Podcast

annemieke wade

This week on Stageworthy, host Phil Rickaby welcomes annemieke wade, Executive Director of the Toronto Alliance for the Performing Arts (TAPA). annemieke shares insights from her first six months in the role, her vision for TAPA’s future, and her deep commitment to building frameworks of care and collaboration in Toronto’s arts sector. From revitalizing artist support programs to reimagining rehearsal and performance norms, this conversation highlights the evolving landscape of Canadian theatre and the importance of intergenerational dialogue.

This episode explores:

  • The challenges and steep learning curve of succeeding a 21-year ED at TAPA
  • The role and scope of TAPA, from the Dora Awards to mentorship and training programs
  • The B Street Arts Hub and its community resources
  • annemieke’s career journey from Vermont to Toronto and into arts leadership
  • The impact of her late ADHD diagnosis and the power of self-understanding
  • Her vision for more flexible, sustainable work practices in the arts
  • The importance of bridging generational divides in the theatre community

Guest:
🎭 annemieke wade
annemieke wade (she/her) is the Executive Director at the Toronto Alliance for the Performing Arts (TAPA) and a dedicated advocate for inclusivity in the arts. Originally from St. Albans, Vermont, annemieke headed to Ontario for school in 1994 and graduated from the University of Toronto Mississauga/Sheridan College joint Theatre and Drama Studies program in 1998. Once on Canadian soil, she never really left! Despite a brief return home to complete an MBA from Champlain College in Burlington, Vermont, annemieke had fallen shamelessly in love with Toronto and became a citizen in 2013.

With over 20 years of industry experience both on and off stage, annemieke champions strategically undervalued communities through programming and engagement that prioritizes diversity and active representation. She previously served on the TAPA Board of Directors (2016-22) and Eligibility Committee (2022-24), was a contributing member of the PGC/PACT contract negotiations working group (2022-23) and currently sits on the TAC Theatre Committee (2023-26). annemieke was recently honoured with a nomination as a Woman of Influence for the 32nd RBC Canadian Women Entrepreneur Awards.

Connect with Annemieke:
📸 Instagram: @miekechu11
🌐 Learn more about TAPA: tapa.ca

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Transcript

[Phil Rickaby]
Hello, welcome to Stageworthy. I’m Phil Rickaby, the host and producer of this podcast. This week on the podcast, my guest is the Executive Director of the Toronto Alliance for the Performing Arts, annemieke wade.

But before we get to that interview, I want to take care of a little bit of housekeeping. First off, I want to talk about my Patreon. Patreon is how I’m able to do this.

Stageworthy is about seven years old with over 400 episodes, and in that time, I’ve paid for everything out of pocket to create the show. And that’s hosting for the audio files, hosting for the website, it’s editing software, and that doesn’t even take into account time and effort in creating episodes, creating images, doing social posts, any promotional posts that I make about the podcast. But I give this podcast to you for free.

If you’ve enjoyed this podcast, please consider helping me to continue to make it. I need your help. Right now, I’m no longer able to offer transcripts of the episodes because the cost of creating quality transcripts is either paid service or hours of correcting automatically generated transcripts, which are rife with errors.

And so as much as I would love to be able to provide transcripts so that people who are hearing impaired, and people who want to just follow along in the conversation, that would just be another service that I’m paying for. And that doesn’t even cover the time and effort that I put into making this show and giving it to you. So if you are able to help, please consider going to patreon.com slash stageworthy and becoming a That just costs $7 Canadian a month. And with that, you get to listen to podcast episodes in advance, as well as participate in decisions about the show conversations, topics that I want to talk about. And the more patrons we get, the more content I will be able to offer, and the more perks will be able to be given to the backers of this podcast. So again, if you get value out of this show, if you want to support me, you want to support the show, go to patreon.com slash stageworthy and become a patron. Also, I want to talk about the fact that if you are watching on YouTube right now, make sure that you hit the subscribe button, give the episode a like, and make sure that you hit that bell icon so that every time an episode is released on the stage where the YouTube channel, you’ll get a notification that a new episode is available. And if you are listening to the audio version, go to your podcast app and click follow, click subscribe, click the plus sign or the heart sign, whatever it is in your podcast apps so that that is your subscription, your follow of the app of the podcast. And that way, every time a new episode is dropped, it will download directly to your device.

So you’ll be able to listen and you will never miss an episode of this podcast. So now, I’m really excited to have this conversation with annemieke wade. annemieke and I actually were in a play, a production with Monkey Man Productions, who do incredible audio drama.

So if you have the opportunity, give a look up on Monkey Man. But at the time, Monkey Man was producing live theatre, and we were in a production together. I hadn’t talked to annemieke since because I don’t know, 10 years more, something like that.

So I was really excited to talk to annemieke, who recently took over as Executive Director of TAPA. And we had a great conversation talking about the learning curve, what TAPA is, what her role is, as well as a whole lot more. So I really enjoyed this conversation.

I hope you do too. And here’s my conversation with annemieke wade. annemieke wade, thank you so much for joining me.

I really appreciate you making some time for me today. You are the relatively new Executive Director of the Toronto Alliance for the Performing Arts. You are a couple of months into the job.

Is that right?

[annemieke wade]
That’s right. I officially started in January of 2025. So I’m technically six months in, as my predecessor, Jacoba Knappen, likes to say, you’re only four months in unassisted.

She was here for the first two months to help me out.

[Phil Rickaby]
The transition for an Executive Director position at an organization like TAPA must be a pretty steep learning curve and just knowing everything you need to know. What does a transition like that look like?

