Jacklyn Francis on Why Theatre Matters More Than Ever Right Now
Jacklyn Francis has been making theatre in Canada for more than three decades, and in this conversation she brings the kind of hard-won perspective that only comes from years of navigating the industry’s rhythms, disappointments, and genuine joys. In this episode, they talk about what it really feels like to work at a major festival like Stratford, the art of understudying, the strange grief that follows closing night, and much more!
Guest: 🎠Jacklyn Francis
Jacklyn Francis is a proud Canadian stage and screen actor whose career spans more than three decades across theatre, film and television. She most recently starred as Alice in Sexy Laundry, at the Drayton Festival Theatre. A longtime member of the Stratford Festival company, her Stratford credits include Forgiveness, As You Like It, 1939, Hamlet-911, Henry VIII, Julius Caesar, To Kill a Mockingbird, The Changeling, Pride and Prejudice and Richard III. She has also performed leading roles at theatres across Canada, including the Citadel Theatre, Canadian Stage, Blyth Festival, Thousand Islands Playhouse, The Sudbury Theatre Centre, The Globe Theatre, Equity Showcase, Shakespeare in The Ruff,  Buddies in Bad Times, Theatre Northwest, Resurgence, Shakespeare by the Bay and appearances at The Toronto Fringe.
On screen, Jacklyn’s recent credits include HBO’s Welcome to Derry, NBC’s Brilliant Minds and Ruby and the Well, alongside appearances in Murdoch Mysteries, Rookie Blue, Flashpoint, Little Mosque on the Prairie, Missing and Our Hero.
A graduate of George Brown Theatre School with additional professional development at the Banff Centre/Citadel Theatre, Jacklyn is a recipient of the Jean A. Chalmers Apprentice Award and the Tanya Award in recognition of excellence at the Stratford Festival (in 2018, Jacklyn was the first actor ever to win this award)
Connect with Jacklyn
📸 Instagram: @jacklynjax
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Transcript
[Phil Rickaby]
Hello, welcome to Stageworthy. I’m Phil Rickaby, the host and producer of this podcast. Stageworthy is Canada’s theatre podcast, and on Stageworthy, I talk to theatre makers of all kinds, from actors to directors to playwrights and more.
If they make theatre in Canada, I talk to them. Some of the people I talk to are household names, and the rest are people that I really think you should get to know. If you are watching on YouTube, please like this episode, leave a comment so that I know that you were here.
And if you like Stageworthy, hit the subscribe button and that bell icon so that whenever I drop a new episode, you’ll get notified that a new episode is available. And if you are listening to the audio version, please make sure that you’re subscribed. Go to your favourite podcast app, search for Stageworthy, and hit the follow button.
And while you’re there, if you’re listening on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or any other place that’ll let you do this, please consider leaving a rating and a review. Your ratings and reviews help new people to find this show. And if you were to do that, I would be so grateful.
Speaking of gratitude, I have a Patreon, and I will talk about that in more detail at the end of the show right before I tell you about next week’s guest. But while we’re here, let me tell you, I have a Patreon. And if you want to help me to make this show, you can join it by going to patreon.com slash stageworthy and becoming a patron. My guest this week is Jacklyn Francis. Jacklyn is a Canadian stage and screen actor with a career that spans more than three decades. She’s appeared on almost every major stage in Canada, including the Stratford Festival.
She just recently was on stage in Sexy Laundry at the Drayton Festival Theatre. I went to theatre school with Jacklyn. And so it was a real treat to be able to catch up with her.
This conversation was a lot of fun because we did a little bit of catching up, but a lot of talking about some of the nitty gritty of theatre and being a working actor and how things work in a festival situation. I hope you enjoy it. This is my conversation with Jacklyn Francis.
Jacklyn Francis, thank you so much for joining me. This is a real pleasure. How are you?
[Jacklyn Francis]
I’m very, very well. I’m so excited to see you, Phil. I’ve been listening to your podcast for a while now.
I was so glad when you brought it back.
[Phil Rickaby]
Oh, thank you so much. Thank you.
[Jacklyn Francis]
Yeah, I watch all your posts. You got to know. It’s when I like social media when, you know, for the most part, I do hate it.
But then there’s things like what you’re doing and I’ve been able to follow your career and your journey. And I remember being in our dining room in Toronto 20 years ago. How long was that?
17?
[Phil Rickaby]
Yeah, about that. Yeah.
[Jacklyn Francis]
Yeah. Yeah.
[Phil Rickaby]
That was a podcast with a different name and no longer available. So we get to have like a fresh conversation. You just closed Sexy Laundry at the Drayton.
[Jacklyn Francis]
Yeah, just a little bit ago on Sunday.
[Phil Rickaby]
So that’s very fresh.
[Jacklyn Francis]
Yeah, I’m still recovering.
[Phil Rickaby]
I mean, as one does. That shows you to get a lot of a lot of great response.
[Jacklyn Francis]
You know, it is tried and true. And I think it was amazing to learn, you know, like doing a Norm Foster. He was like, OK, we just have to say the lines and get out of the way that that play works a treat.
It knows its demographic.
[Phil Rickaby]
Yeah.
[Jacklyn Francis]
I had so many people come up and say that was just like us. That’s like, you know, given that it’s 22, 23 years old. So she was much younger when she wrote it.
Michelle Rimmel. She got so many things right. So many things right.
[Phil Rickaby]
Well, it’s human nature, right? If you study human nature, you get a lot of things right.
[Jacklyn Francis]
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
The one thing my big fail was I didn’t get a hot flash in anywhere. I was like I did. I did get some chin plucking at one point because I was looking in a mirror and it’s like, because what do I do?
You know, the middle age thing. And I realized two shows before we closed. Ah, I forgot because it is about middle aged and there’s a lot of that, too, and just getting older and like where we’re at.
[Phil Rickaby]
Yeah. Oh, you mentioned about about like Norm Foster and having to get out of the way of the words, which is in some ways like Shakespeare.
[Jacklyn Francis]
Oh, absolutely.
[Phil Rickaby]
You could do too much in Shakespeare. You’ve got to let the words do the work rather than overly putting your own sauce in it.
[Jacklyn Francis]
Michael Mawson, who was a teacher at Stratford, he was the text coach, basically 20 some years ago when I was first there, said, let the text play you. I mean, with Shakespeare, it’s more it is getting out of the way. But I also think you have to do a lot of work beforehand.
I think that knowing what you’re saying is the most important thing. And you can’t just say the words you’ve got to really get to know them. Yeah.
Do the homework. But once you get going, once you’ve rehearsed and you’re out there, then the fun happens and it does play you. You kind of get out of the way then.
[Phil Rickaby]
Yeah. But it is that work of like knowing what you’re saying, because, you know, you do have to learn another language because it is, you know, we as actors have to interpret it. And when we understand it, the audience understands it, which is why I think, you know, we study it in high school.
[Jacklyn Francis]
Yeah. But I’ve I always had even even when I was in high school and then I did a couple of years university and I didn’t I took it as an English course and I hated it. And I actually had an argument with the professor because I said this work is meant to be seen and heard just studying it on the page.
It doesn’t lift the same way.
[Phil Rickaby]
Yeah. It’s that Victorian attitude or the Victorian idea of it as literature rather than as a play that’s meant to be seen or poetry or poetry. Yeah.
And so that’s it’s no wonder that, you know, everybody in my class when I was in theatre school studying Macbeth, for example, was like, this is the worst thing I’ve ever done. I hate this. I hate this Shakespeare guy.
[Jacklyn Francis]
Yeah, I think that’s because it was probably taught badly, you know, just like math. I’ve learned I still am terrible at math, but I learned that’s probably because I was taught badly.
[Phil Rickaby]
Yeah.
[Jacklyn Francis]
You know?
[Phil Rickaby]
Yeah.
