Interview with Jovanni Sy

Interview with Hope McIntyre and Jovanni Sy

Hope  So the first question that I’ve been asking everyone is how long they’ve worked in their current role. But I think in this context it’s more like, how long have you been active in the industry as a theatre professional?

Jovanni  Yeah, I’ve been a professional theatre artist since 1992. I started as an actor. I think I wrote my first play in ‘98, so I added that to my bag of tricks and then directing around the year 2000. And along with those three things, which I still actively do, I’m a former Artistic Director. I was the Artistic Director of Cahoots Theatre in Toronto from 2004 to 2009. And then I was the Artistic Director of Gateway Theatre in Richmond, B.C., from 2012 to 2019.

Hope  Excellent. So, yes, multiple, multiple hats.

Jovanni Yes.

Hope  And what was your pathway like? So, because your first thing you mentioned was an actor. Did you come through actor training? What was your pathway into the industry?

Jovanni  Really unlikely and yeah, an unlikely pathway that’s probably not going to be replicated again these days. But I fell into it by accident. I got my undergrad degree in engineering. I graduated University of Toronto in engineering in 1988. I worked in the professional corporate world for four and a half years, right after graduation. When I was studying engineering, I used to do this musical comedy revue in the engineering faculty. And then when I started in the corporate world, I started doing community theatre, amateur theatre, mostly musicals. And back then in 1992, I decided I wanted to act for a living. So, I just decided to do that with very little due diligence in the sense that I didn’t really research how hard of a life it was. And to be perfectly frank, I just got really fortunate. Like, I did study a lot on an ad hoc basis, you know, a lot of professional development courses. So, I feel like I’ve done my time working on all the fundamentals of acting. But I worked on the boards, I learned on the boards. I really worked steady in mostly stage, but a bit of film in TV, for the first five years, I could earn a living doing all that in Toronto, and that’s why I said it’s really unlikely today that anybody would hire someone with no professional training like I did, and it was just a different time. I don’t think, I wouldn’t even advise anybody to do what I did.

Hope  So that’s interesting. I didn’t even know that about you, that you started as an engineer. That’s incredible.

Jovanni Yeah.

Hope  And then, so because you had this unique pathway, what do you attribute to your success? What do you think helped you to get from there to where you are now?

Jovanni  Well, you know, I did talk about luck. And I’m not just being glib. I mean, my story is so unlikely that luck played a large factor. But, you know, what do I attribute it to? I worked incredibly hard. I never stopped studying. I mean, even though I have no formal training, I was a class hound and I still love learning new things. So, I attribute it to a desire to learn, a desire to improve my skills, whether it be in acting or playwriting or directing. You know, case in point, I’m still completing my MFA, even though I’ve had a 30-year theatre career. I’m doing my MFA from University of Calgary because there’s always more to learn. So, I attribute it to that. I attribute it to keeping an open mind and just being aware of opportunities that are out there. And actually, I can add one more thing because I think it’s something that a lot of people need to know. You need to ask for help. I knew, I knew how to ask for help and where to look for help. So, I found my mentors because I sought them out, not because they chose me. And I think a lot of people who are starting today don’t really quite understand that mentors aren’t people who select you. They’re sought out.

Hope  That’s great. That’s amazing. And is there anything you wish you had known when you started?

Jovanni  You know, as I said, I was blissfully ignorant. (laugh) I think if I had known more, I never would have been courageous enough to make such a radical career change. You know, okay. Hmm. How do I put this? I’ve written about this a lot that my career shift into the arts was my awakening into structural racism. Like I’ve said, I was almost unaware that I was a Chinese person because it didn’t matter so much in engineering. It was, for all its faults and for being horrendously sexist, engineering is still pretty well a meritocracy, like nobody really cares what race you are if you know how to do your job. And that was not the case in theatre. And I, it hit me hard that sense that, that I am so closely defined by, by the way I look. That’s different now. It’s not perfect now, but it’s a lot different than it was in 1992. So, I still would have probably done it. But I guess I wish I had had a gentler landing into that sense of kind of an identity crisis that I had.

