Emily Jeffers is Making Theatre on Her Terms

About This Episode:

This week on Stageworthy, host Phil Rickaby sits down with Emily Jeffers for a thoughtful and wide-ranging conversation about artistic identity, collaboration, and carving out a sustainable life in theatre.

Emily shares insights into her creative journey, reflecting on the evolution of her practice and the realities of working as an artist today. From navigating uncertainty to embracing curiosity, she speaks candidly about the challenges and rewards of making work that feels both personal and communal. The conversation explores process, risk-taking, and the importance of staying open to change in an ever-shifting theatrical landscape.

This episode explores:

• Emily’s path into theatre and the experiences that shaped her voice
• The balance between artistic ambition and practical sustainability
• Collaboration as a creative engine
• The role of vulnerability in performance and creation
• Redefining success on your own terms
• And much more!

Guest: 🎭 Emily Jeffers

Emily Jeffers is an actor, producer, comedian and clown based in Toronto. She has developed her comedic sensibilities through instructors and training from l’École Philippe Gaulier (France), Spymonkey Theatre (UK), the Idiot Workshop (Los Angeles), Second City, Bad Dog Theatre, and Sweet Action Theatre. Emily is known for absurd, physical characters like Bitty-Bat, the Mathemagician, and her drag persona Sheonardo DiCaprio. She has performed at Second City, Toronto Sketchfest, Montreal Sketchfest, the Montreal Clown Festival, Toronto Fringe and Edinburgh Fringe. Ever a champion of the ridiculous, Emily also produces the variety shows Tight Five and Sketch Party as well as workshops to support the professional development of clowns and performers in the Toronto community.

Connect with Emily:

🌐 website: http://www.emilyjeffers.ca

📸 Instagram: @blemilybleffers

📸 Instagram: @bittybatshow

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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 this podcast, I talk to theatre makers of all kinds, from actors to directors, playwrights to stage managers, producers, and more.

If they’re making theatre in Canada, I’m talking to them. Some of the people I talk to will be household names, and the rest are people I think you should really get to know. Before we get into today’s episode, let’s take care of a little bit of housekeeping.

If you’re watching on YouTube, make sure that you like this episode, leave a comment so that I know you were here. And if you like the show in general, make sure that you hit the subscribe button, and make sure you hit that bell icon so that whenever a new episode comes out, you will get a notification that that new episode is available. If you’re listening to the audio version, make sure that you’re subscribed by searching for Stageworthy in your favourite podcast app, hit the follow button, and that way, whenever a new episode is released, it will download directly to your device.

I want to talk briefly about Patreon, and I’ll talk more about Patreon at the end of the program, before I tell you about who my guest is next week. But I do want to say that I can’t do this show without the people who’ve chosen to back me on Patreon. And if you want to help me to make this show, go to patreon.com/stageworthy and become a patron. I’d be really grateful if you did that. My guest this week is Emily Jeffers. Emily is a Toronto-based performer clown.

Emily is probably best known for her character Bitty Bat that I had the pleasure of seeing last year at the Toronto Fringe. And this year, you’ll be able to see Emily as another character at Toronto Sketch Fest on March 4th, as she presents one of her other characters, the Mathemagician. So here’s my conversation with Emily Jeffers.

Emily Jeffers, thank you so much for joining me. I really appreciate it. I saw you this past summer at the Toronto Fringe with your Bitty Bat show.

And I’m curious about how the character of Bitty Bat came about. How did you come up with this particular character?

[Emily Jeffers]
Bitty Bat started as a five-minute bit that I did in the fall of 2022 at this variety show at Sweet Action Theatre called Dodo Dome, which was run by Oliver Giorgio. And it was just a five-minute bit. My friend who was supposed to do it with me, Morgan Joy, who’s an incredible performer, you might know her as Peggy from Peggy’s Place, but she and I were supposed to do a duo thing, just a five-minute bit, as these creepy little creatures.

And she was sick. She got sick. And so I ended up having to just do it solo as this bat, creepy vampire creature.

And it was really, really fun. It was the first time I’d had to riff on stage as a character solo at that time. And so from there, people were just like, oh, this is a really fun character.

So I just kept developing it and kept doing open mics. And there was a bit of time where I wasn’t sure if it was a vampire or a bat or a vampire-bat hybrid or one of those things where you could just change it to a bat. And it was actually, Toronto Sketch Fest was running this thing called the Curatorship Program.

It was a curator program. And so they had these curators who selected a few different acts to be in a Toronto Sketch Fest show. And so my friend, Goldie Goldberg, who I’d been training in Clown Whiz for a bit, he asked me if I wanted to do a show and Victoria Watson-Sepajak and Clown Prof Class when we each had kind of 20 minutes.

And so through that, I worked with Isaac Kessler to sort of work on a 20-minute solo show that debuted in March 2023.

[Phil Rickaby]
When you were first doing this, that first time when you were riffing on your own, had you had a plan previously with the person who wasn’t able to attend and then had to just sit in the shit, as the Chiku Clowns will say?

[Emily Jeffers]
Yeah. Yeah. We were supposed to do this whole…

It was based on the principle that bats, children, when they’re young, will stay with them for a year. And so we were going to have this mother-child relationship. And suddenly, that was way out of the window because I no longer had a child or I no longer could be the child.

And so yeah, it just ended up being me riffing with the audience a little bit. Yeah, it was a lot of fun.

[Phil Rickaby]
There is a lot of freedom in playing a character that is kind of weird. Bitty Bat kind of talks?

[Emily Jeffers]
Well, that’s the thing. So up until the Toronto Sketch Fest show, Bitty Bat could talk and talked quite a bit. And a lot of the…

It was very verbal in sort of this creepy little vampire voice. But it was the day of our tech rehearsal at Toronto Sketch Fest, where I was making some people who were just watching the tech rehearsal in the audience just laugh just because I was doing this. And so Isaac and I were like, okay, just try not, Isaac said, try not to talk as much.

Try to do as little talking as possible. In fact, don’t talk at all. And so going into the show was the first time I did it completely silent.

Suddenly, Bitty Bat became this non-verbal character. And this is before the Sketch Fest show that you probably saw in the summer at Toronto Fringe. That’s sort of a second show that I developed.

