Jay Northcott is Bringing Joy, Blackness, and Bootycandy to Buddies in Bad Times

In this episode:

Jay Northcott is a director, educator, and multidisciplinary artist whose work is rooted in joy, specificity, and a deep commitment to centring the full humanity of Black and queer artists. In this conversation, Jay joins Stageworthy host, Phil Rickaby to talk about Bootycandy, Robert O’Hara’s wildly funny and emotionally complex play running at Buddies in Bad Times Theatre in association with Obsidian Theatre; and why a play written by an American offers a powerful opportunity to interrogate what it means to make distinctly Canadian art.

Guest: 🎭 Jay Northcott

Jay (They/Them) is a multidisciplinary Creator, Director, Producer, and former 

Big Brother Canada contestant.

Central to Jay’s creative and artistic practice is their advocacy for marginalized communities including Palestinians, Indigenous, Black, Racialized, Queer, Trans folks and beyond.

The art they create is a window into their world, soul, values, and imagination.

Art is freedom and freedom breathes life. 

Credits include: 7 METHODS OF KILLING KYLIE JENNER (Obsidian Theatre), KING LEAR (Stratford Festival), COTTAGERS AND INDIANS (Watermark Theatre, PEI), CONCORD FLORAL (Randolph College), 21 BLACK FUTURES (Obsidian Theatre, CBC), THE PARASITE (Theatre Outrè), PREMIUM CONTENT (Major Matt Mason).

Connect with Jay:

📸 Instagram: @jaythemcott

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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.

This week, my guest is Jay Northcott, and we’re going to be talking about the show that he’s directed, Bootycandy, at Buddies in Bad Times in association with Obsidian Theatre. Before we get to that, let me quickly tell you, I have a Patreon, and it’s how I’m able to keep doing this show. The people who have chosen to back me on Patreon to become patrons of this program are helping me to pay for all the things that need to be paid for in order to do a podcast, because it does cost money to do this, even though a podcast is available to you for free.

And I don’t have ads to support this show. So the Patreon is the only way that I’m able to keep doing this, because it costs money to have a website, to have a place to host all the audio files so they can be distributed to all of the podcast listening places. Editing software costs money.

Image creation software costs money. There’s so many little things that come up. Transcripts cost money.

And so if you want to help me to make this show, because we are just covering the costs of making this show, and that doesn’t account for the time that it takes to make this show, because every episode is the result of hours of work from booking the guest, doing research, doing the interview, and then editing the episode and all the things that go into that. So if you would like to help me to make this show and to throw a little bit of support behind me, because this is a one person operation, right? This is just me.

I’m the producer. I’m the host. I do all of the things for this podcast.

So if you want to help me, please go to patreon.com slash stage ready and become a patron. I would be so grateful. Also, if you’re not able to commit to monthly support on a regular basis, and I understand that there is another way that you could if you wanted to send me one time support for this show at coffee.com slash stage where that’s ko dash fi.com slash stage worthy. If you go there, you’ll be able to give me a one time donation. And I would be grateful for that too. Anything that you could do to help me keep doing this show as I move towards the 500th episode would be so amazing.

And I thank you in advance for that. So thank you. Now let’s get into my conversation with Jay Northcott.

This show sounds like nothing I’ve ever seen before. Bootycandy is almost like sketches, but there’s a through line, I think. But there’s a through line and there’s so much.

Listen, you’re gonna have to listen to this this episode because Bootycandy sounds like a fascinating and incredible show buddies of bad times in association with obsidian theatre. So here’s my conversation with Jay Northcott. All right, Jay Northcott, thank you so much for joining me.

I really appreciate you making some time. Just as we get started. Tell me you’re directing Bootycandy at buddies of bad times in association with obsidian theatre.

What is what is Bootycandy? Yeah, what isn’t Bootycandy?

[Jay Northcott]
Uh, no. Hi, thanks for having me. I’m so excited to like chat with you and and and talk about the show.

Yeah, it’s Bootycandy is a show a play written by Robert O’Hara. It came to me at rhubarb festival. I was watching rhubarb and then ted was like, come downstairs.

And I was like, Okay, ted, I’ll come downstairs like read this play and tell me what you think. We’re thinking we’re gonna do it. And like, the pace in which it happened is really awesome and exciting because I feel like theatre takes so long sometimes.

And the show is, you know, the one thing that I really always want people to know is that it’s funny. It’s really, really funny. It’s a it’s a it’s a show that that talks a lot about blackness and queerness and belonging and like, what is our story?

I really think so much of theatre that’s being created in Canada sometimes, especially when it comes to like, queerness or blackness is very surrounded by American like ideology. And even though this is an American play, it’s like we have this opportunity to have this conversation about like, what does it mean to have to present as American and and because it has these breaks in the show that that we really get to kind of dissect what it means to create Canadian art.

[Phil Rickaby]
Can I ask you a little bit about what you mean by presenting as American? Or is that like, as the actors be like playing American or?

[Jay Northcott]
I mean, like, I mean, I think there’s like there’s this weird conversation about like, what is Canadian black culture and like, what’s the history of it? And the same thing with like queerness. It’s like so much of Canadian, not even just art, but like our history is based in being so close to America.

And like, oh, like your like your favourite, all of our favourite artists or where our movies come from is so American in like the I think our closest connection to like ideology or like worldview and like when we’ve been created as kind of Australia, because we there’s there’s so many similarities in there, but like how how those two, how these two countries were colonized and created. And the biggest difference is that in Australia, they’re a day away, like, it’s like so far away from Americanness, that they kind of got to create in some ways their own ideology. And so much of Canadian ideology, especially when it comes to blackness, and, and like how like slavery, and then the civil rights movement, and all these things were so close that sometimes we talk about it as if, like, that is our culture when our, we come from a diaspora of immigrants and different stories.

It’s not just this one story.

[Phil Rickaby]
It’s so interesting, because, you know, Australians are very close to us attitude and the outlook and what we want, and yet there’s the distance thing. One other thing is that Australians seem to have gotten past the cultural cringe, where they don’t appreciate their own arts world, their own cultural product. And because of our proximity to the States, we still have that inferiority thing where a lot of times it becomes difficult for us to see our work as equal to American work.

[Jay Northcott]
Yeah. And I mean, it’s just even like, just in the amount of people, right? It’s like, it’s just there’s 10 times the amount of people.

So there’s 10 times the amount of money and, and there’s, and there’s 10 times the amount of stories. So like, even if we’re creating stories at a certain, at a certain amount, there’s just like all of these things that somehow get broadcast and are bigger, have bigger budgets, blah, blah, blah, that, that is America. And like, so even like, I think of like, when I, when I look back at like school, like going to high school or university and like what I, what stories I learned about blackness was way less about like what happened in Canada.

And it’s like, what happened in America? And like there, it’s just, it is a different, it’s a different story.

[Phil Rickaby]
Yeah. I think that the availability of material about growing up black in America is proliferates more than, than the similar material about, about Canadian blackness.

[Jay Northcott]
Yeah. And we even talk about like, like when I went to Philadelphia, it’s like when I’m there and you ask a black person where they’re from, they say from slavery or they’re like from America, you know, when you ask a black person where they’re from in Canada, we’re like, like for me, I’m like, Oh my, like my dad’s from St. Kitts and my mom is, is a halfway and half native. I’m like, that’s like, I, I still identify as black, but in so many ways I also identify with my history more than I identify.