[annemieke wade]
Well, when the person who has been in the job for 21 years before you leaves the job, it’s a huge, huge learning curve. It’s a huge, steep, steep hill to run up. And I’ve been saying that Jacoba has very big shoes to fill, but my feet are growing.

So it’s a big transition. I love it. I really am lucky that I’ve had the experience of being on the TAPA board prior to actually getting the job.

So for years, for seven years, in fact, I was on the TAPA board and then I had about two years off of it before Jacoba announced her retirement. And then I applied and the rest is history.

[Phil Rickaby]
I’m feeling it for somebody, somebody who has done the job for 21 years. There must be so much that they don’t even think of that you need to know. Like it’s only when something comes up that they, that, oh yes, here’s what you do.

Here’s who you call. Here’s who you talk to. There’s a lot of institutional knowledge that goes into that.

Is she on speed dial in case something comes up?

[annemieke wade]
She absolutely is. But I will also say that she’s a freaking powerhouse and that woman remembers everything. So she was anticipating things that I needed to do before I even knew what to do with them.

And I would say, actually, one of the hardest things about the transition is she would say, what do you need from me? And I would say, I just don’t know. I don’t, I don’t have any idea what I should be doing at this point.

But she’s been incredibly kind and wonderful. And she was my mentor before I even got this job. I’ve known her for so long, and she’s such an incredible human being with such an incredible history of doing all of these things that we do.

Like she was a producer before she was the executive director at TAPA, and she’s gone back to producing. And it’s exciting to see her now sort of in a different role because I had only known her from my time in Toronto as the executive director of TAPA.

[Phil Rickaby]
You know, you mentioned that she asked, you know, what, what, what, what do you need? And coming into a role when you are based, I mean, you have the background, you were on the board, but now executive director is not being on the board. It’s a little bit, it’s a little bit different.

So it’s very difficult question to know the answer to. How did those first couple of months in the job, how did that look for both of you?

[annemieke wade]
Well, the first month was absolutely manic, I would say. Within my first two weeks of being in the job, I think I did my first deputation for the City of Toronto. I had, I met everyone from all of the funding bodies.

So Canada Council for the Arts, the Ontario Arts Council and the Toronto Arts Council. It was, you know, I think she must have sent out, I don’t feel like I’m exaggerating, 40 emails of important people who you should know, and just making introductions for me. And I will admit even six months into this, there are some people I still have not reached out to.

So to you, I am so sorry, those people.

[Phil Rickaby]
I’ll get there.

[annemieke wade]
I promise. I’ll get there. Yeah, so I guess I would, the first month was a lot of just like pushing me in directions that I needed to go or placing my face looking at things that I should be looking at, which was really helpful.

And again, like I know the basic or I knew the basic structure of what TAPA was. And I had and still do have a really good idea of what TAPA needs and what I think I’d like TAPA to be moving forward. It’s not that different from what TAPA is, but you know, just a little bit more focused.

And I really want to focus on things like frameworks of care, which is a big deal for me.

[Phil Rickaby]
Yeah. Since we’re on the topic, why don’t we talk about what TAPA is and what TAPA does?

[annemieke wade]
Sure. So TAPA is mostly known for being the producer of the Dora Mae Vermeur Awards. And we are actually in our 45th annual Dora Mae Vermeur Awards this year, and they are presented by the incredible Romano D’Andrea Foundation.

They’ve been incredibly supportive for us. And two guys that I’ve actually really had a great time getting to know over the past six months, Romano D’Andrea and Geoffrey, have just been fabulous, like really wonderfully supportive. And also one of those or two of those people that have just said, you know, what do you need?

What can we help with? What do you need? And TAPA is a membership organization.

We’re an arts service organization that serves the city of Toronto, professional companies in theatre, dance, and opera, which is unique for Canada. And I think we might have the largest membership of theatre, dance, and opera across the country in Canada. And it is because we do dance and opera as well as theatre.

That I think makes our membership number so high. But yeah, so right now we serve about 150 organizations and individuals. And besides the Dora, we have a lot of opportunities for learning.

We have something called the TAPA Trade Series, which is sort of whatever the members kind of come to us and say, hey, here’s something we’d be interested in learning about, or is this something you could help facilitate? So that ranges from everything. It looks like first aid or mental health first aid, which is one of the courses that I really think is incredible.

I’ve taken myself. We also do like a lot of financial planning courses. We’ve done, oh, let me think about, actually last year TAPA started a program called TREAM, which is a training project for mentors and mentees to just be given some time and some money to explore whatever they want.

And that’s something that we’re bringing back again this year. Hopefully in the summer, we’ll launch that after the Doras in June. But that is with the support of RBC.

So we’re just working out the relationship with RBC. And I’m super excited to say that in this year’s iteration of TREAM, the B Street Collaborative is going to help us out by helping us pick the mentors. Last year, we did all Silver Ticket mentors.

And I can explain who the Silver Ticket people are in just a second. But we had, I believe it was six, five or six Silver Ticket mentors. And then they were matched with mentees who actually had the opportunity to sort of choose their mentor.

We said, here are the mentors that you can choose from any one of these people. And then mentees applied with that person in mind. And we made a love connection and had a really excellent opportunity for these people to just talk about anything, whatever it was.

We had a dance pair. We had, I think, a playwriting dramaturgical pair. We had an artistic director pair.

And yeah, they just were given a little bit of money so that they didn’t feel that they had to be gigging and trying to do this on the side. It could be their main focus for a couple of weeks, if you will. So we’re going to bring that one back.

