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, producers, stage managers. 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 week, there will be two episodes featuring artists from the Toronto Fringe today and Thursday. So let's jump into today. But make sure that you stick around to the end of the episode and I'll tell you about who my guest is for the second episode. My guest this week is Chris Cracknell. Chris is a former webcomic artist and a composer, is the creator behind the musical Pookamhura Mistress of B-Roll as part of the Toronto Fringe. I love the fact that this fringe, like last year, is giving us an opportunity to like really focus in at one venue for a bunch of musicals. And this show is one of the shows that's part of the Musical Theatre Hub for want of a better name. I know it has a better name, but I can't think of it right now at Theatre Passe-Muraille. So this is Pookamhura Mistress of B-Roll featuring my conversation with Chris Cracknell. Chris Cracknell, thank you so much for joining me. I really appreciate you some time to talk about your show at the Toronto Fringe. The show is, let me see if I got this right, a non-canonical musical adventure of Pookamhura Mistress of B-Roll. That's correct. That's right. I got it all? Oh, pretty close. How would you say it?
Chris Cracknell: A non-canonical musical adventure with Pookamhura Mistress of B-Roll.
Phil Rickaby: Nice. Nice. Okay. Well, I guess the place we should start is, what is this show about? It's a very long title. Tell me about the show.
Chris Cracknell: Well, the show is about, I've been a World of Warcraft player since 2006, and it's about my experiences playing the game, but mostly it's about how people use online spaces to form community and to explore identity, stuff like that. Which is why the title, I stress in the title, the non-canonical part, because you don't have to know anything about video games or World of Warcraft. The World of Warcraft is just, it's like Sam Malone's bar. It's where these people get together to meet. So you don't have to, it's not going to explore any of the stories in the game of World of Warcraft. It's really about the people playing and how people find connection and community online. What was the inspiration behind the show? Well, it's kind of the inspiration is sort of what's happening south of the border politically with just this rise of bigotry and cruelty, really. And so my friend Brian Morton, who's directing this, and we wanted to write a musical to address that. And I have a web series called Pookumhurra Mistress of B-Roll, and I write a lot of songs with that. And so Brian had approached me wanting to do a musical. And so I gave him a CD of, oh, well, this is what I've been working on, on my own projects, just to give you an idea of what I've been sort of, what style of writing I've been doing lately. And then Brian contacted me back after he listened to the CD and goes, okay, the plans I had were doing these songs. I love these songs so much. We're doing these songs in a musical. So he gave me a list of the songs he wanted in the musical and the order he wanted them in. And then the very next day I wrote him a story that follows the order of the songs and stuff like that. And what's interesting is if he had picked different songs from the CD I gave him and a different order, the story would have been different in many ways.
Phil Rickaby: Yeah. I mean, it's interesting, the role playing in general, not just like online, but tabletop and other forms, they do give you the opportunity to live in somebody else's shoes, right? They do very much. Yeah. So in a way, role playing is sort of an antidote to the kind of hate and polarization that we are seeing south of the border. And even it's seeping its way here as well.
Chris Cracknell: Yeah, it is. And the other thing with role playing is it also gives you a sort of safe way to explore yourself, right? And there are the one character, Pookumher, in this, she's a role player and she kind of introduces the other characters to the concept of role playing and stuff like this. And one of the characters is using this game also as a way to explore their own identity and who they are as a person and a player.
Phil Rickaby: I think that role playing in general, however it is presented in the popular culture or even outside of it, whether it's real play, tabletop games that are really popular right now, as well as just like people sharing their video games and things that they play either on Twitch and things like that. I think that that kind of role playing, like you said, it allows you to express, to explore, but also the way that these things are shared allows other people to explore along with you.
Chris Cracknell: Yeah, exactly. Like I say, I role play in World of Warcraft, but I also have some friends I meet up with online to do tabletop role playing. And that's a lot of fun. And it's each campaign, you know, you can change your character, who you are and stuff. So I have a couple of campaigns ago, I was this really hardened mercenary who was a pyromaniac. And then this campaign, I'm playing a kind of shy and bumbling little hobbit. And it's just fun to explore all these, you know, it's basically acting, right? But you're kind of improvising your stuff.
Phil Rickaby: Yeah, absolutely. In Behind the Fringe Curtains, they wrote about this show and described it as a creative act of faith. What does that mean to you?
Chris Cracknell: As a creative act of faith, it's, I think the faith is that I'm presenting it to an audience that is going to be sympathetic to the message that this play delivers. And there are certain moments in the play where the audience, the reaction I get from the audience is like, they get it. They're right on board with me, right? They laugh in the spots where I'm hoping to laugh. And then they stop laughing in the parts where things stop being funny, right? And it's really great. That's the nice thing about theatre communities is theatre communities tend to be people that are much more socially conscious than more broader forms of entertainment. And so it's an act of faith to put this message out there in front of an audience and hoping they reciprocate.
Phil Rickaby: Yeah. Now, Pookum Hura, it was started as a YouTube web series. It did. And you started developing that, was it during the pandemic?