I would never, I don’t really know if I would ever just be like, Oh, I’m Canadian. Like I don’t describe myself.

[Phil Rickaby]
There are very few, I think there are very few Canadians that just say Canadian. It is, it’s a lot, certainly it’s a lot easier as a person who is white, traditionally white and Anglo-Saxon Protestant is more likely to be like, Oh, I’m Canadian. Um, but then there’s stuff, everybody comes from everywhere.

I remember when I was growing up, so many people were proudly like I’m Heinz 57, meaning that like, they’re a mix of, of, of, of, of so many different things.

[Jay Northcott]
Yeah. And it’s maybe like, because we like, hopefully, and hopefully this continues and the world doesn’t blow up and who knows, but, but like, you know, even like having Acadians or having like, like indigenous humans that really, that like really like to talk about where they’re from and like where their exact community is, because like those connections are really important to us and like, and vital.

So in that it’s really interesting to me that it’s so, sometimes so hard to find work that people that companies are producing that, that aren’t just talking about the ideologies of America and are talking about like the very specific, very, and maybe that’s why it’s because there’s so much specificity in our identity as individuals in Canada. And maybe that’s because we’ve been allowed to do that in our, in our multicultural world, but like, it’s, it’s not just, it’s never just an American or a Canadian story for us, unless it’s like some racist, weird colonizing story. So it’s like, it’s, it’s a story about, it’s, it’s always, and we’re also such a new country that it’s like, we knew colonized place, whatever, whatever we want to talk about.

It’s like that, that our stories are still important to us because they are still individual in so many ways.

[Phil Rickaby]
Yeah. But it’s so interesting because that, that individualness, that specificity is actually what makes a story more interesting to people. I remember hearing so many years ago that like, you know, the original people thought that like fiddler on the roof, it it’s too specific.

It’s too Jewish. It’s too less. And you produce it in Korea and people go, it feels like a Korean story.

You produce it wherever you go. And it’s because it’s so specifically Jewish and European Jewish, people still see that, see themselves in the story. I think specificity is, is a net, I think it’s a good thing.

It helps us to relate to each other more.

[Jay Northcott]
And I think it’s really like, even now, I think it’s even more important. Even like, even as a director, always, it’s the thing that I really love about any feedback, good or bad is that people know that it’s mine. Like that I, that I made the thing.

I like really like to put my mark on it. I think like theatre is meant for collabouration and that like, I’m supposed to interpret a script and put something on it. And in that way for audiences, especially like in some of the black plays that I’ve seen over the past couple of years, or even the past 10 years, it’s like a lot of it is so unspecific to like this, like slavery or like oppressed story, blah, blah, blah.

And it’s like, sometimes I, like, I want to see something that’s like, has a little joy in it or has something that like that, that I learned from as a, as a person of colour and not something that’s just like patting a white person on the back being like, I saw 12 Years of Slave, 12 Years of Slave, the play. And now I feel like I know something and now I can like, not care about like unhoused people in Canada, you know?

[Phil Rickaby]
Yeah. Yeah.

[Jay Northcott]
Yeah. I don’t, I don’t. The show has a, has like play, but then also has this thing about being like, what is our story and why do we keep having to tell the stories of someone else?

[Phil Rickaby]
Yeah. Bootycandy is a play that, that has, it’s like, like sketches, short scenes. And I think there’s one, one character that’s like a through line character.

Yeah. And the rest are like everybody else is playing like many different roles. There is, there’s sketches, there’s scenes, there’s, there’s a sermon, there’s all kinds of things.

And is there, in all of these scenes, is there an overarching idea or is it like a, a tone poem of, of, of, of, of visuals and, and, and, and thoughts that, that amounts to something else?

[Jay Northcott]
Yeah. It’s the, the story is very much about Sutter, the main, the main character that he’s continuing to like go through these stages of understanding what his childhood was to what his teenage years were, what his like twenties and thirties were and where he is now and what his needs are. So that’s kind of the through line of a lot of it.

There is some stories that come out of not nowhere, but like that, that are used as almost like fables in some ways to like teach, like to teach him a lesson for him to learn. All of them do like the, the, the beautiful thing about it, even when I first wrote it, there’s a character named Clint and I was, he has two different scenes that he’s in and it took me a fair bit of time to ever figure out that like, like reading it maybe two or three times, I was like, Oh, same Clint. That’s the same Clint.

I was like, there, there’s that thing. It’s like, Oh, that’s Roy’s dad. Okay.

I get that. Oh, that’s young mom. And that’s middle age mom.

They’re the same mom. And then you’re like, okay, this is that thing. And that’s when you work in episodic, like an episodic play like this, it’s like finding ways of just like having specificity, especially in, in chaos.

Like some people, when you look at like experimental theatre, they’re like, Oh, it doesn’t have to all connect. It can just be like, let’s throw some cake on stage. I think it’s way harder than a straight play because people will start judging it to be like, what does it mean?

Why am I going through this? Why am I experiencing this thing? And they need that through line.

So a lot of our work, even in this, because we just started rehearsing yesterday, it’s, it’s really making sure that all of the choices that we’re making allows the audience to have some sort of through line through their experience. Cause it’s there. It’s there.

[Phil Rickaby]
Yeah. I mean, audiences, if, if there isn’t a through line, they will make it up. They’ll, they’ll do their own thing.

Cause our, we want a story, right. And so we’ll fill it in, which is a fascinating thing on its own. Like if you were really curious, you’d be like, let’s leave it up to the audience to decide about all of this stuff.

[Jay Northcott]
And, and yeah, I think like the, every, every person that is going, if, if every person has the same idea of, of the, of what the theme is of the show, I would be, I would be like, wow, Jay, like you’re amazing. Cause you’re amazing. You’ve done something like you’ve changed this world somehow.

Yes. I think that the whole point is, is that we do go through life in everybody goes through it so differently. And also like memory of like an experience or like, cause Sutter is a playwright in the show.

And it’s like, he’s writing these scenes of things that have happened in his life. And it’s like, how much of it is true and how much of it is, is, is false to, to justify why he’s acting the way he is there. There’s so much of that, like how much of our memory is truth.

Like I think, I always think that I remember exactly something happened when I was 10 years old, but for sure, probably didn’t happen that way.

[Phil Rickaby]
I, whenever I wonder, I always ask my brother and he’ll let me know when, when I’m, or we, I think we sometimes have different memories. Right. And so you, and memory is not fact.

Every time you remember something, you change something.

[Jay Northcott]
Isn’t there that thing that it’s like, it’s like, there’s your truth. There’s my truth. And then there’s what actually happened.

[Phil Rickaby]
Yeah. It was just a separate thing. Absolutely.

Memory is an unreliable thing. And we are so certain of it.

[Jay Northcott]
Yeah. And especially now, like with, I don’t know anything like my phone, my phone tells me everything. I don’t, I don’t know.

I don’t know. I’m like, I’m like, I have to Google everything now.

[Phil Rickaby]
You mentioned during rhubarb Ted came to you with this play and you read it. What first jumped out at you about the play?

[Jay Northcott]
That first was that I wasn’t sure if I liked it. And, and like, I was like, why do I want to read it again? Cause like, there was just so many about that.

I was, that I was like, there’s something here and I’m trying to figure it out. I think like some of my questions always is, is like, I was really excited for one is like, Ted, like working for buddies is like been always a dream of mine. And it’s one of the first companies that I knew of that was outside of Alberta.

