Scenes from Plays I Never Wrote

Record your album, make your film, open your restaurant, pursue your passion – what’s stopping you? Confronted with this question and unable to finish a script, playwright Katherine grapples with the voice in her head that’s controlling her life. In a race against the clock, Katherine works her way through the detritus of her half-finished plays in search of resolution. Scenes From Plays I Never Wrote is a comedy about what drives us forward, what holds us back, and how to achieve your dreams!

Ayesha Mansur Gonsalves
INSTAGRAM – @lostsouthasian
TWITTER – @ayeshalives

Greta Papageorgiu
INSTAGRAM – @meisnergal
TWITTER – @meisnergal

Brittney A. Filek-Gibson
INSTAGRAM – @bfg85
TWITTER – @bfg85

Full Circle Theatre
INSTAGRAM – @fullcircleTO
TWITTER – @fullcircleTO
FACEBOOK – www.facebook.com/fullcircleTO
WEBSITE – www.fullcircletoronto.com

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

Transcript

Welcome to episode 25 of Stageworthy. I’m your host, Phil Rickaby, and this is a quick reminder that my play, The Commandment, will premiere this July at the Hamilton Fringe Festival in Hamilton, Ontario. If you’re in the area, I hope you’ll come by and see my show or any of the great shows at The Fringe.

You can buy tickets at hamiltonfringe.ca, and you can find out more about my play at thecommandment.ca. On Stageworthy, I interview people who make theatre, actors, directors, playwrights, and more, and talk to them about everything from why they chose the theatre to their work process and anything in between. My guests on this episode are Ayesha Mansur Gonsalves, Greta Papageorgiu, and Brittany Filek-Gibson from the Full Circle Theatre’s Scenes from the Plays I Never Wrote, which is part of the 2016 Toronto Fringe Festival. You can find Stageworthy on Facebook and Twitter at StageworthyPod, and you can find our website at stageworthypodcast.com. If you like what you hear, I hope you’ll subscribe on iTunes or Google Music or whatever podcast app you use and consider leaving a comment or rating.

Once again, let’s have everybody’s name so everybody can hear everybody’s voices. Hi, I’m Greta Papageorgiu. I’m directing this show.

I am Ayesha Mansur Gonsalves, and I am acting in the show. And I am Brittney Filek-Gibson, and I am acting in the show and producing it. Awesome.

Speaking of the show, let’s talk about what the show is. It says goodbye to that, all that. Goodbye to all that.

And I actually wrote it as well, along with directing it. So, you know, oh my God, no, it seems, oh my God, I’m directing two shows. And right now, hence why she’s very confused right now.

I’m barely keeping it together at this point. She’s doing a great job. Yeah, thank you.

Thank you. Oh my gosh. That’s really embarrassing.

So this show that we’re talking about is called… Scenes from Plays I Never Wrote, which I actually wrote, not the other one. The other one, the other one is called Goodbye to All That. And my partner wrote that one.

Can you tell me about what the show is about? This show? Yes. This show. The show that you have your past right here.

I only know about one show. Let’s talk about the show that everybody knows about. Maybe we’ll talk about the other show a little further in.

Yes. It’s called, yes, Scenes from Plays that I Never Wrote. And it’s about a writer who confronts her creative unconscious.

And she wakes up in Bardo State and discovers that she needs to finish a play because she has been writing her whole life and never completed a play. And that’s what the play is about. Okay.

Interesting. And who do the actors play? Well, Brittany plays Catherine, the writer. And Aisha plays Juice, the creative unconscious.

The so-called creative unconscious. Yes, yes. I don’t know.

Do I give away the ending? No, no, no. Okay, yeah. Let’s not give away the ending.

Yeah, yeah. So, yeah, please. Because come, come to the show because it’s going to be exciting.

It’s going to be great. Actually, I’m super thrilled about this script because it’s something that I’ve been wanting to do for a long time. And I have great roles for women, I think.

My litmus test is, is this a role that I would want to play? Because I started out as an actor. And every one of these roles is one that I want to play. So I’m like, I think this is going to be fun.

What, I mean, as a writer, facing, writing a play about a playwright who’s having, you know, has never finished a play, was there any awkwardness to deal with? Oh, yeah, absolutely. Actually, a number of these scenes are actually from plays that I started and never completed. Hence the title.

I should say, producer Brittany should say that as part of Greta’s creative process, I feel like you had the title long before we had much out there as an idea, sort of a jumping off point. When we got into the fringe in the first place, it was sort of like, okay, so we won the lottery. That’s awesome.

Yeah, yeah. Now, what did we do? Did you have a show when, did you have, what did you have when you entered the lottery? A beer. Yeah, no, we had a beer.

Actually, I wasn’t even in town. Everybody has a beer at the end of the line, but when you put in the lottery. This had been an idea in my head that I should just use all the scenes from the plays that I never wrote, but I hadn’t written it yet, and so that happened fairly quickly, I think.

Did you enter with that title? We entered with nothing. I don’t think we’d had a conversation. We hadn’t had this conversation until, like maybe just before the lottery happened, but at that point we were already in it.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. All right.

So. So that was exciting. Yeah.

No, it is exciting. I mean, it’s kind of, what’s great about it is that it provides a deadline, and so for better or for worse, right? You’re on the train. The deadline is a little bit kinder than it used to be, because I can remember when the Fringe Library was in February, which was like, all right, now I’m coming out with a show, and that’s really tight.

Yeah, it is really tight. November is a little nicer. Yeah, oh yeah, totally.

