Interview with Lori Marchand

Interview with Hope McIntyre and Lori Marchand

Hope  So the first question is just about how long you’ve worked in your current position.

Lori In my current position, I will have been here as the managing Director of Indigenous Theatre for five years in the middle of April.

Hope Wow. Goes by fast.

Lori Yes. The department launched really with Kevin’s arrival in November of 2017. So a pretty recent undertaking. Yeah.

Hope  Absolutely. And, and can you talk a little bit about your pathway getting there? Where did you come from? What training? How did you end up in this wonderful position?

Lori  I have to say, it’s a pretty circular route. And you tell me if I’m going into too much detail. And so, I mean, most immediately I was the lead administrative person at Western Canada Theatre. My final title there was Executive Director, and I was there for 19 seasons. And it really, I mean, played a key role in how I ended up here, right from the beginning. I’m a theatre kid, born and bred. I started off in ballet and choir and performing and school plays and taking drama and all of that and I was met with both encouragement on the part of my parents to pursue a more professional leaning, what they deemed a more professional leaning career, of course, to study. But I have to say, I also knew myself well enough at 18 to know that I really didn’t want to work in the gig economy, that I wanted to make sure where my next paycheck was coming from. So, I have a degree in English literature. I studied all the theatrical literature courses UBC offered, and I studied literature in both English and French and the French language. I did break down and take an acting course, and I broke down and took a directing course. When I graduated, I worked for the B.C. Native Women’s Society. I think what’s important is that, of course, as a First Nations person of status, that university degrees used to be a cause for disenfranchisement. If you gained a university degree, you were, you lost your status and your ability to go back to community and live there. So even at, in my time, a university degree was a relatively new thing. I think when I was at UBC, there might have been 20 in my year. And so, the change in that number, looking now, I think the really easy marker for me is when I graduated from high school, the First Nations grad was about eight of us. And when my daughters graduated from high school, it was like over 800. So, there’s much more opportunity that opened up for Indigenous people in that respect – First Nations people in particular – without the ramifications of losing their status. After graduation, I worked for B.C. Native Women’s Society and I worked for the Canada Employment Centre for Students, which is actually where I met David Ross, who was the Artistic Director, longstanding Artistic Director of Western Canada Theatre in Kamloops. We connected over a grant for students that the theatre had. And when I moved to amazing places like Thunder Bay, Ontario, and Whitecourt, Alberta, and Prince Albert, Saskatchewan, David was good enough to stay in touch. He always answered my calls. When in Thunder Bay, I was the Executive Director of the Ontario Native Women’s Association, dealing with the impacts of Bill C-31, a piece of federal legislation that enabled Indigenous First Nations women to regain status who had lost it through marriage, as well as their children. And I worked for the Ontario Human Rights Commission. When I became pregnant with my first daughter, we moved to Whitecourt, Alberta, a town of about 7000, with a very active community theatre organization. I had the immense privilege of being able to stay home with my daughters and be a full time mom. I went back to theatre, I went back to community theatre to, you know, just stay connected with adults and have adult conversations. And really, truly, as I said, I’m a theatre kid. I walked in and said, I can direct, I’ve taken a directing course, and they let me. And David was kind enough to be on the other end of the phone and stayed engaged with me. When I had producing questions, he always answered. And then when I moved to Prince Albert, they actually hired me to direct a show called The Woman in Black. And it was a show I had seen at Western Canada Theatre. I asked David for producing expertise. I did, and he put me in touch with Tibor Feheregyhazi, who, you know was the AD at Persephone (Theatre) at that time, an icon of Canadian theatre and, and Tibor sent out the reel to reel tapes for the 170 sound cues – an immense amount of sound cues, that my little company in Prince Albert, there was no way we could have produced that kind of quality of work. So, I was immensely grateful. I took David out for lunch when I was back in Kamloops just to say thank you. And he said, I didn’t mean to turn this into a job interview, but… And I think, he basically hired me as his transition plan. And, the company grew immensely under his leadership and continued to grow after that. You know, I think my being there… the company and particularly under David Ross, had done Indigenous work before my arrival. But once I was there, I mean, I’m Syilx, or Okanagan, so the Secwepemc people are my cousins. And so it’s a pretty direct, familiar connection. You know, the cultural protocols are, you know, very similar to mine. They’re very much from the same place. And so, doing the consultation, doing the engagement, doing the outreach was honestly just part of my own muscle memory and my own cultural protocols. And it guided much of the creation of the work. For example, Ernestine Shuswap Gets Her Trout by Tomson Highway. The commission and development of Where the Blood Mixes that went on to win the Governor General’s Award for Drama. Children of God and most recently Kamloopa. Those are probably the highlights, award winning. The protocols that we set up, in and around, particularly, Where the Blood Mixes, around a trauma informed engagement process, both for the artists as well as for the audience, were again, probably because Kevin and I were there, Kevin Loring, the playwright for Where the Blood Mixes and currently the AD at Indigenous Theatre is Nlaka’pamux, and also Interior Salish. So very much again, from the same cultural background as me. Probably the fact that it was the two of us there working on that piece that saw the need and had a community experience with counseling and trauma support, engagement with elders, exchange of knowledge, and that very much informed our processes. You know, I’m really proud that those processes, coupled with the shows, informed much of the trauma and cultural protocols that are in place in and around Indigenous work across the country now. And so, it really was a blend of my love of theatre and producing experience coupled with my knowledge of admin and HR and, really, governance through other work on boards that I did. And a very, very generous sharing of knowledge from David and a vast, innumerable number of elders that I’ve had the privilege to have in my life.