But this first show, the first introduction to Bitty Bat was really just like a Bitty Bat 101. I had a flip chart and was flipping these things that said just like creep and eat and sleep. And then I would do that on stage.

But then it all became silent that one time. So I think a lot of my work ends up being living on that edge of the unknown, which is, of course, so inherent to Clown. Yeah.

And certainly with Bitty Bat being able to inhabit that strangeness and that ability, I think one of the greatest things about things about Bitty Bat is that the character has the freedom to just stare. And so there’s no longer this sort of filter that we humans in society have of just like staring at people. And so I can really indulge in that strangeness.

[Phil Rickaby]
When the introduction of silence was sort of laid over Bitty Bat, was that difficult or was that freeing? How was that experience?

[Emily Jeffers]
I mean, the whole day I was freaking out. I was freaking out. It was my first.

I felt so unprepared. I was so stressed about what the show would look like and how it would go. And then, yeah, I think having that sudden limitation, it just frees you up in other ways.

And it certainly did for me where I could just be more physical and not worry so much about text, not worry so much about whether what I was saying was clever or avoiding trying to be clever and that kind of thing. It just became about the physicality of the character. And yeah, it was very freeing in that way.

[Phil Rickaby]
Years ago, I worked with a theatre company. We were called Keystone Theatre. We did plays in the style of silent film.

And what we found was that there’s a freedom and an immediacy in having to be silent because you can’t express subtext. You can’t say what happened before you walk into the room. Everything is just like what is happening now is the thing that the audience can see.

And that was an interesting challenge. And like you said, it was freeing in that it gave us the freedom to just sort of discover the moment rather than worrying about much else.

[Emily Jeffers]
Yeah. Yeah. And it really shortens the distance between or gives focus to what the audience can see and interpret from what’s happening.

Right. It’s not it’s it’s fewer things happening. And so you just focus on that.

[Phil Rickaby]
You know, Do you ever find with with silence that sometimes the audience gets a different idea of what’s happening than what you intend? And how do you how do you deal with that?

[Emily Jeffers]
I mean, that’s interesting. I feel like if the only way I would know that is if the audience reacts. And so if I hear someone be like, oh, or like, oh, or make a quip of some kind, then that gives me something else I can react to, you know.

And so, yeah, in silence, sometimes I’ll hear more things that are happening in the audience or like I’ll hear a comment or a water bottle falls. And then that gives me like, especially as an animal character, I can just like like zone in on that and really call it out or laugh at it or get like intimidating or or something, you know, react to it.

[Phil Rickaby]
Yeah. I ask because when we were doing our silent film plays occasionally because they, you know, they were plots, they had stories and occasionally people would like talk to us after the show and be like, I really like the part where this happened. We’d be like, that’s not what we intended, but.

OK, and we like we did like a fringe tour. So at the beginning of the fringe tour, we were like, but that’s not what happened. And then it did take us long before we were just like, no, I’m really curious about what your experience was and like learning how each individual experienced the communal experience of the play.

It was a really fascinating thing to to learn that that people are seeing the same thing coming to different different conclusions, but also enjoying it together and laughing at the same things. It’s a really weird thing that can happen.

[Emily Jeffers]
Yeah, I think that audiences just generally when they are giving attention, they like as humans, we always are interpreting information, right? We’re we’re creating, we’re imposing narratives based on our own experiences, based on how we’re feeling. And that that that freedom of not imposing text on it, on the experience of what’s happening, gives a bit more space for audiences to be like, oh, I see my mother in that character or like or like they’re in love or like, you know, whatever he’s going to he’s going to betray them.

And that’s that’s like that’s a lot of fun, especially if there’s music too. I feel like that really informs, it can inform various interpretations of what’s happening. And even like, especially in I’ve seen and participated in clown workshops where, you know, you’re we’re flocking together or a scene is just kind of unfolding.

It’s all sort of interpretive dance, basically. But people start putting stories or like seeing things and then it’s up to the performers to be be really in tune to that and either play with it or double down on it or or just continue that storyline and find a way to like tie it up at the end or just leave it alone and like add something else crazy on top.

[Phil Rickaby]
Yeah, for sure. There’s a thing about clown and that and that I experienced this because the first time that we were doing our silent film plays, it was at the Toronto Festival of Clowns. And I would mention it to some people.

Yeah, it’s at the Toronto Festival of Clowns. And they would have this like clowns reaction, like it was going to be like circus clowns with big feet and the thing. And like it was like because people are have the like clown fear, thanks to Stephen King and other things.

But it’s not it’s not that it’s it’s like the European clown and and and, you know, Buster Keaton, Charlie Chaplin. How did you first come to clown? How did you discover it?

What made you want to do it?

[Emily Jeffers]
Yeah, I mean, I had I came into clown knowing not knowing what it was right, like with the same sort of general population interpretation of like, what is clown? They do funny, like actions or whatever. I was doing this like multidisciplinary art program in Madrid for a couple of years.

And one of the instructors, we had to do like some sort of performance of Don Quixote. And it was sort of a farcical version of one of the scenes. And and then the instructor was like, I think you should try clown because I guess he noticed my physicality.

You know, skip forward to when I moved to Toronto in late 2016. I think it was about in 20 in 2017. I was with a friend of my partner at the time.

We’re having dinner and I was meeting him. And he said, he said, Oh, my my cousin lives in Toronto. He teaches clown.

I was like, Oh, that’s interesting. Someone told me I should do clown. And I looked him up.

It was John Beale. That was the guy he was talking about. And he had like a workshop coming up the following weekend or something crazy.

It was just like immediate. And so my first introduction to clown was through Red Nose Clown and the idea of le jeu and presence. And so really starting with the fundamentals of like being present on stage, just accepting who you are, not trying too much and and then like diving into play from there.

And then, you know, we put on costume. And so it was a very Golier inspired, you know, from the Golier, I guess, school of clown. So, yeah, that’s that’s where my roots of clown started.

And then like from there, it just opened up because there’s so many schools of thought around it. There’s so many forms. I don’t have much exposure to Pachinko clown, even though that’s extremely popular in the Canadian context.

