Toronto Theatre Year in Review with A View From the Box and The Cup
About This Episode:
In this special roundtable episode of Stageworthy, host Phil Rickaby is joined by theatre critics and podcasters Janine Marley (A View From the Box) and Ryan Borochovitz (The Cup / Cup of Hemlock Theatre) for an in-depth conversation reflecting on the past year in Toronto theatre.
Connect with Janine and A View From the Box:
🌐 Website: aviewfromthebox.net
📸 Instagram: @avuefromthebox
🦋 Bluesky: @aviewfromthebox.bsky.social
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Connect with Ryan and The Cup of Hemlock Podcast:
📸 Instagram: @cohtheatre
🔴 Youtube: @cupofhemlocktheatre2934
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Transcript
[Phil Rickaby]
Hello, welcome to Stageworthy. I’m Phil Rickaby and be the host and producer of this podcast. And today you get my sick voice stage where the is Canada’s theatre podcast and on stage where the, I talked to act on stage where the, I talked to theatre makers of all types from actors, directors, playwrights, producers, stage managers, and more.
Some of whom are household names and others are people. I think you should really get to know. This is going to be my last episode for a couple of weeks.
I’m going to take a couple of weeks off at the end of the year, just to relax and celebrate the season. And then I’ll start again in the new year with brand new episodes. And if you stick around to the end of the episode, I have a couple of announcements about next year and a couple of other things, so stick around then.
But since we are in the holiday season, if you could do me a favour, if you are not already subscribed to Stageworthy on the audio version, search for Stageworthy on your favourite podcast app, hit the follow button and that way, every time I release a new episode, it will be delivered directly to your device. And if you’re watching the video version, that’s awesome. You can also subscribe there.
Just hit the subscribe button on YouTube, hit the bell icon so that whenever a new episode comes out, you will get a notification. And I would love for you to leave a comment either on the show page or on the episode page, which you’ll find linked to this, if you get the audio version or leave a comment on YouTube. I’d love to hear about what you think, especially this episode, we’re talking, we’re going to be talking about a year in review, so I’m really curious about what you think, did we miss something?
Is there more that we should have talked about? Do you disagree? I would love to hear your thoughts.
I am going to be talking this week with Janine Marley from A View from the Box and Ryan Barakovich from The Cup Podcast, both of whom are excellent podcasts. If you’re not already following those podcasts, you really should. Both of them offer insightful conversations.
You can read it A View from the Box to see Janine’s reviews and see who she’s talking to as guests on her podcast. And The Cup has great conversations, both with artists and also in review. So they have these great in-depth review conversations about shows that they’ve seen.
So I highly recommend checking both of those out. And this week I’m talking to both Janine and Ryan about Toronto Theatre’s Year in Review. We’re going to be talking about highlights, lowlights, issues, things that we want to see more of.
Just generally a conversation about this past year in theatre. So let’s get into it. This is my conversation with Janine and Ryan.
Janine, Ryan, thank you so much for joining me. I appreciate you joining me for this Toronto Theatre Year in Review conversation. But before we jump into that, I would love for each of you to talk a little bit about your podcast, the podcast that you host, that you’re on.
Janine, why don’t you go first? Tell me about A View from the Box.
[Janine Marley]
Thank you so much. No, and thank you for having me as part of this again for this yearly roundup. So exciting.
Yeah, so A View from the Box, the podcast is basically an extension of not only my work as a theatre critic, but also my Stage Door Dialogue series, which I do as like a written series on my website. And so I get to interview all kinds of amazing artists and creators around the city and beyond. I’ve been really lucky to get to interview some folks from out of town as well.
So my last episode was with Virgilio Griffith from A Profoundly Affectionate, Passionate Devotion to Someone now. And then coming up, I’ve got one with Clyde Wagner from TO Live. He and I have a great conversation.
So I just it’s such a great way to get to meet a lot of the people that I really respect and get to see their work often. And we have really nice chats. I really enjoy it.
[Phil Rickaby]
Now, before we jump over to Ryan, I do have a question for you. When you you didn’t have a podcast when you started out, but I know that that you’d been toying with it before you actually started doing it. I had was podcast was a podcast originally part of your vision for A View from the Box or?
[Janine Marley]
No, absolutely not. It came later, actually. It was well, actually, it was when you stopped running Stageworthy.
I went, but where’s everybody going to go now? And a lot of people said, well, we have a lot of fun talking to you just as a person, you could do interviews, you’d be fine. And I’m like, OK, so, you know, we just took that bubbly personality and make it work.
[Phil Rickaby]
I mean, I’ve always said that Canada needs a robust theatre podcast ecosystem. The more podcasts, the more people talk about theatre, the better. And so wherever we can, we can get those started.
I’m into it. And I think that’s I think it’s a great thing. Ryan, tell me about the cup and how you got involved in it.
[Ryan Borochovitz]
OK, hi. Yeah. So our organization, I suppose, is called Cup of Hemlock theatre.
And if that yeah, the naming structure of our of our show is kind of complicated, which fits into the complicated history of it. It actually wasn’t founded with the intention of being a podcast. But that is since what it has become.
It was founded by other early members of our collective who are no longer part of it to be a theatre company. And they approached several of us in November of twenty nineteen saying, hey, let’s do a full season of theatre. It’s going to be great.
And then in March of twenty twenty, something happened. Who could say what? But it was hard to make theatre at that time, you might recall.
So we were looking for things to do to kind of just keep the candle lit while we were trying to figure out what to do with this company. Do we proceed with our plans? What’s happening?
And one of the members of our collective, my good friend, Mackenzie Horner, had he already had a podcast where he talks about musical theatre for the Downbeat podcast. And he suggested that, well, the Stratford Festival is putting a lot of their old productions, the pro shots of them on YouTube for three weeks at a time. So why don’t we, the members of our Cup of That Luck theatre company and perhaps other friends of ours for the theatre community, why don’t we get into a Zoom room and do like a panel talk show where we had watched the shows in the week prior and we review them in this sort of discussion format?
So we did that for the 12 weeks that those existed on YouTube, and then the pandemic wasn’t over. So we went hunting for other online theatre content to do that with. That became like things like the National theatre Streaming Service, Broadway HD, just whatever we could find, really.
At some point, we started adding artist interviews because it was a bit of a big ask to say, hey, you watched this two and a half hour Stratford production. Now let’s do another two hours of these four people you may or may not know talking about it. So the artist interviews is a good way to maybe get a little more engagement.
But then eventually theatre started coming back and we decided once we were seeing shows anyway, why don’t we review those similarly in our little two person format? And pretty soon after we released our first episode of a live show in Toronto, which was Gloria at Crow’s Theatre, the production by ARC, we were getting emails the next day saying, come review our show. So that was the moment when we realized we had accidentally become theatre critics, that we were actually part of the press.
I at the time, I now I’m primarily a theatre critic and I write for Next Magazine and various other publications. But at the time, I never even conceived of myself as a theatre critic. I never conceived of what we were doing on The Cup as theatre criticism.
I just thought, oh, yeah, we watch a show and we’re talking about it over a drink, which is part of our branding. And that is why the show is called The Cup. And eventually Cup of Hemlock kind of dissolved as something that intended to be a theatre company.
But we already had this show in the branding, so we kept it as is.
[Phil Rickaby]
I almost brought a beverage to tell you what was in my cup.
[Ryan Borochovitz]
Yeah, Bill, what’s in your cup?
[Phil Rickaby]
I didn’t I didn’t have water today. I was going to make a special mocktail for the evening, but I didn’t end up doing it. But Janine, what’s in your cup?