Hope  That’s great. Yeah. Thank you for that. And you work with emerging artists as well, I know, in different capacities. What do you think is the gap that you’ve noticed in the knowledge of those who are coming out of training programs or who are starting their careers right now?

Jovanni  I don’t know if actors coming out of programs today are, have the vocal technique that I’d say people had before. Like, I noticed when I’m directing, I really need to prompt people more to actually like, I don’t know if they know how to play a big space. So, so because you know, they’re used to playing to small rooms. And so, I would note, I would say that theatre training today probably leaves actors less prepared to play big rooms. The other thing I would say is script analysis. Like, I think that, I find that I have to walk people through how to break down a text to know the basics of what is happening, what is the essential action, what are the beats of the moment, what do I want? Like I find people, young artists are probably less savvy about how to break down a text then when I first started, and I’m hoping I’m not sounding like a grumpy old man, but I’ve really noticed that those are the two areas where, where I’d say people are more lacking. On the other hand, I’d say people are much more confident and like, there’s that sense, like people aren’t as broken coming out of schools, which I’m a big fan of. Like, I think, I think schools used to have the philosophy to break you down. And I don’t see that as much. I see people who are, you know, better suited to function as human beings and they’re confident and are more aware of their bodies and more forgiving of themselves. So that’s a good thing.

Hope  That’s great. Yeah, that’s really helpful. Thank you. And then, I think that you’ve kind of touched on how we could better prepare our theatre workers as part of training at universities. Is there anything that you would add in terms of what you wish universities were doing?

Jovanni  I think so. I mean, I kind of admire, it’s not even an… I mean Studio 58 at Langarain Vancouver is a conservatory-based program. It’s, I guess it’s a college rather than university. But what I wish universities would emulate is the way they integrate their students into the professional world. There’s more overlap that I don’t necessarily see at some of the other university programs. And the other things that Studio 58 does well is to immerse their students in the business, like basically for those who actually want to go and become practitioners to explain to them you are essentially a small business owner and here’s how you handle the nuts and bolts of, you know, managing your money and just really basic fundamental things that they don’t teach you, they really should. It’s kind of criminal to ask someone to become a small business owner and not give them the basic tools to operate that business.

Hope  That’s great. Yeah. And that’s the course I’ve been trying to teach. And it’s funny that our students, they don’t have to take it and many don’t take it. But we’re like, you should!

Jovanni  You’re going to learn one way or the other. And I’d rather learn in a risk free environment than, you know, owning a bank $10,000. Totally.

Hope  Yeah. Excellent. And in terms of your experience and our students coming out, how do you secure work? How do you get work as an actor? Is it still the traditional generals, and auditioning or are there other things they should be doing?

Jovanni  Yeah, I mean, it’s still the same basic two streams. You come out, you did your generals and for the, you know I’m not going to say the top 5%, but for the lucky 2 to 5%, they get picked up by the local regional theatre. So it’s going to be RMTC or here you’ll get noticed and work as an emerging actor from the Arts Club or Bard on the Beach or in Ontario, you know, Stratford, Shaw, Soulpepper, the usual big ones will take 2%. And it’s not necessarily the top 2%, it’s just the 2% they take a fancy to. And if you’re not among the lucky group, that kind of gets your entry point into regular work and mentorship that way through a large company, you kind of have to do the indie route or make your own work. So, the way you secure work is make it for yourself and choose your peer group wisely. Because, the people who are running larger institutions now were the people who started their own projects with their friends ten, 15 years ago and worked hard at it and learned how to write grants and learned how to self-produce. So, I think if that’s really how you see your work, you either get the jackpot out of school or you find your own cohort and you lift yourselves together as a cohort.

Hope  And would you say it’s the same from a director’s perspective, in terms of how you’ve sort of secured work as a director?