And, um, obsidian is the, is kind of the company that gave me my, my jumpstart into, into theatre over the past 10 years. They helped me. I worked on a show called sweat by Lynn Nottage at arts club in Citadel theatre.

And they didn’t have any money for me to assist and direct. So I was talking to Mel Hague when she was there and she was like, Hey, so I talked to, I talked to Philip Akin. He said, they can give you some money to go work on the show.

If you think that it’s going to improve your career. So I was like, why, like, what is, what is this thing that makes this show so attractive to both of them, especially to like, especially to buddies. And the thing that I found in it that I really loved is the comedy.

I, there’s a, there’s a company called Gwandak theatre up in the territories. And my friend Colin Wolf runs it or did run it. And he asked the community, like, it’s an indigenous arts company.

And they’re like, what do you want to see? And they’re like, can we see something funny? Like, can we please see something about us?

That’s funny. And there’s so many moments in this, like there’s this, there’s this lesbian uncoupling scene where they get demarried and it’s just like the most hilarious cutting. Like it’s like watching like bad girls club in some ways.

And they’re just like, Oh, I think I can make every person in this audience laugh. And like, that’s the thing that, that makes me fall in love with it. And I think, I think comedy is so much harder than, than like a tragedy to define that and to be able to like know that the audience is going to be different every day and, and hit those beats is like you, it’s a lot of work.

[Phil Rickaby]
It is a lot of work. Cause like you said, the audience is different every night and their rhythm is different every night. And sometimes like you have to be able to like almost sense like, Oh, they need another moment before it, like, it just like becomes like this, this dance between the audience and the actor.

[Jay Northcott]
They are a hundred percent in, in comedy, always the character, like it’s added on opening night and like, you have to learn how to work with somebody who didn’t have the script. And it’s, and it’s like a beautiful, it’s a beautiful moment of being like that. I hope that what these actors get out of even like this experience during our rehearsal period is that like, there’s this opportunity to play and that the lines don’t have to sound exactly the same every night.

Like that in comedy, you have to be affected. The audience is also very close. Like, it’s like you can’t ignore them.

They are, they, they have to be part of the world.

[Phil Rickaby]
Yeah. I remember there have been a couple of times when I worked as an usher in a couple of theatres and the ability to watch a show several times, like many times, and to be able to see those subtle differences and to realize when there’s an actor who’s like, just has a sixth sense about what the audience needs in a moment. And every time they nail it because they could just feel what the audience needs.

You’re just like, who is this person? And where is this power?

[Jay Northcott]
Yeah. You can also see the opposite when somebody is so against the audience, interrupting, interrupting their process.

[Phil Rickaby]
Uh, you know what?

[Jay Northcott]
I bet it’d be really, and like, it’s an, it’s like one of the conversations I’ve continued to have is like that. I think we were so we’re after COVID and after all this, like, and our phones were like, so needing of, of like human connections some way. And I never want to create art that like tells the audience they have to act a specific way or be a specific person to enjoy the art.

I think that we have to move past that because we got like fricking AI, like fricking like, I don’t know what am I trying to say? Like projections that are like doing all these crazy things that people can go into these worlds and fall in love with like being in the ocean because the whole room is like the sphere and like, and L in Las Vegas, it’s like people can go to these like really live experiences that are transformative and allow them to be who they want. And theatre has to like have those growing pains of like inviting the audience to not have to be somebody different, but actually excited to be themselves and laugh and enjoy with the actors that are performing here.

[Phil Rickaby]
I’m so glad you said that. Cause that’s, that’s one of the things I think about a lot is, you know, the audience has changed since, since COVID theatres reopened people, people who were coming or not. And, and it could be a little bit harder to get people to leave the world of, of media that they could find on their, on their computers, on their televisions, on their phones and come out.

And we have to figure out how we’re going to speak to that and bring them in. And I think that means like bringing people as they are accepting them as they are imperfect and, and, and, and, but also giving them something they want to see.

[Jay Northcott]
Yeah. And even like, I like, I started, I’m writing a WWE show. I’m learning how to wrestle.

I’m learning how to be a pro wrestler. And, uh, it’s been, it’s been the best experience in my life. But the thing that I always loved about it is like, when we talk about like accessibility and theatre and all of these other things, it’s like, Oh, we need these relaxed performances.

We need this stuff. It’s like, you haven’t created a space all the time that invites people of like certain abilities or even like, even like into like, or like the idea of like, Oh, you have to be this high brow to be able to understand this thing. It’s like, we don’t at the end of the day.

And the thing that WWE does so well is like, it doesn’t matter if you have Tourette’s or if you have something that like makes, that makes maybe people say like, Oh, you’re distracting. It’s, it’s in that energy that whatever that energy you have and that you’re bringing, it adds to the experience of the space. And like theatre really needs to invite that instead of just being like, Oh, we have this person being signed tonight.

So like, that means we’re inviting these people, but we didn’t actually like reach out to any communities that might want to access it. It’s like, you should never have to change to go to an experience. Um, that’s supposed to be about human connection and, and more human understanding.

I mean, understand the humans in the space. And I understand it’s hard, like as an actor, like you can be thrown off by that, by, by somebody in the audience on their phone or this but like, that’s the world. And like, like art, art takes work.

And like, how do you get that person? Like maybe your job now, you see that person on their phone. Like, how do you get them off their phone?

Like, what, what can you do in that show that would invite them to be like, I’m more interested in you than the thing that’s on your phone.

[Phil Rickaby]
100%. That’s a, it’s a big question. And how do you, I mean, sometimes it’s, how do you, you have to get them in the room first.

Right. And, and, and sometimes we need to give them people, people are like, people don’t want to go and do things when people do, they want experiences. They’ll go in and they’ll pay like 50, $70 to go into a projection room or something or whatever it is.

$500 to go see, to go see Beyonce. Yes, exactly. That’s an experience.

And they, so they, they want the experience and we have to be able to, to give them and show them what an experience in the theatre is.

[Jay Northcott]
Yeah. And we’re working against the, I think the worst, the worst marketing part of theatre is that we have these student shows that like, they have to go on a yellow bus to this theatre and like the teachers in the bus being like, if you talk, if you stand up, if you pee at the wrong time, you’re done. And they’re seeing like the worst production of Last Menagerie.

Yeah. And like, and then they’re like, that’s their experience being like yelled at at first, maybe yelled at in the theatre and then seeing a bad play. And then like, why would they ever want to go back?

So like, we are actively working on like somebody’s trauma of like a bad time that they had at a theatre and then trying to get them to reinvest and fall in love with it again.

[Phil Rickaby]
Yeah. And sometimes their first experience, not only is that, but it’s also going to see a Shakespeare play that their teacher was making them read out loud in class that they don’t understand. So they already hate it.

And then we’re going to go, Hey, kids are going to see Shakespeare at the Stratford festival. And instead they’re whipping panties at the stage because they’re just, they hate the thing because they were taught badly.

[Jay Northcott]
Yeah. My favourite, my favourite ever theatre moment as like an actor was when I was in grade 11, I think we did Peter Pan. And I think it was at that era where people stopped caring and like kids were just like, I can do whatever I want.

And there’s a point in Peter Pan where you have to, where it’s like, Hey, like audience, like you have to clap to make Tinkerbell come back alive. Like if you believe and every, all these like grade, I don’t know. I think they were grade nine.

They were like, we don’t believe we want her to die. And like, where do you go? Beautiful.

What do we go from there? Like, I guess she, she came back to like, cause you’re a hatred. Like it’s like, you know, you have to go on your feet.

