Victoria Sullivan is Forcing Ontario’s Premier to Live on Minimum Wage at Toronto Fringe

 

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About This Episode:

What would happen if a newly elected Premier of Ontario was forced to live on minimum wage? That’s the provocative (and deeply funny) question at the heart of Minimum, the political satire written and performed by Victoria Sullivan. After winning Best in Venue at the 2025 Hamilton Fringe Festival, Victoria is bringing the show to Toronto Fringe, and the timing couldn’t feel more apt.

Victoria is an actor, playwright, and producer based in Hamilton, working under the banner of Be Victorious (and sometimes the Intergalactic Federation of Space Beers – it’s a long story). She holds a master’s degree from TMU, where her Dante-inspired thesis project Daniel T’s Inferno Latte became a critically lauded Fringe hit. With four consecutive Fringe runs under her belt, she knows what it takes to make a show land; and she’s ready to find out how Toronto audiences respond to political absurdism in the current climate.

This episode explores:

• How the experience of moving to Toronto and working for minimum wage sparked the idea for Minimum
• Why Victoria chose a fictional premier over the actual Premier and what creative freedom that decision unlocked
• Returning to a show with the same cast but a new director, and what that reinvestigation revealed
• The changing landscape of Fringe marketing – from flyering lineups to social media ads – and what actually works
• And much more!

Guest: 🎭 Victoria Sullivan

Victoria Sullivan is an award-winning scriptwriter, producer and actress who currently resides in Hamilton, Ontario.

Victoria completed an MFA in Scriptwriting and Story Design at Toronto Metropolitan University in 2023. Her thesis project is a female-led, television adaptation of Dante’s Inferno, with a modern-day interpretation of the entry requirements into Hell. Victoria produced and starred in a stage adaptation of Danielle Tea’s Infernal Latte on Tarragon Mainstage for the Toronto 2023 Fringe Festival to rave reviews and critical acclaim. She has co-written and produced It’s Always Hazy in Hamilton for the 2024 Hamilton Fringe Festival and wrote, produced and starred in Minimum for the 2025 Hamilton Fringe Festival, both of which won ‘Best in Venue’ at the Player’s Guild of Hamilton.

Victoria is passionate about astronomy, the environment, animal rights and has an avid green thumb. She is currently entrenched in a war with fungus gnats over her indoor plants. Her favourite planet is Saturn.

Get tickets to Minimum at Toronto Fringe: https://fringetoronto.com/fringe/show/minimum

Connect with Victoria

🌐 Website: http://www.spacebeers.ca

📸 Instagram: @vicsulliva

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Transcript

[Phil Rickaby]
Hello, welcome to Stageworthy. I’m Phil Rickaby, the host and producer of this podcast. Stageworthy is Canada’s theatre podcast, and on Stageworthy, I talk to theatre makers of all kinds, from actors to directors to playwrights, stage managers.

If they make theatre in Canada, I talk to them. Some of the people I talk to are household names, and the rest are people that I really think you should get to know. This is an extra episode because of the Toronto Fringe, and I’m trying to fit in as many people and shows as I can.

So, this is the second episode this week. Next week, we will have two episodes focusing on the Toronto Fringe. And on June 22nd, I’ll be hosting a Toronto Fringe preview with several theatre writers and podcasters and influencers around Toronto.

I will be talking to Janine from A View from the Box, Ryan from The Cup Podcast, Alexandra from Being Dramatic, and Ryan from Plates and Playbills. This is going to be a conversation where we look forward to Fringe, talk about the shows that have already piqued our interest, maybe what some wildcard shows are, and just generally talk about Fringe and what we’re excited about so that you can get excited for the Toronto Fringe Festival. So, make sure that you look for that.

You’ll find links to that on Facebook and YouTube, and you’ll be able to watch the live stream in both of those places when it happens on June 22nd at 7 p.m. But in this episode, I will be talking to Victoria Sullivan. Victoria is an actor, producer, playwright, theatre maker based in Hamilton, and she is coming to the Toronto Fringe with a show called Minimum. And I really enjoyed learning about this show.

It premiered at last year’s Hamilton Fringe Festival, and we will be seeing it this year at the Toronto Fringe. So, take a listen to my conversation with Victoria Sullivan. Well, Victoria Sullivan, thank you so much for joining me.

I really appreciate it. Why don’t we jump straight in? Tell me about your show at the Toronto Fringe, Minimum.

[Victoria Sullivan]
I love it. Well, thank you so much for having me, Phil. This is the second time we’re doing this production.

I’m with my companies, the Intergalactic Federation of Space Beers, as well as Be Victorious. I actually applied as Be Victorious, and then, you know, in the time span, I’m now under Intergalactic Federation, which is always awesome and definitely not confusing to the audience, so that’s great. We had the global premiere of the show at the Hamilton Fringe Festival in 2025.

We won Best in Venue with the Players Guild, and we are really excited to bring it to a Toronto audience. This is a show about a newly elected Premier of Ontario being forced to live on minimum wage. Because I always had the question, how quickly would things change if politicians had to live kind of on the lowest common denominator?

So that’s sort of the question that I asked of where this show came from. And we get into kind of absurdist comedy in how we answer it. And I really feel like in the last, I’m going to say four years, but it’s maybe more like eight, politics has gotten just crazy enough that whatever I put in the script can kind of be matched in real life by the absurdity of what’s going on.

[Phil Rickaby]
It is hard, I can imagine that it’s hard for people who write for publications like The Onion or The Beaverton have a hard time doing satire when everything in politics, both in Canada and the U.S. seems, especially in Ontario and in the U.S., just seems so absurd.

[Victoria Sullivan]
Yeah. I mean, how do you one up some of the things that are going on right now? It’s a bit ridiculous.

[Phil Rickaby]
So the idea of a Premier having to live on minimum wage is fascinating. I remember years ago, I think there was a push for some of the MPs to do that kind of experiment where they would live on minimum wage for a week. Right.

Which is like not enough time to really be impacted, right? If you’re going to if you’re going to really find out what it’s like to live on minimum wage, it has to be two months.

[Victoria Sullivan]
Oh, I was going to say.

[Phil Rickaby]
I mean, a year would be a year would be amazing. Like to make a politician be like, all right, you’re going to live on on minimum wage for a year. And that’s how you’re going to afford everything.

And you if things would change really quick. You’re really right about that. I would watch that show, too.

I mean, if we were to televise it, if we were like just televised, like just trying to figure things out, that would be amazing. Now, how did the the what was it that sparked the idea for this this play?

[Victoria Sullivan]
It was moving to Toronto. I grew up in Guelph and I went to the University of Guelph. I moved to Toronto in 2011 and came out of Guelph with a theatre studies degree focusing on performance and acting.

And like a lot of actors, got a serving job. And I think minimum wage for serving was around eight, like eight twenty five ish at the time. And rent in Toronto hadn’t gone like it was still really expensive, but it hadn’t sort of hit the 2016 like jump that it did.