[Jacklyn Francis]
Yeah. I think you do have to have a passion for it. And I don’t know that I agree with you that it’s another language.
And I because I think that that’s where danger lies.
[Phil Rickaby]
Right.
[Jacklyn Francis]
I was at Stratford last year, you know, like with a little monologue in As You Like It, but there was a young actor, first season, and she kept going, Oh, why can we not do a play in English? And it was that and it’s like, you can’t you have to find a way in and realize it is English.
[Phil Rickaby]
Yeah.
[Jacklyn Francis]
It’s just because if we think of it to me as another language, and I’m not right about everything. This is just for me. It removes us from it.
And it’s not as immediate.
[Phil Rickaby]
Yeah. No, I will. I will accept that.
Absolutely. It was sort of the wrong terminology, but it for a modern audience, sometimes to them, it often does feel like a different language. And that first scene is like acclimating them.
[Jacklyn Francis]
I know you’ve got to train the ear.
[Phil Rickaby]
Exactly. Yeah. And once the ear is trained, they won’t even notice that you’re speaking like an old English.
[Jacklyn Francis]
Well, but you know what, if it is does feel like another language that could be good for people to people like speaking accents. I mean, whatever your way and I was just saying for me personally, yeah, I want it to feel as immediate as possible. Yeah, for sure.
So I’ve just found that keeping it in the realm of it is my language. This is what how I choose to speak. When I’m playing a character, it just makes it easier for me to get into it.
My one of my favorite things, though, is dealing with a difficult passage of Shakespeare, not understanding it, getting the folio out, looking up all the words, and then that feeling when the penny drops and you go, oh, you know, it’s a rhetorical argument. Oh, that’s built on that. And when it all comes together, I find that thrilling.
I still do.
[Phil Rickaby]
It is thrilling. And the work is thrilling as the puzzle starts to come together. And and you get to be a detective as you do pull out the folio and you pull out the the lexicon and figure out what all the things mean.
And and then all of a sudden you understand the thing.
[Jacklyn Francis]
Yeah. Yeah. But I also saw that there were a couple of moments, even doing Sexy Laundry, that Peter Bailey, my my my co-actor, it’s only the two of us.
He didn’t quite understand certain things because it was he didn’t have the life that that was the character was going through. So I don’t I don’t get what this means here.
[Phil Rickaby]
Right.
[Jacklyn Francis]
We don’t always relate to everything, you know, and there are a couple of moments that I had the same experience going. There’s a turn of phrase here I’m finding really difficult. But we tried to be as as true to that text as well, because it’s to me, it says something that the playwright’s trying to say, even though there were just a couple of weird inversions that I found.
Oh, that is not the way I would say it.
[Phil Rickaby]
But that’s like invent like really digging into that. It’s like Shakespeare to like having to be in there, like figure out. I mean.
The that play was written, what was it you said, like 20 years ago, 20 to 20 years ago and and translated into 15 languages. Oh, of course.
[Jacklyn Francis]
Done all over the world. Right. Yeah.
It’s it’s been it was written in English, but translated like it has been, you know, and she’s modernized it. I mentioned Instagram and I mentioned my character said Ozempic and life insurance like that. She also updates it regularly.
[Phil Rickaby]
So, yeah, that that can be a real gift for a playwright to be able to do just to be able to like as a playwright myself, like to be able to like every time I look at a play and I revisit it, I literally like, is this still working? Is this like all of these moments, like the ability to be like, oh, now we we can’t like we can change. We can bring in Instagram and things like that.
I think that’s a great gift for as long as you can do it.
[Jacklyn Francis]
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah. It does work a treat.
It’s like Neil Simon Foster. It works really, really well. And the audience loved it.
Doing a comedy was so much fun.
[Phil Rickaby]
People need comedy, especially right now. People need comedy.
[Jacklyn Francis]
Yeah. Yeah.
[Phil Rickaby]
Yeah.
[Jacklyn Francis]
Yeah.
[Phil Rickaby]
So now that this this show, it’s like literally as we record this, it just closed like last week. What’s the hardest part about closing a show for you? Now, you’ve closed many shows, but I think we all react in our own ways to the closing of a show.
[Jacklyn Francis]
Yeah. I mean, sometimes it’s a relief if it’s been something really, really challenging. It can be family, you know, if you feel like you’ve really connected.
And I got to say, you know, also just losing a paycheck, just a paycheck for what you love, you know, and then so but it’s it’s also there’s always a grieving process that can take different amounts of time for whatever reason.
[Phil Rickaby]
Yeah. Well, it is that when you can find that that that family aspect in in like a cast and it’s, you know, when it’s a two hander, you better hope you get along.
[Jacklyn Francis]
Yeah.
[Phil Rickaby]
You really have.
[Jacklyn Francis]
We really did.
[Phil Rickaby]
Yeah.
[Jacklyn Francis]
He’s a great, great guy.
[Phil Rickaby]
And that really shows right then really like relate that that does like so when people are having fun with each other on stage and getting along, the audience sort of feels that too.
[Jacklyn Francis]
Yeah. Yeah. So I think so.
[Phil Rickaby]
Yeah. I remember, you know, when I was doing a tour with Keystone Theatre going across Canada, we sort of had a moment where, like, I really hope that everybody gets along for this whole thing, because we’re stuck in two very small cars for a very long time. And if there are any interpersonal issues, it’s going to get really uncomfortable and really unpleasant.
But fortunately, it it did not. And but there’s always the chance that somebody is going to people aren’t going to mix and figure out how to make it work.
[Jacklyn Francis]
Yeah. Yeah. You know, I mean.
There’s been so many different experiences over the years and watching a lot of people that don’t get along or watching people get along a little bit too well, and you’re like, oh, that’s not good. Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah. It’s just what we do take so much personal energy and it takes like there’s it has to be a family because we have to be so vulnerable with each other.
[Phil Rickaby]
Yeah. There has to be some level of trust in order to get there.
[Jacklyn Francis]
Yeah.
[Phil Rickaby]
You know, you mentioned, you know, the people getting along a little too well, which I think, man, it’s that thing that that that that doesn’t get talked about much. You know, we sort of like a little showmance over.
[Jacklyn Francis]
Yeah.
[Phil Rickaby]
That kind of thing.
[Jacklyn Francis]
We like, you know, but but there’s also for me many different kinds of showmances. I had I call him my BAMF son and I had my my dear friend Luke and he was like the showmance was like, you’re my son. It wasn’t sexual.
It was it was I just adore you, you know, and sometimes you also need you need chemistry and it can bleed out. And I don’t judge anybody for anything of, you know, we’ve seen stuff over the years. What’s worse is when things go well and then suddenly they don’t.
And you’re still doing the show.
[Phil Rickaby]
Yeah.
[Jacklyn Francis]
And then you’re trying to manage everybody’s hurt feelings.
[Phil Rickaby]
Oh, for sure. You know, I mean, there’s I mean, there’s countless plays and movies about that kind of thing happening.
[Jacklyn Francis]
Yeah.
[Phil Rickaby]
But yeah, I think honestly, the that whole like that emotional bleed thing. Yeah. I don’t think that there it’s not part of the curriculum in any theatre school.
Like, how do you let’s talk about this. Let’s talk about.
[Jacklyn Francis]
Well, I I think that what’s changed is the the the fact that we now have intimacy.
[Phil Rickaby]
Yeah.
[Jacklyn Francis]
Yeah. I think that that’s been a really, really good thing in recognizing that boundaries are OK. You know, we came I mean, I’ve I know back when when I first started there were, you know, teachers would say the most inappropriate things sometimes there was always.
And and as a woman, I often felt that if I had set a boundary, I was being difficult, whereas now having someone come in and go, OK, we’re going to set boundaries. They take the onus off the performer. And so you don’t need to worry about, you know, it gives still I think that that can get in the way of the work if it stops you from being vulnerable.