Jovanni  That is trickier. I think the best way to secure work as an emerging director is to hitch yourself to an emerging writer that you believe in, where there’s mutual trust because you both want the same thing. One wants their work, the written work to be done. The other wants to establish their credentials as a director. And it’s a really great way. If you are hitching your wagon to a writer, you start off by say writing things that you could produce at the fringe level or for festivals. I think that’s a useful thing. The other obvious route for directors is to apply for things like the Birmingham program at Stratford or the Emerging Directors program at the Shaw Festival, or pretty much every, every city’s A-house is probably going to want to take on one or two apprentice directors. And it’s not like the old days where you have to do it for free. A lot of them have come to understand how that favors people with families with means. And now they will, you know, I just directed a show at Vertigo that provided some money for my assistant director. And I think the larger companies are coming around to that, that it shouldn’t be something that is a free apprenticeship. It should be a paid apprenticeship.

Hope  Absolutely. Excellent. Thank you. And in terms of maybe from your hat as a director, is there anything when you’re looking for designers or how do you like to see a portfolio? What do you need to hire those particular people?

Jovanni  Portfolios are useful. I, you know, I just like a lot of people, I see a lot of stuff and I’ll go, hey, I don’t know this designer and her set design is really unusual or unique for these reasons, and I just kind of catalog that or, so I’m always looking for, I would say whenever I do a show, I intentionally like to do a mix of my four or five primary designers of costume, light, sound and projection. If there is projection four or five. I like to do a mix of people I have worked with in the past and new people so that I’m not always working with the same team. So, I like to mix it up. You know, every show’s kind of got like a primary, essential kind of technical element, like some shows, sound is that essential element for some shows that might be projection. So that’s the seat I’m usually going to fill with someone who’s a trusted collaborator. If costumes, isn’t an essential element for a particular show, I can try collaborating with someone new and see how that works out.

Hope  That’s great because I know others sometimes just work with the same folks over and over. Right? So is there anything, any other words of advice you would give to emerging theatre folks in terms of how to book the gig? Is there anything else that they, whatever area they are in that they should really think about in terms of how to actually get work?

Jovanni  Yeah, well, we didn’t touch on playwrights, and I think that as an emerging playwright, that one of the best things you can do for yourself is to join whatever your local PDC (Play Development Centre) is. And also, it doesn’t have to be local. Like, I mean, if you’re in Winnipeg, if you can’t be a PTC (Playwrights Theatre Centre) member. I’m still a PWM (Playwrights Workshop Montreal), I’ve been a PWM member for 20 years. And then hook on to the, the companies that are new to doing new play development like a Sarasvàti or, you know, whatever your local company is doing is to introduce yourself and look for the opportunities there to get on, you know, PTC and the PGC (Playwrights Guild of Canada). They have these great, whatchamacallit, email newsletters where they’ll, that list all the opportunities out there, whether it’s a residency or a playwriting contest, and just, just get looped in, because it’s so lonely being a playwright. The more community you can find, the more you’ll find ways to A, improve your craft, B, get your work seen.

Hope  Absolutely. No, that’s great. Is there anything else that you particularly look for when you’re hiring or when you’re looking for collaborators? What kind of qualities? What kind of things do you want in those folks?

Jovanni  Yeah, plays well with others. Like there are actors who I know are brilliant, who I will not work with because they make everything about themselves and add unnecessary drama. So as gifted as they are, I really think that you want harmony, which doesn’t mean that, harmony doesn’t mean that you can’t disagree or have differences of opinion, but you’re looking for constructive conflict that leads to good ideas rather than unnecessary drama. So, one of the things I really, really prize from collaborators is an openness and a generosity so that you can disagree cordially. But I’m really looking for people who, have opinions, maybe even outside their, like I don’t think, uh, a costume designer shouldn’t offer an opinion about a sound effect that I’ve chosen or a lighting state that I like. I think everyone, I really believe the best idea in the group should win. Wherever that idea comes from. So, I’m looking for people who would just care about the storytelling and enjoy, enjoy collaboration.

Hope  Oh, that’s great. Yeah, I love that. Thank you. And are there any resources. You mentioned the play development centres for playwrights. Are there any other resources you’d recommend to students or emerging theatre workers if they’re struggling to get their start?

