Interview with Judith Schulz

Interview with Hope McIntyre and Judith Schulz

Hope The first question is just how long you’ve been working in your current role. So as a designer.

Judith  Yeah, as a designer, I’ve been working gigs since 2018, but I’ve been working with Saskatchewan Association of Theatre Professionals for the past year. And then I’ve been doing like tech gigs, stage management, production management, backstage stuff since 2017.

Hope  Excellent. And what was the pathway to get you to where you are now? Like, did you come through a training program? What was your journey?

Judith Yeah, for sure. So I think I’ve always had a love for theatre, but I did theatre all throughout high school. And then in my college degree, I did everything that was possibly an option. And then that led me to taking a university degree. And so I do have my BFA in theatre design from the U of S (University of Saskatchewan). And yeah, I started in acting in the first year and then I took the first class of my second year acting class, and I was like, you know what? I hate this. I don’t know why I didn’t realize this before, but I do. I love, I love acting, or at least I used to, but I didn’t like the process, especially such an academic process. And at that point I had gotten to know the design prof at the U of S, and we yeah, we got connected through stage management and then she was like, you know what, maybe you might like design. And that was the end of that. So yes, that’s where I got my training.

Hope Amazing. Yeah. I also went through U of S for my BFA, years ago. You’re working, which is great. It’s hard in this industry sometimes, so that is success in my mind. So what do you feel attributed to your ability to get from the training to actually working?

Judith  Yeah, for sure, I think. Obviously, this is not something that everybody could do, but I already had a degree under my belt, so I wasn’t straight out of high school. So I went into the university degree knowing what I wanted to do. I wanted to do theatre, I wanted to work in theatre. And so I was able to plan my degree with a lot of efficiency, knowing like, okay, we’re going to get all the extracurriculars that don’t have anything to do with theatre out of the way. We’re going to look very carefully at all of the theatre classes to see what is going to serve me the best, be able to add a bunch of skills to my backpack… tool kit, whatever you want to call it. But then I think and I don’t know who taught me to do this, I really wish I could attribute this to somebody, but I knew going in that I needed to network right away. I needed to make those connections in the professional theatre community in Saskatoon while I was still in university. Because once you leave, there’s such a disconnect of having access to the people that you can ask for help, that you can ask their opinion. Be like, where should I go? Who do I talk to? And actually getting the gigs. So I at least think that a lot of my success now is being able to make those connections and getting to know those people before I left the university. Yeah. So like asking people what they’re doing and searching out those opportunities. I did a couple of mentorships while I was still in university, which connected me to the Indie theatre folks, I guess the indie theatre producers in Saskatoon, I paid attention to who was posting their seasons, what the seasons were, and then like some basic stuff like showing up and doing your best work and really being kind to people and helping others where you could, even though it’s not necessarily your role in the show. Like, hey, do you need anything? Can I help you with anything? You just need to vent for a while? That sort of thing.

Hope That’s great. I love that. And yeah, certainly we did a national survey of graduates and networking came up as a huge, huge thing.

Judith  So yeah, especially when you’re in such a small community, everybody knows everybody and both your reputation and, yeah, who you know is just absolutely crucial.

Hope  Absolutely. Right. Is there anything that you wish you had known when you started out?

Judith Yes. It’s okay to say no. Yeah. It’s okay to say no to a gig in general, but also that it’s okay to say no to extra responsibilities once you’re already on that gig. Like there have been so many times where it’s like, oh, can you also do this? Like, oh, can you also make the poster? Oh, can you also help this person with their sound design because you know Qlab? No, I’m already burnt out. I’ve hit my max at this point in my knowledge of how to do things, but because you’re like, oh, well, I really want to be that person who gets asked back right? Then you might say yes. So, there’s some give and take knowing where your healthy boundaries are and what you need to survive as an artist is really important. So that was definitely a big learning curve for me, as I’m sure it is for a lot of people.

Hope Totally. Yeah, that is really helpful. And when you think about not only yourself, but if you’ve worked with other emerging artists in this area, is there a gap that you’ve notice in terms of knowledge?

Judith  I think so. Yeah. And I I’ve talked about this with a lot of people, and I’ve thought about it a lot. At the time when I went through, it’s changed a lot now, but the profs at the university weren’t necessarily always doing work outside of the university. So, I think there was a bit of disconnect there. They didn’t necessarily know lots of what was happening outside of their bubble, which was just a fact of life at that point. But, yeah, I think there’s still a gap in in how to make connections and how to network, how to handle your finances and treating yourself as a contractor and how to do your taxes and all that and, and like, especially how to negotiate your contract. I think that you can teach people how to act and how to sing and how to move til the cows come home. But if you don’t know how to negotiate a contract, you’re out, right? You’re not going to be able to make a living at this now.

