I took a lot of the theoretical work and then was just simply given the keys to the theatre, essentially, and made work and so got to dabble in just about every every role in theatre. So I performed I stage managed, I did sound design for Michael Ondaatje, the collected works of Billy the Kid when it was still a new new play. And then from there, I realised that I really didn’t have very much technical knowledge. And only in between there, I had a stint at the Shakespeare Institute in Stratford, but I went to the, to the University of Victoria the year they were opening their brand new building, because they were getting a light palette, which was like fancy shmancy. And their new building had a flexible space, a proscenium and a thrust stage. So I did all the things I didn’t know how to do for one year, I decided to set lighting design, and did some directing, and took more theatre history. I’m a theatre history geek, as well. And so what, why I wanted to do that was because I had worked with directors who couldn’t read ground plans. And I didn’t ever want to be one of those. I figured I would end up a director. And then, you know, the practicalities of making money and I I fell into this job. And I discovered that the management part of it was was a really fascinating logistical puzzle, but also that it was really creative. How you market things how you marry a team, like all you make so many creative choices, that I didn’t feel like I was not making art. Yeah, the way many artists feel that they’re not making art when they do administration.
Phil Rickaby
No, of course. Yeah. It’s it’s, I was talking with another artists recently about revisions as a writer and how that’s not the fun part that doesn’t feel like creating. Similarly, in a lot of cases, people who are in theatre, whether they’re producing their own French or whatever the administrative management stuff never feels like creating to that.
Sheila Sky
Right. I think it is, well, I’m
Phil Rickaby
not I’m not. Yeah, there is an art to it. Well,
Sheila Sky
I Think I think how the fact if you think about it creatively, will, will, might be one of the keys to success. And you’re not just thinking about what are all the things I have to do? What are all the steps? Right, but you’re thinking much more about the destination and the journey than just ticking boxes? Yeah.
Phil Rickaby
So you found out that you were good at it, and that you enjoy?
Sheila Sky
Well, I didn’t have a choice, there were only three of us. You know, and I, I liked the unexpected. So. So when somebody calls to say, there’s a snow storm, and we left a piece of gear in the last city, and you know, we’re going to be late arriving, you arrange to have a, VX to PR something in another city by midnight. And to me, that’s just like, that’s a caper, you know? You know,
Phil Rickaby
it’s fun, we’ll look at Yeah. Can you think of when you were first starting out in this industry, but one of the most important lessons you learned was?
Sheila Sky
I think it’s about relationships. That, well, Ron used to always say, you know, you have to be nice to everybody on the way up, because you’re gonna meet them all again, on the way down. And that exactly, you know, proved to be the case for him. And certainly, when I’ve hit an unplanned hiatus, it was usually, you know, former colleagues that started the ball rolling again. So I think it’s about relationships and thinking about the long term even beyond the existing project, and it’s okay, it’s okay to have faults, just like no one person has all theatrical skills, to the highest degree, right, it’s good to have as understanding of almost everything, you know, at least a basic understanding of how your colleagues work, but you won’t be the expert in everything. So being transparent about what it is that you’re not good at. You know, and, and is there anybody in the room was good?
Phil Rickaby
Is that I mean, when you put it together a tour, you can’t plan for every eventuality, but do you look for people who are going along with you? Do you mark those people who have x, like bonus knowledge or extra knowledge?
Sheila Sky
I look for, like, if I’m hiring, I look for problem solvers. So people who are quick on their feet when the unexpected happens. And who are what I would call fluid decision makers. That would be what I would look for, regardless of their skill skill set. Because it what it means to play well with others. Yeah. Right. And be unpredictable. It’s a given. Right? It’s yeah, it’s why we bother to do it live. Right. So the unpredictable is a given. And better like it.
Phil Rickaby
That’s true. That’s true. You were talking about earlier about how you had initially thought that you do theatre. Do you recall what initially drew you towards theatre?
