From Teacher to Director to Theatre Critic with Joe Szekeres

In this episode of Stageworthy, host Phil Rickaby sits down with Joe Szekeres, founder of Our Theatre Voice, for an in-depth conversation about theatre criticism, community theatre, and why live performance still matters. As Stageworthy enters its tenth year, this discussion reflects on the changing landscape of Canadian theatre journalism, the responsibilities of reviewers, and the importance of constructive, thoughtful criticism.

This episode explores:

• Joe’s path from community theatre to theatre criticism
• The founding and philosophy behind Our Theatre Voice’
• The value of training and mentorship in theatre criticism
• Constructive criticism versus negativity
• Funding pressures and their impact on production choices
• Championing Canadian stories and homegrown work
• And much more!

Guest: 🎭 Joe Szekeres

Actor/director for 30+ years in the local community theatre scene in Durham Region. Retired 33-year Catholic school educator. Founder, Editor and Publisher of OUR THEATRE VOICE. I had also written for Onstage Blog (founder: Chris Peterson) until 2020, when COVID hit and Onstage changed its formatting. Chris encouraged me to go out on my own.

Connect with Joe:

🌐 Website: http://www.ourtheatrevoice.com

📸 Instagram: @ourtheatrevoice

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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 types, from actors to playwrights, directors, stage managers, producers, and more.

If they make theatre, I talk to them. Some of the people I talk to might be household names, and others are people I think you should really get to know. This is the first episode of the year, and I always like to look back at this time of year because it was at the beginning of the year that the first episode of Stageworthy was released.

And I took a look this year, and to my surprise, it always creeps up on me, the anniversary, and the first episode was released in January of 2016, which makes this podcast a decade old. Ten years old. And I want to thank everybody who’s ever listened, who’s been on as a guest, and anybody who is thinking about coming on.

It’s my privilege to make this show, and I truly do enjoy making this show. I do have a Patreon. I’ll get into more of that near the end of this show, but if you want to help back this show and help me to make it, go to patreon.com/stageworthy and become a patron. If you’re watching this on YouTube, make sure that you hit the subscribe button and like the podcast. Leave a comment to let me know what you think about this episode. And make sure that you hit the bell icon so that every time a new episode comes out, you’ll get a notification.

And if you are listening to the audio-only version, please make sure that you are subscribed. Go to your favorite podcast app, search for Stageworthy, and hit the follow button. That way, every time a new episode comes out, it will be downloaded directly to your device.

And while you’re there, if you’re on Apple Podcasts or Spotify, and you feel like leaving a review, that would be a great help. Ratings and reviews do help new people to find this show, and you’d be doing me a favor by leaving a review. This week, my guest is Joe Szekeres.

Joe is the founder of Our Theatre Voice, and has been a theatre reviewer for quite some time. And this is a great conversation. One that I truly enjoyed.

And if you’re at all curious about how someone gets started in reviewing or just starts reviewing theatre, this is another great episode. If you put this alongside with my conversations with Janine Marley, Glenn Sumi, Aisling Murphy, and other reviewers that I’ve spoken to, this is a great opportunity to learn about what goes into reviewing the show. Here’s my conversation with Joe Szekeres.

Joe Szekeres, thank you so much for joining me. As a theatre reviewer, you see a lot of theatre. And just at my last interview before the end of the year was retrospective of the year with a couple of theatre reviewers from Toronto.

And I’m curious, as we go into the new year, because this is going to air just at the beginning of the year, is there anything that you saw in 2025 that just pops into your head as theatre that is particularly memorable for you?

[Joe Szekeres]
I was out in Victoria in September and I saw an awesome production of 1979 at the Belfry. And it was incredible, Phil. Absolutely.

I had never been to the Belfry before. So I wanted to see it. And it all dealt with the time of Joe Clark, when Joe Clark was a prime minister.

And the company just captured the fun of the whole thing. There was the spirit, the fun. So that would be the first thing that caught my attention.

I’d have to say 1979 out in Victoria.

[Phil Rickaby]
Now, you are the founder and the reviewer for Our Theatre Voice. So tell us a little bit about Our Theatre Voice and how that got started.

[Joe Szekeres]
Well, very quickly, I was an actor and director here for the community theatre here in Durham region. I’m at Oshawa for 30 some years and I just wanted something different. I never regretted my time involved in community theatre.

So I started reviewing and then I took some workshops. There was a Will McGurk who used to run the Slow City website here and he was in charge of the culture and he knew I was the theatre person. So I started writing for some theatre reviews for Will McGurk and then Slow City folded.

And then I started to write for On Stage Blog based in Connecticut. Chris Pearson was the founder, editor, and publisher there. I was encouraged to apply for that.

I had that gig and I had that gig from about 2018 to about 2022. And then during the pandemic, On Stage Blog pivoted. And Chris told me at that time, Joe, time to go out on your own.

I’m going, okay. And he said to me that, I’ll help you get started if you like. So he helped me get going with a few things.

And I just started our theatre voice up on, just got it going. And I didn’t want to call it by my, I didn’t want to say call it theatre reviews by Joe Zacarias. I wanted something different.

I thought, because technically in a way, it’s not really my theatre voice. I look at all the actors. I look at all of the artists that I’ve been interviewing since the pandemic.