[Janine Marley]
Just water. I’m trying to be such a good girl and actually be hydrated. So you’re like perpetually in love with salty foods and under hydrated.
Oh, you know, we’re good. My second one of these today. So I’m being so good today.
[Phil Rickaby]
All right, let’s let’s jump in. And I guess one of the first things that I want to talk about, I want to I want to get to your start with your top five shows that you’ve seen this year. And if you can’t fit it into five, that’s also OK.
We’ll accept honorable mentions and things like that, because I know it can be very difficult to like put it into a small number. Janine, what is your top five?
[Janine Marley]
And can you tell me this was like a most heinous question because it’s like at this point, Ryan and I were discussing this before, before we started, like I’ve seen reviewed 136 shows this year. Ryan’s at 131. Zing, what’s your top five?
Is like I just I kind of broke down a little bit. I was like, but but five five. So I mean, I did I narrowed it down to five.
This is no shade to anything else that I’ve seen this year. It was it was an interesting it was an interesting process. But so first up for me, I have the Mahabharata parts one and two.
I was at Canadian stage of the Bluma back in April. I have I don’t know if I’ve ever seen something so powerful. I remember calling Kyle after part one was done and saying, I’m mad.
I have to wait until tomorrow to see part two. And then calling it like texting him at intermission of part two, going, why am I intermission when I want to be watching the rest of this story? So when you’ve got something that’s literally that compelling that you that I was just like, no, I don’t I want to be sat in this room for three more hours, whatever, watching these stories, I feel like that’s pretty that that’s great theatre next up.
And this is this is like also Kyle’s Kyle’s favorite so far that we’ve seen as well was after the rain from Tarragon theatre and musical stage company just to see such a beautifully crafted story with so much depth and meaning and great songs, stupendous performances. I actually am wanting to talk to Susie Wilde about using one of the songs for our upcoming wedding, because there’s a wedding scene and it had the most beautiful song that had me ugly crying in the theatre. So I want to figure out how that’s going to work.
But like it just it was really impactful. Next up for me is the Sankofa Trilogy from Wata theatre and the theatre Center. I got to see the big anniversary remount.
What just just insane. The B is one of the most just creative, incredible people, just so magical. Being in their presence is a gift.
And I was so grateful to be asked to be in the room for those that I. Yeah, those are going to stick with me. I’m going to be carrying those around for a long time.
Next up, I have Octet from Crow’s Soul Pepper and Musical Stage Company. I’ve never wanted to throw my phone out the car door as badly as I did after that show. I was like, I don’t need it.
I don’t want it. Get it away from me. It’s been 90 minutes learning why I should hate my phone.
But it also just reinforced, I think, a lot of the like. Things the like thoughts that I’d already been having about my relationship to technology and did it with some great songs, so like thumbs up. And then my last one, I chose the Merchant of Venice from Shakespeare Bash that they did at the beginning of the year.
It was really focused on like Shylock and his story, and it was just such a unique perspective. And I love Shakespeare Bash. Such a cool company.
So, yeah, it was just it was a really different way for that show to be done. And I and I really enjoyed it.
[Phil Rickaby]
I see Ryan nodding at a number of those. I’m wondering if there’s going to be a bit of overlap. And I want to come back to see if you have any other shows that you want to mention as sort of honorable mentions that broke your heart, that you couldn’t list.
But Ryan, tell me about your top five.
[Ryan Borochovitz]
All right. Well, we only actually had one overlap in the top five, so I’ll go to that one first. And that was the Mabarta, because that was truly stunning.
And yes, such a an epic piece. And even like when I sat down to write my review of it, I was kind of doing some like script doctoring in my head. It’s like, does this need to be two parts?
There is a lot of recap at various points, especially like in the first half of part two, because we kind of go in part one. We end with we’re going to war, come back tomorrow and see how that goes. And then we spend that whole first act of part two reminding us why we’re going to war and then go to intermission.
All right, now we’re actually going to war. But the payoff is really worth it. And I do think that, yeah, the point of a show like that is so you feel the epicness of it, the epic column that it’s based on.
I’ve been told I haven’t read it. I’d be lying if I said I did. But there is so much material that didn’t make it into this stage adaptation.
Because of the fact that they have still yielded something that was like four and a half hours total, five hours total of time on stage. I think the point is to feel the grandness of the scale, to feel the history, the monument of storytelling and retelling. Truly stunning.
Janine, did you do your list in ascending or descending order of your top five? Because I will mimic that.
[Janine Marley]
I don’t know so much as there was an order. I think I was sort of flipping through my notebook and writing things down as I came up.
[Ryan Borochovitz]
I was guessing that the Janine’s was in no particular order, no particular because I did make my top five in like order, because I do have one that I do think is the number one thing I’ve seen all year. Oh, OK. I really want to hear that.
So let’s let’s build to that. Because build to that. Yes.
Mahabharata was my number four on my list. Going back to number five, unconventional choice. But I freaking loved White’s at Crow’s Theatre.
Most people hated it. I know. I am aware that I know I wholeheartedly agree.
[Janine Marley]
That was going to be one of my honorable mention shows.
[Ryan Borochovitz]
So really, yeah, OK, because most people I talked to did not care for it. And most of the other reviews I read politely danced around not making qualitative judgments about it. But I thought it was a delight.
I have somebody my main vocation day job is all in academia. I’m doing my Ph.D. I work as a teaching assistant. And I feel like most people, if you’re not in that world watching that show, assume that it’s satire.
And it’s actually not. This is how we talk. And I think that is just truly delightful.
It captured it so well. The playwright Liz Appel, who I believe is related to the Bluma Appel venue in some way. I’d never heard of this writer before.
Not familiar with any of their work, but I was blown away by this. And it has so much on its mind in so many ways. And yeah, the big monologue at the end, I still think about that all the time, almost a year later, is everything about that show really just scratched all the right pitches for me.
And anybody who hated it, come at me. I thought it was great. No, you’re allowed to dislike what you dislike.
But I truly think that that was a show made for me specifically. Then number three, still at Crow’s Theatre, Measure for Measure by House and Body Productions. That was such a cool, late announced.
It wasn’t part of the main Crow’s season, but it was brought in later in the season. This was like around March when they staged this. The radio play concept, I thought, was really interesting.
And yet the lighting design made something that was marketed as a radio play, the most visually arresting thing I think I’ve seen in a theatre all year. And it was just such an inventive, creative approach to, I’ll be honest, a Shakespeare play that I have no strong feelings about. I’d read it before.
It didn’t really stick with me. I think this was the first actual production of it I’d ever seen. But this was such a creative way of doing it.
And what a cast. I think there was like five, maybe six of them. And every one of them was amazing.
The different roles they played, both in their radio studio characters and in their multiple Shakespeare characters they played. Truly stunning. I think certainly my favorite Shakespeare production I saw all year.
And that’s saying a lot because I think I saw quite a few. Number two, Kim’s Convenience. The remount, yeah.
It was just so good. Ince Choy playing Appa. I did not know that I needed to see that.
But then once I did, I was truly blown over. And because so much of the show, purely on the text, the text that he wrote over a decade ago, is about inheritance and giving something to the next generation, passing something on. The fact that he played the son and then grew up to play the father.
What a beautiful encapsulation and embodiment of what this play has always been about. And he’s just so funny. And his performance was absolutely flawless.
Everyone’s performance was flawless. The set design recreation of the store was just so great. And to me, this was truly an affirmation that this wasn’t just a flash in the pan, cool new thing back in 2012.