Sheila Sky
Not wanting to give up any of the art one is given
Phil Rickaby
like all those arts so you were like from a kid you were you were doubling everything?
Sheila Sky
Yeah, I started playing music around age seven. I was always an avid reader. I was always a drawer. Not Not that I’m a good drawer. I wouldn’t go so far as to say bad but I would I would say not good. Well, actually, that’s one of the things about people Who are artistic, you know, they always have this inside vision of what they’re going to create. And very often what you end up creating is something quite different than what you intended. And that discrepancy between what you intended and what you create. It’s very, very annoying for the Creator. Yes. The audience knows none of that? Of course not. They know none of that. And they love what’s been created. Yeah. But I still don’t think anybody would fall in love with my drawings.
Phil Rickaby
And sort of so you went into this arts management arts administrative world, do you find that there’s not enough attention paid to that by the artist, like so many people that I know are making their own work, creating their own theatre in some way or another? Is there some piece of advice that you as somebody who is a manager of Arts or the administrator thinks that he’s like that missing piece of knowledge that they should have? Or
Sheila Sky
I wouldn’t say it’s the the issue is time. And it’s not even just the number of hours in a day is it’s so many things need to be done at the same time? So if you’re in the rehearsal hall, how do you answer calls from the press, without derailing the creative process are the technical process and that’s in the last week, the issue is the need to do things simultaneously. And so then you need to either be hyper prepared in other areas. So that, but there’s no aspect of theatre theatre producing it’s really turn key, right. And, and opportunities crop up out of the blue. And so it’s, it’s the notion that they can do it all, but the time will inevitably, that they need will inevitably overlap. And so it’s dealing with competing priorities. I think that’s the thing that causes the most exhaustion, and grief. And I think sometimes it’s why we have trouble getting audiences. I think the other thing too, is, so having worked also in like devised theatre, you’re already in well into the publicity cycle, before you even know what the show is about, or anybody in that rehearsal room knows what the show is about. So that’s another tricky thing. And I think a lot of artists feel that if I make a choice, and close doors, I’ll have trouble moving forward. But it’s, it’s been my observation, that when you that when you funnel, flowering still happens. But it does make some of those other functions easier to do. Well,
Phil Rickaby
you’re talking you mentioned about that difficulty of finding an audience. Last year, I think it was last year, you were a part of a conversation that I think Derek tua had spearheaded. He instigated
Sheila Sky
it with sort of a random comment on Facebook’s. It seems to me, audiences are sometimes too small. I’d like to have a conversation about that. And so I thought it was a good conversation, I would help. And Sue was Sue Edworthy also participated in and it was a robust conversation hasn’t translated into any sort of action yet or what or what we might do about it, but I have to say the last few indie productions I have been at I have felt like that the audience was quite well populated. And I don’t always just go and see, you know, no blockbusters, so
Phil Rickaby
yeah, you know, it’s, I mean, that’s always been like one of the questions that I think in the work that I’ve created is where how do you get the audience and you can you? I mean, there is a diverse audience for indie theatre, and each company has its audience. What however small it is, how often it felt like there needs to be some kind of sharing of audience So in some way, like, I think there’s audience enough for everybody, we just have to be able to tell each other who our audience is.