[Phil Rickaby]
Yeah.
[Jacklyn Francis]
If you’re able to set parameters and allow the vulnerability to live in that and recognize that there are boundaries that you should not cross for yourself as much as for anybody else.
[Phil Rickaby]
Yeah, absolutely. Super important. I mean, I think that the idea that we used to do that we have to be very careful and make sure that we’ve choreographed our fight.
But this scene where you guys kiss just like, oh, yeah, yeah, I know.
[Jacklyn Francis]
I know. And I did a show once and the director who I’m still friends with and lover and I’ve never actually asked her about it. We did an out scene.
Of. A couple having sex with the director in the room and we were blindfolded and it was so awful and awkward and it’s like, but it’s going to be the morning after, so you’re just waking up from it. But no, like, yeah, it was really terrible and would never happen now.
It happened a long time ago. But those were and and and I was and I felt at the time, oh, my God, if I don’t do this, I’m a bad actor. Like and it was just inappropriate.
[Phil Rickaby]
I mean, it is inappropriate. But again, like you say, there is that that pressure and that’s how there have been without naming names, there have been bad actors in rehearsal rooms who have said inappropriate things, have people do inappropriate things and all that sort of stuff. I mean, the the and of course, like you said, if you say no to it, you’re the one that’s difficult, which you start worrying.
Am I going to hire me again? Is this for for this thing? And you’re right.
The intimacy director takes the the onus off of the performer.
[Jacklyn Francis]
And so now you no longer have to worry. There’s a voice for you. And, you know, because I’m old to initially when when that was brought up, I kind of resisted it because I was like, oh, but I realize now the value.
[Phil Rickaby]
Yeah.
[Jacklyn Francis]
And it doesn’t get in the way of the work. It can highlight it. I mean, I’ve had good and bad intimacy coaches, just like there’s good and bad fight.
[Phil Rickaby]
Absolutely.
[Jacklyn Francis]
But I think it’s now it just it does create a safe space.
[Phil Rickaby]
Yeah. It’s interesting how when something new comes up, like, oh, intimacy direction. And and if you’ve been in the industry for a while, you have a moment.
Yeah. And then you get to do it.
[Jacklyn Francis]
You’re like, oh, yes. Yeah. Yeah.
Especially. Yeah. I just I oh, my God, I can’t remember the one on sexy laundry was the best I’ve ever worked with.
[Phil Rickaby]
She was amazing.
[Jacklyn Francis]
I should find the script, the program. She was amazing. And yeah, now I want to ask you a question.
You mentioned Keystone. Is that that’s your theatre company?
[Phil Rickaby]
It was. It was. I mean, we haven’t officially disbanded, but we were doing like plays in the style of silent film.
Bell of Winnipeg. We went across the country with The Last Man on Earth, which was, again, a silent film play. And we just haven’t been able to get the band back together.
David Atkinson, who I think is doing some things in Stratford maybe next year. He was our piano player. So he played the piano for us.
So he’s been a music director for a while. Dana Fradkin, who was also one of the driving forces behind that, is doing like opera direction now. So it’s very hard to get the band back together.
Right. Although we sometimes think it’d be great to get the band back together. But it’s really hard when people start to move on to other things, you know?
[Jacklyn Francis]
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah.
[Phil Rickaby]
Yeah. It’s kind of like, you know, leaving a theatre school, everybody’s like, hey, we’ll keep in touch. And then.
[Jacklyn Francis]
But that’s the same with doing a show now. You don’t like, you know, that instant family. And now there’s like, you know, WhatsApp or whatever app you want to use, chat groups and groups and threads and all of this.
And then suddenly it’s gone.
[Phil Rickaby]
Yeah. Well, I mean, because it does it does feel so close and so, so perfect. It’s like that family for as long as the show last.
And then you’re you’re on to another family. You’re on to another thing. It’s hard to keep those old connections.
[Jacklyn Francis]
Yeah. Yeah. But I mean, I often find then you see people and it’s like, oh, my God.
[Phil Rickaby]
Yeah, exactly. Like when you’re like you get to have that moment of reunion and suddenly like fall back into it, which is which is kind of magical.
[Jacklyn Francis]
Yeah.
[Phil Rickaby]
You mentioned you mentioned as you like it from a couple of years ago. Were you understudying Celia in that show?
[Jacklyn Francis]
Which one?
[Phil Rickaby]
Most recently.
[Jacklyn Francis]
Oh, no. God, I’m too old now. God bless you.
No. In 1999, 2000, in 2000, I played Celia. Right.
Okay. Yeah.
[Phil Rickaby]
Yeah.
[Jacklyn Francis]
Jeanette Lambermont directed with Lucy Peacock as Rosalind. Dom Carrier was Orlando. Johnny Gode was Oliver.
This and then there’s been this was like the third or fourth since then. As you feel old, it’s like if not the fifth. So.
So Sarah Farb was Rosalind. Yes.
[Phil Rickaby]
Yeah.
[Jacklyn Francis]
And McCombie Celia. And I understudied Shauna McKenna as Duke Senior. I’ve reached that now.
That is the hard thing about getting old is that it’s like I’ll ask to audition for this. Like, well, no, darling, you’re too old for that.
[Phil Rickaby]
And it’s always like, are you sure? But I feel I feel like I could do it. Yeah.
Yeah. But Celia, I think is is is maybe one of the most challenging roles in As You Like It.
[Jacklyn Francis]
It’s yeah. Yeah.
[Phil Rickaby]
She spends a lot of time listening.
[Jacklyn Francis]
Mm hmm.
[Phil Rickaby]
You know, you’ve got you’ve got this scene going on with with with Rosalind and Orlando. And then Celia is also there. Yeah.
You know, I just have to like not steal focus, be present in the scene and all this.
[Jacklyn Francis]
Well, especially because she’s watching them get married. Yeah. All of that does.
She doesn’t want that to happen. Like, that’s all. And also you’re losing your best friend.
I mean, that’s a huge rite of passage. There’s a lot going on. I’ve yes.
I’ve I also played Rosalind, you know, 20 years ago. So I’ve been able to play both.
[Phil Rickaby]
Right. Of the two. Is there a favorite of the two?
[Jacklyn Francis]
No, it depends. I would you know, I enjoyed both. I also had challenges.
Yeah, that I found because I had a very specific take on Rosalind, which was she doesn’t become Rosalind until she gets the pants on the Rosalind we know. So some reviewers did say that I was too feminine. I was too because I think she if she had that like she doesn’t get her voice till she gets the pants on.
[Phil Rickaby]
Yeah.
[Jacklyn Francis]
Being a man is what allows her to speak her mind. And so until she’s banished, she’s trying to be a good little girl. That was my take.
And there’s a prescribed way, I think, that that’s the one downfall, I think, sometimes of Shakespeare, like with some musicals, people think there’s a right way to do it.
[Phil Rickaby]
Yeah.
[Jacklyn Francis]
And that’s why I was saying to I tried to I do I did try to preface when I say I don’t like to think of Shakespeare as another language, but that’s how I do it. There is no in no right or wrong. I have come up against directors that have said wrong.
And, you know, after doing this for over 20 years, I’m like, there is no right or wrong. Everybody’s allowed to do however they see a part.
[Phil Rickaby]
I think that’s so important, because otherwise, we’re just getting the same thing over and over.
[Jacklyn Francis]
Yeah, but there are purists, you know, there are that this has to be done this way. And and I think that both the big festivals here in Canada that the audience audience members, not necessarily the creatives artists want to explore, but audience members are not always happy to be challenged with a new take on something. No, you know, I don’t.
I love Shakespeare if it’s done like, like as a purist, like however, but I also love people who stretch and change things like Chris Abraham. I love I like if if you are just good at your job, you can do whatever you want. You can make anything work as long as you have a good idea about how you want to approach it.
