Sunny Drake

Sunny Drake’s inventive theatre works have been presented in over 60 cities across the world and translated into 4 languages. His wide range of audiences have spanned international arts festivals, queers in underground warehouses, elderly ladies in regional theatres and young people in drop-in centres.
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Sunny was commissioned by the Professional Association of Canadian Theatres, Playwrights Guild of Canada and ATFC to write the 2019 World Theatre Day message for Canada. He was awarded the inaugural Johanna Metcalf Performing Arts Prize 2019 ($25,000) for having a significant impact on performing arts in Ontario, and was a finalist for the K. M. Hunter Theatre Award (2018).

www.sunnydrake.com
Twitter: @sunny_drake
Instagram: @sunny_drake

About CHILD-ish
Following sold-out showings at SummerWorks in 2019 as a theatre play, Sunny Drake brings you the CHILD-ISH web series, shot at Toronto playgrounds. The virtual event will also digitally tour around the world.

Virtual Tour Dates and more: https://www.sunnydrake.com/creations/child-ish-web-series

Transcript

Welcome to Stageworthy, a podcast about Canadian theatre and the people who make it, hosted by me, Phil Rickaby. This is episode 304 of Stageworthy, and in this episode, I will be talking to Sonny Drake. As we head into the fall, it strikes me that this is the second year in a row that we are still in uncertain times as far as theatre goes.

It’s been ages since I sat in a theatre or stood on stage with an audience in front of me, and while there are plans for a return to the theatre, and some theatre companies are announcing their seasons, I still feel like I’m holding my breath, wondering if it will happen. This past weekend, I saw video from the first performance of the Broadway show Hadestown, since the pandemic shut everything down. And it was moving to watch the audience leap to their feet as the cast came out, and to see a sustained ovation before the show even got started.

And just thinking about being able to do that again made my heart ache. But for all that ache and longing, I’m still not in a rush to get there. For myself, I still feel a need to be cautious, and I’m sure a lot of you do too.

But for all of my caution, that Hadestown video shows me that there’s hope, that before long, we’ll be in theatres together once again. As I said, my guest is Sonny Drake. Sonny is an award-winning theatre creator, and his work has been presented in over 60 cities across the world.

We got together virtually to talk about Childish, in which adults speak the words of children. Originally a theatre play, Childish was created as a web series during the pandemic, and you can see it online at Sonny’s website, sonnydrake.com. Here’s our conversation. Why don’t we get started by talking a little bit about Childish? Okay, sure.

What, I mean, if you were, if you had to give someone an elevator pitch for Childish, what would that elevator pitch be? I mean, Childish is a constellation of creative works where the core being adult speaking, the exact words of kids. So it takes kind of some different formats than that, but essentially really challenging an adult audience in questioning, how do we listen to kids? What can we learn from listening differently to kids? And really providing this provocation, okay, if we have adult bodies and voices speaking the words of kids, does that change our listening? And in fact, then what do we learn about both kids and adults in the process? That’s fascinating. Where, what, what prompted the creation of Childish? I mean, lots of different things for me, a number of different experiences coming out of spending more time with kids.

So being an uncle, both to, you know, my brother’s kids and also to friend’s kids and having a number of experiences of really being challenged myself in how I was and wasn’t listening to kids. And specifically this one experience where I arrived at a seven-year-old house who I was, you know, going to be looking after this seven-year-old. And I found her sobbing on the couch in the living room and, you know, of course asked what was up.

And she proceeded to tell me her complete devastation that this, that her classmate didn’t want to marry her. And, and what really struck me though, was like, she went from this intense devastation to then she started doing acrobatics, like somersaults on the couch. And in literally only minutes, she’s gone from sobbing to laughing hysterically, to then completely moved on to a new topic and something else.

And her mom and I just kind of shot each other these looks of like, you know, how does she do that? You know, I mean, I sort of often spend longer stewing just over a simple thing, like a text message, like someone hasn’t returned a text message, you know, and she’s just gone from, you know, this devastating heartbreak to, you know, something entirely different. And it really kind of got me wondering, like, what kids strategies could adults learn from, you know, that ability to kind of use play and joyfulness to really move through things through our bodies that, you know, I feel like I’ve sort of forgotten. So, so that one experience kind of then just, just got me wondering, okay, what else can we learn from engaging with kids on their own terms? Are there any particular lessons that stand out for you on that topic? I mean, I think the one that jumps to mind in this moment is a real ability to like a very different way of being present in the world.

