Phil Rickaby: Hello, welcome to Stageworthy. I'm Phil Rickaby, the host and producer of this podcast. Stageworthy is Canada's theatre podcast, and on Stageworthy, I talk to theatre makers of all kinds, from actors to directors to playwrights, stage managers, producers. If they make theatre in Canada, I talk to them. Some of the people I talk to are household names, and the rest are people that I really think you should get to know. This is the first episode of my Toronto Fringe Festival coverage, and there'll be one episode this week. And coming soon, I will be doing two episodes a week, one on Tuesday on the regular schedule and one on Thursday, to try to fit in as much coverage as possible. I am trying to balance some non-fringe with fringe, so I'm doing my best to give as much coverage to as many people as possible. Last year, I was able to do a bunch of fringe specials where I was able to talk to a bunch of people in small 15-minute increments. I just haven't been able to do that this year. So if that's something you were hoping for, looking forward to, I apologize that's not something that I can do this year, but hopefully the coverage that I am able to provide will be of interest. My guest this week is Rymnn Wadhwa. Rymn is a Toronto-based playwright and engineer. Rymn's play, Assembly Sϋggested, is going to be at the Toronto Fringe Festival, and it's one of the most inventive premises I've heard in quite a I really like this idea and I really enjoyed talking to Rymn, and so I highly recommend listening to this show and stick around to the end of the episode, and we'll talk about who my guest is next week and take care of a little bit of housekeeping on the other side. So now, here's my conversation with Rymn Wadhwa. Rymn Wadhwa, thank you so much for joining me. This is really exciting for me. Your show that I'm already excited about is called Assembly Sϋggested. Yes. But why don't we start, could you give me what is the elevator pitch for your show?
Rymn Wadhwa: Okay, the elevator pitch is that it's a show about two women building a chair today, but also maybe also a relationship to be determined.
Phil Rickaby: And so this is like them trying to follow instructions on how to build the chair and perhaps even the relationship? Yes.
Rymn Wadhwa: So it's kind of an increasingly absurd instruction manual that they're following. You know, it starts with finding bolts and parts and screwing things together, and then it's like, give each other a compliment, which maybe is not part of a normal instruction manual.
Phil Rickaby: You know, I wish it was, because I gotta tell you, one of my least favorite things to do is to put together like IKEA furniture. I don't know about you, but I invent new swear words when I'm following those instructions. It's so bad. Where did the idea for this show come from?
Rymn Wadhwa: Well, it's about a relationship between two women, and it's very much mirroring a relationship that I had with an old friend of mine. And I think that's kind of the best way to build these fleshed out three-dimensional characters is based off of someone you know. And the relationship that we had really did feel like building and breaking something. It was so dear to my heart and everything felt like, okay, we're adding a little stack on our jenga of our friendship, you know?
Phil Rickaby: Yeah, for sure. So like we were mentioning, just like as we're getting started, this is your first play.
Rymn Wadhwa: Yes.
Phil Rickaby: You are not a playwright. Like this is nothing you do. You're not really a theatre person.
Rymn Wadhwa: I like theatre. But you're not somebody who's done theatre in the past.
Phil Rickaby: Not professionally, yeah. So the question is, you are, in fact, an engineer. I am. So I guess one of the starting points for any conversation is, how does an engineer end up writing a play?
Rymn Wadhwa: An engineer or anyone ends up writing a play when they have a story they absolutely have to tell. I feel like how everyone feels when they're heartbroken and going through their turmoil, which is like, nobody understands this. I'm the only one in the universe experiencing this, and I have to let it out. So it doesn't matter what you do in your day-to-day. I think the artist is always going to want to come out in one way or another.
Phil Rickaby: For sure. And I'm curious, as somebody saying that the artist wants to come out, is this the first time that the artist has come out for you, or has the artist come out in other ways in the past?
Rymn Wadhwa: I've played in a band. I've been a musician before. I like to paint. I like to draw. But this will be the first thing where you kind of have guaranteed eyes on it. Like I really am doing this with an audience in mind rather than just stop in my bedroom or for like four people at the bar, you know?
Phil Rickaby: Well, it is interesting. It's an interesting thing about the Fringe Festival is that unlike other times of the year, if you are, say, for example, trying to self-produce, sometimes it can be hard to find an audience. But with Fringe, there's an audience during that time that is looking for things to see, right? And so it's actually more likely that people are going to come and see a Fringe show than they would at any other time. Not to freak you out as a first-time Fringer.
Rymn Wadhwa: No, no. I want it. I signed up for the awards and everything. I want all eyes on it. I want to really dive in. I'm not going to do this halfway, you know?
Phil Rickaby: No, and nor should you. Nor should you. You're not going to get anything out of the Fringe experience if you half-ass it, right?
Rymn Wadhwa: Exactly. Exactly.
Phil Rickaby: Was this a finished play when you applied for the Fringe?
Rymn Wadhwa: It was half-finished. It was, you know, it was, is it a movie? Is it a play? But the story was there. I knew exactly kind of what I wanted to do with it. And when I won the lottery, oh my god, I cried. I had tears because, again, I felt like I absolutely had to tell the story. And there's a different vibe to telling the story to my diary versus people hearing the story.
Phil Rickaby: Oh, for sure. Now, we're still, I mean, as we record this, it's May. And so there's still a month and a bit before the festival. But how are things shaping up for this show?
Rymn Wadhwa: Super well. I have an amazing cast and crew. Yeah, all local GTA people. It's an entirely women and queer folk team that I've put together. And a lot of them have a lot of theatre experience. So they get to kind of, I get to have a little secondhand expertise because of them.
Phil Rickaby: They do have a lot of theatre experience?
Rymn Wadhwa: Yeah, in various ways. But yes.
Phil Rickaby: That's amazing. That's amazing. Now, one of the things that Fringe has implemented in the last few years is, I don't want to say that it's not like mentor groups, but it's like they've like cohorts of groups within the Fringe. Like, so they'll group some people together and they'll group some people together so that they could share a bit of knowledge and things like that. Often there is like a mentor within it. And that is super helpful for somebody, especially because a lot of people, it's their first time Fringing. How have you found that aspect of Fringe?