[Phil Rickaby]
Yeah, I’ve found, you know, you can literally you can do anything as long as it’s good in the way of the story.
[Jacklyn Francis]
Yeah.
[Phil Rickaby]
Like I’ve done a couple of shows where the director had such a high concept.
[Jacklyn Francis]
It imposed. Yeah.
[Phil Rickaby]
Keep bumping up against where the show needs to go because a little too high concept. Yeah. But within limitations, you can do it.
[Jacklyn Francis]
Yeah. And I love Shakespeare in the rough because I like how they change things even before the current incarnation when Caitlin Reardon was was running it and she was doing adaptations and using bits of Shakespeare from all over the place and changing and adapting. I was so excited by Porsche’s.
Caesar, what was the that that they did? Yeah, just just taking something and stretching it and changing it and.
[Phil Rickaby]
Yeah, yeah, you’ve played a few roles at Stratford over the years, you’ve been there, you were there in the 90s, you’ve been there a few like a few times.
[Jacklyn Francis]
You come and go. It’s like, yeah, yeah, I have not been there. I’ve I’ve done nine seasons, 10 if you count 2020.
But I don’t because we got fired. I mean, because we lost everything because it was 2020. Yeah.
[Phil Rickaby]
And it was a nightmare for the theatre industry as a whole.
[Jacklyn Francis]
Yeah. Well, everybody as a whole. Yeah.
And it come and go. You never know. It’s I have been not asked back so many times, you know, which is a joke at the festival if you’re asked back or not.
[Phil Rickaby]
Is that is that a bit of a is that a bit of a cruel joke? Because.
[Jacklyn Francis]
Yeah.
[Phil Rickaby]
Yeah.
[Jacklyn Francis]
You know, it’s not always this time of year, especially I feel really bad for people in shows because auditions start happening. You’ll hear about them, but you don’t get one. There is such a machine in terms of cross casting, which director gets first pick.
So if he gets these are the people he wants, then they have to be absorbed into another company. And then that director wants those people. So there are so many moving pieces.
I used to take it very personally. And I probably there’s always it always hurts a bit, but there’s also work is work.
[Phil Rickaby]
Yeah.
[Jacklyn Francis]
And I can’t even begin to imagine how how many slots need to be answered, how many questions need to be answered. Slots need slots needs need to be filled in terms of putting together a season like that.
[Phil Rickaby]
Yeah.
[Jacklyn Francis]
So it’s it’s this is a hard time because seasons are winding down. Some people know, some people don’t. I’m not in the season this year, so I’m fine.
I get to see shows and I live in Stratford at the moment. So when it’s over, we’ll probably go back to Toronto again.
[Phil Rickaby]
And yeah.
[Jacklyn Francis]
But yeah, they’re big machines.
[Phil Rickaby]
I mean, I think that’s a really healthy way to look at it, like to understand that it is a big machine. Yeah. Like how that that process comes together, because I think for a lot of people, it is that they would it would be taken personally, like the I’m not asked back.
You don’t know what all those things are.
[Jacklyn Francis]
We all take it personally. That’s why being an actor is so hard. Like, you know, the number of self tapes that we do for film and TV for a commercial.
[Phil Rickaby]
Yeah.
[Jacklyn Francis]
And, you know, I’ve had a few callbacks where I’ve gotten super close and then I don’t get it. Like I’ve been what is it pinned or whatever, which they’re not supposed to do, but I have been. And then, OK, we’re supposed to.
I didn’t and I didn’t hear. And I take it personally. Of course you do.
[Phil Rickaby]
Of course you do. They like said they pinned you. They said they said, hey, we want to use you.
[Jacklyn Francis]
And then we didn’t. We changed our minds. Yeah.
It’s just making sure you don’t see it as a failure. It’s not. It can’t be.
[Phil Rickaby]
It’s so it’s so I mean, I remember. You know, right out of theatre school, every every audition was like this. I got to get this audition.
And after after a number of years, I was like I had more of the attitude of, well, another one of these. You know, this is this is my job interview. This is like it’s not the end of the world.
The more I do this, the better I’ll get at it.
[Jacklyn Francis]
Yeah, I think so. I mean, how are you? Sorry.
How are you with self tapes with film and TV? What are your thoughts on that?
[Phil Rickaby]
I mean, I haven’t I haven’t. I’ll be honest. I haven’t done any.
I don’t I’m not represented. So I don’t I don’t I don’t I’m not doing those. But I I know from talking to people, you kind of miss the room.
[Jacklyn Francis]
Well, there’s so many variables like I get so many Instagram videos of how to light it. And it’s like I’m throwing it up. It’s going to be what it is.
I don’t have time. I’m not skilled in that. No, I don’t know if that makes a difference.
[Phil Rickaby]
I don’t know if it does either. And and and it certainly shouldn’t. We shouldn’t be judging the actor on whether or not they are also a cinematographer.
[Jacklyn Francis]
They say it makes a difference. Who knows? I don’t know.
I don’t know.
[Phil Rickaby]
I don’t know. I don’t think anybody does. And that’s the mystery of the whole thing.
[Jacklyn Francis]
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, now they say with self tapes, they they just look and a few seconds.
That’s yeah. So I think it’s to to avoid that is to make your tape look good. So they stop.
Sure. And then actually pay attention.
[Phil Rickaby]
Yeah. But then, you know, in a way, that’s the thing that you’re missing from going to an in-person audition, because, sure, they might they might cut you off. But also, you’re more likely to at least get your time in the audition, whereas a digital video that you sent in, they’re just going to go next, next, next, next.
You’re swiping like on some kind of dating app.
[Jacklyn Francis]
Yeah, exactly. I think so. But who knows?
Because I what I like is that I can do them here and send them. It has saved me so much.
[Phil Rickaby]
Sure. No travel costs.
[Jacklyn Francis]
Like if if if. Yeah. If I’m here because we’ve been back and forth for so many years.
And what’s hard is I like having the control and then I can look at it and choose. But I could be choosing the wrong one. I don’t know what they’re looking for.
[Phil Rickaby]
Yeah, exactly.
[Jacklyn Francis]
Yeah. Yeah.
[Phil Rickaby]
Choosing what you think is your best option. You don’t know when you go into a room what’s the best. Either.
Either. But you know, when you’re you’re making a choice and you don’t actually know what they’re looking for, is there some trait or they’re looking for somebody tall, short.
[Jacklyn Francis]
Yeah.
[Phil Rickaby]
Blonde, brunette, like you don’t know anything. Yeah. It’s a mystery.
I want to look. I have a question about about Stratford, as you mentioned, being at the understudy in the Shawna McKenna role, you know, as an understudy. It’s a I always thought of understudy.
I remember when I was in, you know, very young understudy is like, oh, man, I understand. But it’s actually quite a difficult thing because you have your regular role and then you’ll have like the role that you’re understudying. But what is.
The hardest part about being an understudy in your mind.
[Jacklyn Francis]
The hardest part is learning in a vacuum. You know, I also think that you have to recognize that there is room for you to bring yourself, but you have to honor the choices that the other person has made. So they’re like you can’t go out there and do whatever you want and just do the same blocking.
You also have to follow the same thought process. So that’s one thing that I like being around when they’re talking about characters. But and you also don’t want to be a vulture.
You know, I would hang around and listen like Shauna. I’ve understood Shauna a few times and you can ask her anything. She’s always so open to talking about why they’re doing this or why that choice was made.
So I would say that. It’s I like it when you can come and go. I don’t want to be there too early because you also don’t again, like I said, you want to feel like a vulture.
You don’t want to be sitting in the room judging every choice. I believe that the rehearsal hall is sacred in the early days. I think that for people to risk, you need to feel freedom.
