Madelaine Rose is Scaring Audiences One Kitchen at a Time

About This Episode:

What happens when a self-described field mouse – someone who jumps at a cat’s sneeze – decides to write a horror play? You get Passed Down, a one-person horror show about a woman who inherits her great aunt’s house and discovers she may have inherited a little more than just the property. Performer, producer, director, and grant writer Madelaine Rose joins Phil to talk about bringing this solo horror play to the Halifax Fringe Festival, and why choosing the kitchen as the setting for a haunted house story was a deliberate and unsettling choice.

This episode explores:

• The origins of Passed Down – from a 24-hour Toronto Fringe playwriting contest to a full 60-minute solo horror show
• The challenge of producing, acting, and writing your own Fringe show – and how Madelaine learned to compartmentalize and set a hard deadline on revisions
• Emotional safety in the rehearsal room – why the theatre industry has historically been better at getting actors into emotional scenes than getting them out again
• The biggest mistake artists make when writing grant applications (hint: they forget the boring stuff)
• And much more!

Guest: 👻 Madelaine Rose

Madelaine Rose (she/they) is a performer, producer and all-around creative. They are the current co-chair of outACTRAto, and the inaugural chair of the ACTRA National Progress Pride Committee. As a member of the 2SLGBTQIA+ community her mandate as a producer is to create the type of art she wishes to see in the world, art which creates space for more leading, and diverse roles for women, gender non-conforming, and queer artists. Their work as a theatre creator and filmmaker has been showcased and recognized from coast to coast, and around the globe. They are co-founder of Sigh No More Productions, and the Solo’d Out Theatre festival, and they can be seen acting in such award-winning works as The Perfect Bite (Secret City Adventures/ Netflix), My Best Friend’s Date (Sigh No More Productions), and The Heist… Almost (Sigh No More Productions).

Connect with Madelaine

🌐 Website: http://www.madelaine-rose.com

📸 Instagram: @rose.madelaine

🎥 TikTok: @rose.madelaine

Get Tickets: Passed Down at Halifax Fringe

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Transcript

[Phil Rickaby]
Hello, welcome to Stageworthy. I’m Phil Rickaby, the host and producer of this podcast. Stageworthy is Canada’s theatre podcast, and on Stageworthy, I talk to theatre makers of all kinds, from actors to directors to playwrights and more.

If they make theatre in Canada, I talk to them. Some of the people I talk to are household names, and the rest are people that I really think you should get to know. A little housekeeping before we get into the episode.

I want to talk about the Patreon, because the Patreon is the reason why I’m doing this. The people who are backing me on Patreon are my partners who are helping to make this show happen. Making a podcast still costs money.

You get it for free as the listener, but it costs money to make because you have to pay for a website, you have to pay for hosting so that the files can be distributed to all the podcast listening places, you have to pay for editing software, transcripts cost money, everything on the back end of doing this costs money. And because of the people who are helping me to make it, I’m able to cover most of the costs of that. There’s still a ways to go to cover some of those costs.

And also, I’m not paying for any of the time that it takes to make this show. So all of the labor is just because I love doing this show. But if you would like to help me to make this show, if you’d like to help to help me to cover the cost of this show, you can do that by going to patreon.com slash stageworthy and becoming a patron. Patrons get early access to episodes about some conversations about things that are happening in the theatre world. And of course, the more people who join the Patreon, the more I will be able to offer to my patrons. But if a monthly commitment is not on the cards for you, if that’s not something you’re able to do, or not something you really want to do, there is a way to leave a one time tip if you would like to do that.

There is a coffee that’s ko fi link in the show notes. And if you go to that you can leave me a tip leave some money help me to make this show every little bit does help. I want to say that I am grateful to everybody who has backed the show on Patreon.

Everybody who has who has left a tip on coffee. I’m so grateful to those who have backed this show, because it means I get to keep doing this. But again, if you want to help me to make this show go to patreon.com slash stageworthy and become a patron. My guest this week is Madeline Rose. Madeline is a performer, a producer and all around creative. Madeline is taking her show Passed Down to the Halifax Fringe Festival.

Passed Down is a solo horror play. And so if you happen to be in Halifax, and you want to see something a little scary, this is the show for you. Now here’s my conversation with Madeline Rose.

Madeline Rose, thank you so much for joining me. You are as we speak preparing to go to Halifax to the Halifax Fringe Festival with your show. Passed Down.

Yeah, what is your pitch? Tell me about Passed Down.

[Madelaine Rose]
Yeah, Passed Down is a one person horror show. Yes, that’s right. One person and horror.

I know one person shows can sometimes be their own horror, but this is the horror genre. So this is a one person horror show. It’s about 60 minutes and it all takes place basically in a haunted house.

So Persephone inherits her great aunt’s house. And she realizes that maybe she’s inherited a little more than just the house. It might come with some things.

Some things.

[Phil Rickaby]
Just some, some, some, some things.

[Madelaine Rose]
Some things.

[Phil Rickaby]
Where did the idea for this show come from?

[Madelaine Rose]
You know what, this show actually started my, my writing partner, who I often write with, have written many shows with, Rosie Cosgrove. She’s fabulous. She’s also based in the UK.

So lots of like Zoom meetings that we have. We have submitted a couple times to the 24 hour playwriting contest with the Toronto Fringe Festival. And that’s where this show started.

It started as like a 20 minute short, and then it developed into a full 60 minute, full length play. Yeah.

[Phil Rickaby]
So what, what drew you to the horror genre?

[Madelaine Rose]
Um, I had an interesting relationship with horror. I feel like a lot of folks grew up watching horror. And I did not.

Not one of those people who was like indoctrinated into horror by my horror parents at a very young age. You know what I mean? I kind of came about it later in life.

And I sort of stayed away from it. I am someone who lived alone for several years. So living alone and watching horror movies, like don’t always go together very well.

You know what I mean? So later, I ended up living with other folks, and I started exploring horror a little bit. And I really started to get into it a little bit more.

There’s also like a sub genre of horror, like queer horror, which is super cool, and kind of weird and quirky. And it’s yeah, kind of sucked me in a little bit.

[Phil Rickaby]
I like you, I did not grow up where watching horror. I was always I mean, listen, I was a kid who was afraid of Halloween, like, yeah, we’ll put like skeletons up on the walls. And I’d be like, we got to take those down.

I’m too afraid. Like I was terrified of that kind of stuff. So horror was not a genre that I was particularly interested in.

It’s great to write in, though, which is a weird, like, situation to be in and be like, I don’t usually like horror movies, but man, I really enjoy writing that genre.

[Madelaine Rose]
Yeah, absolutely. And I think that’s also what kind of drew me into writing in it and working in it is yeah, there’s definitely this element of like, wanting to explore more the thing that scares you a little bit and wanting to explore it from behind the scenes, which feels a little safer. I often joke too, that I have like the nervous system of a field mouse, like a jump scare.

It doesn’t even need to like if one of my cats sneezes, I jump 10 feet. You know what I mean? So I think there’s also an element of that of like, how can we how can we play with that?

How can we explore that? How can we get a little less afraid of that?

[Phil Rickaby]
I mean, it’s really important to know the kind of things that that frighten you, right? Like what is it that unnerves you? Because chances are, it’s something that unnerves a lot of other people, too.

[Madelaine Rose]
Yeah, absolutely. And that’s something we play with in this show, the way that we do this show, the majority of it takes place in the kitchen of the house. And that’s where our lead Persephone is, is stationed most of the time.