Yeah. And so I’ve interacted with a lot of different people and instructors from all over. And yeah, it’s it’s been fun.

[Phil Rickaby]
And that all started with a course from with John Beale.

[Emily Jeffers]
Yeah. John Beale was my first official clown instructor.

[Phil Rickaby]
And from there, you’ve you’ve you’ve done Golier and been all over traveling to like traveling to different places to learn clown. What have you what have you learned about clown in different contexts, like the difference between French clown and English clown and and North American clown?

[Emily Jeffers]
Yeah. Well, I think I think the the phases of clown that I’ve been exposed to is like first the Golier through through working with John Beale and Red Nose Clown. And then my sort of second wave of education was like through the Idiot Workshop in Los Angeles.

So people do who don’t use the nose, they just sort of use a slightly tweaked, slightly stranger version of themselves. And so my first instructor through that was Kevin Krieger. And I did work with John Gilkey at one point.

And so those were like my two main influences in developing what would I consider to be clown, my my version of clown work. But yeah, I mean, I think if you go to like the Montreal Clown Festival, for example, I think they’re very much more influenced by acrobatic clown and big costumes, big personalities, maybe more of a bouffant style as well. Like L.A. Clown is it can tend to be a bit aggressive, but less focused on like, yeah, certainly less focused on the nose, but more in physicality and and pushing up energy to 11. And yeah.

[Phil Rickaby]
What was your first clown character?

[Emily Jeffers]
My first clown character was a bellhop. That was my first costume. And I loved that character.

It was like a Red Nose character. And I think I eventually called myself Niblet. That was my Red Nose character name.

And that was sort of like it didn’t necessarily need to be the bellhop. I did had a few other, you know, usually whenever I performed with Red Nose, my my name would be Niblet. And then I guess Bitty Bat was another character.

I performed with the show Insert Clown Here. And which was great. That was so fun.

And that was like the experience that really showed me how I had grown as a as a performer, because I was able to tune into what was happening and like, really play with what was. Yeah, there was a part where they were sort of holding me back on stage. And I was like, oh, this is a struggle.

And so I’ll make the struggle bigger. And like and so but that was like a one time character. Her name was Evangelina Peppermint.

So she had like this wrestling singlet on and like wore the like a mouse guard.

[Phil Rickaby]
I want to get into I want to get into Edinburgh. So what what did you go to Edinburgh with?

[Emily Jeffers]
Okay, so my first time going to Edinburgh, I went because I had already been to Golier. And because a lot of people from the UK were at the Golier school, it became apparent to me that they just go there like it’s nothing, right? Like, anyone who’s from North America will talk about Edinburgh Fringe as this massive thing, you know, this is like a big, big project, and you have to be so prepared and all this stuff.

And they and the people in the UK are just like, taking the train up, staying with a friend of theirs, like, they was much more casual, you know, they’re taking works in progress. They’re not even like, I mean, there’s probably different economic backgrounds involved with that. But but it made really made me think like, Oh, I’m just gonna go and check it out.

Because one, I know a bunch of people who are performing there. And two, I’m interested in like, maybe this will be a goal. And so I went the first year just to check it out for like, nine days.

But I did perform like a five minute set as Bitty Bat. And then the following year is when I took Bitty Bat, sort of an early version of the show that you saw in Toronto Fringe. And I performed for two weeks, two of the three weeks at Free Fringe.

And then for the final week, I was at Paradise Green, which was a paid venue. And I loved it. It was so fun.

[Phil Rickaby]
When you went, did you did you prepare? Or did you were you really casual about it the way that your folks in the UK were?

[Emily Jeffers]
Well, I had a show that I already done at Toronto SketchFest that year, because it was the second year I’d done Toronto SketchFest. It was a new show that I developed entirely by myself, which is called Bitty Bat on Planet Earth. So that’s kind of what it’s structured like a Planet Earth episode.

It’s got voiceover narration. So what you saw in the at the Toronto Fringe, I prepared in the sense that I watched all of the informational webinar videos that they had, I read the entire website, I applied way in advance. But I think I was just excited to go like I was like, if I’m going to do any fringe because I hadn’t done any fringe before.

I hadn’t done any fringe. I was just like, why not if I’m going to spend all this money and if I’m going to travel, I might as well go to the biggest one. And I’d already seen what like that it was so fun and, you know, late nights and I got a feel for it.

So I was like, I can do this. But I went in knowing that like, I went in knowing how hard it is. I went in knowing that people flyer all day and maybe perform to do people in the audience.

I had heard from other performers who had done the full run that you go through every single emotion while you’re there. And so I was ready for that. In that sense, I was like up for the challenge.

I prepared like I had my posters, I had flyers, I had my venue, all of that. And I took it seriously like I did the best job I could, you know, and I had great days and I had rough days and I had hecklers and I got egged on the street because I was like flyering in my costume. But I had a little girl walk up to me and be like, can I have a picture?

And then, you know, I had people come back and see my show four times. Like. It was it really was everything, you know, it was and I was really, really proud of myself for doing it, you know, I got sick because you always get sick at some point.

[Phil Rickaby]
I’m a little fascinated by the fact that that you started with the biggest fringe in the world and sometimes people like work up to that, like I. I’ve done a few Canadian fringes, I still feel like I’m working up to Edinburgh because. First off, it’s so massive, it’s so it’s so massive and also expensive.

But I know what you mean about like it’s the same on any fringe tour. Like I remember I was doing this was just a two city tour. I did like St. John New Brunswick in Halifax that summer. And there was a moment where I was just like I said, if you didn’t cry at least once during your your fringe run, did you really go on a fringe tour? Like because you do you you hit, you know, have great days and really bad days and some days nobody gives a shit and wants to take your flyer and sometimes people throw them back at you and like it’s just like you don’t you never know what you’re going to get. But I can only imagine trying to get noticed in the biggest month long fringe festival in the world.

Yeah. How were you prepared for that?

[Emily Jeffers]
Yeah, I mean, I was prepared for the difficulty of it. I was prepared that there was going to be rough days. I was prepared to have a no show day and that didn’t happen.

You know, there might have been a day. You know what? The first two days I had a good show and there was like maybe only six or eight people or whatever.