You know, I think having a full hall when you’re doing anything really is you just want to play and be in the moment. And I’ve done some rehearsals where everyone’s called all the time, even if you’re not in the scene. And, you know, now you’ve got people on their phones, which they shouldn’t be, but or reading or doing other things and not giving energy into the work.
So that’s why I like it when I’m not there too, too early. And then I just like watching runs there. I mean, at the festival, once we were doing a new play and I was understanding two quite big roles and it was a new play and we had 20 days to get off book for the understudy run.
We were off book before the leads were and there was no movement on that. There is again, because there’s a calendar that they’re dealing with in terms of a timeline. And we did not get the script until the first day of rehearsal.
And then the line run was 20 days later and the director wanted us there all the time and we were rehearsing another show and the time learning in a vacuum is hard. So just sitting and trying to crunch and get them in. I like to be it’s easier to learn on your feet.
So I would say that not having the physical component when you’re just trying to learn it, that’s that’s hard. But the hardest thing, I don’t know, it’s all of those things. It’s not an easy job.
[Phil Rickaby]
No.
[Jacklyn Francis]
And these days, understudies go on all the time.
[Phil Rickaby]
Yeah.
[Jacklyn Francis]
You know, in the early days when I was first year, rarely did understudies go on and now it happens a lot.
[Phil Rickaby]
Is that a post-COVID thing?
[Jacklyn Francis]
No. I mean, even even before COVID, I had seasons. I got to go on for Mrs. Cheveley in Ideal Husband and I found out at 10 a.m. I was going on for the matinee. And the same year, I went on for Marc Antony in Julius Caesar. It was a women production and Michelle Giroux was out and I had to go on for her twice because she lost her voice. And that was the same season.
So I was making jokes and then I went on. Yeah, I’ve been on a lot. The last few years not, but I’ve been on a lot.
Yeah, yeah. I did one. I had to go on for a small part.
It was in Timon of Athens and Michaela Davies was out and I had to do her track. And she was a creditor, so a little part here, a few lines there, but it was enough. But I had to do my part, go off, do a complete change, having never done it before, including hair, shoes, suit.
I was walking on the stage with Tyrone Savage fixing my tie. And also there were only three of us understudying seven people and we all had. So I didn’t know who I was actually going to be talking to when I said the first line because I couldn’t remember.
Oh, you look at it on the videos and people are small. When we did it in the understudy run, there were three of us for seven people.
[Phil Rickaby]
Right.
[Jacklyn Francis]
And I and so it’s like, oh, you’re I’m talking to you.
[Phil Rickaby]
That’s wild. That’s wild to be doing your track and another track at the same time.
[Jacklyn Francis]
Yeah. Yeah, it was. Well, you don’t have time to worry about it.
So you do have to know your stuff. I got to say you’ve it’s you got and you got to keep it up, too.
[Phil Rickaby]
Yeah. That’s another skill that I think is is not like you learn that generally on the fly, like at least in our day, nobody did a class on like, here’s how you understudy, because if you do it now, you have to figure out, like, how are you going to like, how do you know all of the tracks? What kind of note should you take?
Like, how do you make it work? And you have to figure that out.
[Jacklyn Francis]
I mean, I’ve been lucky enough. I’m married to someone who’s done a lot of musicals, so I’ve talked to some of the swings, the dance swings. What we do is nowhere near like that.
It’s like a swing covering every single dancer learning the dance with left leg leading for that side of the stage, right leg for that side of the stage. And they can pop in. And that discipline.
Yeah, I really looked at that. I think it is a technique. And I think I would assume it would change based on where you’re working.
Like I would assume being an understudy at Stratford is different than at Shaw, but I’ve never worked at Shaw. So I don’t know.
[Phil Rickaby]
Yeah.
[Jacklyn Francis]
In terms of how much preparation you get. I don’t know what they get on Broadway or in the West End. I don’t know.
I know some theatres in England or and I know people in Chicago, they would have a weekly rehearsal. We don’t do that. There’s no time.
There’s no time in the schedule to do something like that.
[Phil Rickaby]
No. I think if you’re if you’re not in rep, it’s a lot easier to find the time to do it. When I was ushering at the Ed Mervis Theatre, the swings, you’d always see the swings come out with their notebooks for the members.
They’d duck out and they’d be there and they’d take whatever note for whatever thing they needed to study. And then if you got there early enough, you’d find out that people were being taught a track with the music director, a stage manager and a piano player in the lobby.
[Jacklyn Francis]
Yeah. To go on that day.
[Phil Rickaby]
Yeah.
[Jacklyn Francis]
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah. And they do like that’s.
[Phil Rickaby]
Yeah.
[Jacklyn Francis]
Yeah. Yeah.
[Phil Rickaby]
It’s wild.
[Jacklyn Francis]
I oddly find it easier to do a bigger understudy than a smaller one. Oh, sure. Because the trap with a smaller one is you think I’ve got this and you don’t dedicate the same focus that you do when you’ve got like a huge monologue.
And also I’ve understated Shakespeare mostly. And that is easy to learn in a vacuum. Yeah.
When you’re doing something back and forth, that’s really, really hard. And once, you know, Mark Antony, that was great because he’s mostly talking. So you don’t have time to worry.
You’re just doing your thing. Yeah. Yeah.
I always say I did that. I can do anything.
[Phil Rickaby]
Yeah.
[Jacklyn Francis]
Yeah.
[Phil Rickaby]
There are people, you know, people it’s always somebody’s first year at the festival at any festival. It’s always somebody’s first year. What do you think that a new cast, a new company member is most surprised by when they join a company like the Stratford Festival?
[Jacklyn Francis]
I think that what’s shocking is actually it looks like a lot of rehearsal time on paper, but it’s not. You know, you can have a scene that gets 45 minutes in a day and it’s scheduled because you often will have secondaries, a primary day. That is that director’s day.
He can get whoever he wants, whenever. If he’s not using someone, then a show that has a secondary and go, oh, I can use them. We’ll rehearse that scene.
So it’s just availability of actors. It depends on what the scheduling is, what your show against, like how that works. That’s I think surprising.
It feels like a lot of time. I mean, what’s nice is you have a lot of time for things to filter, but sometimes you, you don’t get back to something for a month or you could block it once and suddenly you’re running it because somehow it’s been missed or they have bigger fish to fry. And like, we need to look at this scene is not working and there’s more people in this scene.
I know often a lot of stage time. Now it’s group scenes. You don’t really get to rehearse small, intimate scenes on stage because you have everybody available that day.
Stage days are expensive because you have to have a certain number of crew. So I think it’s very surprising how it feels. It looks like a lot of time, but it’s actually a lot less than you think.
[Phil Rickaby]
Do, do people ever find out like too late that it’s not as much time as they think. And then at the end, like at a certain point they end up scrambling in terms of understudies.
[Jacklyn Francis]
I’ve seen that where, where people are not off book. Uh, it hasn’t happened so much anymore, but there was a time where they just didn’t manage their time or they didn’t quite realize, Oh, that’s quick or for whatever reason, it’s harder than, than they thought it would be to learn or their other track is too busy and they genuinely haven’t had time. You know, there’s that too.
It’s a, it’s a busy, it can be a busy place if you’re in three shows.
[Phil Rickaby]
Yeah.
[Jacklyn Francis]
It’s a relentless schedule.
[Phil Rickaby]
Well, cause you’re rehearsing, then performing and rehearsing and then performing and rehearsing and then hopefully eventually maybe at the end of the season just perform, just performing.
[Jacklyn Francis]
Yeah. Yeah. But once a show goes up within two weeks, you have to have the understudy run.
There has to be, there’s one rehearsal on stage, five hour call. And then all the others are in the hall. Like there’s once it opens, you’re still working.
I mean, it’s, yeah.
[Phil Rickaby]
Yeah.
[Jacklyn Francis]
Yeah.
[Phil Rickaby]
Jacklyn, you grew up in Alberta. How did you discover the theatre?