This play is the real deal. This belongs in our canon. This is a portrait of who we are, both in Canadian theatre and Toronto in particular.
And number one, my favourite show I saw all year, Anne of Green Gables at the Stratford Festival. Cat freaking Sandler. I’ve been a huge fan of Cat’s work, as I’m sure we all are, for a very long time.
And I think this is the perfect synthesis of everything she’s been building towards to this point in her career. It brought so much of that scrappy energy that I used to remember seeing in her plays at Storefront Theatre, and now using the large institutional budget that a big company like the Stratford Festival is able to give her. It was just perfect in every way.
And it’s such a lovingly faithful adaptation of the source material, but also radically inventive and creative. It’s pissing off all the right people who think it’s too woke, but it’s actually not even that woke, which is also so hilarious about it. It’s just stunning.
It’s flawless. I cannot wait to see it again, because even though, at time of recording, it has closed at Stratford, you know this is coming back. Any smart artistic director needs to be bidding on this to get this on their stage, and I’m sure within the next year or two, we will probably have a production of it in Toronto.
No insider knowledge, I’m just very confident that this is something that any artistic director would really snap up the second they’re given the chance.
[Phil Rickaby]
There used to be a thing where a hit show from the Stratford Festival would go to Broadway. I remember it very clearly in the 90s, especially the 80s, 90s, where Gilbert and Sullivan or something, or whatever huge hit they’d had at Stratford, would end up in New York and sell out there. I don’t think that happens as much anymore, if at all, but it sounds like there are shows that should be doing that, like Andrew Green Gable’s should be getting at least a shot in Toronto, if not on an even larger stage.
[Janine Marley]
Yeah, I think the last time that we had a Stratford to New York pipeline was Jesus Christ Superstar in like the 20, I guess it was 2011, because my family and I got to actually see, we saw their closing performance on Broadway, which it wasn’t supposed to be their closing performance, and ended up being. And I have to like, what an emotional roller coaster that was. But yeah, I think that’s one of the last times that that actually worked its way through.
[Phil Rickaby]
So Ryan, I was thinking about your, you know, what you’re saying about, about Ken’s convenience, because I’ve seen that twice before, once at The Fringe when it was first being performed, and then later on during one of the remounts at Soulpepper. And one of the things that I found interesting, I wondered if like Inns taking over that role helped with this issue. And then the first time you were not on Appa’s side, like you are, Appa is not a guy you’re rooting for until much later in the play.
But when I saw it the second time, the TV show was on the air. And so almost everybody was already on team Appa. They were already seeing him in a, in a, in a, a kinder light than I think is the intention of the play.
I wonder if having Inns Choi take over that role and not be Paul Sun Yung Lee helps to alleviate that.
[Ryan Borochovitz]
I think you’re hitting the nail on the head about the influence of the TV show, reframing the way that we encounter the story and how the passage of time and the different expectations and multimedia tendrils maybe affect this. I think if Paul was back on the Soulpepper stage in 2025, we’d be on his side by this point, regardless of how he plays the role. But I think the weight of how he played it on screen and how much we’ve all come to love him, to love the Kim family, I think it’s less a matter of the specific performer that created that change in sympathy and more so just what this story now means to us.
But I, I don’t know, it is an interesting question. And I think the performer and the passage of time both play very significant roles in this kind of thing.
[Janine Marley]
Yeah, it was actually a little, there was, part of me was a little jarred at first at how intense Appa was because I was in love with TV show Appa, right? Because that was my first encounter with it. And so then seeing Inns play it so intense.
But then you have to, there was part of me that then, like, had to, like, you know, you have to remember, like, Jung, he has to be, there has to be a reason for Jung to have left the way he did. There had to have been something that happened. And it’s actually, for me, more difficult to believe that Paul Lee is, like, capable of that.
Like, he’s adorable. And I’m like, you know, he’s in Star Wars and Murdoch now. Like, I love him.
I was like, I love this guy. Like, it’s harder for me to imagine the Appa that Inns played being played by him. And yet we do need to understand there was that instigating argument.
There’s something about Appa that drove his son away. And so the way that he played it, actually, it made more sense. I was like, oh, I was like, oh, no, wait, no.
This, this actually makes more sense than the Appa that I carry in my head. So I, I definitely, I was proud of myself. I didn’t cry during the show.
By the time I got down to the car, the tears started because I just went, oh, my God, I just saw Inns Troy do Kim’s Convenience in real life. This is so cool.
[Phil Rickaby]
I talked to Paul years ago during, at a time when he was about to do Appa at Salt Pepper and a TV show had been on. He talked about how Appa is softened for TV to make him more likable. He’s more of a teddy bear than he is in the play.
And they talked about, about the reasons for doing that. And I totally understand that. I wept both times.
I watched that show and I still get cheers and chills and verklempt if I start to describe that final moment of Jung putting the, the, the labels on things. And it just, like right now I’m still like, it’s like, and it is like, I don’t know, over 20 years since I first saw it, saw that show. And I still have that thing.
And that, that is why that show belongs in the canon for, for Canadian theatre, because it has everything you want out of a show. And it’s very effective. I want to ask if there were, and this doesn’t have to be a show, it doesn’t have to be, it doesn’t have to be anything in particular.
It could be an event. It can be a thing. It could be whatever.
But did you have any disappointments this year?
[Janine Marley]
I had one show that I attended to and I was supposed to have reviewed for. And it was the first time, first of all, that I sat there intermission going, should I really stay? Is the second act actually going to improve what I have watched?
Or should I cut my losses? And then I actually had to email the director and say, I really don’t think you want my thoughts on this. Like, I don’t think you want this to be a full review.
I’ll happily tell you what I thought about it. I don’t think that you want this, like, on the internet for posterity. But that was interesting because it’s the first time it’s happened.
You know, I’ve been writing since 2022. And you know, normally I go and even if it’s, even if there’s something that doesn’t click with the story for me, because, like, there was another one that I saw where, like, the story didn’t really click. And I was like, why are we still doing this show?
But at the same time, it’s like there’s always something redeeming about it. The design is great. The performances are great.
Something. No, I just I had one this year that I was like, oh, boy. Oh, boy.
This was you didn’t you did. You weren’t ready for me to be here. But so but so for them, but like, really, to have like two sort of duds out of what, 130 something that I’ve seen.
It’s fine. It’s like, you know, it’s like when you go to Fringe. Like, I think I saw 29 shows at Fringe.
I think I had two or three that were like, not my cup of tea. I’m like, that is a great percentage, you know, realistically, that’s fine. I’m I’m OK, especially with Fringe, too, because you’re like, this was 30 minutes or 60 minutes of my life that I could happily give to you.
It’s fine.
[Phil Rickaby]
It’s also I mean, if you consider the that ratio and the fact that it’s a random draw, you’re you’re very you’re very fortunate when it’s when you’re like seeing shows and you’re like, oh, there are only two I didn’t like. The odds don’t usually work out that way. In general, the odds are not that kind.
Are you are they are these two are these things that you would be willing to name?
[Janine Marley]
Or you would find I mean, the one that I didn’t review was called So A Costumer’s Comedy. And I don’t think most people when I was talking to write about it, he’s like, what was that? When did that happen?
So it wasn’t very, like, hugely publicized. Then the other one was Oliena from Icarus Theatre. I just I don’t know.
In a post Me Too world, that story doesn’t really feel like it fit anymore. Like, I don’t know. I just thought they’re going, oh, I feel really gross and nothing about this helped me feel less gross.
But like there was it was just I don’t expect everything to be tied up with a bow. That’s fine. But some resolution would just be nice for a story like that.