Chris Cracknell: It was during the pandemic because all my creative outlets have been either in the Hamilton music scene or the Hamilton theatre scene. And all that was taken away from me during the pandemic and against other artists too. We all lost that. And I was suddenly all on my own, having to find a way to express myself creatively. And for a while I fell into this, like many people during the lockdown, I fell into a very sort of deep depression and I just felt all the creativeness sort of fleeing my body. And it was hard to motivate myself. So I basically said, look, you know what? You got a YouTube account. So just take a gummy, play World of Warcraft. And then when you find an NPC, just ad lib a really awkward, one-sided conversation with this in-game NPC as Pookum Hura. That's the bare minimum of effort, right? This will help you feel better. Just do the bare minimum. And then I started doing that and I did. I felt my mood improving and getting more creative. And then it's like, okay, well take it a little further, add other characters to this. And then it eventually sort of snowballed so that I'm writing, I became, I wonder if I can film a TV length episode, like an animated series, all just using the game World of Warcraft. And it evolved into that. And I set myself a goal of, okay, let's do one season of this. And Rick and Morty had 11 episodes, their first season. So make 11 episodes of Pookum Hura, Mistress of B-Roll. And so it was this sort of effort to dopamine, I call it, right? It's like, I started off such low effort, but it's like, you know, you'll feel good if you just do this little bit, you'll feel good at the end of it. And then that sort of hit of the happy chemicals made me go, well, let's see if we can do just a little more and just a little more and just a little more. So that's how the web series got started.
Phil Rickaby: Yeah. I mean, we all needed something, right? Like that kind of, like some kind of creative, especially creative people. This is only so long. Listen, I know people who it was, it seemed like lockdown happened. And after a week they were outputting like some stuff. They were like, I'm creating a digital thing, whatever. I'm doing a Zoom play or whatever. It took me like three to six months before I could like start to do something because the doom scroll was far too, far too, like it just like the weight of it.
Chris Cracknell: It's a siren call in the doom scroll. Yeah. And I had to get myself out of that and start doing something. And that's, that's where the Pookumhara web series came from. And then that eventually spun off into this, this play, which once again, the non-canonical part is you don't have to know anything about the web series to get this. This play sort of stands alone as its own sort of separate entity. So it's not really about the web series and it's not really about World of Warcraft. It's its own sort of little self-contained story. Yeah. Now you, how long did you do the web series for? I did, I did finish my first season. I, I made all 11 episodes and I'm already writing season two. So there's going to be a season two of Pookumhara Mistress of B-Roll. And I, I even had a friend, a guest, a friend I made playing the game World of Warcraft did some guest voice voices in one of the episodes too. So it's, it's fun. I'm going to bring them back for season two. Nice. Yeah, absolutely.
Phil Rickaby: Now, you know, the, the, the audience that goes to see the play doesn't have to know the source material. It's not, doesn't have, they have to, don't have to know what happened in the, in the web series. They don't. There, there, there may be people who know both of those things. Oh, I guess the question is, how do you hold and make it interesting for both people, the people who know it and the people who don't?
Chris Cracknell: Um, the, the, for the people who know it, there's a few deep cuts that, and it's always, it's always fun when a certain joke or something comes up. And I hear some people really laughing because it's like, okay, I know even if they're not a World of Warcraft player, they're an MMO player, they play maybe Final Fantasy or something. And they, they know exactly what it's like when that sort of situation comes up in the game. And then there's just plenty of other things that are, are just more of a human connection thing with, with friendship and, and stuff like that, that you don't have to be a, like, I had a lot of people telling me after the thing that, you know, they didn't play video games at all, but they still, they got the jokes in it. Right. And even the video game jokes they got because they were delivered in a very human way so that even if you don't play video games, you've had situations like that in life that sort of play out the same way.
Phil Rickaby: Yeah. Now did this, was this originally, there was the first iteration of this at the Hamilton Fringe?
Chris Cracknell: It was at the Hamilton Fringe. Yeah, we did it last year at the Hamilton Fringe at the Staircase Theatre.
Phil Rickaby: So now after, after a successful run at the Hamilton Fringe at the Staircase, you're bringing this show to the Toronto Fringe. Have, has, have, did you learn anything from that first run that you are taking into the Toronto Fringe run?
Chris Cracknell: Yeah, we learned a lot about the, the, what beats to hit and stuff like that. What jokes needed a little more emphasis and, and, and stuff like this. And, and so there was a, you know, there was, there's been a few very, very minor, but a few revisions to the script between now and then, mostly just to make it more, make it more solid. Right. It's, it's, it's the thing when, when you, you do plays is they're never finished. Like you're, you're always finding little, little ways to tweak it and stuff and stuff like that. And our, our one act, Francis, this was his first play. He'd, he'd done some improv before, but he'd never been in a, in a play. And he, he took to it like, like a duck to water. Like he was really amazing. So yeah. And it's, it's funny because I play in a band called Babbage Industries and some of my Pookum Hura songs, we play as a band. So my band mates came to see the play and they've, they've played these songs and they've heard these songs over and over and over again. And my friend Pete, who's the guitarist in the band, he was like, I couldn't believe it. I cried during some of the songs, like these songs that I've, I've, I've heard so many times and I played so many times, but just seeing it on the stage and delivered with that emotion and that intensity, I actually cried listening to this song.