But we have put this show up before. And when we did it, we sort of explored the space and walking around the audience. It was at Red Sandcastle Theatre, and they have the front doors behind the audience.

So we explored walking back there, having conversations and coming back and the audience was left looking at an empty stage for a bit. We play a lot with like bumps and bangs and practical sound effects. And there’s a lot of, was that part of the show?

Was that sound just an audience member? No, it’s okay. And then, you know, things get a little crazier.

And that sort of build attention is really interesting to play with.

[Phil Rickaby]
Kitchens are actually very frightening places in horror movies. My girlfriend who loves horror movies, and so we sometimes will have negotiations where she wants to watch a horror movie and I’m tentative and she’ll be like, it’s still daylight, we can watch it, you know, that kind of thing. But we watch Poltergeist.

And I highly recommend watching old horror movies because they tend to have seeped so much into the collective unconscious that they’re not as scary anymore as they were when they first came out. But the kitchen is a terrifying place in Poltergeist. Like, there’s so much that can happen in a kitchen.

Things can move, the cupboards can be opened. And what, as far as like rooms to set this play in, what was the reason for choosing the kitchen for you?

[Madelaine Rose]
I think for me, a kitchen is such a central part of the house. I love to cook, I love to eat, I love to cook for people. So I think for me, this sort of kitchen and that main dining space just feels so central.

And I think certain other rooms come with connotations, like bedrooms come with big connotations, basements, and, you know, are inherently already creepy. And we make reference to that as well. There’s definitely a line about, oh, that’s a creepy basement, not going there.

You know, and like living rooms are inherently cozy. Like I think there are other rooms inherently come with a lot of other connotations, whereas the kitchen feels like the center, the heart, the place where you want to make your house into a home for the first time. You want to make your first meal there, kind of a thing.

And then it just starts getting a little freaky, a little funky.

[Phil Rickaby]
Yeah, for sure. There are, of course, two kinds of basements because a finished basement tends not to be so frightening. But my family lives in a house with a completely unfinished basement and, you know, like naked lights that, you know, you turn on, there’s like one naked light in the basement.

Like dangling, like winging a little bit? Yeah, just dangling in like the shadows and things. That’s where the washing machine ends up being.

And it’s just like, as soon as the sun goes down, you’re just like, well, everything down there doesn’t exist now.

[Madelaine Rose]
Yeah. But even a finished basement, you still have that moment where even as an adult, you’re like, crap, I have to turn off the lights while I’m down here and then book it up the stairs because I don’t know what’s following me. You know, you still have that moment of I don’t want to be down there when it’s dark.

[Phil Rickaby]
I mean, that’s true. But you, I mean, you’ve you’ve you’ve performed at the Red Sandcastle. So that that is another place where when the lights go out, whether you’re in a basement or whatever, you’re just like, how quickly can I get out of here?

[Madelaine Rose]
Yeah, absolutely.

[Phil Rickaby]
And I know I know that and this is going to sound so cliche, that theatre is haunted.

[Madelaine Rose]
Well, here’s the other thing about this show is that we have we have conjured ghosts inadvertently every time we we’ve done it. And like, you know, during rehearsals and things, too. So I look forward to who we conjure in Halifax.

But what you’re doing is that Red Sandcastle.

[Phil Rickaby]
Are you doing this at the at the bus stop in in. Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

There’s there’s got to be some ghosts are going to be conjured there. That is a that is a space.

[Madelaine Rose]
Yeah, it’s a cool space. I’ve actually put a show up there a couple of years ago. And it was I drove there as well.

And I drove with my friend and she didn’t drive. So I drove the whole way. And we we had a bit of a time for part of our drive because the whole province of Quebec was under construction.

And we finally got there. And we were like, oh, my goodness, we’re here. And we were so anxious to finally be there.

And as soon as we opened the door and get out and get to the bus stop, we saw our poster on the on the side of the wall. And it was such a relief to see that our show was indeed there. And we walked into the space and it was just such a sweet space.

And this was before the renovations, but they were like the kindest people. And yeah, it was great.

[Phil Rickaby]
Yeah, I haven’t seen that that venue. I was there in 2018. I think it was 2018.

I was there so so well before they renovated. So I’m curious. I’d be curious to see what it looks like now.

[Madelaine Rose]
Yeah, I’m looking forward to seeing it now, too, because I thought it was honestly, I thought it was great when we were there. And they were like, oh, this is not when we’re renovating it. Very snoot and sort of a thing.

So it was just before the renovation. So I’m like, oh, have you seen the theatres in Toronto that this is?

[Phil Rickaby]
I mean, we don’t I mean, listen, our indie theatres do their best. We’ve we lost so many during the pandemic that we did. You know, we the theatres we have are doing their best.

[Madelaine Rose]
Absolutely. And we love them. And they will make a theatre out of anything, any space.

[Phil Rickaby]
Absolutely.

[Madelaine Rose]
But it was so great to just walk into a space and be like space. There’s so much space.

[Phil Rickaby]
Yeah. I was funny because when I was there, the venue that I was at no longer exists. It was it’s now a condo, I think.

But it was like an old bar, dusty bar. They saw pool tables up that like were there and like they like cordoned off with curtains. And that was a creepy place to be.

When you’re not performing. But I know that that the Halifax Fringe is now in some some more traditional spaces, which is great for the festival.

[Madelaine Rose]
Yeah, it is. So far, all my my communication with the festival has been awesome. They’ve been so great.

And I’m so excited to go and be there in person.

[Phil Rickaby]
You mentioned being there before you were in the Halifax Fringe with your show Thank You X, I think in 2023. And Thank You X won best solo comedy at the Halifax Fringe.

[Madelaine Rose]
Yeah, it did.

[Phil Rickaby]
Yeah. Congratulations on that. Thank you.

What is it like returning to that festival now that you have sort of a track record, some cachet in that city? Is it does it feel different going there now than it did the first time?

[Madelaine Rose]
Yeah, it feels really different now because Thank You X is a show created by Kelly Taylor, who is just one of my favorite people. She’s amazing. She’s a great theatre creator.

She’s got a new show coming out, too. So check it out. But we I had the pleasure of directing that show.

So I got to direct it. I got to work with Kelly. I got to help bring it to life, which was very cool.

But she also produced it. So this time it feels very different because Passed Down is my show. I got to I’m acting in it.

I’m producing it. I’m the one corresponding with Halifax. And I totally connected with Kelly and was like, hey, what do I need to know?

Who do I who do I send my press releases to all those things? And she’s been super helpful and great. But yeah, this one feels different because it’s my show.

But it also feels really cool to go back with with my show like I’ve been there before. I kind of know the vibe of the place in it. And but this time I get to go with with mine and see what happens.

[Phil Rickaby]
Yeah. Bringing your own solo show to a Fringe Festival has its own challenges because you are the playwright, you’re the actor, you’re the producer, which means that at no time do you get to just completely lean into any one role. Yeah.

How do you balance all of the things that pull at you as a actor, writer, producer, publicist for your show?

[Madelaine Rose]
Yeah, for sure. Yeah. It’s you know what?

I’ve done it several times in in theatre and film where I’ve worn a lot of hats for our project. So it’s been a well-worked muscle. It’s getting there.

