My Solo Show Origin Story
why & how I became a solo show creator & performer
In the autumn of 2007, I returned to Toronto from my first ever professional acting job (outdoor theatre on the farm theatre). I’d landed an agent but I was not having a good time.
I was frustrated by my lack of creative control:
I was bombing my auditions to play high school students in poorly written TV series or to sell toothpaste in commercials.
The play I’d written that was produced at the Toronto fringe that summer had 9 characters in it — getting funding to develop it in a serious seemed out of my reach. Plus I stumped as to how to re-write it to make it better!?
My joe-jobs in the service industry depressed me.
I didn’t feel like an artist.
I was spiralling into a panic and depression pit.
At some point in 2008, I went to a talk at Canadian Stage and one of the artists there spoke about how creating your own work as a theatre artist gives you a chance to control your destiny. I took this to heart.
I decided to create something manageable – a show with one character, one story, for myself to perform – all new territory for me. A SOLO SHOW. I could work on it whenever it suited me and I didn’t have to rely on anyone else to do it.
The kernel for my first solo show, OH MY IRMA, came via a writing exercise given to me by a member of a theatre collective I was part of at the time. I discovered a peculiar character who was obsessed with laundry.
I wrote a 5-min piece in her voice. In spring 2009, I auditioned it for an emerging artist night at Theatre Pass Muraille, curated by a team that included Mitchell Cushman (my now LONG TIME collaborator).
I left the audition convinced I’d been horrible and biked home feeling like a big loser.
But they selected me as one of 12 acts. And I ended up being voted the audience’s favourite act, giving me a 15-minute slot to perform at the next event.
I didn’t have 15 minutes and I’d be out of town on a summer theatre contract during the next performance but my landlord (an experienced actor) told me I was at a point in my career where I couldn’t say no to things. Especially not opportunities in Toronto or opportunities to share my own work.
I took his advice.
After my 15-minute performance, Andy McKim, the AD of Theatre Passe Muraille asked me if I had more material. I lied and said “Yes.” Andy programmed me in the first ever BUZZ Festival at the theatre. I performed 35 minutes of material and I got paid $750 (!!!!!!!!!!!).
In the meantime Mitchell Cushman had started working with me as a dramaturg. Most of his feedback early on was, “It’s good Haley. Keep going.” This encouragement was critical.
OH MY IRMA got into the Edmonton Fringe for the summer of 2010. Mitchell would direct and I’d write, act and produce it. I also applied to the Banff Centre’s Playwright’s Colony – a program I’d heard of and dreamt of participating in.
After my performance at BUZZ, Andy said the theatre wanted to produce the show the following season. I cried.
In Banff I met Debbie Pearson – a Canadian living in London – who’d work with me as a dramaturge years later, introduce me to the Battersea Arts Centre, cast me in a show in the UK and help me move across the pond.
Age 24, I slept on the floor of Mitchell’s shared student accommodation and we presented OH MY IRMA at the Edmonton Fringe. We got a review that called me “the next darling of Canadian theatre.”
OH MY IRMA ran at Theatre Passe Muraille for 3.5wks through January 2011 and was met with very mixed reviews – the early ones were awful but Now Magazine and Torontoist came through with good ones near the end of the run. Word of mouth was great and the show sold out.
But I felt like I’d been publicly shamed.
One night after the show, out of some urge to seize my life and stick it to the new guy I was dating, I booked a trip to Europe. I hated that I’d never been. I would stay with Debbie in London, my childhood friend (and a theatre director), Teddy Witzel, in Berlin.
In Europe it occurred to me that I didn’t want my show to die just because its first professional outing wasn’t a slam dunk. I wondered if there was an audience for it elsewhere? The theatre my peers were making in London and Berlin spurred me on.
When I returned from my trip, I traded in my late-night searches on TorontoCatRescue.com to create a massive spreadsheet of international solo show festivals. I applied for every opportunity to perform IRMA abroad.
I was rejected by most.
But I was accepted to United Solo, the world’s largest solo show festival in NYC. The show ended up winning ‘best production’ at the festival, catching the attention of a monodrama festival in Germany.
And that’s when things took off. In the subsequent years I toured extensively internationally (36 venues in 11 countries) and received grants and commissions to create new solos with international partners. And so many other riches...
My solo shows have made me a more sensitive performer.
They’ve taught me how to structure a piece of writing so an audience doesn’t lose interest.
They’ve forced me to learn how to self-produce, how to organise a tour, write grants, fundraise, publicise, how to build the right team of people around myself, delegate and outsource.
My solo shows have broadened my pallet as a creator, girded my loins as a performer and made me a savvy businessperson.
And they've served up opportunities I didn’t dare let myself dream of.
Not without an enormous amount of hard work, patience and dusting myself off and trying again, my work as a solo show creator and performer has given me a life and career I love.
If you’re keen to bust of the confines of a traditional career and take control of your artistic life, I highly recommend you create a solo show of your own.
If you’d like to learn how to make a solo with me, I’d love help you create it. All details about my Online Solo Show Creation Lab are here.