You know, that’s why I used the pronoun our, and I brought some other writers along with me as well too. So that’s why I thought our theatre voice is probably the most appropriate name for the website at this time.

[Phil Rickaby]
Yeah. What was the process of getting that started? Like, was that a daunting thing to set around your own and get started?

What did that process look like?

[Joe Szekeres]
Oh my gosh. Well, first things first, as we know about websites, they can cost an arm and a leg to find a website designer. So I thought, how am I going to do this?

I’m a retired school teacher. So I thought, how am I going to do this? So a high school student who was looking for her co-op hours, she said she would design my website.

So I thought, excellent. I don’t have to pay a set for the design of the website. And she built, you know, the actual website for me.

And I was very pleased with, you know, with it. So that was built in 2021. That was built.

And then I, for about four years, kept going and I thought, okay, now it’s time for a new look, a fresh look. So I kept looking at the old website and I thought, okay, it’s time. So I hired somebody in Ajax to design the website.

And I’m not going to tell you how much I paid for it, but I thought I hired a guy who’s excellent. So the site was redesigned just this past summer and I felt okay to get my money’s worth. I’m going to keep running for the next five, six, hopefully seven, some years.

[Phil Rickaby]
What was, in terms of the logistics of, you know, going from working with the onstage blog and then moving on and setting out on your own, aside from the technical aspect, what was that like? How did you get started and get to like going to do the reviews on your own?

[Joe Szekeres]
Well, it was daunting. I’m going to be honest with you. It was daunting at first because I was able to rely on Chris to sort of be the editor to say that, okay, he could get me tickets and, you know, invitations, you know, for all these things here in Toronto.

But then when he said, go out on your own, you’re fine. And I thought, how in God’s name am I going to start doing this? So during the pandemic, Phil, I started profiling various artists in Toronto and outside of Toronto as well too.

And I thought, okay, maybe I would just go that particular route. And I started an interview that way. And then after that all happened, then I started sending off these interviews that I had to the various publicists, to the various theatres.

They saw what I had written and they said, yes, we would like you to come review for us. So that’s how that whole process started.

[Phil Rickaby]
Yeah. I mean, the industry in Toronto and through the rest of Canada does really need as much theatre journalism as it can get. The major newspapers are very seldom covering theatre.

It’s only in the last year or two that the Toronto Star got a full-time theatre writer. Up until that point, the only newspaper that had a full-time theatre writer was the Globe and Mail. And so we rely in the industry on independent blogs and podcasters and all of that stuff just to get the word out.

It really is an important part of promoting shows to have people like yourself writing about theatre. When you started doing that during COVID, you were doing interviews. Were you doing interviewing and profiles of theatre actors because there was no theatre to be had?

[Joe Szekeres]
That’s the whole process right there, then Phil. My first thought was, I thought I might’ve gotten my knuckles wrapped because I didn’t go through with the theatre publicists or the PR. So I thought, I’m just going to throw caution to the wind here.

And I started going through their Facebook pages and getting in touch with them that way. And then I thought, uh-oh, what am I doing here? And I didn’t have any problems whatsoever with any of the artists.

They were very keen to talk about how the pandemic was affecting them, their livelihood. And we talked all things theatre, where they had come from, where they saw the industry going. And it was quite an enlightening experience.

Can I throw a plug in here very quickly about something? Absolutely. One of the most memorable interviews that I did have, and I interviewed her twice, was Lucy Arnaz Luckinville.

I thought, I’m just going to throw caution to the wind, and you can find Lucy’s profile on my website. And you can also find the first profile through OnstageBlock. So I thought, I’m just going to do this and see if I can get in touch with the sitcoms first family.

So I went to her website and I got in touch with the PR person. And then they got in touch with Ms. Arnaz and the PR person just said, Lucy would love to talk to you, twice. Wow.

Yeah. And then it was during COVID when I interviewed her the second time, she was in performing her show in New York City. And she asked me if I was coming to New York to see the show.

And I said, well, that was when we still had masks, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And she said, why aren’t you coming? She said, put a mask on when you’re on the airplane.

If you need to put a mask on in the cabaret where she was singing. And her husband, Larry Luckinville is a little bit older than she is. So that’s why she has to be a little bit, she had to be a little bit concerned there.

But anyways, so that was, I would think one of the highlights for me was interviewing Lucy Arnaz. Very enlightening. And you were mentioning about the Ontario Criticism.

I’m a 2020, 2025, 2026 Ontario Criticism Theatre Labs with Intermission Magazine. I applied for the program and I was, I was selected. I’ve also taken two workshops through the now defunct Theatre Ontario, writing reviews that matter with Lynn Slotkin.

So Lynn led two of those two workshops. And then I applied to this particular workshop as well, because I want to deepen my, my writing experience.

[Phil Rickaby]
Sure. Absolutely. I think it’s important that people who are writing about theatre and especially engaging in criticism have the background to do it.

Anybody can start a blog and believe me, anybody who is out there reviewing and, and, and doing stuff is, you know, thank you. But I think that having a knowledge and a background about how theatre criticism should work and things like that is always really helpful.

[Joe Szekeres]
Agreed. One hundred percent. And Karen Fricker and Liam Donovan are the, the co-adjudicators, we’ll call them the co-adjudicators.