[Jacklyn Francis]
Mr. Sullivan was my next door neighbor’s dad. So Megan Sullivan’s dad, Pat Sullivan, who is sadly no longer with us, was very involved in Lethbridge community theatre. And, um, well, first of all, I should, even before that, I love to read.
I was reading when I was about five years old, before I started grade one, I could read. And then I would read, like I do all of the characters for little women in the bedroom. I’d play them all.
Heidi, um, Harriet the spy. Like I just, I was a voracious reader. So I love storytelling and I loved acting out the characters.
And then I went and saw a production of a play called Da, which was an Irish play. And Pat played the son. I think, I can’t remember, but I was so shocked because what I knew was on stage and I was about grade six or seven.
And I was just then I was smitten. And then when, then in high school, I started doing plays.
[Phil Rickaby]
And at what point did you realize that this was going to be your life’s work?
[Jacklyn Francis]
Um, I don’t know if it is yet. I don’t know if I do it enough for it to be my life’s work. Um, I went to U of A and I did not get into the program there.
And I auditioned for George Brown. And I think it was probably in our class at theatre school that, that I realized how much I just loved it. I loved it.
[Phil Rickaby]
So were you, you were on the fence until then you moved, you picked up and moved to Toronto and you were still on the fence.
[Jacklyn Francis]
Well, no, I guess you’re right. No, no, no. I did like, cause I didn’t know a single person in, in Toronto.
So yeah. And it’s funny because I was, I got my first rejection. I did not get into the U of A acting program.
And then the following year I auditioned for national and George Brown. I got into George Brown. It’s funny that even though I got a no right away, it was like, no, I’m going to keep doing this.
I just love it so much. So.
[Phil Rickaby]
Well, I mean, it, it, it, I think if somebody got a no right away and just gave up, then it’s not really a career for them. Cause they’re going to be many more no’s. Yeah.
[Jacklyn Francis]
Yeah. I love live theatre. I love live performance more than anything else.
Um, I love being in a room. I love the stories. I like, um, being in the audience as much as I do being on stage.
I think what we do is actually, it’s important, especially now with the advent of AI, I think a communal experience in the same location with the performer on the stage has now taken on a huge importance. And I also think that we’ve always been the protesters, the opinion shifters, but, but, and I, what I like about theatre is when you don’t get hill over the head, you just make people think you don’t have to abuse them with knowledge, just like let them make their own decisions, but show them through, through whatever performance or story they’re seeing that they can see themselves and that there’s a different way to look at the world.
[Phil Rickaby]
I think there’s something about, you know, just in general, the fact that we’re all in the same room. But I also think that that theatre works better than a movie in some ways for like changing somebody’s mind because of the proximity, the, this person on stage saying these things, feeling these things, they’re breathing in this room. And I’m, I experience it in such a different way.
It’s not a passive watching experience the way that watching a movie or television is. It’s an active watching experience, even though as an audience member, I’m not doing anything.
[Jacklyn Francis]
Yeah, I think so. I agree with that.
[Phil Rickaby]
I’ve had so many, like, you know, the, those moments when, I mean, you remember a first year of theatre school, first day of theatre history and Peter Wilde comes in and says, what is theatre?
[Jacklyn Francis]
Oh yeah.
[Phil Rickaby]
What is theatre? And everybody’s like, well, it’s a building or it’s a stage, it’s a play. And then he says, theatre is when the audience and the actor breathe together.
Yeah, I remember that. And those moments when that happens are, there’s sometimes few and far between, but when they happen, it is everything.
[Jacklyn Francis]
Yeah.
[Phil Rickaby]
I remember with clarity of the moment, even like maybe more than 20 years ago when I was in a room and that happened, you know, were you performing or were you, I was in the audience member.
[Jacklyn Francis]
Yeah.
[Phil Rickaby]
And it was one of the, it was actually Kim’s convenience at the Toronto fringe, uh, that, that first run when nobody knew what it was. And in that last moment of the play, when the sun is, is putting labels on cans and the entire audience is like breathing and also sobbing. And like, just like everything, everybody together that when those lights went down, you could feel the electricity in the air when everybody was like, I can’t sit down.
And the entire place leapt to their feet. Again, a rare thing like that kind of true standing ovation. I still think about that moment.
[Jacklyn Francis]
Yeah. Yeah. That’s amazing.
[Phil Rickaby]
I mean, and it, it, that kind of thing can happen. Like it’s, it’s also electric when you’re on this stage. Do you have any moments from your, your time at theatre when that’s happened for you?
[Jacklyn Francis]
You know, you know, one thing that I absolutely loved, which was not, and it was breathing in the moment. It was realizing it didn’t matter. It was seeing Cherry Jones in doubt in the first it was, it was in Chicago, Broadway in Chicago, it was called.
And so she’d won the Tony. It had been on Broadway. It was the first national tour and Cherry Jones was still doing it.
And she paused and went, ladies and gentlemen, I saw, I’m sorry. I seem to have gone up, you know? So she’d been doing it a while and we all like, you felt everybody like, like, Oh, I can, I can still, I get sort of chills thinking about it.
I’m just going, we’re going to pause. The crew will reset to the top of the scene and I’m going to go and confer with the assistant stage manager in the wings here. And we will begin in about five minutes.
Well, like we, like it was absolutely, it was oddly thrilling and we’ve instant forgiveness. We didn’t care. And it was live, like live theatre.
And she would like, it was amazing. It was amazing.
[Phil Rickaby]
I have to say the, the, the, the courage to admit that you’ve blanked on the line, the courage to be able to look at the audience and say, I’m sorry, but.
[Jacklyn Francis]
And it was the way she said it too. Ladies and gentlemen, I’m sorry. I seem to have gone up.
[Phil Rickaby]
Yeah.
[Jacklyn Francis]
Yeah. But I, I mean, I also was lucky enough to see hang men in England by Martin McDonough. And it was the first, it wasn’t, it was a, they had just transferred to the West end.
And that was the first play I’d ever seen in England. And we just kind of went walking and I saw the theatre, like we were not. And like we bought really cheap seats for that night.
And it just was, and that for me was incredibly thrilling just because it felt like, and then I saw a bunch of stuff the rest of the week, but that, that one just sort of fell in our laps and I didn’t know any, I mean, I knew, I know Martin McDonough, I know who that is, but it was just seeing that. Oh God, what’s the actor from walking dead with the eyepatch. He was the lead.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. What is his name? Oh, but it was, that was, I just had chills the whole time.
Yeah. Just amazing.
[Phil Rickaby]
Yeah. Yeah, sure.
[Jacklyn Francis]
Yeah.
[Phil Rickaby]
You know, we, we, we were at theatre school at the same time. We were in the same class. Yeah.
I think we, we were trained for a particular kind of theatre career that I don’t know if it exists in that way anymore.
[Jacklyn Francis]
It was considered a conservatory.
[Phil Rickaby]
Yes. Yeah. And it was, and the career that they were, that they were preparing us for is, was audition, get the role, rinse, repeat.
Um, don’t do anything else. You don’t, don’t multi hyphenates don’t exist. You’re going to do this.
And, and certainly nobody was talking about self-production or self-producing.
[Jacklyn Francis]
Doug, Doug, Doug Campbell did Douglas Campbell. Remember when we were in doing our, doing a winter’s tale?
[Phil Rickaby]
Yes. Yeah.
[Jacklyn Francis]
I remember he said, you guys have to do your own work. And I was so resentful at the time because math, I was like, I don’t, the money has always eluded me. That’s why hearing about you with Keystone and touring, I’m always like to, to, to, to come up with money and the logistics to do that is beyond my capabilities.
Like, uh, but I remember he said, you have to start your own theatre companies. You have to do your own. And I think that what we’ve morphed into is now there’s a lot of films getting made that way.