Except that then you totally think to yourself, I’ve got a lot of time. Of course you do, but you don’t. You don’t.

But I think that the part where you think you have a lot of time is part of the process of, even though you may not get any work done in those months, that you think, oh, we’ve got lots of time. You need that time sometimes. You know what I mean? To think it through.

Yeah. It’s there. It’s marinating.

Stuff’s happening. Yeah. Was everybody involved at that time that you submitted, or did you only know that producer Brittany and writer-director Gerda were going to? At the time, that was all that was on the list.

But when I had to sit down and write, I’m in the very fortunate position, because I’m a teacher. I teach Meisner Technique. And as I started writing these things, actors definitely came into my head, and I feel that I started to write for them.

So that was where I started. I also, we ran into each other at a photography exhibit that I was in. Not the photographer.

I was in one of the photos. And Greta and Hugh, Hugh was there, Greta’s partner, and they were telling me how they just, it was just like after you got in the lottery, they’re like, oh, now we have to. And they were kind of like, oh boy.

And I looked at them and I said, well, if you need any actors, as one does, I mean, it’s not like, I mean, I know Greta well enough to say that to her. So I was like, you know, and I was like, no pressure. If it doesn’t fit, hey, you know, I’m open if it happens to be a thing.

Yeah. And it was totally a seed that was planted. So there we go.

That worked out. See, there it goes, actors. You know, just, you got it out there.

You got to put it out there all the time. You never know. And you could be in a fringe show too.

What’s funny is that it’s actually very true. And it’s one of those things that I’m learning during the podcast. And it’s one of the things I’m learning producing my own show is that if you don’t put it out there, it’s not going to happen.

So it’s good to do. I think it’s very interesting that you’re bringing that up because that’s basically what the show is about. It’s anybody, not just artists.

I mean, I think, you know, we’re specifically dealing with, you know, artists. We’re kind of focusing on that. But I think that any person, you know, can relate to what the subject matter of the show because we all know what that’s like to have something that we are not finishing or something that we want to do that we’re not doing.

Or, you know, there’s always, and there’s those, you know, voices in your head telling all kinds of things and distracting you and all this business. Every person knows what that feels like. So I think that that’s what’s so great about this show is that everybody’s going to relate.

Like, people are going to come to the show and it would be, I would imagine, it would be weird if someone didn’t. You know, they are lying. And that was sort of the reason that we entered the fringe in the first place, even before there was a show, is the idea of just doing something.

We wanted to do something and you have to put it out there. Absolutely. Just to take a second, can we talk a little bit about everybody’s theatre background? Like, why, not just like, where did you go to school or if you went to school, but I’m curious about why you chose the theatre or what your earliest experiences of the theatre were, that sort of thing.

That’s what I really want to know about. You got a couple hours? We might look young, but… I know, me and Greta. You fell by our laughs.

The years, the years. I’ll start, because I’ve got a lot to say. So I actually started as a dancer and as a professional dancer first, but I always kind of dabbled in acting, but grew up on the stage, very much so, all my life, as a dancer.

I did a couple of plays just because, like, my friends asked me to be in them and I hadn’t really trained as an actor, but they were like, hey, like, why not? And I liked it and I kind of had a knack and I was enjoying it. But then, you know, dancing was my thing, whatever. I had to quit for, I’m not going to get into that.

And then I went to film school and after I finished film school, because I wanted to be a director, I finished film school and my faculty was like, no, you know, you should really be an actor. And funnily enough, one of my ballet teachers way back when also told me that, so I don’t know why it took me so long to kind of listen to them. But finally after that, I was like, okay, you know what? Let me try.

And I took a bunch of studio classes. I never actually went to theatre school, which is a funny thing. I think that people who have gone to theatre school, I’m generalizing, of course.

I’m sure there’s lots of lovely people out there that don’t think this way. But I have found that breaking into theatre, the theatre world, not having a theatre degree is challenging. So any theatre that I’ve personally done, it’s been very few.

One show was a show that I wrote myself. And it’s sad, because I love to be on stage. It’s actually where I am the most vibrant, I feel.

But I tend to do more film and TV. So Greta, when Greta asked me to do the show and then I read it, I was like, oh my God. Thank you to all the gods and goddesses, because I never get these opportunities.

Number one. And number two, a role like this, I very seldom get an opportunity even to audition for something like this, even if it’s on TV or something. So I don’t know.

I guess that answers your question. But that’s like my history in a brief, brief thing. Because it sounds like you initially, when you made the transition from dancer to director, dancer to film director to actor, that primarily you were thinking about film.

Yes, and I still do. I do a lot of things. I’m an actor, obviously.

But I write as well. And I do film. I do dance on film stuff.

I have a youth group. I also am writing my own web series. I’ve written my own play, as I mentioned earlier.

So I’m kind of like, I use all of the tools that I have to make work, because that’s what I want to do, and that’s how I’d like to live my life. And I don’t know what else I would do if I didn’t do all of those things. And I think being a person that has a multitude of things that they do, we’re not raised in this society or in the world, really, to do many things.

I think it’s changing now. I think younger people now, it’s better to be that way. But when I was younger, it wasn’t.

It was like, pick something, pick something, pick something. And then over the years of me trying really hard to pick something, I ended up picking a bunch of different things just one at a time. And then now here I am, and I’m like, oh, it all makes sense now, and I can use all these things in conjunction, and it’s so cool, you know? It’s really, really cool.

What’s really interesting is that I went to theatre school in a time long, long ago. I graduated in 1993, and at the time, nobody was talking about self-producing. Yeah.