And even then I was like, how do people how do people do this? Like how do people live for minimum wage and live in Toronto? And that was sort of the ongoing question.

And then I was like, how like why don’t politicians do this and sort of make some changes? And now minimum wage has gone up a lot since then, which is fantastic. But so is cost of living and in a bit of a cost of living crisis right now.

And it’s just it’s not keeping pace like it’s not keeping pace at all.

[Phil Rickaby]
I mean, even people who aren’t a minimum wage are having trouble, right? You know, so if you’re a minimum wage, you are. I remember years ago, I was like, OK, so the way that everybody that I know who is not in an office job is able to survive is by having three to four part time minimum wage jobs.

Yeah. And even then they’re living with roommates in order to survive. It’s it’s an insane proposition.

Yeah.

[Victoria Sullivan]
I feel like you read the script, like we have this.

[Phil Rickaby]
No, I’ve just I’ve just lived. I’ve just lived, you know, a life like a regular person. Now, you mentioned you mentioned that you were living in Toronto, but you studied in Guelph.

Now you’re in Hamilton.

[Victoria Sullivan]
Yes, correct.

[Phil Rickaby]
Yeah, I mean, that is that’s a trajectory. What what is obviously you went to you went to Guelph, you studied theatre, you came to Toronto because that’s what you do. And then what took you to Hamilton?

[Victoria Sullivan]
So my my in-laws are in Hamilton and affordability. Like, that’s the easy answer, especially the big thing is changes in the industry. Like we no longer have, you know, less than 24 hours notice to be at man casting.

At 2 p.m., it’s a completely different ballgame with self-tapes. It’s very reasonable to be like a far kind of on the outskirts, you know, GTA age to be on the outskirts of the city now and still be an actor, still be a performer, still work like it’s reasonable to have a full time job post pandemic for an actor, whereas it was not before. Unless you had you had, you know, one of those rare professions that allowed you a lot of flexibility on very short notice, which is why most people were servers.

It was just it was kind of the answer to that question. It was flexible, good enough money that you could survive and allowed you short notice to be at a casting house the next day if you needed to be. So it’s it’s really like post pandemic is what allowed that move to happen.

[Phil Rickaby]
What about the theatre scene in Hamilton outside of the outside of the Hamilton fringe? I know years ago I had a friend who lived in Hamilton. He was constantly trying to convince me to to move to Hamilton.

In fact, when I was doing the Hamilton Fringe in 2016, that was in the middle of Hamilton’s like art is the new steel movement, which I I think has pretty much just fallen away. But what what do you find about the theatre scene in Hamilton?

[Victoria Sullivan]
It’s it’s really great. There’s HFTCO Hamilton. Hmm.

I’m not going to get the name right. Hamilton Fringe Theatre Company. Oh, oh, gosh.

Franny, Chris, I’m so sorry. They they do a lot to bolster the arts. They have sort of year round programming that goes on.

And I’m obviously in their target audience and I get advertised to a lot. But I’ll go out to any of the festivals that they’re doing. I’ve been very, very lucky.

I don’t know if it’s Sullivan and luck of the Irish, but four years in a row, I’ve been drawn in one either Toronto or Hamilton fringes. So from 2023 onwards, I’ve had a show in one or one one. I’ve never gotten drawn in both.

But I always get one and I’m happy for that one. So I’ve been lucky enough to do 24 and 25 Hamilton fringes. And it’s great.

It’s still a growing community. But a lot of people are really supportive. There’s a lot of like very talented artists.

I’ve been blown away by some of the shows that I’ve seen. It’s great. It’s growing.

It’s thriving. It’s interesting. It’s funny.

I’m a big comedy person. So, yeah, it’s great. I really love it.

And I love that I’m still exploring it.

[Phil Rickaby]
With Minimum, you know, you come bring that to the Toronto Fringe. How I mean, you did that last year at the Hamilton Fringe. How does having a kick at the at a French festival out of town kind of give you a leg up coming to Toronto?

[Victoria Sullivan]
I mean, I mean, short answer, I don’t really know yet because I’ve never traveled a show. But me for me as a playwright, it’s it’s I’ve already had a kick at this can. I already know what jokes work, what parts of the story work.

And like even when I’m on stage, I’m like, do we need to make cuts here? Like, do I need to cut part of this dialogue to get it moving faster? That’s both my inability to shut off the playwright and just the playwright in me always being a little bit of a voice in the back of my head.

I don’t know if you ever have that when you’re doing podcasts, but or your art.

[Phil Rickaby]
I will tell you, I will tell you, when I was performing my solo show, The Commandment on Fringe Tours, the writer would never shut up. Yeah, like just like being in the middle of a scene in the back of my head, the writer was like, that didn’t hit that time. Maybe we need to adjust the wording.

Oh, wait, I know what could go with. There’s something we need a little something here. We can throw something in.

We’ll try that tomorrow. Like just like this, like in the back of my head. And part of me is like, shut up.

We’re busy, you know?

[Victoria Sullivan]
Yeah, you’re mid performance. You’ve got a lot on your plate. You’re kind of working on something.

Yeah. I find absolutely the same thing. And there’s also like there’s jokes that I didn’t get.

They didn’t hit until the last night, like our seventh performance. And I was like, oh, I just needed to throw an F-bomb in there. OK, I got it.

Or or take it out, whatever it happens to be. So I think we’ve already had a run. And we are lucky enough that we’re bringing the same cast back.

The director wasn’t available. But I love what this new director is bringing to the work. So it’s less of a remount and more of like a slightly different interpretation of the material, which I actually love.

I love that we are able to pull from the strengths of already having a run to go into the next run with. And I find the Hamilton crowd and the Toronto crowds are very different, even when I’m watching theatre. So I’m really excited to see how the Toronto crowd reacts to this.

I have no idea. I never know. I thought last year at Fringe, people were going to be kind of over politics, like just with the drama of the world, especially our neighbors to the south and a little bit our current premier.

We’re just going to be kind of over it and saturated, but not at all. We had really great reactions. We had really great crowds.

Yeah, I’m really excited to see how Toronto reacts to this. And also what FIFA at the same time as Fringe does like is can I even get to Toronto?

[Phil Rickaby]
You know, I’m really stressed about it. I’m really stressed about it. I was I was talking with with Rachel Kennedy at the at the at the Fringe office just briefly, we were like, should there be like a published like here’s how to deal with Fringe and FIFA at the same time?

Now, fortunately, FIFA is almost over when when when Fringe starts. But there’s like a couple of days of overlap. So it’s going to be it’s going to be an interesting time.

[Victoria Sullivan]
We have one show, I think it’s the 10th, where it’s just like that show is the bane of my existence, existence. It’s not our our ASM is worried about getting there. Our stage manager is not available.

So we have a sub stage manager. Like, it’s just there’s a FIFA game going. We’re at Factory Theatre, one factory main stage, too.

So we’re as far.

[Phil Rickaby]
You’re as far west as close, almost as close to the stadium as you can possibly get with a Fringe show. So that does present some. I would I would go the day before or at least like way early in the morning, just like just like.