Like there’s a lot of independent production. I think, I don’t know. I think in Toronto, we’ve lost a lot of those small theatres where it was feasible to produce a show for 50 people.
[Phil Rickaby]
That’s, that’s the problem.
[Jacklyn Francis]
Those theatres are gone now. It’s all condos. I think that, that, that, um, uh, yeah.
Uh, you know, I, I’ve always loved the fringe. Oh, I had another moment, just back to your other question. That same trip to England, I saw a play called Iphigenia in Splat and it’s a Welsh play and it was a one woman show that was earth shattering for me.
I didn’t know who she was. Never heard of the play. It was, and it turned out to be, what did they call it?
It not opening night. It had a name that was an English. It’s not, it could have been the press night.
And I was, we went up and I was like, is there a waiting list? And we got in once at one place and I sat somewhere and we, I was absolutely blown away. And it had been a fringe show in Wales and it was touring and, and it was at the, um, the national theatre in a tiny little bit, a little extra space that had been closed and just, but that was like that, that just, I was on my knees at the end of that.
I thought it was just brilliant. Um, um, yeah, but, but I have to move forward to the other question. I don’t think that that, that kind of career does exist anymore.
I mean, still at my, you know, my age, I still, I have to supplement, I have to have part-time jobs. Um, and I know a lot of actors older than me that are still doing that as well. I think you’ve got to juggle and be willing to do that.
And it is gig to gig. I wish I had my own theatre company. I wish I had the, the, the foresight and the wherewithal to do that.
[Phil Rickaby]
Well, having your own theatre company doesn’t necessarily mean that you have any money whatsoever. You’ve a lot of times, you know, you, you, you form that theatre company and then you got a couple of shows out of it. And then if you’re lucky, people go on to do other things.
Right. Um, but also it, it, I was talking with a friend just the other day, they’re in New York. And I was like, what is the main difference between the Toronto scene and the New York scene?
And, and, and, and she was, they were saying there’s, you don’t have spaces to perform in like in Toronto, in Toronto.
[Jacklyn Francis]
Yeah.
[Phil Rickaby]
There’s two small theatres now there’s the assembly and the red sand castle. And, uh, I think there’s a one black box theatre somewhere, but there’s none of these like really independent 50 seat theatres where they’re affordable. Yeah.
Yeah. And you need that for a really robust in DC and we just don’t have that.
[Jacklyn Francis]
There’s one in Chicago or there was the last time I was there. I saw something in a mall. I saw something in a storefront.
Um, yeah, that, that, that is still possible.
[Phil Rickaby]
Yeah.
[Jacklyn Francis]
But even, you know, the storefronts like coal mine started like that and now it’s grown, but it’s not a space that you can rent. Um, so yeah, it needs, and there’s just no money.
[Phil Rickaby]
There is no money. Somebody has to step up and provide the space. And like you said, there’s no money.
[Jacklyn Francis]
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I know in England things are, are, were, I don’t know if they’re subsidized a little bit more.
Um, but here, yeah. Because you need to be able to do things that fail. I think you learn from failure and getting on the map takes, can take a while.
So you need to be able to know that you can budget to lose money and still be okay and still move forward. And eventually, hopefully, but I mean, if you’re in a tiny little theatre, you’re not going to make any No. And you need the small spaces for artists to get established and grow and learn the craft.
[Phil Rickaby]
Yeah, absolutely. And, and, and, you know, fringe, sometimes I feel like, like the fringe in the Toronto fringe is, wants things more polished or at least the media, the media seems to want things that are like finished. They’re not looking like there’s, it feels like there’s not as much of an opportunity for experimentation.
Whereas if you go to the Montreal fringe or the Edmonton fringe, the Winnipeg fringe, they love a messy show.
[Jacklyn Francis]
Yeah. It’s development. They want to be in the, on the ground floor.
[Phil Rickaby]
And Toronto, Toronto wants the next Kim’s convenience. Toronto wants the next like drowsy chaperone. They want it to be like ready to go.
Uh, and there isn’t enough forgiveness for the show. There’s just getting started sometimes.
[Jacklyn Francis]
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, part of the fun is not knowing what you’re going to get.
[Phil Rickaby]
Yeah.
[Jacklyn Francis]
When you go to the fringe, you know, that’s, and that seems like it’s so competitive now.
[Phil Rickaby]
You know, I, I don’t know, because there’s fewer shows at the Toronto fringe, fewer shows than there have been in the past. And, but I, I refuse to believe that, that, that like I, I live by there’s audience enough for everybody. Um, I think that once people start seeing shows, they keep seeing shows and there’s, there is literally something for everybody in a Toronto fringe season.
So I just, I always think that, that the opportunity is there. You just have to find your audience and fringe is the time to do it. Cause it’s the only time of year when there’s an audience of people who are active, actively looking for a show to see.
[Jacklyn Francis]
Yeah. Yeah.
[Phil Rickaby]
Yeah. Yeah.
[Jacklyn Francis]
And the festival atmosphere, I mean, I, because I’m from Alberta, there’s the Edmonton fringe is there’s nothing can compare because it is so concentrated.
[Phil Rickaby]
Yeah.
[Jacklyn Francis]
Toronto’s all over. So it’s a little bit different experience, but that, that festival feeling is pretty, it’s pretty great. Especially in summer.
Yeah. When you’re outside. It’s my favorite, my favorite.
[Phil Rickaby]
I actually, um, this, this fringe on the first day, I went to salt pepper for my first show and I ran into, I ran into a couple of people. One of them was Erin Jan and he walked in and he was like, it’s the best time of the year. And it was like, yeah, it is my favorite time.
[Jacklyn Francis]
Yeah. Yeah.
[Phil Rickaby]
I mentioned our time at theatre school together and, and, uh, oh, you know, we, we started school, there were like 30 people in the class. And I think when we graduated, there were 15, 12 people in the graduating class, something around there. I think it was 13.
It was 13. So like in between there.
[Jacklyn Francis]
Yeah. Yeah.
[Phil Rickaby]
But there aren’t many people from the, and I think most graduating classes from theatre schools, this happens. There aren’t many people who are still doing this.
[Jacklyn Francis]
Yeah.
[Phil Rickaby]
Occasionally I’ve run into a couple of people on the street and they’re like, I haven’t touched been in a theatre in like 20 years or something like that. And what do you attribute your still being in the industry? Like, like what is it about it about, about the industry that’s kept you in it?
[Jacklyn Francis]
You know, it’s a, that’s a, it’s a very good question because I’ve had many ups and many, many, many downs. I’m prone to depression. So I have had dark times where I haven’t worked for like a year.
So I think that luck and every so often I’ll book something and I’ve had, I’ve been blessed to have had many really great theatre experiences. I was in a play called forgiveness here at the festival last year, which actually I played someone from Lethbridge. So that was really, really fun.
And that was a very, very special experience. Even in this year too, doing, doing sexy laundry to be doing it for people who reminded me of my mom and dad, people reminded me of me. It was a couple married for 25 years.
I felt I, I, I get the jobs that make me go, yeah, I love doing this. And it sort of tides you over. And I’ve had pretty good Joe jobs in between.
I’m also married. So there’s two of me. So financially, I mean, we’re like, things are rough now.
Juan used to do a lot of voice work. That was most of our, our stuff was and that’s gone a hundred percent gone to AI, to the lockout, um, Nelvana closing. Cause he used to do a lot of cartoons, right?
You know, so, so things have changed a lot. I feel like we’re more behind than we were 10 years ago. So, uh, also I always joke that if there’s any sort of longevity, it’s cause I’m not really good at anything else.
And some people would argue, I’m not even good at this. So, you know, it depends. You know, when we were, when I was filling out the form and we were talking about, I have such anxiety.
And, uh, what did I say? I was suffering from imposter syndrome because it’s like, I have nothing to say. Like I just do this and I’m lucky when I get to do it.