So I think something that actually shocked me during the pandemic, I mean, I’ve been working on Childish for four years now. So I’ve worked with, you know, a kind of extended group of kids through a lot of different phases. And it seems silly now, but to be totally honest, it really shocked me how deeply impacted kids were emotionally by COVID.

I sort of, I guess I had this idea, oh, they’ll just kind of, you know, like that, that relentless playfulness of kids. And I think that I, you know, when I, we had our first kind of during COVID creative session with kids to see their profound anxiety about, you know, at this point they’re being told, okay, you could, you could kill your parents. You know, you may come home from school and you’re going to bring COVID home and kill your parents.

Like the profound anxiety, you know, with kids about, about this new world that they were living in. And then though, like the ability to just sit there really deeply and feel that intensely. And then also the ability to feel as deeply the joy in the moment, like our creative process.

I think that being part of the childish process was one of the most joyful rehearsal and creation processes that they’d been a part of because of that presence that way that yes, okay, kids can experience the real, the really intense side, but also then show up and be present. If something is fun or funny or joyful, they’re going to go for the, they’re going to go for the jugular of the joy in that moment as well. And and that’s been, you know, really just sort of a call to me to kind of you know, get a little outside of my head and a little more into the moment.

Yeah. You know, years ago I did a couple of twice. I was I don’t even know if the NDA still applies, but I’m just being careful a well-known Ontario children’s TV character.

So I did a couple of presentations of that and the way that children just throw themselves into what the things that are there in front of them. I know I’ve never felt as much energy from an audience as I did from an audience of four to seven-year-olds packing this theatre when I came out as that character. There’s nobody commits the way that a child commits.

And sometimes I think that’s something that like we as adults, we forget how committed children can be to anything that’s right in front of them. Have you found that the actors, the adult actors who’ve worked on Childish have have taken that sense of commitment that they’ve that they’re learning from the children and take that into their everyday or into their their professional lives a little more? I mean, it’s an interesting question. I feel like I’d have to ask them what was the ask the actors what was the impact outside of the rehearsal process in the rest of their lives.

But I can certainly tell you that it just, you know, literally the second that our young dramaturges and young collaborators walk into the creation space, I would see this thing happen in the bodies of the actors. Their faces would open out, they would lean in slightly, you know, forward like it was it was an immediate presence because it’s like, oh, here is something that most of us had never gotten to be a part of. You know, many folks on our team had been a part of, for example, creating work for young audiences, but really flipping the script like this and actually having children and young people participate in creating work for an adult audience.

That was something that many of us hadn’t experienced before. So it was, you know, just an immediate sort of cracking open of being present in that moment of what’s going to happen here? What is this going to be like? And just that contagious presence and joyfulness and also seriousness as well. I mean, I’ve been sort of describing recently that I’ve found in kids actually my perfect collaborators in many ways because my personality is I am extremely silly in some moments and then extremely serious in other moments.

And kids, you know, really meet me there. So, you know, just watching that kind of transformation in the adults in the room the second that kids step into that space. Now, has previous to this year with there was the production with co-presented by, co-presented with yourself, Salt Pepper and the Oakville Center for the Performing Arts.

That was not the first time The Childish was presented, was it? Well, I mean, we’ve been through a lot of different phases of creation and we did a work in progress showing at the Summer Works Festival in 2019. So this was sort of the first, I guess, completed for its medium presentation of Childish. And I say sort of for its medium because Childish has now really become a constellation of works.

And that’s sort of something that’s happening across all of my works now. I’m less interested in just making a play or a particular theatre piece and more interested in digging deeply into a particular theme or provocation and then creating a constellation of different formats around that around that work. So for example, Childish is now this web series.

It’s also a hosted virtual party, a digital show whereby kids and teenagers host us watching the full web series. So with special kind of exclusive content in between the web series episode, then it will also be its live version. And next year we are making a podcast and the podcast, like the idea being that each of these different formats is a true adaptation to its creative medium.

So the podcast, you know, inspired by talk show, radio and other podcasts flips the format. And instead of having adults speak the words of kids, it’s going to be a series of interviews where children interview adults. So like sort of bouncing off some of the themes that we already explored in the original interviews with kids.