Phil Rickaby: Yeah. The, the act of, of, of putting a song into a play can re, recontextualizes it and changes it from an abstract song into something that fits within a narrative and that can change everything.
Chris Cracknell: Yeah. Yeah. It really, it really did.
Phil Rickaby: You mentioned like Brian Morton is the director. Brian Morton is a longtime collaborator of yours. How did the two of you come together originally to start working together?
Chris Cracknell: Well, back before the internet, there was a thing called BBSs, which were little local computers you called that, that ran and we met on a BBS and we were both musicians. So we got together to start playing as, as musicians and back, Oh, I guess around, around 2006, I ha I had a mental breakdown and was hospitalized for, for a long time. And when I came out, I'm starting to think, what are the things I want to do in life before, you know, the final curtain? And I, and I had done a play when I was in high school, but, and I'd been, I'd done a few Toronto fringes in the nineties with a, a, a sketch comedy troupe called Skippy's Rangers, where I just played the keyboards for them. Right. We did the background music. I'd never, never gotten on the stage and been the guy in the spotlight. So I was telling Brian, when we were getting together to play a tabletop game, cause we used to get together at a friend's house to do tabletop gaming. I was just telling him, you know, one of the things on my bucket list is I'd like to just go audition for a play and not worry if I get the part or that, but just so I can say, I auditioned for a play and Brian was directing and producing a play. And he said, well, if you want to skip the audition, I've got a part for you. So, so I ended up doing my first play. It was called The Suicide, and it was this Soviet play that never played in Russia and it hadn't played out. It was shut down during the dress rehearsal. And the thing with Soviet plays, because there's so many people they have to employ, right? The play had like 30 characters in it and there was just no way he'd be able to do this play with 30 characters at the Dundas little theatre. So he thought of, let's re-conceptualize this play as this is the dress rehearsal of the play that got the writer sent to Siberia, right? And so I, he said, you're, we're performing it in front of the, the central repertory committee, who's basically the censor who yays or nays this. And the cast has disappeared, right? Because they're scared. They, they don't want anything and they've just disappeared. So we had what we called the clown unit, which was four stage people playing stagehands who were basically thrust into this dress rehearsal to play a whole bunch of different minor roles to, you know, fill up the cast. And so Brian said, also the play has music in it, but the, the, the script just says musicians play song. So I need you to write the music for this. And if you could write like an opening monologue and a song that sets up the premise that this is the dress rehearsal of the play. So I did all that and I had so much fun doing that play that it was like, I'm now doing plays. I'm now, I'm now going to do acting as, as well as just music. So it was, it was a lot of fun. And, and yeah, my, my friend Brian, who we, we played together for years as musicians and, and he brought me on stage and he said, I had, I knew you would be a, a, a good actor because you, as a musician, you have a stage presence whenever we've performed. And I knew that would translate into, into acting very easily. So yeah, that he's, he's the one that got me started on the whole acting thing.
Phil Rickaby: He didn't just get you started. He kind of threw you into the deep end and expected you to like, he's like, write a song, write a monologue. He's like, you're going to learn how to swim. That's quite the, quite the start.
Chris Cracknell: Yeah, it really was. It really was. And I got, I got, I got some pretty good reviews out of that, which made me feel really good. Nice. Yeah, of course.
Phil Rickaby: So Pookumhara explores self-discovery and gender identity, and two of the four person cast are transgender performers.
Chris Cracknell: And I think they're new to the stage too, are they? No. It's one, one is a transgender performer. That would be Francis.
Phil Rickaby: Thank you for the correction. Some of my information is wrong. I apologize.
Chris Cracknell: It's from the, the Hamilton Fringe originally we had two, but the one performer had to drop out for health reasons. And so our choreographer Mason stepped in the, the day before we opened in like this bump down the day before, before the play opened our, our actor had to drop out. And so our choreography, choreographer Mason stepped in into that role and he just, he nailed it. Like he did so good. So it's, it's all, it's all the, the original cast that actually made it to the stage is in the, in the Toronto version of it too, which was one of the things if we, we had decided if we couldn't get the entire cast from the, the Hamilton Fringe, we were going to recast the show with all Toronto actors. But when we approached the cast, they were like overly enthusiastic. Like it was such a boost of confidence to me that, that they all were just thrilled to be revisiting this play again. It really made me feel.
Phil Rickaby: Yeah, of course. Of course. Thank you for that correction. Some of the information I had was incorrect now, but initially you had to, like when you, when you were like first casting a two transgender actors.
Chris Cracknell: Yes.
Phil Rickaby: Right. Did that fact inform the work you were doing?
Chris Cracknell: It, it's, I mean, it, it is very central to the, the, the, the plot of this, this play that we have a, a trans mask actor in this one role. So yeah, it was very, very central to, since this play explores themes of identity and discovery and stuff like that.
Phil Rickaby: Yeah.
Chris Cracknell: Yeah.
Phil Rickaby: Speaking of, of, of gender and discovery, one of the roles that correct me if I'm wrong, that you've played was Frankenfurter in the Rocky Horror Show.