[Phil Rickaby]
Like the real good teachable moment for me. Absolutely. And it’s funny that the wrestling thing, I, there was a period about three years where I was religiously watching WWE because it is so theatrical.

It’s, it’s like the, the, the gladiatorial, the Coliseum of our day in a lot of ways. And I remember at the same time, I was also doing a production of the Scottish play. And you know, in the middle of the production, I suddenly was like, in the middle of the show, I was like, Holy shit, this, this is a wrestling show.

[Jay Northcott]
Oh, a hundred percent. And then also like, it’s also like undertake, like some of Undertaker’s lines have come from Shakespeare, like 100%. Yeah.

Like these, like these men aren’t too proud to steal from Shakespeare. Like this, like WWE has been stealing from Shakespeare for forever. And Oh, it’s more interesting because it’s guys in Speedos, like jumping off ropes and attacking each other.

Like it’s great.

[Phil Rickaby]
I remember I was during the, the final, the final battle that I was like, Oh, this is like one guy runs in, he talks to a mic and another guy comes in, he talks to the mic, then they fight. It’s like, that’s Macbeth is wrestling.

[Jay Northcott]
It a hundred percent is. It’s like, there’s, it’s, it’s, it’s just balancing. That’s the same thing that I guess I’m balancing all the time in my art practices.

Like I grew up in a trailer park in Alberta and, and like, I always tried to pretend to be more professional and more like studious and that I knew more things. And I was like, yeah, absolutely. I definitely know that Stanislavski method that you’re talking about.

And yeah, I really think I’m interested in that. Like, like whatever it’s like at the end of the day, like what people want is like, is like humans experiencing something that feels like it invites you in. Like I can, I can actually feel your emotion.

Not that like I have to watch it hurt. I have to like be able to experience and understand why it hurts. Like that’s when you know that you have an audience is not that they’re like, Oh, I love seeing that person cry.

It’s like that it felt like it was me. It felt like I could experience that same emotion with that person because they let me in. And WWE does that so much because we know who the heel is.

We know who the baby faces from the jump. We boo, we cheer them. And like that kind of practice of just like inviting your audience to be part of it is, is really part of my practice.

[Phil Rickaby]
Yeah. It’s fascinating. It’s, and it’s great stuff.

I, I want to talk to you about your practice because you’ve said that you work to decolonize your art and practice. And I’m curious what that means to you.

[Jay Northcott]
Yeah, I think it’s, it’s always, it’s, it’s like a beautiful, you know, it’s also like there’s decolonizing, there’s re-indigenizing, there’s re-blacking, there’s re-queering. There’s like the idea that I have to come into a space and be something that I’m not to prove to others. I think for so long I was like begging to be invited into spaces by trying to act like they wanted me to.

And like the second, it’s like, if it’s like the same thing when I’m, if I’m auditioning people, like if I can see somebody who doesn’t, isn’t showing me who they are, but they’re doing what they think I want. I’m like, that’s so, I have nothing, I have nothing to play. I have nobody to play with.

I’m like, I already have won. I’ve already won the game. And that, that doesn’t seem very interesting to me.

So in that, it’s like, what are the things that I’m, that I try to actively do to not just create the same harm or create the same power structure that I, that I grew up with in theatre school and even like in high school drama class. I’m like some, even some of my mentors, I’m like, Oh, like I remember one time being like, you just like my, I had a mentor that said like, Oh, you just want to make sure that they like, at least by day five, somebody saying that they hate you because it makes them like, want to push against you harder. Or like that, like that there was some sort of that there was always some kind of hierarchy.

And I felt like hierarchy in any show that I ever acted in was even if it maybe wasn’t about race or queerness, it just felt like I was so invalidated and that every time I left, I wasn’t trying to do my next step was never about, Oh, how do I do better? That still fits me. It was like, how do I fit into this mold that these people are asking me to be?

And it’s never going to happen because like, you can’t be something that you’re not in any way. Like for me, I’m like, there’s, there’s always a piece of you in every character that you create. And as a director, I just invite my artists to come in as, as not just as actors, but as artists that like they have this stake in the show that they, I’m not coming in with like a fully realized, fully finished.

I’ve done the research, but I’m not coming in with this fully realized idea. I want you to affect the art and that there’s a point that I give it away to you at opening night. I don’t have any, uh, like that, you know, all of our contracts, I can’t, I can’t change the show anyway, but I also, also like, I don’t want to, I want it to become yours.

And I want to invite you to, to give it, to, to be yours. And the one, my number one rule always is that I just don’t want an actor to ever have to go on stage and perform something for however long they have to perform it, that they hate that there’s a piece that I, ah, damn here. I have to do this part again.

That makes no sense to me. Am I inviting you to be you? Because that’s the reason why you’re in the show is it has, it’s like, it’s you it’s whatever your sauce is.

[Phil Rickaby]
How did this become, like, how did you put this into practice as a director? Like, because this is not, as you were saying, you have mentors that it’s not what you saw in, in theatre school and some theatre productions and things like that. How did you come to that, to, to be able to put it into the way that you direct?

[Jay Northcott]
Yeah. I, I felt like everything in theatre became hypercritical, especially when I was an actor that like, there was so much, it was hypercritical about like all the bad things that I was doing and never about the things that were good or the things that maybe I should just like mull over or like find for myself. So I quit acting and I hated it.

And then I always just didn’t feel like I was good enough. And I, and I, and I felt all these awful things. And as a director, I, I’m, I’m a, I’m a care, I’ve always been a caretaker my whole life.

And even in like, like through my indigenous community of like the Dene, like I’ve had elders that talk to me about how like I’m a leader and a caretaker of people that I’m like here not to fight the battles, but to teach, to teach the people to fight their own. And, and then I’m just kind of there to, I want you to be able to give your best work. I’m not there to, if, if you’re in this space, I can’t change who you are.

And I, because so many people in theatre school, especially like, I really felt like people were trying to change who I was. I didn’t want to inflict that same trauma onto people because I think the fun, the fun thing about, I’m happy that theatre schools are changing. Like I’m, I’m 33.

So this is like, this is 12 years ago. And I think most of my teachers have changed a lot of their or retired. But, uh, uh, is that I can, anybody can break somebody down, but I’m not a therapist and I can’t build you back up.

So I don’t know how to do it right. And I’m probably going to mess it up. I’m going to put pieces together wrong.

And then like, that’s something that you have to live with. And like, it’s a play, like it’s litreally fake and it’s a play and play means fun. And like, I just really want to have fun.

Like I, I was like, I didn’t, I’m not an accountant. I’m really good at math, but I’m not accounting because I don’t think it would be fun. I don’t want to go to work and not have fun.

Like that’s pretty much where it came. Like my grandfather has this amazing imagination and they just taught me all the time that like that your imagination and how you, how you create experiences for other, and how you create experiences for yourself is, is how you, how you fall in love with yourself and others. And like, if I can gift that to people to like fall in love with the experience and each other, see each other on stage, not feel like it’s like this panic that you’re just going through this frigging like panic of like, I have to be perfect.

Oh my miss my mark. Oh my God. It’s like, you can live in that and like live in that.

Like you can look at your other actor in the eye and be like, this feels good. Like, what can we, how can I play with you? Like that’s live feeder to me.