Jovanni  Yeah, I mean as well, there’s whatever arts service organizations are in the catchment, like Theater Ontario or, you know, I’m not sure what’s available, like MAP (Manitoba Association of Playwrights), is MAP still around?

Hope  Yeah.

Jovanni Or yeah, those, those art service organizations again, that bring people together, those are great things to belong to. Yeah. Whenever, whenever the regional theatre is holding that kind of, often they might have a town hall or a coffee casual or something, it’s a meet and greet. Those are great things to just get yourself on a mailing list, make sure you, you show up and you try to meet people.

Hope  Great. Any other general advice you’d have for those leaving training and entering the professions?

Jovanni  Yeah. You know, so much more than, than my generation or current practitioners about things like digital theatre. Yeah, about new possibilities. So, I’d say, you know, don’t be shy about leaning into those strengths. Like, don’t, I guess don’t be content with the status quo. If you actually think that theatre is stagnant and moribund, then don’t complain about it, just do something about it. Like reinvigorate it with your own expertise because you know they know so much more. And I’m excited to see where this next generation takes theatre because it’s, it is changing a lot. I’d say the pandemic is really, really changing our sense of digital delivery and what the possibilities are there.

Hope  Absolutely. Excellent. The next questions, I have a couple about being a self-employed artist and then also about being employed by theatre. So, in terms of managing your own career, and I know you kind of brought this up already, and seeing yourself as a business, what are the challenges there?

Jovanni  Yeah. Learning to, learning to live with the uncertainty and the irregularity of when work comes in. And part of the way you can manage that is purely technical. It’s just about managing your own cash flow so that when that big, you know, especially for me now that I’m doing more directing than acting, acting is more akin to a job where you get your deposit every Thursday or, you know, and it’s, it’s a sum that makes sense. Whereas directing, you get 40% here, 40%, there are 20% there. But you’ve got to learn how to basically put it away in a little reservoir and pay yourself on a regular. Yeah, be paying yourself the equivalent of that Thursday cheque. So, if you’re doing a lot of film, television, commercials, it’s the same thing. It’s feast or famine. You go without for a while and then you get a huge cheque. But it’s learning how to live like you’re getting a regular income when you’re not getting a regular income.

Hope  Oh, yeah. Very smart.

Jovanni  That’s the business side of it. Then of course, there’s the psychological side of it, which is equally a bigger challenge is to not define yourself by how employed you are. You know, you’re not a better person because you’re working all the time. You’re not a worse person if you’re in a dry patch. And it’s so hard not to compare yourself to your friends, but comparison is absolutely the thief of joy. You can’t knock yourself for, I mean, believe me, I’ve been there when everybody else seems to be booking gigs left, right and centre, and you can’t get anything. It’s so hard to keep an even keel. But it’s just, it is about that even keel. Don’t get too high when the highs come, don’t get too low when the lows come.

Hope  That’s good. Yeah, absolutely. And are there times when you should say no to the gig?

Jovanni  Yeah. And it’s much easier to do as a more established artist now than it is as emerging artists. So, I’m very sympathetic. Like, if you’re starting out, sometimes you just have to hold your nose and take gigs that you hate. That’s just the reality because you need some experience. I think you need to know your own line though, and I think the big bright line these days is not taking on degrading or abusive gigs, where the people who are hiring you don’t treat you with the respect you deserve. And I think artists now have far more recourse for getting some kind of…seeking equity or just some kind of holding people to account when they’re abused than they did, you know, ten, 20, 30 years ago. But I’d say that’s probably the baseline is make sure that you’re being valued and respected. But as you progress in your career, like I say, not all the time and it’s because, because I don’t want to take stuff for just for the sake of staying working. I’ll say no, because we’re held some more account for, for things like appropriation than we used to be. So, I just I don’t want to be, you know, propagating those kind of systems of appropriation or racist theatre. So, but I think it all really comes down, like you say no because you know your own worth. So, know your own worth.