Chris Cracknell: Is that right? I was, yeah, it was a long time ago, 2012. I was, I was pretty thin and young looking. I would, yeah, it was, it was a dream come true being in that. And it was a lot of fun, a lot of fun to do. It was, it was an interesting play because there's the back and forth. It's not static. Like most plays, the audience sits there and they watch and, and the actors perform this one. There's expected to be a, an interaction with the audience. And, and that was a lot of fun because it keeps you on your toes.
Phil Rickaby: Yeah, absolutely. It also, there's a difficulty in approaching a role like that because Tim Curry in the movie, so iconic that is iconic.
Chris Cracknell: And so how do you cast a huge shadow? 100%. Yeah.
Phil Rickaby: How do you approach that role and make it yours? How did you approach the role?
Chris Cracknell: It was really going into it, going, I'm not Tim Curry's Frankenfurter, right? I'm Chris Cracknell's Frankenfurter. There's going to be things that are similar and, and, and, and things that are, are, are different. And I played it with a bit more of a, a cut to it. Like he, he, he was not a little more, less gentle than the, the Frankenfurter we saw in the, the thing. And, but I mean, the, the character himself is, is very I mean, he's egotistical and narcissistic. He's a terror, terrible, terrible person. And so, you know, I, those elements you can't get away from. And I just found different ways to add a little extra bitchiness to it here and there.
Phil Rickaby: It is interesting because the, the, the, the callback from the audience is a very big part of that particular show and you still have to take it in, not necessarily react to it because sometimes some of those, some of those callbacks are fricking hilarious. How did you approach and prepare for the things the audience might say?
Chris Cracknell: Oh, our stage manager for that show, Amanda, she during rehearsals, she'd be yelling things at us constantly. So during the rehearsal project process, we, we were, we were ad-libbing things with the stage manager because our, our stage manager, she'd been in a number of shadow casts with the motion picture version of, of, of it. And so yeah, she knew all the things to, to yell and when to yell them. Yeah.
Phil Rickaby: It's really interesting because I've seen a number of productions of the Rocky Horror Show and all of them have, have accepted and incorporated the fact that the audience is going to yell back. But right now there's a revival on Broadway that seems to be resistant to and discouraging the callback, which I feel like is a mistake.
Chris Cracknell: Yeah, it's, it's a, it's a bold decision. That's for sure. I, I, you know, for the sake of the show, I hope they pull it off and, and it's still just as entertaining, but it's, it's, it's definitely a show that's, that's evolved from its very humble beginnings. Like when you, you see all the old black and white footage of basically what was a fringe show at, at, at, when, in, in its birth. And now it's become this huge over the top phenomenon.
Phil Rickaby: Yeah. I remember I saw it years ago at the Bathurst street theatre and this is in 90, I'm old. So it was in 91, 92. And I'd only seen the movie before, but the stage show is the movie, but more energetic.
Chris Cracknell: Yeah. And there's, there's things that, that surprise new audiences that are only familiar with the, the, the, the film and it's like the biggest one is Rocky speaks and Rocky's because he does, he's mute in the, in the, the movie version of it.
Phil Rickaby: Yeah. I think that had everything to do with the actor and not so much the, the role. I do think that the, the idea of, of trying to keep people from shouting does threaten to alienate the people who most love the show.
Chris Cracknell: Yeah. It's, it's, yeah, it's a, you know, I hope I wish them the best, but it's like I say, it's, it's not a, not a decision I would make if I was mounting this show, but you know, good luck. Absolutely.
Phil Rickaby: I mean, all I can think of is that both, both when they did it at the Canadian stage and when they did it at Stratford, they still incur in Stratford, they encourage the, the, the, the callbacks. And if they, if Broadway is too afraid, well, maybe they should, I don't know. I don't know. I could, I have a lot of opinions about that. Yeah.
Chris Cracknell: The, the, the, the only, we had encouraged the, the, the callbacks and all that. The only, the only rule we put on the, the audience is no throwing stuff.
Phil Rickaby: You can't throw things in live theatre.
Chris Cracknell: You have to, you can't be throwing toast. Toast and rice and stuff.
Phil Rickaby: It can't be rice and squirt guns. That can't happen during a live show.
Chris Cracknell: Yeah, exactly.
Phil Rickaby: I want to ask you, cause you know, you're a Hamilton artist and you, you know, you, Hamilton does have a pretty distinct arts community.
Chris Cracknell: It it's, I moved to Hamilton from Toronto in 1990 and was very quickly adopted by the arts community in this city. It's, it's, it's got a very close knit art community here. We're very supportive of each other and yeah, I, I really enjoy this city. It's a, I consider it my home.
Phil Rickaby: Yeah. How do you think that Hamilton shapes the work that you make?