Sheila Sky
Well, so I worked in the new music community, which is like an even tougher sell like this is very strange, atonal music, you know, maybe banjo and violins with Glocks really something, you know, it’s, it’s not your first instinct to go and see that. And we did a collaborative effort where we did some collective marketing. And so what it what it did was it made the fish who are in the pond feed at more stations. But ultimately, I think what we need are more fish in the pond. So there’s been a couple of studies recently that have shown that the that what used to be the most elusive demographic, which is sort of the 18 to 30, were disappearing, I am seeing them in audiences, and their stats coming out of England, the UK that says that they are the fastest growing sector. And I think it comes maybe from the from two things, the Maker Movement and what I would call the mash up movement. So when people participate in arts, they tend to want to see what other people do. And so they would start coming out to see professional artists. So I’m actually quite hopeful. The key thing to do is to be sure that every time they come that they see something of quality. Yeah. And I think in that conversation, you know, when I, when I posed a question about how many people that have lost your projects, even though you knew you didn’t have enough money, and about 80% of all hands went up? And, you know, part of me sort of felt maybe there should be some restraint around that for two reasons. One, we do say like, is there just too much products? Yeah. Right. So so that would slow down production, but increase, perhaps the quality of the work? I mean, money isn’t isn’t everything. And I’ve certainly done plenty of things with not enough money. I’ve seen people do that and also lose their houses. Yes,
Phil Rickaby
yeah.
Sheila Sky
So there’s, I think there’s something to be said about patience, and maybe that extra percolation time. But also, if you’re going to be a one man band, would also give me the time to also look after those administrative tasks in a more organised way.
Phil Rickaby
Well, I think we would tend to I think a lot of people in the in the indie theatre world have a tendency to have the idea, choose when they’re going to do it. And then somehow, between those two dates, worry about all that other stuff.
Sheila Sky
I think that has to do with venue and the availability of venue
Phil Rickaby
there is that to those? I think that I remember that that conversation that theatre passed my last year, coming away, both. Excited, but also frustrated at the we had all these people in a room, we had a finite amount of time, but we couldn’t, there was no way to come up with an answer. We spent a lot of time talking about the audience that wasn’t coming. And not a whole lot of time strategizing mate, which is kind of a shame.
Sheila Sky
Yes, it’s hard to strategize in a group of 100 and some odd people. Right. I mean, a board meeting of 10 can be hard.
Phil Rickaby
But I think that that, you know, at least the conversation started, like you say some things. We haven’t found any kind of solution. Yeah, but yeah, I
Sheila Sky
don’t think we’ll find a one size magic bullet.
Phil Rickaby
If only there was Yeah,
Sheila Sky
wouldn’t that be nice? So like a vaccine that made people go to theatre? Well,
Phil Rickaby
I mean, I am looking at the I’m currently obsessed as many people are with the musical Hamilton.
Sheila Sky
Okay. Yes.
Phil Rickaby
Are you do you know,
Sheila Sky
I tried to get tickets. And I was told yes, there’s a singleton available next September. Yes.
Phil Rickaby
Yeah. It is. Like, I know so many people who are obsessed with the show, none of whom have seen it only been able to hear this soundtrack. And yet, if you look at the number of people trying to get tickets at that at the lottery for just the front row, and the number of people who are reselling tickets, there’s obviously a hunger for it. And maybe, it’s because it’s something different. Something unusual, is certainly not like, it’s not the kind of thing that you would expect to see on Broadway. Or maybe we show it. I don’t know, because I know that like I see, I mentioned this musical to people and people that are not theatre people know exactly what
Sheila Sky
it is. Well, its success breeds success, right? So if it tickets successful you if a show is successful, you want to be among the people who have seen it. Certainly. You know, in the early parts of my career, we were much more flamboyant in our attention seeking strategies. So for one show. So I worked with Gina Winfrey, who was who was an impresario, and a pretty strong personality, and boy, we had our moments. But working with him on a few projects, you know, we did some pretty outlandish things dressed, dressed an actress up as an angel and gave her Angel Food cakes, and drove her to all the radio stations at the morning rush hour. And she would literally burst into the booth dressed as an angel with an angel food cake. And she would do an on air Spiel while the while the regular announcers sort of sat there, open mouthed, you know, we did a live chicken audition for a show that happened to have a chicken and egg. And it got a lot of coverage at the both this sort of this six and 11 o’clock news, you know, you don’t see that kind of thing as much. Now. These were bigger budget shows. Huge, huge. They weren’t million dollar shows, you know?