But I really try and compartmentalize and do my producing stuff on one day. You know, the writing stuff, the writing stuff is great because that’s that’s done at a certain point. At a certain point, you cannot touch the script anymore.

You just got to go with it. This is the script for this version of the show. So that gets finished at a certain point.

Producing is always ongoing, but I really try to focus on it some days and then other days are my acting day kind of a thing. And those are the days where I get to memorize my lines. And when I’m in rehearsal, I get to those are you know, that’s what I’m just with my actor hat on.

And I’m trying to get as much done as I can before we get to the festival for the producing stuff, because I really just want to like run around on stage.

[Phil Rickaby]
Back when I was working on my solo show, one of the first pieces of advice I got somebody who’d made the mistake before was. Set a date after which you’re no longer the playwright like that after this date, there are no more revisions, nothing more to be done in the in the writing of the play, because otherwise, as she had made this mistake where she was constantly adjusting, changing all the way through a run and never was able to settle into the show. So that was a huge, huge piece of advice that I absolutely held on to.

Did you find it difficult to do that?

[Madelaine Rose]
This time? No, because this is the second time we’re putting this show up and the first time. Yes, because we didn’t really know how it was going to be received.

So there was lots of like tweaking. And I remember being downstairs at the Red Sandcastle Theatre and like, you know, five minutes before I got to go on for the first time and thinking, oh, God, what if our show’s not scary? Oh, my God, what if I wrote a horror that’s not scary?

And I sort of like had that moment. And then thankfully, folks were freaked out and it was great and it went off and it was great. But this time around, we just tweaked it.

We got to come back at it with fresh eyes and sort of go that joke never fully really landed most nights or that aspect worked really well. So there’s no point in touching it for this. You know, like it was received well.

So this time we got to tweak it. And, you know, there was a scene that we were like fully landed in my body. So let’s let’s play with it and tweak it.

[Phil Rickaby]
But yeah, it was this time was was easier because there was like feedback to go off of, you know, it is such a privilege to be able to to remount a show having done it once because you can always reexamine because. You know, it’s so much better now than you did, you know, with how audiences responded, you know, when I again, my solo show, the first time I performed it, it was absolutely the first time I didn’t know exactly how the audience was going to react to it. And then the next time we approached it, we were able to look at it in that way and say, what do we need to add anything?

Is there something that didn’t work? Is there you can tweak it in a way with knowledge of what worked and what didn’t work before? It sounds like you’ve done with this, but it’s such a joy to be able to like approach it with some knowledge, you know?

[Madelaine Rose]
Yeah, absolutely. And yeah, to be able to say, oh, we’re not touching that joke because it killed every single night, you know, and to not have that question of like, is this going to work? Did it work?

I don’t really know. Like you have concrete evidence if it did.

[Phil Rickaby]
Yeah, no, absolutely. Let’s talk about about that first time that you performed it. That was because I think that what you were doing at the same time that you performing it is kind of wild because that show was first performed at the Soloed Out Festival, which is a solo play festival that you co-produced.

Yeah. So you were co-producing a festival while producing your own show and performing your show.

[Madelaine Rose]
You also forgot to mention, I also directed two shows as well, just to throw more hats in there.

[Phil Rickaby]
So I was going to try to find like another way to say this, but what was wrong with you?

[Madelaine Rose]
No, truly, no, truly, truly. Something was very wrong. Yeah, because that was too many hats even for me.

I’m a Virgo. I wear a lot of hats. If you know, there’s in this industry, there has to be a bit of if if you’re not going to hire me, I’m going to hire myself, you know, if I’m going to I’m going to make my own projects or you got to have a little bit of that.

And but my my lovely friend Kelly is also the kind of person that she’ll say, we’re doing this thing and we’re going to dive in head first. And it is one of my favorite things about her. I’m one of the most terrifying things about her because we have jumped into some things and they’ve all worked out and it’s all been great.

But there were a lot of hats that time. Yeah, it was co-producing this festival alongside Kelly. And then there were four solo shows in it.

Mine was one of them. And then we had three other creators. Kelly was one of them.

Our lovely friend Natalie Morgan and our friend Papaya. They all had one person shows in it. And I had previously directed Kelly’s show and previously directed Natalie’s show.

So I was sort of redirecting them, touching them up for this. And then Papaya hadn’t done a theatre show before and not a solo show before. There was a bit of mentorship there, too.

And then I was doing my show in it. So there were there were a lot of hats. And I remember finishing it and, you know, finishing the festival and being like, I can breathe now.

This is good to breathe. But I also loved every single end of it.

[Phil Rickaby]
I mean, that’s the most important thing, right? Because if you if you if you hated every second of it, that is that is no good whatsoever. But, you know, there’s something about just as a producer of your own play.

I know you found this, but I know that that every time I’ve done a fringe tour or a fringe festival, there’s a certain point in that festival where you just feel it doesn’t matter how well you’re doing it. There’s one day where you’re like, that’s it. Everything sucks.

Everything is falling apart. It is I’m in the mud. Everything is bad.

Like it just happens at some point during a tour, a festival, whatever. How did you deal with that potential? Did that happen during that particular festival?

And how did you keep yourself on your feet for all of those things?

[Madelaine Rose]
Yeah. You know, I always find about a month before a show goes up is when it all feels like it’s going to hell in a handbasket. And it’s taken me a while to learn that that feeling means you’re right on track.

Like there it’s always about a month before where you think something goes wrong. It’s something goes wrong when you’re like just a little too close and you think, oh gosh, I don’t know how we’re going to pull this off. And then, you know, tech week comes and you’re exhausted and you think, how are we going to do this?

But, you know, I think I think back to the pandemic times where all I wanted to do was get on a stage. All I wanted to do was perform and and do the thing that I love so much. So when I feel like I’m, you know, getting in a slump, I think back to it.

But this is the dream. I love this so heckin much. And getting to do what I do for a living is best.

It’s best.

[Phil Rickaby]
Yeah. Yeah. The that that thing you’re describing that that feeling about a month out or a certain point where you feel like everything just fucking sucks is.

I realized a number of years ago, like very early in my career as I was like working on projects with my my friend Richard Bone, director, producer, and and we started to realize, oh, there is going to come a point in every show where you’re just like, we have to scrap everything. Everything sucks. Should we cancel?

You just think. But I think that is something about that moment of of self-doubt that makes you examine everything. And it’s a challenge, right?

It’s kind of like the the, you know, you you could just quit. Yeah, you could just quit. That’s possible.

But what’s the cost of that, like what’s the cost to you, what’s the financial cost, what’s the like, what will you lose if you quit? Because, you know, there’s always the possibility of quitting.

[Madelaine Rose]
Yeah, absolutely. And I think that theatre is the biggest exercise in problem solving. You will.

There will always be a problem. And I think letting go of perfectionism is like the biggest lesson in theatre that that that we all need to learn. And as creative that we all need to learn at some point and we will learn at some point, you know, it’ll come up.

But yeah, sometimes we just have to pivot and it’s all it’s all going downhill. And you think, OK, so we go left. OK, so we go right.

OK, we stop for a minute. We take a breath. We figure it out.

OK, we you know, I think we’ve all had shows where somebody bails on a show last minute and you go, OK, take a breath. Get out my contact list. Who do I know?

Who do I know that help, you know, fill it in kind of a thing. And it’s the problems always get solved.