Hope  Yeah, that’s great. It’s that business side, right? So, yeah.

Judith  Absolutely.

Hope  And you kind of touched on it with some of the things you just mentioned. Is there anything you want to add in terms of how universities could better prepare theatre workers as part of the training?

Judith  Yeah, I have a couple ideas. One is to start making those connections for them. And I don’t mean do the work for them. I just mean set them up for success, like hold networking events, get outside artists to mentor students while the students are doing the work in the productions at the universities. Right. Like there’s opportunities there to get students connected more than, especially the shy ones or the ones who are like, I want to do this, but I don’t have the skills to just, or the mindset, to just go out to those networking events. Like that’s terrifying for a lot of people. But if you have a few under your belt, you’re much more likely to go out and be like, I can do this. I did this at university. Not that much different. And then my other thought was, why don’t we have a course for the finances stuff for every degree. Not just for theatre stuff, but like taxes, negotiating contracts, investing, saving, how to survive this gig economy when you’re not working all the time. And like how to write grants is also important, even for a designer.

Hope  Absolutely. I like that you said even for a designer, because I think it’s only those who want to self-produce that have to learn how to write a grant.

Judith  No, not true.

Hope  And if you think about like how you secured work, as a designer, what are the steps like? How do you get a job?

Judith  I think the most important thing that I’ve found is to meet with the Ads, to get your face in front of their face, but also get to know the admin staff. Get to know GMs. Get to know TDs. It really stands you in good stead when they’re thinking of who should we get for the shows next season. Also apply for everything. Even if you don’t know if you want the job, that feels like it should be common sense, but maybe it’s not to some people. And then also like use your social media and your portfolio to your advantage. Like when you have a production running, even if it’s a university production, like post behind the scenes stuff, post what you’re doing and how you’re doing it. And if there’s something really cool or unique about your show, it makes more sense to post about it so that somebody might see it down the line, be like, oh, they really know how to do that thing. Nobody else does. Let’s hire that.

Hope That’s great. Love that. And more specifically, what needs to be in place in terms of a portfolio or a way to demonstrate your skills. So, yeah, I think a lot of our students have never been taught how to create a portfolio. What should go in a portfolio?

Judith Totally. I think it’s more important to keep it up to date. I go to so many artists’ websites and note like this is hard to read. It’s like chunky. It has work from ten years ago. Like that might not be what you’re doing now. So yeah, keep your resumé up to date. I was also thinking, don’t necessarily put all the work in your portfolio. Have a master list somewhere where you don’t need the stuff where you’re doing menial jobs. You don’t need to display that as your like, this is your best of the best on your resume. I also learned a while back to put AD names and Directors names on it, next to the show that you worked so that it shows who you’ve worked with and you know somebody might be really good at collaboration or devising theatre. And I saw that you worked with them, and that might lead to another gig. Yeah. And then portfolio. This is, I’m a bit passionate about this because I’ve seen so many bad ones and communication is just so vital to theatre in general. Everything that we do and every role. Don’t overcomplicate it. Keep it simple. And, if you have a website, make sure it’s easy to navigate.

Hope  Yeah, that’s great. And then, if you were looking to have an apprentice or to mentor someone or hire a collaborator – what are the things that you would look for in those folks?

Judith  I think the two biggest things are being eager to learn and eager to work. I can’t help somebody or we can’t have a relationship if you’re not asking questions, if we’re not able to dialogue. I worked with a couple people who observe a lot. And so they are often sitting in the back and I never know like, how are we doing? Are you getting anything out of this? Are you learning anything? I hope they are, but it’s a lot more difficult with that sort of thing than somebody who’s like, hey, how do you do this? Like, I’ve never done this before. Can I try it? Like, can you teach me how? And I know a lot of that is like a personal thing of how you treat yourself and how you experience the world. But I think some of it can be taught. Ask more questions. Get in there. Yeah, actually have the conversations you need to be having to learn the stuff or work on the stuff that you need to do. And then, this is another thing that I’ve seen. I recently did a show back at the university and I think being eager to work puts you miles ahead of everyone else. When you show up and you put in the time somebody, actually there were a few students who were saying, oh, I can’t that day or oh, I didn’t have the schedule, so I didn’t know that was happening. No, you get the schedule. That’s your job from day one. What’s the schedule? When do I need to be here? So, if you do that, if you think ahead, I guess that’s the real thing is being able to think ahead and anticipate what you’re going to need, what you’re going to need to do. Yeah. Like I said, will set you miles, miles ahead of everyone else.