So it was mostly it’s like, cause I hated how everybody else told me the opposite. But I mean, even like, you know, like working with Kimberly Rambersad on, on King Lear in Stratford, like she, she has this beautiful quote of like that every, um, every character comes on stage to be loved and I, she probably got it from somebody else, but they, I believe that like, it’s true that like, and then it goes that with the actors too, is like, there’s not many actors that go on stage to be like, screw you person. It’s like, it’s because they feel like they have something to say and they, they, and they have love to share and they have a story to tell. And I want that story to not just be mine and not the playwrights, but there’s.

[Phil Rickaby]
Yeah, for sure. It’s funny. You’re talking about the way that theatre schools have changed and, and that idea of, of that for so long, I mean, I, I’m, I’m an old man, so I went to school a long time ago in the nineties.

And at that time it was all like, in the first year they told us, we’re going to tear you down and then we’re going to build you back up. And you spent a lot of time tearing us down and zero time building is back up. And then they were like, good luck out there.

Have fun storming the castle, just like get out and figure it out yourself. And I am so glad that theatre schools are changing in the way that they are.

[Jay Northcott]
So I hope so, you know, like I’m really, I’m really happy that I’ve been like invited to like Randolph RIP and, uh, and then like, I’m teaching at TMU this year and it’s like, I just like that. I, I hope that I get to be a different story than my teachers were for me. Um, and that like, yeah, like they’re paying to beat it.

Hey, I’m like, why are we bullying them? It’s so neat. I was like, yeah, it didn’t, I had one, I had one teacher one time we did a line in the streets and I had to play Isabel who’s a eight, a six-year-old Portuguese girl ghost.

And, uh, and I was, and I kept being told you’re not girl, you’re not ghost. You’re not Portuguese. And I was like, I took it so hard.

I’m like, like so much just like, how can you not do this? How does this not work for you? And like, it took me 10 years to be like, I’m nor Portuguese, nor girl, nor ghost.

Yeah. It was just not a, it was not a possible task. We’re going to be the perfect, like six-year-old Portuguese girl, Portuguese girl ghost.

And that’s How dare you?

[Phil Rickaby]
It’s just, you know, it’s wild. That is very wild. I do want to, I, I actually, I’m, I am very curious now because you talked about growing up in a trailer park.

[Jay Northcott]
Yeah.

[Phil Rickaby]
You talked about, uh, your time working in Alberta and things like that, but I’m curious about your theatre origin story. How did you find the theatre?

[Jay Northcott]
Yeah. I, uh, my grandfather says, cause there’s a sheep in grade one in, in a, in a play at a public school that had something to do with Jesus, which I’m like, how do we get away with that? There’s a photo of it, but I don’t remember it.

But like the first one was, I was, we moved me, my mom and her partner at the time moved for Fort McMurray, Alberta. And I was weird and had no friends and didn’t talk a lot. And my mom thought the best idea would for me to audition for this cause I couldn’t get on the volleyball team because I was too short and I wasn’t very good, bad hand-eye coordination.

And, uh, she told me to maybe audition for the show. And my friend Jen Sue Sahin was also doing it. So I was like, okay, let’s do it.

And I got Toto in the wizard of Oz. And I broke my wrist like two weeks before the show. So I had a cast, but I was in this, I was in this dog costume.

I was just playing around. I didn’t have any lines as a dog. So I was mostly just woofing.

And, uh, but I got to just like play on stage and I had so much fun hearing people like talk about me or like saying that I did a good job in some way. And it didn’t have to be me. And then in high school, I never really got a lead role.

And I never, my school was predominantly white and we did a lot of plays about families and I never got the roles, which is fine. Uh, I never really got any main roles, but it’s fine. I’m good.

I’m good. It’s fine. I’ll get one in my 30s.

Uh, but, uh, the thing that I found was like, I fell in love with directing because I started, I didn’t just get to create the world of like one person or like one dog. I got to create like this whole world. And I love that.

And then I just continued to like find this beautiful way of like using this imagination that my grandfather instilled in me to create worlds that like people were that they could fall into. And what made me a director period of the story was I did girls, girls, girls by Greg MacArthur in, uh, at the university of Lethbridge. And there was this guy that wrote in the, I think the Lethbridge Herald, and he would write reviews of all of the plays that the university did.

And he was like the 75 year old man. He would just be very, they just tell the plot and be like, very good. They had a lady.

And then he, he did mine. It was like, this play is talking about, is like, is like, uh, is so awful. It’s talking about young women in this disgusting way.

And it’s trying to like use the Columbine shooting and Reno work and all these things to like perpetuate violence. And what is it trying to say? And I was like, I just made this, this like litreal, like comatose man, just go off for 500 words.

I was like, I have to keep, I think I have to keep doing this. And the last thing is just like, I, I’ve tried, I’ve tried to quit. I try to quit all the time.

And I think that’s most, most artists life is like, we try to quit all the time and something just brings you back in. Like I’ve quit like 10 million times in film. Like I have a part of a math degree.

Like I was going to be a teacher and it’s like, every time I just somehow I end up back Yeah. And, and I don’t know if it’s the universe or why, but, um, I wouldn’t really have it any other way. The only other way I would have it as if we made like a million dollars, you know, not a million, just like a living wage.

Yeah.

[Phil Rickaby]
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

That’d be nice. That’d be nice too. Um, no, a lot of people do plays and things when they’re kids, when they’re in high school, things like that.

Most of those people don’t go on and, and, and do this. They don’t carry through. At what point did you know this was a thing that you wanted to do like for a living?

[Jay Northcott]
Yeah. I, I still don’t even know. I think it shows me and like sounds so silly, but it’s like, you know, like I could, I could be in sales.

I could be in sales. I could do all that. I think it just shows me when like, yeah, it’s, that’s such a tough question.

It’s like every time I read a script or like I even like I’m reading a book, it’s my imagination just keeps going. Like it just always goes. And I picture the world and I picture this thing and it’s like almost impossible in my body to like, not want to create it.

And it’s like, I’ll think about it constantly until like, hopefully the thing gets to happen. Like there’s, I have a spreadsheet, I’m a Virgo, so there’s spreadsheets everywhere. But like, there’s this spreadsheet that just like has all of the shows that like, I want to pit that I continue to pitch and want to create because like I read the play or like I saw, I saw it and I was like, I want to do this better or not better, different or better both.

And, uh, and, and it’s, it’s because it’s just like, I love sharing that gift of creating a world. Even like this show, like if you like with Bootycandy, especially, it’s like, if you look at any other production of it, it’s, there’s one, they have so much more money probably because they’re mostly American and UK productions. And they like create each, each, each vignette, each scene is very much like, it looks like it’s set in realism.

I don’t know how the actual, I’ve never seen the actual show, so I don’t know if that’s how it continues. But the first thing that I said was, I was like, I don’t like this show is too interesting to be set in realism. And like the only thing that I kept seeing when I was reading this play is like the transparency of like, of seeing through somebody’s like how they want to be perceived instead of who they are.

And so like working with Nick Blaze, just like talking about it and creating the set. It’s like, there’s no other like job that I could do that. I don’t know if there was an exact moment, but I just couldn’t stop doing it.

Like I just, I just can’t stop. And like, I don’t get it. I’m bad at, I’m bad at answering emails.

I don’t know why sometimes people hire me. Cause I’m like, I’m not very good with emails and like following up sometimes, but like, I guess the art speaks for itself.

[Phil Rickaby]
Yeah. You mentioned your spreadsheet of, of shows that you want to pitch or you want to do that sort of thing. Is that, does that, is that spreadsheet or that shows on that spreadsheet reducing because you had the chance to do them or is it always growing?