Chris Cracknell: Hamilton it's, it's cause we have these sort of rough edges in, in Hamilton, very diamond in the rough. In fact, my friend, Will Gillespie, who has a chasing shadows productions, he actually produced a play, a fringe play, a musical called diamond in the rough, which takes place in Hamilton. And it's, I was in, I was in that, in, in that musical, I've been in a number of his productions and it was basically the, the premise of that play was Neil diamond is playing a show at cop's Coliseum, gets bonked on the head, gets amnesia, ends up playing in a dive bar in on Barton street. And it was a really, really fun show and, and very much had this very strong Hamilton vibe to it. And then Brian, he likes to do productions that explore the, the historical side of, of Hamilton. We did a show a few years ago in the fringe called under the apple tree, which was about a shooting that happened in a vaudeville theatre in Hamilton, Hamilton, Toronto, and Buffalo were like this delta of, of vaudeville, big, big vaudeville theatres. And, and Hamilton, I think had nine vaudeville theatres at the time. And the very last vaudeville theatre just got torn down. And it was kind of sad, but at one of these theatres, the century, a, a guy who was a stage hand became infatuated with a dancer in the show. And when his affections weren't reciprocated, he shot her and she survived. And then he shot himself and a really dark material, but Brian was able to turn it into a play that, you know, the, the weight of this, this horrible act was still preserved, but it still had moments in it that were very funny and very light. And it was, he had managed the, the, the, the production she was part of was called under the apple tree. And he had managed to track down the original songs from that vaudeville show, which wasn't easy because a lot of times in vaudeville, they'd reuse the, the song from another show, but just change the lyrics and then reuse. And then it would go. So I remember I was doing this, this music for this play in, in Waterdown. And, um, there was this song that was in the play and the director wanted me to do a recording of this song and I couldn't find the song. And it said sung to the tune of this song. So I go, okay, well, let me look, let me search for that song. And then I found that song and it said sung to the tune of this other song. And so I, I went through about eight different songs and I looped all the way around back to a song that was telling me it's sung to the tune of the very first song that I did. And I eventually managed just through sheer Google tenacity to track down a song where it said sung to the tune of a song that I was already familiar with. And I was like, Oh, and so that's the way it was with this, this under the apple tree is Brian had to track down. This song was used in this production. This song was used in this production and, and stuff, but he went to the, the library of Congress, got the files from there and eventually was able to track down all the, all the original music from the production. So that was a, that was a fun one to do.
Phil Rickaby: Yeah. I mean, vaudeville is a fascinating, a fascinating era and it's a fascinating period in theatre because we, I think now we don't realize how massive and how formative that is. I mean, vaudeville is the reason why a lot of the small towns across Ontario and Canada have theatres. Yes. Yes. And great, gorgeous theatres. Like you'll walk in, you'll like arrive at some like really small town and they'll have this massive ornate theatre. And that's because of the vaudeville circuit.
Chris Cracknell: Yeah. We had a lot of them in Hamilton. And like I said, just this year, we lost the very last one, which was the, the, the Tivoli and it had just been left to rot to the point where it had to be condemned. And Brian, Brian fought like the Dickens to try to preserve that theatre. He, he's, he's, if you ever want to know a trivia about, about theatre history in Southern Ontario, Brian's done so much research on that subject that he's the guy to go to.
Phil Rickaby: Yeah. It is tragic that that theatre wasn't able to be saved. I think we've lost many buildings because of neglect, many historic venues, especially theatres. They're expensive to maintain.
Chris Cracknell: They are. And the, the, with these historically designated buildings, like developers want the land that building's on to raise a 20 story condo, and they don't want to preserve this building. And so they basically just, well, if we let the building rot, so it's condemned, then we don't have to worry about it. Cause you get, you, you get, once it's condemned, you get past all those historic preservation laws and everything like that. And you can just bring it down.
Phil Rickaby: Yeah. There's a lot of, I think there's a history in a lot of cities of that kind of demolition by neglect of historic buildings because they don't want to maintain them and they would rather like build a new condo. So they just wait.
Chris Cracknell: Yeah, exactly. It's a, it's a waiting game.
Phil Rickaby: Yeah. I'm interested in, cause I think that what I've done, I've, I've performed in a bunch of different fringe festivals across Canada. And I, one of the things that you learn really quickly, as soon as you go to different fringes, is that each fringe festival is so different from the next, but what they, what they love in the, at the Montreal fringe is so different from what they love in Toronto, what they love at Winnipeg, Edmonton, and all of these other fringe festivals all around.
Chris Cracknell: It's a leap of faith to do, uh, take a, a play that was successful at one fringe festival and then move it to an entirely different city. It's, uh, uh, it's, it's a big leap of faith. Yeah.
Phil Rickaby: Well, what, what, I mean, let's, let's talk about that because, you know, you have this, this show that was successful in Hamilton and now you're doing it in different city. What, what is it? Is there something that you are, okay, I'll ask you two questions. One, is there something you're most looking forward to? And is there something that you're most concerned about?
