412. Phil Rickaby: Solo

This week on Stageworthy, host Phil Rickaby presents a solo episode. With the Toronto Fringe Festival on the horizon and multiple episodes currently in production, Phil takes a moment to reflect on the state of Canadian theatre, the importance of building audiences, and the challenges facing the industry today.

In a passionate and thought-provoking monologue, he explores the need for better marketing in theatre, the limitations of current outreach strategies, and the urgency of cultivating a theatre-going audience that extends beyond industry insiders. Phil also shares his frustrations with streamer platforms and their limited contributions to Canadian content, as well as his deep belief in the value of Canadian stories.

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Transcript

I’m Phil Rickaby and I’m the host and producer of this podcast. If this is your first time here and you’re watching on YouTube, make sure that you like this episode and hit the subscribe button and the little bell icon. That way, every time I put out a new episode, you’ll get notified and you’ll never miss one.

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I’m going to talk a little bit about this episode, this is going to be a little bit different. When I was talking about restarting this podcast, one of the things that I wanted to make sure that I didn’t do was burn myself out. And one of the things that that used to burn me out, or one of the things that used to really stress me out was those instances where I didn’t have a guest, I made a commitment to be a weekly podcast.

And so I, when there was a chance that wouldn’t take place, I would really stress about it. I often had at least six weeks of podcast guests in the bank so that that didn’t happen. But every so often, I would run out of episodes.

And then I would have this mad scramble. And I would end up recording a lot of podcasts in the week. And that’s one of the things that contributed to me needing to step back for a while.

And so that to say, I don’t have a guest this week. I am in the middle of preparing a bunch of episodes for the Toronto Fringe, and I didn’t want to take away from that because Fringe is such a mad wild time of year that I wanted to make sure that I gave as much attention as possible to that. I’m putting together a bunch of episodes, smaller interviews in full episode form.

So about four guests per episode who are going to pitch their show and talk a little bit with me about their show. And that’s that actually takes quite a bit of work. I don’t want to take away from that while also trying to fill this episode slot.

So there’s a bunch of stuff that’s coming up. But this episode is just going to be me talking to you. And hopefully you like what I have to say.

If you don’t like what I have to say, let me know. I don’t mind that either. But before I get to that, let me mention my Patreon.

I can’t do this podcast without the people who’ve chosen to back me on Patreon. Without them, I wouldn’t be able to do this show. And those are people who’ve made sure that I’m able to afford to do what I’m doing.

And I’m just covering costs. We’re not I’m not covering my own work. I’m just covering the cost of editing software, hosting software.

And that’s basically it. So all of the work that I put in on my own time, I’m not compensated for at all. One of the things I’m also having to step back from is is having transcripts.

And I read that really pains me. I love having transcripts with my episodes. I feel like that is a hugely important portion of of the podcast.

But it actually takes so much work to get transcriptions and fix them because a lot of the transcription services that are free don’t transcribe very well. So there’s a lot of work that has to go into doing that. And so in order to make sure that I’m, again, not burning myself out, I’m stepping back from that.

There are services that cost a bit more. And so to be able to to use those, I would need more backers. Each of the services that I’m looking at are twenty dollars US per month.

If you wanted to do that, if you wanted to help me out, go to Patreon.com/Stageworthy and back this podcast, become a patron. There’s only really two levels. There’s the seven dollars Canadian level, which is is the standard one.

There’s a twenty dollar one. But I just need a few people at seven dollars to really cover the cost of transcription, which, again, it’s a tool that is is is great for people who are deaf or hard of hearing and also great just for people to follow along and help people to search the podcast as well. So if you want to do that, remember Patreon.com/Stageworthy to become a patron.

And now here’s me. So this week, I was listening to the commotion podcast on CBC with Alamein Abdul-Bakhmoud, and they were talking about CanCon and the CRTC’s hearings to try to update and change rules around CanCon, just make sure that everything is updated. And.

One of the things that struck me about that, aside from the fact that. It’s no secret that CanCon and the well, the Canadian content rules are so important, especially when you consider that we are a nation. Sleeping beside the as Pierre Elliott Trudeau said, it’s like being a mouse sleeping next to an elephant, things might be fine, but you never know when the elephant’s going to roll over.