Hope  Yes. And you’ve already brought this up. The next question was about whether self-producing is a good way to get experience and visibility. And I know you mentioned that as a pathway. So, anything else you wanted to add to the idea of self-producing?

Jovanni  Yeah, I’m really sympathetic that people would just want to be artists and have no desire to learn the ins and outs of producing, but you don’t have to learn every facet of producing. Again, if you find the right group of friends and colleagues, you can focus on the things you know, like maybe you’re not the least bit interested in the finance end, but you like social media and you’ll handle the marketing. Or maybe you really love grant writing, but you hate ticket sales. Like basically, as long as you can latch on to one area you can manage doing and you’re grouped with the people who kind of balance out your areas of deficiency or where you’re not as interested, you find you don’t have to become like a fully-fledged I can produce, do every aspect of producing because and again, there are people who love doing that. So maybe you need to find the person who wants to go down the arts admin road and make that part of your, your cohort that you are rising up with.

Hope  Absolutely, those great people who love arts admin. Excellent. And from the standpoint of when you are running a theatre company, is there anything that you feel theatre students should know about how theatres operate?

Jovanni  Yeah, and this is a hard one because a venued theatre is very different from a non-venued theatre. A subscription-based theatre is very different from a non-subscription-based theatre. So, the more you know about the differences between all these things and how they operate, the better it is for you. Whether you are an actor, playwright or director. The more you understand about the inner mechanics of how a theatre operates, but people like talking. I mean, I would say, yeah, what you should know, again, this comes back to asking for help is people are unbelievably generous with their time and downloading their knowledge base. So, if you want to know how PTE (Prairie Theatre Exchange) works, you can always find someone who works there now or used to work there and just say, what is it? What is it that goes on at a, you know, mid-size regional theatre with a venue and that, you know, often you don’t know what you don’t know, but you’d be surprised. If you just start the conversation, then you’ll realize, oh, you have collective working agreements with unions. What’s that? How does that work? Oh, you have, you know, part time staff and full time staff. How does that work? How does employment, whatever area it is. How does, how does, you know, Thom Morgan Jones pick a season? I’ll bet you if you asked him, he’d tell you. But then you learn about the idea of curation. And what does it mean to, to choose a season. What does it mean to choose a season when you have more than one space, like at the Arts Club? And why does something go at the Hirsch and something else goes at the Warehouse? What are the factors that influence those decisions? You know, these are all learnable things. So, what should you know? As much as you can know and how do you know things you don’t know? Just talk to people.

Hope  Absolutely. That’s great. You know, I teach my students the business of theatre, I try not to depress them too much. But there’s a lot of challenges about running a theatre company. And having been an artistic director I’m sure you had many, are there any things that you think would be important for emerging theatre artists to understand about the challenges of operating a theatre company in the current landscape?

Jovanni  My goodness. Well, I don’t even, I can’t even begin to understand. Like, I left before COVID and I have kind of like a vague sense of what I might have had to do if I’d still… But I didn’t experience it. And I saw the way it took a toll on my friends and peer group. And, so, there’s the challenges that there can be, once in a lifetime, catastrophic things that could totally decimate what you do. Ongoing challenge is fighting for relevancy. And, you know, we are, we live and die with public support. And when the public views what we do as unnecessary or unimportant, the funding dries up. So, how do you get people to care about our art form that we love? But, you know, let’s face it it isn’t as popular as it used to be 50 years ago. So, I think the challenges are, there are many that are so huge, because I’ve seen more change in the last five years than I had in the previous 25 years of my career. So it seems like a really amazing time for people who are young and energetic and invested to redefine the landscape entirely. Because I think the number one challenge is, I don’t know what’s going to happen in the next ten years. I think it’s going to change even more. And I’m not that interested in leading the change. I’m going to be one of the guys responding and reacting to it as a kind of wind down. So. Yeah.

Hope  It’s exciting. But also, yeah, that’s a challenge.

Jovanni  It is a challenge.

Hope  Anything in regards to the relationship between the staff and the board of directors? Because that’s an interesting kind of reality for our industry.

