The Storyteller's Stories

             

                                                                                                       

 

                                                                                                      HOW THE STORYTELLER'S STORIES WAS BORN:

             

             

              The storyteller’s Stories is a brainchild I had while I was in between contracts last year. Read; out of work. *shudder* I found myself getting really down. I was starting to lose hope and beat up on myself because I had had a bunch of great auditions but none of them resulted in contracts. I was becoming dejected and losing sight of what I really loved about my job. During one particularly dark night, I came to the completely sane and not-at-all self-indulgent realization that the reason I didn’t bag a role was because I needed to lose ten pounds and become an infinitely more interesting/different person altogether. Suffice to say I wasn't ready to end my pity party. I started to ask myself "why am I even doing this? Why do I spend all my time striving for a job that seems like it doesn’t want me? What do I actually love about it? What am I not getting? There must be some rhyme or reason to it all!!!" And because I couldn’t find any good answers I started to come up with more and more questions. I dropped the bottle of cava I was nursing (full disclosure: complete lie I drained that sucker, I'm not an animal), ended the pity party and catastrophizing and started to brainstorm. I started to think of all the people who have come into my life because of theatre. POW there was an answer to why I love this shit! I love the people I work with.  Some of the most kind, unique, fierce people who fill my life are from the theatre. Ok, one answer down! I had So. Many. Questions.I decided that instead of trying to answer all of my questions, I'd take the lazy route and make other people do it! And that's how the storyteller's stories questionnaire was born. I wanted to converse with my inspiring and genius colleagues and pick their brains. I wanted to make something permanent about a medium that is impermanent. I wanted to talk to other artistic people about the thing we are most passionate about and give them a voice. My colleagues wear SO MANY HATS. They are often underpaid or unpaid. They are mini CEOs and they are lucky if they clear $30,000 a year. Reallllllly lucky. There is something more powerful than money driving them. This needed exploration.

 

             So... I came up with a list of questions and I decided I was going to ask everyone the same questions. I wanted to show that artists are unique and complicated and individual and that there is no right or wrong way when it comes to craft. The Storytellers Stories is basically an excuse for me to hang out with people I admire and absorb their brilliance. It was very important to me that I ask everyone the same questions. I wanted to seek parallels and juxtapositions. I was desperate to really try and figure out what makes things work. What makes people tick. What gives them joy! I wanted to really understand the kind of crazy it takes to do this for a living. And thus The Storyteller’s Stories was born.

           

             The theatre scene in Canada is still, comparatively, young and there’s a lot of exciting things happening and they deserve to be archived and documented. I also hope that this project can help theatre students, hopefuls, and enthusiasts understand that there is no one way of doing things. I want this to be a resource, a way to get to know different artists in the field.

 

 At the very least, I hope The Storytellers Stories will contribute a little something to the conversation about Canadian Theatre. And mostly I just wanted to ask some really cool people some really lame questions and hang out with them.

 

            The core questions I asked everyone are in bold. I have edited the interviews slightly when something was inaudible on my recordings or if an artist has asked me to leave something out or tweak something. I wanted the conversations to read exactly as they were spoken so if they don't follow perfect grammar or sentence structure...that's my excuse. The answers are all off the cuff. I didn't give the list of questions to anyone before interviewing them. The interviews have been lightly edited but I would say 99% of them are exactly as they were in my recordings.  Italics are used for script/play titles and moments during the interview I felt were interesting or that give you more insight into the tenor of the conversation.

 

             If you've made it this far, thank you. I hope you find these interviews as insightful and nourishing as I have.

 

Enjoy!

 

Gabbie L.