Hope  Absolutely. And are there any resources that you would recommend to students or emerging theatre workers who are struggling?

Judith So it’s a little bit trickier because there’s lots of different options and, and I could list things like go to this website and read this person’s blog, but thinking more tangibly and more generally… Something that I did was taking ADCs new contract and making my own contract. And you really get to know what’s expected of you, what you can expect from the theatre, the standards of working, what you need to do to do the job. So that was really eye opening for me. And that also teaches you a little bit about how you can negotiate your contract because you’re like, I’m not ADC yet, but they have this in their contract and why can’t I ask for it here? Was really beneficial. Along the lines of something I mentioned earlier about getting to know ADs. There’s been a lot of switch over in the past two years here and they’ve said, you know, I want to meet everybody in the community. I’m new to the community. Let’s go for coffee, I’ll take you for coffee. And I think that is, that’s a beautiful thing for an AD to be able to offer that. But if you’re in the situation where you are, you’re emerging out of university and they’re not a new AD, just send them an email. Show up at their office and see if you can book a coffee meeting. Nine times out of ten, I bet they’re going to say yes. And then at those meetings, my thinking at least, is don’t have an agenda to talk about yourself, ask about them, ask about the shows they’re doing. There was one AD I chatted with, she had just finished her dissertation, so we talked about that for a while. But obviously, do be prepared to answer questions about yourself and speak about yourself in a good light kind of thing. I also had thought, become members of your province’s support organizations, like they’re constantly trying to… Speaking as the person who is the communications person for one of those organizations, but they’re constantly trying to help, help artists succeed, especially emerging artists. So, yeah, do some Google searching and find out what that means and get connected with the right people. Play literacy is also huge, like reading, read plays, go see plays. The more you know, the better. And, I’ve found, if you go see all of the plays, even if you’re not involved in them… one, two, three years down the road, somebody is going to be like, “Oh, did you see this project, this project, this production? We want to do something similar to that or like we’re not doing it like that”, that sort of thing. It helps. It helps you do your job. It helps you communicate, especially with directors. Sometimes, I love directors, but sometimes they’re not very visual people or they don’t necessarily know what they want, but they know they’ve seen something similar. So that can be helpful as well.

Hope  Yeah. That’s great. Wow. I love how prepared you are. Fabulous. Any other advice you have for those leaving training and entering the profession?

Judith  Yeah, I think if you can get connected with other emerging artists and students and produce your own work, that’s huge. It should go without saying that you should know the people in your own theatre department. But some people keep to themselves. Yeah, I think I think the ones that succeed get to know their peers, because really, you’re going to be doing a lot of work… if they stay in that city, if they stay in that location, you’re going to be doing a lot of work with them over the next five, ten, 20, 30 years. And it also gives you, if you produce your own work, it’s not necessarily something you have to do, but if you do, it gives you the experience. It’s a safe place to do it. You get a credit to put on your CV and those connections that you make with those artists will likely want to work with you again. Like if they’re going to become producers, that’s a good step there. And then also seek out shows that you are interested in either content or like, I really want to work with this designer, get to know, get inside their brain and how they do things and ask if you can shadow their work. Because often people like the people in the room would say, yes, if you’re just sitting in the corner, it’s not like there isn’t space for it. And it’s, it’s pretty valuable to see how professional tech works and everybody runs the room a little bit differently, obviously. And each show has their own challenges that you have to work through on tech weekend. And I feel like it’s a lot easier to ask even emerging artists if they are willing to sacrifice a weekend to learn so much for nothing rather than, hey, you want to mentor on the show and you’re there for six weeks or two months and you’re not making anything sort of thing.

Hope Yeah. That’s fabulous. As you look towards the future, is there anything that you feel we should be working towards in student readiness or any trends or changes that you hope are happening in the industry that you want to share?