Hope  Wow. That’s incredible. I, I feel like I’ve just gotten a history of Canadian theatre. I grew up in Saskatoon, so when you mentioned Tibor and I remember seeing Where the Blood Mixes, when it toured through PTE here years ago. So, it’s just incredible. Thank you for that. Yeah, and you kind of segued beautifully into the third question, which is about what you attribute to your success and what helped you get from your initial training into this position. And I know you’ve mentioned the generosity of those who shared their knowledge. Is there anything else that you would say really allowed you to stay in this career path?

Lori  Just that it is probably the only job I have ever had in my life, where I felt I was using every single one of my skills. So, there is a huge degree of personal satisfaction. And that ability to be creative, to be a leader in the way I want to be a leader. The, you know, I think that the beauty of the arts is, because I’m, I’m very politically engaged. You would have, you probably heard a little bit of that in my background. But what I find about the arts and through theatre is, that we’re able to have conversations on extremely important, really relevant current and social considerations in a way that has direct personal impact, which I feel is the key way to facilitate transformation and change. If people were impacted personally, there’s that additional understanding, hopefully, the development of empathy and a call to action.

Hope  I couldn’t agree more. Beautiful. Is there, when you think back to this beautiful circular route that got you here, is there anything that you wish you had known earlier that would have been helpful? Thinking that this is something we’re providing to students and emerging artists, is there anything you wish you had known in an earlier stage?

Lori  I’m, I really, I love the fact that it is now available as a university course of study, because there are details to the work that for sure I wish I could have known before I got into the job. Things like, and it’s really the boring things or the things like risk management, liability considerations and, you know, a lot of the human resources…, you know, because I worked in the Human Rights Commission and in leadership positions in a couple of other organizations including the employment centre. Like a lot of that HR stuff I did learn in a pretty specific directed way. But I’m glad that students come in and can learn that. And so from that perspective, some of the, you know, some of the, I’m going to call the recent conversations, but they’re probably ten years old, you know, like the obligations that administrators have within arts organizations to be leading those H.R. initiatives, considerations of the risk is really high. And that’s the demand, like even I think there’s even an inclusion in the CTA about investigating human rights complaints. And I had training, like I’m a trained officer in investigation. And would still rely on the expertise of somebody else to do that. And so, you know, any kind of training, if that’s the expectation, then we need to provide the training. So that was sort of my, my biggest challenge with including it in the CTA is that, you know, folks in these leadership positions are really there probably because they know the art and they know the form and they know how to put a show together and build a tour and you know. So all the legal implications, the contracts, the HR, the risk management. You know, in all of that. Honestly, budgeting is an obvious skill to me and probably the least of a priority; probably the budgeting skills are what get them producing, and planning skills get them into the work. Well, I don’t want to scare anybody from it, because it really is rewarding. But, you know, either on the board or having it outside the organization, just knowing where the expertise lies and having access to it. I’m not necessarily saying everybody has to have all of the skills, but knowing where to access it, knowing that it’s important when you step into this role is probably something that I think I knew, but for me, with some of the building implications that, you know, where, Western Canada Theatre managed a building on behalf of the city and the school district and just having clarity over what exactly that meant. And where the expertise lay to deal with issues as they arose.