Rymn Wadhwa: It's been good. It's been good. Yeah, I've gone to some of the mentorship, they call them pods. I've attended some of them. But I do think a lot of that you're on your own in terms of figuring out marketing and writing. And it's nice to more just talk and communicate with other people. But I don't think you really are on your own for it, which is nice. I like it. It's not a complaint at all.
Phil Rickaby: It is something that you do have to figure out yourself, right? Because nobody else can tell you how to market your show.
Rymn Wadhwa: No.
Phil Rickaby: People could give suggestions. And if you're trying things out, you can always run it past them. But ultimately, you have to make the decisions. I was looking at your website, by the way, and your website has like that IKEA manual feel to it. It feels like the description of your show, which is a great place to start. I take it that in the title of your play, there's the umlaut over suggest the you and suggested. That's to suggest the IKEA-ness of the play?
Rymn Wadhwa: Yeah, I thought it'd be fun branding. It is IKEA chairs. I've sourced the chairs. They are IKEA chairs that we're using for the show. Again, it's that thing of you can put it together yourself. It's this relationship that they're building. You know, the metaphor is a little on the nose, I suppose, but I think it's clear.
Phil Rickaby: Now, logistically, because they're putting together a chair, does that mean that they're going to put it put together a chair and somebody's going to have to take that chair apart at the end of each show?
Rymn Wadhwa: No. So the solution we have is maybe a little bit more elegant than this. What we're doing is I got four chairs and they're all at various stages of being built. The entire set is cardboard boxes. So it's very easy to put something in a box and swap it out. You know, nothing's going to take time. I kept it as bare bones, minimal as possible in terms of that stuff. And I have a friend of mine who's helping with carpentries with like a couple of pieces you can just magnetically attach that kind of thing.
Phil Rickaby: Genius. Genius. Very, very smart. Very good. I mean, of course, it being the Toronto Fringe, you only have 15 minutes to get ready and 15 minutes to get out, which is which can be a bit of a time crunch.
Rymn Wadhwa: Yeah. And unlike you, it would be very annoying to have to take down IKEA furniture and rebuild it for every show.
Phil Rickaby: I mean, in a way, I'm thinking about what a what a thing to do to your actors. They finally accomplish putting together the chair. And then as soon as the show's over, the stage manager begins disassembling the chair. It's like Sisyphus pushing the rock.
Rymn Wadhwa: Performance art after the show.
Phil Rickaby: I mean, maybe that that could be a thing that could be like the show after the show.
Rymn Wadhwa: Oh, wait till next year.
Phil Rickaby: Perfect. I'm curious about your your writing process, because as a playwright myself, I'm always interested in how people write plays. Now, you were you were sitting with this idea and you weren't sure, is it a movie? Is it a play? What is it? When you sat down to write, what what does that look like? Is it like stream of consciousness? Is it planning? What's your process like?
Rymn Wadhwa: Totally stream of consciousness. Again, it came from a very specific situation in my life. So I have all this source material. I have photographs I can look at and all these memories. I have all these diary pages. And it's all about taking all those concepts and making sense of them and, you know, adding a narrative where where possible. But I'll be honest, actually, my show was not super narrative and plot point driven. And I've had this idea in my head. Tell me what you think, where I think it takes a good writer to write something with a lot of plot points, a lot of turns and twists. But I think it takes a great writer to write something a little more mundane, a little more boring, even if I may be so bold. So it's kind of we're doing like a snapshot of life kind of thing with some with some, you know, the plot does advance, but it's kind of a snapshot of life.
Phil Rickaby: One of the things that I find that's interesting about theatre is it doesn't have to be about plot.
Rymn Wadhwa: Yeah.
Phil Rickaby: Right. The relationships between characters and the choices that they make can be the thing that engages the audience. Nobody needs like you don't necessarily need an action sequence. It doesn't have to be that it doesn't have to have like major plot points because two people having a discussion, two people falling in love, breaking up like all of these things that can be what what what drives a play. And and sometimes getting stuck on plot can be a bit of a crutch in terms of like putting a story together. So absolutely, I think that that a great writer can write without like a lot of a lot of plot points.
Rymn Wadhwa: And those are the things I love, you know, where it's you're like, how did you make a whole movie about someone being late for their flight and stuck in the airport and you know, that kind of thing.
Phil Rickaby: Yeah, absolutely. With with this play, I'm going to be honest with you, as far as as far as like concepts for a show, this one is what is a show that when you hear the description, you feel like, oh, I got to see that. And I've heard a lot of fringe pitches over in my years. This is one that's like, oh, I have to see that. That's that's where it kind of sits for me. So I'm curious about, you know, here you're working on on this show. And do you have a wish list for what happens after fringe or are you too busy, like concentrating on fringe?
Rymn Wadhwa: You know, I'm busy concentrating on fringe, but I feel like I'm at a point where I'm so open to anything that could possibly come out of this. If we can make this show go any farther than fringe, I'd be so grateful. I hope people resonate with it. You know, I guess that's where it would start.
Phil Rickaby: Yeah, for sure. You mentioned that you were a theatre goer before you sort of became a theatre maker.
Rymn Wadhwa: I enjoy theatre. Yeah, of course.
Phil Rickaby: Do you have a play that's your favorite?
Rymn Wadhwa: The one that stuck with me the most, because I got kind of scared during it, I'm not going to lie. I went to see Life of Pi on Broadway and that one really stuck with me. Not much of an inspiration for this.
Phil Rickaby: No, but what was it that scared you about it?
Rymn Wadhwa: I didn't know the story of Life of Pi before. So I found, I mean, are you familiar?
Phil Rickaby: Only vaguely. I haven't read the book, but I know, I know a bit.