All right. We’re moving. We’re moving.

The whole cast has to crash somewhere overnight the day before. That’s all.

[Victoria Sullivan]
We’re just going to leave lots of time. Like, I think our call time is probably going to be two hours before the show. And I think we’re actually going to leave three hours before that, just in case we get into Carmageddon or the GO train goes down or like it derails.

[Phil Rickaby]
I will tell you when I was doing again in 2016, I was going to Hamilton to do my show. And my director and I left at I think we left at one in the afternoon that we were trying to get there for the the Fringe opening, like they have, like their their opening, like they like everybody does excerpts from their shows, things like that. Opening ceremonies.

Already hearing the story. So we figured we would arrive. I would drop my things off at my billet.

We’d go and get dinner and then we would go to the thing. We’d have plenty of time. The traffic took us so long that we had to be calling and go and calling the organizers and be like, we’re we think we’re going to make it.

But there’s a chance that we’re coming. We’re just like stuck in traffic. It was like we were arriving at six thirty in the afternoon, like almost like at showtime for this thing.

[Victoria Sullivan]
And what like how much leeway did you have before your show?

[Phil Rickaby]
It wasn’t the show, but it was like the the the opening ceremonies were supposed to show up and do like the excerpt. We hadn’t done like any tech, but like. It was like it took like so long to get there.

So you can never trust the traffic between Toronto and Hamilton is what I’m saying.

[Victoria Sullivan]
Yeah, I’m with you on that, and it is a concern, and it’s I don’t know that we have a proper mitigation of that, like it’s just just leave really early, leave lots of time. We so we’re debating. We’re debating on a prop that might have to be carried in and out.

And my concern is if we have to abandon the car by the side of the road and jump on a GO train or something, what do we do with that prop? And I’m trying to avoid trying to avoid having that prop like traveling with us and leaving it at factory theatre. But our because this is set in the premier’s office.

And he’s got his aid with him. They both have desks and our storage space is two by five. So we’re already trying to figure out two desks in a two by five space because I’m not carrying a desk up and down those factory stairs every day.

Plus other props, plus, plus, plus. So it’s it’s a challenge. It’s it’s an ongoing discussion.

[Phil Rickaby]
Yeah, I mean, the the the whole like how much how do you store the things that you need at the Fringe Theatre is is always the the the big challenge when you do have a small storage space. And that that kind of Tetris thing is a is a really learned skill.

[Victoria Sullivan]
Yeah, we’re our my plan, hopefully, is to go up like we’re going to we’re going to go up. I don’t know how factory feels about that, but I mean, you’re still you’ll still be within the space.

[Phil Rickaby]
They didn’t tell you anything about height.

[Victoria Sullivan]
They didn’t say anything about it.

[Phil Rickaby]
There you go. I think we’re good. Now you were mentioning the your past shows at Fringes.

You had Daniel T. Daniel T. Inferno, Inferno, latte, latte.

I’m getting that stumbling over that in Toronto. Twenty twenty three. Always hazy in Hamilton.

Twenty twenty four. You have the minimum in the Hamilton Fringe in twenty twenty five. That is a relatively solid run.

You were talking about the luck that you have at lotteries. It’s pretty good. It’s pretty good considering like I know so many people, myself included, who apply many, many years to get drawn.

[Victoria Sullivan]
Yeah, well, I when I first moved to the city, you know, you’re in theatre school and they’re like, apply to Fringe, try Fringe. And I applied for I don’t even know how many years in a row and didn’t get drawn. And then twenty twenty three, I did my master’s at TMU and Daniel T’s Inferno latte was actually my thesis project.

It was based on Dante’s Inferno, which is why it’s Daniel T’s. And that sort of was the question of what happens if we modernize the entry requirements into hell? Because Dante, you know, takes a stroll through hell.

What happens if we modernize that? And it’s women walking through hell, modern day women instead of men. Like, how does that change things?

So we did a 60 minute show based on that premise that I was in the process of defending my master’s thesis, which was a television pilot and adapting it into a stage play that had to be resolved in 60 minutes. So it was a challenge. I defended my thesis on August 4th and my advisor was like, yeah, there was like a 10 week period where I just didn’t hear from you.

And I was like, oh, that’s me trying to get a full staged production up on stage at Tarragon while still continuing the drafts of my thesis while giving notes. Wow, wow, wow. And he was like, ah, interesting.

And I was like, but, you know, here’s the critic feedback from my show of this production. And he was like, well, not many people have that in their thesis defense. And I was like, well, that’s that’s the trade off for those 10 weeks that you did not hear from.

There you go.

[Phil Rickaby]
It’s something concrete you could you could take forward with you.

[Victoria Sullivan]
Yeah. Somebody said one of the quotes was more comedy than the divine comedy. And I think I almost swooned when I read it.

I mean, that I was like that.

[Phil Rickaby]
Like that’s that’s going. That is that is a pull quote beyond like that is like the perfect pull quote to put on like posters and everything.

[Victoria Sullivan]
Oh, yes. But when I die, that’s going on my headstone like it’s you kidding me?

[Phil Rickaby]
That’s that’s that’s perfect stuff. Yeah. Yeah.

Now you mentioned at the start about how the the minimum is being produced by. To be is it to be victorious or the be the victorious is the. And also the sorry I’m checking the notes, the Intergalactic Federation of Space Beers.

That’s correct. What is the what is the what is the the the the cohesion between those two separate names?

[Victoria Sullivan]
So we’re we’re sort of crossing between film and television. I work in film and television in my day job, and I’ve been producing short films for 10 years now, and I’ve done the 48 hour film challenge. And for most of those, I’ve run under the Intergalactic Federation of Space Beers, Space Beers, which most people just say Space Beers, which it’s catchy.

Now people are like, do you produce beer? And I’m like, no, we don’t. We produce film.

I can see the confusion there. But I applied under be victorious. I’ve always kind of written and thought as a playwright and started out as be victorious, applied under be victorious.

Intergalactic Federation applied as well, but did not get drawn. And I I did with be victorious. And so that’s what we’re that’s what we’re running under.

But last year with minimum, we ran under the Intergalactic Federation of Space Beers. So we’re trying to sort of mitigate that brand confusion. I don’t think we’re doing a great job, but we’re doing the you know, I’m not a brand.

I’m not a marketer. We’re working on it. It’s a work in progress.

So we’re both Space Beers and be victorious. But for the purposes of this fringe, you can find us under be victorious.

[Phil Rickaby]
Got it.

[Victoria Sullivan]
Yeah.

[Phil Rickaby]
I have a question about your main character in minimum. Yes, please. He’s a newly elected premier of Ontario.

He is not named Doug Ford.

[Victoria Sullivan]
No, he is not. I’m pretty intent on not getting sued. It’s one of my professional goals.

And for me, if you if you make that a real person, it doesn’t give me the freedom as a writer that it does to sort of carve out the story that I want to carve. And then you’re casting for for a real person. I’m worried about slander and libel.