But then the third show where the first beat of laughter usually happens, nobody laughed. It was like six people and I was like, oh, and my my tech, bless him, my friend Carlos, his face, he was just like on the board and he went like, because he never had seen what’s supposed to happen. He’s like, oh, my God.

And so I got through that show. And there’s the part in the show where I like I the bat dies and and or is like is dying. And then everyone started clapping because they thought it was the end and it wasn’t.

I was like, no, it’s still. Oh, my God, it was painful. But that was like the first experience was like, man, I got fringed, you know, like I it happened like this.

This is it. This is the the this the shit I’m in, you know, but like in terms of listen, I’ve I’ve I’ve listened to a few of the episodes of people that you’ve spoken to. Right.

It’s like Rebecca Perry and all these people who are like professional theatre creators, you know, and and she had an amazing time taking bread at a coffee shop girl to her to fringe and like sold out her run and all this stuff and had a producer and had all these things like she prepped. Right. She she knew what she was doing.

I am here to represent the scrappy creators. I am here for the people who are jumping in, not necessarily ready 100 percent, because like. Like that, it’s the Wild West out there, you know, like Edinburgh is the Wild West and there are people who go there.

Who fuck around, you know, there are people there who are like eating cheese as a show and that can be entertaining. There’s a guy who was like folding a fitted sheet on top of a mountain and like so that kind of the range of stuff that’s there gave me a sense of like. There’s there’s space, there’s space to figure things out and beyond anything.

So, I mean, if you do go with the goal of like. Wanting to sell your show or tour your show or meet these big houses in Europe or whatever that can that can buy into your show for sure, get a producer, get the promoter, get all the like get into one of the big venues, all of that. But if you’re going to learn how to perform.

Like that’s the biggest takeaway for me, like that was the biggest thing. It’s the biggest reason why I recommend Edinburgh Fringe because nowhere else is there like such an availability of people who are willing to see anything. And so there’s a bigger likelihood that you’ll get someone in the room when there’s just a massive like a massive amount of people, you know, and and the the ability to work on your show day after day.

Like as many days a week as you want, really, which is for many people, seven days a week. I think in my last run, I did six days a week, but then I did a variety show on Wednesdays. And so it ended up being and there were some days where I was doing two shows a day.

And so like but like that that intensity, you get reps so well, you learn so fast about how to deal with different people, how to work on your material, how to tweak things. And there’s there’s no other training like it.

[Phil Rickaby]
You mentioned learning how to perform at Edinburgh, and you got started in your acting journey a little later than than a lot of people. And also you’ve been you don’t have a you don’t have, quote unquote, formal theatre training, although one might argue that having done like a bunch of clown courses could count as as some theatre training. But what what do you feel that has been different for you, especially like in Toronto, which can be very a little bit, it can feel a little bit rigid and a little bit clinky sometimes in terms of of a theatre career.

How have you worked at navigating the Toronto theatre scene without that formal training?

[Emily Jeffers]
Yeah, I think it becomes apparent. Yeah. So I mean, I have a degree in international studies.

I worked for the government in Ottawa for a decade, and then I lost my mind. Some people not lost my mind. I was just like, lost my patience, I guess, went to Spain, did art school and then came to Toronto being like, I’m going to pursue acting.

I’m going to have a job but like pursue acting. And so I’ve cobbled together this experience of theatre school or what one might learn, you know, screen acting classes and Meissner and then a lot of a lot of clown just because I ended up loving it, you know, and improv and sketch in there for good measure. But I think what I’ve started to notice is just that like the theatre school will give you not only a foundation of what to expect from a theatre career, like the process of it, the channels, the funnels towards bigger stage, bigger stages, the expectations of what a theatre is supposed to operate like.

But it’s also that whole networking aspect, you know, the people you know, and I hear that from a lot of people as well, that you have to be in sort of the theatre school system to be able to get to the stages. And like even doing Toronto Fringe, it was at Soulpepper this year, and it was like a great venue. But there was this sense of like, we’re the theatre people, you’re the fringe people.

And I don’t, that’s probably not fair. Maybe it was just, I think there’s just the one tech that I worked with. But like, there’s sometimes this sense of snobbishness, but maybe it’s just like my lack of knowledge as well, you know, like I don’t have the same vocabulary or even like repertoire of that people who are trained through the formal system are.

And I think a lot of comedians, especially, you know, there’s the improv community and the sketch community. But I don’t know how that even gets to be recognized as formal or as theatre in the same way. But I’m starting to see it.

So like, there’s, there are these bridges that are being built between the people who do comedy for fun, and then get to comedy as like a job, but then comedy as like a profession. There’s like, there’s this, there’s this link that needs to happen to like, how do Toronto performers get to the next level if they’re doing comedy? You know, and I think that’s, that’s sort of where I see there’s the theatre people who get ahead, and then there’s comedians down here.

[Phil Rickaby]
But it’s interesting, because I think there’s also a barrier sometimes between like indie theatre, and the more mainstream theatre, and you can sort of get into, like indie theatre can be a great place to launch into a lot of interesting stuff can happen there. But it can also be a little bit siloed where people stay there. And there are only a few people who really go from the indie to the to the main stages and things like that.

There’s a lot of bridges that could be built better, just generally, between all of the disciplines, just all of the levels, right?

[Emily Jeffers]
Yeah, yeah, no, I think it’s definitely just a it’s, when you get into a sector, then you start to notice the silos and the little bunches and, and then unfortunately, the cliques as well, right? Like there’s, there is insularity. And part of it is like, you know, the people who you, you know, you vibe with, and then it’s like, there’s the restrictions and the the exclusivity that’s being built as well.

And so, yeah, there’s there’s different forms.

[Phil Rickaby]
Yeah, I mean, definitely, there’s that the people that you vibe with, there’s people that you know, and there’s also the the lack of performance spaces, like generally, like, we lost a bunch during the pandemic, and nothing has really rushed in to take their place. So there are fewer places to perform if you’re doing indie theatre. And so, and they’re also the places that do exist can be very expensive, it can be very difficult.