And I’m hoping to bring it even bigger and better. So what that looks like might either be more time for the mentors and mentees, or it might be more couples that we put together. We’ll see.

We’ll see. RBC and B Street Collaborative are going to help us make it something even more magnificent than it was this past year. And it’s also something I’m super excited about, thus the talking about it.

And I did mention the Silver Ticket. So Silver Ticket recipients are chosen. They’re sort of the giants of our industry.

People who have really given back to the theatre dance and opera community are nominated. A package is submitted about whomever it is. And they then are chosen as the Silver Ticket recipient.

And a Silver Ticket recipient has the honour of getting a free ticket to any TAPA member company show for the rest of their lives. So it’s a really nice recognition for someone who was basically an architect of Toronto theatre dance or opera.

[Phil Rickaby]
You mentioned B Street Collaborative, and there may be many people listening who’ve never heard of B Street. And this is not a conversation about B Street, but I think we should address B Street. The offices of TAPA are in the B Street Collaborative space, which also has a recording studio, a rehearsal hall, a library.

[annemieke wade]
So we’ve got the B Street Arts Hub, which is on the corner of DuPont and Bathurst. Super easy to find. It was that old bank building.

So we actually have a vault inside, which of course just holds all of our paper now, but still has the really wonderful big bank door that takes, you know, 30 seconds to open it up and another minute to close it back up. But the space itself, the B Street Arts Hub, has, as you said, a rehearsal studio. It’s got a green room attached to that.

We’ve got tons of storage. We have a self-tape studio, and we have a purpose-built recording studio. We also have the John Kaplan Lending Library, which is an open space where people just can come and work for free.

We’ve got really good Wi-Fi. You don’t have to book it. You can show up anytime between 9.30am and 5.30pm. As long as the offices are open, you’re welcome to join us. We usually have coffee or tea. You don’t even have to be a member, to be honest. If you’re just an artist in the community and you just need a place to work for a couple of hours, or you wanted to do a little networking with some people, come check out the John Kaplan space.

And you can borrow books for free. We have a really nice library of plays and books on critical theatre or theatre criticism, things like that. It’s really nice.

There’s lots of stuff. Just come. Just come.

Just come check it out.

[Phil Rickaby]
I had the privilege of taking a look at that space last summer, and I kept thinking that the sad thing is that people don’t know about it. It isn’t widely known that the space is available. The word needs to be got out a little bit more so that people can go.

It’s a great way to connect, not only with fellow artists, but to say hello to the people at TAPA as well, who are right there in the space, as well as everything else. You mentioned about things that you would like to do at TAPA, things that you would like to directions you would like to go in. What would you like to make at TAPA?

For want of a better word, changes or direction would you like to set TAPA in?

[annemieke wade]
Well, that is an excellent question, and one I’ve been thinking really, really hard about. I have a lot of lofty ideas, and I’m not quite sure what’s going to be successful and what’s not going to be successful. I’ve been listening a lot to our community and really trying to dig down to hear what people are asking for without really asking.

I had an excellent conversation with the Indie Caucus last week, and it really sparked my imagination on a couple of levels. We talked a lot about something called IndieX, which was a conference that TAPA used to do pre-pandemic. It was a chance for Indie companies to network, have opportunities to gain a little knowledge, and really just to connect, see who else is out there, see if there are chances to make inroads, to find other companies doing the work that you’re doing and finding ways to work together.

That’s something I really want to bring back, but I want to bring it back with a focus for what does it mean to be a theatre company now or to start a theatre company now? I’m a bit of an old person, so when I came into Toronto, it was the 90s, and it was super easy to start a theatre company. Everyone could start one.

Everyone did start one. I started one. Again, it was super easy.

It wasn’t hard to find space like it is now. It was almost affordable to rent theatres. Everybody was doing it, so it was really easy to find willing people who would work for nothing or bread, which was how we would pay people.

That’s not true. I’m just kidding. I’d really like to see going forward a little bit more support for these emerging artists.

It’s hard to even call them emerging artists because they’re not young. They’ve been doing this for a long time, but the past five years have made this an almost impossible road to walk down. I’d like to make it a little less impossible.

I really believe in the spirit of collaboration, which is, again, I started to talk about and then didn’t talk about. At the B Street Arts Hub, we actually collaborate with a couple of different organizations. There is the B Street Collaborative, which is basically an incubator for new works.

That’s Heather Jessman, Dylan Trowbridge, and Kathy Neeson are the three in the Collaborative. Then we’ve also got Generator. They have an office or a desk at the B Street Arts Hub.

It’s been great working with them. One of the things I want to do with TAPA is bring in a lot of their incredible production resources. Much like people don’t know B Street exists and is open for anyone’s use, and certainly a hits you a little bit more, Generator is the same.

They have been developing production resources for a decade. In fact, I think tonight or tomorrow is their big party at the theatre center. Big raise a glass to Generator.

They’re 10 years old and they’re fabulous people. I just want to see these people who are working. Oh, I should also say ADC is in the building as well.

They have their offices in the B Street Arts Hub. I’d like to see us all working together and using these resources so that we can create something that is better. I don’t think we need to create more necessarily these days.

I’m more interested in the focus on doing one thing really well instead of 10 things mediocrely. That’s something I would really like to see for TAPA. I think TAPA has tried really hard to be everything to everyone.

Moving forward, I’d like to see a little bit more focus that’s actually meaningful engagement with our membership.

[Phil Rickaby]
You were talking about how in the 90s it was so easy to have a theatre company. I remember I’d graduated from theatre school around that time. There were so many places to perform, to rehearse.