And there’s a lot of things that I actually really like about Doug Ford. There’s some not great things that I comment on in the play, but there’s a lot of like it’s it’s both praise and criticism. And I just don’t want to get into this.

This is political satire for the purpose of comedy. It’s it’s not like an assassination of Doug’s for Doug Ford’s character or political career. I wanted to just kind of avoid that like as much as possible, which is why it’s a newly elected premier.

It is. And it’s mostly it’s a lot more fun to write. It’s a lot more fun to write someone who is just coming into this fresh versus Doug Ford, who has not only a history of of politics himself, but a family of politics.

Like Rockford was our mayor for a number of years. There’s just there’s a lot going on there and there’s a lot more freedom to do with this.

[Phil Rickaby]
Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. It is.

It does. It does mean that you don’t have to find somebody to do a Doug Ford impression. And it does tie you to his political record.

[Victoria Sullivan]
I actually try really hard in this play to kind of stay in the middle of the road so we don’t really go left, right, red, blue. We we kind of leave it up to an audience interpretation of who this character is and what platform he’s representing. But he presents himself as someone that represents the people.

And that’s what we that’s what we kind of go forward with. Sure.

[Phil Rickaby]
I imagine that that you can without being without having the character be a Doug Ford, you as you as you sort of mentioned, you can sort of allude to things that Doug Ford has done, you know?

[Victoria Sullivan]
Oh, this character owns a jet for sure. For sure. He does.

[Phil Rickaby]
But has he ever swallowed a bee?

[Victoria Sullivan]
No, no.

[Phil Rickaby]
That’s a that’s an experience that he missed out on.

[Victoria Sullivan]
Yeah. Yes, it is. Mostly because we couldn’t get a bee like we auditioned bees and just none of them were right for the part.

And pretty universally, they were not willing to be swallowed and eaten.

[Phil Rickaby]
They’re generally also really terrible at taking direction.

[Victoria Sullivan]
Yes. Oh, go away now. And the unions don’t don’t even get started.

[Phil Rickaby]
How do you see more specifically this play, this character in conversation with. What’s or not in the conversation with what’s happening in our world now?

[Victoria Sullivan]
Oh, it’s such a broad, open ended question. What what I hope this character does is. Leave people thoughtful, leave people of like, what if this did happen?

What if what if this was the premiere? And also with an appreciation that it is impossible to please everybody. It’s it’s just you’re never going to happen.

You’re never going to you’re never going to. Unless there’s a perfect politician out there. But even this person, even my character, isn’t able to please everyone.

It’s just politics is hard. Politics is hard. Is that’s kind of the.

[Phil Rickaby]
I know that there’s a phrase. There’s a phrase that I’ve read in reference to this show, the soul sucking politics of politics. What is that?

What is that phrase? It’s doing a lot of work. What is what does that mean to you?

[Victoria Sullivan]
I think it means when I watch politicians and they’ll go, they’ll go and I’m going to generalize this, they’ll go to a rally for X and say, you know, I’m absolutely behind X. X is great. We’re going to we’re going to go for X if I get elected.

And then they’ll go to the opposing party or the opposing rally and say, I am absolutely for Y. Y is what I’m going to support. I’m going to do this.

And I think in a way that is kind of selling your soul, you have to kind of make a broad generalization of promises to everybody. And I don’t know that it’s possible to please everybody and to keep all of those promises. So that’s a little bit of a that’s one of my favorite lines from the play.

And it is a little bit of a just a play on the facts of recognition of the fact that you have to try to be everything to everyone, which is impossible. How do you not sell your soul when you’re doing that?

[Phil Rickaby]
I think that I think that might be why we have. There’s two kinds of politicians, those who do one term and then they’re done. And then there are those who just sort of like go whole all the way in and you can’t cry them out, they’re like a tick that’s got in there.

You have to get the tweezers and pull them out. And I think that part of that might be that for some people speaking out of both sides of their mouth at the same time is a very difficult thing to to wrap around.

[Victoria Sullivan]
Yeah, yeah, I would agree with that, and I, I think it’s hard to. Well, is it hard to be genuine when you’re doing that? Like, do you mean it when you’re saying both things to both?

How can you possibly when you know that you can’t do both? But also, if you mean it. Who knows, it’s just it’s just a recognition that there is a tightrope to walk and that there can sometimes be a cost to walking it.

[Phil Rickaby]
I am curious about because I think, you know, we do have this as a problem in our politics, in Canada, politicians trying to appeal to everybody and is generally a thing that we see in politics all around. And then you have. Somebody like the mayor of New York, who seems to be doing exactly what he said he was going to do and like doing it well.

So does that mean I mean, I think it does. Does that mean that like the that if you just tell people, if you just promise to do things that are that might be good for the majority of people and then you do them, that that’s a better that’s a better political solution?

[Victoria Sullivan]
I mean, maybe that comes back to your point. Like, is that mayor going to get reelected? Is he going to get funding for his campaigns?

Or is the fact that he has kind of taxed a lot of the rich people going to come back, going to come back to bite him? Like, I think that’s part of the tightrope balance, the tightrope act that you have to walk when you’re a politician. And that’s like to be to be seen.

We’ll see.

[Phil Rickaby]
We’ll have to see in four years. He’s got he’s got a good a good long run before that happens. I do think that the rich people that are being taxed will only be slightly less rich in four years.

And so they’re still going to be rich people. So I think they’re going to be OK.

[Victoria Sullivan]
I you know what? I hope they are OK. I hope they are less rich, but still OK.

[Phil Rickaby]
I definitely hope they’re slightly less rich in terms of of of like you’re in the the factory theatre, which is is is one you know, one of the the. One of the places where people go for fringe theatre, right, if you didn’t look at the at the fringe program at all and you were like, I’m going to see something at fringe, you would go to factory theatre. Just to find something, right?

You’d be you’d be there. I hope in terms of of of that particular venue. Are you you’re are you in the main space?

Are you in the the the main space? Yeah. How do you feel?

How does that space make you feel?

[Victoria Sullivan]
Terror, just straight up terror, because, well, hey, that’s an honest answer, right? Because in fringe, you are wearing so many hats, you’re doing so many things that, you know, it’s kind of me and the team responsible for marketing. And so there’s 200 seats to fill in factory theatre.

And I’m kind of basing that off past fringes. We’ve been lucky enough to we’ve built our runs every year, as you do at fringe. But the fact that we’re selling out our last performances and kind of have been consistently since my first year doing fringe tells me that we can we can I don’t know if we can hit it, but we can try for it.

We can try and try for a 200 seat venue and maybe, maybe, maybe not. Who knows? It might be a horrible disaster, but I’m I’m OK with that risk.

I’m OK with taking a chance at it. But like right now, we’re about a month out, a month and two days. And like the overwhelming fear is terror with like one percent excitement.