Rymn Wadhwa: I mean, the whole thing, I guess there is a little bit of a parallel here, but definitely not a direct inspiration. The whole story is this kind of fantastical story about this kid on the boat with all these animals and you're like, whatever. But then the animals are hurting each other and fighting and eating each other. And you're like, okay. And then you find out it's people. And I was so like, it was a rug pull. I loved it, but it was a little, I think I kind of did that with this play actually a little bit where I don't want to say too much, but it's the kind of play where I think if you saw it twice, you'd be like, oh, that's why like all these decisions were made in the first half. I think I resonate with that style a lot.
Phil Rickaby: I have a theory about plays for myself and that is, say for example, if a play has a comedic premise, if a play is a comedy, for it to be a play, it needs to be a moment where you have to pay off the comedy with something serious.
Rymn Wadhwa: Yes.
Phil Rickaby: Right. Otherwise it's just a sketch. If you don't come in at the end and like have something meaningful, then it's just like sketch comedy, which is its own thing, but I don't think it's a play. So to me having something where it's like, oh, this is like a silly thing with people putting together this furniture and then to have something really serious at the end makes the laughs earlier mean something more.
Rymn Wadhwa: Yes. Yes. I feel like exactly. And by the end of my play, the first half will be very much recontextualized. And yeah, I think that's where the audience payoff will be. I would hope. I would hope.
Phil Rickaby: Yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure. I mean, you obviously have some hopes over what the audience will take from this play. And, you know, the lottery was in November, I think.
Rymn Wadhwa: I won the satellite lottery, so I got it in January. It's been an extra tight timeline.
Phil Rickaby: Oh, so like a real extra like really tight because that's like that's only a couple of months. So this this play must have been ruminating in your brain for quite some time before you put it on paper.
Rymn Wadhwa: Yes, it had to have been, you know, I didn't have time to come up with a new concept, definitely. But it was nice, actually, that moment, because I turned 30 this year in January and then that same week I won the fringe lottery and it felt a little bit like divine intervention almost that, oh, we're going to change this decade. Yeah.
Phil Rickaby: Does that I mean, I haven't I haven't turned 30 in a long time, but like for me and tell me if felt this way for me, it was twenty seven. Twenty seven was a massive year of of like it wasn't like I'm oh, I'm I'm going to be 30. That was this dress at 27, not turning 30. So. It feels like when you're in your 20s and you're heading into your 30s, it feels like a big deal. Yeah. Does this and this play suggest to you that there's a new direction in terms of your your creative life?
Rymn Wadhwa: Hundred percent. I don't think again, I I come from the world of engineering. I'm a chess player. I've been very much as much as I've been a little artist in my room. I've never taken it outside my room very much. I don't think I can go back now that I've had a taste. I haven't even premiered the thing. I can't go back. So, yes, it's going to be it's a new room. And it's funny that you talked about being 27. This whole play takes place in my 27th year of life. It's all about being 27.
Phil Rickaby: Right.
Rymn Wadhwa: It was a crazy year for me, too.
Phil Rickaby: Speaking of chess, chess, when you're playing chess, you have to think several moves ahead. Yes. Does that kind of thinking affect how you approach creating a play, how you put together a dramatic structure?
Rymn Wadhwa: A hundred percent, I think, because, of course, you can come in new and you can say, OK, I'm going to learn how to do these things from I can listen to a million podcasts, whatever. But I think we were talking about this before I think the recording started. I think there's an advantage to doing things your own way. And I'm leaning into the fact that I have this chess background, this engineering mindset where you're being super methodical. And I'm like putting my play into charts. No, seriously, I will chart it out. This is like high emotion. This is low emotion. You start seeing trends and stuff. You know, it's a new way of doing it. And I think it's going to I hope it's going to seem novel as people see it, because I think it was written with a little bit of novelty kind of kind of baked into the process.
Phil Rickaby: I mean, the fact that it's your first play adds adds a lot of novelty to it.
Rymn Wadhwa: Yes.
Phil Rickaby: You know, it being your first play, being an engineer, sometimes our families get settled in the way that we you know, you're an engineer and your family's probably like she's an engineer. And yeah. And then you're doing some theatre. Are they concerned about your engineering future? And sometimes parents can be.
Rymn Wadhwa: Listen, I have my ring. They can't say anything to me anymore. But I mean, I think you picked up on something. I definitely went in the STEM route because of, you know, parental, we'll say influence. But, you know, I have a career now. And now I think it's the time I get to feel the most free, you know, getting older was a blessing. I get to be free to do whatever now. And Fringe is amazing. It's not incompatible with the rest of my life. So I get to do both.
Phil Rickaby: Yeah. I do think that it is possible to have your theatre life and your work life. Yeah, I do that. I like I have a day job and I do this and I make theatre. So I think that it is possible to to do both. In fact, in some ways, it can be necessary to have that day job in order to fund that theatre life.
Rymn Wadhwa: A hundred beyond funding, I think you want to I think people with the most interesting stories aren't just focusing on one thing in their lives. You want to be well-rounded. That's where the inspiration is going to come from.
Phil Rickaby: So, yeah, I mean, so many people that I know, they are there are many things. They are actors, playwrights, stage combat instructors. They are so many different things. Right. And that that helps them to be well-rounded. But the other thing that I think is helpful that as you know, it can be it sometimes happens that somebody is so wrapped up in the theatre world that they that's their world and not like the world of people who go to an office job or things like that. And so it can be hard to write outside of the theatre world. You know, it can be well-rounding to have the day job, to surround yourself with people who don't know what theatre is or don't know what these things are.
Rymn Wadhwa: A hundred percent. A hundred percent. I think it's definitely again, it's all this is going come across. This is such a confessional play that I think it's going to be obvious. I think I literally say in the play, oh, the main character is an engineer.
Phil Rickaby: Like this is the level of, you know, now this is this is this play is based on I don't know how loosely, but it's based on something that happened to you.
Rymn Wadhwa: Yes.
Phil Rickaby: Does the other person know this play is happening?