There were so many avenues for getting media attention. You had NOW, you had I. The newspapers were actually talking about theatre, which again, they’re starting to.

The Toronto Star has a dedicated theatre reviewer, theatre journalist for the first time in I don’t know how long Aisling is at the Globe and Mail writing about theatre. It’s good that those exist, but those are two print publications out of what used to be at least four more. It’s so hard to get media attention and that sort of thing now.

The landscape has changed even just over the last five years. So many spaces have closed and so many opportunities have gone away. As we keep hearing, audiences are not coming back in the way that they were anticipated.

I’ve heard some people say, that’s just a perception. It’s not true. And other people with like, no, here are facts.

Here’s the truth. What actually, from your perspective as somebody at TAPA, what is actually the truth of that situation?

[annemieke wade]
I think that the commercial works are actually doing all right. If it’s a piece of work that people recognize, so if it has any sort of name recognition, they’re doing okay. We’re seeing a lot of great stuff happening at Crows.

We’re seeing a lot of great stuff in terms of audiences coming back at Mirvish, of course. Soul Pepper is also, I think, seeing a lot of their audiences come back. But I think in the more experimental theatres or the ones that are doing a lot of new works, that’s a little bit more of a challenge.

I’m not saying that people aren’t seeing new work. People are definitely coming to see new work. But it’s just a little bit harder to get them off the couches because it is so easy to stream these days.

It is so easy to just be like, I’m already in my sweatpants. I’m so excited. It’s really getting over that ennui and encouraging people that it’s more fun when you get to experience these sorts of live theatre things with other people.

That energy is something that can’t be replicated on your couch. Even with a viewing party, you just can’t get that same sort of interpersonal connection that you can with live theatre. Yes, everyone is saying that the audiences…

I would say, sorry, let me rephrase that. The not-for-profits, the charitable organizations are very much struggling getting those bums back in the seats. But we are seeing a lot of really enthusiastic crowds for those big names.

I think they’re doing a production of Waitress in at least four different places across the country, and that show is selling very well.

[Phil Rickaby]
Absolutely. Waitress is the show du jour this year. Waitress and Come From Away are the two shows that everybody is doing.

There are a couple of companies that I can think of off the bat that I think their audiences have come back quite strongly. Eldridge Theatre out of the Red Sandcastle, as an indie company with a theatre that seats less than 100 people, they’ve always had that with the theatre that they do because it’s genre. It’s something that people are excited to see in a way that people really enjoy the horror genre, and so they go to see that.

They’re an example of a company that’s not one of the big ones that’s still doing pretty well. But it is that question of, what do we do to convince people to get off the couch? They need to know more about a show.

Perhaps we need to find ways to reintroduce them or introduce them for the first time to the difference between theatre and watching something on TV. We have to show them why it’s different.

[annemieke wade]
We got into the habit of sitting on our couches and watching things on TV, so it’s about breaking that habit again. I’m hopeful that initiatives like Culture Connects, the City of Toronto’s arts plan, is something that will spark that habit again. I’m hopeful.

It’s not going to be enough to just be like, it’s here, we have these things. We have to figure out ways to engage these audiences and remind them why we used to do it before the pandemic. Remind them how much fun it is, how welcome they actually are.

I think also the theatres that are doing a really good job of retaining their audiences or bringing their audiences back are the ones that make their audiences feel like they’re part of something. Eldritch does this so well. Eldritch has a baked-in community that they never lost through the pandemic because they managed to stay in contact with them.

They did it through things like Dungeons & Dragons. If you can find those ways to connect with the community that are outside of just the show, I think that’s a way to remind people or to introduce people that theatre is something that is very unique. Live performance, opera, dance, all of them.

Live performance is something that cannot be replicated in any sense. It is what it is. It is that online or is that in-person experience that I think just fills the soul and has an actual visceral experience to it that’s more than just, hmm, that was a very interesting play on a very important topic.

You feel that topic in your body. When you see people that are 20 feet away from you sometimes actually experiencing emotions, you can’t help but help not be caught up in it.

[Phil Rickaby]
I always find it interesting and I think it’s important that people who make theatre also note that people pay for experiences. People will go and see giant projections of the works of Van Gogh or they’ll go to an Illuminarium or things like that. The reason why they go to those things is because those are presented as exciting.

They basically get an idea of what they are going to experience. They say, I want to experience that. I think that is the challenge of creating theatre in the post-pandemic age is how do we remind people?

How do we show people what the experience of going to the theatre is to make them excited to go instead of treating it like, I don’t know, take your medicine. It’s good for you.

[annemieke wade]
Exactly. Oh, that’s such a good point. I’m glad you brought that up because I don’t know when this became me, but sometime when I got a little bit older, I stopped wanting stuff and I started wanting experiences.

I do this with my kids now too. I’ve got kind of young kids, one’s about to be five in two weeks and the other one is nine. They have so many stuffies, I could strangle someone.

I’ve got this very strict rule now, no more stuffies, please, grandparents, but if you could get them an experience, that’s something they’re going to never forget. A lot of the time I do ask for theatre tickets for the kids or I ask for, let’s go to this museum or let’s go to this Great Wolf Lodge, just something that’s going to be, that will last longer than a piece of plastic, basically. That’s what I want.

I think that’s what we’ve got to get back into the habit of. I think once people realize that experiences mean so much more than things, we’ll get people back to the theatre.

[Phil Rickaby]
Like I said, we have to figure out how to talk to them, talk to our potential audience about the experience and give them a sense of it. Then when they know it’s exciting, then they’ll come back. I think that that conversation is one that is brewing and we haven’t got to that point yet, but hopefully we are getting there.

