Interview with Camilla Holland

Interview with Hope McIntyre and Camilla Holland

Hope  Yeah, so the first question is just like how long you’ve worked in your current role.

Camilla  So as the executive director of Royal Manitoba Theatre Centre, I have been here for an extraordinary 12 years.

Hope  Wow. Feels like just yesterday. And then in terms of your pathway there. So if you could just talk briefly about the training and then your steps to getting to this role.

Camilla Yeah. So, I trained as a teacher, I trained as a drama teacher, and I went to university because I had an incredible drama teacher and went to university and wanted to be her. And so, I did my undergrad and I did my education degree. And my very last placement was at Young People’s Theatre in Toronto. I had worked there in their drama camp, and I worked there as an usher and in their concession stand as a teenager. So, it was really a natural place for me to go back and do this last placement. I was in their education department, and at the end of that they offered me a job and I looked around at my colleagues who were all graduating with education degrees, and Mike Harris was at that point the Premier of Ontario, and he was making massive cuts in education. And so, I took a job in theatre, you know, and never really imagined that it would necessarily turn out to be my career. So, from that job, you know, other jobs followed. I was laid off every summer because my job was serving teachers so it ran September to June. And so I started working the festival circuit and I ran the Summerworks Festival and I worked as a grants officer at the Toronto Arts Council and then was at Factory Theatre and did a lot of independent producing on the side. And a whole series of interesting things led me basically to be a general manager for a very tiny company called Volcano Theatre for two years, which led to being the General Manager of the Tarragon Theatre, a much bigger organization for five years. And that then led me here. You know, I always joke that I’m a true generalist. I worked in education, I worked in box office, I worked in marketing, I worked in fundraising. The only department I haven’t really worked in, but I’ve managed people in it for many years is production and artistic, of course, I’ve always been on the backstage side of the equation. So that was the path.

Hope  That’s amazing. I don’t think I knew about your education start. That’s amazing.

Camilla Yeah. I’m not sure my very British parents would have let me go to university to study drama unless I also was getting an education degree because I think they thought, well, if nothing else, you’ll have dental benefits from that.

Hope  Yes. Yeah, right. We get that still from our students’ parents. Is there anything that you attribute to your success? Your position is huge at one of the largest regional companies. Has anything helped you get from where you started to where you are now?

Camilla  You know, I think that opportunity is always about being bold and considering applying and pitching yourself for jobs that you’re not quite qualified for. I think if you try and match everything in that job spec that’s out there, you will find yourself very stuck. So, I made some audacious claims in my life and some of them paid off and some of them didn’t. So I think being bold is really important, and being tenacious, and confident in your capabilities, even if you don’t have that experience. Do you have the capacity to fake it til you make it. And the other thing that was fundamental has always been about community and I’ve been fortunate to have and fostered and made really extraordinary mentorships in both directions. Right? I have people who I call when I need help, and I’m always available for people to pick up the phone and call me when they need help. And I really think that that part of the arts administration world is not very well known and it’s an extraordinary asset. You know, we are doing really complementary work. We are working the same kind of Venn diagram. And so, imagining that somebody else hasn’t come across this situation or might not have that piece of paper or couldn’t help you negotiate that little thing, you do yourself a disservice when you don’t reach out to colleagues and build that colleague network. And to build that colleague network, again, and this was inspired by mentors and pushed by mentors and nominated by mentors, I’ve been on a lot of boards. I’ve done a whole lot of volunteerism. I’ve sort of said yes when anybody asked if I could join a committee or join a negotiating team or participate in this program. And that’s a privilege, right, to have the time. But it’s also a priority. I make the time. And so you develop a robust network and your success is contributed to by the fact that you have great people to ask for help.

Hope  Absolutely. That’s incredible. Yeah. And is there anything, when you think back to when you started out and I know you started out in a different area, but is there anything that you wish you had known sooner that you’ve learned?