Judith Yeah, I mean, it’s an exciting time in general and the fact that the pandemic and BlackLivesMatter and all of these social things are happening to change how we work and how we, and how we have that work life balance, I think how to avoid burnout is super, super crucial. I see so many emerging artists diving into job after job after job, and they’re living in that constant state of burnout. And I’m like, how are you? You’re going to die before you’re 40. Like, it’s just really not healthy. And I think people don’t realize how unhealthy it is. Yeah, very passionate about that one as well. How to manage overlapping contracts, sort of the burnout thing. But even just this, this is how you schedule things, this is what you can expect. Yeah. How to do theatre and a side hustle so you can make ends meet. Yeah. I’m seeing a trend at least in Saskatoon, of… There’s a lot of actors that aren’t getting work. There are not enough shows. And the shows that are being produced now have fewer actors thanks to COVID, which is really hard. Like, I don’t know. I don’t know what to say. There needs to, I think there needs to be more producers out there. But that’s another conversation. Along those same lines, how to diversify your skill sets so that you’re more hirable, but still being able to be excellent at your main skills of choice. How to market yourself is really important, that goes along with the portfolio conversation and resumé and stuff like that. How do you, how to talk about yourself, how to give a good design presentation on the first day. I had a conversation the other day with a current fourth year student. And she was speaking on behalf of her class that they want to get out in the working force before the end of their degree. But the information or the classes that actually teach how to get gigs and how to audition and all that stuff is only at the end of fourth year. And they want to know that, you know, like at the beginning, once they enter into the program so that they could maybe get understudy roles or swing roles, teach them how to get gigs early on so they can make those connections and work in them. Also, it’s a safe environment to then come back to your profs and say, okay, I have this gig now. Do you have advice? Can I get some thoughts on this – that sort of thing?

Hope  Yeah. That’s incredible. We have those conversations with our students all the time.

Judith  Yeah.

Hope  So now, I mean I just kind of drill down into the more specific questions. I know you also have the other job, which is something else we learned from the survey that most people have that other job in this industry, but from the self-employed standpoint, what are the challenges of having to manage your own career or manage yourself as a as a business associate?

Judith Honestly, it’s keeping on top of everything. I was just talking with someone the other day saying, I feel like I just get control of this one corner of my life and then I take a step back and see everything else is crumbling behind me, which is really hard. You have to be able to make sure you meet all the deadlines and still have a balanced life. And I, I don’t know if you could teach somebody that. I think it’s just experience and learning from your mistakes, but not being afraid of the mistakes either. Yeah. And then making sure you meet all those deadlines to apply. I was kicking myself about one the other day, but it is what it is. You know, if you don’t apply. You have no excuse.

Hope Excellent. And you mentioned saying no. When do you feel, and maybe it’s a personal thing, but when should you say no to a gig? Are there certain things that people should flag?

Judith  Yeah. The obvious one is when it’s a scheduling issue or a conflict. Sometimes you just physically can’t be two places at once. That just is the reality of humanity. But I think going a bit deeper into it, if the contract, if they’re not able to offer you enough money, unless it’s like a passion project, I would usually say no. And again, that comes down to negotiating a contract. But if there’s really not enough money in their budget to offer you a fair wage, that’s enough. I’ve also had to say no if there’s a person or people on the team that aren’t ethical or treat their collaborators right or not good people. I don’t really know how to say that without giving specific examples, which I don’t want to do. But, you know, like if there are people on the team that you’re like, you should be in the news or you should be in the jail, or you should be going through lawsuits, just say, no, it’s going to be safer for you and everyone else involved to. And then the third, I guess fourth thing that I’ve had to say personally was if I don’t agree with something that’s in the script, which leads me to a super important lesson that I’ve learned, is always read the script first before you say yes to any contract and I’ve never had any problems with like somebody said, hey, are you interested in this show? Can I read the script first? Unless it’s a devised piece. Obviously, when there is no script yet, but yeah make sure you know what’s in the script before you work on it. I’ve also worked with some techs who are like, I don’t want to. I want to be surprised at tech. And I’m like, but what if you have issues? What if you have triggers in that play that are going to affect you as a human being? Like, that’s not okay. Yeah.

Hope  Yeah, we were just having that conversation on our play selection committee for our department – how we make sure we have students read the scripts before they sign up to a course where they have to work on the play, right?

Judith  Absolutely. That’s. That’s so important. And yeah, not thought about five, ten, 20 years ago, I’m sure.

Hope  Exactly. Yeah. And I know you mentioned self-producing as a good thing earlier. Any other thoughts on why an emerging artist might want to consider self-producing?

Judith  Um, I think it can be a good thing, but it’s also quite expensive, especially in this day and age. If you want to be able to pay people and pay for a video. I’ve mentioned, you know, if it’s your passion project and you can find people that are also willing to do that project for free, I would say don’t make your friends work for free unless you have to. But I think it’s equally as important to meet the ADs and get your face out there, than to produce a show that they might not be able to come see. Right. Yeah, it can be helpful if you weren’t able to work on the university shows. So, you don’t have some credits behind your belt. But, you know, there are other options, like go work on community theatre. Um, if you want the credits. And you want some, some evidence of the work you can do, and you’re willing to do that without getting paid. That’s, that’s always an option, too.