That is going to start to switch as the month goes forward, as we get the show more built, as we get, you know, our venue tour is in five days as we get the venue tour out of the way and as we get tech out of the way that I’m hoping will switch. But just from a marketing perspective right now, just terror. Ninety nine percent terror.

But I am really grateful that we have factory. It was the venue that I wanted. I would have been equally OK with Soulpepper because it’s it’s the hub.

I love the distillery. I’ve been in the distillery for a long time. Like I’m an East End girl when I was in Toronto.

So I would have been great with both of those. I also would have been fine with Tarragon. We had Tarragon in 2023 and it was it was a great venue.

I think it’s another place that people go to find fringe shows. So really excited about that one, too. But I’ve I’ve never been in factory.

So this is a bucket list for me. And I’m really happy that we’re here.

[Phil Rickaby]
Absolutely. You alluded to the many hats that have to be worn in order to put on a fringe show. What is how how?

Do you have a plan for finding the balance between all of the things that need to be done? Do you know how you’re going to to walk that tightrope?

[Victoria Sullivan]
I’m I’m lucky enough that this is a built show. So we’re using a lot of the same marketing. It’s not like we’re coming up with new graphics.

We’ve got the same image that we did as last year, which I hope works really well. Like a lot of this is the first time that a lot of that work has already been done. And I’ve got three fringes under my belt to know what works and what doesn’t.

So we do take out a full you know, I’ve got my lovely fringe program here and we are on page 48 with a full a full page ad, which I’m really happy about and I think is money well spent. And then we’ll put we’ll put a bit of money into like social media marketing, specifically targeting Toronto theatre goers. And then just fingers crossed, reaching out to publications, seeing what’s work, what works.

I was really lucky that Fresh Air last year wanted to do a piece on us. So I actually have a radio interview with Fresh Air with Ismaila Alfa from CBC from last year talking about the show before it went up. Or I think we had just opened, so I didn’t know how it was going to go.

But I think audiences responded really well. And I’m just fingers crossed. Like there is always an element of fingers crossed with fringe of kind of A.B. testing of what works and what doesn’t. And I don’t know that you ever really get a full like I mean, tell me what you found with fringes. But do you ever get a full answer to what works and what doesn’t in in fringe marketing or you just sort of like this has worked before? Let’s see if it works again.

[Phil Rickaby]
There are people that I that I know who are like I would say that they are marketing wizards like they they they put together their marketing materials. I always talk. I always sing the praise of Jillian English.

Jillian lives in Australia now, doesn’t do the Toronto Fringe any longer. But Jillian would always like every show starts from the point of marketing. Like Jillian would say, if I can’t think of a way to market this show, if I can’t think of what how to advertise this show, I won’t even write it.

And I don’t go that far. But I I when I’m thinking of stuff, I’m thinking of my imagery. Well, before the show, and I try to front load as much as possible, I think the thing that works is strong, catchy imagery.

Yeah. And. Lightning in a bottle, that’s all you like, unless you are there, there are some groups that like sex T-Rex, if they announce they’re going to be doing a show, they’re going to sell it.

Right. Right. They’re not going to they’re you know, they don’t even have to have to try.

There are people who are known entities. If they do a show that’s going to sell out. But that’s almost the only sure thing that you can find in fringe.

Everything else is just hoping that the audience digs your show.

[Victoria Sullivan]
Yeah. And it’s it’s still I mean, what is the angle with this? Do you take a political angle?

Do you like, you know, do you go with the the the playwriting angle? Like what’s the sort of I do not I do not come from a marketing standpoint. I come from a story standpoint.

And so I’m like, well, for me, what is interesting about this? Like what? And I would love to see a politician live on.

Like, I would watch that show. I would need I I do think I need longer than two months, though. I’d want to see them do it every year.

[Phil Rickaby]
Yeah.

[Victoria Sullivan]
Yeah.

[Phil Rickaby]
I think I think that that that that that that as a pitch is enough to draw people in. And you don’t have to say Doug Ford, but you you there’s enough hate for Doug Ford that if you can if you can be like here, you know, this is the thing. If you can make it sound like there’s a buffoon in the premier’s office, people will like I think they’ll eat that up in the current in the current climate.

[Victoria Sullivan]
I think so, too. And we absolutely address a lot of and we we did last year. Like the one thing I have done is modernize this.

We really played on the the speed cameras that were everywhere. And one of the things that the premier experienced was he he drove a Porsche and he loved his Porsche, which bad things happen to the Porsche. But every day in the mail, he gets another robot speeding ticket.

And just what? And I’ve had that happen. Like my my partner and I were driving the same car in two different cities.

He was leaving Toronto at 1 a.m. and I was going to Guelph to visit my parents at 6 p.m. on the same day, and we both got speeding tickets. And I was like, come on, come on. You just put those in.

You just lowered the speed limit to 40, like and you just get it in the mail three weeks later. And all of a sudden, oh, somebody. Eighty five dollars.

[Phil Rickaby]
Yeah.

[Victoria Sullivan]
Something apparently.

[Phil Rickaby]
Yeah.

[Victoria Sullivan]
And my brake lights were on in that picture. Like I was slowing down. But I was still 11 kilometers over the speed.

[Phil Rickaby]
The robot doesn’t care if you’re slowing down. The robot cares what speed you’re going at the moment it takes the picture.

[Victoria Sullivan]
Yeah, I was like, put the brake lights on. There’s no there’s no police officer to our robot.

[Phil Rickaby]
Has no pity. The robot has no pity.

[Victoria Sullivan]
None. No mercy, no pity. So that was a really strong element of last year, which we’ve taken out.

And now it’s freedom of information. So there is a bit of a modernization that had to be done just to keep current, keep deep, keep like relevant issues, keep it topical, that sort of thing. And, you know, gas prices, the airport, the jet.

There’s just there’s so much to work with. Yeah, there really is.

[Phil Rickaby]
Yeah. I’ve in terms of marketing. I mean, there’s been so many changes in the last five years.

Well, since the pandemic, the fringe, the culture of fringe has changed. People don’t don’t fly our lines anymore. Yeah.

And I I think I I noticed that last year as a thing that the only people who were flying airlines were touring artists. Hmm. Interesting.

And locals were not. And in fact, it was so it seemed so strange when somebody was like, I tell you about my show and you’d be like, nobody told me about this show. This this whole fringe.

Yes. Tell me about your show. But it is interesting because that does take away part of the the fringe promotion, which used to be which I hated, by the way, was my nightmare.

But it’s part of part of fringing, having to fly our lines. And that’s gone. So we have to find other ways to get the word out.

[Victoria Sullivan]
I mean, I so I’ve never 20, 23 was my first fringe, and I’ve never fly our lines. I don’t know if it’s a post pandemic, but that was still like 23. There was a lot of masks still.

There was a lot of people were kind of just getting back into like large communal spaces with a big crowd. I I feel like even outside, it was a bit of a different vibe, like we’d kind of gotten used to the six feet, the separation. It was a bit more of a I don’t want to say unapproachability, but that’s kind of what it was.