Phil Rickaby
Are we to haul light in our publicity seeking these days? Are we too, or maybe too reliant on social media for our publicity? Well, we don’t have as
Sheila Sky
much media media, as we used to I, I worked for puppet mongers for a time now I’m into puppetry. Like it’s it has been a very quilted career. And they recently, three years ago, which a 40 year career is recent, remounted the first show they ever did. So I was in their old publicity files. And I was noticing that, you know, in Toronto, when they opened, they got like, eight preview articles and there were like 12 reviews, so it was really hard to over look, we used to have subway advertising to shared subway advertising that was on the pillars sort of a wet sign and it had you know, 14 to 16 shows advertised on it. That’s all gone.
Phil Rickaby
And now if you’re looking for for media in the papers, like some won’t go to anything. The they go to the they’re really booked up, it’s hard to get into labour. Now for the independent and that’s and of course money on theatre and stage
Sheila Sky
the blogosphere is becoming a lot a lot more important,
Phil Rickaby
super important. If you can’t get that well. I mean a review there is more likely than a review in some of the newspapers.
Sheila Sky
Yes and a review will also end up in somebody’s email box through the through the blog the people who are really passionate about the will tend to get those those reviews you know the equivalent of hand delivered in this day and age so yes, definitely. But it does make it you know, opening nights were even at relatively small theatres were more gala ask, even if they were In an indie theatre, so like nobody showed up in, you know, Sue ball gowns or whatever, but they would show up wearing something festive? Yes. Yeah. You know, and you don’t you don’t see as much of that now. And I think that was part of the entertainment value for the audience to was like to go to the theatre, and maybe you didn’t like the show, but my God, did you see those hats? You know, like, so? And even at something like, next stage, I mean, when I go, I see almost strictly industry. Yeah, people. And when I see non industry people, I think they feel a bit uncomfortable, like you’re not part of the vibe. And so I think that’s one thing that we need to throw better parties
Phil Rickaby
to throw better parties. That’s something that I think we’d also have to like, where we do a lot of preaching to the choir, in the theatre, because that’s our audience. That’s where we can reach through social media or our fellow people. And it’s so it’s hard to get beyond that. Yes. Yes. And yeah, if we want to get an audience out, we have to figure out how to
Sheila Sky
Yeah, Group Sales hardly exist anymore. Like in the early parts of my career, we would hire someone separate, who would just like hit the towers, and find those people who were organising group outings, the corporations aren’t doing that anymore. And partly, it’s the it’s the double income lifestyle, which was just starting back. They’re sort of in the yuppie airy era. No. I did. Yep. Yes, the musical in the Sheridan centre, once upon 100 years ago. So, so a lot of that has changed. I’m happy to see curtains getting earlier. Because I think it used to be people would go home and come back. But now with traffic. Yes, that’s an impossibility.
Phil Rickaby
I also think that an earlier curtain means people are more likely to go out because it doesn’t mean a super late night. Yeah. Maybe you don’t you can’t sit down for the long dinner. But who does that anymore? And you know, I mean, you said that you’re not getting home at 1130 at night? That’s right, if you’re seeing a longer
Sheila Sky
show. That’s right. Because even though you always had to go to work in the morning, in either era, in in this day and age, you’re more likely taking the kids to daycare before like every everything has just accelerated. Yeah. So. So one of the things that’s really wonderful about theatre is turning off your cell phone. And we’re always sort of apologetic about, you know, please turn it off and don’t don’t disturb the holy experience. And part of me says we should say, Guess what, you get to get off your cell phone and no one’s gonna bug you.
Phil Rickaby
What’s funny about that is we have been very apologetic about it. I’ve seen a lot of very apologetic announcements about it. But I also think about when I go to a movie, and they have several announcements about turning off your phone, but they’re not apologetic about it, people actually do it. Having worked in I worked for a while as an usher they had murderous theatre, and the number of people who doesn’t matter if you announce it, the number of people don’t know we’re picking up the phone in the middle of the show, we’re taking pictures during the show or video during the show is almost a full time is part of the job the adjuster to try to shut that down. But theatre doesn’t do as good a job as the movie theatre of getting people to rate right. And maybe we should look at it as a as we should be more forceful about it and find clever ways to do it because nobody listens to that.
