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My dear friend and collaborator Mishelle and I wrote a little holiday song last night.  Like the rest of the year, the holidays are as beautiful as they are sad, as joyful as they are hard.  Here’s to surviving it all and sticking it out for another round.

I hate having my picture taken.  I can’t remember when I started hating it, but the impulse to cringe every time I see a lens is muscle memory now.  And in a sort of delicious circular irony, my self-loathing is evident on film and makes each picture worse than the last.  There’s a feedback loop that follows – feeling bad, looking bad.  And someone always makes the comment: “Aren’t actors supposed to love the camera?”

I think we all know now what young women (and people of all kinds, but I can only speak about what I know) are up against when it comes to self image.  Women are given a million things to be, and only allowed a tiny space to do it in.  And sometimes I feel like being an actor means jumping straight into the fire – until we add to and change the canon of Western theatre and drama, we’re often expected to embody the tropes that are part of this damaging system we grew up in.  The more I look for it, the more I see it – women in plays whose beauty (or lack thereof) is as crucial a demonstration of their character as their words and actions.  It strikes me that even in the medium that I love and trust, being beautiful is still an utterly essential thing to be.

And if you set yourself on the outside of that thing – for whatever reason – you wonder where your place is.   I think about every time I ignored someone who said I was smart because all I wanted to be was beautiful.  It’s hard to admit that, because beauty is political and frivolous and important all at the same time.  It’s everything and it’s nothing, and it’s tied to history and privilege and capitalism and a million things that are hard to understand all at once.  It’s also hard to talk about, because comparison is a weapon that is used to scare us all into silence.  When someone speaks their personal shame, I may swallow it along with them because in my eyes they’re closer to some unattainable standard – if she’s not beautiful, then what am I?

We live in a shallow culture that deplores vanity.  It’s this contradiction that makes me fascinated with the rise of the selfie.  Egotistical, perhaps, but also a celebration of one’s own (personally vetted) beauty?  Or is it the feedback loop again – seek approval to feel approved of?  I want to participate somehow, but it doesn’t work for me.  Every time – snap, cringe, delete.  The only selfies I’ve kept were a hilarious series of ‘exhaustion selfies’ I took this summer when I was working too hard and looked like hell.  The series culminated in a hospital selfie following a surgery resulting from a ridiculous (but minor) bike accident.  I don’t know why I took them.  I guess it’s because they were not beautiful at all, but they were the real thing.

I hate having my picture taken, but I love taking pictures.  I decided to challenge myself to take a self portrait (I suppose it’s a selfie if it’s on an iPhone and a ‘self portrait’ on a DSLR, no? That’s what I’ll go with).  I think, maybe with complete agency, I can do this – I set the lights, I pick the lens, I make my mirror face until I realize how dumb it really looks.  I will set up the shot and then set the timer and snap away at myself until I find my perfect face.  A beautiful face.

I only liked three photos, which were taken before I was ready.  They are a portrait of myself in a moment where I am not concerned if I am beautiful or not.  In these photos I see myself starting to slowly unclench, finger by finger, letting go of the bullshit I’ve held onto for so long.  I see myself not giving a fuck if I’ll ever be a leading lady or not.  I see myself existing just for myself.  And for once, I see myself as beautiful.

For the first time in 5 years, I’m not working at a theatre box office.  Before I started university, I decided I’d rather my day job be in the theatre – in any capacity – rather than not related to the arts at all. Eventually, I ended up working for 3 different box offices.  I feel like I’ve sold thousands of tickets – and I probably have.  For the first time since getting that job five years ago, my artistic pursuits now take up my entire schedule.  I’ve said goodbye to the box office.  It’s extremely exciting, a little bit scary, and most surprisingly, it’s a little sad.

Because for as much as I have been driven insane with typical customer service absurdity (there’s a tumblr for it) I have also had the pleasure of meeting countless wonderful people and been privy to some pretty special stories about how the theatre has touched people’s lives.  There are too many to tell of.  The awkward first dates.  The middle-aged man who decided to perform the balcony scene to me from my box office window at Bard in front of his mortified family (obviously I joined in).  The group of old friends – now elderly – who come to the theatre together each month, even as their numbers dwindle as the years go by.  These are the people that fill the seats of our theatres, and they are in so many ways the heartbeat of a professional theatre.