[Jay Northcott]
It’s always growing. Like I, I have enough shows to, to work every day for the rest of my life, I think breaking up. And it just continues to grow.

And like, like some of them get, some of them get taken off and some of them don’t. And some of them I’m like, I like, oh, maybe, maybe next year, maybe if the world is different, maybe if this thing happens, but like, it’s also just like how I feel that day. I’m like, I would just really like, I’m so happy.

I’ve got to do like three comedies in a row this year. And I’m like, thank God. Like I’m so sad.

I’m so tired of being sad.

[Phil Rickaby]
But we need comedy, right? Especially when the world is dark. We need, we needed more when the world is dark.

[Jay Northcott]
Oh my God. Like farce is just like, like, like I will tell you, like my, my dream is like the only, the only old theatre that I like to do, like that I want to do as far as like, I just think it’s having three doors and people coming in and out of them and just, it’s just being the dumbest thing. Like it’s my favourite thing.

I was like, oh, and you’re my brother and you’re my cousin and somehow we’re getting, it’s like, it’s just so ridiculous. And somebody always gets hit with a door and like, it, you just missed the, like, if that person was in that room three seconds earlier, like none of this would continue to happen. Like that stuff.

I just love the specificity of that.

[Phil Rickaby]
Is there, is there a farce that sits at the top of that list?

[Jay Northcott]
Yeah. Uh, what’s it called? Everyone, every, everybody laugh.

Every national theatre did it. It’s like national theatre. Uh, uh, laugh.

What’s it called? Laughter.

[Phil Rickaby]
Is it present laughter?

[Jay Northcott]
Present laugh. Yeah. Present, uh, present laughter.

Yeah.

[Phil Rickaby]
Present laughter. That’s, that’s what I, that’s what, that was actually on my list to read because it kept saying clips of it.

[Jay Northcott]
Even if you’ve watched national theatres production, it’s amazing. But like present laughter is great. And like, I also like really love like sauce for the goose.

I’m like really into, um, into, uh, opera Ben plays to you. Like, I think I would love to have like, uh, a playwright do some trends, like just do some like edits of like an Afro Ben play. I’m like, they’re so fun.

Like the Rover is so fun and it’s just so ridiculous. And like, how do you make people fall in love with that kind of, that kind of space again?

[Phil Rickaby]
Really interesting because a lot of those restoration era plays, they’re comedies of manners, but if we took away the brocade and the wigs and the thing, what could we do with that?

[Jay Northcott]
Yeah. What do you do when people are just being a little bit slutty and drunk and a little, it’s like, they’re all just, they’re all just like a little bit horny and a little bit rich. And like, that’s like, like what, what more can you ask for?

[Phil Rickaby]
There’s very thin line between that and some of the farces. So Yeah. Speaking of is back to back to Bootycandy.

There was a review of speakeasy stage company production of Bootycandy that they saw Robert Israel called the play, both body and sweet. And I thought those two things seem like two sides, two sides of a coin, but they’re here in one place. So how do you see those two parts of the spectrum sort of interacting in this bike?

[Jay Northcott]
It was body. You said body.

[Phil Rickaby]
It’s body B a W B a W.

[Jay Northcott]
Yeah. So it’s that’s, that’s a great, so there is moments in this play that I get, like, I get embarrassed, like, because it’s so like, it’s so sexy in some of like the conversation, especially because it’s not, sometimes it’s not actually about how people are physical with each other, but how they talk about being physical with each other in an intimate way that you’re like, I’m blushing because I shouldn’t be listening to this, like conversation. Like there’s moments that you’re like, I shouldn’t be listening to this conversation. And then there’s also just these moments of a pure vulnerability of like, especially, especially in men, like in the men in the show that it’s, there’s, there’s these moments of being, asking to be held and asking to be asking to be wanted and asking to be loved.

And like, if somebody does reciprocate or doesn’t reciprocate that is like very emotional. Like it’s, I think they, especially where we are in like all of this, like in the manosphere and all of these things of how we speak about masculinity, it doesn’t matter, man, woman, non-binary, anything, anything, everything inside or outside of that. It’s like, like, we really want to be loved.

And sometimes that means that we need that where there’s this closeness of harm and love or violence and love. And this play plays with both of those things so well of, of anger and love and of desire, like desire and, and pain, like pleasure and pain is a huge motif that goes through this play a lot, how they’re so close to each other. So I think that’s how it’s so easily, those two things connect is like, it talks about pleasure and pain so much in this show.

And I think sometimes it’s hard to differentiate what those two things are when it, when you’re talking about love.

[Phil Rickaby]
Yeah, absolutely. It sounds like there’s, I mean, there’s a lot of vulnerability, both in, in the audience that might blush when the things get a little too spicy. But also just in terms of character interaction, because, you know, you were talking about the manosphere and things like that.

There’s all of these things that apparently define what masculinity is, which prevent people from being vulnerable, which prevent men from being vulnerable.

[Jay Northcott]
Especially. And we, and we, we really, if the big questions I’ve been asking with my other show as well, like Heal, the show that I’m working in residency with buddies is that like, who is a hero that men can look up to in the past that doesn’t have something that people are like, that won’t, they won’t villainize them for. So, and like not saying that they shouldn’t, most people in our past should be villainized.

People did shitty things and things are changing now, but like, they’re not changing that much, but hopefully they will change more and more. But the thing is like, who are the heroes that men look up to? Who even, even it’s like most people when they talk about their relationship with their dad, like, what is that relationship?

When did you see love? When did you see intimacy? When did intimacy get scary with other men?

Like there’s such a difference between like when you’re a kid and like, there’s this photo of me with my two best friends when I’m like three years old peeing in the same corner. And it’s like, when did that become not a fun, cute, adorable thing that somebody takes a photo of? And when does it become something that like is, uh, something that you can’t share with that other person without it maybe becoming sexual or becoming weird or that somebody has to comment on this thing.

Like when did, when, when do boys stop being men and when do we need like men to find their boy again? Yeah.

[Phil Rickaby]
Yeah. That’s, I mean, that’s a fascinating question. I think that should be studied.

If it hasn’t already been, that should be studied because I, my feeling is that around the time you hit six or seven, people start telling you that it’s to be a man.

[Jay Northcott]
Yeah.

[Phil Rickaby]
And don’t do that.

[Jay Northcott]
Like a lot of the time there’s the big thing is like a lot of people tell men that they’re, that they’re, that they’re going to be dangerous. And like, like, you know, we know, we know Shakespeare, we know about self-fulfilling prophecies. Like there is, there is a thing about if you put somebody into the world, how do you not expect that thing to happen to the world?

And I, I think this play really talks about even like, cause it’s like this black queer character that’s going through all of these different moments in this life of like trying to find what, how to be not, not, not even just to find love, but how to be loved, like how to accept that love. Yeah. Yeah.

It’s also really funny.

[Phil Rickaby]
I mean, it’s really funny. I mean, I think that, that, that, that the, like the stuff that I’ve seen about it, because, you know, we can read reviews of past, past productions of it because it has been around for a little while and people do every, every review talks about it being, being funny. So that’s, that’s great.

And also the, I think the sketch aspect of it makes it seem like it would be funny.

[Jay Northcott]
Yeah. And we’re really pulling from John, like the thing that I’m really looking at is like pulling from John, each scene seems to like, it pulls from like good times. It pulls from, uh, like there’s like, we really discovered something today of like, Oh, it feels like this scene kind of pulls from precious.