[Phil Rickaby]
Yeah, I think the other thing is really great about a fringe tour that helps with that is the fact that like every time you arrive at a fringe, you’re rethinking your entire staging because you have no guarantee when you arrive in a space that it’s going to it’s not the space that you rehearsed in. It’s nothing like the space that you last performed in. The exits and entrances are in different places.

The audience is in different configuration. You have to figure out everything. So you have to be so flexible in the way in everything.

[Madelaine Rose]
I love playing with spaces, though. If there’s a door on stage, I’m going to use it. If there’s a light switch, I’m going to sit there and flick it.

If there’s a like red sandcastle downright, a toilet on stage, I’m a flush. Like if there is something on stage to play with, I will figure out a way to play with it. So that’s also one of my favorite things about fringes is you walk into these spaces and you, you know, have a few minutes in your tech time to go, oh, OK, this is my space and just run around and see how you can make use of things.

[Phil Rickaby]
Yeah. You know, you think you X was in Ontario, Nova Scotia. It went to New York, Orlando.

Were you with the show while it was doing that or were you were you able to were you distant from it? Like what was your role as it was touring?

[Madelaine Rose]
Yeah, a bit of both. Depends on where it went. Some places I went with it.

Some places I didn’t just and, you know, offered support from afar because the one of the coolest things about being a director is you’re done come opening night. So you you know, I didn’t I didn’t have to go. So places like Orlando that were a little too far, sort of a little too costly to get me there.

I didn’t go. But New York, absolutely. I went and saw our little show go up in New York, 100 percent.

And I we took it out to Halifax and, you know, I helped to recreate the stage manager Bible for for all the shows and things. So, yeah, I got to I got to do both. Sometimes I got to go with it and sometimes I was here with it.

And I even stage managed it once or twice, you know, in a pinch kind of a thing. So, yeah, it was cool.

[Phil Rickaby]
Is there something that you learned through those experiences that you’re applying to this play and this tour?

[Madelaine Rose]
Yeah. Yeah, I definitely learned things. And thank you, X.

I had the pleasure of directing and then I also had the pleasure of directing Jesse and me, which was created by Natalie Morgan. And both are one person shows and getting to direct them and then getting to do them like do a one person show is such a different experience. And it was such a like two sides of the same coin kind of vibe.

Like it was it was very cool to flip it that way. And yeah, being on tour and learning to be in different spaces and work with different stage managers, because oftentimes we would hire a stage manager in the city as opposed to bringing one with us. Sometimes certain set pieces were too big to bring, you know, so just really being malleable is is like the name of the game and being flexible in all of the ways.

And even as I was submitting my tech for this show, I was like, here’s all the things we would love to have. You let me know, though, and what we get and we’ll make it work. You know, we’ll we’ll figure it out.

[Phil Rickaby]
Right. Again, the being malleable, the being flexible and figuring it out because you don’t know what they have. Yeah.

And because you’re traveling, you have to be really economical in what you’re carrying.

[Madelaine Rose]
Yeah, absolutely. And also with a one person show, you have one actor to set up and tear down your whole set in 15 minutes. Right.

Normally in fringe shows, we’ve got a few people and you’ve got some folks to help you out, but there’s one of me and one stage manager. And so I’ve I’ve also hired an assistant stage manager because she’s great. And, you know, hired like got some extra folks to help us out because I was like, oh, wow, this could be a lot in minutes, the haul in and out.

[Phil Rickaby]
It sure can be. What’s the storage situation like in the at that theatre? Because this is always a question when you’re doing fringe theatres, they give you these ridiculous dimensions that you have to fit all your stuff into.

What what what’s what’s the situation like?

[Madelaine Rose]
Well, in so in Toronto, we get quite literally a taped off section of backstage. Right. And you get like masking tape on the floor with your show’s name on it.

Put it in the box kind of a thing. But in Halifax, in the bus stop theatre anyways, there is no taped off section. There is no backstage.

Everything has to come and go with me. So it will be living in my car.

[Phil Rickaby]
Wow. OK, OK. So you not only have to set it up, you have to move it in and set it up.

[Madelaine Rose]
Mm hmm. Mm hmm. Yeah.

Hence why I was like, we need an extra set of hands here.

[Phil Rickaby]
Yeah. No kidding.

[Madelaine Rose]
The stage manager have to run upstairs and, you know, connect to the tech booth and get themselves up there and ready.

[Phil Rickaby]
So, of course, of course. I am fascinated. You know, you mentioned like conjuring ghosts and things.

And one of the things that Halifax is known for is its ghost walks and its ghost tours and it’s a ghosty city. What does does that feel more tangible as far as like a ghost story, like doing a doing this play in a city that’s like really known for its ghost stories?

[Madelaine Rose]
Yeah. I mean, my hope is we’ll get a good audience turnout because, you know, folks are already primed and ready for the ghost of it all and and want to come check it out. But I I’m telling you, we genuinely do end up conjuring ghosts like every time we do this show, though.

I’m like, bring it on. Let’s see who who joins us. You know, hopefully we have a lot of living audience members, but I don’t know.

I think you get some ghosts, too, as long as they enjoy the show, you know. And listen, if they want to throw in their own bumps and bangs, I’m all for that, too, because that as an actor, what?

[Phil Rickaby]
There you go. You never know what you’re going to get.

[Madelaine Rose]
Yeah.

[Phil Rickaby]
As far as the creation of this, you mentioned like it was it started with the the Toronto Fringe playwriting contest, but obviously it has evolved since then. What’s the process of writing a solo show look like for you?

[Madelaine Rose]
Yeah, it it was, again, like great to be able to direct, too, before I sort of created my own because I saw their process. I got to be part of Kelly and Natalie’s processes and I sort of get to help them along the way and bringing it to life. And so when it came to this one, I I had some ideas.

I had some like, you know, we we had tried some things with Thank You X and tried some things with Jesse and me, and I kind of knew what what sort of works and what sort of works a little bit less with one person shows. And then when Rosie and I got to writing it, like Rosie and I have worked together on so many projects now and we work so well together and it’s been so great. And so, you know, we sort of get together and we get the idea down on paper.

And then especially because we’re in different time zones, like she’ll kind of go to bed and I’ll start to work on it and then I’ll go to bed and bounce back to her. And then, you know, we kind of keep batting it back and forth. But the process is is pretty linear.

I don’t know. Not all artists like to work that way, but I kind of like to like we kind of start with the beginning, a middle and an end and then flush it out. And she’s you know, and then we punch up and throw in the jokes and yeah.

And and she’s so good with dialogue and like picking like character names. And, you know, I can be so good, just like, oh, here’s this idea. Let’s let’s run with it.

And then we do, you know, we feed off each other, which is the best.

[Phil Rickaby]
I’m always fascinated with the way that people write, especially the way that people write solo shows. There are so many different ways to approach it. I took kind of a scattershot with it is I had a notebook and I knew what the topic was and I just started writing until the notebook was full.

[Madelaine Rose]
Yeah.

[Phil Rickaby]
And then I saw what I had and started to see this works, this works and start to put it together, kind of like the vocal mask that we did in theatre school where we would assemble shows out of out of piecemeal and then like then write more and try to put it together. But it was so abstract at first. And then you can also approach it in a in a very linear way.

Yeah. When you were directing these other shows, did they have different ways of writing and you just sort of picked what worked best for you and for Kelly?

[Madelaine Rose]
Yeah. So Kelly also works with a writing partner. Funny enough, her writing partner is named Melly.