Sheila Sky
Right. Well, we also tried the opposite, right, having the tweet seats and the you know, having a section for people who who wanted to do that. I’ve never done it but toyed with the notion of you know, should we do? Should we do a short encore that everybody can? Can video? I mean, the it has some problems, perhaps with equity and maybe also even with EDC, but it’s you know, giving the audience that opportunity and that would be part of the marketing to say like, you know what, enjoy the show, put your phones away, we promise there’ll be something fabulous at the end of the show, for you to share with all your friends.
Phil Rickaby
It’s one of those those times questions because I’ve never tweaked seats, for me was never an attractive thing and kind of almost, I felt like it was kind of pandering. I never felt like it was an effective thing.
Sheila Sky
But some some people want to go to theatre as a social experience. And some people want to go to theatre is a contemplative experience and they’re not segregated. Yeah. So it’s tricky to know what to do.
Phil Rickaby
And I haven’t it’s funny, because I haven’t heard tweed seats when you said I was like, oh, yeah, I
Sheila Sky
remember. Yes, it could have gone the way of the dodo already
Phil Rickaby
forgotten about that already. Yeah, because I think a lot of there were a bunch. I mean, Mirvish said they weren’t going to do it. And I think a lot of theatres just figured out that it just wasn’t worth the trouble. But it wasn’t, I’m not sure.
Sheila Sky
But things that you do that are out of the ordinary, like tweed seats very quickly becomes Bunnell? Yes, these are the people who watch theatre with their thumbs, and they’re over there. It’s quite fun. Now, yeah, but when Mirvish did the they did the blind dating so they would match up singles, like that sold tonnes of tickets, and that’s sort of a more creative, super creative, right. And so that’s the kind of marketing that used to be more common. You know, I, I haven’t seen a street team for a show. In ages, I mean, the fringe kind of has that. But But why not regular. I’ve seen theatre
Phil Rickaby
done Mirvish street teams out for some shows like The Kinky Boots, people and remember, for anything goes, they have their street teams. I’ve, I’ve seen them, but I’ve never seen like, I’ve seen them, but I haven’t seen them because they would come to the end Mervis theatre to drop off some flyers and things like that, or maybe use the washroom or whatever, but then I never actually really saw them out on the street, right? Very often, maybe they were just staying in specific areas. Mirvish does that, but there’s nobody else.
Sheila Sky
And that’s what used to be considered, like guerilla marketing, and now we talk about it like it’s mainstream marketing. Right. Yeah. So,
Phil Rickaby
I mean, it’s, maybe we have to do more. Good, like Guerilla Marketing. Take the take the cast out. More.
Sheila Sky
Yeah, it will cost but hopefully it will pay off in
Phil Rickaby
some fringy lessons. Yeah. Yeah. Speaking of fringe, I noticed that you had organised across Canada to work for Crystal. Crystal Martel’s? Yep. Which shows that
Sheila Sky
I did both chaotic. And one, emu and honeymoon was new, right. And that was really interesting. That was around the time when social media was just starting to become a force. And what I discovered is that I could build relationships with the press through Twitter, before she got there so that we could get previews. And when you’re a Come From Away artists, it’s really hard to get that those early audiences. And if you don’t get them, there’s no word of mouth. So having that preview is really important. So that was sort of my focus. So yeah, I was phantom tweeting, jig is up.
Phil Rickaby
Was that was that fringe? Or is that that was Fran was yeah,
Sheila Sky
that was fringe? Yeah. Yeah. But she would do five or six cities. She never had the Canadian lottery. She would just put in her applications. And then in cities that she wanted to do, she would very often do a bring your own venue.