Hope Absolutely. Wow. Yeah. And there’s so much that falls under the responsibilities of someone in your position. It’s incredible. Yeah. I don’t know how much you get to work with  emerging theatre workers or if you have interns you worked with, those coming out of programs. But if so, is there anything that you noticed and its probably some of the stuff you’ve talked about here, but that are gaps in the knowledge.

Lori  I just think they’re so smart, so capable. And, you know, I’ve been absolutely thrilled and, you know, one of the things that David said to me was that every time he spoke to me, he learned something. And I have to say that has been my experience as well, that every time I’m in a position of working with an emerging leader, there’s always something that I learn. So, I think the, you know, in terms of gaps, it really is probably just, you know, a lot of what I’ve mentioned; whether there are gaps or not are things they just haven’t explored yet or experienced yet. You know. I think one of the next questions is about, you know, how to address it and really that hands on lived experience, any opportunity for co-ops. The BC Arts Council has a great co-op program and I’ve been very lucky to work with some really great students through that program. And here at the NAC, we’re really setting up a leadership exchange program on a national basis, working with all kinds of exciting emerging leaders and pairing them with established leaders in the industry. And I think, you know, I do keep referencing back to Western Canada Theatre, but to me, it was just standard practice…  that’s what we did. Like it was, we grew people through opportunities. I reference Samantha MacDonald a lot because to me she’s just the best example of what the company offered over the years. She volunteered as a high school student, left to pursue a university degree in theatre, came back and served as assistant technical director and then moved through the company, did almost every job there was from, like I said, from ATD to associate artistic director. And gained her Equity status as a director and stage manager. She was a producer, did admin, donations, publicity, marketing, facilities management. To me it’s always important to look at the skills and the interest the person brings in rather than trying to be really definitive about the role, to try to suit the role to the person’s skill and try to build in that kind of adaptability and responsiveness in the structure of the organization itself. Obviously, a little bit more difficult to do that here in a, you know, really fixed and rigid institution. I think the larger that the organization is, the more difficult it is to build in that adaptiveness, responsiveness. But if we’ve learned anything through the past two and a half years, it really is that adaptability is critical to success.

Hope  Absolutely. And so, in terms of filling that gap from a training perspective, what I’m hearing is universities, post-secondary… more practical co-ops and on the job training would be useful.

Lori  Yeah, I think it’s incredibly important.  Even in the admin. Well, honestly, I – what I look for is if an administrator or producer has the knowledge of rehearsing and building a show and then bringing that expertise, that knowledge and experience into an admin producing role. I think I’ve, you know, I’ve won the lottery, because it is a skill to be able to see the art in the administrative work, in the planning work, and to know that at the end of the performance, when the audience stands up, they’re also standing up, you know, for that admin and producing work and all of the elements that have happened behind the scenes in order to create that moment. Yeah, that’s a great skill to acquire.

Hope  Absolutely. I love that. Yeah. I think we sometimes forget that the administration should be celebrated as part of that. Yeah. Amazing. And in the administrative track of getting a job what are the things that someone who wants to work on that needs to do to secure work? Is it just about looking for postings and applying? Are there other things they should be doing?

Lori The postings are of course, great because it is how you know the job is available. But being able to, I don’t know like, I just saw a very interesting presentation at a gathering at Queen’s University about the impact of community theatre on their professional world. You know if there are opportunities to be engaged in productions, whether it’s in community or in a school, at the university. As I said, that to me there’s just nothing better than that hands on experience. Of knowing the work from the ground up.