So there’s Kelly and Melly, which is very sweet, but they they often work together. And I think they can be a bit similar in that they bounce off each other. But Kelly is so good with her one liners, like her her improv and her jokes.

So that’s where like she really comes in and she’ll very much like you were saying, sort of here’s here’s a book of jokes related to this topic. You know what I mean? Like here’s a book of jokes that this character would say.

Then Natalie, I think, came about it. She had this brilliant idea of a doll coming to life when you’re an adult, like your childhood doll coming to life as an adult. And she just sort of ran with that idea and was fleshing it out and adding how she interacted.

And for her, I think it became a lot more about her main character’s interaction with this doll, which she was also voicing. And you’re never really sure if the doll is actually speaking or if she’s speaking for the doll. Like it’s sort of this really beautiful uncertainty.

And I think that’s how those two came about. And then, yeah, I kind of I kind of like pulled and picked from both and then just got together with Rosie and it just sort of came about. And then we kept going, yeah, that.

OK, let’s write this. And then, you know, we got the 20 minute, but then we really wanted to flesh it out because we were both like, no, there’s more of a story here. There’s more to play with.

And then naturally, we were like really getting into it. And then someone knocked on my door. And again, nervousness removed.

That scared the hell out of me. I was really getting into, oh, yeah, let’s sort of bang there. Oh, yeah.

Ghost definitely pops up there. And then bang, bang, bang. And I, you know, you repeat my past.

Yeah.

[Phil Rickaby]
Well, I mean, when when when when that knock happens at just the right time, it’s it’s going to it’s going to do that no matter if you have like the nervous system of a mouse or whatever, you know, that’s going to react. I think. The idea of doing horror, because I do think that genre in Canadian theatre is much maligned and ignored.

There are few companies that really approach it. Recently in Toronto, we had the paranormal activity show that the Mirvishes did. But and, you know, Red Sandcastle, the Eldridge Theatre does a lot of horror, the Spindle Collective, they do horror.

So there are companies that do it, but it isn’t it isn’t common that companies approach horror or in genre in general. Yeah. Do you have any thoughts about about why that is and what draws you to genre?

[Madelaine Rose]
I I think I think people don’t often see horror as a theatre. Something to explore with you. I think theatre is often comedy or drama, and folks forget that there are other genres.

And we see it like horror is such a classic film genre. That’s where we see it, I would say most frequently is in film in B-horror films like there’s you know, I have a is a professor who teaches B-horror, you know, like, this is this is a genre, this is a like, there are cult classics that are that are horror films. But I think theatre, sometimes we theatre has been gone on going on for ever and ever and ever.

And I think sometimes we put ourselves in these boxes of has to be comedy, it has to be drama. And, you know, oftentimes with even with one person show, it has to be autobiographical, or it has to be very monologue heavy, and, you know, not necessarily a narrative as much. And I think I love I love knowing the rules, so I know which ones to break.

Like, that’s very much me as an artist. And when this came up, and we just really wanted to explore this horror and to just like play with this concept of how can we scare our audience? And how can we make this like, one of one of the big things in this show is Persephone doesn’t exist in this world alone.

She is on the phone with her parents, she’s on the phone with her friend, there’s a delivery person that comes to the door, like you hear their voices there, they exist in the world. But Persephone is the only one on stage. So she is alone.

And she is alone in this house. And we really wanted to play with making the audience feel like they were also trapped and alone in this house. So again, you get these like, you know, moments of like creaking floors and things.

And you think, just an old house, it’s just an old house. We’ve all heard those sounds. We’ve all played that game of ourselves when we’re all alone, you know, and you and you hear a creak or a bang and you think, Oh, God, you know, like, what was that?

It’s fine. It’s fine. And then later in the show, you realize it’s not fine.

And there is something there. And there is these moments of like, oh, gosh, I as an audience member, I’m stuck here too, would be sad. And she is alone on stage.

You know?

[Phil Rickaby]
Yeah. Yeah. It’s a funny thing about genre and horror in general, because I think sometimes people forget that before there were movies, we put our horror on the stage.

You know, Dracula was a very successful stage play that terrified people, you know, like we this is the thing that we did. The horror was on the stage. And it seems like we’ve gotten away from that.

I kind of hope that that that as we read that we’re getting back to it again, that we’re sort of like embracing the the just genre in all of its forms.

[Madelaine Rose]
Yeah, absolutely. And like, just pray, just see, see what lands, see what works like. Let’s go.

[Phil Rickaby]
Yeah, for sure. I’d love to let’s I want to move away a little bit from from your show. I want to talk a little bit about you, because one of the things that is always fascinating to me is what draws people to the theatre.

So what’s your theatre origin story?

[Madelaine Rose]
Yeah, I started doing theatre when I was a kid, I was itty bitty. My mom, bless her, she really wanted to put me and my older sister into some sort of after school activity. Not a sports person.

She’s not a sports person whatsoever. So the thought of being a soccer mom was like, not even on her radar. So she put us into like, theatre classes.

And my sister didn’t take to them after a couple years. She was like, you know, not for me kind of a thing. And I was hooked.

And I was and I, you know, caught the theatre bug. And it’s never left me since. So yeah.

[Phil Rickaby]
So it was the it was classes. It was these these these extracurricular activities as a kid.

[Madelaine Rose]
Yeah, it was these like theatre classes as a kid that would culminate in a show. And it was like, you know, it would culminate in like, Sleeping Beauty or Snow White or some some like kids themed show. And I just thought it was the greatest thing.

And I have these like videos, they were like recorded on like camcorders by whatever parent in the audience. And I have this one video of me going on stage and completely flubbing the line. I think I had one, completely flubbing it, and just like, redoing it and being like, Okay, back on that goes like, just like, all right, kind of a kid moment.

And yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Phil Rickaby]
Now, a lot of kids do that kind of thing. They do that when they’re kids, they do that, you know, even through school and high school. But at a certain point, you made a choice to make theatre make acting your your career.

At what point did you first become aware that that was a thing? And secondly, decide that you were going to do that?

[Madelaine Rose]
Yeah, you know what, I even after like, the classes we would, I was still that kid who was like making up skits with friends and and forcing our parents to watch them, you know, like I was upping that that kid. And then when I got into high school, where I went to high school, there was a drama program that you couldn’t start until you were in grade 10. So like, grade nine wasn’t an option.

And I remember in grade nine, like clamoring to get to grade 10. So I could do it, and finally getting in and I didn’t get cast in the big show of the year that like everybody else got cast in, you know, and then I, I also wanted to be part of a different one. And I didn’t get cast in again, you know, and yet I still kept going.

And I was like, No, but you don’t understand this is, this is my thing. I’m going to do this. And then I ended up going to university and and got my BA in drama studies.

And I ended up getting there’s a lot of words in front of it, but a specialized honors BA in drama studies, because I took so many drama classes, because that’s what I wanted to do. And like, I’m so grateful that I chose the program I chose to because unlike the traditional conservatory acting programs, which are great, this program that I was in taught me a lot of like behind the scenes stuff, too. We were hanging pipes, we were hanging lights, we were, you know, Holland speakers up there and and building sets and also doing the acting program.

And it just, I felt like I came out of it as a very well rounded theatre creator. And, and there was no turning back, you know, like, I loved every second of it, even the history of theatre, even like the history of the lighting systems that we use today, like every part of it was, you know, things that my brain was like, yes, more keys.