Phil Rickaby
Why we did a tour with Keystone theatre and we did several cities we didn’t get the the caf lottery. Right, you know, we got our watch in each individual city. I mean, almost nobody who got the whoever gets the
Sheila Sky
well, there’s just a handful. Yeah, yeah. But
Phil Rickaby
going into a new city was always difficult.
Sheila Sky
The only person you know is your billet
Phil Rickaby
that a lot of times I didn’t even know that person. Yeah. When I didn’t see my billet ever. Right? I was on tour sometimes just like I had a key. Yeah. So it’s,
Sheila Sky
it’s so how did you cope with that? Like, how did you?
Phil Rickaby
So I mean, we had our tasks so we had had four people in the cast plus a piano player plus our stage manager. So we had each other to rely on, just in terms of for our sanity check, you know, helping each other get through each day. And also for like planning out where we were going to promote, and how we were going to do it. But also, we, we started, we managed to gather a bunch of word of mouth starting in Montreal when we did that. And although we skipped Toronto, by the time we got to Winnipeg, people had heard about our Montreal show, so we managed to, as we went through, there was a buzz then, and I don’t quite know how that fringe buzz travels, whether it’s by osmosis or something else, right. When we got to Edmonton, it was already like, our, like, half of our shows that we were selling out already. And I don’t sometimes I don’t know how that kind of buzz actually worked, right?
Sheila Sky
Well, you were six, two, so you would be able to start your own buds. Being a gang, your solo artist or mind you Krystal works incredibly hard. And she was out there in her wedding dress, tap dance, and she’s she’s the she tapped dance live on radio, like
Phil Rickaby
I looked, I mean, I looked at we toured, you know, there were all kinds of solo artists who are into this at the same time, you know, that part of the fringe family that develops as you go from city to city? Yes, yeah. And some of them are like, like, I’m doing a solo show in Hamilton this summer, I look at them for how I should promote my show. I look at somebody like Jim rolls, who never stops. Yeah. And just other people, as well, who just like, they’re everywhere, they they’re in every venue handing out flyers, and they’re talking about their show all the time. Which for an introvert is, is pretty frightening to do. Right? If you want to have it have a successful show, you have to do it? did was it an unusual thing for you to sort of like manage a fringe tour? Or was that? Is that something you’ve done?
Sheila Sky
I don’t have any usual. You know, sometimes I think if you Google, you know, crazy project, no money, my name comes up. So So I like I don’t really have a usual. And so like, so for Crystal, I, you know, I? I helped her logistically somewhat. But it’s I mean, it’s only one person in small said, there’s not a lot of that. It was more about that, that marketing aspect and then just tracking the cache. Right, right. And so that we could look at tracking the cache in an organised way so that in subsequent years, she would have better ideas about where she should go. Because sometimes where you have the biggest audience doesn’t always mean the most profit, depending on the circumstances. So yeah,
Phil Rickaby
is there? So you don’t have the usual but is there something that you enjoy doing more than other things? Is there a kind of project that speaks to you more than others?