But I wanted to ask you about the fact that you, you know, you creating your own solo shows, as opposed to like, waiting for somebody else to give you work, like, you know, going out on auditions and that sort of thing. What was that a necessity for you, like the the creation of your own material? Or did you was that just something that you could not help but do?

[Emily Jeffers]
I think it was a mix of like, like feeling inspired and having a bit of time to dedicate towards it. But then, yeah, there was there was like a certain, it was the fact that I don’t need anyone else to tell me that I can do it or not, you know. And I mean, so many actors are the not in the trap, but like in the circumstances of, you know, trying to book gigs and auditioning and all of this stuff.

And it’s and they didn’t even for Well, yeah, I mean, I’m talking about mostly the film and TV stuff. But for theatre actors, it’s the same thing. And it was like, well, I don’t need to wait for anyone to say that I can do this to do clown, I can just create whatever, make up a bizarre world.

And so that started like, the more energy I put into it, the more I got back from it, in terms of creative satisfaction. And, yeah, I mean, I’ve written short films and stuff like that, you know, or or scene work. And it’s, it certainly doesn’t give the same feedback as a live audience, right?

Like, that’s the that’s the drug, you know, like, nothing beats the sound of laughter when I’m on stage, you know. And so like, you’re, I’m always chasing that. Whereas it feels like if I’m if I’m writing my own work, it’s like, that’s not my passion, you know, like, I’m, I’m not an inherent screenwriter, for example, people, some people know, right?

Some people know that that’s what they want to do. And it’s like, I didn’t necessarily know I wanted to be a clown, if I had no idea. But I knew that I wanted to make people laugh, you know, and and once I discovered that I could, it was just like, I’m gonna do this more, you know?

Yeah. And so, yeah. But yeah, like, where does it where does it go?

Right? I mean, I, I think I started to ask myself, you know, what’s the, the end game a little bit? You know, what’s, because if you talk to someone like Kendall Savage, for example, she knows everyone, she knows all the casting directors for proper circus things and shows and like, her goal is to get to Vegas.

And like, I’m, my fingers are crossed for her because she, she needs to be there. She deserves to be. But it’s like, well, is my goal to be in Vegas?

Like, do I want to be performing like 10 days a week in the, in the same show? Or is I might, am I really just creating these solo shows? Because there is this sort of like, love that’s independent from needing it to be a career, you know?

Anyway, so I’m still trying to like, sort that out.

[Phil Rickaby]
I think that’s, I mean, it’s a big question. Like, like, what are you driven? Like, what drives you?

Is it? Is it? Is it?

Is it the promise of more work, bigger work, more audiences, like this sort of thing? Or is it just the work itself that keeps you satisfied? And that’s, these are the kind of questions that I think all artists end up asking each other.

Like, why am I doing this? What feeds me? Is it?

How do I move forward? And do I need to move forward? These are big questions.

[Emily Jeffers]
Yeah, for sure. And but I mean, like, doing it has gotten me into some crazy situation, or not crazy situations, but like some great places like doing Bitty Bat. I took a chance and emailed the people from the Toronto Garlic Festival, because they were looking for an emcee slash judge for their vampire costume contest.

And so I was like, well, I’ve got this bat character. Like, and I sent them a video, and we had a chat over Zoom. I was in Edinburgh at the time, this just this past, past August, and 2025.

And, and it was like, yeah, we’ll give this a go. And I did it. And it was so fun.

It was like a fun little paid gig, you know, and I got a bag of garlic. It was just, it was great. And that’s, like, that’s an experience I never would have thought of, you know, so it’s, there is a little bit of adventure into where clown can take you, you know?

[Phil Rickaby]
Yeah, for sure. I want to go back on something that you that you mentioned, and I kind of let it go, go by without really commenting on it. And that was your government job, was performing something that was, was, like, in your eye, before it happened?

Like, where did you grow up performing or wanting to do performance and gave up on it? Or what, what was the path that took you to a government job? And then not that anymore?

[Emily Jeffers]
Well, I mean, I did drama school as a kid, I did acting classes in high school. But then, you know, it was at the time where you had to choose what stream you’re going in. And I was the last year of OAC.

And so there was like, a lot of pressure to, you know, figure out what, what you were going to do for post secondary, you know, and I had been good at humanities, and I had been good at science and math. And really, like, it felt like there were too many doors open. I had no idea.

But certainly, like, I didn’t know anyone who’s an actor really as a job. That felt like something I grew up in Oshawa. So like, not too far from Toronto, but it felt like that was something other people did.

I had no idea about what the scene was like. And so I went to Ottawa, I did a degree in international studies, and then a degree in translation, just like very broad scale, like multidisciplinary programs. And then I was living in Ottawa, and I liked it.

And so I worked for the Office of the Auditor General, and I worked for the Public Service Healthcare Plan. And like, I think I, when I got back into acting was that I think my friend of mine was at the theatre school in Ottawa, or in the theatre program at Ottawa U. And for her final project, she had to do like a one act play.

And so I auditioned for it, got the part. And it was like, okay, this was like, back into performing that I hadn’t done it for maybe, you know, seven years. And then I took like, the Improv Embassy was running at that time.

And so I took a couple of improv classes. And then I went to do this multidisciplinary art program, which was like supposed to incorporate theatre and stuff anyway. So I did a little bit of theatre there.

And I was like, through that, I think it was like, okay, this is a thing that people do actually do. And by then I had met people in Toronto, who were in the comedy scene, who were doing comedy, and who had gone to Humber and all this stuff. And so it’s like, I think I have something in me that wants to get back to this.

And so I did. And that’s kind of how I found my way back to it. But yeah, so I was 32 when I started pursuing acting, like taking proper acting classes and stuff.

Yeah.

[Phil Rickaby]
So I grew up in Ajax. So not far from Oshawa. And it’s not a great town for theatre.

I think now they have a community theatre there, but they did not when I was growing up. And so theatre was not something that happened there outside of like the school production of Grease or whatever. And in fact, I don’t know what your experience was like.

Of course, you weren’t like talking about going into theatre at that time. But like when I went to the guidance counsellor, and I was like, yeah, I want to take theatre, they were like, I don’t know how to help you. Like they were like, have you considered getting your Bachelor of English?