[Phil Rickaby]
Yeah, yeah, I, I am fascinated, you know, because when I was in theatre school, we did we had, you know, all through it was theatre history. We started with the Greeks and you make your way through, you know, you go through the whole thing until you get through all the history of theatre till you get to today. And then I feel like the history of theatre in Canada is something that we don’t really talk about.

Like, that’s just the thing that I think to me is missing. And I’m fascinated by it, like this period of time where all of these theatres and these theatre companies spring up in the late 60s. And there’s the, the, with the, the, I think the centenary coming up, the, the Canadian government being like, we got to come, we got to, you know, money for these for the arts, which never happened since in the same way.

But like, all this, this stuff happened. And now these are establishments, these are established theatres, but they were like these young upstarts ones. And I think I like those stories are things that I want to explore and learn about more.

And I think that we, we, we were missing some of those stories these days.

[Madelaine Rose]
Yeah, absolutely. I was also really lucky in the program. I went to that.

I had this professor who brought in like Canadian theatre folks to talk to the class and, and to speak with us about the industry and the scene. And the folks that she brought in were like Hannah Moskovich. You know, there were, there were some, and like John McLeod, like there were some, some big names that she was able to bring in.

And since then, I’ve, I’m so in awe that she was able to do that in the first place. But it was so great, because we did get to have those conversations. And we did get to like, have that connection to the theatre scene in Toronto, specifically.

And I did have a course, I believe it was taught by her about Canadian playwrights. So which was, which was great to be able to learn about, you know, the plays that Canadians are making, because we make, we make cool stuff. We make great shows.

And, you know, sometimes because there isn’t a lot of funding here, sometimes folks, you know, put their shows up elsewhere and then come back here. And, you know, it sometimes takes that a little bit.

[Phil Rickaby]
It can. Yeah. And that, again, that’s the thing where like, you know, the, in Canadian culture, we don’t tend to respect something until somebody else does, you know?

Yeah. It’s a, it was a hit in London. We love it here now and all that kind of thing.

It just, it’s one of those things that just kind of, kind of happens. And I think we’re starting to get away from it, but I think, I know you do a lot of things. You’re, you do, you mentioned you do film.

Yeah. You’ve produced films, you’ve acted in films. You’re the inaugural chair of the ACTRA National Progress Pride Committee and co-chair of Out ACTRA TO.

And I want to get into some of your other stuff too. But what’s the state of that advocacy work right now and what has changed since you first got into those roles?

[Madelaine Rose]
Yeah. So I’ve been the co-chair of Out ACTRA TO alongside Matt Lemke, who is just incredible, for the past, I think three or so years. And that’s at the Alfred Toronto branch.

So that’s, that’s local work, which is really great. And it’s, it’s a community that advocates for queer folks in the film industry and we are actors. And we’ve gotten to work with folks like Inside Out Film Festival and Spindle Films, which is super great as well.

And it’s been so amazing to get to advocate for fellow queer filmmakers and to help with initiatives that get them seen and get their short films off the ground and build this community. And then this year, I became the inaugural chair of the Progress Pride Committee, which is at the ACTRA National level, which means I get to hang out at ACTRA National Council meetings and get to be there and advocate again for queer folks across the country, which is one of the coolest things that I get to do in this life is advocate for, for, for fellow like queer filmmakers and actors and say, Hey, you know, we’re here. We exist. We create incredible work.

Let us tell our stories. Let us be part of our story, you know, and, and let’s, let’s keep going because there is so much incredible work that folks do so much.

[Phil Rickaby]
Yeah. Have you, in the time that you’ve been working in both, I mean, obviously you, the, the the national level thing is, is relatively, relatively new, but you’ve been doing the, the ACTRA thing for a while. Have you seen change in the way that, that, that, that like, have you seen the fruits of the advocacy?

[Madelaine Rose]
Yeah, I, I have. There’s a, there’s an initiative that we do. There’s, there’s two big initiatives that we do.

And they were created before my time. So they’re things that I get to continue and help build upon, but they’re the one is called queer your stories. And it is a short film competition for queer filmmakers.

They submit a pitch. This is not an uncommon thing to do at like film festivals and stuff. You submit a pitch and someone gets the prize and the prize is a bit of cash to help make your short film, but also, you know, whatever in kind donations we can pull together too.

And then it goes up at the inside out film festival. So it already has a home. You already know it’s going to be screened.

And every year I’ve had the pleasure of like helping facilitate this, this a few years in a row. And every year it gets bigger. Every year we get more sponsors.

Every year we get more folks that are saying, Oh my goodness. Yes. Thank you so much for giving me the opportunity to sponsor this initiative because I want to, you know, help these filmmakers.

And every year the filmmakers are insane with the work that they create. This most recent one is a short film called tender chosen. And it’s like the most tender, how like heart wrenching, but also like heartwarming story at 10 minutes.

And I’m sobbing halfway through it five minutes in I’m sobbing through thing. And it’s like so beautiful. And last year was a short film called last call.

And it was a lesbian Spanglish zombie film, like talk about genre. And it again was like the coolest thing in a completely different way. You know, it was like lesbian Spanglish shot of the dead, which I was like, that’s the tagline.

I need to hear it. I’m in take my money. Let’s make this, let’s figure this out.

So yeah, it’s been it that advocacy work means that we get more folks to help these filmmakers, but also these filmmakers get more like inspiration to do what they do and more understanding and knowledge that yes, they can make these films. Yes, they can do this. And then one of our other big initiatives is working the scene in rainbow, which is, was created after working the scene in color.

And ours is a cold read initiative where queer actors cold read scripts from queer writers. And this year, normally we do four scripts, and there’s probably about three to five people per script. And this year, we had five scripts, and there were like 35 people involved.

There were like 35 queer creators getting their work out there getting their acting out there. And we had casting directors in the audience. We had industry folks in the audience.

And I saw a casting director that that was at that event at another event later. And they said, Oh, hey, by the way, you’re, you’re Madeline Rose, you help put together work in the scene rainbow. And I said, Yes, they do.

And they introduced themselves. And they’re a casting director. And they said, and I was like, Thank you so much for coming, like, hire these folks.

And they’re like, Oh, I already do. Don’t you worry. But yeah, I will continue to.

So it was Yeah, it’s been so great watching people like learn that we can do this.

[Phil Rickaby]
Yeah. Now, over the last year, so south of the border, there’s been a lot of backsliding and reversals on on rights and about queer visibility. There are companies that are pulling out of pride festivals and things like that.

In the advocacy advocacy that you’ve been doing, are you seeing that echoes of that here? Or are you seeing the reverse?

[Madelaine Rose]
I am seeing a huge resilience to it here, which is great. I yeah, there there was in the States, there’s a stupid like survey going around. Basically, the the government was asking I think is the film commission was asking folks their opinion on if storylines involving specifically trans and non binary folks needed like content warnings in front of them.

You know, implying that trans and non binary folks and bodies are something dangerous or requiring a warning about that bullshit. That’s we that’s not that’s not necessary. Yeah, but here, so so we’re like, as we work so closely with the states, especially in the film industry.

So like, we’re aware when those things happen. And but then also here, we had heated rivalry film here. The Canadian government funded heated rivalry.

[Phil Rickaby]
If you look at the end of those credits, you see the Oh, I know logo come up, which is like that is that is that is such a source of pride in all of the Canadians who are what do they refer to them? Are they loons? Are they?