And culturally, that’s the US. And one of the things that the CRTC has been talking about is the fact that. Streamers.

Are you know, they are broadcasting for want of a better word, they’re streaming into Canada and they don’t pay into CanCon, they don’t pay into that in the same way that every other broadcaster in Canada does. They say that they are they’re doing enough because they’re they’re making work in Canada. And.

One of the things that bothers me about that is sure, they’re making some work, but they’re not really contributing, they’re hiring our crews who are incredible and very talented, they’re hiring bit parts, they’re hiring background actors from here. But one of the things that always strikes me about an American show that is filmed in Canada, is that for the most part, it is almost impossible to find anyone from Canada, speaking any lines other than other than a couple there, there are exceptions, but for the most part, you’ll find a TV show or a movie that’s shot in Canada. And almost every role that is of any significance is, is an American, and Canadians play big part.

So they’re always in the background, and they only have maybe a couple of lights. And the thing that bothers me about this is to say that they contribute when they don’t hire actors, they don’t hire they don’t hire actors for significant roles. They’re not hiring writers for for any significant part.

They don’t, they’re not really hiring Canadian showrunners. They’re just treating Canadian talent as day players. And the thing that gets me is a few years ago, I remember, Netflix put out a call in Canada and said, we want to hear from Canadians, we want to hear pitches from Canadians, so that we can create some work based in Canada, some Canadian work.

And pretty much everybody who has any kind of writing background, made a submission. And so many people made made submissions, so many talented people made submissions to Netflix, and Netflix took all of those and did nothing. So Netflix took in all of these things, got everybody excited and did nothing with any of them.

And I often wonder, and I think they, I actually think they did not have any intention of proceeding with any of those shows. They were just making a show, throw us a little bone, make it seem like, oh, maybe they would might do something when they had no intention of doing so. And here we are, this nation, sleeping next to the elephant, the cultural elephant, which makes CanCon rules so important, because without it, any semblance of Canadian culture would be bulldozed.

There would be no Schitt’s Creek, there would be no Kim’s Convenience, there would be no Tragically Hip without Canadian content rules. We would just be a subsidiary of American culture. And I bring this up, you know, we talk about theatre here, but we bring this up because it comes down to one of the reasons why I wanted to start this podcast again.

Because to me, the importance of Canadian culture is even more highlighted in the recent months. All of this 51st state talk, all of these tariffs, everything else, the disrespect from the American government. And really, the way that Canada and Canadian culture is discounted by Americans, I really felt like we need to highlight Canadian work.

And my spirit is in the theatre, but we would be foolish to suggest that what happens in our film and television doesn’t affect the theatre. Because in Canada, there are rarely people who are just TV, just film. Most actors are just actors across the board, and they do both.

So a lot of theatre actors, their love may be theatre, but they pay the bills with film, television and commercial work. So what happens in those industries is hugely important here, and to us in the theatre. You know, we were talking about streamers, we’re talking about television.

And we’re talking about the importance of those companies starting to be required to produce Canadian work. And I think that would be an amazing thing. And the other thing that I think about is the fact that we have a real opportunity in the theatre to have our work be highlighted in a way that it hasn’t before.

People are talking about buying Canadian, and I think that Canadian theatre and Canadian arts should be part of that. It should be part of that conversation. And one of the things that we really need to be considering is, if it’s not part of that conversation, if people aren’t talking about that, why is that? Why are people not including the arts? Why are they not including theatre in their conversations about buying Canadian? And sometimes I think the issue with that is that what I’m about to say won’t be popular, and it’s a tough pill to swallow sometimes for some people.

But sometimes we have to consider if people aren’t coming to see the work that we’re doing, they’re not the problem. The audience that isn’t coming is not the problem. The work that we’re presenting to them is the problem, and the way that we’re talking about the work is the problem.

If we think that the work that we are doing is exciting enough to bring people in, we need to talk to people as though it is exciting. We need to give them a reason to come. We can’t talk about it like we’re giving them their vitamins for the day.