At the time, it was all about go to school, or go to the audition, get the audition, talk to your agent, get the next audition. It was just about working for somebody else. Oh, yeah.

There was never any talk about self-producing. It was a footnote in our business of acting class that there was this thing called fringe. Yeah.

But I find that now, it’s important. Oh, yeah, yeah. It’s so important to be able to make a name for yourself and get seen that you have to do it.

Absolutely. One thing more, when we had auditions, and you realize just how much talent there is out there, and so, because the market is getting oversaturated, even teachers, they’re saying they’re graduating 9,000 teachers for 4,000 jobs, or whatever the number was. And the same thing is going on with acting.

All these actors graduate. I mean, I certainly suffered from this when I graduated. I felt entitled to have a job, to have work in this industry that you’ve trained for, and no one knows you anything.

So, that’s how you set yourself up to self-produce, self-produce, put your name out there. And become a multi-faceted, multi-disciplinary person, right? It’s actually, I think, so much easier now with there are so many small theatres popping up, like the Red Sandcastle, the Storefront Pier, these really independent theatres, so that it’s now a little more affordable to produce a show than it was when you had to rent Theatre Asmarai, or Factory, or something like that. So, it’s a little bit easier.

That said, I still think it’s pretty expensive. You know, like, I don’t know what the rents are, but I’ve heard various totals. But, like, part of the problem with what’s going on in Toronto is that people aren’t really coming out to see the shows.

Not in a big way. It’s really, like, fooboo, bias, what do you call it? For us, bias. No, no, it’s true.

It’s true. But I think that’s a Toronto thing. I think that it is a very much a Toronto thing.

I think that, you know, I actually think that there’s, you’re right, that people aren’t really going to see it. Fringe is its own thing. There’s a little focus on that.

But, generally, people are not going to see that independent theatre, which is why some of the mid-sized, the independent theatres are working, and have to work so hard. But I sometimes think that there needs to be some way of, there needs to be an umbrella. Like, in a fringe tradition, there’s, like, I know Montreal, all the fringe festivals that I perform in, there’s sort of like, there’s audience enough for everyone.

And I think there’s audience enough for everybody in most cities, and in Toronto, too. We start to find a way to get the word out. Absolutely.

Because you have your audience, and I have my audience, and if we were to combine into one super-powered, mega-group of audience, we would be able to get more people out. Absolutely. But we hold on to our audiences cautiously.

Yeah. That’s part of it. I mean, I think also, I don’t know, but this is… Wait, what are you talking about? I mean, yeah, we’re talking about theatre.

This is where the conversation Yeah, no, but I mean, I feel the funding, the way the funding system works, it’s also very much about segregating and not joining the audiences together. It’s like, I would like to see the possibility of what Toronto could be on stage. And right now, that’s not there.

I mean, and at least a portion of it should be like, hey, you know, we do live in this multicultural, fascinating city, and yet, I don’t see it reflected on my audience in the theatre. And, you know… And it doesn’t make any sense. It’s very strange.

It is very, very strange. Because, like you said, I mean, I grew up here, you know, and if I think about just even my circle of friends, you know what I mean? Like, we’re from all over the place. And, you know, when I’m on the bus and I see, like, kids leaving school and they’re, like, totally, you know, mishmash, whoever’s from wherever, and that’s the thing that’s so beautiful about our city.

And we never see it on stage. It should be something that we use, you know, at least to our advantage. Yeah.

So, if I can speak to my theatre history… So, I’m from Toronto, originally, but I lived in the States for most of my young adulthood, my teenage years and my young adulthood, and went to theatre school. I did go to theatre school. I had one of those.

But I still love you, Aisha. Oh, thanks. But I went to theatre school in the States, not here in Toronto, and then I moved back to Toronto, which I… People find this really strange, but by choice, because I could have stayed in the U.S. and opted not to for a whole variety of reasons, many of which have nothing to do with the theatre and most of which have everything to do with, you know, politics and the… Oh, yeah.

But that’s another podcast. So, I came back to Toronto not knowing anybody, like, not having a group of friends who I had gone to theatre school with or who were creating or who were doing anything in the city. And social media, at that point, wasn’t where it is now.

Not even by a long shot. And it wasn’t that long ago. I guess I’d been back in Toronto for, like, seven or eight years.

Me too. Yeah. So, I got here and, like, very much wanted to create theatre and people kept… I was going to auditions for things and things that I wasn’t interested in that I really didn’t want to do.

But I was going to auditions because that was what I was taught at theatre school was that you’re supposed to go to auditions. And I didn’t like any of it. And I remember I had a really brilliant, like, professor in theatre school who, you know, we were having the conversation about, like, what do you want to do with your life? Which usually makes me want to cry.

And I said that I really wanted to do theatre. And he told me very brilliantly that it’s really hard to make a living in theatre. But you can make a life in theatre.

And so that was my takeaway that I brought to Toronto. And then I got here and I didn’t know anybody. And it was very hard to find ways into that community.

So, I think, like, part of why we don’t see the audiences… Like, we don’t see the audiences that reflect the cultural diversity or the people in Toronto because we don’t see it on stage as well because there’s these segmented groups or siloized groups that are making theatre and it’s everybody who’s already friends with everybody else. So, to bring it back to our friend show a little bit, like, the name… You know, you enter the fringe lottery and you have to come up with a company name, which is also really stressful. And so, like, I do have this full circle because when I came back and I didn’t know anybody and there were all these things going on, everybody was like, you have to create your own work, you have to create your own work.

And I was like, what does that mean? Because I’m an actor and, like, in my personal philosophy of it, like, theatre is a team sport. Absolutely. You can’t make it by yourself in a vacuum.