Rymn Wadhwa: You know what? She doesn't because we haven't spoken like, you know, for a long time. However, I know just based on like a one line description of the play, she would know it was about her. So if she hears this or something, she'll know and she'll respect it. But that's like how close we were and how much we understood each other.
Phil Rickaby: Right.
Rymn Wadhwa: Yeah.
Phil Rickaby: Do you have like a plan for if she comes to the show?
Rymn Wadhwa: I don't I don't I don't need a plan because she'll respect me enough to not come to the show. Like as much as, you know, the heartbreak was painful, I think we understand each other too well. And there is a level of respect there. A boundary would never be.
Phil Rickaby: OK, that's good. That's good.
Rymn Wadhwa: Yeah, good.
Phil Rickaby: Yeah. So there's definitely been a couple of times I've done a show where I was like, there's one person I know can never come and see this show.
Rymn Wadhwa: Oh, I would cry. I'm crying backstage.
Phil Rickaby: No fringe is unjuried. There's no no gatekeepers except for the lottery. Right. It's so some of that you never know what you're going to get. So it can be there's a little bit of chaos in a in a fringe season. And that that could be freeing, though. So was that kind of freedom important to you as a theatrical debut?
Rymn Wadhwa: Yeah, of course. I think freedom is the number one thing you want. Right. You want to be honest and free. That being said, I don't think I'm pushing the bounds with too much craziness. Like I fringe plays, they get really wild. This is something my parents could come see.
Phil Rickaby: I mean, it's the interesting thing is, you know, listen, every fringe city is different. Every fringe city likes something else. And Toronto likes some weird stuff. Toronto likes a bit of weird. But there's something about like the premise of your show, which is I don't want to say normal, but it's like there's something every day about the strangeness to it. Like everybody knows the experience of putting together furniture.
Rymn Wadhwa: Oh, a hundred percent. Again, I this word has such a negative connotation, but I describe it as a little bit boring. Not that the play is boring at all, but I wanted it to be so just grounded in something mundane. I like that kind of stuff a lot more than a ton of action, ton of plot. And also it's much more feasible. You know, the whole thing takes place in a living room, cardboard boxes everywhere, building a chair, you know, and it's all about that conversation connection between these two people. And it allows me, I think, to dive into some very particular nuances of friendship that maybe aren't explored that often. There's this one idea that I've been thinking about a lot lately that I talk about. And it's this concept of spending more time with someone than they're spending with you because, you know, after the hangout, you're still thinking about it. You're replaying it. You're scrolling through Instagram, figuring out what the perfect thing to send them is. You know, you're hanging out with them, but they're not there. It's like these kind of really specific thing that I want the audience to be like, oh yeah, I've done that. I know that, that specific feeling.
Phil Rickaby: I think we've all done that. It's, uh, you're right. It is like the, it's the hangout after the hangout.
Rymn Wadhwa: Right.
Phil Rickaby: Yeah.
Rymn Wadhwa: But sometimes they're not hanging out with you. No.
Phil Rickaby: And that's like, then you're like, you're like, send them that perfect meme or whatever. And then they don't respond. And you're like, hello?
Rymn Wadhwa: I know. And it's to them, it's everything. You spend an hour curating the perfect post.
Phil Rickaby: Yes. Yes. Not that, not that I've ever done that.
Rymn Wadhwa: Oh, of course not. Hypothetically.
Phil Rickaby: Purely hypothetical. Purely hypothetical. Which venue are you at? You're at the?
Rymn Wadhwa: I'm at Native Earth. Native Earth.
Phil Rickaby: In the Aki studio? Yes. Nice.
Rymn Wadhwa: No, in the Jeezy studio. But I don't know if one is part of the other.
Phil Rickaby: Oh man. I don't know. Cause I know they have two spaces there.
Rymn Wadhwa: I know it's called Jeezy.
Phil Rickaby: Okay.
Rymn Wadhwa: But I believe it's part of the Aki studio, if I'm not mistaken. I haven't gone to visit yet. That'll be at the end of the month. Yes.
Phil Rickaby: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Which is close enough that you can get to the Fringe Hub at Soulpepper. It's a walkable distance. As opposed to if you were at Terragon, which is a lot, a lot, a lot further away.
Rymn Wadhwa: Yeah. I feel like Fringe this year is way more spread out than maybe I've noticed it being other years.
Phil Rickaby: Do you have a history with Fringe before this? Like as a theatre goer?
Rymn Wadhwa: Yeah, as a goer, but not as much as a, this is my first time doing it. So, but I'm not a first time lottery enter either. This is my first time winning.
Phil Rickaby: How many times have you entered the lottery? Twice. Okay. That's, that's pretty good. That's a pretty good ratio.
Rymn Wadhwa: It's not bad. Yeah. The hit rate's not bad.
Phil Rickaby: That's a really good hit rate. I know people who like myself, I've, I've, I've entered a lot more times and that's just the fact that that's just the luck of a lottery. Is there a play that you've seen in Fringe's past that stuck with you?
Rymn Wadhwa: There's one, there's one that did stick with me. Not because it was, you know, that impressive or anything, you know, I'm actually not going to name it if that's okay. Sure. But I, I, uh, there's one that did stick with me because I didn't realize that Fringe was a lottery. I would just, it's just a theatre festival. Like I didn't think about it. And I said to the person I was going with, I said, you know, I think I could do this. And he said, yeah, like it's a lottery. And that was, it stuck with me cause that's when they found out. So it was that moment of like, this is good, but I could also be this good. And he said, you know, the difference between you and this person is they did it.
Phil Rickaby: Yeah.
Rymn Wadhwa: Fair enough.
Phil Rickaby: Yeah. I think a lot of people who were outside of the Fringe scene don't know that it's a lottery.
Rymn Wadhwa: Yeah.
Phil Rickaby: I know, I know I've spoken to people and they're like, they're like, uh, they were like, are you doing anything at Fringe this year? And I was like, I don't know. The lottery hasn't happened yet. And they were like the lottery? Like they thought that I could just decide that I'm going to be in the Fringe. If only.