Hope  I hadn’t thought of that, that’s a great option because then you don’t have to do all of the labour of the self-producing for sure. Yeah. Yeah.

Judith  And you know, like community theatre has come a surprisingly long way, I think probably because there’s always or not always, there’s often at least a handful of pro people in the community theatre feeding into that that knowledge and that learning.

Hope Absolutely. Yeah. All right, I’m going to switch to just some design specific questions. So, we talked about how to get the gig, but how did you get your first professional design gig?

Judith  I had to go back into my CV to look because I couldn’t remember what was the… So, I guess I have a little bit of a staggered, what my first paying design gig was for assistant costumes, and it was through one of the companies in town who has an emerging artist program. So, I applied for that at the encouragement of my prof, and then I was her design assistant in the following summer. But my first full, like non-assistant design paying gig, was a fringe show. Somebody had had heard my name through word of mouth, and that’s how I got hired.

Hope Excellent. So, again, that word of mouth piece.

Judith You bet. Yup. That’s crucial.

Hope  And how do you get your work seen by ADs and directors. I know you’ve said about meeting and reaching out to them but do you have any tips on how you get them to come and see the work?

Judith  Send them an email, invite them to the show, tell them about it or post about it. Like, be vocal. Be vocal on social media. They will be looking for new for fresh blood. But they’ll be looking for fresh faces. And if, if you’re working. At least in any sort of capacity that you get your name on a program or on the Web, on a company’s website. Even if you don’t initially reach out to them, they likely will have heard of you. I can’t speak for certain in the bigger centres, but if it’s a mid to smaller sized centre, they would probably have heard of you. Also send them a streamlined version of your portfolio, like a 1-to-2-page PDF, especially after they announce their next season. When they’re thinking about people. Yeah.

Hope Excellent. Now, the second part of that question was just what if you don’t have any work to show yet? And I think you’ve talked a bit about that. Anything you want to add?

Judith  Yeah. The obvious one that I think some people probably would think of would be sign up for mentorships, be an assistant, shadow people like, get in. That’s a that’s a way to get your foot in the door without signing a big contract, right? But something that I’ve never tried to its full extent, but I’ve always wanted to is after a season announcement, contact the theatre, see if you can get the scripts or, or find them elsewhere. If you don’t want to contact the theatre or if they’re not able to give you the script. And then make a mock up or a design presentation to pitch and send it off to the AD. If you’re willing to do the extra work and, and / or you want something to put in your portfolio, it can’t hurt, right?

Hope  Absolutely. Yeah, that’s great. I mean, if you’re getting the work, you don’t need to do that. But if there is that that gap, that’s a great idea. Amazing. And then lastly, we talk a lot with our students about when is it right to join an association. In terms of Associate Designers of Canada, it’s not quite as limiting as like having to join Equity might be for other professionals, but do you have any advice about joining associations?

Judith  This was a particularly, ADC was a bit tricky for me because I literally sent in my application last month. I think, I don’t know, a couple of thoughts I had was like when, when you’re working enough to afford it, when, when you want to work nationally, as soon as you know 1 to 2 ADC members so they can give you some references. Like, that’s also important. But I have heard that it’s more beneficial to you as an artist to join early in your career rather than towards the end. You get more out of it. But in terms of associations in general, I think it just depends what you want to do. Like IATSE or like I said, I mentioned I work for Saskatchewan Association of Theatre Professionals. Some are going to be more beneficial than others. So do your research, look on web sites, contact their ADs, or whoever is in charge and just ask about the organization, how it could benefit you, what it would cost, or what it would cost from you, either in monetary value or time or whatever you need to join. Yeah. Put your foot in the door. I think it’s also a good way to put your foot in the door.

Hope Absolutely. Absolutely. That’s great. Amazing. Is there anything we haven’t covered that,  you want to add or –

Judith  Show up to opening nights. If you can. But even, or if you can’t see a show, reach out to them and see if you can sit in on a tech, a tech rehearsal or something like that. Get to know your tech people. And being nice to them is also important. Yeah, because theatre people are notorious for talking about each other. And I have such a love hate relationship with it. But yeah, be nice to people, I think is the bottom line.

Hope  Absolutely. Yeah. Which is good in life in general.

Judith It is. But especially when you’re in a close-knit community where word of mouth is everything.