You need other people and I don’t know anybody. So, like, what do you mean make your own work? And then I actually, because I was an early adopter of, like, Twitter and blogs and things like that, ended up being the stage manager for a fringe show that Greta was in. Yeah.

See, I don’t know this story. It’s just how Greta and I met and, like, the community sort of built out from there. But I think, like, that’s… And, I mean, here I am years later sort of perpetuating the thing that I’m doing that I’m crazy and that I’m making theatre with friends but I’ve made new friends and, hopefully, it continues to expand outwards because I think it does become a for us, by us and who is us.

Well, and I think that what’s interesting because you just said, okay, you’re making theatre with friends but then you also made new friends. Yeah. Me.

She’s pointing at me. You can’t see this right now. But, yes, so you made a new friend and I’ve got a whole other circle.

So, it’s, like, it grows exponentially, right, as you bring those new people together. You know what I mean? Because I felt the same way as you because I was in New York, you know, also and I came back, we came back, like, I think, the same year which is, I didn’t know until right now. It’s so weird.

But, you know, I know what you mean. Like, it’s really hard to plug in when you’re just, like, like, how do I get into this closed circle? And I don’t think that it’s intentionally No, no, no. Of course not.

Absolutely. And I think it’s amazing that those communities exist because, like, I love, you know, I love my theatre school friends still, you know, when we’re not in the same place. But it’s how do you open that up to other people, whatever that means, right? Whether it’s other people, culturally other people that you just don’t know, like, other people who didn’t go to theatre school who have an interest.

You know, all of these sort of how do we bring everybody together and say, like, that’s something that, like, fundamentally about theatre that I appreciate. I mean, I can put my finger on what the problem is. Oh, do.

Yeah, no, because I think I mean, because I think that it’s just really hard to produce these things. Like, it’s not all my, like, asking people to do a lot. And yes, like, in an ideal world, like, how wonderful to be able to invite new people all the time.

But, like, right now, I’m coordinating schedules with, like, you know, 11 different actors and stage managers and all this stuff. And you need people that you know are solid there. And because it’s, like, and I think that’s one of the reasons why this situation has grown.

It certainly does. But, you know, I also think, and I’ve fallen victim to this a lot, is that I’ve had plenty of opportunity to go see shows that have people I don’t know in them. Yeah.

And I have not taken, if I’m completely honest. Yeah, no, you’re right. I’ve let shows pass by because I didn’t know somebody in that cast.

But what could I have learned if I didn’t say that We are all guilty. You know, it’s a collective, I mean, this is like a microcosm of the entire world. This is a problem.

Is that, you know what I mean? Like, yes, yes. But I will say, from my perspective, being, like, not only knowing Greta, really, you know, in this situation and saying and putting myself out there. But, you know, Greta cast me.

I’m a brown woman. You know what I mean? I’m almost 40. You know, there’s not a hell of a lot out there, you know, at this point in time for me.

And so the fact that Greta didn’t think about, oh, this, she, Greta didn’t have any kind of, like, blinders on in terms of, like, well, you, you know what I mean? Like, there wasn’t like, oh, but, you know, it wasn’t like that. Like, you asked me because you were like, yeah, you could do, this is good for you. You know what I mean? This would be a good role for, like, you know what I mean? Purely because of that.

And I think that in terms of at least, at the very least, when we talk about the multiculturalism of Toronto and engaging more actors and people like that, in that way, I think being able and so beautiful because it’s so rare in my experience, to interact with a person that is not at all thinking about that, who is not going, like, it’s not a, it’s not a factor. And I think that’s the most important thing, at least for me, of course for me, but, you know, to change the way it looks, you know? We can’t think about it that way. We’ve got to be like, this is a person.

Which is also what I love about the show that I wrote, is that it’s, you know, number one, doesn’t take that into consideration, but also, like, it’s a story where, and there’s four characters, and three of those characters happen to be women. Yeah. But it’s not a play about us being women.

That’s right. It’s a play about a bunch of people, and three of us happen to be women. That’s right.

Yeah. Absolutely. Which I think is something that we also don’t get to see.

That’s right. Absolutely. It’s very true.

We get to see, if you look at what so many of the theatres are, and this is the, I see it on Twitter, it’s conversations that I’m following all the time, people talking about not just diversity on stage, but more women playwrights, and more women on the stages. Mm-hmm. And again, we don’t see it enough.

Yeah. So it’s great that we’re seeing a play that’s not, that has a lot of women in it, but is also, you know, about people. It’s just like, you know, because women are people.

Of course. It’s so simple, right? It’s so ridiculous. How often is it like, oh, no, no, no, no.

It’s a girl play. It’s a girl play. Or prefacing an artist with female artist.

Or, you know, oh, she’s a woman director. Why does that happen? It’s the most ridiculous thing. It’s like, no, and I just, I’m a director.

Yes, I am also a woman, but you don’t go, oh, this is the best male director. No, no, no. It’s true.

You don’t. You say, this is the best director. Oh, and she’s a great female director.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, it’s all so interesting. A, because definitely in the back of my mind, well, I’ve been, I have been writing for on and off for years.

And then, you know, obviously the Bechdel test and the idea of like, how do you create scenes that, you know, where women are just talking about a guy. And that is very important to me. I’ve always wanted to see the epic female stage fight.

I never get to see that. Yes, yes. I never get to see that, which is why, well, we can talk about it later because I’m like my, my other point, which is, you know, that was something I was thinking about.

