Interview Archive

Headshot of Richard Willis. He wears a blue shirt and stands in front of a grey-blue background.

Writing a Play is Like Watching a Film: Richard Sheridan Willis on ‘Boy Beatle’

  • Interview
  • News
  • Playwright
  • Theatre Kingston

The classic saying is, “The show must go on!” Well, so must the review… sort of.  With our small team at the KTA, unfortunately when one of us is struck with sickness, there’s a bit of reworking to be done. This was the case last week, just as we were about to review Theatre Kingston’s production of Boy Beatle. However, we luckily managed to work out a short interview through […]

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Headshot of drag queen BeeWitched. She has long black hair and wears a sparkly black bodysuit. She stands in front of a purple background.

Drag, Advocacy, and Witchcraft with Kingston’s BeeWitched

  • Interview

Become bewitched, bothered, and bewildered in the best way! Bee Dupuis, also known as BeeWitched, wears many hats including drag performer, event organizer, advocate, and chair of Kingston Pride. Recently I had the absolute pleasure of speaking with BeeWitched about performing drag, advocacy work, witchcraft, and the Halloween season.  This interview has been edited for length and clarity.  Dupuis’ drag persona, BeeWitched, is “the embodiment of all the beautiful, but […]

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Graphic for the 2024 Kick & Push Festival. The image is blue with white writing of "The Kick & Push Festival 2024" in the centre and orange lines in each of the corners.

10s All Around: A Decade of Kick & Push Festivals

  • Interview
  • Kick & Push Festival

The tenth day of the tenth month. What better time to read about the Kick & Push Festival’s tenth season?  Although summer may be long over by now, the KTA has just finished wrapping up the necessary paperwork that must come with the annual Kick & Push Festival. As my colleague and Artistic Producer of the Kick & Push Liam Karry recently closed the books on this year’s busy run, […]

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Image of Jeff McGilton. He wears a blue turtleneck and smiles looking off to the side.

Raising Stakes: Jeff McGilton Talks Kingston WritersFest

  • Artist
  • Interview
  • Writersfest

Participating and playing in this year’s WritersFest is Jeff McGilton, a multi-faceted artist who Kingston has the pleasure of engaging this week as he and Mariah (Mo) Horner will be facilitating a workshop in the September festival titled Participatory Play. Earlier this year, Horner and Jenn Stephenson published Play: Dramaturgies of Participation and the workshop—a TeensWrite Studio event—will guide teens through concepts in the book, mainly focussing on participatory theatre. […]

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Headshot of Wilding. They wear a black shirt and have short hair. They are subtly smiling.

Writing (and Living) Through Improv with Wilding

  • All-Inclusive Comedy
  • Artist
  • Interview
  • Writersfest

Bring a “yes, and…” approach to your writing, with help from Wilding! In their workshop at this year’s Kingston WritersFest, Writing With Wilding – Through an Improv Lens, they offer an improvisational-based approach to energize your writing practice. Originally from Vancouver, Wilding arrived in Kingston six years ago, having spent the last 25 years (at least) working within a variety of improv, performing, and teaching roles, exploring different ways that […]

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Photo of Jesse Gazic. He is smiling, against a red, pink, and green wall.

Catching Up With Jesse Gazic: ‘The Hunt for the Brightwing Butterfly’

  • Artist
  • Interview
  • Lockwood Immersive

Jesse Gazic is a Toronto-based game designer, theatre maker, and Queen’s alum—and this summer, he’s been leading a puzzling adventure to catch an elusive butterfly in High Park. When I first arrived at Queen’s in 2014, I thought Gazic was the coolest person in the very grown-up-seeming cohort of third-year drama students. Though our paths have seldom crossed since he graduated—he’s somewhat elusive himself—I recently managed to catch Gazic for […]

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Headshot of Bojana Babić. She is in front of a plain wall looking down. The image is in black and white.

Absurdism at The Kick & Push Festival: Bojana Babić’s ‘Basement Girl’

  • Artist
  • Interview
  • Kick & Push Festival

It’s the last show of the 2024 Kick & Push Festival—Basement Girl, a play about PhD student Jovana navigating her new life in Canada while dealing with some eerie sounds in her apartment. Director, playwright, and actor behind Jovana, Bojana Babić was kind enough to sit down with me this past week for a Zoom interview about the show.  This interview has been edited for clarity and length.  Could you […]

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The 2024 Kick & Push Festival's poster for the Cedar Island Residency. The title is in the centre of the graphic. The Kick & Push logo is in the bottom left, and the Parks Canada logo is in the bottom right. The background is blue with green lines.

Curating Sacred Spaces: The 2024 Cedar Island Residency

  • Artist
  • Interview
  • Kick & Push Festival

Artistic work that’s been a part of the Kick & Push Festival for several years now, the Cedar Island Residency returns for 2024 and this year’s creations will be shared today. By collaborating with Parks Canada to make this residency possible, the work on Cedar Island began just under one week ago on August 12th. With a busy past few days of creation, myself and B. Solomon—a creator in the […]

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A man dancing in a park.

Seymour Irons on Re-seeing Space and Redeveloping Scripts

  • Artist
  • Interview
  • Kick & Push Festival

The 2024 Kick & Push Festival is well underway with their upcoming closing weekend ending on a bang. With just over half the programming still remaining in its final days, wonderfully fabulous artists and their innovative creations will be leaving their mark on the Tett Centre, Cedar Island, City Park, and more. Amongst them is Seymour Irons—a man who wears many artistic hats but we’ll dive into that later—and his […]

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A man looking very dishevelled. He is on the phone, has a cigarette in his nose, his tie is loosened, and he holds a fish bowl.

Grifting Takes to the Stars: ‘Death of a Starman’ Explores Toxic Masculinity and the Power of Storytelling

  • Interview
  • TK Fringe

Mercury is in retrograde at Kingston Fringe this August as the stars collide in Death of a Starman, starring real life astrologer Zaid Bustami. I had the pleasure of chatting with co-writer and director of the show, Kay Komizara, about toxic masculinity, storytelling, and of course, the stars. Komizara has been a creator for the last 11 years, having worked in Victoria, Montreal, and is now touring Ontario for Death […]

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Five differently dressed versions of the same person pose for a photo together.

Creating Characters with Carisa Hendrix: A Lucy Darling Story

  • Interview
  • Theatre Kingston

Lucy Darling is a world-renowned socialite whose dazzling stage magic and improvisational comedy will be gracing Theatre Kingston next weekend.  While Ms. Darling was much too busy to meet me for an interview—and, really, can you blame her? She has places to be!—I recently had the opportunity to speak with Carisa Hendrix, the performer and magician behind the persona. After a delightful potation of Lucy Darling YouTube content, I met […]

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Headshot of Shanique Peart. Background is green leaves.

Creativity from the Ground UP: A Conversation with Shanique Peart

  • Artist
  • Ground UP
  • Interview

Shanique Peart is a Kingston-based multidisciplinary artist who mixes performance and media, with a focus on dance and photography. She’s also a delightful person to chat with—we met for the first time last week, and within minutes it felt like catching up with an old friend.  With two artist residencies and a festival performance around the corner, Peart has a full summer of creative projects planned. As we sat in […]

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