I want to step away from TAPA and Toronto Theatre specifically for a moment. I want to talk a little bit about you and your theatre journey and what brought you to eventually to here. I guess the place to start is how does someone from St. Albans, Vermont find themselves in Ontario and then stay and become dedicated to Canadian theatre?

[annemieke wade]
This is actually a bit of a timely and poignant story. As you said, I grew up in the States and college, university is sort of a different experience than it is in Canada. You start looking for schools when you’re in grade 10.

Grade 10 and 11 are the years that you start visiting schools and you try and make a plan for what your life is going to be for this super huge decision that back in the 90s, people could afford to do. I was very interested in theatre school. I had been doing a lot of acting in high school.

My parents, my mom is a children’s librarian and my dad was a professor, so very academic people. Really, really strong, we believe in school, you’re going to a good school sort of thing. When I was saying I wanted to go to school for acting, they kind of went, but are the type of parents who didn’t want to ever say no to me because the second they said no, I was the child who would be like, I’ll show you what no means.

Then I would just go out and do it. They didn’t want to dissuade me from it. They knew I would throw myself head long into it.

At the time, a very good friend of theirs, Duncan Lindsay, was doing a year of teaching at University of Toronto. He was from California, an old friend of my parents from California. They were in Toronto.

He said to my parents, there is a brand new program that is a joint program with U of T and Sheridan College. If she got into this program, she would get the practical acting that she’s interested in, and she’d get an actual diploma from a really good school, so you guys would be happy. Do you want to come up for a weekend and check out the school?

So my parents jumped at the chance. The whole family came up to Toronto. They lived in North York.

Again, this was more than 30 years ago, so I can’t quite remember where they lived, but I think it’s kind of close to where I live now. We went to check out the program. It was at the U of T campus in Mississauga.

Everyone was so nice. I could not believe it. It was just an incredible experience.

I was like, oh my gosh, is this what Canada is like? Is this what theatre school is like in Canada? This is totally where I want to go.

I loved that UTM, Arendelle at the time, had like houses, townhouses as residences instead of like a big old condo type thing, so that was very attractive to me. The best part, my sister, who was, I don’t know, six or seven at the time, had been mauled by the Lindsay’s cat, so she had all of these really bad scratches while we were doing the campus tour. Someone said, you should just go to the medical place.

They’ll take care of you. So my mom took her to the nurse on campus and they fixed her up and they didn’t charge anything. As Americans, that was shocking.

My mom kept going, well, don’t you need to have some money for this? I was like, no. They just put some band-aids on, it’s fine.

My mom, at that point, she was like, you’re going to the school. I was already like, I’m going to the school. So luckily I got in and I got into the acting program as well, which was really the only thing I wanted.

The rest sort of is history. I came here for school. I spent four years here.

The very first party I went to, I was nervous. I didn’t have any friends. I was like, okay, Mika, you’re going to sit down on this step.

If nobody talks to you, that’s it. You’re just going to do four years of school. You’ll head back to Vermont and that’s your life.

I swear it wasn’t five minutes that I made that promise in my head that two people sat down next to me. They started talking to me. They were so friendly.

They were asking me questions about myself. I was like, Canada, it’s the best place in the world. I’m going to live here forever.

So I did. I eventually got my self-citizenship in 2013. I was deported once in that time prior to 9-11.

So deportation was, you really can’t stay here. When do you want to leave? I said, can I stay until Christmas?

They said, fine. I deported myself in December of 1998 after I had graduated from university. Then I managed to get myself an acting gig with Mad Science.

I traveled for seven years with that company doing over 7,000 shows. That took me all across Canada and the United States. When you hit 30, the Logan’s Run chip starts to blink in your hand and TYA touring gets a little weird.

I decided that I would stop doing that and I would move back home with my parents. At the same time, I got a job at a college in Vermont and was the entertainment director. I had this amazing boss who said to me one day, what are you doing?

What are you doing with your life? What’s your plan? I was like, you look miserable here.

I know you want to get back to Toronto. How do we do that for you? Then she worked with me.

She said, Champlain has a brand new program that’s going to be completely online. It’s an MBA program. Have you ever thought about getting a Master’s of Business?

I was like, no, maybe an MFA, but never a business. She’s like, but think about this. I did.

I talked about it with my family. I didn’t have to take tests because I was old enough that I had real work experience. It was only a $50 application fee.

My dad was like, I’ll pay for that. I wrote the application. I was accepted.

They gave me a full scholarship because it was a brand new program. I was actually applying to do the business of theatre. No one had ever done that at this school.

They’re like, all right, if you go the full time without any breaks, we’ll pay for it all. You’ll have to pay for your books. My dad was like, I’ll pay for your books.

I got my Master’s degree. I did it online prior to 2010. That was in a time that people weren’t doing that sort of thing.

In that same year, I got married. I immigrated to Canada. I started my new life here in Toronto and then never looked back.

[Phil Rickaby]
When did theatre administration come into the picture for you?

[annemieke wade]
It was around that time that this mentor of mine, Leslie, had said, what are you doing with your life? You obviously want to be back in theatre. Have you ever considered that there are other things to do than acting?

It’s amazing to me now that I think on it that she came up with this because she was not a theatre person. She was an academic. She worked entertainment in universities and colleges.

That had been her entire career. She saw me. She saw something in me that no one had really identified up until that point.

She said, there is a business of theatre. Have you ever considered that maybe if you had a business degree, you could find another way into theatre? Again, it was mind-blowing.

That’s why I wrote the application. I could look at this as a producing thing. I don’t think a lot of people in theatre have a business degree.