We pull from like, like this, the era of like black exploitation with like this sub genre of, of film and like there’s film noir moments. There’s, uh, a rev, like, you know, a live, a live sermon. There’s so many of these moments that like, there’s like bad girls club moments that feels like, but you just really like when you fall into the, you allow the genre to play with you.

There’s like something really fun about that in sketch that we’re using that saying like, Oh, we can go as long as we stay in one genre for like each scene, you’ll see how they all connect by like, you’ll see how these genres all collide at the end.

[Phil Rickaby]
Yeah, absolutely. I want to switch gears a little bit. Uh, you were the program director for the ungifted and black program at obsidian theatre.

Just for those that don’t know, what is the mandate of that initiative and what change did you want it to make in the industry?

[Jay Northcott]
Yeah. So I’ve been working with obsidian for a while and I got to direct a show with them called seven methods of killing Kylie Jenner. And, uh, before that I, I worked on Passover with, with Phillip and I just always wanted to stay connected to that company.

So I applied to be a producer with them and then they didn’t need me for that role, but really wanted me. But I talked a lot about how I’m like obsessed with education and developing new places for black artists to feel like they’re seen. And so the ungifted and black program that now to be runs, which is amazing, like such an amazing artist and like he continues to be such an awesome program is that for me, what really connected me was when I worked on sweat by Lynn Nottage at arts club.

It’s a black play and Lynn Nottage is inherently a black playwright with a lot of people on stage that makes any company look like there’s diversity in the, in the show. But I was the only black artist that worked on the backstage, including like the director was not black. Like nobody was, nobody was black.

And, and I was like, Oh, we can, we can perform the, like looking like everything’s equitable and that there’s so many artists of colour working on a show. But what does it mean when there isn’t a person on the other side of the table to be an advocate for you? Because the thing that I think we always sometimes forget is like actors, especially their contract workers, they come into a space, they have to make a good impression and they have to do this thing to then get hired again to continue working and directors and designers have that same, have that same thing.

And what I was seeing so much is not seeing that same representation on stage that so many companies were like, look at us, we’re so diverse now, everything’s happening now. So the, the goal of Young, Gifted and Black is always to find these artists that are like on that precipice of like graduating or just recently graduating, giving them opportunities to be mentored by another black artist. It’s a national program.

So it was all over Canada. The first year that we did it, we had five participants from all different disciplines, from directing, design and producing. And we just wanted to connect them to artists and show, and that also paid them to do, to do this programming and learn.

So we also had masterclasses that we invited a bunch of black artists from across Canada to teach these masterclasses about, about different, different parts of the backstage parts of theatre. And I fell in love with it because I, I really want to be able to say, Oh, there’s more than just one black, like costume designer, or there’s just, there’s more than one black lighting designer. And that there, there was, there’s this monolith of people that continue to create because I feel like we don’t see, we see it on stage, but we don’t see it.

We don’t see it in people in power.

[Phil Rickaby]
Yeah. Yeah. I think, I think I’ve been thinking a lot about leadership in, in the arts in Canada and how we have a tendency to import it.

And when we import it, we tend to import a cis white man.

[Jay Northcott]
Yeah. And, and like the other thing is like, you do like, we do have so many, we have so many amazing women of colour that are running these awesome companies across Canada and like, I’m not like ever taking away from that, that like we made so many steps forward there, but like your producing team, your design teams are in those rooms. It’s like, they’re like, there still is this system of being like, when I did seven methods, even it was like to find like a whole team of colour for that show was like, it felt impossible and we didn’t get fully there.

Like, but it’s like, we, it shouldn’t feel impossible to find artists that you want to work with in this country, especially in like design, especially design sound and things that like actively, like how you are lit for how many years to have black people have been poorly lit on stage. And like, for how many years have black people have been like, Oh my God, is that another bad wig? Like just like these exhausting things.

And like, how do you advocate to somebody who’s like, doesn’t understand that struggle. Right. And it shouldn’t be the rest of the actors are they’re memorizing, like they shouldn’t be the responsibilities.

Like how do we have those advocates in those spaces that can continue that, that growth? Yeah.

[Phil Rickaby]
Big stuff. Um, how long were you with the program for it?

[Jay Northcott]
I was there for the inaugural year. So I was there for the first year and then I started working on seven methods and in film and TV and, uh, and, and that this almost rhymed and then I went to, to be, uh, yeah, it was, it was such a, to, to be invited. Like it’s movies, like movie, movie is the person who created the scene of this, of this idea and to just be gifted the opportunity to, to take this risk.

Cause it was like, especially as a producer on my, on my end, it was hard. It was hard because you have five, you have five artists doing different disciplines and trying to curate something for all of them to have a beneficial experience through it. And so it’s like, it’s running five programs, but for one person each.

And yeah. And it was such a beautiful opportunity. I learned a lot.

I like, I failed a lot. And like, I always like, I love failing. It feels awful, but so good.

Like it feels so good to fail and learn so much in that first year. Yeah. We learned so much in that first year.

So I’m just so happy that the program is around and still growing and developing.

[Phil Rickaby]
I think it’s interesting to think about the importance of failing. Cause I think in many cases we think about it as like the worst thing that could happen. Oh, what if I fail?

And yet the things that you learn from failing are in many ways more important than the ones you learn when you succeed.

[Jay Northcott]
Yeah. I like, I work, I love bouffant, bouffant and pachinko clowning. And I look at like a lot of like Lecoq like mask work and, and that’s kind of always been my bread and butter.

And like clowning is about fit. It’s about failing really well. You have to feel so many times for the thing to, to be good and like to love failing.

And I’ll tell you, like, I’m not always, I’m still a Virgo and I’m still an only child. Like I’m still not failing, but I, even with my actors, like the big thing that I try to invite them to every day is that like, not to try to get a perfect on the second day or on the third day, like keep experimenting and keep playing and keep challenging yourself into the end. Because like, it’s going to get boring.

It’s going to get redundant. It’s not going to, it’s not going to start to feel real. And like try every Avenue in the rehearsal process where we’re rehearsing and trialing these things.

The second you stick to that thing, then it’s like, Oh, I have to keep that one thing perfect for this very long period of time, instead of finding that moment and asking it how many ways it can be. So then when you get to it, like you can be present in it and know what it needs, because you’ve tried every app and you’ve failed in every other way. So you know that there’s only one way, because sometimes you do it the one way you’re like, this is awesome.

I’m going to do this for the rest of the time. And then it starts failing you on stage. And you’re like, well, now it’s failing me.

What am I supposed to do now? So when you get that opportunity to fail within the rehearsal room, try something new every day, until you find out the things that feel good, you’ll see the show just be something that actually can move forward and continue to move. Yeah.

[Phil Rickaby]
That thing that’s failing you, it’s often failing you because it’s, it’s become stale. That’s not true anymore because you decided this is how the line is said, and this is the thing. I did a show many years ago, and one of the actors was almost like a tape recorder.

The show would start and everything was said the same every time. But acting with that person was almost like watching the tape go, because you weren’t getting anything from them. They were just like doing it by rote.

It was one of the least fun acting experiences I’ve ever had, because you’re not acting with an actor. You might as well have been acting with a TV screen.

[Jay Northcott]
I have a friend that juggles to learn his lines. And it’s one of the best things because your brain has to be doing two different things. So when he stops juggling and the lines are memorized, there’s something about him always being on his feet to be able to take in what you’ve said.