Camilla  I wish I’d known that the fundamentals of what make a good play are also what make a good company. But it was through the work of the Creative Trust in Toronto that I learned this. Creative Trust was this extraordinary kind of professional developed mentorship, but also funding program that existed for a period of time. And I was at the Tarragon Theatre as their General Manager when we embarked on our journey as an organization with Creative Trust. And the central premise around Creative Trust’s early work with an organization was to say, “as an organization you know how to make good art, and by putting that process as a priority at the centre of the organization, it then contributes to a more robust and relevant and a more resilient organization throughout”. That was an aha moment for me as a young leader, and also something that I really try and hold. And it gets harder to hold that the further from the art you get, you know. The Creative Trust had its time in the sun and then it sort of folded down in a very graceful way and I don’t know if it’s materials ever ended up in a great living archive of sorts. But that idea that we put the thing we know about building art at the centre of the conversation, for the art to lead all of the impetus and initiatives, it was a pretty profound moment.

Hope  Yeah, that’s amazing. Thank you for that. And in terms of any work you’ve done with emerging administrators. Do you notice that there are particular gaps in their knowledge?

Camilla  What I find working with admins or emerging administrators is they are terrified of boards. Terrified. Terrified or actually kind of antagonistic towards boards. Also, they are looking to specialize when I think it’s still great opportunity to be a generalist and those two things I think are preventing them from looking at leadership opportunities in a real way. Emerging arts administrators are curious, they are smart, they are dedicated. They have this extraordinary gift of bringing in their communities and their conversations into the room. I’m really privileged to work with them. But they often get terrified about that board paradigm, like the idea of reporting to a board or what does a board want, or working with a board, or how do you leverage a board. And I think that holds them back in some ways. Because at the end of the day, you know, if you want to run an arts organization, you are not only going to report to a board, you’re going to be hired by a board. So you sort of have to crack that code to get in those doors and get those jobs.

Hope  Absolutely. And do you feel like universities or training places could better prepare Theatre workers as part of that training, whether it be arts administrators? And I know there’s not a lot of programs, even post-secondary wise for that.

Camilla  We’ve seen such a profound loss in arts administration training programs with Grant McEwen being the biggest one to close. But, you know, even locally, University of Winnipeg stopped doing their program. Now there are skills as an arts administrator that you can learn in other ways, right? If you go take an HR course, you can apply that course. You could take an accounting course or a creative communication course, you can apply that. But the nub of not for profit is you are charged to hold this for the community, and the community is represented by your board of directors. And so, when you don’t learn about governance — when you don’t know what good governance looks like, when you don’t know how to work with a board, work for a board, work around a board — that gap can become very big and very profound. Now a lot of things that we do, get caught by professional standards.  If you have a problem with your bookkeeper, eventually the auditor will catch it.  If you are fundamentally not delivering your mission and mandate in the community, eventually your funders will notice. But you can have a terrible relationship with your board and nobody knows about it. And nobody can know about it until they’ve gone through three artistic directors in four years. So it’s a really critical kind of piece that I think is a gap in training. Also it’s an area that has to be demystified because as long as people are misinformed about what a board can do and misinformed about what they can do as management working with the board, then that gap is going to grow and grow, right?

Hope  Yeah. That’s great. And just maybe to widen that question a little, because I know you also have to participate in the engagement of actors or designers who are coming out of training programs. Are there gaps that you just notice in general about emerging people entering the theatre milieu that that they’re not getting in their university training?

Camilla I mean, I think university theatre training builds curiosity. And I think that’s a really positive thing in the world. This might be a problem across the country, or maybe I’m just thinking about this from a Winnipeg lens, I’m not sure, your conversations might lead to knowledge of this. But I am concerned that people emerging into the theatre community, apart from the auditioning process, do not really know how to make their way through the creative world. I think in markets like Winnipeg, people are a little focused on their area of specific artistic interest. So it’s back to that generalist thing, right? Like, they’re not looking for any experience. They’re looking for experience that looks like the experience they think they should be getting. And so, I would love to see theatre students have elbows up for any opportunity to get in the door. You know what I mean? Let’s be clear, I am a 49-year-old cisgendered white woman with enormous privilege. But when I was starting out, I went to the opening of an envelope. I worked box office shifts so I could get complimentary tickets. I volunteered, I begged, borrowed and joined everything. I was endlessly curious about the work and about the companies that were doing the work. And I think that you do need to have that curiosity and you need to keep it about the whole industry. You can’t just do one thing. Successful artists today, across the country are doing more than one thing, right? They are teaching and they are mentoring and they are coaching and they are directing and they are acting and they are omnivores in theatre. And I worry that training programs are creating people who want, you know, just one thing. Like, I think you’ve got to stretch, you’ve got to take the opportunity to stretch, you’ve got to listen and be curious broadly.