Here’s my niche. Here’s where I could be a little bit different. I could bring something to your program.

They heard that. My entire business school was with a focus in theatre. For my Capstone project, they actually let me produce a show in Toronto.

At the time, my company was called Royal Porcupine Productions with Adam Bailey, who you just interviewed for The Fringe. I listened to that. It was a great interview.

Adam Bailey, my husband, Cam Johnston, and Adam’s husband, Jonathan Brett, and another woman, Tanya Wrigley, were the core members of Royal Porcupine. We did a show called Unwrap Your Candy. This was sort of like the first, we’re going to bring the theatre to you, or we’re going to bring the show to you, instead of you coming to the theatre.

We did an inner city tour, I called it. We did one show in Kensington Market, or a couple of shows. We did a couple of shows in Kensington Market.

We did a couple of shows on the West End. I think it was Clinton’s. Then a couple of shows in the East End at a place called Blue Moon Cafe, which I don’t believe exists anymore.

I can’t remember the place in Kensington. Bicycle something. It was like a 25 seat theatre.

It wasn’t really a theatre. We made it one. What was exciting about that was our production budget was about $1,500.

Again, it was the 90s, or I guess it was mid-2000s by that point. But we could do it for $1,500. We made enough money back to pay for all of the production and give all of the actors $50, which at the time was huge for us.

I wrote a production handbook as my capstone project. I wrote all about this inner city tour and how we had all of these logistical things that were different about moving a show instead of having a single space. It was so well received that I was actually asked to be the commencement speaker for my graduation in 2010, which was really nice.

I was the first theatre person to do this and really made a little name for myself at that little business school in northern Vermont.

[Phil Rickaby]
That’s very cool. Now another thing is relatively later in your life, you were diagnosed with ADHD. What changed for you with that diagnosis?

Did things make sense in a way they hadn’t before? What was the result of that?

[annemieke wade]
Yes, it was actually kind of wonderful. It was hard because all of a sudden you’re like, oh wow, now what do I do with this? I’m 47 years old and it’s not like my life was turned upside down, but all of a sudden all of these things that had never made sense started to make sense.

What’s been great about the past two years is that I’ve been able to forgive myself things that I couldn’t forgive myself before because I just didn’t know why I did the things that I did. I didn’t understand a lot of my frustration and rage and why I over-explained everything and why I would have these moments of thinking that people hated me or the rejection sensitivity dysphoria runs strong in me. Now I have a name for it, so it doesn’t hurt as much as it used to when I didn’t understand why I just felt so hard done by all of the time.

And now one of my greatest, I don’t want to say pleasures, but it feels like a superpower almost that I’ll start to get worked up and I can say to myself, oh hey, hey Mika, this is RSD, this is RSD. Reread that. Reread that thing you just read.

Or can you step out of yourself and hear what you just heard from a different perspective? And I’m finding seven out of 10 times now I can kind of pull myself out of it in a way I never could before. I’m also finding there are an immense number of superpowers that I didn’t know I had, but now I recognize I’m excellent in a crisis.

If I’m not in crisis mode, I am completely scattered and everything is like, look, a bird. Oh, is that a squirrel? But in crisis mode, it’s just like voom.

It’s so easy to see exactly what I need to do. And I also find a lot of the time I can open up for the people who need me and I can solve other people’s problems in a way that I don’t carry it myself, which is really nice. And I can do that switch more easily now that I know sort of what I am or who I am.

I’ve sort of tapped into this other side of myself that I enjoy. And now I also see in other people. I see when my ADHD friends are having their ADHD moments, I see them.

And I can also sort of get to the root of what they might need a little bit faster than I could before, or sometimes a little bit faster than they can. I just recognize it and I can say, hey, is this going on? And they say, oh, yes.

Yes, thank you. That’s exactly what’s going on. And then great.

Let’s work. How do we do this together? How do we do something else together so that we’re both feeling really positive and blah, blah, blah.

I like that. I like that a lot. And I just also feel like I’m part of a club now.

[Phil Rickaby]
I wonder, I mean, I know that that you’re trying to create a work environment that’s flexible, that isn’t like a one size fits all sort of thing. As somebody that works in theatre, I’ve had a couple of conversations about this in the past with people about how we can transform the rehearsal hall into something that works in a way that everybody in the room needs it to instead of like the rigid European, like this is how we’re going to rehearse. Is that something how does how do you see that?

And how do you see your role in Tapa working towards that?

[annemieke wade]
Thank you so much for asking about this, because this is this is like my super jam. And I feel that the pandemic did something really amazing for us and that for some of us. And that is that we suddenly realized how important collaboration is and how much we do need each other to thrive, not just to survive, but to actually thrive.

And I noticed a lot of my single friends just just how how difficult it was being in isolation for as many months as we were, how hard it was to not hug anyone or to not be touched. My sister was single at the time and she she would go visit my parents, but she wouldn’t like allow them to touch her because she was so worried about making my parents sick. And that just it was it was devastating to me to see that happen.

But at the same time, I also saw like, oh, OK, well, here’s a way we can start taking care of each other. I was really fortunate to be at Rosny Theatre at the time and my partner, Andrew Lamb, and I both found ourselves in the position of caregiver in a way that we had never experienced before. I was pregnant.

I got pregnant before the pandemic, so I had a surprise pregnancy pandemic baby. And and that whole thing was a lot to deal with. My parents didn’t meet my daughter until she was 13 months old.