They’re wolf birds, whatever they are, whatever they call themselves, but that the Canadian the funded by the Canadian government logo is a real sense of pride.

[Madelaine Rose]
Yeah. As it and as it should be like we we have we make queer content here like Schitt’s Creek sort of like there’s there’s a lot and so great. And we still have work to do.

We still have places to go. We still have like, I would love to see more queer folks in in queer roles. You know, there’s there’s that fight that’s still going on where and the argument there is like we’re being written out of our own stories.

Yeah, you know, and, and there’s still more to do as far as like ensuring that are like we have safety on set. And, you know, pronouns need to be respected on set. Like those, those are the things, but those are the things we’re working on.

And sometimes in Canada, we forget that we have to like, put those, we have to put those in writing, you know, like, let’s mandate pronouns on call sheets so that nobody can say, Oh, I just didn’t know your pronoun, right? You did it in writing on the call sheet, you know, or making sure that our producers, you know, know that everyone on our set know that they can go to the producers because the producers are queer folks, or because the producers know what they’re doing around queer folks. You know what I mean?

We’re not the only one on set because that’s, that’s the worst when you walk on set and you’re like, got it.

[Phil Rickaby]
Oh, for sure. Yeah. I think the other thing is, is, is just to remember that the work is never done.

Exactly. Yeah. It’s, it’s, you don’t get to a certain, we don’t get to go to a certain point.

I go like, well, that’s enough. It’ll nothing, nothing bad will ever happen because the fight has to continue because as we could see in the States, it, if you, if you stop fighting, then bad things can happen.

[Madelaine Rose]
Yeah. And the thing too, with queerness is it always becomes a political pawn. So depending who the political government is at the time, even in Canada, it becomes a pawn of, you know, discussing trans rights or discussing if queer folks are allowed to marry or if they have to adopt their own kids, you know, like, like family building and family planning as a queer person is also very different.

And there, there needs to be laws that protect queer parents and, you know, protect their kids.

[Phil Rickaby]
Yeah, absolutely. You have an artistic mandate about raising up gender marginalized and queer creators. How does that, how do you work with that in the work that you do?

How, how does that present itself to you?

[Madelaine Rose]
Well, as it really presents itself to me as well, really in all aspects of, of my work, but like as a producer, I, I seek out folks who are gender marginalized, marginalized folks who are women, who are queer, who are BIPOC folks, like who, who are folks who are not always given the opportunities and, and, but, but it’s also in my writing, you know, it’s also my directing. It’s, I’m a very collaborative person in all aspects of my art. And I’m a big believer that everybody who walks into the room is an artist.

So, you know, everyone’s opinions are valid and yeah, we need a leader to steer the ship and, you know, sometimes too many cooks and all those things, but everybody, we can collaborate and we can work together. And I’m a big, big fan of like safety and in my work as well, and making sure that everyone knows like that I’m a safe person to come to if you got an issue, but also there’s another person who is on always on set or in my rehearsal rooms that you can go to if God forbid, there’s a problem with me, you know, like it’s about making sure that everyone’s safe and about, even in my director of practice, we, we talk a lot about like getting into an emotional scene. I’m a big fan of talking about how to get out of it too, and how to like care for yourself afterwards. And I think all of that is all tied to the same thing of like care and collaboration and raising voices that, you know, deserve to be raised.

[Phil Rickaby]
Yeah. I mean, coming out of those scenes, I think that, that, that’s another thing that I often, that I think about a lot is the way that in the rehearsal hall, the way that we, we enter in the way that we leave, but also the way that we deal with the emotional bleed from a scene. And it’s one of those things that we kind of don’t deal with or talk about very much in theatre.

Yeah. And we should, there are, there are communities out there that are outside of the theatre that are well aware of it. Some of the role-playing communities.

Yeah. Entire books written about how to deal with the emotional bleed from a scene. And yet in the theatre, we often just, that’s just part of it.

It’s just the way that it, and it’s so unhealthy to not deal with that. What, what brought you to the way that you approach coming out of a scene?

[Madelaine Rose]
Well, like most people, I was taught how to rev up and get into these emotional scenes. And I, I didn’t have teachers teaching me to get out of it. And I, right after I graduated from university, I, I wanted to find other classes to fill gaps that I felt like I got.

And not that I had big gaps for my education, but just things that like weren’t taught in my school, like improv, you know, I went to second city, that kind of thing. But one of the first things that I fell into was stage combat. And that I think really influenced me in that way, because they talk so much about physical safety, but they were also talking so much about mental safety, and emotional safety.

And they were talking about like, you know, what is what is the safe way to make it look like you’ve punched somebody in the face? But also, hey, a person who is, you know, pretending that they’ve been punched in the face, how are you feeling about that? And person who’s doing the punching?

How are you feeling about that? And especially when there are different dynamics of, you know, when it is a very male presenting person, supposedly attacking a very female presenting person, like there, there are dynamics, they’re a very large person, very small person, a very, you know, muscular person, a very slim person, right? Like there’s, there are big connotations that can come with those things.

And violence in scenes can come from big, scary, emotional places. So they, they really trained me in that to like, think of those things. And I, again, like, like many people that came up when I did through acting, you know, I was used to teachers that would say, great, you’re going to go into this scene and you’re going to cry.

Oh, you can’t cry right now. Well, tell me about your most emotional, deepest, darkest secrets before 9am on a Monday. And oh, now you’re crying.

Great. I’m going to put a camera on you. And look what I did.

I helped get you to this emotional place. And it’s like, now you traumatized me and stuck a camera on me. Okay.

[Phil Rickaby]
Yeah.

[Madelaine Rose]
Yeah. And, and then I remember coming out of some of those scenes and needing to like go into the hallway and like, come down from it. And, and that was almost like, Oh, I can’t just come out of it.

And it’s like, because I was there, you know, like, that’s emotionally I’m there. And we got to mindfully come out of those practices. And like, it doesn’t have to be hard doesn’t have to take long.

And, and, you know, like there, there are just some routines that we can get into that really can help with that. Come down, like having a snack. Oh my God.

That’s like, what are the easiest thing is just have a little, have a little, a little tiny cheeky snack.

[Phil Rickaby]
Yeah.

[Madelaine Rose]
That can be huge. Yeah.

[Phil Rickaby]
It’s such a thing. And it’s, it’s so weird that it’s, it’s, it’s so accepted in, in acting circles to have somebody say, all right, let’s do it. Let’s ask what’s this traumatizing thing.

All right. Now you’re feeling it. Let’s film that you do the thing.

And then I don’t feel anything. I’m fine. It was not my issue.

So you just go and deal with the trauma that I’ve forced you to relive.

[Madelaine Rose]
Yeah. It’s a thing. It’s a thing.

And it’s like, I, I, I wonder how much it happens as much now. Cause I was in a class not that long ago. And the students were like, my teacher refuses to give me any negative criticism.

And I was like, well, cause we were like, when I came up in acting, it was only criticism. And then you throw the baby out with the bath water. Cause you’re going, I don’t know.

I did anything I do land, you know what I mean? And, um, so I wonder if the things have shifted quite a lot in some, some teachings in some schools, but yeah, it was such a like prevalent thing. And most of the folks that I’ve know that I’m friends with that are also actors, like we, everybody has a story about that, that coach, that acting professor or somebody that was like, you know, let me basically unleash this trauma and then yeah.