Rymn Wadhwa: I've also been surprised by how many people have never heard of the Fringe at all. Listen, I'm in tech spaces, so it could be more to do with that, but yeah, it's, it's, it really is on the Fringe.
Phil Rickaby: It is. And it's funny because it, the, the size of the Fringe festival and how large it looms in the imagination of a city really depends on that city. Like Edmonton is the largest Fringe in North America and that the entire city of Edmonton revolves around Fringe when it happens. Winnipeg is second largest. And again, it, everything revolves around Fringe and a lot of the smaller Fringes of which Toronto comparatively is, um, there's a lot going on in the city and it can be really hard to make Fringe, like I know people who've known me for years and they're like, what's a Fringe festival?
Rymn Wadhwa: Yeah, no, it's, it's weird that Edmonton and, you know, I'm a Toronto girl through and through, but Edmonton and Winnipeg being the biggest ones in Canada feels crazy to me. I mean, considering Toronto is so bohemian and you know, I know it all comes down to budgets and stuff.
Phil Rickaby: Of course, it actually comes down to which one was first and Edmonton was the first Fringe festival outside of Edinburgh and then Winnipeg followed. So the reason why they are the biggest in North America is because they were first and second. But of course, if you've never been, you have no idea how big those things are.
Rymn Wadhwa: Yes. I would love to go to Edinburgh. I mean, that's the one everyone talks about.
Phil Rickaby: Yeah. Being in a position where people, a lot of people that you know in the tech space, they don't know what the Fringe is. How do you talk to them about the Fringe and your show?
Rymn Wadhwa: Oh, um, I guess I, I don't pitch it super differently than I would to a theatre goer, but I guess their reactions are very different because it's so foreign, you know, like these are people starting their own companies at like 25, some of them, but making a play feels like, how would I even, you know what I mean? Yeah, I guess it's not super different the way I talk to them about it, but it's, it's nice because I think the level of excitement, it's a higher or lower, but it's, it's uniquely different the way they're excited about it. To them, it's much more like the way you talk to a celebrity, like they're doing some unattainable thing, whereas you talk to an artist and they know all about it and they're so curious about like the processes and the details.
Phil Rickaby: Do you think that they're sort of like, this is the weirdest thing I've ever heard, somebody doing a play?
Rymn Wadhwa: A little bit, a little, I'm not going to lie. It's been a feeling. It's very impressive to people, even though, you know, they haven't seen anything yet in the tech space anyway.
Phil Rickaby: Is there anything about the theatre that, that you find frustrating as an engineer?
Rymn Wadhwa: Well, the theatre that I find, I'm sure I'm getting very, have more specific answers once we like work with the tech, because I haven't, I haven't gotten to visit the venue yet. Maybe not as an engineer, but you really are limited in a lot of ways. I don't see it as a bad thing though, because you are limited. So you get to get and be more creative, you know, restrictions, they force creativity, which I like.
Phil Rickaby: I absolutely agree. The limitations of theatre are actually in strength, right? Like if you, if you could do anything, it would be too easy, right? There's that you're right. That's where the creativity comes in. And also I do find, I've said this before, and some of the listeners might be tired of hearing this, but like the facts that in theatre, the audience will just accept everything. They will suspend their disbelief.
Rymn Wadhwa: Yes.
Phil Rickaby: You can say this scene takes place underwater and the audience will go, this scene takes place underwater.
Rymn Wadhwa: That's true.
Phil Rickaby: And in a film, they'd be like the special effects of the underwater scene, just, we're not up to snuff.
Rymn Wadhwa: No. And that's really well put. Exactly. Exactly. Well said.
Phil Rickaby: So far. I mean, again, we're getting into territory where, you know, you haven't like done the tech, you haven't done the show, but to you, what does theatre offer that engineering doesn't?
Rymn Wadhwa: You get to express yourself in so much detail in theatre and art forms in general. Engineering can be creative. And I don't want to say it can't because I get to be creative at work every day. And I'm very thankful for that. But there's a level of self expression that I think is so human that you don't, you need to be an artist to experience that. I think any artist would agree with that.
Phil Rickaby: Absolutely. Absolutely. I'm curious. A lot of times when I'm talking to people, I want to learn about what their theatre origin story is, like what drew them to the theatre. And I want to know for you as a theatre goer, a person who's been to the theatre, is there an experience like, sorry, some, anyway, is there an experience that you've had? Was there, there was an early formative, like your first time in the theatre, something that first made you a theatre goer and that therefore started you on the journey to becoming a playwright?
Rymn Wadhwa: I think, yeah, I guess so. Because I got to see Rent at a formative age and it's for, I love Rent so much. Is it good? I couldn't even tell you because I was like 16 when I saw it.
Phil Rickaby: Oh, you were, you were like target age.
Rymn Wadhwa: Yeah.
Phil Rickaby: Target age. What production did you see?
Rymn Wadhwa: I saw the movie and then I didn't even see like a literal, like I had to watch bootleg videos of the Broadway production because I was so obsessed with it.
Phil Rickaby: The final production, the final performance of Rent on Broadway, not with the original cast, though they do make an appearance, is available on Apple TV. I think you can rent it. So you could see the, not the filmed version, you can actually see a really well filmed stage version. So I highly recommend that if that's I want to revisit. I was in my early, like late 20s, early 30s when when Rent came out. So I was like Mark and Roger age, you know?
Rymn Wadhwa: Oh, oh, so you got it.
Phil Rickaby: Yeah.
Rymn Wadhwa: Yeah. Like I'm also a bohemian. Yeah. Oh, for sure. In a big city. Yeah, of course.
Phil Rickaby: For sure. And it was like, there's like that. I was I was in Toronto doing the thing, you know, trying to work whatever I could at that time, you know, and a show the show, I think, spoke to a lot of us at that time. As I've gotten older and lived with that show for a bit, I I feel like the sad thing about it is that we are seeing the workshop version of that show since he never got to revise it after its production. Oh, right.