I’ve learned a lot about theatre audiences over the last five years, and I want to write down a few things so that I never forget them.

AUDIENCES KNOW WHAT THEY LIKE

Honestly, there’s nothing I hate more than hearing artists or administrators express contempt for their audiences and their taste.  Yes – I absolutely agree that as artists, we have a responsibility to uphold the standards of the work in our community, and to always be improving and exploring our practice.  And we can do just that by executing populist programming with the same care and rigor with which we approach all other work.  But how dare we say that audiences enjoy shows we deem ‘unworthy’ because they don’t know any better?  Ridiculous.  Theatre audiences have TV, they have Netflix, they have a billion movies to see.  They have plenty of choices.  But they put the money down and come to certain shows because they like them.  And they come back because they want to share the experience again.  And if it’s crap?  They will not return.  I would love to stop dismissing these audiences and shows, and rather see them as the beginning of a love affair between patron and theatre.  Maybe it took a blockbuster show to get them in the door, but if we treat them well, invite them back with care and consideration – they just might come to your Butoh-inspired post-modern Hamlet with lots of projections you want them to see.

COMING TO THE THEATRE IS A BIG DEAL

There’s a special place in my heart for the patrons who overcome significant physical, circumstantial or financial difficulty to come to the theatre.  There are a lot of them, and our work means more to them than I think we understand.  And sometimes I wonder about how these are the folks who tend to end up with the worst seats, with the bumpiest audience experience.  Accessibility is an essential word – what is the experience like for someone with mobility issues?  Someone with vision or hearing impairment?  Every person’s budget for entertainment is different, but why should someone for whom a theatre ticket is 50% of their monthly budget have a different experience than someone for whom it’s 10%?  These are tricky questions, and I think our audience services practices in Vancouver have moved closer to tackling this in some ways, and much farther away in others.

Regardless, spending endless hours on the phone with patrons has revealed to me the stakes involved in coming to see a show.  Buying a ticket has more than monetary value – it’s what someone has chosen to do with their one evening off, what they choose to show their aunt from out-of-town, the special treat they’ve given a spouse or child.  There is value there far beyond what they paid for their ticket.  And sure, for us sometimes it’s just another night of work, another show in and out, another house count.  But for most patrons it’s the highlight of their week or month and a highly anticipated event.  How can we support that value in the way we treat our patrons before and after the show?

AUDIENCES ARE AS COMPLICATED AS THE WORK ON STAGE

My wish is that everyone reading this says the word “target audience” three times out loud and then never again.  STOP saying that you are targeting an audience.  It sounds like you are going to shoot them, and I honestly believe the thinking behind it is as mean as its imagery.  Non-profit theatre is desperate to “engage” audiences, and to find those eagerly sought-after demographics.  To rip them from their homes and strap them to a theatre seat, shouting “THIS IS FOR YOU!  DO YOU LIKE IT?!”  Kay, that might be a bit dramatic, but that’s what it feels like sometimes.  But I will say this – to me, art is all about embracing both the oneness and diversity of the human experience.  Every story is a unique snapshot of a critical moment in time – and guess what?  So are our real lives.  When you create and market a show assuming or hoping that all “middle class women between 45-65” (or my favorite cryptic demographic, “young people”) will enjoy it, the work is likely to be as generic and non-specific as the people you’re targeting.

The people sitting in the house each night have lived.  They’ve met people, loved them, married them, lost them, buried them or are sitting next to them.  They’ve traveled, made mistakes, made families, had killer careers or did drugs in a basement suite for 3 years before moving to Montreal.  Stop assuming that their age, gender or income is going to tell you what kind of show they’re going to like.  An example – when selling tickets to a highly lauded new American play, we warned audiences (as of course, I believe we should) about the content and language.  The assumption was that the older people would be turned off by that.  The number one response I got from elderly ticket buyers?  “Sweetheart, I’ve heard it all.”

The plays people love the most are fiercely original, bravely vulnerable and honest to the last word.  It doesn’t matter what the show is – I’ve seen hot sell-out shows that were musicals, puppet shows, character dramas or solo shows.  Those shows have nothing in common except the ferocity of the work on stage, something no ‘targeted’ marketing can create.  And nothing touches me more than to have patrons see a show, and call back the next day to buy more tickets because they must share the experience with the people they love.  That is how the job is supposed to be done.  We tell stories of critical importance that make those watching feel known, that bring us together.  That’s the gig, guys.