Jovanni  It is, and it’s one that I think has been rightfully criticized for as long as I’ve been doing this. So yeah, a board of directors that knows nothing about theatre can cause unbelievable damage to something that should be a community trust. So, I don’t know. This is a tricky one. I really think this is one of these things that we’re going to redefine in the next little bit because it’s such a hugely flawed system that is a holdover from a lot of, you know, the corporate laws associated with not for profits. So yeah, the relationship is, is bizarre, because you are leading as the expert, you are leading your bosses around because they don’t know anything about your industry, but they still have the power to get rid of you or ignore you or… Yeah, so, so it’s a weird thing where the accountability is almost inverted because the experts aren’t the people in charge.

Hope  Uh huh. That and I know there’s some great work I think that Yvette Nolan is doing, for her thesis on board governance kind of stuff in theatre. So. Yeah. Excellent. And then in terms of when you look at the difference of being self-employed and employed, is there anything that an emerging theatre worker should consider when they’re asking should I just, you know, go work as an A.D. versus stay independent as a director or sign on as an employee?

Jovanni  Sure. I don’t know if I’m the right person to ask because I’ve had a pretty peripatetic kind of journey through all these different jobs, and I wouldn’t even say I had a huge… it was with a great deal of, intentionality. Like, I wasn’t particularly, I mean, I had a sense when I started my path down artistic directorship, that you know, it started with being an apprentice dramaturg at Factory with Brian Quirt, a sense that I was kind of moving into something where I’d be more like an artistic associate or affiliated with a company, but, I’ve always just had a hunch of where to go next. Like, I knew when it was time to go for an artistic directorship, but I also knew when it was time for me to leave the ones that I had and go back to freelancing because I just went with my gut. So, when deciding, I mean, the one thing I would say is, it’s pretty fluid. I don’t think the days of these 30 year or ten year Artistic Directorships are going to happen again. So, I just say be, be open to the possibility of change and just going down a new path. But, you know, my new path might be university life. I don’t know what it is, but I’ll know what I know.

Hope Excellent. And then just coming back to discipline specific for a moment from the acting perspective, any key considerations for our students around auditions, headshots, resumes, any advice you give?

Jovanni  Oh, the number one advice I give to anyone is at some point be a reader or somehow get to be able to sit on the other side of auditions. So, you watch what an audition session looks like because I think nobody really gets how it works until they see how a session is run. And then they see exactly, you know, they actually begin to believe the things that they’re told, which is your auditors desperately want you to do well. Nobody is out to play mind games with you or to hope you fail. So, the people who kind of go in already spiraling thinking, oh, they’re out to get me. Nothing could be further from the truth. Everybody wants you to do your best and to put you at ease. But you don’t really get that until you’ve sat in the session on the other side. So that’s the number one advice I get is sit on the other side. The other one is just learn. Learn to love the little, think of it, I think when I think of it as a mini performance, where it’s my 2-3 minutes to do what I prepared because I’m in charge of how it goes. Because they’re hoping I do well. And as long as I do what I set out to do, I use that as my barometer for success, not whether I booked it or not. So, if you can kind of separate success in your audition from actually booking the gig, like I have booked gigs where I didn’t think I had a particularly good audition, I’ve had great auditions where I didn’t book the gig. And again, when you sit on the other side, you know all the reasons, that people don’t book doesn’t necessarily have to do with how you did. You know, I’d remind people about the myriad reasons you don’t book a gig. It could be because it’s a co-production between Winnipeg and Vancouver and people are horse trading and everybody must have, might have liked you the best. But, you know, the, the actor has to come from Vancouver because they horse traded, because you’re too tall or too short to play opposite somebody too old, too young to play opposite someone, because they’ve already used you or they want to save you for something later. And like there’s so many reasons you can’t possibly begin to understand about why you didn’t book a gig. So, just go with your own metric of did I do what I wanted to do?

Hope  Yeah, that’s great. And anything from the other side of the table as a director, when you’re casting, is there anything that stands out? When you see an actor, anything that you like to see them do?