And we’ve had some guest speakers in already and Phil, it’s been an enlightening experience, you know, learning more and more about the process. And it’s something that I just, I’ve always wanted to try. I’ve always wanted to try theatre reviewing and this just fell into my lap when I retired from school teaching.

And here we are right now.

[Phil Rickaby]
Yeah. You know, it’s interesting because I remember back in, back in, in the old days, in the nineties, when there was an iMagazine, you remember iMagazine? And iMagazine was the, for a number of years, the official like media partner for the Toronto Fringe.

And they would bring in, they’d pull out people. You write about fashion, right? Forget fashion.

You’re going to write about theatre. You do jazz, right? You’re going to write, you’re going to do this.

And then they would get these volunteers and like these people who would like good and they would write. And a friend of mine ran into one of them and, you know, he had no experience, but he was really looking forward to writing bad reviews for shows. And it was like, you know, sure you could cover the shows, but are you like accurately covering when you’re just pulling in people off the street?

Essentially it’s a review. It’s, it’s more than just giving a bad review to a show. There’s a lot more to it.

[Joe Szekeres]
Correct. Yes. And that’s what I’m learning with this particular workshop as well.

And I’m the oldest person in the, in the class. There are six of us. I’m the oldest person in the group.

So I’m calling myself the grandpa of the group. But however, the other five cohorts, Phil, they’re, they’re young, they’re upcoming, they’re whip smart. They, they want to learn.

So, you know, as a retired school teacher, what I’ve learned is I keep quiet and I let the young people speak and I’m learning so much from them as well too, Phil, you know, the ideas that they have and what they’ve, you know, what they want to share. So that’s, that’s helping me to grow further in my writing process.

[Phil Rickaby]
It’s interesting because I’ve been saying for, for ages, and I think it happens more in theatre, the potential has the potential to happen in the theatre and adjacent industries in that as you get older, there’s the tendency to just associate with people your own age. I know for myself, you know, that happens a lot, but being involved in theatre keeps you involved with people of varying ages. And you can’t just go into that space being like, I’m going to teach the young people because they, they will teach you, like you’re saying, you’re going to learn so much about, you know, not just where the culture is right now and where it’s going from the young people, as well as just like, they’re really smart.

[Joe Szekeres]
Yeah. That’s why I always like going to the young people’s theatre to see what’s going on at young people’s theatre, because they do some really good stuff. Herbie Barnes, the artistic director there, he is one smart cookie.

He knows what’s going on. He knows how to program a season. Okay.

And the, uh, the shows that he has selected, the artists that he’s bringing in. And it’s just nice to sit back sometimes when I went to see Shrek, the kids were just wonderful. It was sitting back watching the kids’ responses.

I was having just as much fun as the kids were.

[Phil Rickaby]
I think that’s the great thing about the, the, the holiday times when, when so many theatres are putting on their kid-friendly stuff and, and, you know, young people’s theatre, that’s what they do. They do the kid-friendly stuff, but they’re, you know, Shrek is like, is just the right time for that and having the pan. So this is like a lot of kids, their first time in the theatre.

And how can you not get swept up by that along with them?

[Joe Szekeres]
Exactly. I went to see frozen at the grand in London, and I’m going to be honest with you, Phil, I think I was the only person who had never seen the film version of frozen. Yes.

I’ve heard Idina Menzel sing, let it go, but I knew nothing about the story. So I went in thinking, what am I going into here? And again, Phil, the response of the kids, okay, was absolutely, it was heartwarming for me.

And yeah, at the, at the end of act one, when Elsa has that phenomenal, let it go. And you see this, the, the, the wind blowing and it’s, it’s absolutely spectacular except for a little girl, the night of opening night, Phil, who kept saying to her mother, I want to go home. She sat right behind me.

I want to go home. I want to go home. I want to go home.

And I, and there were people around because you could hear them sign. And at the intermission, I heard something saying, did you hear that little girl say, I’m going now, they never came back to the second act.

[Phil Rickaby]
So I, you know, it’s, it’s hard because sometimes kids are, are, are too young to go. And it’s, it’s hard sometimes to, to, to gauge, you have to gauge each kid’s readiness to be in the room, right? Some kids are a couple of years ago, I went to the Panto and I took a friend and their daughter and they, the, the, the daughter was like four years old and was so there and ready and enjoyed it.

But that’s not always the case at four years old. You never, you have to figure it. And every kid is going to be different, but man, the energy of the energy of kids in, in theatre is, is just something to behold.

[Joe Szekeres]
It is. And that’s why I said in my, in my review for the London production, a note to parents, you know, please, you know, if your children aren’t ready, that’s all that’s fine. Don’t bring them, you know, and if you can teach them to whisper, if they need to ask you something as much as possible, people whisper because people have paid good money and you know, don’t, uh, don’t ruin the experience for the others sitting around you.

Yeah.

[Phil Rickaby]
I mean, it’s also hard when kids are that young, because if up till that point they are, they only know TV or maybe even a movie theatre, it’s hard to get hard to get them to see that this is like, this isn’t TV, isn’t a movie. Those people are there. This is, this is something different.

[Joe Szekeres]
And that’s what I used to find when I was teaching for a number of years as well, you know, that trying to get the kids where they were all just film based. And what, you know, when I used to teach death of a salesman, the last menagerie of the crucible and trying to get the kids excited and Shakespeare plays, okay. She experienced productions as well.