EPILOGUE

It’s not as if we are not all always trying to be better at bringing in audiences.  But if anything, writing this out is a way to purge my many long-held beliefs about audience services before I bid it adieu.  But I can’t do something for 5 years without learning from it and wanting to share those things.  So in brief, some thoughts:

ARTISTS – I honestly believe that every theatre practitioner should work with audiences (Front of House or Box Office) as much as they can, especially early in their careers.  You will learn things about our work that you’d never think of on your own.  It will change your perception of the value of theatre, and it will change the rigour with which you tend to your craft.  And when you go back to work, don’t forget the people putting on the show on the other side of the curtain – y’all have a lot in common.

LEADERS – EDs, ADs, GMs, APs or whatever you are calling yourself – if you run a theatre, take one day during every run to get out of the office and come to your theatre instead.  Come early.  Watch who shows up first.  Where do they sit while they wait?  Who is taking care of them?  Talk to them.  Find out why they come to your theatre.  Watch the front door.  Can people with mobility issues easily access your facility?  Do your staff have the resources they need to help them?  How does the lobby feel?  Can you hear people complaining about your ticket prices?  Can they take drinks into the theatre?  Do your staff have the resources they need to make things go well?  Talk to the people who are there alone.  Talk to the people who never miss a show.  They will tell you a lot.  Treat your front-line staff well, make sure they don’t burn out, and LISTEN to them.  The people who talk to your patrons every single day can tell you a lot about programming and marketing.

BO/FOH/BAR – Stay patient, stay nice, and stay fun.  Sometimes putting shows in feels like hosting a party every night.  Sometimes it feels like a war zone.  Fight for the resources you need to do your job properly, and speak up if you feel your company is treating its patrons badly with policy or practice. And never, never stop sneaking snacks into the box office.

AUDIENCES – Keep coming to the theatre.  Bring a friend.  Buy a ticket, come with an open mind.  Talk about it after, and tell the theatre what you like or don’t care for.  Write down your order number and for God’s sake, show up on time, okay?

And thank you, thank you for coming.

Philip Seymour Hoffman died yesterday.  An overdose.  He was, without a doubt, a brilliant artist whose work touched many.  He was also a father of three children.  He was also living with addiction.

As someone who loves a person who lives with addiction, I never know how to feel about these stories.  When a high profile addict dies, they are eulogized a million times over.  While all of them are heartfelt, none of them feel right to me.  The impulse, being the thoughtful beings we are, is to make sense of the senseless.  To assign some kind of order, to find an answer to why these brilliant young people leave us so soon and so suddenly.  To answer the unanswerable.

When I read some of the angriest and least compassionate responses, I wonder if those are the words of the ignorant, or the overly knowing.  Anger is inevitable in the proximity of someone who eats themselves alive.   I know that anger well.  But the words in those tirades use the language of stigma, the stigma that erodes the public support desperately needed to rescue these people from chemical cannibalism.  I also wonder about the responses that somehow connect his addiction with his artistic practice.  Romanticizing addiction in the context of the “tortured artist” elevates the tragedy to something other than what it is – a man who died.  Like the many people who die anonymously, leaving behind no brilliant body of work.  And what of those who walk through the fire and recover?

The loss is, of course, inconceivable.  The work he will never do.  The family he leaves behind.  But when you love someone with addiction, you don’t lose them all at once. You’re forever chasing them in and out of the void, dragging them back and forth across the threshold of forgiveness.  You lose them piece by piece, always hoping one day they will return to you whole again.  But now, it’s final.  His children will bear the weight of his lost genius, rather than bearing the weight of his arm helping him up the stairs at the old age he should have left them at.  They will bear the weight of knowing that their father had a certain amount of agency in his own death.