Because that’s what they were like trying to funnel everybody into was a bachelor’s degree in something. And when I said I wanted to take theatre, they were like, I don’t know anything about that. You’re on your own, buddy.

I don’t know if that was something like where you did you ever talk about theatre? Or was that like, not something that was available to you when you were in Oshawa?

[Emily Jeffers]
Well, so I, as a kid, I took classes at like, the Whitby Drama Club. You know, there was a theatre building in Whitby. And I was in high school during the Harris years.

Is that true? Well, it was during a time where there were no extracurriculars, right? There were no there were no plays, there were no productions that I could be a part of, except for if you took drama, or and I did take performing arts.

But you know what, I like, I took a performing art, like performing arts in grade 10, I think. And huge stage fright, like huge shame, fear, like, I don’t know if it was just like teenage angst, I had a really hard time memorizing monologues and stuff. And so I was like, I think it just freaked me out.

And so I was like, I don’t think this is right. For me, right now, or I was just like, okay, but there’s also other lots of other things I have to think about whether I need to take biology or chemistry, you know, I’ll do both. Yeah, so and I don’t even know if I talked to a guidance counselor might have helped.

I don’t even know if we had any.

[Phil Rickaby]
I mean, depending on what was going on in the school system at that time, you might not have they might have been like, guidance counselors are unnecessary. Maybe maybe this guidance counselor was mean. I don’t know.

I don’t know. I mean, they can be. Yeah, you know, they’re they’re the guidance counselor for every student and their goal is just like, get them into university, you know, which was not a problem for me.

[Emily Jeffers]
Like I had good grades and all that. It wasn’t like I needed that level. It was just direction more than anything.

[Phil Rickaby]
I think that’s the thing that a lot of people are looking for when they go to a guidance counselor, because not everybody knows what they want to do. Right. And the guidance counselor should be trying to help you to find what it is that you that you want to do or that you should do.

And that doesn’t always happen. I worked for a brief time at George Brown College and Student Services, and it seemed like every person who didn’t know what they wanted to do was told, go to go take the business class. And because they didn’t give a shit about business, they were largely just like.

Coasting on a sea or whatever, because nobody seemed to nobody had a passion for taking business, they’re just told they had to take something. So it’s like just funneling people into something without finding out what they want to do is not not great. You know?

[Emily Jeffers]
Yeah. And now it’s like, you know, did they funnel so many people into teaching or into the trades? And now there’s like a glut and now too many lawyers and it’s like you can’t know.

And that’s why it’s so important. Now, in my life philosophy, it’s like so important to really just pursue what you enjoy and love just because no one else can figure that out for you, you know, and it does take time sometimes. I mean, God bless the people who just know.

Yeah, it’s phenomenal that they can just know and they’re like, I’m going to pursue this. And I’ve always had like a way more tricky time about like thinking about what my path is and all this stuff. And yeah, I have no idea, but.

[Phil Rickaby]
I mean, I just think that that that the education system could take more time to help people figure out what they want to do. Right. But it’s all about like get everybody out of, you know, because we don’t even we don’t hold people back when they’re failing.

We just like let’s get them out. Let’s go get them out of the school, get them out into the school, get them out into the workforce. And I think that that if we if schools were able to take time, but of course that takes money, which nobody’s getting and volition and volition, you have to have the urge to want people to figure out what they want to do.

And instead, they’re trying to figure out, well, we think that in five years everybody’s going to need to know X. Yeah. And they’re usually wrong.

[Emily Jeffers]
And it’s like in four years is such a little amount of time, you know, especially when you’re a child still and figuring so much out and your body’s doing weird stuff. And like, yeah, it’s it’s a nightmare.

[Phil Rickaby]
Yeah.

[Emily Jeffers]
And actually, like when I think about it, if I’m honest with myself, if I was had pursued acting in my 20s, looking back on all the stuff that happened in my 20s or like where my head was at in my life, it was like maybe acting would have been too much at the time. You know, the thing I regret or that I feel like I’ve missed out on is just the time to train and the time to have those acting experiences that will make me a better actor. You know, it’s just the because I feel like I had this this this image of, you know, getting into acting is like you can see the island across the lake or you can see the other shore and you’re like, oh, yeah, I can swim that.

No problem. Start swimming, start swimming. And then it’s not until you’re in the water that you realize you have so much farther to go.

[Phil Rickaby]
Yeah.

[Emily Jeffers]
There’s so much more distance than you think there is. And it’s like, well, I can’t turn back and I don’t want to sink. So it’s just like you just have to keep going and see if you get to the shore.

Right.

[Phil Rickaby]
Yeah. What’s funny is that theatre school can burn people out. Right.

People can can leave their three or four year theatre school course and go through the motions for between three to five years and then just realize I am not liking this. I hate this. And they they give up on on the whole thing.

And on the other side of that is when I was in theatre school, our head of acting was always like because we were all except for one person, like 18, 19. You know, we came into school and we were like, we’re babies. And he was like, I wish you would all come back to me when you’re 30.

Like then we would we would understand enough that we could be taught or something. But it was it was you know, there is it’s not a bad thing to be older because you sort of are more confident in who you are, what you kind of should be in a theatre course, because there’s so much bullshit in a lot of schools that you should have the spine to know when to stand up, which none of us did at the time.

[Emily Jeffers]
Well, that’s the other thing that I hear about, like the the full on downside of theatre school, not all theatre schools, I’m sure, but like many people I’ve heard is like, oh, theatre school, just like there was this horrible teacher who made us cry every time. And like it doesn’t sound like it was there. It was formative in the wrong way.

You know, it was I think it it crushed a lot of people’s spirits. And so I’m grateful I don’t have that. But like I get my spirit crushed elsewhere.

I mean, sure.

[Phil Rickaby]
Yeah. I mean, the interesting thing is that is that when I was at theatre school, people got cut from the program at Christmas and summer. Right.

So and the decision they would make on that was like, here we are in first year. We don’t think you’re going to have a career in theatre school, like in theatre. Like what?

After three months, like like and then after it happens the first time now, unless you happen to be one of the chosen few who are favored, you go every day wondering if that if you’re going to be next. And that is no way to make art. Fear is not a place to make art from.