Wonder if that’s been replaced by social media now. Like if if we’re just on our phones and on those screens so much. I think that that’s what that’s like the equivalent.

[Phil Rickaby]
See, if if social media advertising was accurate, if it was something that you could rely on, I would say yes. But there have been a lot of changes to the way that social media marketing and social media ad buys go, goes that that doesn’t get completely into the weeds for anybody who is not interested in marketing and advertising. But I think that social media advertising is no longer the reliable thing that it once was, because more of the devices are limiting the information that the social media platforms can get, which means the targeting is less accurate.

And so that means that that that you could do a big ad buy in the people who don’t. And I think people are more people ignore ads more than ever. Right.

They have to find a way to utilize, I think, the the the reels and tick tock and to try to get to try to get video. But I think having a striking image in your in the program is one of the strongest things, because and I think one of the reasons why people don’t fly or anymore is because you could sell out your whole show before the Fringe even opens. Right.

Like it. I’m an I’m an old man. And back in the olden days of Fringe, they would hold back a certain number of tickets to buy at the door.

So you could buy some in advance and there’d be about half the tickets that you could buy at the door. So if you didn’t get them online, you would run out of the theatre and you would line up and like hope that you’d get a ticket for the show that everybody was clamoring to see. And that doesn’t happen anymore.

So you could buy all the tickets online. And I I think that what you’re doing, like trying to reach out to the media and trying to get the striking images, try to get all of that stuff out there. It’s all you can do.

[Victoria Sullivan]
Yeah, yeah, kind of. I mean, that’s that’s a it’s it’s a different. I remember getting into rush lines and being like so upset when I couldn’t get into shows.

And yet some of the stats from last year, like Toronto Fringe had the biggest year that it’s ever had. So it’s not it’s not for a lack of audience, not for lack of audience, because this is the thing about about fringe festivals.

[Phil Rickaby]
It’s different from producing theatre at any other time of the year. And that is that there is an audience that is actively looking for things to see. Which doesn’t happen any other time of the year.

You’re begging people to come to see your show any other time of the year. But during Fringe, there’s an audience that’s hungry and looking for things to see.

[Victoria Sullivan]
And I wonder and we actually touch on on this in the play a little bit. I wonder how much of it. Is the rise of A.I. and the fact that you can’t always trust what you’re seeing now and the fact that theatre is a tangible thing, like you are in the atmosphere of the theatre. You know that the people on stage are actors on stage, but you know what you’re seeing is what you’re seeing. Like, you know, you’re seeing a show versus A.I. It’s not always true.

[Phil Rickaby]
I definitely think that that A.I. poses an opportunity for the theatre, because like you’re saying, you can be relied on. You can rely on the fact that the people are real. Yeah, which you can’t necessarily do if you’re watching a video online or anything like that.

We don’t have like really effective A.I. actors yet, but they’re they’re working on that. And yet this the people looking for for theatre to see during Fringe. That’s always been the case.

That’s they’ve been the easiest time of year to get an audience. And I think the the conversation about A.I. was almost not even happening during last year’s Fringe. It only sort of started after that and sort of like exploded because technology, the world of technology moves quickly.

And I don’t think anybody was really talking about A.I. and the arts in a serious way. It hadn’t it hadn’t become what it is now in terms of like dominating so many conversations. But I think I think you’re right about the opportunity the theatre has as a.

Antithesis to A.I. generated slop.

[Victoria Sullivan]
Yeah, well, I think it’s it’s getting better, too, like I have to look twice at videos now where I’m like, is that a real person? No, it’s not. OK, that’s A.I. But before, you know, the Six Fingers was kind of a dead giveaway. You’re like, it’s not a it’s not a person, but it is growing so rapidly and getting so much better. That’s kind of like it’s always a question. And I, I hope theatre stays as the antithesis.

I hope we always have theatre. I mean, we’ve had it for probably all of human civilization is some form of somebody getting up and telling a story. So I think it’s going to be anywhere either.

[Phil Rickaby]
I have a theory, and that is that the idea of an A.I. actor is going to fail miserably because the studios want it because they don’t have to pay an actor or whatever. But I don’t think people connect with it. People want to connect with an actual person and they cannot connect with a with an A.I. actor. They won’t be able to see that actor on the red carpet and they won’t be able to see that act. They won’t have aspirational feelings about that A.I. actor. And I think that that’s the thing that’s going to kill it.

But if it doesn’t, theatre is is going to be there because I think that theatre will be the thing you can trust.

[Victoria Sullivan]
Yeah, I completely agree. I completely agree with that. I hope it is.

[Phil Rickaby]
I mean, it it always has been. You’re always going to know that that this and you can put all the video you want into a stage show. But the moment an actor walks out onto the stage, everything changes.

Right.

[Victoria Sullivan]
Yeah.

[Phil Rickaby]
Everybody can sense the reality of the person on that stage. And that’s when you know that that you’re that this is theatre.

[Victoria Sullivan]
Don’t you love that moment? I love that moment. I love it as an actor.

I love it as an audience member. I just I love that moment where it’s sort of like supercharges the air in the room.

[Phil Rickaby]
And you’re like, I love that moment when when the play starts and suddenly everybody in the audience, when the play is really great and everybody in the audience kind of. Leans forward and you can actually sense everybody breathing at the same time. You can feel that moment where everybody becomes an organism, which is the audience.

And I think that’s that’s one of my favorite things.

[Victoria Sullivan]
Yeah, me too. Me too. There’s nothing like it like there really isn’t for sure.

[Phil Rickaby]
I want to talk a little bit about you as a as a performer, as a person who does theatre. Do I have it right that? You were cast as Dorothy at the age of 11.

[Victoria Sullivan]
My one and only stint in a musical. Yes, you are absolutely correct. It was my elementary school production of The Wizard of Oz, and I tried out and I think I got the part because I was the loudest.

Like I certainly was not the best singer. I promise you that. Not at 11, not today.

Like, absolutely not. But I think I was pretty loud and probably a little bit bossy, which I still am. So, yeah, from from 11.

And I kind of denied that the arts was a real possibility and then went to went to Guelph and sort of bounced around through majors and then started working. And I was working in an office job and I was like, sorry, there’s a motorcycle outside. I was like, if the worst thing that happens is I end up right back here after trying to have a career in the arts, like, so be it.

But at least I tried. And here we are.

[Phil Rickaby]
I would love to unpack that a little bit, because so when you when you auditioned as Dorothy as an 11 year old, was that just because you wanted to be Dorothy was like what? What was the draw for that?

[Victoria Sullivan]
That’s a great question. I am still actually an introverted person. I am even right now filled with terror at the thought of going on stage in a month, despite the fact that I wrote the role.

I have done the role before. Like, I’ve just kind of accepted that that’s never going to go away. It takes a lot to get this sort of shell to open up, but it’s a lot of fun when it does.

So did I go there necessarily trying to be Dorothy? No, I don’t think so. I think it was kind of like everybody in the school is going to be in this play.