And then, you know, so part one of an episode might be the verbatim content with the adult actors talking about climate change. So speaking kids exact words about climate change. And then part two will be children interviewing a climate scientist, for example, or children interviewing an adult who experiences depression or a Black Lives Matter activist or a whole range of other adults that kids, that are participating kids are interested to speak to.

And then sort of really seeing, I guess, you know, in that medium of the podcast, what is it like when we have children entirely shape the conversation and ask the questions and drive the inquiry with adults. And so, so yeah, so then I guess building this constellation of different works from the web series to the podcast, to the live theatre show, which give it a different layer of the work. And you can sort of engage with the constellation and get the feel for, okay, here’s, you know, here’s the core of what I love about this work.

And now let me experience these different layers in these different formats. And, and that’s really, for me, it’s about providing like a whole range of different layers. It’s also about getting to experiment with different formats.

And in particular, it’s about engaging different audiences. I mean, a key part of my practice has always been engaging with audiences who don’t tend to go to the theatre. And so this is for me, a really exciting extension of going, oh, okay.

Who might I be able to have a conversation with via a podcast compared to, you know, folks who may never go to the theatre or via a snappy, you know, fast paced web series, and then seeing can, can we build the connections across those different platforms? Will a podcast audience then come to the theatre because they’ve been introduced to the concept by the podcast? Similarly, you know, from the web series, et cetera. So yeah, I’m really excited across not just with Childish, but each of my works now are becoming these constellations. I’m curious.

I love the idea of that constellation. I am curious about whether the, the pandemic and the, the inability or the, the way that we haven’t been able to perform in person, if that spurred you towards this constellation idea, or was that always something that you were thinking about? I mean, I think a bit of, a bit of both. Certainly engaging audiences who are not typical theatre goers has always been a question for me.

And I have in the past tended to, I’ve toured my work quite extensively outside of theatre. So I used to tour with my own theatre lighting equipment and, you know, hook it all up to QLab on my computer and speakers and everything, and set up where I wanted to engage with particular audiences. You know, I did a show in a like tiny kind of little community centre in Wynmore, BC, population 300, where, you know, the community set up literally cow pelts was the front row, followed by milk crates was the second row.

And, you know, 50 people from the 300 person community came to the show. Well, 51, if you include, there was a dog watching through the glass window off to the side of the stage. And the dog was extremely attentive for the whole show.

So, you know, this sort of idea, I guess, of meeting people where they are most comfortable. You know, I’m interested in the conversation and, and if that means, you know, meeting people this tiny, you know, community centre or in a youth centre or, or now for me that the extrapolation of that and the opportunity that’s been the pandemic for my work has been a digital expansion. So, you know, I’d never made a web series before.

I’d never made audio dramas. And now I’ve just adapted a comedy of mine, Man Express Their Feelings into a three episode audio drama, which we just recorded last month and Climate Change and Other Small Talk. We just recorded the pilot directed by the fabulous Waini Mangesha last week.

So just this real opportunity to expand formats that, you know, was definitely by necessity with the pandemic. And, you know, and I think early on for me in the pandemic, I was like, oh, okay, you know, I felt a lot of hopelessness and despair. And oh, my God, are we ever going to be able to make work again in a live context? And, and, you know, then actually really getting to explore some of these other mediums that I don’t think I would ever really gotten the money, the resources to be able to make either, you know, suddenly I had, you know, I had all these kind of grants that were mid, you know, mid, we were in the middle of a process with, and suddenly I was able to go, okay, well, we can’t do the live show, but I want to make a web series.

And the funding bodies went, okay, great. Never would I have been able to apply for a web series before that, you know, the funding body would have gone one, that’s not theatre. And two, you’ve never made a web series before.

No, you’re not getting money to make a web series. So, you know, I guess, I wouldn’t wish a pandemic on anyone, of course. And given that that’s what is happening, you know, I found some really rich expansions to my work.

And then specifically, like I was saying, just a real interest in then how to build these connections with different audiences and engage on really different levels through a whole range of different mediums. I found just in terms of, you know, I’ve talked to a lot of people who’ve been doing this podcast for five years and in the last 18 months, the resiliency of people who are making theatre and other art and the way that people, like almost everybody that I’ve spoken to who’s done something digital has said, I have never done anything like this before. I didn’t think I could do anything like this before, which is kind of a fascinating thing that necessity has forced people who thought they couldn’t do something to discover more that they can, that they can learn something new and that they can create something amazing.