I think it’s such a great practice.

[Phil Rickaby]
I often try to do menial tasks while I’m learning my lines at a certain point, once I’m starting to get off book, so that I never fall into a certain cadence, and I’ll do the dishes, and I’ll do this thing, and see what it can be while I’m doing it, just to keep it fresh so that it’s not just me standing there saying the line.

[Jay Northcott]
Yeah, because I think it has to be, I think art and making theatre is continuing to investigate the script until the show closes. Obviously, when the show opens, don’t do a backflip or something, but it feels like if you’re not 100% still curious about the words that you’re saying, or why they’re coming to you in that moment, and why this character is invested in that thing, then it’s kind of just like, why wouldn’t I watch a movie? I have my friend, Ish Fenwear, and I’ve worked on a show called Parasite, and a bunch of other things, they were in a farce in university, and they had this moment of they were doing this huge monologueueue, and after the show, they came up to me and were like, you know, I really thought when I was speaking, I was just thinking about something else, and I was like, what if I just stopped?

And I was like, wait, you were thinking about, you were saying your whole monologueueue, and in your head, you were having a whole conversation about, what if I just stopped? This is so, I’m not even paying attention, you’re not even paying attention to self-keeping, you’re on such autopilot, and I was like, that, I never want somebody to ever feel like they, I could just stop, if I just stopped, I want you to want to investigate every word, and have the other actors with you that want to investigate with you.

[Phil Rickaby]
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. You were a Big Brother Canada house guest, and that show is its own thing, you have a Big Brother wiki page, which discusses your time on the show, but I’m curious if there’s anything from your time in the Big Brother house that you took with you, or informed your theatre practice?

[Jay Northcott]
Maybe not my theatre practice, but my life, like, theatre practice, maybe a little bit, but like, it’s Bright Jail, like, you’re in Bright Jail, and the one thing that I did realize is like, I’m right, like, I do have this bomb-ass personality that can get on a reality TV show, and like, does make me want to continue to do theatre, because I think, you know, there’s something about me, I hope, but this is not me being cocky, this is just me being confident, it’s like that, I think there’s something about me that invites people in and like, allows people to like, listen to a story, and I think it really instilled that in me, it took a second, because getting evicted by an old white guy that didn’t like me very much was like, pretty, I needed a lot of therapy, it really sucks when people like, just don’t want you to be there because of you. I would say, don’t recommend that, I don’t recommend that at all, but I really learned that, that I did take myself very seriously for a really long time, and then to just be in a space where like, I really got to see like, that, oh, that anger part of me is not gone, or like, that competitive part of me is not gone, that like, play is a part of me is not gone, and that like, life doesn’t have to be so serious, really, really like, really helped me in so many ways, I hope, I don’t think it brings any more people to the, to the theatre, I maybe, I hope like, maybe it does a little bit, but like, what I, what I really love about it is that like, I told a lot of theatre artists that I was like, yeah, like, I freaking love, like I watch so much reality TV, I love it, like it’s part of me, like I’m not, we’re not perfect, we’re not listening, I’m not reading Shakespeare all the time, it’s like, we’re, we’re very multifaceted, and that we can be more than we’re being, I think like, for a really long time, I just felt like I was an artist, where I’m like, oh, I can be more than that, I can be more than just director, I can, I can be all of these other things, I can be a person that runs into a wall on national TV, and, and become the best 15th alternate, you know, yeah, 14th alternate, yeah.

[Phil Rickaby]
Yeah, yeah. All right, in closing, I am, I want to talk one last question about Bootycandy, and that is, what scares you most about this show and what excites you most about this show?

[Jay Northcott]
What excites me the most is that I hope that it is a black show that audiences come to and they get to see themselves in it as complicated individuals, and not just as like this history of, of, of oppression. The thing that I’m scared the most about is the ending of this play is very hard. It is, it’s not, not hard to understand, not hard to, it’s not, it’s complicated, but it’s, the payoff is so specific.

And we’ve asked, like, the other thing is, is like, thanks to Robert and, and, and the team of Obsidian and buddies that have gifted me the show is like that we do get to put this extra layer on top, like this little bit of an extra layer on it of like, what does it mean to be black and Canadian? And it’s scary when you add this layer that maybe hasn’t existed in a production before, cause you’re not a hundred percent sure if it’s going to work. I don’t, I don’t know, like, I don’t know if people are going to get this part.

And, uh, and I think that there, there is this payoff of like, we see Sutter really connect to, uh, like connect at the end to their experience and understanding, but there’s also like, I really want people to see this opening up of being like, it’s especially for these black actors in, in this country, like every, every day, sometimes they’re asked to put on this costume of being a slave or being a survivor of this thing that like, isn’t even theirs.

And they have to hold. And like, sometimes there’s, sometimes they have to hold so much of this history that isn’t even theirs to have white people pat themselves on the back or they did a good job to see the thing. And I don’t think there’s many audience, black audience members that sometimes get to see shows that they get to learn from.

That’s like a black theatre that they actually get to learn from and they get to grow from or see themselves in. So I’m scared that, that it could just be really, really funny. And then people are like, what is the ending?

I don’t really understand what that, what, and I, and I hope every person leaves with something different. Like that’s, that’s, that’s what I’m most excited about it. That’s another thing that I’m excited about.

I hope people leave not, not experiencing the same show, but I, I, like I’m, I’m scared of this layer that this conversation with people, like, it won’t be like, it won’t be there, but like, I love that risk.

[Phil Rickaby]
But I bet that people will have a lot to say in the lobby after the show.

[Jay Northcott]
I think if they, if I think it’s going to be really hard to get people back in the seats after intermission, because they’re just going to want to continue to talk about what they just saw. And then when they get back in the whole drive home, I think it’s like both, both the intermission and the ending is especially the intermission.

[Phil Rickaby]
It’s like, where are we going to go? But what, what, what an incredible like gift to give an audience. Cause how often, how seldom does that happen in the theatre?

Usually people are like, they don’t, it was nice. And then they go and they get their drink and they go to the washroom and then it was a fine, you know, there was whatever that have like little conversations, but to see people like jazzed and exciting and debating and all that sort of stuff, I think that’s an incredible gift to give an audience.

[Jay Northcott]
Yeah. And you know, like the thing that I’ve, the thing that I’ve always connected to most in theatre is that I don’t think every show that I’ve seen in my life, cause I’ve seen, we’ve all seen so many shows as artists. I don’t know if I could tell you who directed it, like what the, like what the show was, blah, blah.

There’s like moments in theatre that I’ve seen over the past 30 years, I guess what I would remember 25 years of my life that there’s just moments, these like essential images from shows that stick with me forever. And that, however, my memory remembers them, maybe they didn’t look anything like that, but it’s like, I left that theatre in that moment. And that’s a moment that I’ll never forget.

And this show, each vignette, each scene has this gift of, I think an audience, each audience member will leave with something that in 50 years they’ll be like, do you remember that, those, those lesbians getting divorced on stage and that thing that she said to her? What else happened in that show? I don’t know.

But they’ll remember that, they’ll remember that moment. I think this show has moments that every person will, will be able to have a story to tell their grandchild in 50, in 40 years. Amazing.

[Phil Rickaby]
Well, Jay, thank you so much for joining me. I really appreciate it. Looking forward to Bootycandy at Whitey’s Bad Times.

Who isn’t excited for Bootycandy? Thank you for listening to this episode of Stageworthy. A little bit of housekeeping before we go.

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