Chris Cracknell: The, the thing I'm most looking forward to is, and my Toronto fringe experience is like, it was in the nineties, right? That was the last time I did a Toronto fringe. And I was, like I said, uh, with, uh, the sketch troops, Skippy's Rangers, I was the keyboardist. And, um, but what I did notice at that time was the Toronto theatre community has a much younger audience than Hamilton, Hamilton's audience. We always joke that our theatre audiences is the blue hairs. I mean, there are a lot of young people in Hamilton that, that love theatre and stuff like that. They're mostly people that are actually in the theatre community itself. And we're all going and seeing each other's plays kind of thing and supporting each other in Toronto. You, you, at least from my, uh, you know, 40 year bygone experience, it was a much younger, more diverse crowd at, at the theatre. So I'm, I'm looking forward to that. Toronto has a larger population and there were people who were, uh, World of Warcraft players in Toronto that were saying, Oh, I wish I could make it to Hamilton to see this, this play, but I just, I just can't swing a trip to Hamilton. So hopefully they show up at the play. And then the, the, the biggest sort of knot in my belly about performing in Toronto is we're an out of town act. We don't have like in Hamilton, the theatre community supports each other and stuff like this so that we have like this huge, huge buildup of, of, uh, support just built into the community. And in Toronto, we're coming in as the plucky outsider, you know, with, with almost no, uh, no, uh, established history with, uh, with this, with the city really like Brian's done some fringe productions in Toronto. And, and like I said, I did like 40 years ago, but, uh, it's, it's, we're basically, uh, babes in the wood here.
Phil Rickaby: You know, one of the things about the Toronto fringe is yes, there are the darlings and there are the things that, that, that, you know, if for example, if sex T-Rex has a show that's selling out, right. They're brilliant. It's going to happen. But usually there's in the past couple of years, there's been a lot of like, I've never heard of these people before. So it's really fun and fascinating to see what takes and, and the, the, as with anything, any festival, the cream does like rise to the top. It, it, it is something that you can rely on.
Chris Cracknell: Yeah. I'm, I'm hoping, I'm hoping for that. And it's, uh, and it's, it's good. Like we're in theatre past Mariah and it's all musicals in this theatre. So we've got this sort of musical community, musical theatre community happening centered around this. And we're part of the, uh, the, the, the Alliance for Canadian musicals. So we've got, we're, we're, we're sort of building this camaraderie with the other, uh, other, uh, uh, acts in the, in our, in our venue and stuff like this. And it's a theatre that people who want musicals go to this theatre to watch musicals. So we're looking forward to that.
Phil Rickaby: Yeah. This is the second year that theatre past Mariah has been like the home of the musical at, at the Toronto fringe. And I think it's an exciting development and I think it's something that, that shows a lot of, a lot of, it shows the breadth of the musical talent that we have just in Toronto and in Hamilton and in this country. And I think it, it presents a huge opportunity for, for musical theatre artists and creators.
Chris Cracknell: Yeah. Yeah. It's, it's, like I say, it's very exciting to be part of the, the Alliance for Canadian musicals. Yeah.
Phil Rickaby: I wanted to ask about, about, about Hamilton once again, because when I was at the Hamilton fringe, I think it was 2016, I think 2016 with, with my solo show, it was in the midst of Hamilton's art is the new steel phase, which I think ever the, at least
Chris Cracknell: government has forgotten about by now, but we still like, I mean, there's a weird thing that sort of happens with art movements where it starts off with like the artists and the community sort of building this momentum. And then it's the, the municipality sort of turns the reigns over to corporate interests. And then the corporate interests, they initially, they make it like really huge, but then it becomes sort of unsustainable and it sort of collapses in on itself. And then it's up to the community to get that momentum going once, once again, like it's, it's happened in Burlington with their sound of music festival. It originally the sound of music festival was all, it was for golden horseshoe acts. So all, uh, all Southern Ontario acts. And then it, it got to the point where if you were a Canadian artist, let alone a Southern Ontario one, you were down the list because you know, we've got Tokyo police club playing here and stuff like this. So, and then now it's the, the, the sound of music, I believe it's collapsed again. Right. And now it's, it's returning to its roots of being, let's be a Southern Ontario focused music festival.
Phil Rickaby: Yeah. I mean, there's this, this cycle of the artists make something cool. And then the, then the corporate interests come in and they price out the artists is the story of Queen street West in Toronto. It is the story of, of artists, you know, it's a rundown area, the artists make it cool. Suddenly the buildings get bought and the rents go up. So the artists move further down the road. They make that area cool until you've got the gap on Queen street West, where once there were these super independent stores and bars and all this sort of stuff, it, it, it is, it is the cycle of the arts. And then eventually all they all closed down and we're waiting for the artists to come in and start revitalizing again.
Chris Cracknell: You know, that's it's very cyclical. It's very much an ebb and flow. And so you have these times where it seems to grow and then contract and grow and contract.
Phil Rickaby: Yeah, for sure. Now, as somebody who's been in Hamilton's art scene for a while, both the music and the theatre side, can you think of what's changed in the scene and what stayed the same? Is there something that, that, that, that jumps out at you for each?