Sheila Sky
I’m pretty motivated by novelty. And so novelty might mean that it’s something I haven’t done before. For me, that would be a great excuse to to take on a client or accept a project. But it could also be, but it doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s the art part. That is unusual. It might be something like ADC, right? Where I’ve come back a second time, you know, and to look at what is the same, you know, what hasn’t changed? How the circumstances of working have changed and what needs to change to make everything work better for designers. I mean, that’s to me that’s a really intriguing puzzle, just as intriguing as you know, how do I pack so much gear just so small attract or, or, or how do I make so much money go so far, but I do find as I get older I become more interested in impact. And so I’m more interested in building healthy companies, I think then building like, participating in a great show, which is a one off, I’d like to see healthy companies, I’d be interested in doing what I can to create a healthy sector. Those for me are the bigger and more interesting challenges. So I’m, what I’m finding I’m really enjoying these days is thinking more strategically and consulting with people about how to take them into a new phase, or how to get them out of a muddle, or just is there a way they can do things that’s less exhausting? That’s a pretty common theme. I find that more sort of my current. And so even for ADC, as we, you know, move in, we had a four year strategic plan, we managed to succeeded about 80% of it, you know, some will carry forward but, you know, looking for a new way, you know, what our focus should be, and, and how fast can we move these pieces? And in what order can they be moved most effectively? It’s and building consensus in a large organisation that is quite, you know, that is really made up of quite individualistic individuals. You know, it’s, it’s really fascinating. It’s really fascinating. And then the other thing I’m looking at is we find our circumstances difficult as artists, and we talk about things like oh, well, you know, new media, it’s made it, you know, it’s a seismic change for live artists, and we talked about, you know, shrinking funding, and that’s also a seismic change for artists and I’ve been looking at theatre history and thinking, Well, you know, seismic chart changes have always been there. Like, you know, if you were a theatre artist during the French Revolution, we’ll all your patrons were beheaded. Yeah. Like, that’s a minus, yes. No. Shakespeare in Stratford there was the plague. 25% of the population died. That’s way worse than SARS. Yeah. You know, how did he adapt? I mean, and looking at those artists that died wealthy looking at reading about their careers and about what they did. To see if I can identify characteristics that help the organisations.
Phil Rickaby
We there is a lot of in the theatre, a lot of hand wringing about that new media and Netflix and, and iTunes and all the things that are making it easier for people to stay home. I’ve been talking with a few people who sort of mentioned who have felt melt mentioned feeling like what people are looking for is a reason to leave. Instead of like, my entertainment is outside, like, Give me something that is like is that reason to leave the house and go see a thing. Like Sleep No More in New York or a Hogtown in Toronto recently, things like that interesting things they might not see. Normally some kind of spectacle, I think spectacle is more important than ever, as well, in terms of getting getting people out of
Sheila Sky
their comfort, right. So my son also works in the industry. He works in sound. And he has worked on a number of projects that I find amazing First off, they’re they’re not funded. So these are events like renegade Parade, which has been a fixture of me an unsanctioned fixture of new block. He also works on things like Anime North and atomic lollipop. And these, these are very large events and, you know, they’re he’s, these are just young kids putting them together and and, and they are really well attended, and they’re not spending money on marketing. So, in looking to the past, I’ve also been looking to the future and trying to identify what is it that they do that makes people come out? out in droves. And for the moment, I’ve decided, and this might be different next month that they really walk very well, the line between the familiar and the novel. So everyone knows what a parade is. But this is a parade that’s more like array. Right? Or everyone knows about. I think about a tonic lollipop or they, you know, they have a reptile pinning zoomy pillow fights and they have jumping castles. And so they always make sure that there are many familiar elements. And then they also have a few that are like, I’ve never seen that before. Yeah, that bring that also create excitement. So they, they make sure and I think it’s like when those those some non industry people come to say next stage and they they feel excluded? Well, there’s not too much there that’s familiar to them, you know, the usual routines at the box office are disrupted. And so there’s, there’s,
Phil Rickaby
I mean, that sort of inside baseball situation with like, a next stage is one of those. I mean, it is kind of a it’s a barrier for people who are not from the industry.
Sheila Sky
And you know what, maybe that’s fine, maybe that’s what next stage is, it doesn’t have to be for, I mean, their sales continue to increase. So there’s really nothing wrong with that. So so maybe that’s, that’s what that event should be. But I think if if we want to go to a broader public, and I think it’s, it’s particularly in the indie sector, where people are interested in pushing barriers. How to explain it, it’s like, the kid in the class who practices piano a lot. And they get much better than the other kids who only practice a little. Yeah. So theatre, people do theatre all day, every day, they becoming tremendously literate about, you know, theatre conventions, and, you know, they warp them and riff on them. And it’s all incredibly exciting to them. But for people who don’t understand theatre conventions, they don’t have a lot of theatre experience. That’s, that’s too big a leap. They’re not there yet. So we need people to also programme that, that middle stuff, we need that very basic conventional stuff, we need something in the middle, and we need, we need all three, I think there’s probably four and five kinds that I’m not even thinking of that we need to know.