Rymn Wadhwa: Interesting.
Phil Rickaby: So it went from it went from it's like workshop production to Broadway because he died. And so he never got the opportunity to revise it. I think that if there are there are things that maybe would have been fixed plot holes that are like would have been patched if it got another pass at it. So it's like this this beautiful, unfinished, rough edged nugget of a of a play that still never fails to make me weep at the end.
Rymn Wadhwa: Oh, it's so good. It's so good. But it's the it's the it's the thing I'm the most biased about in the world that I could never review it. I don't know, because to me, it's perfect. There are no rapid like there are, but there are supposed to be.
Phil Rickaby: Yeah, yeah, yeah. For sure. For sure. And it's hard. It's hard when when there's a play that you use, like, especially if if you were exposed to that so early. And again, you were 16 when you first encountered that. Now, there are distinct versions, like the movie is very different from the theatre version because you saw the movie first. Is it your favorite or is the the the the the play favorite?
Rymn Wadhwa: I think the movie is my favorite. But if I saw the play in person, it would be my favorite. Like, again, I was on YouTube looking back.
Phil Rickaby: Oh, for sure. For sure. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah.
Rymn Wadhwa: Rent. I also another one that's very random that I saw at a very formative age was I went to see the Green Day put out a Broadway musical.
Phil Rickaby: And I went to you want to see American Idiot.
Rymn Wadhwa: I went to see an idiot at a young age.
Phil Rickaby: I mean, again, and the the thing I love about American Idiot is because Green Day was only tangentially involved. Right. OK, like that's all like a dig. No, no, no. They they were not there was not somebody came to them and said, we'd like to make a musical of this show.
Rymn Wadhwa: Yeah.
Phil Rickaby: And so was it them like somebody else arranged the music, somebody else? They they gave their permission. And then later on, Billy Joe played St. Jimmy on Broadway. But it's not a show that they didn't write the Broadway version. So it's kind of interesting for it to be like a show that's like their show, but not. It's fascinating piece of a jukebox musical that doesn't feel like a jukebox.
Rymn Wadhwa: It's it was an interesting piece. It was an interesting piece. I liked it. It's no rent, but I liked it.
Phil Rickaby: I mean, it certainly has some similar aspects to rent that sort of Bohemian, the the rebelling against the society, the the the drug use is also part of it as well. Speaking of these two early formative plays. Not necessarily the specific, but are there elements of these two plays rent and American Idiot that that you feel have influenced and informed your work now?
Rymn Wadhwa: I think just an edginess, right, just a general edginess is baked into this rent is a little more rent's a little funny, you know, and I tried to make my play funny as well. I did include a musical number. I wrote some original music and that will be in the play as well.
Phil Rickaby: Are you kidding me?
Rymn Wadhwa: No.
Phil Rickaby: Oh, that's amazing. That's amazing.
Rymn Wadhwa: Yeah. So that'll be very fun.
Phil Rickaby: What it what about your play demanded a musical number?
Rymn Wadhwa: Well, I wrote. OK, so I get an hour slot and I think I wrote about 45 minutes and I wanted because I didn't know who my cast was going to be and I wanted to write them into it, like who they are into it a little bit. I was really like, OK, if I get a person of color like myself, there's a lot I could add there. If I get, you know, just whatever. Right. And I ended up getting a girl who's majoring in musical theatre. So I said, I have to give her her solo. But beyond that, I think it's it's a very effective device for showing like a friendship. It's this moment where like they're kind of writing a song together. You know. I feel like that's such a quick way to show like, oh, like these people under like on on this, they're on the same wavelength, you know.
Phil Rickaby: I mean, there is something about being so comfortable with somebody and knowing them so well that you can start to sing and they'll join in.
Rymn Wadhwa: Yes, yes, exactly. It's exactly what happens. And then later, everybody's favorite, we have a reprise, but now the lyrics mean something different.
Phil Rickaby: Oh, of course. Now you mentioned, you know, being a musician, mixing theatre and music is is is is a full musical, something that that is in the back of your mind. Have you ever considered that?
Rymn Wadhwa: No, I think it's not not at the back of my mind, but this wasn't this never demanded to be a musical, you know. Again, I'm so open. We'll see where things go. I feel like, yeah, it's an open minded decade.
Phil Rickaby: Yeah. Now, as a musician, what are your instruments?
Rymn Wadhwa: I when I was in a band, I played the bass, but I'm also a guitar player. So, OK, it's just those two.
Phil Rickaby: Just those two. OK, just just two instruments.
Rymn Wadhwa: Just well, my my composer, I have a composer for this and it's all like original, like whole thing scored piano. It's beautiful. I was listening to a lot of classical music while writing. So she took I was kept sending her inspiration and she she turned it into like a theme for the show. But yeah, she's like arranged it so beautifully that it's not a musical. But I think, you know, we have the minimal set with just the cardboard and just the two people talking and then all this piano. It's going to create a really cool atmosphere.
Phil Rickaby: Mm hmm. You've mentioned the importance of having. A woman led show, not just a woman led show, but, you know, the you know, the you're the producers, a woman, the cast are women, the men or female presenting and that you've got, you mentioned your your composer. What's the importance to you of of having all women or at least the majority women working on your on your show?
Rymn Wadhwa: It's a story about women. And it's so listen, I want everyone to see it, but it's for the girls. It really is. I think a lot of the lines in it are going to resonate uniquely with women. So just just because of like the nature of the of the material.
Phil Rickaby: Yeah, for sure. OK, here's a here's an interesting question. You have roots in in Sikhism from your family background, is that correct? Oh, yeah. Yeah. And you came to Canada as a child from North India. Does your cultural background show up in Assembly Sϋggested or is this a play deliberately operating in a more like separate from your own background?