We can’t be all coy and say, you know, come to the theatre, it’s good for you. Oh, well, you like it? Oh, don’t worry, just come and see. People don’t go to see things because they might like it.

People go to see things because they know it’s going to speak to them in some way. People go to see Hollywood movies, they go to see blockbuster movies because the trailer has told them that this is something that they want to see, that this is something that is aligned with what they enjoy. And even if it is something that’s a serious topic, they know pretty much what they’re going to get when they come in.

Because the idea that what they’re going to see is good for them, the conversation sparked by the theatre they’re going to see is important, isn’t enough to bring them in, it isn’t enough to convince somebody to come and see the theatre. I mean, and our work deserves better than that. The work that we are presenting, when it is good, it is great.

And we need to make sure that people know that the work that they’re coming is great. And the way that we do that is we give them some hint about what the experience is like. We have to remember that a lot of times the people who are coming to these shows, if we’re serious about courting an audience that doesn’t go to the theatre, we need them to understand what the theatre experience is like.

And they might not. It might be entirely new to them. So the idea that we want audiences to come, but we’re not giving them a sense of what they’re going to see and what the experience is going to be like.

You know, why wouldn’t they stay home and watch Netflix or Crave or whatever streaming service they’re using? Why wouldn’t they if they don’t know that the experience of going to the theatre is completely different from sitting at home and watching TV? We might equate it to the fact that if you are going to the movies, if you choose to go to the movie theatre, you’re going because you want that experience of sitting in a room with a bunch of people. But what that doesn’t even express is that immediacy of theatre that we know because we make it, but that the audience might not know because they haven’t been there, they haven’t identified it, or they’ve never been to the theatre and they don’t know about the difference between watching something on a screen and seeing something in person. We really have to, if it is important to us that people come to see the shows, that we need to talk to them about those shows.

And we need to stop making, for want of a better phrase, we need to stop making our grant applications part of our advertising. We shouldn’t be talking about what we hope audiences take away from this or what we hope audiences resonate with. These are not phrases that matter to the theatre goer.

These are phrases that are good for us. They’re important for us to get across, but we really have to change the way that we talk about these things to our audience. I have been a person who makes websites for ages and I’ve made some websites for friends and I talk about websites and what’s important.

And by the way, if you’re an artist and you don’t have a website, we should talk because you need one. I’m not going to make one for you, but we’ll talk. Having a website is one of the most important things that you can do.

It allows your audience to find you and learn about you. But that’s not what I want to talk about with a thing that I mean about the thing that’s the same or the point that I’m trying to make where websites and, and theatre are concerned is a lot of times people don’t take into account when they’re talking about their website is they’re not taking into account what the person who comes to your website going to get from this experience and what do they need to know when, what do they need to know when they come to the website? And you can’t just tell them, this is what you’re going to get when you come to my website. You have to just do it.

You have to show it. And so we really believe in the theatre that we’re making. We really need to change the way that we talk about it.

We need to take away the jargon that we use. You know, if we’re doing a pay what you can performance and we just put PWYC without any explanation, of course, the theatre goer who’s never been to the theatre doesn’t know what that means. We need to just talk to people about what their, their experience is going to be like.

Why are people paying more to go and see projections on a wall for the Van Gogh experience or Illuminarium or whatever else? And they’re not willing to come to see the theatre. It’s because they have a sense of what that experience is going to be. They’ve been sold on the breathtaking aspect of these projections or whatever it is.

And they’re not coming to see the theatre because we haven’t done a good job of selling them on it. And we deserve better. Our shows deserve the audience.

Our shows deserve the audience knowing about the shows and coming to see them and experiencing them. And I think it comes down to, you know, we’ve heard it said that the audiences are not coming back to the theatre after the pandemic. I guess they’ve spent too much time with access to everything at their fingertips.

And so we need to start making an effort to to bring them back to find out what that is. Why are they not coming back? And is it is it what we’re presenting them? Are they not interested in that? If that’s the case, we need to make some serious changes. Is it that they don’t value the experience? Well, again, if that’s the case, we need to make some changes.

But unless we start trying to find out and figure out what the issue is, our theatre is in trouble. And I love it too much. I love the theatre too much to really sort of sit back and let that happen.

