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iPhoto caption: Photo by Audrianna Martin Del Campo.
Speaking in Draft: Veronica Hortigüela and Annie Luján
“Toronto needs to take comedies more seriously,” says Luján. “Comedy is not making people laugh every few minutes. In my mind, if people aren’t peeing their pants, we didn’t work hard enough. I think we can raise the bar on how out-of-control laughing we can make an audience.”
iPhoto caption: Headshot courtesy of Marcia Johnson.
Speaking in Draft: Marcia Johnson
"The whole reason I started writing was to give myself work, because I just wasn't getting lead roles, I wasn't getting interesting roles, and I knew that I could carry them off," says Johnson. "My goal when I wrote You Look Great Too was for people to say, ‘Oh my gosh, yes, she can play a lead’ — and then I would never have to write again. Then it turned out that writers were more in demand. I thought ‘OK, maybe I’ll write a few more plays.’"
iPhoto caption: Headshot courtesy of Emily Jung.
"I want theatre to be so ingrained in everyone's day-to-day life, that it becomes natural to go see a show that's happening locally,” says Jung. “It should be an integral part of society for people to be able to access a cultural space, go there, and experience something that energizes them."
iPhoto caption: Headshot courtesy of Byron Laviolette.
Speaking in Draft: Byron Laviolette
“Right now, the creation-to-production process for a lot of people is from the Toronto Fringe to — hopefully — some theatre recommender grants, to a workshop production, to maybe an actual production,” says What The Festival co-founder Byron Laviolette. “But the realities of mounting a show at the Fringe don’t translate to a two-week run at the Extraspace at Tarragon. Peoples’ appetites are different. Yet we don’t train or support people to translate their shows into those different contexts."