And that that was one of the places where I think some of us sat in theatre school was like just that that that fear based. Process, because we were worried that they were going to think we didn’t have it, and then they would kick us out and then where would we be? And that’s a difficult thing to deal with.

But again, I think that if we had been older, we probably would have had maybe cared a little less, would have had more confidence in ourselves to to know. But it’s hard. I think a lot of the schools that used to do that don’t do that anymore.

And I think a lot of schools are getting a little better because honestly, staff changes over. Yeah, right. People who taught in a certain way are retiring and.

They taught the way they were taught and just unquestioningly continued the perpetuated the continual, in some cases, abuse of the children, but then new people come in and they don’t want to do that anymore and the kids are won’t accept it anymore. And I think that’s great. I think it’s important to to make those changes as somebody who started a little bit later in life.

Have you found that you have a more greater sense of who you are as you as you move through this than you might have if you started in your 20s?

[Emily Jeffers]
I think so. I think it’s it it feels much more like a choice I’m making. And also it’s a choice that I’m making with the knowledge that I could do something else, you know, and that I have been something else.

It’s like I tried to live the the administrative life, you know, like I have a lot of skills and talents and that supports me. Right. That’s always like something that’s something you can really admin strengths are great for the art world, you know.

But so it feels very much like every time I submit an audition or I put myself on stage, that’s me making a choice. It’s that I’ve it’s not this compulsion of like this is the only thing I know how to do or like. Even beyond this sense of destiny, like I just don’t have that sense of destiny.

Right. And or but I do have this desire and I do have this joy in being in the spotlight. So I’m just going to seek it out.

Right. And then and if I stop feeling that way, then I guess I’ll stop.

[Phil Rickaby]
But yeah, I think it’s interesting because the idea of of one of the things that can be good as a performer is to have had a day job, like in the office or like to done that because they’re to done that, to have done that, because I think there are people who like they they’ve done nothing but theatre and then they’re like, well, I am now playing a lawyer. They’ve never been in an office. They don’t know what offices are like.

They don’t know. And it’s good to also know people who are not in theatre so that they, you know, they can inform your life about things that are not theatre related, because it could be a very insular a thing. I think it’s important to have done what you did and spent time outside of of the industry in some way.

[Emily Jeffers]
Yeah. Yeah. No, I think so, too, if not just for the.

The knowledge that I’ll be OK if acting doesn’t work out. But like, yeah, the the community and the people and just like knowing how people are and just not having to talk about it all the time, you know, it’s like because it can get a little bit closed in like a little like in a bit of a bubble. Right.

You know, if you’re only ever performing.

[Phil Rickaby]
So, yeah, for sure. I want to talk about because as we record this, you are going to be performing at Toronto Sketch Fest in March and you are you’re presenting. I think you’re doing The Mathematician.

Is that right? OK, for those who don’t know The Mathemagician, we’re talking a lot about Baby Bat and we have not discussed The Mathemagician. Please tell me about The Mathematician.

[Emily Jeffers]
The Mathemagician is like a mix of it’s like this sort of Leonardo da Vinci style character, Renaissance madman who’s discovered a new theorem and nobody can understand what that theorem is. And so he has to teach the people math. And so the show is based on this idea of this character trying to teach math to people, but he’s not very good at explaining it.

He’s not very good at math himself. And so. Like it’s just playing with mathematical concepts and doing silly things on stage.

It’s a very fun character to inhabit, and I wish that I had a stronger way of telling you what it was like. But the whole character was formed around a bit that I did where I was trying to come up with clown material. And Aitor Basauri is like one of my favourite clown instructors.

We talked about, he talked about the idea that the clown is on stage making something really simple and straightforward difficult. And I was like, well, what can I do that’s really like simple, but somehow becomes hard or like makes it challenging? And so I did a bit where I was just adding numbers in my head or like out loud until I couldn’t anymore.

So it was like 2 plus 2 is 4 plus 4 is 8 plus 8 is 16 plus 16 is 32. And it just kept going. And then eventually I couldn’t do it in my head anymore.

And so that was the moment of like the shit, right? Like that’s the moment where you’re in trouble. And just based on that principle, like I tried that bit again and then just added costume around it, right?

Where it was like this math, like this quintessential math guy. It was called the mathematician originally, but then as I did sort of these improv sets in character, you know, playing with timers and playing with measuring tape, I noticed that a lot of my hand movements were very like, you know, looks like, looks like he’s doing a magic trick. And I think in principle, I was also thinking about how math at a certain level, like theories and, you know, quantum physics and all this stuff, it does get to a point where it’s very mysterious.

And there’s speculation as opposed to knowing things true, like as absolute truth, or trying to discover absolute truth. And so there’s things that are still inexplicable and or like fuzzy or a gray area. And so that’s kind of where I merged the Mathemagician name into it.

[Phil Rickaby]
So how long has the mathemagician been a character of yours?

[Emily Jeffers]
Since late 2024. And so the first time I performed, this is the thing, here’s the secret about me and creating solo work. Toronto Sketch Fest has been amazing.

Toronto Sketch Fest has given me the platform for all of my new shows. I did Bitty Bat the first time there, I did my second Bitty Bat show there for the first time. And then my first half hour mathemagician show was, was there.

And for all of those, it was coming together like, days, hours before the show. It was like, you have this deadline, you’re gonna perform like, you figure it out. And so it’s really, yeah, it came, I would say that the mathemagician as a show came together in March of last year, and was performed for the first time at Toronto Sketch Fest, for the second time at Sweet Action Theatre, right before I took the mathemagician to Edinburgh, where then I did it.

So I performed it more in Edinburgh than I have in all of North America, right, like in Canada.

[Phil Rickaby]
So you respond really strongly to deadlines.

[Emily Jeffers]
Oh, my gosh, well, you gotta don’t.

[Phil Rickaby]
Yeah, listen, my first solo show that I wrote was in progress for eight years, until I realized that it was never going to be done unless I had a performance date. And I got into a fringe festival, which gave me like, oh, there is now a deadline. It has to be done here, rehearsed here, performed here.

And, and, and without that, I’d probably still be writing the thing. So deadlines, I think are great for everybody.