Rymn Wadhwa: It you know, the real story, of course, you can't you can never separate race from like you can't you can't separate race from your everyday existence. It doesn't show up so much in Assembly Sϋggested only because the the the the self insert character is not a person of color. So I didn't want to include that stuff, but I was very open to it. And I think, again, next production, I could not talk about like my racial identity. It would be too important. It affects too much. And I think especially right now, I've noticed a bit of an influx of racism towards my community in Toronto. So it's it would be very topical and it's important to me. And I feel affected by it every day.
Phil Rickaby: I think it's important to when when there are racist movements against a particular group, that it's important that that group gets louder, not quieter.
Rymn Wadhwa: Exactly, exactly. And I want to I want to be as loud as I can.
Phil Rickaby: Yeah. Now you mentioned like next production. Do you envision when this show is done that you might revise this script and and and and change it for future? Or is this it? Is that is it done?
Rymn Wadhwa: I would be open to revising it 100 percent. But the work is never done. Things can always be better and improved upon. I think it'll be so useful to get that that feedback. And I trust that I'll get real feedback from people who go. So I would love to revise it.
Phil Rickaby: I will tell you.
Rymn Wadhwa: Unless they say it's perfect. Unless they say it's no, no, no.
Phil Rickaby: I mean, the thing the thing about it is that that an audience will never lie to you.
Rymn Wadhwa: Yeah.
Phil Rickaby: Right. The audience reaction is always true. So like the things that they think are funny are definitely funny. That's the thing. And so being in the audience, I'm like listening for their reaction is always super valuable. I also believe in revising work. Like to me, the work, like you said, the work is never done. I am always like, oh, I can go back. I can add this thing and change the play until it's published. Then it's done. But like I as the playwright get to adjust it as much as I want.
Rymn Wadhwa: Of course. Of course. And this play specifically takes place in like it's a studio. So we don't have the curtains and everything. If I ever got to do something with it at a place that had more tech, a real stage, that kind of thing. Of course, I would try to use all those elements as best as I could.
Phil Rickaby: Yeah, absolutely. The play's central tension, which is the gap between instructions and reality. It feels, I don't know, it feels very relatable. As an engineer, do you find the gap between instructions and reality to be something you encounter often?
Rymn Wadhwa: Yes, because it's something that works when you're at work, when you're solving a problem, when you're doing a math question, you follow the instructions and you get the answer. But that's not how relationships work. So it doesn't matter how much you follow what you think is the right set of instructions or the TikTok advice you found or whatever. People are people. They're unpredictable. And that's the beauty and the soul-crushing part of it, right?
Phil Rickaby: Yeah, that's true. Is there, in a month and a half, people are going to be seeing this show. Is there something that you want your audience to leave with from that show?
Rymn Wadhwa: Yeah, I think I want to leave them a little emotional. Torture them just a little bit. Leave them a little bit emotional. I think I want them to be thinking of someone in their past when they leave. And I think I want them to also have that sense of like, oh man, I've been both these people, you know? There's no villains in my show.
Phil Rickaby: There rarely are.
Rymn Wadhwa: I don't think it's realistic to put a villain in the show. When I started writing this, it started off as a bit of a revenge fantasy. But that's not compelling. That's not interesting, you know? So as I wrote more, I think not only did I understand, I guess, my antagonist through writing it a little bit better, but also she stopped being an antagonist. She started just being a person with different needs.
Phil Rickaby: Is that something that happened during the writing of the play? And did that make you feel differently about that person or what happened?
Rymn Wadhwa: I think so. I think I have a lot more kind of grace in my heart. But this is the normal grieving process, right? First you're angry, and then eventually, okay, you know? We were two different people at different points in our lives, right?
Phil Rickaby: Yeah. You said something that I found interesting. You mentioned torturing the audience just a little bit. This might sound like a strange question, but that is Dungeons & Dragons' attitude. That's like, I am running a game for my players, and the important thing is that I torture them just enough.
Rymn Wadhwa: Yes.
Phil Rickaby: Have you ever had any nerdy gameplay like that? Or did you come to the torturing the audience thing, I don't know, honestly?
Rymn Wadhwa: I guess I came by in this conversation, honestly, and just in my work, honestly. But yeah, of course, I've played... Listen, I'm an engineer. I've played D&D. Right. But I think, again, a lot of the art that I'm compelled by tortures me just a little bit. Like, I like being uncomfortable, you know? Just a little. Just a little. Makes you think.
Phil Rickaby: Well, I think that the important thing is that there is a little bit of discomfort, right? What else is the tension that makes the play worthwhile than a little bit of discomfort?
Rymn Wadhwa: Exactly. Exactly. Because kind of how you said, like, you know, if there's nothing emotional, like it's just a sketch. I don't want people thinking, like, that was fun to look at.
Phil Rickaby: No! Because that's, you know, the last thing you want is for somebody to leave your show and go, that was nice.
Rymn Wadhwa: Yeah, yeah. I'd rather they hate it, honestly.
Phil Rickaby: I mean, hate is a powerful emotion. The other option is that it could be a thing that they continue to think about from the time they leave the show.
Rymn Wadhwa: Exactly. And I really think I did a good job with that. I'd like to think I did a good job with that. I'd like to.
Phil Rickaby: Now, as you were writing this play, when was the first time that you heard it read out loud?
Rymn Wadhwa: The first, well, maybe like a really early draft, like February.
Phil Rickaby: And you didn't have the actors that you have now for that?
Rymn Wadhwa: No, no. That was like me and a friend of mine just reading it.
Phil Rickaby: What did you learn from that early reading?
Rymn Wadhwa: Oh, a lot. You really, you really start to hear what pieces of the dialogue feel writer-y and what someone would actually say. Because when you hear someone saying, you're like, oh, that's bad writing, you know? So that was super, actually reading it out loud is the most useful thing. Maybe that's like the big takeaway I had. But plot-wise, not much has changed since the first draft till now.
Phil Rickaby: Yeah. I mean, it sounds like the play itself, the story arc is, it was pretty solid in it. But from the beginning, almost from conception, it sounds like. But you're right about hearing those writer-ly things, those things that like, oh, nobody would say this.