And then when I, like, I know that it’s not always in my power, but the kind of theatre that I want to create is one that could be that potential utopia of Toronto. And I think what I like about these characters, and obviously it’s not possible all the time, but I think it could be played by a wide age range. Oh, yeah.

You know, it doesn’t matter what race you are. and so that was something that I’m really pleased with in the show. Back to the stage fight.

Yeah. I mean, just because, you know, this is one of the things, like, why write a play? Like, why write a play? Do we need another play? You know, that is one of the questions. That is one of the questions.

You know, why do we do this thing? And like, why for me is that I’m going to get to see things that I have never seen on stage before that I’ve wanted to see. Yeah. And so one of those things is a really big female stage fight that lasts for a really long time and it’s really good.

And Louisa Zhu is an amazing fight choreographer. so there you go. She taught me how to spit properly.

Yeah. So it’s really entertaining to watch. Yeah.

And then, you know, to see these scenes where it’s not about, they’re not two women talking about a man. They’re not, you know, and at the same time, there is still a male character and it’s not, it’s not, We all seem to be on equal footing. That’s what’s so lovely.

That’s what it is. Everyone is on equal footing and no one is defined by their relationship with, you know, a member of the opposite sex or even a member of the same sex. Or even their own relationship with their own sex.

Like, it’s not an issue. It’s a non-issue. Yeah.

But I think it’s really interesting that that’s even a thing that we have to try to do because, not that you had to, you specifically, but that we have something like the Bechdel test, right? Yeah. Where you’re like, well, if we’re just writing stories from life, Yeah. I would say that probably 99% of my day, I spend not talking about a guy.

Yeah. So, so why is it that we have to, like, it’s so crazy. It’s a challenging notion that women are people.

Yeah. Yeah. I know! Let’s think about the fact that if the Bechdel test was initially written or it was about movies.

Yes, yes, yes. And movies are Well, yeah. financed largely by old white dudes Yeah, you’re right.

who want to see old other white dudes on stage Yeah. or on film and where their fantasy of women is somebody who supports the white dude. Absolutely.

So, it comes from, you know, No, you’re right. Absolutely. For sure.

And, but, Yeah, yeah, yeah. you are correct Yeah. that you spend more of your day not talking about a guy than you do talking about a guy and we should see that on the stage.

It’s, Yeah. It’s, it’s unbelievable actually. Yeah.

It’s actually that we have, we have this conversation and we’re like, yeah, that’s actually a thing. Yeah. Yeah.

You know? No, no, no. Absolutely. That’s it.

That’s it. But all that can be done at this point is that for more women to write. That’s right.

For more women to direct. I mean, everybody is having this conversation. I just hope that it leads to some action.

Yes. Because, Yes, yes, yes. Because I was in Quebec and I went to a conference in Montreal and it was, you know, a panel of the grand dames of the Quebecois theatre and like, and they’re saying the same thing, you know, they’re, they’re like, where are the young female directors? Where are the young female playwrights? I mean, they were talking about certain luminaries that they have right now.

Yeah. But it’s the same shit everywhere, you know? Well, and exactly. I was just talking to a gentleman today, actually, before coming to rehearsal in the park.

I was walking my dog. But no, we had a really interesting conversation because it’s like you can, you know, you can sit and you can talk about it and complain about it and be like, oh, I wish I had this job or I wish, why can’t I find a job like that or why, all these other, you can, and many, many people sit in that place and I get it, I’ve been there, but at some point you have to go, okay, I need to take action. Yeah.

I need to do something about that. Whether that means you support a person if you can’t yourself maybe do it, maybe you just can, how do I support this person I know or how can I find a way to support something being made or in any way that you can or you make it yourself or you write it or you do whatever and it goes same with, you know, females and also with ethnic people, people who are from different backgrounds and who look different, different, whatever that means. You know what I mean? Not different, but like, you know what I’m saying.

Yes. Non-white, I suppose is what I’m saying, but at this point it should be, we should be working to level that playing field. I don’t expect somebody to write my story.

I don’t. I had to get to that point where I went, oh, I’m not auditioning for the things that I want to, the stories I want to see. Well, oh, that’s because I can’t expect people who are not coming from my perspective to write that story.

You have to do what you’re saying. You have to do. You do.

You’ve got to tell your story. That’s it. You know, how can I sit here and wait for other people? No, we’ve gotten, I started with, Oh yeah.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. We totally went way off. I do, I mean, we’re talking about some really great stuff, but I want to make sure that everybody gets time to talk about their story and we will, I’m sure we’ll go off track when we get to talk about other people’s stories.

yeah. Because, yeah, no, everybody’s better than that and I love it. I love it.

Brittany, we heard a little bit about your, a little bit about your story. So I wanted to go a little bit more into that. So you were, you talked about being in the U.S. Yeah.

For theatre school. Yeah. Can we go a little bit behind before that and talk a little bit about why theatre? Okay.

And also, what took you to the U.S.? Oh, we’ll start with the second one. Okay. I ended up in the U.S. when I was nine because of my parents and my mom’s job and they decided to move to the U.S. essentially because she’s a doctor and it turns out that private health care makes more money.

Uh, so that is how I ended up in the U.S. Uh, and I think that, uh, my participation in theatre was perhaps sort of a reaction to that. I was always a kid in class who was loud and had a lot of personality. I’ve always been opinionated and I’ve always been outspoken so I feel like there were people who saw this as an opportunity to like channel that and control it a little bit and literally I actually think that the first, I was Mother Goose of all things in a, in a play in like grade four that I swear I ended up in that role because I was louder than everybody else and so I could make myself heard.