Have a good rest of your day.

[Phil Rickaby]
Yeah. Yeah. Like I’m so fascinated.

I don’t even know what theatre school is like. I went to theatre school in the nineties, very different from the way that it is now. Um, but they spent a lot of time saying things like, I don’t think we do this anymore, but they said, all right, what we’re going to do over the course of your three years, we’re going to tear you down and then build you back up.

And then they would spend a lot of time tearing us down and they would never get to the build you back up part. And so you were just like leave after three years, raw and broken. Yeah.

It’s so, it’s so weird that that’s like a thing that it was acceptable to be like, we’re just going to traumatize you for three years and then good luck out there.

[Madelaine Rose]
And it’s so, I mean, it’s, it’s cruel, but it’s also irresponsible. Like being an actor requires so much vulnerability. Like you, you have to take off your, your daily armor that we all need to walk around through life.

You know, you have to take it all off, but you also have to put it back on. Like it’s, to me, it’s so irresponsible to let folks walk into the world after a rehearsal without a cool down from a huge emotional scene. Maybe we don’t need a cool down from all of our comedy scenes or things like that, but even big, huge, emotional, sobbing, crying, you know, politically charged, emotionally charged scene.

And now you’re expected to just go about your day without a conversation about it. Like, you know, yeah. Irresponsible to me.

[Phil Rickaby]
100%. 100%. I think they don’t do that anymore.

[Madelaine Rose]
Yeah. I think a lot less like that.

[Phil Rickaby]
I would, I would love to like really get into like, what, what does, what does the theatre school of, of today look like? Cause for me, it was a long time ago. And I think it would be interesting.

One of the other things that you do is grant writing as a service for other artists. What is, in your opinion, the biggest misconception that artists have about the grant process?

[Madelaine Rose]
I think, you know, it’s not even like a misconception, but like the, the biggest thing that I noticed with a lot of grant clients, and it’s like so common, is people forget that they have to explain the facts. Artists are so great at explaining their passion, why they’re creating this project, what it means to them, how important it is to them, why they deserve to tell it because it’s part of their story or whatever. And then they forget to put the date of when the show’s going up or, or when they’re filming or how many days they’re filming for.

And I think that’s the thing, that’s the biggest thing that, that folks like forget. And then I come across and I, and I sort of have to remind people of like, the, the jurors need to know the boring stuff too. I love the passion and I love the creativity and I love all those conversations.

They also need a budget. That makes sense. They also need dates.

They also need to put the, put the title right in that first line. You know what I mean? Like just the really, the, the boring stuff that is, feels so simple that you forget, you know what I mean?

It’s that thing.

[Phil Rickaby]
And it’s not just, I mean, they need, they need to know it because they’re going to give you money, right? They need to know because they need to know that you know what you’re doing with the money.

[Madelaine Rose]
Yeah. And that it’s thought out, right? Like it just, if it’s great to have a script, you know, but when you’re applying for production funding, you need it to be thought out for how long is your run, you know, if it’s one week or two weeks, that’s a very different budget.

[Phil Rickaby]
100%. Yeah.

[Madelaine Rose]
What theatre space are you renting? What kind of theatre space? Maybe you don’t have the specific space, but here are quotes from, you know, two similar ones or something like that.

Like, you know, you don’t, you don’t need all of, you don’t need everything nailed down, but you need enough to make it look like you thought about it.

[Phil Rickaby]
No, for sure. Yeah. And I think again, it’s the thing that I, I’ve been telling people is, is that all those granting programs, they have somebody there who’s there to answer your questions who would love for you to get the money.

[Madelaine Rose]
Yeah.

[Phil Rickaby]
Right. That person is on your side. Like the jurors, they, you know, they have to make all the decisions.

The granting officer wants to tell you everything they possibly can. So you get the money.

[Madelaine Rose]
Absolutely. And I’ve had some like really great conversations with granting officers. And one of them for my own grant was ask for more money.

Like that was the advice I was given. Don’t got to tell me twice. Okay.

[Phil Rickaby]
No, absolutely. Great. More money, please.

Absolutely. Yeah.

[Madelaine Rose]
Yeah. So sometimes the advice is like, you know, do get, get more, get more.

[Phil Rickaby]
Well, because I think, especially if you come from an indie theatre or a fringe background, you’ll, you think small. Yeah. Right.

You think we just need to scrape by here. We just like straight, we make this happen. And if you’re getting a grant, you’re not budgeting to scrape by, you’re budgeting to like do all the things.

That’s what they want to see in your budget, that you understand all the things that you need and how much it’s going to cost.

[Madelaine Rose]
Yeah.

[Phil Rickaby]
So yeah, more money.

[Madelaine Rose]
More money. And I think in indie theatre too, we’re so used to not just scraping by, but also being like, like pretty rifty, you know, we’re, we’re used to being able to ask our friends, you know, can I borrow that prop piece from you? Or ask the, the theatre venue, you know, like, Hey, can I get a discount?

Or, Oh, well, we’ll only rent it for these days or, and not these days, or like, I think we’re pretty used to being like really scrappy and thrifty with our budgets. And like, yeah, when you apply for grants, don’t do that. Make a, make a big budget.

[Phil Rickaby]
Yeah. Yeah. I for sure.

Absolutely. All right. My last question for you is to go back to Passdown.

I want to ask you about what do you want an audience at the Halifax fringe to experience at Passdown?

[Madelaine Rose]
I want them to get scared. I want folks to leave feeling a little creeped out. I, we, uh, the first, the first night of the first show, like opening night of this show, the first time it ever went up.

And again, before, before we went up, I had this, this scary thought of like, Oh gosh, what if we created a horror show? That isn’t very scary. And then we went up and we did it and it felt great.

And the first thing that an audience member said to me, the first like bit of feedback that I got from an audience member was someone came up to me and they looked at me and they said, I live alone. I live alone. And like, they were afraid to go home a little bit.

Cause they were like, I live alone and now I’m scared to go home. And, um, so I’m, I’m looking for that. I’m looking for folks to like, get a little scared.

[Phil Rickaby]
Do you have any late night shows?

[Madelaine Rose]
Let me late night show. Yeah, I do. I do.

There’s a couple that are like 9 30 PM, which I honestly, as a fringe artist, uh, sometimes with normal shows, you think, Oh no, how am I going to sell that? You know, like a late night show. Um, but as a horror play, I was like, yes, I have like more than one.

[Phil Rickaby]
I was just looking, you have at least two, which is great. Cause then you get to send your, your, your, your, your frightened audience out into the night in Halifax, one of the most haunted cities in Canada.

[Madelaine Rose]
Yeah, absolutely.

[Phil Rickaby]
Well, Madeline, thank you so much for joining me. I really appreciate it. Thank you so much for, for talking about this show and all that you do.

[Madelaine Rose]
Awesome. Thank you so much for having me. This is great.

[Phil Rickaby]
Thank you so much for listening to this episode of Stageworthy. If you’re watching on YouTube, like this episode, leave a comment so that I know that you were here. And if you like Stageworthy in general, make sure that you’re subscribed and hit that bell icon so that whenever I put out a new episode, you’ll get notified that a new episode is available.

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Yeah. Tune in next week for a new episode of stage where there’s a couple of things that are up in the air. Normally I would tell you who that is.

I’m still ironing out a couple of things. So tune in to find out who my guest is next week on Stageworthy.