Rymn Wadhwa: Yeah, yeah.
Phil Rickaby: You know? And then, like, I know when I've had like the early draft read, if somebody says one of those lines, you're like, I have to change this now.
Rymn Wadhwa: It's so funny because, of course, you're a writer. You think you're smart. You want to sound clever. And then when your characters sound too clever, it's terrible.
Phil Rickaby: It's just that I think when those kinds of phrases come out of a character's mouth, it so becomes clear that this is the writer speaking and not the character. And it almost screams that the writer said this. And that's not what you want because it takes everybody out of the moment.
Rymn Wadhwa: Exactly. Exactly. So I had to cut a lot of that. And I think, again, like, you have that urge. At least I had the urge of like, I want people to think this is smart. But if you just say the smart thing, you know, you're really not doing yourself.
Phil Rickaby: It's funny because I've read, not play so much, but I've read a couple of novels where, you know, the author was very smart. But they really wanted you to know that they were very smart. And it took a lot of time putting all of their smartness on the paper. And it was like, I am done with the smartness because this is not moving the story forward. This is just you showing off. Yeah. And that's not what you want when somebody's like watching your play or reading your work or anything like that. It's that's the opposite.
Rymn Wadhwa: No, 100 percent. I was. Yeah. It's so scary to put your work out there like that anyway. Yeah.
Phil Rickaby: Well, let's talk about that. How how scared are you about having this play at the Toronto Fringe?
Rymn Wadhwa: I'm terrified. I was terrified to come on this podcast. I'm so nervous. I'm a very shy individual, and it's a confessional. And I make myself look a little bad in it, too. Like if anyone is able to be like, OK, that's, you know, I'm so scared. But, you know, nothing good happens in your comfort zone. So I've just been trying not to. It's been interesting because I think I'm less scared of the masses reacting to it and seeing it than I am of like a close friend of mine who knows how to read.
Phil Rickaby: Oh, OK. OK. So you don't mind like people who don't know you coming to see the show?
Rymn Wadhwa: It's Internet logic, right? Like it's easy to tweet something. It's hard to like actually tell your friend about the stupid thing you're doing or whatever, you know?
Phil Rickaby: It's true. It's true. How have you been dealing with that fear?
Rymn Wadhwa: You you have to ignore it. That's what I've been doing. You have to push what I'm locked in. I have a contract, you know?
Phil Rickaby: Yeah.
Rymn Wadhwa: There's no choice. And I've been I've been really trying to remember that even if this doesn't go well and it's somehow it becomes the worst play ever written by some crazy happenstance, I still did a cool thing. So I'm trying to keep that in my head that there's really no bad outcome.
Phil Rickaby: I mean, the thing that that, you know, every year, I think at the end of Fringe, somebody will say it doesn't matter how well your show when you did it.
Rymn Wadhwa: Exactly.
Phil Rickaby: You did a thing that so few people ever actually do. You've done a play that you wrote, and that's so important.
Rymn Wadhwa: Exactly. So it's only up from there, right?
Phil Rickaby: Absolutely. Absolutely. Just as we as we close, we've talked a little bit about the origins of the show. We've talked about what you want the audience to take away. Is there something that you want to take away from this play?
Rymn Wadhwa: You know, again, because of how personal the story is, I'd like to think that once the play is done, that chapter of my life can be put to rest, like a true closing of the book. That would be really nice. And then I want the next chapter to open, which is I want to meet a bunch of people who resonate with the art. And then, again, we'll see where that goes. Like, I'm an artist now, you know?
Phil Rickaby: There is something fascinating about using a play that you wrote to close a chapter, to be the catharsis that lets you move past a thing, to move to the next stage of your life. And when you've done that, and it's been a great experience, it does take you forward, you know?
Rymn Wadhwa: How could it not, right?
Phil Rickaby: Exactly, exactly. Well, Rim, thank you so much for joining me. I really appreciate this. And I am so looking forward to this play at the Toronto Fringe.
Rymn Wadhwa: Thank you so much for having me. This has been so much fun. My first interview.
Phil Rickaby: Thank you for listening to this episode of Stageworthy. If you're watching on YouTube, please make sure that you like this episode. Leave a comment so I know you were here. And if you would like Stageworthy in general, make sure you hit that subscribe button and that bell icon so that anytime a new episode comes out, you'll get notified that a new episode is available. If you're listening to the audio version, make sure that you are subscribed. Go to your favourite podcast app, search for Stageworthy, and hit the follow button. And while you're there, if you're listening on Apple Podcasts or Spotify, do me a favour and leave a rating and a review. Your ratings and reviews will help new people to find this show. I want to talk about my Patreon because I can't do this show without the people who've chosen to back me on Patreon. It costs money to do a show like this. Even though you get it for free, it does cost money to do it. There are costs involved with having a website, hosting the audio file so they can be distributed to all of the podcast listening places. Editing software costs money. Image editing software costs money. Transcripts, having transcripts done, costs money. And all of these things are things that for most of the history of Stageworthy I've paid for by myself. But I can't do that anymore and so I need the help of my patrons to make this happen. Patrons, make sure that those things get paid for. And I'll be honest, we're just covering costs right now and there's a lot of my time that isn't being covered right now. But I do this show because I love to do it. I love talking to people. I love sharing new people with you and I love getting to know what's going on in the world of theatre in Canada. And so if that's something you'd like to be a part of, if you want to help me to make this show, go to patreon.com/stageworthy and become a patron. Patrons get early access to episodes. We will have conversations about the world of theatre and what's going on. You know what, the more people who join the Patreon, the more I will be able to offer to patrons. So if that's of interest to you, if you are interested in becoming a patron, please, I'd love to have you. I'd be really grateful to have your support. So go to patreon.com/stageworthy and become a patron. My guest next week is Stephen Drover. Stephen is currently directing and has adapted Shakespeare's Macbeth for Bard on the Beach in the Vancouver area. So tune in next week to hear more about Macbeth at Bard on the Beach with Stephen Drover.