[Emily Jeffers]
Yeah, I think there’s a saying about painting, where paintings are never finished, they’re just abandoned. Like, it’s just that you can keep working on something forever, right? And, but yeah, and I also know, like that whole thing about, for Bitty Bat, for example, like, is it is the character a bat or a vampire, or both?

Like what and what happens when you commit to just one of those? And so like, I committed to a bat eventually, with vampiric qualities. And then the math magician was sort of the same thing.

It’s like, you know, what era does this person live in? And what does he care about and all that stuff? And that’s the kind of things that for some people as they create, I think they, they have an idea, like, a thematic idea, I want to create a show about this or with this lesson, or they know the character or they do all the journaling and all the exploration that I’m just like feeling it out.

You know, I kind of just like uncover the character through performing the character. So I feel like improvising helps me take, like, give the character shape and personality. And then I sort of try to create a structure.

And that’s the other thing about Toronto Sketch Fest is that they, they’re like, okay, give us your tech sheet. Tell us when the beats are, or like the, the cue changes and stuff. And I’m like, it’s a clown show.

I don’t know what could happen. So even that structure of like, there’s someone on the other side who is expecting you to tell them what to do. That creates this sort of deadline, this sort of framework that I need to, to impose on my work or impose on the character to actually make a show.

Make a show, Emily.

[Phil Rickaby]
I mean, performing a character, like inhabiting a character for a period of time is a really, like you said, it’s a great way to learn it. We were doing the silent film shows. I played a character that was sort of like a chaplain Buster Keaton kind of character.

And in the first show, he was very undefined. And then we learned, we later, as we performed him, we learned that he was an innocent. And that’s, that made him into something entirely new and wonderful.

But it wasn’t until like, we’d performed him for a little bit that, that for the next show, we’re like, this is who he is. He’s, he’s this. And that became the great thing.

He’s kind of forgettable in, in the, in his initial way. Cause he didn’t have a thing. Like he was just like there.

And then all of a sudden he became that who he is. And so like, we wouldn’t have got there if we hadn’t like had the initial performance. And so like doing it is so helpful and good.

And you’ve done, like you said, you’ve did, you did, how long were you doing the Mathematician in Edinburgh for?

[Emily Jeffers]
I did the full run.

[Phil Rickaby]
You did the full run.

[Emily Jeffers]
So like 19 performances within 23 days.

[Phil Rickaby]
That is a, that is a shit ton of performances. And if you, you must have learned a lot about who the Mathematician is over that time. How much did the character change?

[Emily Jeffers]
I think it wasn’t so much that he changed. It was that I just got stronger in him. Like I got more comfortable inhabiting that skin.

And I think I definitely noticed my, just if we’re talking just straight up skills of riffing with an audience or in like dealing. It was a show where there was kids who came, where there were adults who came out, where there were actual math scholars, like people who knew math who came out. And so that was great.

So I had to respond to all these people who hated math. Like I had to respond to all these different age groups and attitudes. And so like just on a training level, I think I got better.

And then, yeah, just like, I really fell in love with the character because he felt underdeveloped before I went. And it’s just like, yeah, I really grew to love being in his, his little world. So yeah.

[Phil Rickaby]
Audiences are so weird. Like the idea that somebody who hates math would go to a show called the math magician. Like, I don’t know what you’re thinking.

I don’t know. Like, why, why, why did you get drawn to this show when you hate math? It’s weird sometimes, but I guess also in a fringe situation, some people were like, I see everything.

[Emily Jeffers]
Right. Yeah.

[Phil Rickaby]
Which is wild.

[Emily Jeffers]
Yeah. So when do we get to see your, your silent characters again?

[Phil Rickaby]
Oh my goodness. I don’t know. Because that we’ve been that man, we did that, that tour was 2012 of, of that show.

And we’ve talked about getting the band back together, but everybody is off doing other things. One person’s directing opera. One person’s the leading the, the Calgary Shakespeare company, our piano player who, who, who played live with us is a musical director at Mirvish.

So like people are off doing other things. They’re busy. And every so often, so it was like, it’d be great if we could get the band back together, but I don’t know if we can anymore.

It’s kind of sad because it was a thing, but you know, that, that happens sometimes.

[Emily Jeffers]
Well, have you thought like, do you do solo stuff?

[Phil Rickaby]
Not silent, not silent. Cause I’ve thought about it. I’ve thought about it.

I’ve thought about creating a show for that character, but it’s very difficult to, to wrap my head around what that is by himself, but I have some ideas and maybe it’ll happen, but we’ll have to see how many shows are you doing at Sketchfest? Two. Two.

Oh, that’s, that’s good. That’s good.

[Emily Jeffers]
Yeah. I’m doing a March 4th and March 13th.

[Phil Rickaby]
Okay. Awesome. That’s great.

Well, Emily, thank you so much for joining me. I really appreciate it.

[Emily Jeffers]
I loved it. Thank you so much for having me.

[Phil Rickaby]
My pleasure. Thanks for coming on. Thank you for listening to this episode of Stageworthy.

Before I tell you about who my guest is next week, I would love to tell you about my position because as I said at the top of the show, I cannot make this show without the people who have chosen to become patrons on Patreon. One of the reasons why this show had to go on hiatus was because the cost of making this show was becoming a bit too much. I have been doing this show for about 10 years.

Stageworthy is in its 10th year. And even though the podcast is available for free, it does cost money to make a podcast. It costs money to have a website to host the audio files and distribution to all of the podcast apps, editing software, transcripts cost money.

And those are also being added to the current and future episodes as well as I’m working on adding those to the back catalog as well. And all of that costs money. And in the entire history of Stageworthy, I’ve been paying for everything myself.

And this has been a labour of love, but I need your help to keep the program going. And so if you want to help me to make Stageworthy, go to patreon.com/stageworthy and become a patron. Patrons get early access to episodes, we’ll have conversations about important issues about theatre in general.

And of course, the more people that join, the more people that join the Patreon, the more I’ll be able to offer to my patrons. So if that’s interesting to you, if you like this show, and you want to help me to make it go to patreon.com/stageworthy and become a patron. My guest next week is performer, singer, dancer, Tika McLean.

I really enjoyed that conversation. I can’t wait for you to hear it next week on stage.