Mm hmm. Mm hmm. Yeah, absolutely.

You know, I feel like I’ve sort of spoken with so many different folks who’ve had so many different reactions from definitely some people who are like, look, I’m going to I’m going to sit this out and actually have some time to focus on one, getting through the pandemic or, you know, trying to do Zoom schooling with my kids or just actually go, you know, have a little break from theatre for a moment. And then, like you’re saying, a whole other camp of people who’ve been like, OK, I, you know, including folks who’ve been hesitant to get on board with digital theatre have, you know, certainly lots of people have found lots of really interesting expressions and and, you know, and and I think that what’s really interesting about that to me in terms of that resiliency and in terms of our ability to find different ways to tell story is also, I mean, I’m really interested in what that says about the different sort of stories we can tell as well. So not just the different formats, but OK, you know, I mean, I think we’ve also seen, you know, the next the next layer of incredible social movements from, you know, Black Lives Matter movements to other, you know, social movements in the last year that have ramped up to a next level that have, you know, been obviously, you know, people doing groundwork for decades around as well.

And so really a kind of switch up in, yes, the format, but also in what stories, you know, we want to tell on stages and and who to tell them. And I think that’s, you know, a really exciting, you know, possibility for theatre and all of us. Yeah, I agree.

I think there’s there is a lot of excitement. I have to admit, though, that as much as I, you know, I, you know, I in many ways, I’m very familiar with working in the digital area, audio, especially these days. But I still can’t wait to get back into the theatre.

And that’s as much as as I think being able to experiment and put things out digitally. I want to be back in the theatre, but I don’t want to lose the digital open door. I want to be able to produce work and still have it.

Like, I think we should be able to have cameras in our theatres and sell a digital ticket so that people who can’t physically get there, whether because they have mobility issues that they can’t get to the get to the theatre, or maybe they’re across the country, that we can still share our work with them. And I think it’s hugely important to be able to do that. Absolutely.

Yeah, I definitely resonate on the it’s for me, it’s not an either or it’s not either. I want to go back to live theatre or I want to stay digital. But for me, an expansion of of a toolkit and a range of things that, like you say, can make work more accessible to folks, both in terms of format.

And yeah, absolutely. And, and that’s what I’m really keen to then sort of play out these experiments around these constellations is, is what are the connections between digital and live as well? Yeah, it’s, it’s definitely quite a time to be to be making art, that’s for sure. Absolutely, absolutely.

One of the things that I love to talk about with with people is about their, their theatre journey. So I’m always curious about how someone becomes or found their way to the theatre and what made them want to make that their career. So Sonny, could you tell me your theatre origin story? Yeah, absolutely.

And I’ve loved this part of the podcast too. This is it’s always so fascinating to me to hear from other artists as well. Yeah, I mean, for me, it was really about not seeing the story, not seeing my story and stories that felt super relevant to me on not only on stage, but actually in any cultural medium.

So I mean, I grew up in Australia, which in Brisbane, Australia, which, you know, is sort of, I often describe Calgary as the as the equivalent to Brisbane. And I grew up in a complete and entire void of trans stories. So I literally did not in fact, meet another person who I knew was trans until my 20s.

And not only that, I did not see any form of trans representation in any cultural medium, TV, books, movies, theatre, nothing until I was in my late 20s. And that well, I should say sorry, with the asterisk except for the trope in every second comedy of the cis man who walks into and picks up a woman only to find dot dot dot. She’s trans, you know, so basically unnamed trans women characters who were the butt of a joke.

That was the only trans representation that I experienced. And that had a really enormous impact on me that really delayed my understanding of who I was, it delayed my possibilities for who I was. And in fact, even when I started to engage with trans stories in mainstream media and, and theatre, they were still almost entirely a particular sort of trans story that that particularly the medical industry, and by extension, then theatre programmers had decided was the quote, unquote, trans story.

So the story of, you know, so, so my trans story should have been according to the one trans story that was allowed through, I should have always known that I was a boy, I should have been into trucks, and, you know, tough things, I should only want to wear masculine clothes. And that’s, that’s certainly some trans people’s experience. And that’s, you know, a beautiful and wonderful expression, too.