Coming to see things live guys is very different. And I know when I was the head of the industry department at my high school, I always try to get those tickets to go to Stratford because kids, you got to see this play dog life. Yeah.

I have to see it live. Yeah.

[Phil Rickaby]
I mean, the, the thing about, about teaching Shakespeare in school, sometimes I think, and we can’t always plan it this way because it, the, the it’s best to see it first before studying it. We don’t always have that because the schedules don’t always work out, but sometimes listen, I’ve been in, in, in theatres during student matinees for at Stratford when the pennies start to fly or the, you know, things like that. And it is, it is, I think that happens because the kids resent the work they’ve done so far.

And if we reversed it, they might be more interested in like studying, like doing the classes if they’ve seen it before, before picking up the book.

[Joe Szekeres]
Absolutely. Yes. And I’m, I was always, I was big on that as well.

And if I can only say get tickets for Stratford, say in October and the kids were say, reading the, you know, studying the Merchant of Venice in the second semester, and I was doing it in first semester. Well, I want to still open it to those kids in second semesters. But no, I was just saying, if you want to come along to see it, probably won’t mean a lot to you when you see it now, but at least you’ve been introduced to the yeah, to, to the, to the, the art form.

[Phil Rickaby]
It’s just such a fascinating, the, the, the, the thing that happens in the brain during the first scene of a Shakespeare play, as the brain acclimates to the language and suddenly goes from, I’m having to concentrate to understand what’s happening here to all of a sudden just going, Oh, it sounds like regular English. And that’s just when the text is handled by expert and deaf performers who are able to, to, to bring it to life. And, and suddenly you understand everything.

[Joe Szekeres]
Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. I don’t know if you can remember Jeremy Smith’s driftwood theatre.

Okay. And then you’re out. Okay.

That what Jeremy could do to intrigue audiences, you know, just in a very unique. So I’ll call it a simple staging, but he draw, you know, with, with, with driftwood theatre, he drew audiences in, you know, and I thought this is another guy that yes, I miss driftwood theatre. There’s another plug for driftwood.

[Phil Rickaby]
Now you, as a teacher, you also working in, in community theatre, how did the experience of, of both teaching and being in community theatre shape your critical voice as you started reviewing?

[Joe Szekeres]
Well, when I was teaching first off, okay, that, you know, you always had to teach the kids the rigors of academic writing. And I mean, you’re a high school graduate, you know, all about that too, going, you know, going through all that. So there was that one element there that I helped, that I thought helped to shape my, my writing experiences.

But then when I started getting involved in a community theatre first as an actor, you know, you’re only just, you know, we’re already just focused on making sure, you know, what is my part in relation to the whole and then moving out. Okay. To that whole, you know, to that whole process.

So I kept thinking I never wanted to be, I just wanted to be an actor. That’s all I want in community theatre, do my job and I’ll live till I’m 95, a hundred years of age doing that. And everything will be fine.

And then I thought, no, I want to try directing. I thought it was, it was time to do that. Cause I liked looking at the whole picture, you know, I like to seeing, you know, how this shaped this and how this shaped this and, you know, how the, say when I directed Doubt twice, okay, John Patrick Shanley, I’m a practicing Roman Catholic.

So I wanted to see, you know, how Shanley saw the world, you know, in this private Catholic school of a priest who we don’t know if he’s guilty, you know, that’s why it’s called Doubt. There are moments where, yes, he’s guilty and he’s not. So I like looking at the whole picture.

Okay. And then I directed a number of shows as well, too, with community theatre and I expanded my knowledge just a bit more. And then it was time to try something different.

I kept moving on again. I thought I want to try writing. So that’s where, you know, that’s where the whole rigor, that’s where the rigor came for me.

Okay. It’s from my working with my undergraduate degree to working with kids to a community theatre. And I thought, this is where it’s brought me at this point.

Have I made mistakes along the way? Oh yeah. You know, we all have, you know, none of us is perfect with writing something the first time they look back to say, yeah, if I had the chance right now, I probably would have reworded that a little bit differently, you know, thinking about it, but that’s the beauty of writing.

And that’s what I used to say to the kids, you know, when I was school as well, too. Sometimes guys, you got to go back right to the beginning and start again. And I have to, and I’d have to take that message myself and I’ve had to live that message.

Okay, Joe, you got to start again. She’s not going the way I want it to go. Yeah.

[Phil Rickaby]
I mean, one of the things that’s interesting as, as a reviewer, I know whenever I go to see a show, I am, I’m waiting to, I’m hoping that I’m going to be blown away. You know, I want to sit down in the theatre and I just want to have, I want to be taken on a journey. I want to be taken away.

I want to walk out of that theatre smiling and just like, just like walking on air because what I saw was so wonderful. And that happens sometimes. And, and, and sometimes it doesn’t.

How do you as a reviewer handle seeing a show that was not its best?

[Joe Szekeres]
Well, as a community theatre actor, I can look at that company and that shows a, especially with a moment like Doubt, you know, since I’ve directed the show and if it doesn’t come across as it should, you know, I’d be like, Oh God, guys, you know, here’s an opportunity to really put in our minds that, is this priest still guilty? Because as far as I’m concerned, the film version, Philip Seymour Hoffman played him guilty all the way through. And that bothered me because I thought, no, it’s called Doubt.