Do you know what I mean? So again, it was just that the story didn’t gel. The performances were fine.
The set was great. It was just the story didn’t click with me.
[Phil Rickaby]
Yeah, I wonder about about doing that particular play anymore. Even even given the, you know, if you consider the playwright’s personage, I think that his time has passed as a playwright. And, you know, maybe one day we’ll look back at Oliena as a as a period piece and maybe somebody will do something interesting with it then.
But I think for the time being, it’s best to let that go. Ryan, do you have any disappointments from the year?
[Ryan Borochovitz]
Like, yeah, there are individual shows that I would say I was looking forward to, but didn’t live up to my expectations. I don’t feel the need to name those. They’re probably also too numerous of those to list.
And that’s not a slight against those shows. They did what they did. But I have a bad problem of perhaps raising my expectations too high sometimes.
And then things do fail to live up. The main thing that I would say that if I need to isolate something a little more concrete to be a disappointment this year, the folding of the Next Stage Festival into the Fringe Festival this year, I thought was an interesting experiment. And I understand, don’t fault them at all for the budgetary constraints that made that decision feel necessary.
But one, it’s just nice to have the Next Stage Festival in the fall as like, yay, another little mini Fringe. And not having that is, of course, its own little kind of disappointment. But I think the one thing that maybe irked me about this in a way that is the reason why I’m bringing it up now is, so I saw 34 shows just during Fringe, and I saw all four of the Next Stage shows.
When I made my post-Fringe ranking of everything I saw, putting them in order of my favorite to my least favorite, none of those Next Stage shows cracked my top 10. The highest I gave any of them was number 13 out of 34, and two of them were in my bottom five. So, and they are charging more for the tickets to these than they are to the regular Fringe shows.
And I feel like that’s fine, that they’re all going to be winners. Some of them could be better than others. When it’s in its own separate festival, that’s just like, yeah, these are the curated selections of shows that we have at this time.
But when you put them into Fringe, marking them as their own different thing, this own arguably better thing that’s worth the premium charge, to leave all four of them with some level of disappointment, which varied from show to show, and the fact that I saw 12 shows that I liked more than the one of those that I liked the most, I feel like, as, again, I understand the reason for this experiment of this shake-up of how it was done, I think it put a more acute focus on my disappointment about those shows, because I was seeing better shows that weren’t being framed in this way for the premium charge.
[Phil Rickaby]
Yeah, it is my hope that the moving net, putting that next stage into the Fringe was an experiment and not a permanent thing, because I don’t think it works. I don’t think that, I think it takes, it’s a way of taking focus away from the shows that are in Fringe. And also, again, like, just like you said, like, if it’s a curated festival, the shows that are chosen for that, in theory, should be head and shoulders above a show that’s chosen randomly, in theory.
It should be proven, it should have, it should have, like, we shouldn’t be leaving those shows disappointed. And that’s, I think that’s a downfall. Janine, any thoughts on that?
[Janine Marley]
I absolutely agree. I mean, while one of the, like, for me, one of those next stage shows is actually one of the ones, like, that I was going to bring up as a show that I really enjoyed at Fringe. It’s also because I’m a girl who grew up in the late 90s and early 2000s.
So, of course, Songs of a Wannabe was my entire childhood. And I was like, yep, I love this. So, you know, that’s a whole different thing.
No, it is disappointing in that, like, by having that all wrapped up, and that’s four shows, that’s four time slots that I could have given to some other Fringe shows that I felt weirdly obligated to give to the next stage shows. Because I’m like, well, if this isn’t going to be its own thing, because I gladly go to next stage festival, I just camp out at Buddy’s all night long. I tell my fiance, I’ll see you in a couple days.
Like, just go to next stage, right? And I see all six shows and have a really great time. But those four slots that I could have given to something else.
And I missed other things that were, like, really, really popular. People were like, you don’t have tickets for that. And I’m like, well, you know, no, because I want to see these other things.
And I mean, and yeah, I agree with Ryan that, like, Songs of a Wannabe was, like, really high up there. But some of the other ones were a little disappointing. And I was like, oh, this is in the next stage of development?
Like, okay. Okay. So it’s, I hope that they go back to having it as a Zebra Festival.
I agree. I’m hoping that it was just an experiment. What I would really love is for some of the, I wish that the Fringe, like, the folks, the higher ups, the powers that be, whoever is in charge of reaching out to people to be like, hey, how was your experience?
I wish that they would ask members of the media very specifically, like, what was your experience like? There is no one who is doing more of Fringe, or there’s very few people who are doing more of Fringe than those of us who are writing about it. And it’s like, I have a very, like, sort of set list of stuff that I would love to discuss with someone.
And that’s a top one of, like, no, I’ll happily show up at a thing in the fall or in January or whenever you want to put it. But, you know, because, yeah, we’re going hard. We’re there all day, every day for, like, nine or ten days.
It’s like, we’re your ideal people, your ideal, like, litmus test for things that have worked or not worked.
[Phil Rickaby]
You’re certainly seeing all the bumps in the road as far as, like, the logistics of the festival goes. I will, since we’re on the topic of Fringe, I will, I want to talk about a couple of the, a couple of things about that. The Toronto Fringe, I had a lot of high hopes for the new Fringe neighborhood, if you will.
At the Young Centre, I think there were a lot of good things about that, that venue and having some theatres there. Some disappointments, the Fringe patio did not work. The Fringe patio was far too small.
There, like, there is no reason that that could not be a place where actors and Fringers would hang out and circulate amongst each other because there was no room for it. If that’s the option for the Fringe patio, it needs to go somewhere else. The patio, like, I think Steve Fisher suggested, there is an empty lot across the way, across the road, which, which has plenty of space and that would work much better than this tiny space.
I think their hope was that outdoor and then the indoor, but indoor feels like you’re encroaching on this, on the theatres that are in there. It doesn’t feel the same as, as a patio. I did love the idea of having everything, like things so close.
Except for Factory and Terragon, which felt like outposts so far from everything. And I’m not sure how that works. I think people were making more of their days at Salt Pepper and maybe venturing out a little bit to those other places.
But it felt they were satellite venues rather than full venues. What did you guys think about that particular setup?
[Janine Marley]
Yeah, it’s funny because for me, because Terragon is so much closer to where I live, I actually started off there. Like I did tour, I like once again, just like lived at Terragon for several days, the less the volunteers. So I just like show up every day with myself in the morning, you know, like, and then I stay all day and I like go and get dinner.
Like, does anybody want anything? Well, I’m heading out, you know, but, and then I made my way to Salt Pepper. And part of the reason why I did that was because I knew that the, because of how the transit was going to be, and it was gonna be more difficult.
I’m like, listen, which realistically I should have done it in reverse. Do it when I have more energy. Do the far distance.
I messed that part up, but I was like, whatever. At least then I’ll just plan entire days in that neighborhood. I’ll be in the swing of things so much that it’ll be okay.
I agree with you that the patio was like so super small. My other thing was the food. So they’re like, oh, there’ll be food on the fringe patio.
And I was like, okay, great. When does that start? It didn’t say anywhere on the website.
I would get there and there’s no food. And I’m like, okay, but like the food at the Salt Pepper Cafe. Well, it is delicious.
No, I do not want to be spending $13 on a turkey sandwich this big. Is it like one of the best turkey sandwiches ever? Yeah, of course.
It’s freaking delicious, but I can’t do that every day. And I am out every single day. So then I was like, oh, cool.
I’ll just go get that tea to flips, like the Filipino food across the way. No, no, no. That didn’t start till 5 PM.