And and in those 13 months, I could count on two hands how many people she had been in a room with, like like she had never been in a room with more than six people at once. And I don’t think she had even met 20 people by the time she was 13 months old. So so those sorts of things, Andrew and I started to see, well, like this is this is unsustainable for us, not just in our jobs, but like in our lives.

How are we going to care for each other and our actors and our staff if we don’t make some really big changes in the way we work? And the pandemic gave us the room to actually play with that. We moved to a four day work week and eventually when we went back into rehearsals, we moved to a five day rehearsal week as much as possible.

We also change. We Rosny Theatre does theatre for young audiences and they tour into schools. Prior to the pandemic, we would like an equity contract, a CEA contract.

We would make them do six, up to 10 shows a week on a six day week. So six of seven. We, you know, like we always knew that was a hard schedule.

We always knew that. I did children’s theatre forever and ever. I knew that.

I was non-union, so I was doing five shows a day. It was awful. I would get hives.

I was so nervous and put upon a lot of the time. And I just didn’t want that for our actors anymore. And Andrew didn’t want that for his actors anymore.

And we didn’t want our staff to feel like, you know, not only were they dealing with this crisis of the world, but then they also had to like make reports for us, you know? So, yeah, we just shifted our focus. We talked about it with our board.

We talked about it with the staff. We realized that this was going to take a lot of flexibility and a lot of communication, which was hard to do because we were never in the same room together. We had to do it all online.

We had to do it all through Zoom. We had to do it on the telephone and, you know, never touching or anything. But we did it.

We found our way through it. And we did it, again, by just like sort of constantly checking in. And we had also sort of been primed for that because Andrew and I were part of the pilot project.

Rosanie Theatre was part of the pilot project for the Not In Our Space program. I’m not sure if you’re familiar with that, but for anyone who’s not familiar, this is something that was developed with CAEA and member companies to create basically a room agreement. When you start a rehearsal process, you do this Not In Our Space speech that comes from the stage manager.

It comes from the management. It comes from the artistic director. And basically, it says, these are the rules of our space.

We will not tolerate harassment. We will not tolerate misogyny. We will not tolerate racism.

Whatever those things were that we will not tolerate, we will create a framework of care. We will ensure that everyone is feeling that they’re getting what they need and feeling they’re in a space where they can ask for it. You know, that there was a gentle calling in instead of a calling out.

And we had a really good structure of what to do if issues arose. And that still exists. The Not In Our Space still exists and should be incorporated into every theatre company that is a signatory to the CTA or ITA.

And honestly, even if you’re working on a DOT contract, if you’re not working on any contract, you can still use the Not In Our Space. And you should use the Not In Our Space, because it will avoid a lot of problems down the road. So it was like those sorts of structures.

It was the mental health first aid that the AFC was offering. It was all of those things that Andrea and I just sort of like combined together to create the environment that made us comfortable as a full staff. And as soon as we had sort of figured that out as a staff, we moved that into the artistic side of things.

And they’re still doing it. They’re still doing a four-day work week. They’re still doing a five-day performance week instead of a six-day performance week.

Rosane Theatre would only do two show days if they were at the same school or within 15 minutes of each other. So we weren’t getting into these 12-hour days where, yes, the actors make a little bit more money, but how’s their mental health the next day or by the end of the week? And all of these things, I think they stack upon each other.

We see this. You can take out of that bucket in the beginning of the contract. This works for admin people, too.

You can take from that bucket, but there’s not going to be anything left in the bucket by the end of the season. So what is the value in that? It’s also expensive to do it like that.

People think it costs more to be flexible to do a four-day work week, but it doesn’t. It was really surprising to me how efficient people were when they’re like, I’ve got 32 hours. I don’t have 40 hours.

I’ve got 32 hours. And that was another thing Andrea and I would say, we don’t care when you do the work as long as it gets done by the goal. And people took that to heart.

I took it to heart. Sometimes I work at 2 a.m. in the morning because I’m awake and perimenopausal and not sleeping, but that also would mean that I can go to a baseball game with the kids during the day sort of thing. And I think that’s a better way to live, to be honest.

You enjoy your job more. We can do this in theatre. We absolutely can.

But we have to get out of our mindset that, well, this is the way we’ve always done it. These are the structures, the colonialist structures that we have always known. And therefore, if it ain’t broke, we don’t need to fix it, except it is broken.

It is absolutely broken. And people are asking for something else. So does it hurt us more to say no and not even try?

Or, you know, like if you tried and failed, you get to try again. Right?

[Phil Rickaby]
Yeah. The statement, this is the way we’ve always done it, is probably one of the most common reasons for why things are the way they are in the theatre. And it’s probably the one with the least meaning.

And that goes from theatre schools all the way through a lot of theatres, older established theatres, but also some new ones. People take the way they were taught into the way that they work. And that can be, it was damaging for them then, and it can be damaging now.

And they continue to share that. And it takes a huge effort to step back and go, oh, just because we’ve done it this way in the past doesn’t mean that we should be doing it this way now.

[annemieke wade]
Yeah, exactly. Exactly. It’s harder for the bigger institutions.

They don’t see themselves as flexible, and I understand that. But there are ways to infuse flexibility into the process. There are ways to infuse space.

And I think that’s really important because, I mean, I have always felt some of the best development work in theatre or dance or opera happens when you take that time to breathe. Right? Those are the moments on stage when it’s the most impactful, when we’re breathing together, not when we’re trying to rush to the end.

[Phil Rickaby]
I think it’s interesting you said they don’t see themselves as flexible, but they could be. They could see themselves as flexible, right? It’s because they see they’re such a massive organization.