Chris Cracknell: Yeah. It's a lot of venues in Hamilton have disappeared. Like Hess village back in the nineties and early two thousands, Hess village in, in Hamilton was the place for arts, right? It was all these bars had live music and I used to play there all the time. And then it became the, the college drunk spot, right? And all the college kids came in there and became very, very crowded. And then the bar owners were like, well, why are we removing five tables from our, our, our real estate to put a band when this is the spot where all the college students come, we can put those tables back in, get more drinking customers and just play a CD, right? On the, on the on, on the stereo. And so Hess village ended up losing a lot of it's, it's a small and very quirky, live, live music spots. And, and then it moved for a time to Augusta street. And then that also, it just having a band meant less table space for, for, for customers. Yeah. It's kind of the, the, the gentrification sort of cycle where it's like the artists made, made this, this location, what it is. And we don't need them anymore because this, this location itself is, is what's popular. And so get rid of them. Yeah.
Phil Rickaby: It's like, it's like they, they are very quick to forget that the location is not that the location is popular. The location is popular because the bands were there and now you've taken the bands away and just assumed that the popularity will continue. And it seldom does.
Chris Cracknell: No, no. Although though Hess village is still kind of the, the, the college drunks, drunk spot in Hamilton, but it, it's no longer the, the art spot in Hamilton.
Phil Rickaby: Well, because, because the, the people who go to the college drunk spot are not the people who are looking for the art. They're not the people who are looking, they don't even, they probably don't even care that there's a band there to get drunk. And that's, and that is, you know, if that, that serves them and that those bars, I'm sure they're doing very well because Hamilton is a college town, but you know, there are there, are there venues where they're, where are the bands playing? I mean, it's not all Mills Hardware is like other places too. Like what's, what's happening in the music scene.
Chris Cracknell: It's kind of interesting. Cause like one of the next week I'm playing at a, at a person's house and it's, it's she likes Shakespeare and, and music. And so she has a little, she'll in her house, she'll put on a play, one of Shakespeare's plays. And it's like, you're, you go to the front porch for this act. And then in this scene, you go to the backyard and this scene is there and that. And then in between, when things are moving and setting up, she has local musicians play. So there's, there's things like that, which are kind of interesting going on. And then there's, there's a few, you know, places still left that are, you know, hubs, but it's, it's, it's, it's definitely a shrunken a lot from, from its, its heydays in the, the late nineties, early two thousands.
Phil Rickaby: Yeah. I mean, I do remember in, back in 2016, I was, I went to Hamilton for two of the art crawls before fringe and art crawl, I think at least at the time, to me, it was fascinating because I know my friend, Stephen near told me that it's entirely organic. It's not like the city organizes it. It just happens. And I've been walking around and there's a band on a porch and there's a band on a roof and there's like all kinds of stuff going on. It's a fascinating arts happening, which I think you don't, I've never seen anything else like it.
Chris Cracknell: Yeah. We have twice a year, we have super crawl, which is the more, uh, sort of, uh.
Phil Rickaby: It's the more organized.
Chris Cracknell: It's not the, it's not the, it's not a free for all. But then each month we have on a Friday, we have this very organic thing where the galleries themselves open their spaces and stuff like that. And it's very organic. And then twice a year, we have once in the spring and once in the fall, we have the super crawl, which is, is they close off the, they actually close off the streets in, in downtown Hamilton and it's packed there. And then it's, it's, it's a little less organic because acts are booked to be. So you're not just seeing this guy who showed up with his, his, his buddies and are playing bluegrass or something like that. Yeah.
Phil Rickaby: Yeah. It's a difference because, because the art crawl is essentially barely controlled chaos. Yes. And, and super crawl is entirely organized. So it doesn't have that chaotic thing that, that happens in the organic.
Chris Cracknell: Crowded like the chaos just comes from the size of the crowd. Not really necessarily the weird eclectic combination of, of artists that just happened to come together at this one spot for, for, for a moment. The the, the super crawls remind me of I, a few years back I did Toronto has the Nuit Blanc. Yep. Yeah. And I, I, I performed at a venue on Queen West for a Nuit Blanc and it kind of reminds me a bit of, it's not quite super crawl, but it's also not quite just art crawl. It's like a, almost an in-between kind of, kind of thing.
Phil Rickaby: It's for sure. An in-between thing for sure. All right. Chris, my last question for you is you are a performer, a musician, a composer, an illustrator, a web comic artist, and a theatre performer. I've already said performer, but now those are things that, that sort of came together gradually for you. You were not a theatre performer, you were not in theatre and then you became, so how does being a multi hyphenate affects the art that you currently make?