For me, I’m a lot more on the effeminate spectrum, I love sparkly things. You know, most people read me in in the world as a flaming gay cis man. And, you know, so to really go on that journey to actually understand what was possible for my life was, you know, was a huge kind of a huge source of frustration and pain and challenge.

And, and, you know, and eventually, when I found my people, a source of a lot of joy and inspiration and celebration. And, and for me, you know, then I started making theatre, because I wasn’t seeing these stories on stage. And it wasn’t just about transness, it was also about queerness and about, you know, a lot of other things that I was exploring in my earlier work.

And, and, you know, and and I guess also, specifically, because at the time when I was really busting out with, you know, it’s basically then something that was going on in my life, it had bust out into a performance. And the performances tended to be in living rooms, in basements, in backyards. I considered then going to theatre school, but didn’t see a place for myself in, you know, normatively gendered theatre school.

I mean, theatre schools are certainly really opening up and changing now. But at that time, I would have been, the only option for me would have been playing women’s roles, which, you know, women are awesome and great. It just wasn’t my gender expression.

Now, I would love to play a woman’s role, but it certainly wasn’t where I was at, at the time. And so I didn’t see a place for myself in theatre school. So I learnt theatre through making theatre.

I didn’t even in fact, call it theatre at first, because it wasn’t inside of theatres. And, you know, I was sort of, like I said, performing more in DIY spaces, or sometimes in cabaret spaces. And, you know, I, then, you know, kind of slowly started building up a body of work.

I literally the first theatre show I ever got to do was because I called every theatre in town and begged them to let me do a show at their theatre. And everyone, you know, most people didn’t even respond. But one guy sort of said, look, you’re so persistent, fine, come in and do an audition.

And if I like your stuff, I’ll put you on this emerging artists, you know, residency thing. So, you know, I went in, I did my audition, and he was like, okay, right, you’ve got a spot on this night. And on that night, the emerging artists showcase thing, I brought in such a different audience than what he ever experienced before in his theatre that he then offered me a residency there.

And I then, you know, so sort of like step by step, you know, I kind of clawed my way into the theatre scene. And, and, yeah, I’ve, I’ve been here ever since, you know, it’s, and slowly I built up enough of a body of work to then be able to get grants. I mean, all of my earlier work was done on zero dollar budgets, we found everything and begged, borrowed, and stolen everything.

And yeah, so slowly sort of, you know, began to develop a body of work and the experience to get the grants and get the resources and then, and then increasingly have, you know, organisational buy in and support for my work. So, you know, I definitely come from a very DIY background. And that’s really influenced also that, you know, it’s a really core part of my practice that I am a producing artist as well.

So, you know, I also do do some work that is, you know, produced, you know, I have companies produce my work as well. But more often than not, even when companies produce my work, I have had some sort of a hand in the producing side, because I’ve developed a very specific set of things that are important to me. From having to produce my own work, I care about how artists are treated.

I care about, you know, how artists are paid, I care about process, you know, all these things are really important to me. And so, you know, I’ve continued to kind of also produce or co-produce a bunch of my work as well. Thank you.

Part of your story, like the part of the beginning talking about not seeing trans stories and only seeing like a particular trans story, the trans story that you’re describing about the trans man who’s always known that he was a boy, and likes sports and trucks and all of that stuff. I hear that. And I’m like, well, isn’t that trans story just steeped in toxic masculinity? There’s only one way to be male.

Yeah, absolutely. And that’s, you know, and it’s really been such a story that is not coming, like the dominance of that story is not coming from trans community. Even though I said, I like to be very clear that it’s not about like that, you know, a trans man who is very masculine is a beautiful thing, as long as that’s carving out a different sort of masculinity.

So he still needs to, you know, challenge toxic masculinity. And but there’s nothing wrong with a trans man who wants to wear, you know, suits and and butch clothing and etc. Like, you know, so it’s really separating that expression of masculinity from sexism.

And those are things that get very conflated. But just to say that, like that story, that the dominance of that story is not because that is the dominant story. It’s because of the medical industry’s gatekeeping.