They see all these moving parts, and they think there’s only one way for those parts to move. And it takes a huge effort to make that change and make that stop and to work in a different way. I wanted to jump into a topic that I know that you’re interested in, and I want to take some time for that.

I know, and so we go over our scheduled time. I think it’s an important enough conversation to do that. And that has to do with sort of the generation of arts makers, the architects, and the newer post-pandemic arts makers and the way that they interact or don’t.

Could you talk about what you’re seeing there and how you would like to address it?

[annemieke wade]
Yes, absolutely. This is something that has become very obvious to me in this new role as the ED in Tapa. It’s not really a new conversation.

It’s been happening for a couple of years, but I also feel like right now it’s sort of coming to a head in a way that it hasn’t yet. We are seeing a lot of these Toronto theatre, dance, and opera architects sort of screaming from the rafters, Hey, we built this place. We still have ideas and things to give.

We’re still relevant. Talk to us. We want to be involved still.

We’re not done yet. We’re not dead yet. And I see a lot of the people who are coming into the industry now sort of thinking that they’re trotting the field for the first time.

No one has ever mown this lawn before, but look at me doing it for the very first time. There is a lot of that sentiment. I am seeing a lot of this is the first time in Toronto history we have ever done XYZ.

And you can put almost anything into that XYZ. There is someone under 30 saying, I’m the first one to ever do this. And then there is someone over 65 going, no, no, no, no.

I did that 30 years ago before you were born. But there was no internet, so there is no record of it. We do not have an archive.

Therefore, it doesn’t exist. So anyone listening to this podcast, if this is something you are seeing and are interested in this conversation, please get in contact with me at TAPA because I feel like this is a series of conversations that need to happen in a safe space where it is just that, where it is a conversation. It’s not a, you don’t trust us anymore or you never trusted us because you never gave us the chance.

The whole, is it Bye Bye Birdie and Bye Bye Birdie kids, what’s the matter with kids today? I feel like that song is constantly playing in this industry right now. It’s a bunch of the architects saying, what’s the matter with kids today and all of the like adults, what’s the wrong with you?

Why can’t you just treat us like human beings? So it’s a generational gap. It’s a divide.

And I feel like it could be repaired with things like TREAM, like that mentorship, mentee relationship, really got these two generations together, talking and seeing the value that each of them inherently bring to the conversation. I am not at all saying that, you know, one of these groups is better or has more to give than the other. Both of them have so many incredible things to give and they would really do well by sharing those things.

So, so I want to get them in the room. I want to have this conversation. I, this is a new idea for me, so I’m not sure how to do it yet.

So I’m open to suggestions, folks. I am pleased, like I all start a working group. I mean, working group, I feel like working group doesn’t move quickly enough.

This is something I would like to start seeing in our next season, the, the, the 20, 26, 20, or sorry, 25, 26 season. I’d love to start these conversations because I don’t think it’s something that we should put off. I think the sooner we can start talking to each other, the sooner we have the opportunity to build new things and, and, and to get out of the way we always used to do it.

You know, like what we can can’t, what we can glean from the architects of our industry is this is the way we always did it. This is the reason why we always did it this way. I can see you doing it this way brings this amazing thing to it.

And then the young people can say, Oh, well we do it this way because it makes so much more sense because now we have this, this, this resource, which makes us doing it this way so much better. So, you know, like, it’s just, it’s a conversation, bring it all to the table and we’re not here to like smash it down into a pulp. We’re here to, to build it up into a beautiful little log cabin.

[Phil Rickaby]
There’s so many, so many instances I think where conversation could solve so many problems. And we have to have the difficult conversations instead of just shouting at each other. Because I think it’s important that everybody acknowledges that things change over time.

Like when I was at theatre school, I went to George Brown college and their whole thing was like, here’s your career. Your career is going to be, we’re going to teach you to be a classical actor. You’re going to audition for a Shaw or Stratford.

That’s where you’re going to go. You’re going to spend the entire time there. Oh, self-producing.

What’s that? No, don’t we, there’s no way that could be part of an acting career. And now you can’t have a career unless you figure out how to create your own work, like complete change in, in the way that career looks or that industry, that the industry looks.

So we have to acknowledge the changes while understanding where we came from. Right. So like having those conversations is, and conversations in general and being able to sit in discomfort about things and get to the bottom of them is, would, is something we need to do if we’re going to solve any of the problems of facing the industry.

[annemieke wade]
You’re absolutely right. And we also need to understand the difference between sitting in discomfort and actual harm. This is another, I think there is a big confusion or I like, I don’t want to say a lack of understanding because that sounds very, very judgmental, but, but there is definitely an interpretation of those two concepts that is not shared is probably the most judicious way I could say it.

So it’s, it’s about also having a shared vocabulary and, and understanding like, you know, am I uncomfortable or am I actually being harmed? And then also the other side of that, am I making someone uncomfortable or am I harming them? Like it works both ways.

Like we, we have to know this as, as, as the person potentially causing the uncomfortable or harmful situation as well as, as, as the one. Yeah.

[Phil Rickaby]
Well, there’s also the question of like, if I’m making somebody uncomfortable, um, how, what am I doing? And is it beneficial? Cause sometimes having like sitting in discomfort is, is useful and other times it is absolutely not.

So there, these are all conversations and they’re all nuanced. And lately we’re not good at nuance in our society. So we need to relearn it.

Well, well, annemieke, as, as we started like at the end of our time, I want to thank you for joining me, for giving me some of your time and for, for talking about yourself and TAPA and, and some of the things coming up for TAPA. Thank you so much. I’ve really appreciated the time and enjoyed the conversation.