We don’t know. We don’t know. So I feel for the actors.

And then, you know, after I see something, then I go home. And then if I’m going to Toronto, if I’m on the go train, sometimes I’ll sit in the go train and I’ll think a little bit, you know, about, okay, what was it about this show that just didn’t seem to, to work for me? I mean, the other audience members might be standing or, you know, giving it a standing ovation, but I couldn’t stand because I thought it didn’t move me.

It did not move me. So I try, so in answer to the question though, Phil, I try not to be negative. You know, I try, I’m not out to destroy any single company, you know, when it comes to a production, not out to do that at all.

I think any person who is out to say this is awful or, you know, that no, no, we’re not out to do this. Criticism is taking a whole new direction right now. And I’ve learned that from this cohort that I’m involved with right now.

[Phil Rickaby]
I think for myself, when I see something that isn’t working for me, I will actively try to figure out like yourself, why isn’t this working? What’s what’s happening? What’s missing?

What, why isn’t this working for me? I don’t write reviews. So I don’t have to like put that on a paper, but I like to, I like to at least like be able to sit down and say, here’s why this isn’t working for me.

Or why isn’t it just to, to do something constructive with, with a piece of theatre that is not, is not working for me. I think one of the things that, that can happen. And I’ve years ago, I was at the Hamilton fringe doing a show and I noticed that every review was glowing.

Every review for every show was, was glowing. And that seemed to be a thing in Hamilton to be boosters. But I think sometimes if you, if the reviews treat a show like it’s transformational and it’s the best thing ever, when audiences go to see that and they’re not regular theatre people, that can have an effect on, on how they feel about theatre.

They could suddenly feel like, Oh, maybe I just don’t understand the theatre. Everybody said, this is amazing. And I’m not into it.

I think it’s important to be a booster, but also I think if something, if something isn’t good, we should be constructive, but also not lie to the, to the readers and agree and say that. Yeah.

[Joe Szekeres]
Agreed. Oh yeah. No, no.

I would say if, you know, so-and-so let’s just say so-and-so is off on one performance. Okay. For whatever reason, I can’t go out and say, John Brown was horrible as Romeo or, you know, John Brown is sorely miscast as that, that serves no purpose.

That’s that serves absolutely no purpose whatsoever to destroy John Brown saying that he was horribly miscast in the role that, okay. That, yeah, it, for me, it’s always right at that moment. And that’s, and that’s what I try to tell people.

I’m seeing a show right at that moment. Same when we go off to a film, you know, we’re seeing that film right at that moment. And what’s our mindset as we’re watching that film there.

Okay. You go and see another film the next day and you might just say, why did I say it that way? I know some people were saying, I haven’t seen it yet, but the second Wicked, which it was just came out.

I saw the first one. It’s fine. Will I go and see the second one?

Oh yeah. I’ll try to, but people are now divided. Some are saying the second half Wicked is it brings everything together quite nicely.

And some are saying they’re bored with it. They got really bored with this whole thing. So I, so where was their mindset when they were just so enamored with Wicked part one, and now they’re disappointed with Wicked part two.

[Phil Rickaby]
To be fair to those people, it’s the same problem with the play. Act one is so good and ends on such high note. How can the second act live up to that?

And it essentially, it almost can’t. And so the same problems that exist in the play exist in the film. And so that’s how I, when I go see it, that’s how I’m going to be approaching it.

They haven’t, they’re not fixing the problem that is inherent in the play itself.

[Joe Szekeres]
But can I tell you something else Phil, just to I can’t remember the name of the play I saw last year. It was a Mervis one at the CAA theatre. Tom McCamus was in it.

And like I went with a friend and at the end of the play, and this happened to me, I’m trying to write a note and I have tears streaming down my face because I was just so moved by what I’m trying to write this down. And I brought a guest with me and the guest next to me is just, I’ve heard my guest going. So yes, you know that in the first act was wonderful, but the second act was just all McCamus had to do was just, you pick up the phone and in silence, we knew what was being said on the other end of the phone without him having to say a damn thing.

But, but so there’s that whole thing right there, you know, that act one is wonderful. And act two left me in tears. And I said to my friend afterwards, I need, we were, I had to walk back to Union station.

I said, I need to walk. I need to have my friend said, yes, I need to walk as well. She has to clear their head for a few minutes.

[Phil Rickaby]
It’s really interesting there. I could think of two extremely affecting moments in theatre. And one is a few years ago, pre-pandemic factory theatre did men in white, which is play about Indian immigrants to Canada and their, their, their, their cricket team, but also one of their relatives who’s still in India.

And that play seemed very, it was very light. It was very funny. It was very, it had all kinds of great chemistry and it was nice.

And then it was tragic at the end. And the entire audience was so silent and the person I went was weeping and I had no idea it was coming. And those are those moments when like the whole audience gasps is kind of magical.

Yeah. And the other moment that still sits with me is cause I saw it at Fringe when it first premiered at Kim’s convenience, the ending of Kim’s convenience with at the very end when Jung takes up the labeling machine and just starts putting the labels on after that, that whole play in that whole story. It still gives me goosebumps thinking about and talking about that moment.

Those are moments when the audience reacts completely honest, honestly. And, and, and I remember Kim’s convenience was one of those few standing ovations where the entire audience just stood as one so rare, but so beautiful to be a part of.