Hope  That’s great. Yeah. And our students often ask us- how can I book the gig? How can I get the job? What do I need to demonstrate? Any advice for what they would need to be able to submit to someone to show that they have the necessary experience?

Lori  I again, speaking from the perspective of Indigenous theatre, right? Like us, we would really highly value community engaged practice. Our cultural knowledge, like to us that would be of more value than almost anything else. So, from the student’s perspective, just being sure of who you are and having faith in the skills that you’re bringing to the table and the knowledge that you bring to the table and in yourself, I think is really important. And for those doing the hiring, I mean, my advice would be, know that if somebody has and I have to admit, one of the things I look for in hiring is a high level of resiliency. You know. There is no more demanding deadline than opening night. And somebody choosing to work in the arts needs to know that and needs to be able to have the personal resilience to really be able to function at a very high level for long periods of time. To be able to have the strength in themselves to say I can feel the end of my rope and that’s too close. I’m going to step away for a few days. And so, again, I as a leader am looking, always looking for where that resiliency within the team lies, right? I’m just trying to be aware of the personal resiliency, but it is possible to train.  If you can find the right person with the right spirit and the energy and the high level of resiliency, who has the passion, basic tools to work with. And, you know, training somebody up and offering opportunities is a great way because right now we are collectively screaming for, crying out for producers and administrators. And recognizing that and you know, somebody who’s showing an interest can very much be mentored into and brought into this role.

Hope That’s amazing. You’ve answered that next question about what you look for. Right? And yeah, that is, I think, very important. It’s not just the hard skills, but it’s those other aspects. Excellent. Are there any resources that you would recommend whether it’s to help learn or to help if they’re struggling to understand. Is there anything out there that would be valuable?

Lori  Hard to say. I can’t think of anything that they wouldn’t necessarily have read. The, you know, the CTA, taking a look at Article 10 in particular. And I think it might, you know, be skipped over. I think it’s worth a really in-depth read. Looking for information on Equity’s website. And not everything needs to fall under those parameters. But, ah, because I want to acknowledge that there’s a lot of work that happens outside of those parameters. You know, some of them, I haven’t even mentioned Kevin’s community work, which is also a huge part of why we’re here. And, you know, that is work that he literally did in his community with babes in arms to elders based on stories that were recorded on wax cylinders and working with community and language speakers brought back into life, brought back into current knowledge and practice in creating performance pieces with community members over a summer. And, and you know, that work is incredibly, incredibly important, inspiring. It is about retention of language, retention of knowledge, retention of cultural resiliency and pride in who we are. And, you know, as I say, speaking to those from our own community, that work exists in all kinds of communities. So it started, so it’s been again, that adaptiveness, right? But I don’t know where you necessarily learn that other than keeping an open mind and approaching challenges with an open mind… looking for an opportunity and looking for an option rather than saying no. More of an iterative process, if / then scenarios. There’s some interesting literature and experiences out there right now on project management. And I think in that iterative process, creative process that I find intuitive have been like on that – my son in law worked for Amazon. And they have this team mentality and I’m seeing it in our digital team here. And there’s some interesting, I’m sure that there’s some interesting reading there in and around that project team, team project approach. Yeah.

Hope  Absolutely. Yeah, yeah. Things we’ve always done in theatre right now other businesses are looking to that model. Excellent. And any other advice for those leaving their training and entering into the profession.

Lori  Is to be brave and have faith in themselves. Yeah. They got this.

Hope  That’s something they need to hear.

Lori  There’s a huge need and they’ve got to go through that training. They are absolutely in need – needed. And, there’ll be a space for them. Just to be patient and persevere and have faith in themselves.

Hope  Absolutely. And before we talk about the future, I thought we’ll just segue to some of the questions that are specific about theatre, because I find sometimes where the gaps are is just understanding how theatre operates. And I know that’s shifting terrain right now, but is there anything that you feel theatre students should know about the operational side?