And again, I had to like ask like three different people before. Because the information is on the website. Because now I’m because I’m scrounging around going, am I crazy?
Because I swear they keep advertising that there’s all this food. So like, I feel like if you’re going to continue to do it in the distillery, that’s chill. I love it.
But like the why have you got morning shows there? Like Kids Fringe and some of the other stuff like starts at like 11 AM. But if you’re not going to be able to feed me until one.
Now I’ve got problems. That’s because my lunch break might come at noon. And you don’t have any food options.
And I’m stuck paying a lot of money, just a lot of money for food that like I can’t really afford during Fringe when you’re eating out two out of your three meals a day. You know, it’s just that part of it was was rough.
[Ryan Borochovitz]
On the subject of food. I hear yet I knew I’d be spending an arm and a leg if I did rely on the amenities provided there. So I did a very unhealthy thing.
But it was good for my sanity. Is that the day before Fringe started, I ordered two extra large pizzas from Domino’s and split them up into individual foil wrapped portions that I brought with me to every day of Fringe. So that was how.
Yeah, that was how I survived Fringe, at least the dietary component of Fringe this year. I agree about what we’re saying with the patio. It was too small.
I don’t envy the coordinators who have to figure this stuff out. It is difficult. It was the first time they’ll learn.
I also had conversations with Steve Fisher about this. He seems to be the patio whisperer who knows the most about this. And he brought something to my attention that I didn’t even consider until he said it.
And then it made so much sense is that they had those large wooden picnic tables. So there was no malleable seating. When you think about when it’s at the Transac or the Old Honest Ed, that it was just the bay open lot with like the tables and individual chairs that people could move and join each other, make a big circle.
But with these big wooden picnic tables, you are confined to sit with the people that you’re able to sit with there. And they were themselves unmovable and taking up the entire patio. So there was no ability to extend and reshape the social dynamics within it.
I do think for me, I spent a lot more time inside the Young Centre, which kind of doubled as like a second type of patio. I also just tried to spend most of my time between shows writing. And that often got derailed because I kept running into people I know because it was also such a confined space of theatre people.
So I did not get nearly as much writing done as I hoped to while in the space there. But yeah, I think it’s a learning curve. I don’t know how tied their hands are for what they’re able to actually expect from the Distillery District, which that building that I don’t even think Soulpepper owns that building.
Correct me if somebody knows better about that. But but it’s yeah, I think there’s probably a lot of red tape that they would need to figure out if they wanted to, say, overtake that loft or figure things out.
[Phil Rickaby]
I think there’s probably a lot of red tape. I think there are a lot of issues like there are other things going on in the distillery while the Fringe is going on. There was a film festival going on at the same time as as Fringe.
So how do you how do you arrange that? How do you how do you do that? But it just we’re losing something that I hope we can get back.
Here’s something that I want to ask you both about. And it is it is a necessity about the way and moving away from Fringe, a necessity of the way that that that we’re seeing seasons being done now. Funding is stretched thin with the most recent budget.
There is no new funding for the arts. So it’s just the existing levels of funding, even though everything is getting more expensive. So there’s no new funding, just same money there was before, which means that everybody’s having to do more with less.
And that means that we’re seeing a lot of co-productions. We’re seeing a lot of reduced seasons and things like that. What do you see or how do you feel about these?
The issue of the of how funding is affecting the way that the theatres are, that theatres are having to to operate?
[Janine Marley]
I mean, it makes me wonder how anybody who’s trying to do like independent theatre is managing, honestly, because so many of them rely on grants and those are just going to become fewer and farther between, which is terrifying because we need indie theatre to help us get the new ideas up and out. Not that the big theatres aren’t doing that, but that’s where they all start off, right? Is it these littler companies and, you know, and we get going.
But no, it’s it’s wild to see these sort of like, even though they’re not like they’re not like Mirvish level behemoths, but like large companies like like Crows and Soul Pepper having to join forces to hope to get things done. Right. And like, and while it’s great because everybody’s, you know, sharing audiences and whatever, I think I think, Phil, I’ve heard you say it a few times on your podcast that there’s audience enough for everyone.
And I truly believe it, because certainly for us as critics, we’re not, you know, we’re going to everybody’s everything. You know what I mean? Like, there’s no discrimination on our part.
And so I don’t think audiences are programmed that way either. And it’s yeah, it’s wild to to see it happening. I had a friend of mine talk to me about, you know, the theatre in our small town where I grew up.
And she’s like, well, why isn’t there a theatre scene here? And I was like, honey, because the theatre scene in a giant city like Toronto is practically hanging on by a thread. What are they going to do in a small town like Windsor where there’s like the same three theatre companies that have been operating for like 30 years?
And like, that’s it. You know, it’s when you got well-established large companies here who are like, ah, crap, we got to join forces with this guy or we’re never getting anything done. Now, the whole co-production thing, though, so far so good.
I mean, if we’re but if the blending of the resources is producing these amazing things like we’ve been seeing, great. I’m all for it. Like, you know, like this one profoundly was the first show between Tarragon and Obsidian.
And I’m like, this is a perfect partnership. The vibes are exactly the same from like both of the companies. So it worked out really, really well.
But no, it just it makes me nervous. It is sort of like heartbreaking in its own little way that this is something that these these like well-established companies are feeling like they need to do to survive. And it’s like, I don’t know, part of me just wonders how we got here.
But that also that I feel like then it’s up to us to help keep it going. Right.
[Phil Rickaby]
Yeah. Yeah. I will say, I mean, the issue with the funding and indie theatre is not being able to get to get funding.
That means we mentioned the name earlier, Ryan, the next Cat Sandler is not able to get funding for their show. That’s how Cat started. Cat started purely as an independent.
Those early plays were just Cat putting on shows. And that means that we are missing the opportunity for the next Cat Sandler. And there are all kinds of reasons why the funding is the way it is.
None of our governments want to add new funding. It started with Stephen Harper calling the arts funding, people expecting their arts to be the elite. These people sitting around eating their caviar, wondering why they didn’t get their grants.
And that has changed. That means that people are no government is willing to say, I’m going to give more money to the arts because we haven’t been able to make our, the industry sort of explain its own existence and why it’s important. Anyway, I can get on that pulpit anytime.
[Ryan Borochovitz]
Yeah. So I’ll try to be optimistic about this because I know this is a topic that breeds pessimism, understandably so. And me as somebody who’s not involved in arts producing anymore, thankfully, it’s very hard for me to know the ins and outs of what they’re all struggling with.
And I’m sure there are many struggles. I would say from an audience perspective, I think the co-pros are working out pretty well. Janine, you were attesting to this a moment ago.
The whole Crowpepper model seems to be working fine if that’s how they’re sharing their resources. And like the two, at time of recording, there have been two shows staged and that model Bad Hats Narnia is still coming up at time of recording. I think like Welkin to me felt like a Soulpepper show and Octet felt like a Crows show.
I know they came and both of those was also a co-production with an additional company, Howland Company in the case of Welkin and Musical Stageco in the case of Octet. And perhaps the fact that it is Crows and Musical Stageco doing a Dave Malloy show is why that feels like such a Crows production because that’s kind of become their brand at this point. But the Welkin very much felt like both a Howland Company production and a Soulpepper production.
And if we’re thinking about Crows, Soulpepper and Howland, hey, Paolo has recently been appointed Artistic Director of Soulpepper and I’m sure he was probably very instrumental in brokering this partnership because he was the Associate or Assistant Artistic Director at Crows before being announced to have the new big job at Soulpepper. So to me, I feel like the resource sharing is good. The personnel sharing is good.