Uh, so that was sort of how it started and I also, you know, took dance as a kid so I was comfortable being on stage and comfortable being in front of people and then it sort of exploded from there. I fortunately landed in, I mean, I didn’t feel this way at the time, uh, but fortunately landed in a place in Michigan that was a smaller community which I wasn’t thrilled about but a smaller community that had a lot of, uh, investment in amateur theatre. We had a really strong community theatre tradition and a really strong uh, tradition of including young people in that and having shows directed by young people for young people.

All of those kinds of things as well as all of our sort of schools had strong, fairly strong theatre programs. So, that’s how I kind of got sucked in and then fell in love with it, I guess. Was it, was it by sort of being like thrust into theatre that you started to fall in love with it or was it before then? I think it was, I mean, I was drawn to it before then in that I really, like, through dance, I guess, in that I really loved, um, like I loved just to be on stage and I loved expressing myself but also I used to go when I, when we did still live in Toronto, we went to the opera and to the ballet and I don’t actually think I ever saw like a, a straight play until I was considerably older um, but I was always fascinated by sort of watching that and watching these sort of worlds be developed and then told and I guess I really liked the storytelling aspect of it.

Like, that’s certainly something even now that still draws me to theatre is the storytelling part of it. Um, so yeah, I feel like I, I kind of, I was thrust into it but I was open to the discovery of it. When did you know it was something that you were, that you wanted to do like for your career? I feel like it was around that like that sort of, uh, grade eight, nine, had a moment when everyone’s like, pick something, pick something.

Just terrible. So young. And like in hindsight because I also, you know, I, I’m in theatre now but I very much have a day job and my life has taken many different directions.

Yep. But it was sort of that moment of, um, of pick something and it was sort of the only thing that I, without sounding like a jerk, like I was good at lots of things but I didn’t like doing a lot of them. And so just being good at something wasn’t enough.

I really loved doing it. Um, and so that was sort of my moment of like, I couldn’t imagine doing something else so I was like, okay, well I guess this is a thing. And I was fortunate to have a, a really strong group of friends who were also all a lot older than me who had made similar choices and so I had a lot of really good, I was not pointing at you guys, right? But like if the shoe fit, I saw it, I saw it.

I saw your great role models, alright. No, I was fortunate to watch a lot of people derby fly and to feel like it was a possibility and then to sort of carry that forward. You mentioned being somebody who does theatre and who also has a day job.

Yeah. Somebody in that position. Um, I’m wondering because when I got a day job, Yeah.

I had given up the theatre. I was like, that’s it, fuck it, I’m done. So that was my impetus for like getting that office type job.

Of course, that didn’t hold. It never does. But there was for a while a bit of guilt about selling out, quote unquote.

For sure. Did you, did you find the same thing when you got the office job? I think, I think it was very much the same experience. It sort of started out as a like, I don’t love auditioning and I don’t love auditioning for things that I don’t really want to do.

And I’m auditioning for things I don’t really want to do. I’m not necessarily getting stuff and I don’t have any money. Yeah.

So now I just have like a huge anxiety attack. Yeah. So that sort of led me back to some of the other things that I was good at doing and became you know a pathway to having a career.

And then it was a little bit especially because I went to theatre school and had this concept of like you graduate, you go, you go audition, you get a job, you’ve done this thing. Had a lot of and like I went to a theatre school that you know I’ll be paying for my theatre school experience for a really long time. So I did feel kind of guilty about not so much about selling out but about not making use of my education.

I’m talking about self-producing and self-improvement. I’m talking about a lot more exposure to the concept of producing or some of the groups that we’re looking at you know aspects of theatre beyond the acting probably got a lot more of that. Whereas those of us who I think were more focused on acting like that’s the pathway.

You go, you audition, whatever. Which is unfortunate and like totally to the detriment of other possibilities. I sort of follow the same path as you because I got the office job but when I came back to the theatre I wasn’t interested in auditioning.

I just wanted to make my own show. And that’s totally where I find myself now. Partly because there is a small part of me that also likes my office job because it was important to me to do something if I was going to have a day job to do something that I didn’t hate.

Yes. Yes. And ideally something that had to do with the arts in some capacity.

You’re very fortunate. Yeah, I know. Totally.

Most of us, I mean I don’t hate my job but it’s not in the arts. And that sort of sometimes pains me. Well, and I sometimes think to myself like maybe I should let go of the arts.

I could make more money. There is that. But I hold on to it because, you know, I always like the idea of doing something that I believe in.

And if another opportunity that I believed in came up I might go in that direction as well. But I seem firmly worried in the not-for-profit world. Grand Noble.

What was your why theatre? Why? Okay, listen. I have I like I have a diary from when I was six years old where I’m like I’m going to be an actress. Like so like I like over dramatic.

You know, like I’m going to climb the ladder. I couldn’t believe what I found and I was like laughing and my mother is like, you know, she’s like I’m half Norwegian, half Greek and my mother’s always like, oh, it’s the Greek side of you. Here’s the tragedy.

You know, like, you know, like there’s so I always knew and I was always like I grew up in Toronto and like participated like Young People’s Theatre, the Terragon Spring Training. I mean, I did all this stuff and then I went to university to study theatre studies because I really wanted to go to Montreal. I thought that was like the bee’s knees.

And there I met the woman who became my mentor and Jacqueline McClintock and I’d study Meisner technique with her and I like I was kind of like entered into this world where like, you know, all these professional actors and they were like handsome and gorgeous and like amazing. And I was like 18 and didn’t know like I was like in heaven, right? So and McGill, even though it doesn’t have like a conservatory program has a like a really great extracurricular theatre thing. So I was I directed shows.