Hope  I think that echoes a lot of what others have said across the country. And also, we did a survey of graduates for the last ten years across the country, and many of them said you’ve got to work another job. So in your area of general management specifically, how do people secure work? How do you how do you get an arts admin job?

Camilla  Well, you are very dedicated about looking for the opportunities and you are putting together a robust and meaningful application to each of those opportunities. And when the person in the hiring chair says, what’s the last piece of theatre you saw? You need to have an answer. I can’t tell you how many people apply for jobs at MTC and then say things like, well, I think I saw a show in the nineties. I mean it’s not a prerequisite, but showing a little bit of interest would be great. A mentor once said to me, when you’re hiring, you are looking for three things. You’re looking for capacity, interest and fit. Capacity, meaning do they have the needed skills to do the job? Interest, meaning do they want to do this job. And fit, meaning will they be able to be successful doing the job. Right? And fit is really hard to assess. You do it through interviews. But demonstrating interest can be easy, right? “Yeah, I looked on your website. I just read your strat plan”. Like, I’m not saying you have to see the last five shows. I’m just saying you might want to talk about a play you’ve seen in the last five years, that you didn’t work on.

Hope  Yeah. Yes. Or you didn’t see in school because you were forced to. Yes.

Camilla  Back to your question, how does one secure work? Interest, tenacity and then recognizing also that in large organizations you can work your way around them. Right? When I was at Young People’s Theatre in Toronto, I spent my first five years there. I worked in three different jobs. Because once you’re in an organization, internal candidates are often given opportunities. So, there is opportunity. I know in some marketplaces – and Winnipeg for a long time wouldn’t have been one of these, there wasn’t the same mobility, but there is mobility now – and talent and enthusiasm really gets rewarded in that way. So, you know, it’s sometimes about saying, listen, this isn’t my forever job, but it’s my for now job. And what a great chance for me to move around.

Hope  Absolutely. No, you totally answered the question. That’s great. And specifically, is there anything just getting the foot-in-the-door wise in terms of what they need to demonstrate in a resumé or portfolio or cover letter, things that will just help them get that that first interview even?

Camilla I mean, I always, always think that what you want to hire for is somebody who understands the job but also understands the organization. And so I think, you know, when you’re putting together a cover letter, when you’re putting together your resume, you want to highlight the volunteerism that you might do in the arts community. But if you’re on the board of your kid’s daycare or if you were the communications coordinator for your university student program, add it. Put things on there that demonstrate range, that demonstrate your capacities in a different way. I also think I read a lot of cover letters that don’t address that someone might be in a different day job. Right? And I think it’s really important to just say, listen, I’m very lucky and currently working in this banking position. But my passion is your industry. Make that case. Because here’s the truth, when I started out hiring people posted the jobs in the usual places and people often don’t know where those usual places are. And universities could help people, could help expand that. But you used to simply post the job in usual places. You got 30 to 50 applicants, even in Toronto. And, you know, you scroll through the resumes and call it a day. Well, now, of course, everything’s online. Everything’s on Indeed, or LinkedIn or social media. So, we get hundreds of resumes because we’re getting resumes from people who have no interest in the job but have an obligation to apply for the job. So, your cover letter needs to stand out. Research the appropriate salutation. Right? Like it’s really good to be able to say dear Mr. dear Ms.. Like it shows a little tiny bit of research that’s really helpful. So, you know, accuracy and comprehension is really important. But tell a little story. This is the other thing. We’re all storytellers or we got into theatre because we actually do believe in the power of story. So tell me a story in your cover letter. Tell me why you’re interested in this job. If you’ve got a little bit of writing capacity, demonstrate it.

Hope  Yeah. That’s great. And I know you’ve talked a little bit about some of these qualities already, but is there anything else that you would look for in an apprentice, a mentee, a new hire, someone you want to work with? What are the things that you want most?