Lori  Well, I think the biggest question, frankly, right now in front of us is about care and kindness. As I mentioned, you know, opening night, how do we make opening night a less daunting prospect, less rigid? I don’t, honestly, I don’t know the answer to that. You know, so the shifting models of rehearsal, looking for creation processes outside of the CTA that enable, the work. Right? You know, the CTA can be really great for supporting work of a certain kind. Interestingly, you know, I’ve always known about the UDA in Quebec, but being here in Ottawa now and seeing it… hearing from those artists more directly has been really interesting. And I know there are artists on both sides of that argument who, you know, one is really like, oh my gosh, I don’t even know how you do something over a period of time and not have that dedicated, focused rehearsal period. And, you know, on the other side, the artists are going, oh my gosh, I’m not sure how I could ever carve out, you know, like four weeks or six weeks and just do this show. I’ve got all of this other stuff going on. How do I accommodate it? I think that’s a huge movement, to consider things like alternative rehearsal processes, and five day weeks. Is there a way to get away from multi show days, like you know how do we make sure that we’re centering care of the artist with care of the work? And finding the best balance to share the amazing work that we create with audiences. In a good way.

Hope  Mm hmm. That’s amazing. And, obviously that presents some challenges because of the current structures. Are there other challenges in terms of just keeping a theatre company running. I think sometimes students don’t understand how hard it is.

Lori  Yeah, well, right now it’s really difficult right now. I know that a number of my personal friends who stepped away from the industry and, just finding it too difficult to make ends meet, frankly. And the skills, that one has, of an artist, an administrator are extremely valuable in a corporate setting and, you know that being said, if it’s who you are, that’s what you’re going to do. And, you know, like I say, that the ability to write grants, sitting down with an officer, any of the funding bodies. And seeing if you can find a successful company who’s willing to share a successful grant application so that you can look at models of what makes a successful grant. Being available to sit on assessment juries at any level. You know, the city, community, you know obviously province and feds would be really great. You know, one of the great things that we’re able to do is to really create amazing work on not much money. So being creative with resources and, and I say, like not just to make sure that it’s not at the expense of yourself. Themselves.

Hope That’s so important. Yeah. And anything that you would like to say about the relationship between staff of the theatre and the board of directors, because that’s often an interesting model that we work under.

Lori But just before I leave the last question. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It’s just a kind of a fun, a fun to do item is, is to watch Noises Off.

Hope  Yes.

Lori  And then don’t do any of that.

Hope  Excellent advice.

Lori  Yeah. Certainly in my career, I’ve and I think it’s still an element of the industry is that badge of honour, you know, well, I did a 48-hour period. I didn’t sleep for two days in order to be – like, don’t do that. Like, cancel the first performance, like just delay opening. That is so dangerous. It is so dangerous, especially when in most cases we have people working at heights, people working with machinery. People don’t. Don’t do it. Don’t do it. Yeah.

Hope  Hundred percent.

Lori  Don’t do any of that. I’m sorry, yeah. So, the board of directors.

Hope  Yes.

Lori  Yeah. Oh, my goodness. I will admit that I’ve had really varied experiences with boards. That was one of my conditions when I started at Western Canada Theatre that I didn’t have to deal with the Boardand about three or four years in, David said, you know, that’s got to change. And I do know people who say, like, who will come and work in a position like a second in command so that they don’t have to work with the board. I have also had amazing experiences with board and knowing that the knowledge as I say, much of the legal knowledge was management knowledge, marketing knowledge, knowledge of the community. It’s a place where that knowledge can really reside and inform the work of the organization. As I have certainly always worked with all of my boards to set up really clear processes in cases, in 95% of the cases I’m going to say it’s an ED to president line of communication. No other interaction. There may be a few committees like Fund Development where there’s a more direct communication. But making sure that the board understands what governance is and your role as the director and the staff to understand, you know, what their role is and that line of communication. And I think that those are the structures that I have enforced in very challenging situations. In an ideal world, people can for sure be together and exchange ideas. And so any role – that relationship with the board and the ED, if it’s the ED and the AD whatever that relationship, is really important; is really critical. Having a role too, in board recruitment, having clarity in terms of the mission, having clarity in terms of roles and responsibilities. You know, because you can have a working board as well as a governance board. But that clarity is absolutely essential to a good working relationship.