The audience sharing, while there certainly is enough audience for everyone, I would question this is maybe less so for Soulpepper and Crows because those, I think, share a very similar clientele anyway. But I know people who only think of Mirvish as Toronto theatre and most people in my extended family who don’t even know Soulpepper, never heard of that. What is that?
So I think a good example of something like Great Comet coming to Mirvish when, and I said a version of this in my review of the Mirvish version of Great Comet, that when that show kept getting extended after extended at Crows, eventually I had the thought of who still wants to see this that hasn’t yet? At this point we must be running out of an audience. But then when it was announced that it was going to Mirvish, I was like, oh, that’s who would want to see it but didn’t even know about it.
After a certain point you deplete the Crows audience, but there’s a whole other big wider Mirvish audience, the kind that would see 15 dogs at Mirvish but not at Crows. The kind that would see Uncle Vanya at Mirvish but not at Crows. There is, unfortunately, an audience who thinks of Mirvish and that large Broadway-style theatre as the be-all and end-all of what theatre is, and by no fault of their own, they’re just unaware.
They should read our stuff and listen to our podcasts because we’re doing what we can to try to get the word out, but we are speaking to a niche audience that’s already pretty into that kind of thing. So I’m optimistic about what the future of the co-production model is doing as a resource sharing thing for these companies, and cultivating community instead of competition I think is always a good thing.
[Phil Rickaby]
Absolutely. Absolutely. I’ve always been an advocate for less competition, more community.
You’re absolutely right about Mirvish, and Mirvish is a different level from the theatre companies that are getting arts funding. Mirvish isn’t getting grants, they’re a for-profit theatre. So they’re doing what makes them money.
That’s their whole raison d’etre. And so if they see a show that they can bring in and make some money from, great. It brings it to a larger audience.
But the rest of the theatres in Toronto and across Canada can’t match their budget for advertising. Mirvish can put advertisements on TV on the side of a streetcar, bus, on the streets, and most other theatres can’t afford to do that. So Mirvish is its own thing.
Generally, just sort of thinking about the year, just to move on. Were there any particular, aside from co-productions, were there any trends that you noticed in theatre this year?
[Ryan Borochovitz]
I have a thought about this. I don’t know if trend is the right word for it. I’ve been very fascinated by the elbows-up discourse in relation to this theatre season.
Phil, I know this is obviously something you’re very interested in. You cite it as one of your reasons for reinvigorating your podcast after a brief hiatus. That, well, it’s funny to me.
Obviously, I think, yes, supporting Canadian arts and culture is a very important thing. But that, as a point of discourse, started this year with Trump’s inauguration, and then the tariffs, and then Mike Myers wearing his shirt on SNL, and then that’s what started the hashtag. And it’s interesting how all of this season’s programming precedes that.
If you think about the timelines of how long it takes to program a season of theatre, these were decisions that were made without anticipating that this would be such a hot-button thing. And then, as a result, I found it very interesting to track which productions people had elbows-up adjacent opinions about versus others. Because, yes, this is just going to be a season by no fault of the artistic directors and the producers who chose these shows during a very different presidential administration, and different political climate, and economic climate, and are kind of stuck with what they have here.
And I will say that most of the artists from the country to our south aren’t cool with what’s going on in the White House. And I do worry that a blanket intellectual embargo against that entire country due to the sins and economic policies of its leaders doesn’t entirely, to me, seem fair to someone like Brandon Jacobs Jenkins, whose play The Cut-Up Ince received some criticism for being so American, has the elbows-up height fizzled out. Well, like, this would have been programmed, or at least had its programming in the works prior to this discourse.
And, yes, that is a very American play, but it’s also by one of that country’s best working playwrights, a marginalized individual himself, and the one who I’m pretty sure is not cool with the trade war. So, I think there’s an interesting nuance that could be brought to this discussion. There’s different kind of, you know, things we could unpack to it.
I’ve been talking for a little while, if either of you wants to chime in, and then maybe we’ll cycle back to some other thoughts.
[Phil Rickaby]
You know, I actually wanted to say that I think of elbows-up in terms of the arts as more of a, why aren’t there more resources to promote the arts in this country, right? Why is there not more? Why is the mainstream media not bringing in more arts?
Why are we stuck with fewer and fewer media resources so that people who are independently working, like blogs and podcasts and things like that, are filling the gap that mainstream media used to do? And instead, you know, I see it less that than a, no more American plays. I don’t care.
But what I care about is the people doing the plays, the people programming the plays, the people working on those plays. And I think that we should be seeing and giving more opportunities to have our plays seen and taken seriously. But that gets into the whole issue of why do Canadians not appreciate things that are from home until they get success somewhere else?
The whole cultural cringe thing, which is now uniquely Canadian and has disappeared largely from other former Commonwealth countries who have embraced their own culture, and we have not. Again, I could get up on a pulpit about that and go on. But I think that to me, an elbows up approach to theatre is about trying to bring more people to see those shows and talk about them in a way that gets people excited about seeing them rather than a down with American plays kind of thing.
All right, there we go. We’ve got a couple of pulpit moments there. One of the things that I often, there’s a few people that are friends of mine who will often rant because there will be a new advertisement for, say, on the subway for a theatre production or something.
And more often than not, we end up complaining about it because why is that? Why does somebody think that that is going to draw somebody into the theatre? You haven’t told me anything about the play.
Here’s a picture. And I love them. Canadian stage is notorious for this.
The advertisement is a picture of a guy from the show and it says the title of the show, not what it’s about, just a bunch of pull quotes about the show. But I still don’t know what that show is about. How does that convince me to buy tickets?
And I think that I personally think that we don’t know how to talk about theatre in this country in a way that gets people excited. That’s my hot take. Anybody want to?
[Janine Marley]
OK, because like the funny thing is, is that I had like the exact opposite experience when I first started. So like when I first started writing, I didn’t know how to do anything. So I was like buying tickets to shows because I didn’t know how anything worked or that I could just ask.
And so I was on the subway headed to work and I saw an advertisement for Among Men and there was a QR code. And I was like, this looks good. Scan the QR code.
And I go, oh, it’s about Canadian poets. I’ve got a literature degree. This is the perfect thing for me to go see.
And so like and the thing is, I think it was going to start like the next week or something like when I’m talking like this was like last minute. So I’m really figuring out emailing Lauren now. So I’m being like, hey, can I come review?
Like, I’m a new critic. Can I come review a preview of your show? And she was like, actually, we’re not inviting you to previews, but how about I get you two tickets for opening night the next night?
Is that chill? And I was like, yes, that is amazing. I would love to do that.
And like and welcome. Now I’m here. Here we are.
Ta-da! Three years later. But also, like, thanks, Lauren, for those tickets because that got me started on this whole thing.
But like, I mean, I do get it. And half the time, what also like blows my mind is a half time as advertisements have like quotes from like the Guardian, the LA Times, New York Times, whatever. And I’m like, those are about like that play in general, not this production.
It’s like, or wait until like the day after opening when you have our beautifully crafted quotes from local critics who’ve talked about this production specifically, then slap that on air posters. Like, do you know what I would give to see one of my quotes on a freaking poster on the subway? I would be taking pictures with it.
I would be so happy because as it was when I saw Uncle Vanya and like, there was my quote on the side of the theatre. I cried for about half an hour because I was like, it’s me! Like, that’s cool.
So like, no, it’s funny because I think nine times out of ten, like, if you’re not a theatre person, if you’re not already like looking for that kind of stuff, people just ignore the ads on the subway, no matter what they are. Whereas for me, I’m always like, I’m always looking. Maybe it’s the little country kid in me that’s excited about ads on the subway.