[Joe Szekeres]
It was the same thing at the, when I went to see Mary’s wedding up in the thousand islands and get an awkward, it was Wade Bogart, O’Brien and Mev Bedi. And I remember at the very end, I think I’ve been, you know, I was the first person on my, I was reviewing the show. I was the first person on my feet.

And I think I put that in my article. I mean, again, I had tears streaming down my face. I’m applauding because I thought this is what theatre is all about.

And you just get young people, you know, and, and I figure if I can try to, you know, bring young people along, go and see shows that young people’s theatre. And if I move by something that I see there, I’m going to tell you, I was moved. I tried to see it from a 17 year old’s point of view.

I try to see it from a 15 year old’s point of view.

[Phil Rickaby]
Now you were mentioning that you were doing reviewing before the pandemic, before you set it on your own. And I’m curious if there are any trends or things that you have noticed about the post-pandemic theatre world? Is there anything that strikes you as, as different compared to the before times?

Shorter attention spans.

[Joe Szekeres]
What I’m finding right now, Phil, most plays, I won’t, I’ll exclude musicals for the mullet. Most plays are 90 minutes, no interval. I, sometimes I use the word interval.

Sometimes they mean the same thing, intervals, intermission, the same thing, but that’s what I’m noticing is the attention span is limited right now. So to see a show, like say, let’s say for example, August OCH County, the stage play, which is two, you know, almost three hours, you’ve got two intermissions in there. Okay.

I think of the Miracle Worker, which is, you know, it can be almost three hours. You’ve got two, you know, you’ve got two intermissions and a brief five minute pause while things happen. So that would be the big thing though, is the shorter attention spans and plays are getting no more than 90 minutes.

Yeah.

[Phil Rickaby]
Sometimes I wonder if that is, I mean, sure, there’s the attention span thing, but also I wonder if that has to do with the reduced funding and budgets that we’re seeing when Canada Council is essentially giving less and all the levels of government are giving less to the theatres. And so they’re having to reduce things like theatre staffing, like the number of actors on stage, like, like so many things. I wonder if that kind of thing is also a product of that.

[Joe Szekeres]
It is because today in the mail, I received four letters from four different theatre companies looking for donations this year. I’m not going to mention who they are. Okay.

But so I thought, yeah, I would agree with you there as well too, you know, that the funding is, is limited. Yeah. You know, and, and the, the, uh, uh, to be an actor today.

Okay. I, I, I have to salute them my hats off to them. Okay.

Because it’s such a, you know, you’re, you’re always going from one gig to the next, to the next. I don’t think I could live that kind of life.

[Phil Rickaby]
It’s very difficult. And I mean, that’s, that’s why a lot of times a lot of actors have, you could call it a limited shelf life. They sort of last through their twenties into their thirties when it starts to get really hard.

Cause you, you want like a little bit of comfort. You’re you’re, you’re tired of having roommates and things like that. It can be a very, it can be quite a, quite a slog, especially as you start to get a little bit older.

[Joe Szekeres]
There was one actor I know who was in, we used to perform at Stratford for a number of years and he was on the Stratford stages with, you know, many of the big names. And then he went into teaching. He just said, I need to, he wanted to start a family.

And he just said, I need to know when I start my family and I start raising children that, you know, I have to have. Survival, you know, for my family, I have to have a steady income. So yeah, yeah.

I can, I can see that out there too.

[Phil Rickaby]
Yeah, for sure. I’m curious about, I mean, not curious, but I know what it is, but I want to talk about the importance of, of going to the theatre and what theatre gives to people who go to the audience and, and just generally, as far as the way that you think of it, what is the importance of theatre?

[Joe Szekeres]
First off, enjoy yourself. That’s the first thing. Okay.

That if it’s not an enjoyable experience, why are you going? There’s the first thing. All right.

And then, you know, out of the enjoyment as well too, hopefully it’s, you can learn something about yourselves. We can learn something about our lives. We can learn something about the individuals with who we associate.

So, so I would say those two things, enjoyment and keep learning, you know, and, and if we can find playwrights who are always wanting to delve further into the human psyche, into the way people behave and why they behave and how they behave, that’s all part and parcel of the human experience. But I always hark back, I hark back to then Phil, to why, why, why am I going to the theatre? People ask me, why do I go?

I enjoy it. I tell them I enjoy it. And if I don’t enjoy it anymore, I’m not going to do it anymore.

[Phil Rickaby]
Yeah. I had a friend a number of years ago, they were not a person. They, you know, they were a work friend from the day jobs.

They did not come from a theatre background and they wondered why I, why I was a theatre person, why I liked the theatre over film. And I had to try to explain to them what it’s like being in the room with the actor way, like what, what that changes about, about the viewing experience, how it becomes active and not passive and how, how even violence is more visceral, even though it’s, you know, it’s a stage slap is not a slap, but an audience will always react to it. It’s this magical thing and the suspension of disbelief.

I don’t know if I managed to get it across to him, but I was trying to explain like, it’s so, it’s not the same. There’s such different things.

[Joe Szekeres]
Absolutely. When I went to a Montreal just this past weekend to see the English language premiere of Kisses Deep. Okay.