Hope  Absolutely. Yeah. Thank you for that. Yeah, it’s an interesting dynamic for sure. Yeah. Yeah. And we get asked by a lot of our students or emerging workers about freelance versus employment. And I know you said previously that you just wanted that regular paycheck. Are there any other considerations when making that choice?

Lori  Um. I think it’s just a very personal choice. I think there’s probably lots of opportunities right now for freelance work because the demand is so high. So, it really is about that personal resilience again, Right? What is best for you? Is it stressful for you to be without a contract for an unknown, you know that there may be a period of time over which you’re not in control of the income coming in. What is your level of comfort with that? Knowing your own tolerance for work, because the thing about contract work is you can have overlapping deadlines. So just being able to manage the workload and your work life balance and knowing your resiliency, your own level of resiliency is just really a key component of that decision, I think.

Hope  Mm hmm. Absolutely. Amazing. Anything else you want to speak to in terms of the challenges of producing for theatre or taking on a leadership role on the management side?

Lori I think I mentioned earlier on, like what I loved about theatre was the willingness to be able to lead as myself. Very, again, I was so smart when I was young – I don’t know how I knew things at that young age. Looking back, I don’t. So that’s part of the thing about trusting yourself, right? Yes. Whatever age you are, like you know yourself best and trusting yourself is absolutely key to self-confidence and making good decisions like to compromise yourself to fit into a role, is not something I would want to do. And so, I will say, look, I grew up in a world where a leader was very hierarchical. It was very top down. I will, fairly or unfairly, I will call it masculine because maybe I’m saying it because, you know, 90% of the leaders were male. And so, to lead as a woman. To lead, letting my heart guide my decision making and my intuition guide my decision making was something, when I stepped into leadership roles, that was really an anomaly. And I think, I think to a fair degree it still is. I think there’s, like, I think it’s amazing. We went, as I said, we were doing this leadership exchange program and they’re doing an emotional intelligence test as part of it.  And I’m just going, ohhh. That is amazing. I can’t believe that we’ve reached a point where we’re valuing emotional intelligence. I think my heart expands. But, you know, it is, it is- I don’t know what else to add to that. It really is just being able to lead as yourself and not sacrificing your values to step into a role.

Hope  No, I think that’s great. Absolutely. And then just finally, as you look towards the future, is there anything that you are optimistic about that you’re excited about? Is there anything you want to share with the next generation?

Lori  Well, I’m really excited, as I mentioned – I’m just so excited about the young folks that I’m meeting through this leadership exchange and across the country at conferences and gatherings. I’m just thrilled to know and as I said, eight in my graduating class and 800 at my children’s. You know it’s now, they’re sort of in their late twenties, early thirties and you can see even behind them another group of young leaders coming up and just the confidence and faith in themselves, embracing their cultural background, whatever it may be, valuing their language, valuing where they come from, and not seeing that as a detriment to success. That is night and day, night and day from the world that I grew up in. And it is unbelievable.

Hope  It’s incredible. Yeah. Absolutely incredible. I would just say thank you for all you’ve offered. But also, I think the work you’ve done that has allowed for that that shift to really take hold.

Lori  I have a lot of gratitude to offer for leaders who came before me. Kevin and I are, are both, you know, first generation who didn’t go to residential school. And when I talk about generosity in a lot of my land acknowledgements and the work that I do, you know, I’m talking about extreme generosity in terms of sharing stories and experiences that are really unbelievably hurtful and traumatic to tell. And just, ensuring that this next generation, that my generation has that knowledge and the strength and the sense of self to be proud and to go forward and take on the necessary changes is, you know, really unfathomable. Like my, you know, a lot of, particularly women have been influential in my career, and I have nothing but gratitude for them. So, if, if I can in some small way pay that forward. And I think Kevin [Loring] and I talk about those folks that came before us as the gravel crushers and hopefully we’re just paving the road so the generation behind us can drive on it.