I was in tons of shows. They would bring in professional artists like actually last week or two weeks ago. I met up with a director Brian McDonald who gave me notes on my play and like, you know, like really set me up for like it’s all of those people who are in the extracurricular world not all of them but a lot of them now have, you know, kind of careers in theatre or some aspect of the arts.

and then anyway, I know you didn’t want to ask about my school. Anyway, I went to New York and then yeah, you know it’s kind of hard but yeah, yeah. But I went to New York and I studied at the Neighborhood Playhouse with Meissner Technique and came back and I actually started self-producing.

I was doing like film and television but then I kind of like went back and forth. I don’t know. Like I ended up here.

I’m curious Yeah. about the six-year-old girl Yeah. writing in her diary I know, I know.

that she wants to be an actor. Yeah. Did how did that six-year-old girl even have the concept of being an actor? I know.

It’s kind of funny. My mother is definitely like into the arts. Like I went to plays.

I did that. I know that my the first production that I ever went to go and see. I mean aside from I guess some kid shows it was like much ado but nothing.

Where did you see that? Love it. In Long Island. Okay.

Yeah. I don’t know. Weirdly Yeah.

I don’t know. I mean I was pretty young. I don’t remember.

But yeah. So it’s you know it’s always been there. I but you know this it’s really interesting to hear about the struggle of just like I don’t know getting by like I feel like somewhere along the way I lost a few years just trying to make money.

Oh for sure. You know like Yeah. I think everywhere.

Yeah. And you have to find you know how like in this business when you know you were taught that you’re just your career is going to be auditioning performing and or work as a waiter in between. Yeah.

And I’m a terrible waiter. I’m a terrible I knew that I could never be a waiter. I only like in I was one for two weeks and thankfully like I was first of all I was terrible.

I was terrible for so many reasons but like I had to do 6 a.m. to like 12 p.m. shift so that I could rehearse this play that I was self-producing with my friend and so I did that for about two weeks and like I couldn’t remember anything and then I actually auditioned for the part of a waitress got that and that was enough to pay my rent for a month. Whatever it is. Yeah.

You actually not have to really be a waitress. I know that’s it. So I was like you know this is perfect but you know it didn’t continue after that and I was back to being broke.

Yeah. But I think it’s always that cycle as artist of unless you get that job like unless there’s a job because I feel like if I was going to get a job it would have to be like I would have to love it in some way because I couldn’t but I think it’s it’s been a process of trying to manage different streams of income. You know what I mean? It’s like I make income from so many different places and it’s really about juggling those balls and kind of understanding how to get your cash flow right because I always feel like it’s a cash flow issue.

It’s not necessarily a making money issue. It’s more that okay I did this job but I’m not going to get paid for a month and then being able to navigate that and understand how that ebb and flow works you know with your many different streams. I feel like that’s like most people in the arts that’s kind of that’s the big thing what you got to figure out.

And I feel like the flip challenge to having a day job and especially if it’s a day job that you do happen to like or enjoy in some respect is sometimes remembering that it’s supposed to be a day job and not letting it own your whole life. I went through a period of time where my job started to take over and it was like oh they want to promote you they want to promote you they’re like oh I could be making so much more money then you’re not gonna not don’t have this anymore. Yeah.

Yeah. And it was for me it was sort of like I can’t I couldn’t find ways to be creative because I was worried about money all the time which is why not oh yeah but then I was worried about the day job so I wasn’t being creative and so that was a good sign to me that I needed a different day job and then it’s sort of about it’s like very much about striking that ballot. Yeah.

Absolutely. And continuing to remind yourself to strike that balance because it doesn’t you know that’s the ebb and flow I think of the day job world Yeah. Is keeping keeping both of those things in check.

In check yeah and also you know keeping at it till you find what that is like you know you’ve had a different job and then you found a luckily you found another job but like being able to be open to that as well you know. And I also think one of the challenges is you can’t be in the arts and not care about it. Yeah.

And so like and I think that that also transfers so like I find I have a hard time doing anything without caring about it. And as soon as I sort of kind it it’s very easy for it to become sort of engrossing. It’s funny how as well generally in the arts we taught ourselves that to do something we have to love it because that’s why we’re in the arts and so it’s so true that you have to do other things So true.