If you want to try over the lead, try over the lead. And I was sort of like, well, why not? And that mentality has served me very well.

Well, why not apply for the fringe? Why not do this? Why not do a master’s?

Why not? And here we are. It’s just sort of a jump in mentality as an introvert myself.

[Phil Rickaby]
Ah, lovely for me. I’ve never suffered from sinus. I’ve never I’ve never had the I’ve never I’ve never been like I’ve never had an issue getting on this stage.

The thing for me, as I mentioned earlier. Flyering a line. Yeah, I like I just I had the thought I started to sweat profusely.

There is suddenly a river of sweat running down my back at the idea of talking to people, of like walking up to people that I don’t know and saying, can I tell you about my friend show? Like, I’m so glad that that isn’t happening anymore, because in 2019, when I was doing the Toronto Fringe, doing just that and like taking like 15 minutes before I would do it with my head between my knees trying to breathe.

[Victoria Sullivan]
That’s me before I go on stage. I would flyer line also because it’s one on one is no problem. But it’s, you know, stage the audience, the eyes.

That’s so we’re the same, but opposite. We’re the opposite type of.

[Phil Rickaby]
Yeah, for sure. Absolutely. I love how there are many flavors of introvert.

Now, you mentioned bouncing around between majors. Aside from this production of Wizard of Oz, were you doing things in the arts? Were you doing things in theatre for school?

[Victoria Sullivan]
Yeah, here and there, you know, like people would put on plays and I would audition and have small roles in things that people wrote. But I would say it was a spattering and more of a hobby rather than a focus. Like I didn’t seek out the opportunities, which as an artist, I really do think you have to do.

I sort of when they came to me, I accepted them versus versus like being an artist and going after them and trying to get them. So, yes, I was always I’ll call it tangentially involved in the arts.

[Phil Rickaby]
What did you initially think you were going to study at university?

[Victoria Sullivan]
So the first year I went into and this is how indecisive I am, something called academia, which is a program that God, is it academia? I think it is academia, but it was like a mix of arts and science. And so I ended up taking like chemistry and genetics and physics, none of which I did well in like those courses did not go well, as well as English and playwriting.

And it was sort of to help people decide or I don’t know if there was like a there’s somewhere in life where you can have a career, where you use all of those things. But it was for the people who were like, maybe I want to be a scientist. Maybe I want to be an artist to kind of help them decide.

And I think you could go all the way through with a degree in academia, which is not like academia, which we think of it. That’s why I’m like, am I remembering this?

[Phil Rickaby]
I just think I just have to say that I think that like, yes, what did you study in school? I studied academia, which is essentially like I studied school. Yeah.

In school. Yeah. What a kind of like kind of a nonsense.

So it’s so open ended. It’s so ridiculous. And it’s like, yes, I don’t know what I want to do.

So I will just study school.

[Victoria Sullivan]
And it was like my memory of this is that there wasn’t like a true curriculum to follow. They were just sort of like pick a course, any course. And I was like, oh, like philosophy, chemistry.

I think I think I took a hotel and food like half I was. Guelph is known for a hotel and food administration. So I was like, sure, let’s throw one of those in there.

But it was like the philosophy courses, the English courses, the writing courses that I did well at and that I enjoyed. And so very quickly, the chemistry courses that I think I barely passed. I think I took a math course, too.

And I was just like. No, no.

[Phil Rickaby]
And your second year, did you go theatre or did you go? What did what did you bounce to?

[Victoria Sullivan]
I think second year was more of a philosophy pivot. Like I’d taken kind of, you know, intro to philosophy and was like, this is interesting. And I remember my mom reminded me of this recently.

She was like, do you remember when you wanted to go into medical ethics? And I was like, yeah, that was like a whole phase I had. I didn’t want to be a doctor.

Like I’m a bit squeamish with blood still like the like cutting just makes me and I think that’s a pretty big part of being a doctor. So I really like helping people, but the medical part, not so much. And so I was like, well, maybe I’ll do medical ethics, which has a philosophy element.

And then the math got me on that one, though. You have to do math when you’re a doctor. I did not want to.

No, no, no, no, no.

[Phil Rickaby]
Eventually, you found your way. You found your way to studying acting. Hmm.

What do you think it is that prevented you from admitting that that’s what you wanted to do in the first place?

[Victoria Sullivan]
I think it’s the the rhetoric that that’s not a reasonable or reliable career. And I think there was a time where I wanted that stability and reliability and then realized that the consequences of having those were not consequences that I wanted to necessarily at that point pay like it’s it really was kind of sitting in an office. And that was for me, that was a bit of a soul sucking job and realizing that I would rather do anything else for not very much money and be happy.

And that’s kind of what it took to get there. Props to everyone who has an office job, who loves it. I hope you enjoy your benefits.

I hope you go for massages every other week.

[Phil Rickaby]
Listen, as somebody who does have an office job, the benefits are not what you think anymore. A lot of companies are like we used to get great benefits. We’re going to half ass it now anymore.

[Victoria Sullivan]
I had I had a brief when I went back to school, I had great benefits and I was like, this is amazing and just did all of the things. And now I’m I still have after benefits like they’re not nothing. I’m not trying to say that I have no benefits.

I’ll take them. Don’t get me wrong. Fifty percent off the dentist is yeah.

Aces all I’m all for it.

[Phil Rickaby]
But it’s a it is a trade off. I am curious. You mentioned the rhetoric about acting as a profession.

Where was that coming from?

[Victoria Sullivan]
That’s a great question. I think in the world of Guelph, like Guelph still has like Guelph is the most adorable town in the whole world. It’s very green.

It’s very kind. It’s very positive, but it’s very kind of small town linear, as in you go to school, you get an office job, you have a family, you buy a house like things that we’re kind of seeing eroding now because of the cost of living anyway. But like that was just sort of the path that you took.

And so it took it took kind of walking that path for me to realize that I did not want to walk that path.

[Phil Rickaby]
And here we are. Was there ever anything at like like when you were in high school? Did you ever mention wanting to do theatre and somebody dissuaded you or or did was that just it wasn’t something you ever like like voiced?

[Victoria Sullivan]
I think everybody dissuaded me. Everybody was like, no, no, you don’t want to. That’s not what you want to do.

You want a pension.

[Phil Rickaby]
But no, because you don’t get to have one of those anymore. Those don’t exist.

[Victoria Sullivan]
Oh, no, no, no. That’s not. Hey, yeah.

Joke’s on you guys.

[Phil Rickaby]
You said I get a pension. That was a lie. What’s funny, you know, because when I was in when I was in in in school, like I knew what I wanted to do.

I knew I wanted to be in theatre. I knew I wanted to do theatre from the time I was like seven, like maybe even before. And so there was no nobody was ever going to occasionally somebody be like, you know what else you could do?

Clerical work. I’d be like, the fuck are you saying? I said this.

You said clerical. The fuck is that? And then eventually when it was like time to apply for colleges and things, the guidance counselor, you go to your to the meeting with a guidance counselor and they’re like, what do you want to study?