Phil Rickaby
Places to.
Sheila Sky
And then we need to figure out where to find the right audience and maybe it’s with CO promoting with, with the, with the theatres rather than with the theatres that are, say groundbreakers also promoting to the to the theatres that are likely to have patrons who are just one step behind, but not those that are two and three steps behind.
Phil Rickaby
I do think that the cross promotion is very important for for Indian midfielders. Like that’s something that will help us out a lot.
Sheila Sky
But to get more fish in the pond as opposed to just making them eat more often. We need to also start cross promoting with non theatre
Phil Rickaby
now you’re saying fish in the pond are your are the fit is the fish the audience,
Sheila Sky
the audience are fishes, the audience and the theatres are the feeding state rights, right. But so so, you know, fish can only eat so much.
Phil Rickaby
And we need really, yes, so we need
Sheila Sky
new fish in the pond. So who should we be cross promoting with? So visual artists are among the most artistically promiscuous so people who enjoy visual arts are more likely to see music dance theatre, than say someone who loves dance is likely to see go see music or theatre. So I’m not sure we’re doing a whole a whole lot in that no, because I
Phil Rickaby
think that we get there. And we look at our little corner and there we don’t think too much beyond it in terms of our promotion. I think that a lot of times We,
Sheila Sky
we run out of time to do anything more, because we’re trying to do everything else. Yes. So that’s either you need to delay your project or do a little bit less so that you can devote more time to that, or you need to get someone to help you with that. Are there ways that we could help each other?
Phil Rickaby
Probably I know, I know, for myself learning to say I need help is one of the biggest lessons in terms of, for me producing like to be able to say, I’m overwhelmed. Can you help us sort of sometimes a difficult thing to say?
Sheila Sky
Yeah, I would agree. And also to it means letting go of letting go of control a little bit. And you’d think in the theatre, we would be better at it. Because the art form itself is so collaborative, we should be good at it. But we’re often not. We’re often not,
Phil Rickaby
I think, sometimes be a little bit pride, but also, no, I think mostly pride, like both in terms of not wanting to seem like I can’t do everything, but also.
Sheila Sky
Well, there’s also the tradition of suffering for your art. Right. So So which there are times when it’s necessary, but it shouldn’t be necessary all the time. So I knew when I came back to ABC and discovered things that had not changed. And my response was, you know, guys, if you’ve made small changes in the 20 years since I’ve been gone, where do you think you might be today? Yes, you know, and so I would say, perfection is off the table. It’s not part of the menu. And now the board sometimes says that me. So, so they heard the message, but yeah.
Phil Rickaby
In terms of your online presence, I know that you are on Twitter.
Sheila Sky
Yes. Although I haven’t been very much recently. No, other way like Twitter, it’s very different than Facebook’s Yeah. And so, but we more recently, it’s been mostly Facebook, I don’t have a website. No, I’m, I need to get on that. Maybe I should ask for help and not worry about making it perfect, perhaps. But I tend to always have things that crop up. So LinkedIn is, has been it’s kind of a different idea. I did some work in the academic community as well, which is what put me on there is because I was looking to connect with academics so and, and just out of curiosity, I actually don’t think it’s very good marketing.
Phil Rickaby
For LinkedIn. Yeah. For that sort of thing.
Sheila Sky
Yeah. Stocks not doing very well. I don’t know how long how much longer we’ll have it.
Phil Rickaby
Hopefully Facebook will buy or something. Maybe, maybe pretty much just after the hour, so Well, thank you so much.
Sheila Sky
It’s been a treat