Camilla  It’s hard to demonstrate, but the superpower I look for is, and it’s perhaps again something to do with the size and the scale of the organization I’m at, but a little bit of this has been throughout my career, I’m looking for someone to play tennis with. Right? So, if I’ve got a mentee, if I’ve got an apprentice, if I’ve got somebody in my space who’s learning and growing, I want to be able to throw them a ball, I want them to catch the ball and I want them to throw it back when it’s done. And I want our conversation to be like that. I want questions to be like that. I’m interested in dialogue. I also want competency. But, you know, like one of the greatest kind of skills I think is completion, right? Being able to take a project and say, I’ve done it, great, what’s next? And so, I don’t want to be chasing you to return the volley. I don’t want to wonder if you ever got the ball. Like, I want to know that there’s a back-and-forth thing.

Hope  Yeah, I love that analogy. And then in terms of resources to recommend, so you mentioned already making sure we’re telling students where the job postings are. Are there are other resources that would be useful for those entering the milieu?

Camilla  This is probably terrible advice to give across the country. But honestly, I think one of the great skills you learn is if you start a theatre company. Even a tiny theatre company. Even if you only ever do two Fringe shows and you close it down, like the skills you learn in actually doing the work is real. Producing. You have to write a press release. You have to apply for that Fringe waiver paperwork for Equity. You have to figure out that venue. You build accountability, and rudimentary producing skills. It’s a perfect kind of soup to nuts opportunity for you. I know we don’t want every theatre grad to create a small theatre company. Maybe they, you know, bundle up in pairs or trios. But, you know, actually putting on a play in a framework that is supportive but also allows you to grow a little bit is pretty good administration practice. Fringes, festivals, you know all of those, all of those chances to do that work to flex those muscles. They’re really good and they will give you a deeper appreciation. You know what I find sometimes as we work with, we work with hundreds of artists. But I really note the ones who have that little producing gene, have a deeper appreciation for what the organization is doing beyond hiring them to do their specific thing. Right? It’s hard to say that the ‘resource’ is go and do some work for free because let’s be honest, that’s what you’re going to be doing. But, you know, taking those opportunities, seizing those opportunities can really be the gateway drug to the next opportunity.

Hope  That’s great. Yeah. Any other advice for those leaving training and entering the profession?

Camilla  You know, I run into a lot of general people in my line of work, a bunch of people in the audience. And often they say things like, yeah, my kid was really into theatre and then they decided that they just didn’t want it enough. And so they, you know, they went into teaching or they went to another profession and now they come and they love theatre, I think that we too often imagine that the culmination of a theatre degree is that somebody is on our stage. It’s okay to take your theatre degree and do other things with that, whether that means administration, whether that means that you go and have an incredible career in another area and you volunteer widely and you come back and join a board or a committee or a panel.  Do not let the theatre part of your degree dictate the terms of your success story, because it is a hard profession and the flameout rate is high and understandably so. And, you will be always surrounded by people who are, almost willing to work harder than you are. I sort of sometimes feel like theatre is a bit of a pie eating contest where the prize is more pie. Right? So, you really better love the pie. And if you don’t love the pie, don’t beat yourself up about it.

Hope Hmm. And that also speaks to those transferable skills, right?

Camilla  Hugely transferable skills. Like, here’s the truth. Arts graduates might say I don’t want to work for a bank, and I don’t want to work for an insurance agency. I don’t want to be a teacher. Okay. Just to be clear, there’s an entire world of not-for-profit organizations who are looking for storytellers, because these are agencies across every not-for-profit world, right? Health, education, social services, environment, like you name it. There are agencies who are looking for people to be resourceful, to be curious, to be storytellers, to have a real ability to make something out of nothing. And your theatre skills will serve you in those areas.

Hope  Absolutely. Great. Any thoughts in terms of the future of Theatre? I mean, I know that’s a very ominous question the last couple of years, but anything that students should be looking towards in terms of readiness, something  coming down the line or changes you hope to see.

Camilla  You know, these are big questions when you consider the national context. They’re so layered, right? Because you start to look at how we consume entertainment. I’ve been in more rooms recently where people are talking about the threat to theatre is the fact that people are, they’re not doing anything live  in a meaningful way. Right? That the threat is video games. I don’t really believe that. I think there will always be a desire to actually be in person. It may be a different sized desire than we see right now. But I think that the future of theatre is, it’s diverse,  it’s multifaceted. It’s integrated with other art forms. It’s probably a very different future than we’ve had, than you and I have grown up in. And that’s exciting, right? But I think that if we overly focus on trying to make the future of theatre digital, we give up the thing that is our unique value proposition. And so, I kind of refute and refuse the idea that that we have to compete with video games. I think video games have their place and will always have their place. And you know, I think we can still be audacious enough to say, come to us. And maybe we could be doing that in different ways. Maybe we could be making it a lot more convenient for people to come, but ultimately, I think that there is going to be value in live and value in gathering and value in everybody in the audience experiencing something at the same time. And so, I look to future theatre artists to rail against the call of the digital and to be really frickin’ analog about it.