So, you know, and trans people talk about this all the time, it’s shifting as well in Canada around, you know, how to get access to hormones and surgery, etc. But for a long time, you couldn’t go into the doctor and say, Hey, so I identify as a guy, but I, I’m into, you know, frilly things and sparkly stuff. Oh, and PS, I’m also sexually attracted to men like you there was that would actually literally on their tick list disqualify from access to surgery and hormones.

And, and, you know, and that criteria is really shifting now. But the impact then that that had was that then people became very secretive about what their trans trajectories were and what their trans stories were. And then that had a direct impact on community itself.

Because then, I mean, for example, when I started to, when I started to hear the this mainstream trans story, then I, I just felt further ostracized myself. I was like, Oh, okay, well, I guess I’m, I guess I’m not trans. Because that’s not my experience.

And I saw other, other peers sort of go, Oh, well, okay, I guess I should wear masculine clothes. Or I saw trans women feeling Okay, well, I guess I should kind of wear feminine clothes, because that’s what I that’s what I’m supposed to do. And, you know, and that’s the that’s the power of story, when we create story that that is how you are trans.

And this doesn’t just apply to trans people, this applies to, this is where I think there’s real freedom for cis people in trans liberation, like when we free trans people, we free cis people as well. Because that same that that same set of really restrictive norms and regulations that trans people have to jump through, really hurt and hold back cis people as well. I mean, I got so present to this when I was writing Man Express Their Feelings, my comedy, which really, you know, interrogates masculinity.

And, and I went to you know, it was the premiere of the work in Calgary, just before the lockdown, I think we were actually technically the last show to close in Canada before the formal lockdown started. And, and I went to write the program note for this. And I was really grappling with whether to identify as myself as trans or not in the program note, there’s actually no trans characters in this, in this particular play.

And I was like, Oh, is it? Is it relevant to say I’m trans? And I was like, actually, it’s not just is it relevant? Do I, my worry was that if I disclose that I was trans, that then the audience would go, Oh, well, I’m just going to discount everything you have to say then about masculinity and or maleness, because you’re not really a man. And I had this lightbulb moment of going, Oh, that is not actually a uniquely trans issue. Cis men are threatened all the time, you’re not a real man, if you stand up against toxic masculinity, you’re not a real man, if you call out sexist behaviour, you’re not a real man, if you carve out a different sort of masculinity that is not predicated on, you know, doing horrible things or microaggressions to women and non-binary people.

And I was like, right, okay. You know, I, if I want, if I’m asking men of all genders, including cis men and trans men, masculine people, non-binary people to, if I’m asking all of them to risk being told, you’re not a man, or you’re not masculine enough, or you’re not this or that, I need, I need to risk that too at this moment. So I decided then, yes, okay, I’m going to put, and that is what my program became about.

But yeah, it’s really interesting. And I think that about most things that, you know, when we create freedom for people who are experiencing crappy things on the margins, we actually create healing and freedom and liberations for other people too. I think that’s super, that’s super important to, to, to stress that, that, you know, because I’ve been, you know, I grew up, I was a teenager in the eighties, which is a terrible time to, I mean, a lot of times were terrible times to be, to be teenagers, but there was, I felt like there were a lot of gender norms that were being enforced during the eighties in movies, in, and we still see it in movies, but we see, you know, in, in the popular culture and, you know, there was so much about, you know, you have to like this, you have to like that.

If you don’t like sports, what are you gay or whatever? Like there were all these things that were like these rules that were put around, around maleness. And as somebody who liked theatre, liked musicals and like, didn’t like sports and all of those sorts of things, I found myself navigating awkwardly what maleness was supposed to be at that time. And I, I have since then started to just sort of like be like, I, I am not that guy.

I, I am, I am, I am the male that I am who, who likes theatre, musicals, who doesn’t like sports, who doesn’t even like to get their hands dirty. And that’s, that’s who I am, but that doesn’t make me any less male than somebody else. Yeah, absolutely.

And you living that then carves out space for other people to live that as well. And that happens, you know, on an individual level as we go about our work. And then it also happens in our theatre work.

When we create stories that we don’t get to see, we create possibilities for other people. Even including like, you know, surprising ones that keep on bouncing backwards and forwards between the layers. Like for example, as an quite effeminate man, people are often, my peers are often, and including my own community are often really shocked that I wrote a hockey play.