It was such a visceral experience. You know, I hadn’t seen the French translation of Glass, but you know, it was, this was the English translation and I was mesmerized, Phil, just mesmerized by the, by the story of a man who we think there’s a relationship with his mother that we’re uncertain about here. Okay.

But his mother has been accused of assault against a school teacher. So he wants to, so he wants, so then this guy wants to become a couturier in the fashion of Yves Saint Laurent. So we meet Yves Saint Laurent and when this gentleman is, you know, when things work out well for him, he goes and he kisses people.

And that’s where the whole brunt came about this whole story. Okay. With that particular action is, especially in this, this is still this whole era of hashtag me too.

How appropriate is that? It was, it was a fascinating exploration, Phil, absolutely fascinating.

[Phil Rickaby]
Joe, I like to move a little bit away from theatre criticism and viewing theatre. I’d like to talk a little bit more about you. And I’m curious, you know, you mentioned doing community theatre and teaching.

What first brought you to community theatre? What brought you into the theatre as, as somebody who wanted to do it in some way?

[Joe Szekeres]
I had a couple of mentors when I was in high school, my dear late friend, Ruth Nichols. She was my English teacher and she also directed the high school musicals that I was involved in. And she was the one who, who really, you know, got me interested in theatre.

So, so I have to credit my, my dear late friend, Ruth, who said, start looking into the theatre. And I also was, I also got involved in theatre during my years at Western. I’m an undergraduate from undergraduate degree at Western university.

And I did the musical cabaret there and, you know, being on the stage at Talbot theatre, you know, that huge, huge stage just instilled a love of performing for me. So that, that’s where that whole thing came from.

[Phil Rickaby]
Were you somebody when you were growing up, did, was theatre going something that, that you did, or did you come to that in high school?

[Joe Szekeres]
I came, I came to that pretty well in high school because element, my, my mother was a widow. So my late mother was a widow. So she, you know, so she ran up my, my dad started Tula Dye shop in South Oxford.

And after he passed away, mama took that over in 1962. And then she raised three children. So there were those times, you know, where it was just, she went to work, she came home, we came home, had dinner, homework, played with the kids on the, you know, the whole 1968, 69, playing with the kids on the street until the streetlights came on.

And then we all had to come in. So the, the love of theatre Hill came pretty well, where I was in high school, high school, my undergraduate years.

[Phil Rickaby]
Was there a, you know, when you started going to it, how did you get involved with the community theatre out there?

[Joe Szekeres]
I just, I, what was the, it was probably the when I finished teacher’s college, it was my first year of teaching that the first show I auditioned for at the Oshawa Little Theatre, I wasn’t cast. Okay. So I thought, okay, that’s fine.

So I went and I just, you know, was going along again, doing my teaching, my first year teaching. And then I saw the second show come up at the Whitby Courthouse Theatre. So I said, I’m going to give this a shot again.

So I went, I had to come up with a Swedish accent. And I thought, can I do a Swedish accent? I’m not going to do it here at films.

I don’t want to embarrass myself. So, so I went into the audition with a Swedish accent and I got the part. So somehow I managed to, you know, to do that was the play was Ayn Rand’s Night of January the 16th.

So that just began in 1980 that went on in May of 1985. So I would say from 1985, pretty well to about 2017, 2018, the last show I directed was the Long Road Home for Durham Shoestring Performers in Oshawa.

[Phil Rickaby]
So you were like at multiple community theatre groups.

[Joe Szekeres]
Yes. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. It was the Oshawa Little Theatre, Whitby Courthouse Theatre, Durham Shoestring Performers, the Borellians up in Port Perry. There’s one more that I can’t think of right now, but I know there’s one more.

[Phil Rickaby]
I mean, one of the things I think that when we are people who live in Toronto or in bigger cities with larger theatres, with professional theatres, we don’t think about the importance of community theatre to a place like Oshawa or Whitby or Port Perry or places like that. And, and in some, in some cases we might, you know, in the city might look down on community theatre. What’s the importance of community theatre in a place like Oshawa?

[Joe Szekeres]
It’s a place for like-minded people to be able to share the love of the performing arts, which I think is very important. It does instill a growth, okay, for everybody involved, not just for young people, but even for adults too, to say that, yeah, we can do this. I did think of the other theatre, Ajax Community Theatre.

Sorry about that. I had to put Ajax in there. So, so it’s, it’s an, I think community theatre is important, okay, for these local communities.

But because I think if you instill a love there, you want to come to the, to the, the professional theatres in Toronto and in London and whatnot. So it’s very important. I really see that there’s an importance for them.

[Phil Rickaby]
Yeah. Yeah. I didn’t, I, I, having, having grown up in my teenage years in Ajax, I was unaware that there was an Ajax Community Theatre.

So thank you for, for pointing that out.

[Joe Szekeres]
It’s, it’s, it’s pretty well just most recently though, Phil, they, they performs out of the Ajax Community Center and that was, was the St. Francis DeSales Church. So they had to de-sacramentalize it. Right.

Yeah. The center of that. Yeah.

Yeah.

[Phil Rickaby]
As we are sort of like heading towards the end of our time, we’re not there yet, but as we’re heading towards the end of our time, is there anything coming up in 2026 for in theatre-wise that is sort of like jumping out at you as something that you’re particularly excited about?

[Joe Szekeres]
I, I was really enamored when I first saw Come From Away. Okay. When I first saw the, the first production come through with the, that was the cast that went to Broadway.