Hope  Absolutely. Yeah. And now just drilling down more specifics in terms of working as a freelancer. Are there any things that, not just those going into arts admin, but all theatre students should know about how theatres operate? You’ve talked a lot about boards…

Camilla  So here’s a fundamental piece that I think not too many theatre students know. Theatres of all sizes and scale essentially operate like a three legged stool. Right? And the three legs of the stool are earned revenue, private sector revenue, public sector revenue. So, tickets and subscriptions, donations and contributions and sponsorships, special events and the public funders. All organizations have a different balancing act of that. Right? They have different sized legs of the stool. So that’s where the analogy falls apart a bit. But, an organization that does not keep an eye on all three legs is going to find itself in trouble. That structure is what holds up the professionalism of theatre companies. It allows us to pay artists, it allows us to pay staff. It allows us to do things in an ethical way, in a legal way, in a way that is covered by insurance. It allows us to keep people actually safe and cared for and allows us to have the resources to create that safe and caring environment. And so, you know, organizations that don’t recognize that balancing act, struggle. And it’s a good piece for artists to think about, because their role in this is not to be, you know, it’s not to analyze the strength of those three revenue pillars, but it is to remember that if an arts organization asks you to attend a fundraising event and speak, that’s an important part of that organization’s bottom line. And if they ask you to pay for some of the tickets that your family are using because you’ve maxed out on the comps that were allocated, it’s not a micro-aggression. They’re just trying to fill their earned revenue bucket. And if you are fortunate enough to be on a jury, you know a grants jury, you have an incredible role to play in terms of advocating for the organizations that you care for and love, because that will help them be strengthened as well. And so I think that really fundamental knowledge about how organizations operate on a revenue side allows somebody to understand why we might have different kinds of sizes, scales and scopes. You know, I also think that all theatre students should know that most theatres in this country are working under professional standards that are important for us to adhere to, and that they, those professional standards are not intended to be barriers they are intended to be guardrails. Right? So, your experience when you’re working with members of the professional theatres should be a safe experience. And if you’re not experiencing that, you need to say something.

Hope Hm, absolutely. That’s great. And any other challenges of keeping a theatre company running that you think you would want emerging theatre workers to be aware of?

Camilla  I am very fortunate to run a large institution in a mid-size town. Winnipeg’s not a tiny community, but there aren’t a lot of other $10 million theatre companies around. We have a deep privilege and a deep amount of power, and we have to be really cognizant of that. We also work all the hours god made and we’re not sitting here, you know, cashing our cheques and trying to figure out what kind of premium gas to put in our cars. My Artistic Director and I are really dedicated, and our teams are working very hard to making sure that we are doing the right thing in the right way for as many people as possible. And the challenges are many, right? I’m dealing with complicated HR portfolios. I’m dealing with complicated relationships with volunteers. I’m dealing with balancing the needs of a community, with the needs of an audience, with the needs to grow a new audience, all of these pieces are part of the equation. And it’s a lot of work, it’s a lot of emails, it’s a lot of hours. We fundamentally got into this business because we love the art form and we want to put artists on stage engaging with as many audience members as possible. We really do. We’re not in it for the power.

Hope  The glory.

Camilla  “The Glory”. It is a privilege. It is absolutely a privilege. And here’s another thing. The people running theatre companies are on term contracts. You know, we all report to a board. We all have an end date on our contracts. And I don’t think enough people know that. So, you know, change is possible and opportunities are possible because at the end of the day, the leaders are not permanent employees.

Hope  Mm hmm. That’s a really good point. Absolutely. And then next question is just if you have any thoughts or advice around freelance. Some of our students may ask – Do I stay freelance and just try and keep working gigs? Do I look for a job at a theatre company that’s going to make me an employee so I have some stability? Will that limit my opportunities to do gigs? Any thoughts around that?