And that in fact, I felt like I could write a hockey play because sports were an enormous part of my upbringing. I didn’t play ice hockey because I grew up in Australia and there was no such thing as ice hockey. I played field hockey.

I played and I coached for over a decade. Sports were, I was obsessed with sports as a teenager. I came from a very sporty family.

I had four older brothers. They were all, you know, rugby heads and cricket guys. And, you know, and, and so, but, you know, even just the assumption that, oh, okay, you’re an, I’m an effeminate guy means that I wouldn’t like sports when in fact, you know, they were such a shaping part of my world.

And I don’t necessarily play sports anymore, but I’ve been very steeped in sports culture. And yeah, it’s, it’s really interesting just to kind of unpack all of our assumptions about each other. And the more we do that, the more we create space for ourselves and other people, which is such a great thing.

Sure. There’s, there’s this concept of, you know, you have real man, real woman, you have like these, these norms, these gender norms, these, these, these rules that people put on each other and on themselves really sort of like just stifles people too much. Like be the person that you are.

I like the things that you like. Can we stop making fun of people for liking something that is not what a real man or a real woman or what, like, just like there’s, there’s too much of that, that, that, that we’re putting on people and, and, and stifling them. Yeah, absolutely.

Something that’s so exciting to me from now just having worked with a bunch of kids on Childish is watching how kids and teenagers are in such a different place than kids and teenagers where I grew up and in the era I grew up in. There’s so many kids and teens now who identify as non-binary or trans or identify as, as cis young people, but really, you know, sort of really recreate what, what those gender norms means. And honestly, that’s actually been quite blowing my mind.

And I feel like I’m, I’m just learning so much from the, the new norms that so many kids are carving out and their, their confidence and their demanding of, you know, respect and, or not even demanding of, in some cases, you know, not necessarily even, I mean, I find it a struggle in myself sometimes where I’m like, Oh, is that safe for you to be out in the world like this? And then I have to challenge myself around, well, what are the stories that I’m reinforcing then? If I’m like, what’s the balance between kind of keeping each other safe by warning each other. So warning either younger generations, or, you know, for example, if I go to a new city, I might ask, you know, my friends in that city, Hey, what’s it like to, you know, should I be worried about walking around in a sparkly shirt here? You know, am I gonna like, am I gonna get, you know, targeted for being looking very queer and that real balance between telling each other, giving each other information and warning each other about things that might happen, but then also not creating each other as small and creating each other as fearful. It’s a really fine balance that I feel like is going to be a learning for my life, because also, you know, and I’ve really found it in particular, like I said, with kids where I’m like, Oh, should I kind of be, you know, going, Hey, you know, you might want to think about like how other people are going to react, or like, should I encourage them to be the expression they are walk about with that confidence and that, and that entitlement to be who they are in the world and have that transform the world around them.

And I don’t always know what that balance is, but I do know that when I am powerfully in my own expression, that I witnessed transformations around me. So I might witness somebody, for instance, immediately. I used to see it all the time on public transport when I was a little earlier in with taking hormones.

So when I was in a period where nobody could read me as either male or female, and people were often very uncomfortable around me on public transport and in public spaces, because they couldn’t pin me down. What are you? Are you a man or a woman? And in that period, I really noticed frequently that how I responded back in those situations. And I always caution you, there are limits here.

You know, sometimes you just need to go, you know what, I’m just going to back it up. I’m just going to get away. And I’m just going to be safe.

And you know, and that sometimes comes down to a kind of safety vibe sort of thing as well. But other times, like literally, I would witness someone withdraw, like literally physically kind of step back, cross their arms over their chest. And I would try experiments and kind of go, Oh, hey, how’s it going? And I’d see, first of all, a startled reaction of Oh, my God, this, this weird person is talking to me.

And then through having initiating and having a conversation, I would actually witness an entire transformation in their body language of, of like, Oh, you’re actually just a person, right? Okay, I can have this conversation. And that’s really, and again, I’m describing something sort of on an individual level, but that’s really what I strive for in my work, is to create an encounter and a conversation with an audience who may not have had the opportunity to have a conversation in quite that way. And to, you know, see what is possible from from this encounter and this conversation.

I mean, you know, a good example being a new work of mine that I’m developing with the Stratford Festival called Every Little Nookie. And it’s really, it’s a piece that really interrogates the nuclear family unit. It asks what is family? I mean, it’s it’s at its heart, it’s a it’s a polyamorous romp.