Plus I got nothing else to do, so I might as well. Um, but you know, like, like actually an ad on the subway is what got me, like, you know, started and doing what I’m doing. So weirdly enough, I had the opposite experience.
[Phil Rickaby]
I just, I kind of think that the, when we are, when there’s the hand wringing about where the audience is going, where the subscriber is going, how do we bring in new audiences? The same old advertising that works for people who are already going to the theatre doesn’t work. We need to find ways to get people interested who aren’t currently going to the theatre, but that gets into a whole like, you know, do you risk alienating your, your subscribers?
Is that worthwhile or just to bring in new people who may or may not come? It’s a difficult question, but I think I’d love to see some experimentation and some, some risk in some of the, the, the theatre advertising myself.
[Ryan Borochovitz]
I think this is actually something that we talked about, Phil, when you came as a guest on The Cup, that you voiced a similar opinion. I, yeah, I think, is it just a crisis in graphic design? Does it speak to deeper issues in the actual theatre ecosystem, the way we conceptualize the plays?
I do think it is difficult to market a show. I don’t think any of us would disagree with that. And especially they have, they’re working within their own budgets, their timelines, their constraints.
Usually those photos for, say, the Cannes stage ads, those have to be taken well before reversal has even begun. They don’t even know what the show looks like, let alone get up-to-date pull quotes from the Toronto Press Corps, because they, yeah, they need to drum up enthusiasm well before any of this is even possible. I remember when Robert Lepage did his Coriolanus at Stratford, the promotional image for it was Andre Sills in Roman armor.
And if anybody saw that production, you’ll know there is no Roman armor in it, because it’s very much set in the present day. So that makes me think that they took that production photo, or that, not even correction, but that promotional photo, well before they even had a clear sense of what this production was going to be or look like. Like, it’s easier to get a three-piece suit than it is to get period-accurate Roman armor.
So I think that that sort of indicates that either there was a disconnect between Lepage himself and the marketers, or this photo was taken so far in advance that we didn’t even know what the production was going to look like. And as a result, you could say that, well, that’s the problem, that we are working on too far a timescale, but then if we need to bring in as many people as possible, you kind of want to get started as early as possible. The interesting thing about advertisement, and especially things like subway ads or bus stop ads, is that it’s not really about, oh, I think that looks good, I will now go see that show, let me go search for tickets.
It’s just about putting the idea in your head. If you see something enough times when you hear about it later, when somebody mentions it at Thanksgiving dinner, you’re like, oh, I saw something about that, yeah, I heard about that, yeah, that sounds familiar. It’s about that subliminal aspect more so than it is the striking image must-see.
Now, if you can get some striking image must-see reactions, that would be great too. There’s probably room for both. But I do think that there probably is still value to get what you can as early as possible, maybe have it more interesting looking than just guys standing with quotes from other cities that don’t reflect this particular production.
Especially if the title itself is something that doesn’t, like, obviously signpost what the piece is about, that you could not be sure what you’re even looking at. People who don’t go to the theatre regularly might not even have heard of, say, Soul Pepper and know if they’re looking at this ad, is this a theatre? Is this a movie?
What am I looking at? Is this a book? And we don’t have a lot of book ads in Toronto subways.
I was surprised when I went to the UK how many books are just advertised in the tube. They’re like, wow, we don’t really have that. But that’s a side point.
[Phil Rickaby]
I think that the pictures being taken so early is a side effect of the way that the festivals have to program. They have to have their booklet printed by the time their first season ends. They’re announcing the next years.
They have to have the pictures and all this sort of stuff. Everything has to be tied up and ready to go. But I do think that when you’re thinking about a show, the marketing people should be in the room.
And how do we market this show? I remember years ago, I was talking to performer Jillian English. She doesn’t come to Toronto anymore, but her shows are stunning.
And you’d have to go to Halifax or Australia to see them. But she always starts, she knows what the title is, and she tries to figure out how she’s going to sell it before she ever writes it. And that’s her process.
But it’s an interesting thought about, oh, from the beginning, we’re thinking about marketing. From the beginning, we’re doing that. For Fringe, Sue Edworthy used to always, when she was involved and being at the Fringe lottery, she would always give a brief lecture about, you need to be telling people about your show tomorrow if your number is pulled.
Just start now, rather than what seems to often happen is you wait until it’s the last thing you do rather than the first. But it’s difficult because everybody’s process is different, and what Fringe people in is different. I don’t think there’s a, there’s no hard and fast rule.
It’s just a pet peeve of mine. But you’re right, Ryan, about the subliminal putting the image in somebody’s head. I just sometimes think that, say, for example, with the Soulpepper, or starting out the Canadian stage images, if it’s more striking than a guy in a normal shirt sitting in a chair, I might notice that and it might sink in a little deeper.
That’s just me. Janine, were there any issues of the year that you wanted to bring up that occurred to you as something that we should address?
[Janine Marley]
I don’t know if it’s like an issue per se, but like, um, no, it’s not really an issue. It’s just like a thing, because I love having programs. Like, I’ve got, I’ve got a little pile here because I have stuff to film stuff for social media.
But I love having programs, physical things. Yes, Ryan’s got his little pile too.
[Ryan Borochovitz]
I should just recycle these. I don’t need them anymore. I have this big stack just on my desk here.
[Janine Marley]
For me, I, I love having, first of all, when I’m in the theatre for my socials, you do the little like picture with the program and the set, whatever. And then, but for me, I, I’ve started like archiving them. Like I’ve got accordion full of stuff.
It used to be that I would like have everything like these binders and little slip pages and everything was like so pretty and proper. Cause that’s when I thought I saw a lot of theatre and now I see 130 plus shows a year. So now it’s an accordion folder separated by months and they all just go in there.
But to me, like, even if it’s just like these little like tarragon ones that are sometimes only like one page still. Yes. Good.
Great. I love it. I want to have a physical thing that I can, like, cause part of it is like, this is part of my, my legacy, not just yours, but like my little archive of things that yes, sure.
My nephews are going to have to sort through it one day when I’m dead. That’s fine. But at the same time, hopefully what they’ll actually be able to do is donate to some kind of like history museum or whatever of like, here’s this like treasure trove of programs that are probably lost to time that I’ve like archivally kept.
I don’t know. There’s something. Yeah.
Like a lot of companies are moving towards the digital programs. And I mean, I get it. I get that we’re wanting to save paper.
A lot of companies are also then offering people to recycle them after the show. It should be like, Hey, just like dump it in this bucket. We’ll give it to somebody tomorrow night.
I’m very about that. I like to keep mine. I also, for what I write, it’s so much easier for me to have this as a physical thing sitting beside me than to have to flip.
So like, it’s not an issue specific to this year. It’s just something that I’m noticing is that like this year’s file folder is not bulging to bursting like the ones in past years, even though I’m almost on the year. Normally I can hardly get the darn thing to close.
And this year it’s a lot thinner. It’s not for a lack of seeing shows. It’s for a lack of programs.
[Phil Rickaby]
It’s a really difficult one because I think that especially a lot more indie or more independent independent companies are balancing like, okay, so how much is going to cost us to print a program and they’re choosing to go digital because that’s just cheaper. But again, it’s like people like to have that keepsake, that picture of the, of somebody holding the program before the show is a great, is a great little thing. There’s a balance there.
And if, if there was a reliably cheap printer that somebody might, might have available, that might be something that, that, that people would be doing more. I think people are just making the choice of where they have to put their money.