I only read one thing yesterday that really made sense to me.  Someone said “I wish he could have read all this before his final moments.”  I do, too.  I wish every person who struggles with addiction could hear the roar of the universe every time they pick up a needle, a bottle, a pill – a war cry against destruction; a cry of hope.  The roar that beckons them to step away from the void and to grace the earth with their personal genius for another day.  The love of another person desperately trying to claim them back from darkness.  That they might find the strength to struggle just a bit longer.  But maybe they do hear it, and certainly we do say it.  But sometimes it isn’t enough.  Instead, we are left with nothing.  Not a “selfish” person who chose to self-immolate at the hands of their vice.  Not a tortured soul whose sensitivities made the world too much to bear.  Just a person who died.  A bit of genius that will now be unknown to the world.  A million eulogies will soon follow him into the void; when we find at last that there is nothing left to say, the rest is silence.

Some supremely cool folks (Praxis Theatre’s Michael Wheeler, the NAC’s Sarah Garton Stanley, and Neworld’s own Adrienne Wong) have started up a lovely little corner of the web called the SpiderWebShow.  As they describe it:  “A theatrical space where Canada, the Internet and performance minds intersect.”  Basically, they’re the coolest kids in school.  They kindly asked me to contribute an article for their webzine #CdnCult Times.  The week’s theme was Barriers, and I’ve written about the struggle to balance career and craft as an early-career artist.  I’ve been quite touched by how many people have shared the article – the hardships of being an artist can sometimes be really isolating, even when many of your friends are in the “biz”.  I’m glad to know so many others out there feel the same way.  You can read it HERE.

I talk about it often, but (to me) it’s never enough.  I love my colleagues, and there’s a super special place in my heart for the artists I do STATIONARY with.  And not only because they happen to be most of my closest friends.  One special thing we share is music – we are the orchestra and ensemble of STATIONARY and have spent a lot of time playing together.  However, this summer some of my favorite musical moments happened offstage.  So here are two videos – one of us making some sweet music on the BC Ferry on our way to the Gabriola Theatre Festival, and one of us rocking out at the Vancouver International Fringe Festival.  Thanks, amigos.

Today for the first time I got soaked to the skin. This morning I rode my bike to work, drinking in the sun and carefree in canvas sneakers, an airy skirt and a light sweater. I am scared of riding my bike. I clench my hands hard on the handles, eyes darting left to right, ears listening for angry drivers revving their engines behind my slowly turning feet. I looked out the box office window all day, walked about in the sun for a pathetic 10 minutes. Rode hard and fast after work to some important meeting for one of those important things that I seem to do all the time. The minute we adjourned the meeting the first specks of rain mottled the windshields of parked cars. Then the rain came harder, faster, making the bell on my handlebars sing. The moment I swung my leg over my bike a flash of lightning lit up the pavement. By the time I was on my way I was in the midst of one of those monsoons, those rebellious moments of weather where we are reminded we live in a rainforest. I squinted and grumbled as I pedaled. I have been raised like a little porcelain egg, packaged and protected. Keep between 15 and 25 degrees celsius. Fragile. Keep away from water. But when you are cycling home in a rainstorm, you have no choice but to get wet. It soaked through my skirt first, splashing up onto my frozen thighs. Then my shoes went, first one, then the other, shoe then sock down to my soggy toes. My light grey sweater turned black and then plastered to my skin, just like my skirt. I felt almost naked. The rain hurt at first, like pins and needles. Soon my skin was numb and I felt warm all over, warm from within, somehow. More lightning. More thunder, just seconds apart from one another. I blazed through stop signs and flew down hills. My brakes barely work on a good day but on wet pavement they were simply an afterthought. I should have been smashed to pieces by a truck, skidded sideways on sharp turns, but I didn’t. I simply glided, uninterrupted through intersections and negotiated turns like I was one with the bike. I intentionally hit the puddles and leaped the curbs. I would have screamed out loud to the cozy Kitsilano streets if I could take a breath that didn’t burn. I would have thrown my arms in the air if I could pry my frozen fingers from the handlebars. So I didn’t. I just splashed through the soggy streets with a smile stuck on my face, laughing at the people running from car to front door, dodging fat raindrops that bounced off the pavement. Today something happened that I’ve carefully prevented all my life because it happened to me. I got soaked to the skin. And I let it happen because when you do that, the rain can’t get you wet. It’s under your skin.

recycled from a diary entry in 2010, cause sometimes you write it right the first time.  I also now have a bike with proper brakes, don’t worry.