And I love it when I get to do it. And, but how I approach work and how, how, like, it’s, it’s, it is what it is. I can’t imagine it’d be particularly interesting.
[Phil Rickaby]
I think you’re wrong about that. I think you’re wrong about that. We’ve been talking almost an hour now.
[Jacklyn Francis]
Oh, I’m also a good talker. I am a good talker.
[Phil Rickaby]
But it’s interesting that the, the, the, the, the voiceover thing and, and, and losing jobs to AI, I do think that, um, there is a backlash to that coming because I think, listen, I, I listen to voices all the time and the last, and I can always tell when it’s an AI voice and I hate it.
[Jacklyn Francis]
Yeah. I can’t, I cannot stand AI videos if it’s a pundit and it’s like, no, this isn’t real. Even if it’s like, no, no, no.
And I, I, I put like Instagram, I’ll put hide video or whatever you can do. I get rid of them. I hate it.
[Phil Rickaby]
Yeah. But I, I think that, that, that most people don’t like it. Yeah.
And I think most people reject it. And so it was, as soon as they have, like, you know, I think there are all these commercials online and you can tell it’s an AI voice and I’m just like, get rid of it, get it out of here. Cause it’s so artificial and so bad.
Um, eventually I think first off there will be the AI crash, which is coming. And then there will be the, uh, just rejection of, of these tools for creative pursuits. I think, I hope.
[Jacklyn Francis]
Yeah. Well, I hope for any pursuit. Well, I just think that, uh, critical thinking is the most important thing we have.
[Phil Rickaby]
Well, yeah. And, you know, people, people who are using these, these large language models, they’re offloading their thinking to an AI and having it do the difficult bits. Yeah.
And now they don’t do anything without the AI.
[Jacklyn Francis]
And the, and AI makes mistakes constantly. So it’s, it’s very scary. And I don’t understand why, like with, with global warming, the way it is, why data centers are even being built.
I’m just flabbergasted by it. Like we learn nothing. We as a species learn nothing.
[Phil Rickaby]
Well, you know, I have a, I, I think that the, that there’s a reason why there’s a rush to do it.
[Jacklyn Francis]
I’ve read, I’ve read what the reason is and it’s competition.
[Phil Rickaby]
Yeah. I think that’s part of it. I think part of it is competition, but I think it also has to do with, um, like at the, at the, at the, at the top of these companies, they know that they can’t deliver on what they’re promising.
[Jacklyn Francis]
Yeah.
[Phil Rickaby]
They are losing trillions of dollars every day. And the only thing that keeps them doing, going is shareholders believing the story.
[Jacklyn Francis]
It will pay off at some point.
[Phil Rickaby]
It will pay off at some point. But at a certain point, they’re, they’re going to look at how much it costs and how, and what’s, what’s happening, like what it can do. And they’re going to say, stop.
[Jacklyn Francis]
Yeah. But my fear is it’s, that’s way down the line still, like that should be being decided now.
[Phil Rickaby]
Yeah.
[Jacklyn Francis]
And I’m so tired of, of all of our decisions in this life right now being made by shareholders.
[Phil Rickaby]
Oh my goodness. Yeah. Like we don’t need, we don’t need to be worrying about shareholder value anymore.
[Jacklyn Francis]
No, no. Yeah. It just drives me nuts.
[Phil Rickaby]
Yeah. For sure. One last thing is you were in Welcome to Derry.
You were, I think the math teacher.
[Jacklyn Francis]
I was, that was a weird day because, well, because they, they found a hole in the script and they, for whatever reason, whatever she was doing at the desk with that thing, which I never saw because it was all going to be CGI’d later, they needed her to react to something in the room and run out. And so I didn’t like they, I auditioned with a script, but then they changed the script and like, I got it right before. And they also said, oh yeah, can you improv some math?
[Phil Rickaby]
Oh.
[Jacklyn Francis]
Thank God the set deck had written a formula on the board.
[Phil Rickaby]
Oh.
[Jacklyn Francis]
So I just, and you don’t even hear it, but still I didn’t want to like, it was like droning on about something. So I read, I wrote that down and then I had it where I could read it because, but it was very, very quick. They were lovely set.
Oh my God. The nicest, friendliest, most amazing. Sadly Bill Skarsgård had already left and so had Robbie Clark.
Have you seen?
[Phil Rickaby]
I’ve seen it. I’ve seen it. Robbie got, Robbie got a fabulous death in that show.
[Jacklyn Francis]
He got a great death. Yeah. The childminder was a childminder for England and had, had worked with all, oh no, he was the acting coach for the kids.
He’d worked on four of the Harry Potter, Potter films and he loved Robbie. And so we sat and chatted about Robbie and he showed me a photo of Dunleavy’s head at the feet after it had been thrown. And it’s like, I don’t want to see that.
His head cut off and bloody.
[Phil Rickaby]
No. Yeah.
[Jacklyn Francis]
Yeah.
[Phil Rickaby]
Have you, you’ve, have you had the opportunity to work with Robbie in your time?
[Jacklyn Francis]
We, uh, we did the 39 steps together in Sudbury and I have never laughed so hard in rehearsal. He’s such a, such a clown and such a comedic gem. I love.
Yeah. So that was, that was a joy doing that show with him.
[Phil Rickaby]
Yeah.
[Jacklyn Francis]
And I’ve also worked with Ron Kennel. Oh, of course. He did a couple of seasons here at the festival and we’re in the same shows.
So that for a couple of seasons, that was really fun.
[Phil Rickaby]
Is that, is that a bit of a trip to like be in a show with somebody from like theatre school?
[Jacklyn Francis]
Um, not a trip. It’s certainly fun. I guess, I guess that is a trip.
Yeah. Yeah. So then I’d say, yeah, it is.
It is. It’s like, yeah. Nice.
[Phil Rickaby]
Yeah.
[Jacklyn Francis]
Yeah.
[Phil Rickaby]
Well, Jaclyn, thank you so much. This has been wonderful. Thanks so much.
[Jacklyn Francis]
I can’t believe that that is the time. That’s great. It flew.
My goodness. We can talk.
[Phil Rickaby]
There you go. Thank you so much. It’s been wonderful.
Thank you. Great to see you. Good to see you too.
Thank you for listening to this episode of Stageworthy. Before I get into who my guest is next week, let me tell you a little bit about my Patreon because I cannot make this show without the people who’ve chosen to back me on Patreon. Making a podcast, even though it is given to you, the listener for free, it still costs money.
It costs money to have a website. It costs money to have a place to host the audio files that it can be distributed to all the podcast listening places. Editing software costs money.
Image creation software costs money. Transcripts cost money. And the people who are backing this Patreon, the people who are supporting Stageworthy are the ones who are making sure I can afford to do all of that.
I’m so grateful to them because for most of the history of this show, it was all coming out of my pocket. My patrons, if you’re watching on YouTube, you’ll see their names right now. They make sure that I can do all of this.
But I should be honest, we are almost covering all of the costs. But there’s also the time, which isn’t covered at all. Every episode of Stageworthy is the result of hours of work, from contacting guests to booking guests, doing research, recording, editing, creating images for the episode.
This is all stuff that I do for every episode. And again, that’s hours of work. And so if you would like to help me to be able to do this, so if you would like to help me to make this program, please go to patreon.com slash Stageworthy and become a patron. Patrons get early access to episodes, we’ll have some conversations about some of the issues going on in Canadian theatre. And the more people who join, the more I will ultimately be able to offer to my patrons. So if you’re interested, please go to patreon.com slash Stageworthy and become a patron. My guest next week is playwright Erin Shields. Erin Shields is the playwright of Nightwood Theatre’s To a Flame. And To a Flame is a show that combines American Sign Language and spoken language and everything else.
You are really going to love this conversation with Erin Shields. So tune in next week on Stageworthy.