If I didn’t love the theatre, I would never have come back to this podcast. I never would have started it in the first place. I think the Canadian voices are important.

I think the Canadian voices are worthwhile. I think that that it is. I think that Canadian theatre can really speak to the Canadian experience and to to really make theatre that’s for people.

And that’s that’s super important. That is it’s something that that is super necessary. And the thing that we’re missing here in the thing that we really need to grapple with that sort of stands in our way is that we don’t for some reason, we don’t really have theatre fans in Canada.

The biggest fans of theatre in Canada are the people who make it. And while that is incredible and important, we the people who make it should be fans of it. It isn’t healthy for the industry, for the biggest fans to be the people who make it, because then we end up making theatre for ourselves and for other people who are in the industry rather than for an audience that might not be as immersed in the theatre as we are.

In the US and the UK, there are theatre fans. There are people who who who don’t make theatre, but they talk about it and they love it. There are people who make they have TikTok accounts.

They have their they do their own amateur reviews. They talk about theatre. They talk on TikTok and on Reels about what they’re excited about.

The people who do that here are largely the people who are making the theatre. We need to cultivate those fans in Canada. We need to make sure that that we are cultivating fans of theatre who are not making theatre so that we have a healthy ecosystem, a healthy industry, because our industry really needs people who love the theatre to buy the tickets.

People don’t love the theatre. They’re not going to buy the tickets. And so it comes back to, you know, why aren’t the audiences coming back? Well, we need to find that out.

I don’t know what the answers to these questions are. What I know is that we need very much to to decide what we’re going to be as an industry, to work towards it and to bring the audience along with us and to make sure that if we are not producing work that people want to see, that we need to rethink the whole thing. So if the audience isn’t coming again, that’s on us and we need to make the changes to make that happen.

We need to make sure that there is an audience. And so, again, like I said, I don’t know what the answers to all of these things are. I have a lot of opinions, but I don’t have all the answers because I can’t make the decisions.

I can only rant about these things. I can only talk about these things. I’m not one of the decision makers, but the people who are the decision makers, if you’re listening, if you’re paying attention, I really hope that you’re thinking about these features, that you’re thinking about the audience, that you’re thinking about how to be reaching out to new audience members who are not coming right now.

I know that that can seem difficult because you’re worried about the audience that’s coming now. And if you don’t cultivate them, will they still come while you’re still trying to court the audience that hasn’t come yet? But we need to split that middle because only concentrating on the audience that’s already here and ignoring the audience that hasn’t come yet is a losing game. It’s a short term game and it doesn’t set the industry up for success in the future.

I mean, what do you think? Do you think that the theaters are doing enough to bring in a new audience? Do you think that that that that the industry is currently set up for success? What do you think about the way that we talk about theater? If you’re watching on YouTube, leave comments on this video. I want to hear what you have to say. And we’ll maybe we’ll talk about that in the future.

If you are just listening to the podcast, go to stageworthy.ca and find this episode. Leave a comment there. I would love to hear what you have to say, because I think that.

These are conversations that we need to have, and if we don’t have them. I don’t know what kind of future the industry has, so. I guess that’s about all I have to say.

I don’t know. I don’t know if this kind of thing works. I don’t know.

I don’t know if just me talking works for you. I don’t know if it makes for interesting content, but I’m curious about what you have to what you think about that as well. Again, a comment on YouTube comments on the website.

Let me know what you think. And if you want to support this podcast, make sure that you go to patreon.com/stageworthy and become a backer and help me continue to make this podcast. Backers get early access to episodes.

Backers get to help make decisions about what’s coming up, especially when I want to have like a round table discussion about an issue. And there’s a couple of those that I’m mulling over right now that I really want to do. And if I, if I keep to a, a reasonable schedule after fringe, because fringe is its own, is its own thing in terms of like output.

But if I keep to a reasonable schedule and I’m not breaking my back to make sure there’s an episode every week or an interview every week, then there’s a good chance I could do some of those too. But if you want to back that, if you want to make that happen, patreon.com/stageworthy and become a patron. Thank you so much for watching.

Thank you so much for listening and I will see you again in the next episode.