And I said, I want to study acting. And they said, I don’t know how to help you. Yeah, I was like, but is that your job to know that?

[Victoria Sullivan]
Yeah, it is. I work with Brandon James Similott, who is an incredibly talented actor and also a very good writer. He is my like go to story editor, my partner in crime.

And he’s he’s one of those people that went to his guidance counselor and said, I want to be an actor. And I I think they like L.O.L. in his face and were like, OK, here’s a pamphlet for the trades. Like, good luck to you.

Like you’re just it was just a hard, hard. No, wonderful. Bless his stubborn heart.

He did not. No, obviously not.

[Phil Rickaby]
Well, I mean, the thing is that like what they’re what I mean, they think they’re doing you a favor. They think they’re saving you from a life of of heartache, but. I’ve had the the office job that just makes me want to curl up and stop living, you know, that anybody who’s ever like that’s the expectation is you’re going to do this.

That’s going to be your life. That’s just like that. Not everybody can do that.

[Victoria Sullivan]
No, no, not at all. And I don’t wish that for people. I don’t want that for people.

I, you know, live your life. Let your soul be free. Let your soul sing.

You know, insert other cliches.

[Phil Rickaby]
I want to go back to a minimum for just for a second, just to be sort of like heading to the end of our time. I wanted to ask about, you know, your your ensemble is returning. And this is I always think of like when you’re remounting a show you get to reinvestigate it and you get to reexamine what you did before.

And you get to like like dig into the text. What did we learn last time? And so you get the opportunity to make different choices and things like that.

What does working with that same ensemble again, but with a different director, what has that taught you about the show?

[Victoria Sullivan]
That’s a great question. It’s it’s first of all, such a joy and a privilege to have the same people like we’ve developed a language. I’ll kind of do anything for them.

I’ll go anywhere for them. My stage manager has done all four shows. Morgan Angus, who is an incredibly talented stage manager.

If you can find them and hire them, you will. They’re so professional and wonderful. There is strength and a credit to everything that they do.

Morgan’s wonderful. And I would go anywhere for them. So that’s great.

It’s it’s also a reliability and it’s a comfort to me. Like when I talk about the terror of the things that have to happen when I do a friend show, it’s such a comfort to know that I have this team in this ensemble coming with me. It’s great.

Brandon James Sim is playing the premier. And he’s, again, an incredibly talented actor, a wonderful collaborator. I just trust him with my life and with my characters, which is great.

And Gavin Sibley, who actually was a bit of a newcomer, has also come through all fringes with me, as has Brandon. And I trust Gavin immensely. There was there have been moments on stage in our productions where sort of there was a crisis and it’s been Gavin that saved them every time.

He’s coming out of the performance program at TMU, just graduated out of his fourth year. And like Gavin is going to go so far in this industry. He’s just so talented that I dread the day when he’s too busy to do our productions and our show.

I really do. And TJ Chesley, I’ve worked with before in film and stage. TJ directed our production of It’s Always Hazy in Hamilton in 2024 and was unfortunately too busy last year and has come back this year.

And the depth of story that he has, like I wrote these characters. I created this world. And he points out things to me that blow my mind.

I’m just like, oh, my God, you’re right. So to have a director come in and do that when I’m the playwright, I’m the actor, I’ve been on stage with this role is it’s so refreshing. It’s such a breath of fresh air.

It’s wonderful. And Elijah was also Elijah McLeod, our stage manager in 20 to our assistant stage manager in 2024 is also back as our ASM and will be our stage manager for one performance this year, which I’m really excited about. So, I mean, to have to have all of these people that I trust implicitly with me is just so comforting in a sea of terror for an introvert who is putting her heart and soul out there.

[Phil Rickaby]
Well, here’s here’s a question. As we’re as we’re closing off, you know, we’re as we record this fringes just over a month away. Month and a half as we record this ish.

[Victoria Sullivan]
Yep. Well, we we open June 30th and that’s like about four. So about four weeks away.

[Phil Rickaby]
OK, yeah, yeah, no, you’re right. You’re right. It’s about it’s about a month away.

So, you know, that’s that’s pretty coming up pretty quickly. But the question that I have for you is, what are you most looking forward to?

[Victoria Sullivan]
I am looking forward to the first moment of walking on stage, like both dreading and because it means that everything is done. You know, the chips have fallen where they’re going to fall. Marketing is it’s not done like marketing is ongoing through the run, but it’s just the thrill and the excitement of walking on stage with this production for a Toronto audience.

And I can’t stress enough how excited I am for a Toronto audience’s reaction. Like, I really, really hope this is going to resonate with people. I hope they’re going to laugh.

I hope they’re going to think. And then I hope they laugh some more. So that’s the big is is that first moment of walking on stage and and the first show I’m always it’s always a relief to me.

The first time people laugh, I’m like, OK, if they laughed once, they will probably laugh again. We’re going to be OK. So that’s that’s that first.

And the first thing I try to do is get a joke out. So those moments are very much simultaneous.

[Phil Rickaby]
Yeah, that that moment when you’re waiting for the audience to laugh, whether you are on stage or off stage, it is it’s that thing where you’re like, all right, this is working. Sometimes shows where like this audience is sitting there. This is the first time they’re ever anybody is seeing this show outside of the people who rehearsed it.

We think it’s funny. Right. Yes.

But they’re going to tell us. And so there’s the whole like you can feel like the entire cast, like inward, like internally leaning forward, waiting, is this is this joke going to work? And it’s such a relief when it does.

[Victoria Sullivan]
Oh, it’s it’s just it’s a relief. It’s excitement. It’s all of these kind of smorgasbord of emotions that you’re reacting to generally on stage.

Yes, it’s great.

[Phil Rickaby]
It’s for sure.

[Victoria Sullivan]
And there’s no other feeling like it. Like, I don’t know if you find that in your shows, but there’s you can’t replicate that feeling with much.

[Phil Rickaby]
No, absolutely not. That’s the reason why we do it right. Nobody’s doing it.

Nobody’s doing it to get rich. So we do it because of that, of how of the of the love for it and how it makes us feel in the moment. Yeah, totally.

Well, Victoria, thank you so much for joining me. I really appreciate it. And I’m looking forward to minimum at Toronto Fringe.

[Victoria Sullivan]
Great, Phil, thank you so much for having me on the show.

[Phil Rickaby]
Thank you for listening to this episode of Stage Worthy. I am thrilled that you are here. If you haven’t already, if you’re watching on YouTube, make sure that you like this episode.

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They get to participate in some conversations about theatre in Canada and theatre in general. And the more people that join, the more I will be able to offer my patrons. Go to Patreon.com/stageworthy and become a patron. My guest next week is Chris Cracknell. Chris is a composer and theatre creator and musician based in Hamilton. He’s bringing his musical Pookamara Mistress of B-Roll to the Toronto Fringe.

Fascinating show. I can’t wait for you to hear about it. And that’s coming up next week on Stage Worthy.