Camilla I think at the end of the day, you have to decide what you can live with, right? You can’t have your cake and eat it too, necessarily. Now, there may be some opportunities that kind of allow for all of that. But, you know, when you work for an organization, when you work as a full-time employee at an organization, yes, you have stability. Yes, you have predictability. You know, it’s hard to buy a house as a gig worker. I mean, let’s be clear. It’s hard to buy a house in almost anywhere in Canada as an arts worker of any kind. But the gig piece does not help the bank have much surety about you. You give up things, you know, you give up some negotiating power when you take a full time job, you give up some leverage and flexibility. There’s always that lovely ‘other duties as required’ line on the job description. So, you have to decide where in your career you are and what doors this closes and what doors this opens. I was fortunate, and I use that term loosely, when my first job in theatre, my first, the first three years I worked in theatre, I had a contract from September 1 to June 30. I knew I needed work in the summer. So, you found the gigs that worked around that. For me that was running a festival. And so I got the best of both worlds. But I would have taken a full-time job in a heartbeat, because, the other thing about an organization is that your learning deepens. Gig work is great if you’re not loving the project, because it has a really clear end date. But if you do like the people you work with and you do like the organization and you want to deepen your knowledge and you want to deepen what you bring to the organization, that is easier in a full time or permanent or sort of seasonal role. You can really deepen your skills over time.

Hope Yeah, that’s great. Thank you. And then just talking from the GM  position. Any specific challenges in your role of producing theatre for someone who says – I want to be a general manager. I want to be an executive director. Are there other challenges they should be aware of?

Camilla  12 years in, anyone would assume that there was an efficiency to the work, but I don’t find the gig is getting any easier. I sometimes think back to what this job must have been like in the eighties or nineties. And I think wow, there was a different level of community engagement at the time – no social media, no email.  The person who did do my job before me for many years worked every hour God made, I promise you. But the role was different. For them, the balancing act was, put on the plays, balance the bottom line, keep the board engaged. Those were the three great pillars of the GM job for many years. But these are not the only pillars that the position is held accountable today, not by boards, communities or funders. The goalposts are evolving. And the hamster wheel spins faster every year. The profound and required reckoning of theatres with the systemic issues that we have inherited and embodied for many years takes time to address. COVID and audience return challenges; coupled with the great resignation across the cultural work force; plus profound changes about what it takes to make a play in a safe and respectful and empathetic way; added to the supply chain issues, which are still a thing, to be clear. I’m still waiting on a furnace that was ordered 9 months ago. Right? Plus the inflationary piece, which in all arts organizations causes stress because as people’s discretionary income goes down and our costs go up, there’s a delta that we’re trying to address, and government support that has been largely stagnant for years to many organizations. It’s a lot. You have to have an enormous capacity for finding joy in and amongst a sea of turmoil.

Hope  Yeah. That is a sea of turmoil. Oh wow. And that kind of segues into leadership. That’s the last question- challenges in a leadership role and how you see leadership.

Camilla You know, I think that the best counsel I give to people who take on leadership roles is twofold. First, it’s to try really learn quickly and understand what you can ignore and what you can’t ignore. It’s like cooking on a stove. You know, we’re all very comfortable cooking on four burners and kind of putting out the meals that you can do on a four burner stove. So imagine if suddenly you’ve got ten burners, right. And you’re trying to manage ten burners, as you know, in a restaurant context. Like, you have to know what sauces you can leave bubbling happily and what you actually know, there’s a lobster in the front who’s not going to do so well if you leave them on too long. When new leaders get these leadership jobs, I think they often run through that sort of fight or flight piece. I certainly did. You don’t actually want to ask anybody any question that reveals your weaknesses, but you do need to. Leaders today are constantly putting out fires. You just have to know which ones have the potential to flame up into forest blazes, and focus on those, without entirely neglecting the other things, which are simmering away. Second, you also have to know what your values are, individually. Yes, your organization has values, that’s great. But, what do you care about? What can you do in this role to leave the organization and the role in a better state than when you inherited it? Leaders are caretakers, entrusted with the broad health of their organizations. We balance the 200 emails a day and the lack of work life balance because at the core, we are trying to do the right thing for all, while we have the responsibility and opportunity to do so.