I know I have a friend who is an accountant And you know what’s interesting is that he doesn’t ask that his job provides him anything more than just you know paying the bills and allowing him to do what he wants with the rest of his life right? And yet somehow in the arts we demand that we It’s so true that I never thought of it that way that is so true like who who says most people they’re doing a job so that they can then go and have a great time or they’re going to then go and have a vacation It was awesome I had a fucking vacation You know? It’s funny though because I actually think there’s a lot of people who feel the same way that might not be in the arts Yeah Because I mean my girlfriend is a career coach and she talks to people all the time and hate their job and teaches them how to find a job and they want it You know? It’s not uncommon but I think that in the arts we do it more Yeah But I mean it’s not a question of hate it’s just not asking that you love it that your job gives you even like you was saying earlier You can’t ask that your job fulfills you Right That can’t be the thing in your life that fulfills you and I think like something that I struggled with when I went to theatre school was you know in high school theatre was what I did that I loved and like that was my you know hobby for better or worse and then I got to theatre school and all of a sudden it was my job Yeah and then how do I find something that’s very different I’ll have to find another outlet so that I can remain you know a relatively relatively sane person Did you find that in theatre school? Because I didn’t I don’t know that I found it in theatre school like I think Yeah I think it took me it took me considerably longer but I had some awareness about it in theatre school that I was like I need something else Oh my God Yeah so that I don’t lose my mind It’s so it’s that oh my gosh this is really funny because you know you think these things you don’t know that other people are thinking I’m just having one of those moments It’s just one of the advantages of doing this podcast is I find out and you’re like oh yay okay yeah yeah exactly it’s very oh it’s very very nice but it’s interesting because I always said this about dancing because people are like oh you know you know why didn’t you whatever why didn’t I go further I was a professional dancer but my body was shot so I actually couldn’t but along with that I also knew at a fairly young age I mean dancing is a young profession but probably around 20 21 I have my own dance company but I knew that my brain wasn’t the same as the dancers I knew who were incredibly amazing and successful and could go and audition and do all and be really good at it and it’s not just about I think the same goes for with acting it’s not just about your talent your ability like all those things you have to have a certain mindset and I understood from a relatively young age that my brain didn’t operate in the same way like I didn’t want to think about dance all the time I didn’t want to live it breathe it 24 hours a day I didn’t I wanted to go and do it and then talk about something else and do something else and the dancers I knew when I was training weren’t like that and I was like oh I need something else it was this moment of I can’t just be this one person another gem from theatre I had so many great poll credits I should be a publicist for NYU another great piece of wisdom was when you’re making a decision and this came in the business of acting I was like always err on the side of your life yeah good advice that’s really good advice that is good advice which is easier said than done sure that’s the kind of thing where like it’s also like those life experiences and that part of your brain that doesn’t want to think about dance all the time those are what make you an interesting artist yeah yeah at this point right now I feel publicity and getting the word out there is the biggest challenge for me because I feel very confident in my actors I’m living out my own dreams seeing this show like I know I know I know that I’m going to be sitting in the audience laughing and enjoying myself so you know there we go you know but I would like people to come to the show and we haven’t hired a publicist so you know that’s that’s my biggest challenge I mean I feel so lucky that like people just they come out of the woodwork to help you to do things Greta is also really good at building community oh am I she started teaching acting acting in her living room which is where we’re sitting and also did like a playwriting group in her living room and got people asking so Greta has this magic ability magical do you have a do you have a publicity plan and what is your what is your plan well I should I were talking about going around and splitting up putting out posters yeah that was one thing you know we’ve sent a few emails I started a twitter account which was good I mean Mooney on theatre said they come and intermission mag likes my tweets and so and what about sending a press release obviously you’ve got all that stuff yeah going um like I’ve I’ve done some fringe festivals myself from Montreal Toronto Winnipeg Edmonton Calgary and I cannot stress word of mouth and two people like if if you if I didn’t talk to people in line they were not coming yeah in in the lineup okay I can do that absolutely yeah do you know generals never I have yes watch him yeah because he will not stop really he will walk from venue to venue and talk to him I can do that I can do that you can do that do it all together yeah that’s better yeah I think I can do that I know you can do that I think I know you can do that I think I should be do that yeah I should do that yeah you need to come to the show great show should be prepared that’s a really good idea advice thank you I think we’re all just well I don’t know I’m on your team over here yeah I also feel very you know how do we yeah like this big foggy ball of stuff I don’t know how to navigate. Yeah, I mean, for me, like, it’s been the whole process up to this point. And every whatever, whatever piece of it we’re on in the moment seems like the most daunting part.

And then we check it off. And we move on to the next thing. Yeah.

So and I, I likewise have faith in the team. So I feel like it’s all it’s all Yeah, but I think like, I will say, just because writing the show and all of that and just getting ourselves sort of organized, all of that, like pre production work that we’re now able to fall back on a little bit now that we’ve started rehearsing in in depth. Like all of that was a lot to to make it through.

Yeah. What venue are you guys in at the Toronto? Peter Paz Mirai in the main space. Yeah.

What’s your opening day? June 30. Oh, what? No, it’s a good day. I can’t go.

That’s what I was feeling. I’m counting on you. Phil, Phil 815.

Yeah, that’s a great slot. Right. That is a great opening night.

I remind everybody that like the next day is a stock holiday. So like you can sleep in if you’re, you know, perhaps over served at the beer. Yeah, yeah, that’s very important.

And I can’t do mind if I just plug the other show because it’s okay. But I just so you know, this fascinating exploration of World War One and Dadaism is happening at 10pm at Paz Mirai main space. Just one show after another.

So I’ll be directing my first full length shows and they are premiering one after the other. I know it’s called Goodbye to All That. It’s it’s pretty exciting.

It’s not it’s not at all. I asked my mother if she would watch both shows and she said well I sat through Wagner and so eight hours of that I can sit through anything. I think your only option is to take that as some kind of competition.

That’s amazing. We’ll see. We’ll see.

I’m excited to see that show. I’m excited to finish our show and get my ass in the stand. That is good.

I’m excited to be able to finish the show and go straight into it. How exciting is that? And then and then it’s a staff holiday the next day. So we after the two shows we can be like.

You would have earned it. Yes. I’m excited for that.

Holy bejeebers. I put the easiest job in this whole crew over here. Why is that? How do you say? Because I just have to come and act and leave.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I was like, well, that’s I mean, other than I mean, some promotion, I get that. But like in terms of I mean, honestly, you guys are both you have a lot of hats.

I have I have very few hats. That’s all I’m saying. But you wear them very well.

Oh, thanks. This is great, you guys. I’m sorry, but we’re basically out of time.

This is an amazing conversation. Thank you so much. Thank you.