And then when they brought the, the Toronto cast in. Okay. Which I, which, which I thought was great when it ran before the pandemic.

And now all of a sudden I see there are a production of Come From Away in the Grand in London. There’s a production up in Sudbury in July. There’s a production in Port Hope in July as well.

And there’ll be a production in August in Gananoque. So am I going to go and see all these? I’m going to try to.

Okay. I don’t know if I’ll get to them all. I’m going to try to.

And I wanted to see, you know, okay. As that really important story, okay. About showing about how, you know, yes, we survived, you know, that was a horrible incident.

None of us will ever forget 9-11, but there was kindness being shown all the time. And I want to see how the story of kindness is going to be taken forward in all these iterations.

[Phil Rickaby]
Yeah.

[Joe Szekeres]
Yeah.

[Phil Rickaby]
It’s interesting how, you know, it’s like one of those, those instances I’ve been thinking a lot about the, the way that Canadians don’t value the theatre, the things that are homegrown until they come from somewhere else. And here is this Canadian grown show come from away. They did have success on Broadway, but also I had been running very consistently in Canada, across Canada.

And now so many theatres are picking it up and doing it. It’s like, uh, so many theatre, it’s like frozen is like the Christmas show in many places right now. And then come from away will be the spring or summer show.

But it’s so interesting to watch these trends. And I’m so thrilled to see a Canadian story and a Canadian show being done in so many places.

[Joe Szekeres]
And I’m also thinking of that there’s, there’s the musical that’s going to be premiered over at theatre Aquarius. Okay. The tragically hip story.

And I’m really curious about this particular one.

[Phil Rickaby]
I’m really curious about that too, because you know, Gord Downie songs, they’re rock songs, but how do you make those into a theatre show? And yet he had a theatrical nature.

[Joe Szekeres]
Very much. Yes. I’m interviewing somebody next couple of weeks as well.

Who’s writing a musical about blue rodeo in the key of blue. So I’m, so when I talked to the book writer for, uh, for blue rodeo, you know, I want to get some more information and I also want to figure out how he sees his connections of his story to the tragically hip story as well too. And so I’m really curious about, as you were mentioning earlier, these homespun stories that we have right here that we don’t need to go to the sorry, us, we don’t need to go to the U S to tell our stories here.

[Phil Rickaby]
This is one of the things that I think is, and when I was talking with, uh, I was talking with Ryan from the cup and, and Janine from a view from the box. And we were talking about the whole like elbows up thing in Canada and, and, and how we don’t, we’re not seeing that in the theatre in Canada, in the arts. And yet we have comfortable way.

We have the Gord Downie musical. You have this blue rodeo thing. You’re absolutely right.

We don’t need shows from the U S and I am, I find myself more, less and less interested in American shows. I’m so much more interested in shows that are born and created here. And I want to see those and I want to, to, to watch those and see them grow.

[Joe Szekeres]
And I’m hoping to God that more and more people who are involved in the theatre are going to start saying enough. We need more of our Canadian talent to shine here. Okay.

We, we really do. You know that yes, there are wonderful actors who are coming into Toronto for various shows. I’m not begrudging that.

Okay. But at the same time, let’s, as Dorothy Gale says in the film version of the wizard of Oz, let’s look into our own backyard first. This is what we have here.

[Phil Rickaby]
Absolutely. There’s so much talent here and I want to see it on the stages and you know, it’s great to be able to see touring shows come in from the States, but I would love to see theatres like Marvis Productions really pour a lot more into some home homegrown works.

[Joe Szekeres]
Fingers crossed. I’m hoping to let yes.

[Phil Rickaby]
And because I’m wrong and because I’m a Roman Catholic. Yes, of course. Yes.

Thank you so much. That’s great. Well, Joe, thank you so much for joining me.

I really appreciate you giving me some time and telling me a bit about our theatre voice.

[Joe Szekeres]
Thank you so much for this opportunity, Phil. I really appreciate this. Could I put a plugin for our theatre voice?

Absolutely. Please do. Yeah.

Our theatre voice, T-H-E-A-T-R-E voice.com. And if you want to send me any messages, you just send it to our theatre voice at gmail.com. Thanks so much.

Thank you, Phil.

[Phil Rickaby]
Thank you for listening to this episode of Stageworthy. Before I get to who my guest is next week, I do want to talk about my Patreon. Like I mentioned at the top of this show, I have a Patreon that helps me to make this show.

Even though I put this podcast out for free, there are costs associated with making this podcast. There are costs for hosting the audio files, for hosting the website, for editing software, and just generally and for some of the promotion tools, as well as transcripts, which are back. If you’re looking at the stage really not see a website, you will now see transcripts moving forward on these episodes.

I’m only able to do those things because of the patrons who back this podcast on Patreon. So if you’re interested in doing so go to patreon.com/stageworthy and become a patron. Patrons get early access to episodes participate in conversations about theatre about the podcast, and have my eternal thanks in helping me to make this show.

If you want to become a backer, go to patreon.com/stageworthy. Next week, my guest is Reid Vanier. Reid is a theatre maker and director in Whitehorse, yukon.

I really enjoyed learning about the scene in Whitehorse and talking to Reid. So tune in next week for that conversation with Reid Vanier on stage.