Jovanni  Yeah, I think, just to get that sense of yourself, especially if it’s something like a general or one of those unified generals that they do. I don’t know if you guys do one in Winnipeg where, everybody out of school. Like I said, the hardest thing you can do and one of those unified generals is just to make somebody remember you. Because we see 80 people back-to-back, to back, to back, to back. So, I think the more you take material that really shows who you are, what your sensibility is, what your, what individual qualities you bring. So, it really comes down to choosing the piece that lets us see who you really are.

Hope  Mm hmm.

Jovanni  That’s incredibly hard to do.

Hope  In both those contexts of actor / director, when should an emerging actor or director consider joining Canadian Actors Equity Association? I get asked this all the time by my students. When should I join?

Jovanni  I’m, again, because I’ve been a member for 30 years, I haven’t really kind of kept up with it. I don’t know if the rules are different. For back when I did it, you needed the six gigs. I don’t know if that’s still the case. I don’t. And I think it was a lot stricter about what work you could and couldn’t take. And I’m not as up to speed about what work you can and can’t take as I mean how strict there are about jurisdiction because I know it’s changed. So, I’m, I’m not a great person to ask about that because it really, I mean to me, you join when you know that you don’t want to do the gigs that are not within the jurisdiction. But I mean, it’s a stupid thing. But I mean, back when I was doing it, it’s like, well, is it more important that you get experience and experience, meaning taking non-union gigs. And if it’s more important that you get the practical experience of just doing the work, then it’s probably too soon to join. It’s at that point where you don’t want to do the nonpaying gigs and non-union gigs, and I think it’s really, yeah, when you’re tired of doing it and you don’t think you have anything more to learn from it, that’s a good time to join. But I don’t know what, how jurisdiction works anymore.

Hope  Yeah, no, that’s helpful though. And then finally, just any other thoughts on the future of theatre? What you’re excited about? Trends, changes you hope to see, anything looking forward to?

Jovanni  Yeah, I’m, I’m excited but wary about the change because I’m not a digital guy and I still love the immediacy of theatre. So, so I’m curious to see how that plays out. I know we go in cycles about the views of who can represent who on stage. Meaning, you know, yeah, like when I started in ‘92, somebody might have cast me as an indigenous character and I might have taken it. And neither is the case today, nor do I think it should be. But at the same time, it’s a pendulum. Like, we get all these really interesting questions about representation. Should a cis het performer only ever play cis het? I can’t answer that. I mean, it’s within the BIPOC community to. Is, ah, is it okay for East Asians to play all these versions or should I as a Chinese-Filipino never play a Korean? It’s like we’re constantly redefining the question of who can play who. And I just, I worry that the discussions, about who gets to play who are some, being articulated with kindness and, and with just a spirit of, of, I don’t know how to put it like a really of, of listening. Like, I think there’s a lot of insistence of this is right, this is wrong. And, I just hope that we learn to listen to each other about the questions of representation, because I don’t think that it is as cut and dry as people would lead you to believe.

Hope  That’s great. Yeah, and certainly, I mean, in our context, we have these conversations with students because in a classroom, how else are they going to read plays out loud that don’t represent their own experience? Yeah.

Jovanni  I get very perturbed when I hear students say, nope, we refused to do that for reasons that might adhere to their sense of morality, but don’t help them in their learning journey. Especially the essential thing about us is that we are always imagining other lives and we are always inhabiting other truths. I think school is a really great safe place for you to get outside of your comfort zone and not be so rigid about the sense of this is right, this is wrong. I think it’s a time you can fail and it’s a time you can even transgress with permission that, you know, I call transgress with permission because, you know if Tomson Highway himself is saying it’s okay for you as a settler to play in one of my pieces, I encourage it, then I don’t think you should necessarily feel, you know, better than Tomson Highway. Mm hmm.

Hope  Absolutely. Yeah.

Jovanni Yeah. Because he’s giving you permission to transgress in this safe little bubble.