[Janine Marley]
And that’s totally understandable. Like I say, this is not a serious issue. This is just like wee pet peeves that I have, but like, no.
[Phil Rickaby]
No, absolutely. Absolutely. It’s perfectly valid because I think, you know, we should have the option.
If somebody comes to the theatre and they don’t. Listen, my mom complains when like Tim Hortons went completely like digital for like their roll of the rims. She doesn’t know how to use a QR code.
She doesn’t know how to use like, like the thing on her phone. She knows how to roll up the rim, you know? So we have to have the, the, the balance between the technology and the, the digital.
So that the audience can, can consume it the way that they want to rather than us dictating how they’re going to consume the information about the show. So maybe a balance, maybe don’t print a thousand programs, print 50, 25, whatever for the people who want them. Yeah, agreed.
So now as we’re drawing to a close, looking ahead to next year, this is going to be the last of my podcast for the year. I’ll take a couple of weeks off. I’ll take a couple of weeks off and then I’ll be back with new episodes in the new year.
But as we sort of like come to the end of this round table discussion, is there anything that you are looking forward to in theatre in Toronto next year?
[Janine Marley]
Yeah, I’ve got, I’ve got a few shows actually that when I was trying to think up, it’s weird though. A few of them are not until like April, but it doesn’t matter. I’m still hype.
But one of the first ones is A Doll’s House at Canadian Stage. A Doll’s House is one of those, those stories that like, I think I’m pretty sure I know what it’s about. I know I’ve definitely heard about it.
I somehow in all of my degrees did not, was not, had to read it for some class. I don’t know how that ever happened, but like it wasn’t on a syllabus. But so I’m looking forward to experiencing one of those sort of like classics and one of those like, you know, it shows.
For the first time, I’m knowing very little about it and being able to just like go in and have a good time because that’s so rare that I’m like, yeah, let’s go. Also, Mischief at Tarragon. It’s on the back of here.
Lisa Nassim’s play. I’m really looking forward to this one. Also, The Begging Brown Bitch plays by Bilal Bagh are coming to Buddies in Madtime.
So like very hype about that. And then my other one was Zompocalypse at Eldritch Theatre. It’s one of their biggest shows to date and I’m looking forward to it.
But yeah, I just, it’s, I think it’s going to be a really good time.
[Phil Rickaby]
I have to say, Janine, that the growth that you have had as far as Eldritch Theatre goes as somebody who doesn’t like horror to now be like, I’m looking forward to the zombie show. I think it’s it. I think it’s incredible.
And I think, again, it is something to be excited about when a little scrappy Eldritch Theatre is doing something a lot better.
[Janine Marley]
Absolutely. I mean, I’m still not going to go to the bathroom in there before the show. That’s fine.
Look, it’s still going to pop down the way to Starbucks before the show. But I will absolutely be there in a seat, hype to see the show.
[Phil Rickaby]
I will pause for a second for anybody who’s listening to this and doesn’t know why Janine will not go to the bathroom at the Eldritch Theatre, Red Sandcastle Theatre. You should know that the washroom is a cabinet of curiosities, horrific curiosities. And it is in its own way terrifying.
They do have curtains that when there are children’s shows and children’s events, they can hide the horrors from the children who might see them. But they don’t do that for Janine.
[Janine Marley]
Eric even said to me, why don’t you just pull the curtains? And I said, because then you’ll know who’s too scared. And I can’t have that.
So I just don’t do it. I just don’t go to the washroom.
[Phil Rickaby]
But he already knows.
[Janine Marley]
He knows now. So now I’m extra afraid.
[Phil Rickaby]
You think he’s going to put something special in there?
[Janine Marley]
50%! When I went for dog boating.
[Phil Rickaby]
You’re right. He would.
[Janine Marley]
I’m like, I’m saying to him, I wouldn’t I wouldn’t get anywhere near the door. I couldn’t do it. Like, today will be the day.
He knows I’m coming. Like, I can’t. I can’t do it.
Yes.
[Phil Rickaby]
Nice. Yeah, no, for sure. Ryan, what are you looking forward to next year?
[Ryan Borochovitz]
See, it’s interesting. I thought about this question for a little while in the prep for this episode, and it occurred to me, after saying that piece on the whole elbows up business, that many of the shows I’m most excited for are ones that are imported from elsewhere. And it’s due to the prestige that they bring from elsewhere that I am kind of excited for them.
Mirvish is doing Kimberly Akimbo and Schacht, and they recently announced Eddie Izzard’s Hamlet, which I’m really excited for. Clyde’s The Lynn Nottage Play is coming to Cannes stage. Crowpepper is doing Summer in Smoke, the Tennessee Williams play, with Dan Musso and Mahiel Watson in the cast, which just mind-blowingly sounds amazing.
I’m really looking forward to that. Coalmine is doing Dance Nation. The cast for that looks really stellar.
Yeah, but I made a point of picking some Canadian ones too, because I think for that purpose it would be weird to just be like, what’s with all the elbows up discourse, and then only shout out the things I’m excited of, because they were successful elsewhere, and particularly in the States. Cannes stage is doing Little Willie, Ronnie Burkett’s Shakespeare send-up puppet show, using his Daisy Theatre troupe, similar to the Little Dickens that he did around Christmas time a few years ago. So I’m really looking forward to that.
Crows is doing The Division, Andrew Kushner’s play, that I’ve heard nothing but great things about, and anytime I tell anybody about my research they’re like, oh, did you see that show? That was really cool, you’d be very interested in it. And I’m like, no, I haven’t, but I’m excited to see it this year.
And Shifting Ground Collective, speaking of indie, is doing The Drowsy Chaperone. And after they just did Ride the Cyclone, clearly they are prioritizing the emergent Canadian musical theatre canon, even though these are pre-established Canadian musical theatre entities. I think that’s something worth celebrating, and they’re really hitting the ground running after their big Dora success.
So shout out to Shifting Ground.
[Phil Rickaby]
I mean, you cannot go wrong with a young theatre company that almost immediately out of the gate wins themselves a Dora and makes a big splash like that. So, and I’m glad to see them doing one of the few well-known Canadian musicals. I want to thank you both for being here with me today, for giving me your thoughts about the year that was and the year ahead.
And I hope that you have a great holiday and we’ll see you next year.
[Janine Marley]
Thank you, Phil, thanks so much for having us.
[Phil Rickaby]
Thank you. This was amazing. Thank you so much for listening to this episode of Stageworthy.
This will be the last episode of the year for a couple of weeks, and then in the new year, you’ll hear new episodes. I’m going to keep those close to the vest right now. I’m still working on a few things with the schedule, but I do want to talk a bit about my Patreon because I really do appreciate my patrons on Patreon because I couldn’t make this show without them.
If you want to help me to make this show, I would really appreciate it. Although Stageworthy and most podcasts are available for free, it does cost money to make these shows and I don’t have advertising on this show. So the only way that I, that my time gets paid for anything, anything gets paid for is because of patrons.
There are things that have to be paid for, website hosting, audio hosting and distribution, editing software, all of those things. It all costs money. And so for the seven to eight years, I guess, eight years now of this podcast, I’ve been paying most of that out of my pocket and the patrons helped me to afford to do that.
So if you want to be part of the group of people who helped me to make this podcast, go to patreon.com/Stageworthy and become a patron. Patrons get early access to episodes, we’ll have some conversations or issues and topics and things like that. And the more people who join the Patreon, the more I’ll be able to offer.
So if you want to join the Patreon, I would really appreciate it. Go to patreon.com/Stageworthy and I will see you in the new year.