So, you know, it sort of breaks apart sort of notions of monogamy, etc. But I’ve created two of two characters in there who I also imagine a sort of Stratford kind of mainstay audience are. And those characters then experience this weird world that I’ve created.

You know, the audience gets to experience those characters reactions to this world. And yeah, it’s a it’s a really kind of fun and satisfying way to kind of on stage then create this type of encounter that I’m talking about, where we go beyond the initial knee jerk reaction of pull away, disengage, or a knee jerk reaction of antagonistic knee jerk reaction into a different conversation. One of the things that I am always as I’m curious about, since the pandemic started, because we all have, we’ve all gone through so many emotions during these last 18 months.

And I think that it’s important that, you know, we share our joys with each other. So one of the questions as we’re sort of starting to draw to a close is, if you could tell me, what’s something that’s been giving you joy in the last 18 months? It’s such a great question. And, you know, and I, I’d listened to your, to some of your other podcasts and, and, and episodes and heard you asking this question.

And it was a really, it’s a really great question to ask. And because I initially was like, Oh, how, how am I going to answer that question? Because, you know, you’re right in asking it to be honest, there’s been a lot of things that have felt like a real struggle in the last 18 months. And, and then I sort of put my finger on that, actually, I have been experiencing more joy than what I realized.

I think, again, you know, we’ve been talking a lot about story in this episode. Again, I had sort of told myself the story of things are not very joyful right now. And so I love your question, your provocation of actually finding the joy.

And when I went out and searched for the joy in my life, I was like, actually, there are a lot of joyful things for me right now. I mean, a key one for me is music. I’ve really rediscovered how much I love to listen to music.

I’d sort of, I don’t know why and how I forgot at some point that music is so powerful at shifting my mood or at not just shifting my mood at allowing me to kind of, you know, immerse into a mood. Like I’ve almost sort of been using music as a hack, as an emotional hack to kind of go, okay, you know what, there’s some kind of there’s some grief hovering on the edges for me and music will help draw that out. And there’s actually a joy in expression of grief even for me.

There’s a joy in the moving through of emotion rather than getting stuck with it in my body. Cause I felt like so much has been stuck in my body for the last 18 months. And so using music for, you know, really kind of hacking into emotions of elation, of joy, of wonder.

Yeah. I’ve really been just, you know, discovering kind of different artists I hadn’t listened to much of their work before. And yeah, I’m loving my quiet evenings listening to music.

Lovely. Thank you. The last, I was first approached about the Childish Project for the production in June 22nd of this past year.

And I think, you know, I didn’t have time to get you on, which is why we’re on now, but I’m wondering, is there a production of Childish that people will be able to see coming up? Is there a way that people can experience Childish again? Absolutely. Yeah. I mean, for starters, the actual web series itself.

So it’s four episodes of five minutes each is available online already on my website, which is sunnydrake.com. And then the extended, the experience of having children and teenagers host a watch party of the web series with this, all of this kind of extra content from kids and commentary from kids. Also audience interaction that kids ask the audience via a chat function to type in answers to questions. The next showing of that.

So yes, like you said, we had the Soul Pepper and Oakville showing. We just had a Stratford Festival showing last month. And then in September, we’ve got a Prairie Theatre Exchange in Winnipeg is doing their own showing.

And we’re currently in negotiation with a couple of others for later on in the year as well. So yeah, I’d love people to come and be a part of that and check out. I’m so proud of that full version that has our young people, our children and teens hosting the work.

They are an extraordinary group of seven kids and teens who have been the dramaturges on the work and co-created this actual event, this digital event. And they’re absolutely brilliant. They’re hilarious.

They’re insightful. And yeah, I’d love to invite you all in to experience their awesomeness. Thank you.

Now, about that podcast you mentioned, is there a timeline for when we’ll be able to experience that? 2022. So yeah, we’re just in the kind of figuring out the exact timeline of that. But our young collaborators are raring to go.

So and we’ve got a bunch of the resources together to do it. So 2022. And yeah, definitely looking forward to sharing that with you all.

Awesome. Sunny, thank you so much for this. This has been wonderful.

Thanks, Phil. What a lovely chat and fantastic podcast. Thanks for listening to this episode of Stage Ruby.

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