Chris Cracknell: It's one of the things I find like, because of my neurology, I have autism. When I get interested in something, I don't half-ass it. Like I get really interested in it. Back in like 2012, I think, I became interested in 3d modeling on the computer. I thought, oh, this is kind of you know, building, it's like model kit building, which I loved as a kid, except I don't have to buy model kits. I can just build my own little thing. And I didn't, I wasn't into 3d printing then. So if I had have been that my house would probably be filled with models, but it's like, I just threw myself into it and then, you know, developed this, this expertise in 3d modeling. And then it was like one day it's just like, okay, well I turned that off now. Now I'm going to do, do something else that then throw myself into learning this. And, but it's, I still draw on the things like with the Pookum Hura web series, I do all the, the filming actually inside the, the, the game world of Warcraft. I've, I've set up these buttons on my, my keyboard that when I press the buttons, the character will perform a certain character animation. And so I'm puppeteering the characters in the play so that they sort of puppet to the, the lines I've recorded the voices, the lips of course, don't sync up perfectly, but I look at it as, well, you know, this is the English dub of what was originally done in gnomish, right? So it's, it's a foreign film that's been dubbed into English. Right. And, and so, but with my, when I became obsessed with 3d modeling, I still use that to build the title cards. Cause I, I made my own little 3d models that I used to, to, to build the, the, the title cards for the episodes. So even though I'm now no longer really doing the 3d modeling, I still keep that sort of thing. And same as with the web comic, when I started that in 2001, um, I didn't know how to draw, but it's, I had a friend who did a web comic and I, I did a little guest strip for his web comic. And then I was like, Oh, it was fun. I'm going to continue doing this. And I threw myself right into it and then taught myself how to draw. And then when that passed, it's like, I still know how to draw. I got that out of it and I'll still do illustrations for things where I need an illustration. So it's, it's kind of handy. It's, it's like a lot of artists now are just like, you know, they want to use AI to do the things that they can't do. Right. And for me, it's like, I'd rather learn to do the thing that I can't do right now. And eventually I'll get it. And then I don't need to use the AI for anything if I can do it myself. Yeah.
Phil Rickaby: I think for me, anybody who says that they're an AI artist and you come across them and the, the issue that I have had as people try to evangelize and convince us that AI is a necessary thing is that the art in addition to not being very good is meaningless because nobody put any effort into it.
Chris Cracknell: Yeah. No, you're, you're not the artist. You're a client, right? It's like, like I've, I, I've done the illustrations for things. I, I, I rarely do it cause I don't like to do that. I don't like that client relationship, artist client relationship because I'm very, I'm very stubborn person at times. Yeah. And, and so when something conflicts with my artistic vision for a thing, I can get, I can really dig my heels in and it makes that, that, that client artist thing uncomfortable. But when you're using AI to create art, you're just the client who's, who's telling the artist, no, make the nose a little bigger. No, make the nose a little smaller. No, make the hair pink now. No, make it, make it blue. Right. You're not, you're not the artist who's doing that. You're just the guy bugging the artist. Yeah.
Phil Rickaby: It, it, it is, it is even to me, it's even worse than that because not only is it, does all the work come from stolen material and only is it, it's not just make the nose, make the nose bigger. It's completely redraw this. It will never be the same as it was the first time. No, there's so many things about it. And if art doesn't cost you, if art doesn't cost the artist, it means nothing.
Chris Cracknell: Well, it's ultimately the thing that for me means AI art can't be art is art has to have a vulnerability to it. Right. And there is no vulnerability in AI art because if, if somebody doesn't like you say, well, the technology just isn't there yet. Right. It's, it's the technology's fault, you know? So you have this, you can dismiss, you can take credit for all the things people like and then dismiss everything as well, the technology isn't there. Right. And that's, that's, that's not art. Art is, is putting yourself out there, putting your vision out there, putting your message out there and being vulnerable and accepting that some people will love it and some people will hate it. And, and you are opening yourself to that criticism as an artist and AI just puts a shield between you and, and that criticism. Absolutely.
Phil Rickaby: Absolutely. Well, Chris, thank you so much for joining me. I really appreciate it. Looking forward to Pookumhara at the Toronto Fringe. I had a great time. Thanks for having me. Thank you for listening to this episode of Stageworthy. If you are watching on YouTube, make sure that you like this episode, leave a comment so that I know that you were here. And if you've enjoyed Stageworthy in general, please hit that subscribe button and the bell icon so that whenever a new episode comes out, you will get notified. If you're listening to the audio version, make sure that you're subscribed. Go to your favorite podcast app, search for Stageworthy, and hit the follow button. And while you're there, if you're listening on Apple Podcasts or Spotify, make sure that you leave a rating and review. Your ratings and reviews help new people to find the show. They'll boost the podcast up in the algorithm so that more people have a chance to find it. So if you do that, I would be really grateful. And speaking of gratitude, let me talk about my Patreon. I cannot do this without the people who've chosen to back this show on Patreon. Podcasts are available for free. But so much about them still costs money. It costs money to have a website, to have a host in place, to host the audio files, they could be distributed to all of the podcast listening places. Editing software costs money. Transcripts cost money. And I really feel that transcripts are important both from an SEO point of view, which is less important to me, but also for people who may be deaf and hard of hearing. So they can also enjoy the conversations that I'm presenting. And so if you would like to help me to make this show, because that's what my patrons do. They're helping me to make this show. Please go to patreon.com/stageworthy and become a patron. Patrons get early access to episodes, we can have conversations about things that are going on in the theatre world. And you know what, the more people who join the Patreon, the more I will be able to offer to the patrons. So please, if you want to be part of that, if you want to help me to make the show, I would be so grateful. Go to patreon.com/stageworthy and become a patron. My next guest this week is Marla Turgidson. Marla is a Calgary based singer, songwriter, theatre creator. This is her first show or first musical show. And it is called Sinner. It's her debut theatrical work. And I look forward to sharing that conversation with you on Thursday on Stage Worthy.